Back in the sixties my brothers and myself took a friend on a pigeon killing expedition; we lived on a fruit farm, pigeons were vermin. we were boys with knives and sharp sticks. Maybe I had just read 'Lord of the flies'. The memory has remained fixed in my head since then; I cringe even now.
I think we were probably showing off a little; our ability to take the lives of defenceless critters without remorse, A macho boy thing.
I had forgotten who our companion was on that day.
Until now.
This morning, during an on line 'chat' with a guy I haven't set eyes on since that summer, he reminded me of the incident... It remained in his head all these years too!
Sorry Hugo... As I said: Strange country the past.
1 comment:
There is too much going on at the moment. I keep thinking I should be mourning Jan and celebrating Tristan, 'long live the king' and then having second thoughts about this repository of lies and whether I am just another foolish dupe. Since I am hedging my bets I have been in touch with an old ghost I know at the Catacombe in Palerme (French spelling for obvious reasons) to see if their is space for another 'momie' amongst the entombed. I think it is mere a matter of making the right stuffing and just getting on with the job, dispassionately filling the necessary cavities with the right gunge; and then you last forever. It does seem that there is a lot to be 'hung about', aka Strawberry Fields, and many bad boys with edgy consciences who could get well and truly stuffed for what they got up to with their mates in the good old English countryside. I knew a nice middle class boy who went rabbiting with those working class boys from the White City estate, out to smugglers track in the Vale of Taunton Dene. Loosing the ferret from an overcoat pocket, netting the rabbit holes and awaiting the prize to fall into a tangled domain of death by clubbing; the boy prepared to despatch the poor beast took the warm bundle home, cut free from the looped lattice. Off with its head, peeled free of skin, cured with salt peter and a hat for a boy besotted by Davy Crocket could emerge. In the kitchen, a mother unable to tackle Rag Tag or Bobtail was eager to gut the naked beast; that dangling cigarette dancing traceries where no smell could go but yellow stains secrete. Out came its entrails and into the pot. A mother and child reunion, as Paul Simon would say, but I would prefer not to hear him sing that right now.
Post a Comment