Xerxes Devoured by Mice

Xerxes was a flautist extraordinaire. Well before he was out of nappies, he was the master of the aulos. He played “Happy Birthday” to himself on the nasuri at his third birthday party. In his fourth year he the instrument that would be his eventual undoing found him — the piccolo. Some compared him to Orpheus while others thought him more like Pan, but the character of ancient legend and myth that captured his imagination was the Rattenfänger von Hameln. He started with his hamster late one night and found that he could enchant the animal to do all sorts of tricks. He moved on to his sister’s guinea pig. Once he had the two of them completely under his spell he set his sights on to the field mice that kept the tabbies of the household fairly fat if not actually lazy. Soon he could command hundreds at a time.

For weeks he would climb from his trundle-bed at night and delighted in making  the mice dance by the light of the moon. Alas the mice became addicted to his nocturnes and came scurrying to his nursery like opium fiends to their dens. Then one night the unthinkable happened. Our young hero was exhausted from a raucous game of blind man’s bluff followed by a last man standing bout of red rover. The mice came and sat eagerly waiting for the haunting and piercing strains of their master’s piccolo. They began to move closer like a crowd eager for the start of the auto-da-fe. When the got no attention, they climbed the bedclothes and mounted his catatonic form. One bold mouse gave a quick nip at the master’s hand to rouse him. Another did the same to his foot. Soon in a musine frenzy they were taking hunks of flesh from him.

His bones were laid to rest in the Church of St. Smintheus.

As ever my sincere thanks to Edward Gorey.

Z is for Zillah

Some girls are content to don their Sunday frocks and sit in low chairs at diminutive tables and serve tepid cups of air-tea from their miniature tea services to their dolls. Zillah was not one of those girls. To be sure Zillah had one of the finest tea services in the county – a sterling silver affair flush with hallmarks and coats of arms that no doubt had been brought back from the Cave of Spleen. Zillah chose to set her tea parties out Restoration style – bottles of amontillado, port, and, her personal favorite, dry gin. It had the most magnificent burn going down, and, to her mind anyway, it released la fae vert better than absinthe. Her parties with the nymphs, as she called her china dolls, were initially on Sunday afternoons after church. God Himself needed a swig (probably of whiskey) after one of Parson’s patronizingly pedantic homilies.

Soon enough, she expanded to Thursdays for her ‘at home.’ Before you could say “gin fizz” she was a full on courtisane with a saloon, er, salon daily from two to six. The conversations were stimulating: the anthropological merits of noughts and crosses; the spiritual well being of the nursery horse. It was all so fascinating. Then she got word.

James’ best toy soldier friend Lieutenant Brandywine was coming home, unscathed, from the Front. The party was splendid. Everyone who was anyone was there. It must be admitted that Raggedy Anne gate crashed. It was  smashing success by all counts. Until it happened anyway. Well into her sixth double martini, Zillah decided she needed a nap. She lay down on the child sized velvet davenport and found the Big Sleep.

As ever with my sincere gratitude to Mr. Gorey.

N is For Neville Who Died of Ennui

Neville was a difficult child to entertain. He slept through the circus, stared sardonically at his shoes at the petting zoo, watched the paint age as he rode the Ferris wheel, picked joylessly at his cotton candy, and yawned in agony at
the fireworks display. In short Neville was a bored child.

One rainy afternoon in late August, Neville sat staring out the window counting the drops — or counting backward from infinity. It’s difficult to say. What is well known, is that when Grams brought Neville his favorite lunch (plainly boiled macaroni) Neville was not among the living. The neighbors speculated and whispered, but his family new the truth. Neville finally succumbed to his natural state and died of ennui.

As always, my many thanks for Mr. Gorey for his inspiration.

Prue Trampled Flat in a Brawl

Prue was one of those overly precocious children—ran a back alley game of three card Monte at age 3, got into bootlegging gin at 3 ½, and by age 4, she had taken over the black-market cigarette trade and set her mind firmly on becoming kingpin of the local syndicate.  Her tinted hair and rouged up cheeks gave her an air of sophistication that, when combined with her hard living and hooker heels, planted the look of a held back seven year old on her five-year-old head.

She was hustling drinks one night in late February at the dive where her father tended bar and her mother taxi danced.  She had a Pall Mall in one hand and a gin and whiskey in the other when it started.  Some say the rain brought it on.  Others tell that it came in with the tide.  Either way, Chuck accused Tom of cheating during a raucous game of Candy Land.  Tom answered Chuck’s charges with a right hook.  Faster than you can say “Goodfellas,” it had become a full on, bare knuckled, barroom brawl.  Prue thought to ride it out on her barstool, but a flying rum bottle knocked her to the floor.  While she was lamenting a chip to one of her highly polished finger nails, the ebb of the fight turned trampling her under foot.  She was buried from St. Sebastian’s the next Friday

with a Mass of the Angels.

Thanks again to Mr. Gorey.

J is for James

J is for James who took lye by mistake

Sometimes you can tell the Truth but slant it in such a way that it doesn’t startle the receiver. At other times, you can’t. You have to tell the Truth straight on. This is one of those times when the latter is called for. James is — or rather was — a lush. At his sixth birthday party, he was so drunk he kept pinning the tale on Penny instead of the donkey. The next week he was kicked off the dodgems for DUI, and two weeks after that he was lying in the graveyard. James could mix a martini that would stop a bull, but he hadn’t learned his letters.

He was out of Jägermeister in his hip flask, and the liquor cabinet held nothing but spirit bottles filled with colored water — he’d been to that well too many times already, but he had a plan. Cook kept a good cache of wines in the larder. There were bottles and bottles on a shelf above the potato bin — almost hidden by a string of braided onions.  In the middle of the night, James got out of bed and padded barefoot down the stairs, across the hall, through the kitchen to the pantry. He climbed his Everest. He stood looking at the pretty bottles standing before him like troops lined up for inspection. He passed over a Beaujolais, two fine merlots, and a vintage burgundy. He settled for a pretty bottle that looked almost like a Jägermiester bottle except it was cobalt blue instead of green; the label said L-Y-E in plain black letters and their were skulls and cross bones decorating it.  It smelled funny when he opened it. It burned a little when he took a hearty swallow—though no more than when he drank the dark rum. It did, however, carry a stronger kick.

As ever, my sincere thanks to Mr. G.