Alphonzo

This is a story I wrote about a man named Alphonzo, and his rise to fame.

Alphonzo Questershire McClementine (our protagonist and hero) was a world-famous Nobel prize-winning Astrobiologist. Mankind had not yet discovered intelligent life in the stars, but when they did, Alphonzo would be ready. Alphonzo had exactly 745 hairs on his body, and was currently in the midst of combing a field of them above his left ear.
The comb passed over slowly. The hand that carried and steadied the comb was pockmarked with small scars, the product of many years of misuse. Though some people compared combing to farming (and understandably so!), Alphonzo preferred to compare it to a dance- nay, a ballet.
Oh, how the dancers, content in their amusement, hypnotized the audience! Each (there were twenty-nine of them in total, due to the choreographer’s almost dangerous fascination with the number, which led to his eventual death) wore a dazzling pair of diamond slippers. Due to an error at the slipper factory, several of the shoes had an odd, as opposed to an even, number of diamonds on the toe. Though, because they were entranced by the movement of the artists, none of the audience seemed to notice.
The director, one Jeremy Kongsvinger, who was not world-famous but had received praise from two Baltimore-based newspapers, watched from the wings. He turned to the stage manager, excited.
“This is my favourite part,” he whispered.
Together they watched. The music! Oh, the music! Jeremy had seen the rehearsals, and had worked closely with the choreographer (before his aforementioned death) in choosing the perfect piece. None of that prepared him for this, however. This was something else.
Alphonzo regarded himself in the mirror. He regarded his complexion. He then regarded his teeth. Clean. That was good. He felt a pain in his abdomen- a sharp, buttery pain that seemed to undulate in rigid blasts. He ignored it though- it was probably nothing.
Perhaps it was something, though.
Alphonzo replaced his comb (a special handcrafted Puerto Rican comb with eighty teeth carved from a Yew tree) in his travel bag. He lifted a previously unmentioned, but entirely important pill bottle from the counter.
He observed the white remnants of the label he had scratched off in futility on that fateful evening.
No. No, he couldn’t think back to that evening. It was too painful.
As he put the bottle back down, he heard a familiar dripping noise from behind him. “I’ve heard that noise before”, he thought to himself. He turned to investigate. Sure enough, it was as he had suspected when he had first heard the noise, and had subsequently suspected when he had heard the noise again just now. The shower was leaky. Perhaps he could fix it himself, and save a little bit of his hard-earned money-
No, God dammit! He was an Astrobiologist, not a plumber. It would be best to hire an expert. He then looked down at his shoes, except there was something wrong. They were ballet shoes.
Panicking, he counted the diamonds with furious abandon- an odd number.
No! He looked up again, and saw the audience, respectfully waiting. It was time for his big solo.
The music flooded the stage. It flooded the whole house. Some Mozart concerto he hadn’t bothered to research. The stage manager and director watched intently from the side, fueling his desire to dance.
And dance he did.

THE END