The Lion, The Children, And The Zoo

Dearest Judith,

It is with deep regret and a sorrowful heart that I write this missive to you. I cannot say when the madness first began to appear among them, but it spread among the children like wildfire and would not be contained. I believe the fancies begun with tales by Mr. Tumnus, our elderly gardener who once worked for the zoo until the unfortunate incident with the elephant which I shall not relate herein.

I have reason to suspect that the Turkish Delight Mr. Tumnus gave to Lucy and the others contained various hallucinogens owing to the bizarre nature of their behaviour and the eventual tragic results. While the police are still not certain about the events at the county zoo, it is known that Edmund decided a random woman was his mother and refused to leave her side until the other three children freed a lion and it attacked her and killed the poor woman and then the four children who were to all accounts trying to get it to “name the animals”, of all possibly absurdities.

The lion was rather enraged and the police shot it a multitude of times before it fell, breaking a stone park bench and, astonishly, trying to rise again before they shot it several more times. The children, alas, could not be saved.

The police are still searching my home for clues as to their aberrant behaviour but alas with the disappearance of Mr. Tumnus we may never know just what he gave poor Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter. God rest their souls.

Your loving brother, Digory.

P.S. You would not believe the condition of grandmother’s old wardrobe in the attic. I don’t know what games they were playing in it, but it is positively disgraceful. I cleaned out human waste from it and some of Lucy’s toys, leading me to believe the other three must have locked her in their at one point.

Box and fox excerpt

"A boy was following the path. He was thin and hollowed out, skin pale with a hint of grey under it, head devoid of hair save for spare eyebrows."

That is probably one of my better mistakes :)

A one word bit of fun

one word gives you a word, and sixty seconds to write something about it. This was mine:


All he had, he told her, was hers. She didn't believe him and returned home, across the seas, and he sent her his heart later that year, in a box, only it never got past customs.

Love, the post office said, is not exportable. Neither is that.

The nail

Thinking about Roy, my tears tracing
fresh lines of woe into my face like
the cuts on my arms, I cover my sorrow
with a veil, my arms with
a top, and oh, my sorrow, and oh, my
sorrowess, the memory is tender
as a bruise and my muse expires
from the pain of ecstasy as I write
his name in the sand of time to be
washed away, grimed and ruined
in all but memory of Roy.

I would have nailed him like Jesus
to the cross, licked his sorrow like
sandpaper-kitten toungues and the pain
of my broken nail reminds me tears swelling
like my belly (all better, now)
like a whale on the beach, dying, and he
no longer is, but I wish to see him
but once and again, forevermore. My love.