A baby pig with two heads was pickled in a large jar atop a player piano. To the left of this piano was a Gypsy fortuneteller holding her Tarot cards and waiting for the drop of a dime to deal out your fortune card to you. To the right of the player piano was Sylvester.

“So how’s it going, old man?” Wizard greeted him softly.

Sylvester gave a dry cough and began, “It was a hot and dusty day…”

Wizard listened, politely nodding. It was the only story Sylvester had to tell, and Wizard was one of the few who could hear it. Wizard looked through the glass into the dark holes behind the dry eyelids and caught the gleam of his dying emotions. The bullet hole was still plainly visible upon Sylvester’s ribby chest; his dessicated arms were still crossed, holding in the antique pain. His small brown teeth showed beneath his diy moustache. Sylvester was one of the best naturally preserved mummies existent in the western United States. It said so right on the placard beside his display case. Sylvester had met with success in death, if not in life. One could buy postcards and pamphlets that told all about him. They told everything (here was to know, except who he had been, and why he had died in the sandy wastes from a bullet wound. And those secrets were the ones he whispered to Wizard, speaking in a voice as dry and dusty as his unmarked grave had been, in words so soft they barely passed the glass that separated them. Wizard stood patiently listening to the old tale, nodding his head slightly.

Sylvester was not alone. There was another mummy in a glass case next to his, her shriveled loins modestly swathed in an apron. She listened to Sylvester speak to Wizard with her mouth agape in aristocratic disdain for his uncouthness. She had died of consumption and been entombed in a cave. She still wore her burial stockings and shoes. Privately Wizard did not think her as well preserved as Sylvester, but she was definitely more conscious of social niceties.