The door closed silently behind Jason.  When he turned back to try the handle, it would not move.  The door was locked.  There was nothing to do but go forward.  Ahead was a large open space, dimly lit from above by an unseen light.  As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out two shapes ahead, although he could not tell what they were.  As he advanced, a dry creaky voice which seemed to come from the figure on the left said, “What have we here, Greta, a visitor?”

 

The other shape (person? thing?) responded, in a similar voice, reminding Jason of fingernails scraping a blackboard.  “Can’t you see, Lester?  It’s a little boy.”  Now the voice was directed to Jason.  “Come closer, little boy.  Come into the light where we can see you.”

 

Jason stepped closer.  A spotlight illuminated a wide area in front of him.  He could now see who was talking.  On the left, in an overstuffed chair, sat a six-limbed, long-nosed gray creature.  He would have thought it was some kind of huge insect (it was at least eight feet tall), except that it had white hair in a bun pulled up at the back of its head, like his Aunt Ida, and it held a teacup in its upper left… hand?  Was it a hand?  The thing peered down at Jason through spectacles perched on its enormous nose.

 

On the right was another of the creatures.  This one, however, wore a top hat and a monocle attached to a chain, and seemed to be a little bit smaller than the other one.  It leaned toward Jason and inspected him through the eyeglass.

 

“Why, I believe you are right, Greta,” it said.  “Capital.  We haven’t had a boy in ages, and now two in two days.”

 

Jason had never seen anything like these creatures outside of a science-fiction movie.  “What are you, anyway” he asked, “some kind of bugs?”

 

The one with the teacup and the white hair replied in (her?) scratchy voice.  “Of course we are, my dear boy.  My brother and I are weevils, curculionidae vexa, to use the Latin.  Handsome, are we not?” she asked.

 

Jason thought that they were about the ugliest things he had ever seen.  Maybe if he complimented them, though, they would let him go.

 

“Oh yes,” he agreed, “very handsome weevils, ma’am.  Could you tell me where the exit is?”

 

The weevils made sounds like rusty wheels turning on an ungreased axle, which he guessed was their version of laughter.  The sound set his teeth on edge.

 

“Oh, no, not until you choose your fate,” said the larger one.

 

“Choose?” echoed Jason.

 

“Naturally, you must choose,” the smaller one continued.  “You know us, of course.  We’re the Two Weevils you’ve heard of.  I’m the Lesser, and she’s the Greater.  Your mother knows us well.  She picked me at the last election.”  He winked knowingly at the boy.

 

Could his mother possibly have anything to do with these strange insects?  Jason thought back to a night when he overheard his mother and some other adults talking about the election.  Somebody, maybe it was Uncle Frank, had said that the two candidates were practically the same, and that he wasn’t going to vote for either one of them.  And his mother had said that one of them, Jason could not remember the name… whoever it was, that he was the lesser of two somethings… was it weevils?

 

“I am the Lesser of Two Weevils,” said the one with the top hat.  “Choose me my boy, and I’ll transform you into a dust mite.  You will be our servant and your duty will be to keep our wing cases and abdominal plates shiny and clean forever.”

 

“Or choose me, the Greater,” chimed in the second.  “You needn’t spend a dull lifetime as our slave; we’ll just suck your juices for dinner.”

 

“But I don’t want either of those things,” Jason protested.

 

“Naturally not,” said the Lesser Weevil.  “When you choose between two weevils, you never get what you really want.  People have to choose between two weevils all the time.”

 

“We’re always there whenever there’s a choice between something bad and something worse,” added the one called Greta, “like between a frying pan and a fire.”

 

“Or between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber,” her brother called out.

 

“Or between hammer and tongs!” the Greater Weevil yelled happily, as both of the creatures burst into gales of laughter.

 

“Almost everyone chooses me in the end,” gasped the Lesser Weevil, as he wiped tears of joy from several facets of his compound eyes.  “Now it’s your turn.  Quickly now, my boy,” he urged, gesturing with his monocle.