042119

On Arbor Day
the Bunny brings bright eggs
smooth and warm
to expectant agriculturalists
bunnies don't grow on trees, you know
like birds do

121817

Take it on the Mutton

The City is my usual beat, and I tend to stay there. I don’t even own house plants. There’s nothing green in my office unless I’ve just been paid. However, one Saturday Alma wheedled me into agreeing to a picnic. She knew this enchanting little park she said, right by a river. “Secluded?” I asked, as I slid into the passenger seat of her convertible.

“Completely,” she told me, taking both hands off the wheel and violating several ordinances. “Good,” I said, as soon as I could speak.

The park was quite pretty, I’ll give her that, and the view of the river from the grassy slope we picked for our assignation was what you might call picturesque. However, the level of seclusion was not quite what I’d been promised. I began unpacking the basket, which is a process that is more complicated than you might think when Alma is involved. She had packed us a lunch straight out of The Wind in the Willows: cold cuts, sourdough loaves, pickles, pears, peaches, peanut butter, pistachios, and plenty of stuff from the rest of the alphabet as well. We needed three blankets just for the grub. Luckily, that left very little room for the two of us. Things were just getting interesting when I heard a scream. Well, a P.I. is always on call, so I leaped to my feet, spilling Alma into the grass. “Stay here,” I said, and ran across the grass towards the source of the noise. Just as I crested the hill there was another scream.

In a bowl-shaped valley a pretty young shepherdess stood, clutching her crook tightly enough to turn her knuckles white. She was alone.

“What seems to be the problem, Miss,” I asked.

“My sheep,” she sobbed.

“I don’t see any sheep,” I replied, perhaps a trifle obtusely.

“Exactly,” she snapped, “they’re missing!”

My keen, analytical mind raced quickly through the ramifications of her remark. “Your sheep have disappeared,” I observed, “what you need is a sheep finder.”

“In the absence of such, you’ll do,” she replied. “Go that way, I’ll look over this way. The poor dears just cannot make it alone. They’re utterly dependent on me.” I kept my doubts to myself, and detoured back to Alma. My mind was conjuring up visions of the sheep being led off to slaughter by a mustachioed ruminant nabber, or tied to the railroad tracks with wool made from their own coats. Alma was standing by the picnic paraphernalia, keeping the ants at bay. I explained the situation, and told her that the shepherdess had asked me to help her search for her sheep.

“She’s a fool,” Alma said. “If she just leaves them alone they’ll come home, probably dragging their damn tails behind them. Meanwhile, the jello’s melting.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I can’t turn down a pastoralist in distress,” I answered nobly, and was off on the scent. Or, not being a canine, I actually went in search of visual clues. They were not hard to come by. I’m a pretty fair tracker, if I do say so myself, and I caught up with the errant flock a few miles down the road, in a small and somewhat dilapidated drinking establishment. The sheep were gathered around a table, drinking heavily.

“Your mistress was looking for you,” I said to one, which appeared to be the bellwether. The creature ignored me. “She was worried about you,” I added.

“Baa!” the sheep said. “She won’t leave us alone.” It took another big slug of ale. “We can’t take it any more.”

“Would you like to ... talk about it?” I asked.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” the sheep continued. “She’s always pestering us. ‘Where are you going? When will you be back? You’re not going to meet those shiftless no-good goats down by the tracks are you?’ Bah!”

“She doesn’t respect us as livestock,” another sheep chimed in, “to her, we’re just walking wool. It’s demeaning.”

“We’re adults,” added a third, “and if we want a pint of ale, by God we’ll have one.” It drained its mug and burped loudly.

I let them blow off steam for a while, just nodding every now and then and buying another round or two of ale. “Are you taking it on the lamb?” I asked finally.

“And what if we are?” the bellwether replied cagily.

“Well, how will you survive? Do you know a trade?” It shook its head, and I pressed my case. “You’ll look pretty sheepish dragging back in, hungry and dirty, a few weeks from now. Far better to return now, and make out like you just wanted an afternoon away from the daily crop and chew.” I went on in this vein for quite a while, and must have sounded pretty persuasive, because the sheep soon began nodding their heads and baaing agreeably. Finally, the bellwether drained its mug and set it down heavily on the table.

“Let’s go,” it admonished the herd, and trotted out the door. I watched after them long enough to see that they were indeed headed for home, and then set off in search of Alma. I found her soon enough, but that’s another story.

Reprinted from Nursery Rhyme Noir -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875

121417

Raise your hand if you just became a vegan

A well-constructed young woman barged into my office Monday morning, breathing hard after running up two flights of stairs. When she regained her composure she told me her great aunt had “drifted away from her moorings.” Some time Sunday morning the old lady had started devouring livestock, not just raw, but still living. Before the day was out she was dead.

“Exactly what do you want me to do, Miss Clarendon?”

“Oh, Mr. Deadbolt,” she replied, “I want you to find out why she ate those critters. The great aunt Sylvia I knew would never do such a thing. She might have been murdered. Maybe by a hypnotist.”

*

“I'm sure you know why I have gathered you together,” I began. “You are the relatives of the late Sylvia Clarendon. One of you asked me to investigate whether foul play was involved in her death. I've checked into all of you carefully, as well as anyone who had business or social dealings with the deceased. I turned up nothing. Ms. Clarendon was universally liked, and she didn't have much money or property.

“I did partially solve the mystery. She really did take a double dose of several powerful prescription drugs last Friday night as she went to bed. Sunday morning she swallowed a common housefly, and then a spider in hopes that it would trap the fly. Because of the limited opportunities for web construction within her digestive tract, she chose a jumping spider, but of a perfectly respectable species. When the spider failed to return, Ms. Clarendon swallowed a small bird. Its mission was to retrieve the spider, but by 0900 hrs it had failed to do so. Her choice of a house sparrow, a well-known seed eating specialist, may have been part of the problem. There followed in rapid succession the following commandos: a rat, a cat, and a dog, all with rather obvious goals. Her motives of the afternoon are less certain. About 1320 she swallowed a goat, which might have been a bad choice considering the size of the dog it was supposed to subdue. Be that as it may, around 1500 hrs a cow followed the goat. This was a highly reliable operative named Bessie who had successfully completed similar missions in the past. At 1545 a cleaner named Dobbins was sent in, with what tragic results you all know.

“I have, as I said, worked out most of the details of the weekend's tragedy. However, one thing still puzzles me about the whole affair. I don't know why she swallowed the fly.”

Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Lady_Who_Swallowed_a_Fly

Reprinted from Nursery Rhyme Noir -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875

072617C

Milkmaid

I was born here. My parents came from Earth, stolen before the stars aligned, so they just have one head and two arms apiece. Most humans here are slaves, but I have a good job. I get regular meals and have my own sleeping place under the grub shed. I'm a milkmaid. I milk the grubs. They look sort of like dholes, but they are white and their faces are tiny. Twice a day I milk the ichor that comes out from nipples on each body segment. Of course their nipples are not like mine, and they don't have breasts either. Their little faces are so cute, with round black lips and rows and rows of needlelike teeth, noses that are just patterns of holes, and eyes so shiny and black they look like seeds. The ichor stinks. It reminds me of the smell from the pit where they threw disobedient slaves until there were so many rat scorpions they had to call in the Horde.

I have my own bed. Sugar mushrooms grow under there, and I eat them early in the morning before anyone else finds them. They are so good. Also, slaves sleep outside the fence and every morning some of them come in covered with bites, or the oozing blisters made by the rat-scorpion stings. Most of the slaves don't live as long as I have already. I'm grown up now, I am 14. That's old enough to be a bride of He Who Is Not Named. I hope that this year his priest will choose me. If I carried the Son, I would not have to work as a milkmaid. I would tell everyone else what to do, and inspect them at their work, for the first two trimesters. After that, they would have to bring me whatever I wanted. If I carried the Son I would keep them busy finding things that don't grow here. Things only found on Earth, and nowhere since the alignment. I hope I would not want the same things Kerry wanted. Before the end she was asking for live lizards, the entrails of virgins and other disgusting stuff. And none of it made a difference. She split open and was all hollow, just like the rest.

Publ. Daily Cabal, 2008