"But why?" Scott said, sounding almost petulant.
"It's not something that I can easily explain. As you must know, the things we gave you were trinkets to us — almost worthless. We traded them for something that was almost worthless to you — a fair trade, you'll agree — but it's time to move on."
Craphound handed me the cowboy trunk. Holding it, I smelled the lubricant from his exoskeleton and the smell of the attic it had been mummified in before making its way into his hands. I felt like I almost understood.
"This is for me," I said slowly, and Craphound nodded encouragingly. "This is for me, and you're keeping the glasses. And I'll look at this and feel. . ."
"You understand," Craphound said, looking somehow relieved.
And I did. I understood that an alien wearing a cowboy hat and sixguns and giving them away was a poem and a story, and a thirtyish bachelor trying to spend half a month's rent on four glasses so that he could remember his Grandma's kitchen was a story and a poem, and that the disused fairground outside Calgary was a story and a poem, too.
"You're craphounds!" I said. "All of you!"
Craphound smiled so I could see his gums and I put down the cowboy trunk and clapped my hands.
#
Scott recovered from his shock by spending the night at his office, crunching numbers talking on the phone, and generally getting while the getting was good. He had an edge — no one else knew that they were going.