a fable

today i was at a friend's back garden.  i saw a brass headboard used as a trellis.  my friend said that he has a brass bed with a brass headboard, a big, beautiful thing, in his bedroom, and that this brass headboard was recently replaced by a newer headboard.  i said i am deathly afraid of brass headboards.  why, my friend asked.  i said, because when i was a boy i went to a drive-in movie.  in that movie a man lost in the woods was given shelter by three pretty young women.  they fed him and then showed him his room.  his bed for the night was a brass bed with a large headboard.  the three pretty young women cuffed the man to the headboard as he slept.  when he woke up the three pretty young women slowly undressed him, poured wine over his stomach, leaned toward his belly as if to kiss it, then took a chomp and preceded to eat him.  that's why i am deathly afraid of brass headboards.