"This guava-pie is
the best I have ever eaten!" exclaims the Wretch.
The days have been warm
this winter and the guavas have ripened
into sweet and heavy
specimens. "I woke up with fruit-flies in my bells
this morning" the
Carillon excitedly reports "They are good company seeing that I have been rather
lonely these past few months."
The Cave-Dweller
smacking his lips on the guava's juices splutters "It has been too long since I have
tasted fruits of such richness."
The Loner, clearly
envious of the fruity breakfast he is not invited to
partake of, mumbles
"How quickly sweetness goes to people's heads."
The Wretch wipes his
mouth with one grandiloquent gesture and enunciates "These fruits taste so much more balmy
in my mouth than this damn vinegar-tongue I have been cursed with!"
All of a sudden the Carillon chimes a jovial melody from her boisterous
bowels. "These blessed fruit-flies are tickling me in the most curious ways
Hahaha!" The Cross Roads surfacing from a deep slumber confusedly remarks
"Where are these sounds coming from? This is too jolly for my ears right now."
The Wretch, still overjoyed from the guavas, insensitively shushes the Cross Roads
"Come now, a bit of a janglin' tune is what we all need here on this desolate
plain." The Anarchist, with arms swinging irately at his sides, storms up towards the
Wretch "How dare you give such opinionated advice? Sweet fruits and tunes
will not save the world from your wretchedness!"
For an elongated moment
everyone looks with stunned eyes at each other.
Even the Anarchist could
not hide the shock his own words caused him.
In the act of the
Prehistoric Postal Agent opening his mouth in readiness to utter an appropriate or
inappropriate reply, he is instantaneously silenced by a great clashing sound. "I
am falling apart," the Carillon laments. The Prehistoric Postal Agent leaps to the Carillon
with a concerned speed heretofore unseen by anyone.
After inspecting the
innards of the Carillon the Prehistoric Postal Agent proudly broadcasts:
"I have good news
and I have bad news."
Everyone pleaded to hear
the bad news first.
"The bad news is
that our most devoted and dutiful Singer of the Skies has lost one bell."
Everyone gave one loud
sob and pleaded in great consternation to hear the good news.
With a mischievous smile the Prehistoric Postal Agent continues "And the good news is
that it was the out-of-tune bell."
* * *
Although it is not necessary to read the Cross Roads poems in sequence I guess (and hope) it is rather interesting to follow the escapades of the characters as they appeared in the previous Cross Roads. Here the links to the first three Cross Roads poems >
