Monday, April the 5th, 2004

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Dark Star Crashes

Pouring its light into ashes. Reason tatters. These are weighty matters. So weighty, indeed, that you must note them in your jotter. But—horror of horrors!—with what will you jot? You recall with a pang that your biro is lost, or perhaps has been purloined by the Biro Thief, he whose exploits have so enthralled the readers of the Daily Clang. Your drawer, of course, is innocent of pencils. It has been so since childhood. Your papa would have no pencils in his house, you recall, and yet he never revealed the wellspring of his loathing. Once, you tried to write about it—with your biro—and your book His Loathing: Its Wellspring was, well … well-received up to a point, though there were those who said it lacked a certain dash. To your shame, you blamed your papa's chlamydia, a conclusion so preposterous that your uncle sued you in a court of law. Behind the door of the court of law lurked a lactose-intolerant nitroglycerine boffin, a bluestocking who became your wife and changed your life. You pulped all copies of your book and sat in steam. You had a hideous headache for a week. But planning, as you did, to raise no storms, you kept all pencils from your house, just as your father did. Your wife asked why—you used a nib to jot down your reply. I am my father's son, you wrote, He died a pauper. He was that kind of guy.