Whilin' the Time

There was ominous work to be done and that thumb-twiddling madman was not ready for the challenge. Steeped in hatred, steeped in fear, the madman held forth on the matter of relativity as he understood it.

“My cousin wouldn't git to that thar work, neither,” shouted the madman, with eyeball-lint hanging from his pale socket and looking for all the world as though it were a tiny, tiny sheep clinging to a hillside and looking for a sweet morsel of clover or whatever it might be that a eyeball-lint socket-sheep might eat. Pale and lonely was the socket and cold and dry was the eye. The madman rubbed both with his chapped-scratchy index finger and flicked the little eye-snot against the table where he was seated. Grabber-man, who was seated across from him and had very clean eyes, looked away when the madman flicked the eye-snot.

“Hellish it is, big boy,” said Grabber-man, scratching his one swollen testicle and then straightening up to look directly at the madman. “Hellish, if you ask me. There is no man that should turn down such work.” He took a long drag from his kretek, mounted in a long, slender cigarette holder. The sweet aroma of clove made him giddy and he laughed a little bit and soiled his pantaloons. “Titter, titter, big boy...titter. I have wet myself. Luscious and rancid are my pantaloons.”

The thumb-twiddling madman stood up and walked around to Grabber-man's chair. Lifting the effeminate cheesecake baker by his cravat, he then produced a large, sponge-filled replica of a garden implement from the haversack slung between his legs. The sponge-filled replica had a hairy surface, and he ran the tiny hairs along his lower lip and allowed his tongue to snake its way out of his mouth and lightly touch the briny, bristly surface of the replica implement. “I knows you would git to that thar work if'n I forced you, Grabber-man,” said the madman, breathing heavily. “I knows you would feel how hard anuzzer might works. Cha cha cha?”

“Cha cha cha,” said Grabber-man, breathing heavily and with his eyes straining to leap out of their sockets at the sight of the sponge-filled replica garden implement with its briny, bristly surface. “Cha cha...” and this second repetition of the mantra was cut short by unspeakable pain and joy as the madman forced the sponge-filled replica garden implement and his entire fist into Grabber-man's most convenient orifice. Warm, sweet blood softly trickled down the madman's wrist, along with a fluid that might make one think fond and sentimental thoughts of Joey Tuckaway's mother's oyster chowder.

“You likes oyster chowder?” asked the madman, laughing just a little. “You likes de way it smells when it pours? When it spoons? When it trickles down youse's wrist?”

Grabber-man was unable to speak, but shook his head and blew some clove-scented smoke out of his suggestively-curved nostrils and into the madman's face. His very clean eyes flickered a few times and then closed in ecstasy and a rubbery, sponge-filled death.

The madman's fist came out of the orifice with a noisy pop. “Bubbly,” said the madman. “Bubbly go wit de oyster chowder. I loves it when it trickles down my wrist. I loves it muchly.” The madman gently replaced the smiling body of Grabber-man in his seat and went back to his own chair and sat down. There was ominous work to be done and that thumb-twiddling madman was not ready for the challenge. He noticed a long, slender cigarette holder that had fallen to the table and rolled off its edge to the ground – the kretek was still smoldering. The madman picked it up and took a long drag.

“Cha cha cha,” said the thumb-twiddling madman, looking at the kretek's glowing tip. “Cha cha cha.”

From the death in which he lay, Grabber-man smiled, but his heart broke – over and over and over again. Life had been sparse, but death was as empty as the little wagging stomach of a tiny, tiny sheep clinging to a eye-socket hillside and looking desperately, desperately for a sweet morsel of clover or whatever it might be that a eyeball-lint socket-sheep might eat.