WEARING MY MYSTERY
JACKET OF YORE
Carpenter ants weaving stories and
building huts? I think that's what
I was told. My mouth was still
full of toothpaste, and everything
tastes funny after that. So I sat
down and asked to hear it again.
-
The words became a story about the
past. I thought I'd understand it but
I never really did. It went like this:
-
'Well it was that the hindered doorway
was shuttered and all the windows sealed.
For we lived in that shack by the river
for quite some time, hiding out; and it
was sometimes very cold, icicle cold,
in fact so cold that we'd burn whatever
we could inside, even at the cost of
possibly suffocating, just to get warm.
It was like a shanty and we stayed put.
Just before the constable and his men
came - those whom you knew were
coming - before they routed you and
pushed you out; senselessly and without
any recompense for your time or trouble.
But, then we built up some rock fortifications
around it and they served us well and kept
out marauders, and we always had a little
bit of kerosene around, so if we had to
burn anything outside we'd be able to do
that too, with a little soaking of a rag.
The wintry path which ran around us
and from us (and to us too) was very
often untrod, and we'd see that by the
snow, undisturbed. New remained new,
snow. Yet we had less and less to eat;
we'd take a rear path out, mostly known
only to us, and we'd keep a watch there too
for footprints in the new snow. It was a
good thing, then, about deep Winter.'
-
It all went on from that, there was lots
more. Sometimes, if we weren't too
drunk, that guy named Horace would
go on, telling us more, more and more
of this same sort of tale.
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