I wasn't the only one attracted by their high-pitched screams. In no time at all a crowd stared along with me. Numerous men in jogging shorts and sweatbands stood running in place directly beneath the box, their eyes rolled heavenward; two men in white suits stood next to an idling ice-cream truck at the side of the road, casually sucking cigarettes; a loud-mouthed batch of what must've been at least twenty preschoolers held hands together in a semi-circle around the tree's base, with no parent or guardian in sight; even a pair of miniature schnauzers stumbled somehow permanently erect on their hind legs, howling along with the girls' whining. Twenty minutes later the mob had quadrupled thrice, replete with all ages and shoe sizes, everyone entranced like flies on a honey slick by the imprisoned females. Soon hot-dog vendors and foam-fist hawkers appeared amongst the crowd and began barking their wares, taking advantage of the impromptu congregation. Amidst all the fanfare, though, not a single effort was made to assist the stranded, not one voiced suggestion that perhaps someone should bring the girls a ladder, or call up the police. No, not even a word from even normally conscientious persons like myself. We were mesmerized, caught up; logic had no business here. It went on like this for quite some time. At the passing of an hour, however, the mob grew bored and disseminated, and I was left again the only onlooker.

All through this I listened to the shrieking, the high-pitched deflation of fourteen adolescent females held captive in a transparent box that'd been ingeniously lodged in the upper branches of an elm. Once the initial wonder of the spectacle wore off, I began wondering just how in the hell they'd managed to get where they were; it seemed impossible, ridiculous even. After quite a bit of silent deliberation I concluded that they must've been stowed up there by some dastardly bastard who had it in mind to cavort with these young ones in a variety of positions: the Fast-and-Nasty, the Pubic Pile-Drive, the Bowler's Squat, and other configurations too ghastly to name. That was the best explanation I could come up with, so I accepted it immediately as truth.

After rolling the scenario over in my head, I laughed and laughed, uncontrollably, until my gut pinched and I drooped to face the ground like a puppet on lunch break, sniffing my socks. I'd never laughed so hard in my life, and now I was broken. Surely, I figured then, the girls' would give up on me -- they wouldn't bother calling for help from a bloke bent over in such a way. But wail on in my general direction they did, pounding the glass walls of their enclosure with fists and foreheads, filling out their urgency with ripe thumps. I circled around so that I could glare through my legs up into their perch, and watched as they quivered and screeched, kicking the limits of the walls around them, the physics of which I've never figured out. From my new perspective I noticed for the first time that the girls were astoundingly gorgeous, all six of them, each a work of fleshy art in their own rite. Together, though, inside the transparent box, they looked like the innards of an oversized, almost completely melted ice cube, one that'd been chiseled hollow and put on public display, so that all might admire the breathtaking craftsmanship of their bodies and their box. Whoever it was that had set this whole thing up, I noted, certainly had talents that any respectable craftsman would have envied, Bob Vila and Frank Lloyd Wright not withstanding.

And so there I right-angled in the receding moonlight, ogling my females with my aft affronting the passersby, until the after-effects of my laugh spasm receded and I stood vertical again. The girls' eyes lit up as I made my move; they waggled at me with their scrawny-armed palms that I should come over and do something, anything, so that they wouldn't have to spend the rest of the evening, perhaps the rest of their lives, awaiting an unknown predator. But I had other things on my mind by now, plans to head down to the library and see if the books I'd reserved had come in, and maybe to sprint by the old watering hole for a sip and a giggle with my chums. Nothing too exciting, mind you, but plans nonetheless. So I waved back at the girls one last time as they awaited their destiny inside the chamber, and I blew them a few kisses -- French ones, too -- and then went merrily on my way, whistling nothing in particular into the moony drear of the night, never to see or even think of those darling young ladies again.