by Eoanna Petropoulacos

Created on: January 18, 2009

Clowns and graves. Fresh, open holes waiting patiently. Mirthless creatures clothed in absurdity, taking bites out of laughter and regurgitating them into toxic pellets. The vicar's wife thought of such non sequiturs when her husband gave his sermons. Two pews down, Ida Axity cradled her stillborn babe in a soft, blue fleece blanket. From time to time, she fed it phantom sweeties from the confectionary that burned to the ground twenty years ago. The parishioners turned a blind eye to Ida while the vicar continued from the pulpit. The vicar's wife sat primly, her thin hands firmly tucked beneath her thin posterior, one newly manicured index finger embedded deeply in her anus. Outside the church, beneath a pus-colored sky, a pierrot hung upside down from the old sycamore tree, swaying gracefully. Another pierrot sat cross-legged on the bleached grass, plucking plaintive threads of sound from his lute. In a little while, the hilltop service would commence. Pipers and clowns, clergy and goats would ascend the mound of land overlooking the town and ignite the pyre. Clowns and clergy would roast on a spit while the pipers played and the goats chewed wisely. Ida would feed her uncomplaining babe madeleines of remembrance. The vicar's wife extracted her digit as the sermon crashed to an end. Fire and brimstone flashed from her husband's eyes, the tendrils of his lank colorless hair stood out from his gaunt face, electrified. The parishioners rose to sing a farewell hymn. The minutes were rapidly gathering towards the midday meal traditionally prepared by the Amanita twins. That very moment, both sat together, joined by sisterly love and pelvis, on the eave of their green clapboard home, stirring a pot of venison sausage swimming in a lush brown gravy fragrant with rosemary and sage. The girls were garbed in red velvet dresses with white lace collars. When the pot came to a boil, Dita (the elder by three seconds) poured the gravy onto the lawn below. Vita meticulously forked each tender sausage, lifted it from the pot and arranged it artistically on the eave. In the distance the church bell tolled. The twins could see that the steeple was on fire. Smiling to one another, they scampered back through the window to set the table, light the candle and ring the bell. The sausage cooled in the fetid air. No one would attend the Amanita midday meal. Not even the twins. The sausage would rest blissfully on the eave, waiting for the clowns of hell and the vicar's wife to slither up the drainpipe for a midnight bite. In the vicarage, by the light of a single flame, the vicar would shoot dice with Ida and the baby. Outside in the damp night air, the pierrot would fall from the sycamore tree, silencing the lute. The goat, however, would continue to chew.

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