Jordan MOffATT
My Big Tiny Alligator Problem
The first time a tiny alligator appeared in my apartment I had just finished watching episode 5
of Twin Peaks on Netflix and was considering working on my Master’s thesis on New Brutalist
Architecture and Misplaced Nostalgia but instead started the next episode. I wasn’t even
through the opening credits of when I heard a frightening but also cute cry coming the back
corner of my basement bachelor apartment. I walked over and saw an alligator about the size
of the eraser on the the tip of a Ticonderoga HB 2 pencil, which is way smaller than a normal
alligator so I knew something strange was happening.
The alligator looked harmless, so I put it on my kitchen table and stared at it. The alligator
wailed again. It sounded like a cat so I poured it a small saucer of milk just like I would
for a cat. Instead of drinking like a cat, the alligator submerged itself except for its eyes and
nostrils (like an alligator). I put the saucer next to my computer to keep an eye on it, and then
pressed play on Twin Peaks. Then the alligator grew. Now it was the size of two and a half
erasers on the tip of a Ticonderoga HB 2. I paused the episode and the alligator stopped growing.
Then I started the episode again and the alligator grew. At this point I noticed a correlation:
the alligator grew if I watched Twin Peaks. The alligator was now the size of a really big
thumb — the kind of thumb you’d imagine Hemingway would have except with more frightening,
bloodthirsty teeth. This was disconcerting, to say the least. Really disconcerting to say a
little bit more. I grabbed a glass, flipped it so the hollow end was on the bottom, and then
placed it on top of the alligator, trapping it. I thought to myself something self-satisfied like,
“There, that’ll do.” After that, I went over to the to-do list that I wrote earlier with a dry-erase
marker on my fridge. It said:
• WORK ON THESIS
I ignored it and went back to see what Dale Cooper & co. were up to. Then, suddenly, I
heard a ferocious alligator-sounding roar and the shattering of glass — all coming from where
I put the alligator. I looked over to the table. The alligator had grown to the size of my red
Saucony Jazzes and was flailing wildly. The alligator locked eyes with me and started chomping
its mouth while walking towards me. If I stayed where I was, and it continued in the direction
that it was walking while chomping, I would eventually get chomped. I did not want to
get chomped. I ran over to my toolbox, grabbed my hammer, ran back over to the alligator and
smashed it in the skull, killing it instantly. As a vegetarian, this made me feel queasy. I placed
the hammer on the table and sat down on the floor, thinking about how this was the largest
thing I had ever killed, unless you count the Philodendron Monstera that I promised my sister
I’d take care of while she was in Turks & Caicos. At that moment, I heard another alligator
cry coming from the same spot beside my bed. I did the same thing: I picked it up and put it
under the glass on my kitchen table. By this point, I understood the rules of the game. If I
killed an alligator, another one would take its place; if I watched Twin Peaks, the alligator
would grow. I was hungry after all the hammer blows, so I went to eat dinner. My fridge was
empty, so I Googled “can you eat alligators???” and found a website that said “yes actually” so
then I cooked the shoe-sized alligator that I killed.
It’s been a couple months of this now. I noticed that the alligators were growing not
just from Twin Peaks, but rather any trivial activity that distracted me from my thesis. There’s a
lot of those. I’ve been through hundreds of alligators now (which I named Kyle MacLachlan 1,
Kyle MacLachlan 2, Kyle MacLachlan 3, etc.) and it’s fine and I have alligators for dinner
most nights. Alligator is delicious; I’m thinking about writing an all-alligator cookbook but I’ve
only developed a handful of good recipes so far. I have thirty-four little mason jars on my
bookshelves filled with tiny alligator bones and I labelled the mason jars “FAKE tiny alligator
bones” so no one gets suspicious.
Ideally, though, I try to avoid making the alligators grow, and that has made me much
more productive. My Master’s thesis is almost done and I feel confident about it. The time I
spend with individual alligators has been getting longer each time, so that’s a good indication
that I’ve been spending less of my time on counter-productive things. I even have managed to
make each alligator shrink if I’m particularly productive! But still, eventually they get to be
shoe-sized so I kill them and move onto the next one. And there’s always a next one. There
hasn’t not been a next one yet, and I don’t know if there ever won’t be a next one. I’m not perfect,
and I don’t need to try to be perfect — I just have to make sure that the alligators don’t
get so big that they can consume me.
This is the way things are now.
The first time a tiny alligator appeared in my apartment I had just finished watching episode 5
of Twin Peaks on Netflix and was considering working on my Master’s thesis on New Brutalist
Architecture and Misplaced Nostalgia but instead started the next episode. I wasn’t even
through the opening credits of when I heard a frightening but also cute cry coming the back
corner of my basement bachelor apartment. I walked over and saw an alligator about the size
of the eraser on the the tip of a Ticonderoga HB 2 pencil, which is way smaller than a normal
alligator so I knew something strange was happening.
The alligator looked harmless, so I put it on my kitchen table and stared at it. The alligator
wailed again. It sounded like a cat so I poured it a small saucer of milk just like I would
for a cat. Instead of drinking like a cat, the alligator submerged itself except for its eyes and
nostrils (like an alligator). I put the saucer next to my computer to keep an eye on it, and then
pressed play on Twin Peaks. Then the alligator grew. Now it was the size of two and a half
erasers on the tip of a Ticonderoga HB 2. I paused the episode and the alligator stopped growing.
Then I started the episode again and the alligator grew. At this point I noticed a correlation:
the alligator grew if I watched Twin Peaks. The alligator was now the size of a really big
thumb — the kind of thumb you’d imagine Hemingway would have except with more frightening,
bloodthirsty teeth. This was disconcerting, to say the least. Really disconcerting to say a
little bit more. I grabbed a glass, flipped it so the hollow end was on the bottom, and then
placed it on top of the alligator, trapping it. I thought to myself something self-satisfied like,
“There, that’ll do.” After that, I went over to the to-do list that I wrote earlier with a dry-erase
marker on my fridge. It said:
• WORK ON THESIS
I ignored it and went back to see what Dale Cooper & co. were up to. Then, suddenly, I
heard a ferocious alligator-sounding roar and the shattering of glass — all coming from where
I put the alligator. I looked over to the table. The alligator had grown to the size of my red
Saucony Jazzes and was flailing wildly. The alligator locked eyes with me and started chomping
its mouth while walking towards me. If I stayed where I was, and it continued in the direction
that it was walking while chomping, I would eventually get chomped. I did not want to
get chomped. I ran over to my toolbox, grabbed my hammer, ran back over to the alligator and
smashed it in the skull, killing it instantly. As a vegetarian, this made me feel queasy. I placed
the hammer on the table and sat down on the floor, thinking about how this was the largest
thing I had ever killed, unless you count the Philodendron Monstera that I promised my sister
I’d take care of while she was in Turks & Caicos. At that moment, I heard another alligator
cry coming from the same spot beside my bed. I did the same thing: I picked it up and put it
under the glass on my kitchen table. By this point, I understood the rules of the game. If I
killed an alligator, another one would take its place; if I watched Twin Peaks, the alligator
would grow. I was hungry after all the hammer blows, so I went to eat dinner. My fridge was
empty, so I Googled “can you eat alligators???” and found a website that said “yes actually” so
then I cooked the shoe-sized alligator that I killed.
It’s been a couple months of this now. I noticed that the alligators were growing not
just from Twin Peaks, but rather any trivial activity that distracted me from my thesis. There’s a
lot of those. I’ve been through hundreds of alligators now (which I named Kyle MacLachlan 1,
Kyle MacLachlan 2, Kyle MacLachlan 3, etc.) and it’s fine and I have alligators for dinner
most nights. Alligator is delicious; I’m thinking about writing an all-alligator cookbook but I’ve
only developed a handful of good recipes so far. I have thirty-four little mason jars on my
bookshelves filled with tiny alligator bones and I labelled the mason jars “FAKE tiny alligator
bones” so no one gets suspicious.
Ideally, though, I try to avoid making the alligators grow, and that has made me much
more productive. My Master’s thesis is almost done and I feel confident about it. The time I
spend with individual alligators has been getting longer each time, so that’s a good indication
that I’ve been spending less of my time on counter-productive things. I even have managed to
make each alligator shrink if I’m particularly productive! But still, eventually they get to be
shoe-sized so I kill them and move onto the next one. And there’s always a next one. There
hasn’t not been a next one yet, and I don’t know if there ever won’t be a next one. I’m not perfect,
and I don’t need to try to be perfect — I just have to make sure that the alligators don’t
get so big that they can consume me.
This is the way things are now.
Tom Hanks Can Read Minds
So when I got on the train and Tom Hanks got on it and sat beside me, I thought I should play it cool. I’ve been a big fan of his for years — I love the way he acts in movies and I think it’s funny that he tweets pictures of missing gloves he finds on the street. But I also respect people as people, and so I respect him as a person and not just a celebrity. I know he probably gets approached all the time by people going goo goo ga ga over him, so I thought the best way to demonstrate my respect for him was to not acknowledge him as a celebrity and just treat him like a regular person. If I was going to talk to him at all, it wouldn’t be about him. I thought I’d talk to him about trains (we were both on the train) and the As (I was taking the train to the As game). Anything but how he’s Tom Hanks.
“Hi,” said Tom Hanks. “I’m Tom Hanks.”
There went that plan.
“Oh,” I replied. “Hi.”
“Do you like baseball and trains?” he asked.
Bingo, back on track.
“Yeah, I’m taking the train to the As game.”
“Me too,” he said, pointing at his As hat, gesturing to the train, then pointing at my As hat and gesturing at the train again.
“I love trains,” I said.
“Best way to get to the ball game.”
So then we started talking. Real talking, like friends would. I’d always imagined we’d get along, and here we were, getting along. It was a real, authentic conversation with Tom Hanks, just like I thought I’d have.
“Except it’s not,” said Tom.
“What’s not?”
“This isn’t a real, authentic conversation with Tom Hanks. I’m just steering the conversation to make it feel that way.”
I was confused.
“Confused?” Tom asked. “I’ll explain: I can read minds, and I’ve been using that ability to steer conversations into what the other person wants to talk about. Nobody knows I can do it, so I just come across as charming and intuitive.”
That must be great, I thought.
“Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t,” Tom said, taking off his cap and running his hands through his greying hair. “Look, I know I owe most if not all of my success to my ability, so I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. It’s just that sometimes I wish I could have a normal conversation, or at least turn off everyone’s thoughts once in awhile and enjoy the silence.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Most of the time when I’m out in public all the thoughts I hear are just omg is that Tom Hanks? I appreciate that you seem like a normal, understanding guy, but when I sat next to you that was all you were thinking too. It wears me down.”
“If it helps, we don’t have to talk. I won’t think about you or anything,” I said, thinking that this gesture would be a more significant personal impact than trifling conversation with a fan.
“It would be,” he said putting a hand on my shoulder. “It would be.”
We spent the rest of the train in silence. I tried my best not to think about Tom and, knowing that he could read my thoughts, I also tried not to think of anything weird. Sometimes, though, I thought about things that were weird. Tom was nice enough not to make a big deal about it.
We arrived in Oakland thirty minutes later. Tom and I both got off, but we lost each other in the shuffle of the other thousands of fans heading towards the park. I wish I had the opportunity to say goodbye, or at least get a meaningful hand shake or eye-wink out of the experience. Either way, I felt good. I felt that I made a positive impact on his life — and now, armed with a greater knowledge of his telepathic methodology — I thought I’d go home after the game and crack open his filmography with a different perspective.
Just as I thought this, I heard a shout from somewhere in the crowd: “You can skip Punchline!”
So when I got on the train and Tom Hanks got on it and sat beside me, I thought I should play it cool. I’ve been a big fan of his for years — I love the way he acts in movies and I think it’s funny that he tweets pictures of missing gloves he finds on the street. But I also respect people as people, and so I respect him as a person and not just a celebrity. I know he probably gets approached all the time by people going goo goo ga ga over him, so I thought the best way to demonstrate my respect for him was to not acknowledge him as a celebrity and just treat him like a regular person. If I was going to talk to him at all, it wouldn’t be about him. I thought I’d talk to him about trains (we were both on the train) and the As (I was taking the train to the As game). Anything but how he’s Tom Hanks.
“Hi,” said Tom Hanks. “I’m Tom Hanks.”
There went that plan.
“Oh,” I replied. “Hi.”
“Do you like baseball and trains?” he asked.
Bingo, back on track.
“Yeah, I’m taking the train to the As game.”
“Me too,” he said, pointing at his As hat, gesturing to the train, then pointing at my As hat and gesturing at the train again.
“I love trains,” I said.
“Best way to get to the ball game.”
So then we started talking. Real talking, like friends would. I’d always imagined we’d get along, and here we were, getting along. It was a real, authentic conversation with Tom Hanks, just like I thought I’d have.
“Except it’s not,” said Tom.
“What’s not?”
“This isn’t a real, authentic conversation with Tom Hanks. I’m just steering the conversation to make it feel that way.”
I was confused.
“Confused?” Tom asked. “I’ll explain: I can read minds, and I’ve been using that ability to steer conversations into what the other person wants to talk about. Nobody knows I can do it, so I just come across as charming and intuitive.”
That must be great, I thought.
“Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t,” Tom said, taking off his cap and running his hands through his greying hair. “Look, I know I owe most if not all of my success to my ability, so I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. It’s just that sometimes I wish I could have a normal conversation, or at least turn off everyone’s thoughts once in awhile and enjoy the silence.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Most of the time when I’m out in public all the thoughts I hear are just omg is that Tom Hanks? I appreciate that you seem like a normal, understanding guy, but when I sat next to you that was all you were thinking too. It wears me down.”
“If it helps, we don’t have to talk. I won’t think about you or anything,” I said, thinking that this gesture would be a more significant personal impact than trifling conversation with a fan.
“It would be,” he said putting a hand on my shoulder. “It would be.”
We spent the rest of the train in silence. I tried my best not to think about Tom and, knowing that he could read my thoughts, I also tried not to think of anything weird. Sometimes, though, I thought about things that were weird. Tom was nice enough not to make a big deal about it.
We arrived in Oakland thirty minutes later. Tom and I both got off, but we lost each other in the shuffle of the other thousands of fans heading towards the park. I wish I had the opportunity to say goodbye, or at least get a meaningful hand shake or eye-wink out of the experience. Either way, I felt good. I felt that I made a positive impact on his life — and now, armed with a greater knowledge of his telepathic methodology — I thought I’d go home after the game and crack open his filmography with a different perspective.
Just as I thought this, I heard a shout from somewhere in the crowd: “You can skip Punchline!”
Jordan Moffatt is a writer and improviser living in Ottawa. His short fiction has appeared most recently in Bad Nudes, The Feathertale Review, and (parenthetical). He has work forthcoming in Matrix Magazine and This Magazine.