=Advice to writers=

It seems to me that no story I've ever read hasn't been made instantly more interesting, indeed, suddenly become interesting if it hadn't been before, by the appearance of a llama. If I were to give one piece of advice to an aspiring writer—if, that is to say, I were in such a position or held in such esteem that anyone sought my advice—I'd advise every struggling writer to keep a llama in reserve. When all else fails and you're really up against it, trot out your llama. If the llama can't save you, nothing can. But don't just take my word for it. Read this story and tell me if I'm not right.

I'd gone to the basement to fetch some cherry preserves. I was going to bake a peach pie. 

Where was the pantry, anyway?

My husband had given me very precise instructions. "Back room, back wall," he'd said.

I had only gone halfway down the stairs when I heard the llama. "Blaaah," it said, trotting around the corner from the direction of the laundry room. "Blaaaah." It said this in the very matter-of-fact way that llamas have of saying anything.

Apparently this llama was a pet although I would have sworn to anyone who might have asked that until that very moment I had no prior knowledge that we kept a llama in the house. Still I wasn't surprised to see the llama. How can that be?

The llama passed me, continuing on up the stairs without further comment. I proceeded to the pantry, which was not where my husband said it would be at all. I searched and searched the shelves of bottles and jars. We were out of cherry filling.  So I grabbed the peach preserves instead and followed the llama up the stairs. 

"Did you see the llama come up?"

My husband made a noncommittal noise. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a hummingbird open in front of him, a jeweler's glass in his left eye. He was working on the delicate clockwork mechanism now exposed in the bird's chest. I didn't dare break his concentration by asking twice about the llama. These things have a tendency to explode.

He sighed and looked up of his own accord. Things mustn't have been going very well with the hummingbird. He noticed the can of peach preserves in my hand and said, "How did you know?"

"Know what?

"That I'd changed my mind about the cherry pie?"

I shrugged. "Women's intuition, I guess."

Moral of the story: Some things at the end are not nearly as absurd as they seemed at the beginning.