Midsummer
Madness
It is one of
the strangest memories I have. That summer day unraveled as ordinarily as a
dropped ball of yarn. I had gone to town
in search of diversion but found none. Even the pub was closed for renovation,
so I don’t want to hear ye later blaming me visions from none of the devil’s spirits.
Though I will say, that if you told me that me evening meal of brandied pork
didn’t have all the alcohol sautéed out of the sauce, I’d be inclined to agree,
the later circumstances being so wierd.
After dinner, with a whole day diddled away, it was time to
cross this date off the calendar and put me self to bed. I wasn’t really so tired but I thought
perhaps me boredom would bring on the sirens of sleep. Little did I know.
Perky
little Poinciana, me Maltese companion, faithfully followed me and me evening tea
upstairs to bedchamber. Her dainty dexterity never failed to amaze me as she
launched herself unaided to her spot on the coverlet. Sitting me tea on the bedstand,
I wrapped me self up and set upon business at hand. How did “Wee Willie” say
it: “To sleep, perchance to dream?” It was not to be.
Twas a night of
full moon. The night curtains were ner
drawn, and the erie light shown on the wall making patterns easily construed as
dancing things of the night. I hoped the
lights would help lull me, but, alas, they had opposite effect and I could not
drift off. This went on for hours. Tossing for position, turning to find better
comfort. Time passed as a slug crawling across Hydrangea stem.
“This boring
day simply will not dismantle,” I mumbled. But me grouse was no sooner uttered
when I heard sounds from outside. There
was a hum, a crackling and some flashes; like heat lightening. Strange, but I was adamant in not getting out
of me casket of malingering malaise. The
ruckus subsided. Still, no sleep.
There came a
melodic sound. Like a string instrument.
Like a guitar? No, more like a
violin but not so lilting. I really don’t know for sure. It was very late and
me senses were befuddled. It perdured.
I rose from me
repose, drew up the sash, and peered out me window.
Glowing In the
garish moonlight, some strange alien craft was in the middle of me croquet lawn,
sitting there like some upturned birdbath of enormous proportion. From one side protruded what appeared a
staircase or ramp that I can only relate to you as resembling a soup ladle or
curved spoon. Beside this craft and its small circular spot, charred from
whatever propulsion had brought it to my backspace, was a rather ethereal
creature of feline features, only larger and bereft of any fur, at least that I
could tell in shadowy moonlight.
The creature
did not see me, but was involved holding some appliance from which this
haunting “music” was coming from. It ambled delicately about on two pods as
though searching for something, with these almost melodic sounds wafting up
through me window.
Poinciana was
alert and these dulcet tones were as beguiling to her as to me self. I smiled in bewilderment. She, jumping up
onto the window seat began a staccato bark/chirp as she is want to do when she
is amused and happy. If a dog can laugh, that’s what it will sound like. And
laugh she did.
The alien
creature immediately took notice, and startled. The “music” stopped and it
turned and ran up the ramp-spoon into the dish. The spoon silently retracted.
With more
crackling hums and flashes the craft rose, almost lurching, up, up into the sky
. It hovered over me neighbors pasture. A
green light (a ray?) shown from below this alien vehicle spotlighted his best
milker cow, and she was drawn; no levitated; up into a gaping hole in the craft
bottom. And then, aperture closed after her, now inside the vessel.
Then, without
further hesitation, the dish thing departed, in starts, vaulting up into the
sky and over an omniscient moon as Poinciana happy-barked it adieu.
Whew...I have
kept this to meself all these years so as not to be called the village
idiot. I have professed ignorance to the
total disappearance of me neighbor’s cow and have tried many times to
rationalize this whole happenstance as daydreaming or some illusion due to
summer night vapors.
I do, however,
keep one little snippet of dalliance ,
scratched down upon a vellum sheet and pieced in between pages of “Chaucer’s
Tales” so that if one should come upon
it after me demise, they, like I ,can eternally wonder just what this event
was, or if it even ever happened at all...
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the
fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon.
The Cow jumped over the moon.
The little Dog
laughed,to see such sport,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.[
