(On a small hilltop in North Dakota, a huddle of four or five people stand in a line facing a gravestone. One man, in a tattered peacoat and round sunglasses steps forward and begins to speak.)
H. C. Crawley.
(Silence.)
What do you say about The Craw?
(Stifled laughter)
Herbert C. Crawley kept a leech between his shoulder blades to cleanse the humours....
And it reminded him that his life was never truly his own. He was a stoat man with an unkempt chin strap beard. It is said he scarred the flesh around his mouth over the years to keep the hair from growing back, so nothing would impede him while he ate. He gait was brandy and he often swayed while standing, like an uneasy drunkard. But Crawley had to be of constant wit, so he rarely had a drop to drink. His vices were large bird eggs, poached in a vinegar and fennel seed extract, and the cactus jelly of the Acatama desert, poisonous in large doses but capable of a constant dull buzz and burn on the skin, a combination numb goosepimpled flesh and the itch of a mosquito bite. The man would reek of the foul paste, and the whafts of stomach bile and nutmeg followed him into every room. His hands were immaculately pampered, soft and radiant, with nails that gleamed like glass in firelight. Few had seen the scofflaw's glorious hands, for he kept them hermetically sealed in his otter skin gloves. It was said he lined their insides with Egyptian sand oils, Chinese mountain herbs and the muddled husks of Ecuadorian water beetles. His penchant for conversation was vast and infectious and he could pull the most intimate details out to the tongue's tip. There was a comfort in his smiling eyes that invoked the warmth of home, and many would fall deep into the stringed starburst of light and emerge as weathered beasts with bloody stumps for limbs, wailing the gurgles of tongueless piglets. The horror encased behind the warmth took scores of curious souls, including my hapless step-brother Quincy on a blustery night over orange-peel tea in the open fields of central Wisconsin. I never did get to avenge my brother for the damage ol' H.C. did him, as Charna Pennyworth beat me too him first, with cunning, an oboe and H.C.'s own machete. May that filthy, enigmatic, smug son of a bitch stay in his grave. In Jesus' name and all the jazz. Amen.
Today's Drawing (inspired by the word "Threnody" from MW's word of the day. It's a song of lamentation for the dead.)
Today's "365" Project (Make something inspired by a random word. Since I've been doing this everyday, I'm going to defer to the weird eulogy above!)
H. C. Crawley.
(Silence.)
What do you say about The Craw?
(Stifled laughter)
Herbert C. Crawley kept a leech between his shoulder blades to cleanse the humours....
And it reminded him that his life was never truly his own. He was a stoat man with an unkempt chin strap beard. It is said he scarred the flesh around his mouth over the years to keep the hair from growing back, so nothing would impede him while he ate. He gait was brandy and he often swayed while standing, like an uneasy drunkard. But Crawley had to be of constant wit, so he rarely had a drop to drink. His vices were large bird eggs, poached in a vinegar and fennel seed extract, and the cactus jelly of the Acatama desert, poisonous in large doses but capable of a constant dull buzz and burn on the skin, a combination numb goosepimpled flesh and the itch of a mosquito bite. The man would reek of the foul paste, and the whafts of stomach bile and nutmeg followed him into every room. His hands were immaculately pampered, soft and radiant, with nails that gleamed like glass in firelight. Few had seen the scofflaw's glorious hands, for he kept them hermetically sealed in his otter skin gloves. It was said he lined their insides with Egyptian sand oils, Chinese mountain herbs and the muddled husks of Ecuadorian water beetles. His penchant for conversation was vast and infectious and he could pull the most intimate details out to the tongue's tip. There was a comfort in his smiling eyes that invoked the warmth of home, and many would fall deep into the stringed starburst of light and emerge as weathered beasts with bloody stumps for limbs, wailing the gurgles of tongueless piglets. The horror encased behind the warmth took scores of curious souls, including my hapless step-brother Quincy on a blustery night over orange-peel tea in the open fields of central Wisconsin. I never did get to avenge my brother for the damage ol' H.C. did him, as Charna Pennyworth beat me too him first, with cunning, an oboe and H.C.'s own machete. May that filthy, enigmatic, smug son of a bitch stay in his grave. In Jesus' name and all the jazz. Amen.
Haiku of the Day:
Soothing tones and tea
in the mind's sanctuary
create a peace guise
Today's Drawing (inspired by the word "Threnody" from MW's word of the day. It's a song of lamentation for the dead.)
Today's "365" Project (Make something inspired by a random word. Since I've been doing this everyday, I'm going to defer to the weird eulogy above!)
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