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SOMBRERO

‘A Sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the Main Street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.’

The first tear formed itself in his right eye. That was the eye that always started crying first. Then the left followed. He would have found it interesting if he had known that the right eye started crying first. The left eye started crying so close after the right eye that he didn’t know which eye started crying first, but it was always the right one.

He was very perceptive but he wasn’t perceptive enough to know which eye started crying first. That is, if one can use such a small piece of information as any kind of definition of perception.

‘Is that a sombrero?’ the mayor said. Mayors always speak first, especially if it is impossible for them to rise to any other political position than mayor of a small town.

‘Yes,’ said his cousin, who wanted to be mayor himself.

The man who had no job said nothing. He waited to see which way the wind was blowing. He didn’t want to rock the boat. Being out of work in America is no laughing matter.

‘It fell from the sky,’ said the mayor, looking up into the absolutely clear blue sky.

‘Yes,’ said his cousin.

The man who had no job said nothing because he wanted a job. He did not want to jeopardize whatever faint possibility he had of getting one. It was better for everybody if the big shots did all the talking.

The three men looked around for a reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky but they couldn’t find one, including the man who had no job.

The sombrero looked brand-new.

It was lying in the street with its crown pointed toward the sky.

Size: 7¼.

‘Why are hats falling from the sky?’ said the mayor.

‘I don’t know,’ said his cousin.

The man who was without a job wondered if the hat would fit his head.

Now both eyes were crying.

Oh, God . . .

He reached into the typewriter as if he were an undertaker zipping up the fly of a dead man in his coffin and removed a piece of paper with everything that has been written here except for his crying, which he didn’t know he was doing because he had done it so often recently that it was like drinking a glass of water that you drink accidentally when you are not thirsty and do not remember it afterwards.

He tore up the piece of paper that had everything that you have read here about the sombrero. He tore it up very carefully into many pieces and threw them on the floor.

He would start over again the next morning writing about something else that would have nothing to do with a sombrero falling out of the sky.

His business was writing books. He was a very well-known American humorist. It was difficult to find a bookstore that did not carry at least one of his titles.

Why was he crying, then?

Isn’t fame enough?

The answer is quite simple.

His Japanese girlfriend was gone.

She had left him.

That was the reason for tears that started in eyes that he could no longer remember except for their crying which was now an everyday occurrence since the Japanese woman had left him.

Some days he cried so much that he thought that he was dreaming.