Poe, Poe Pitiful Me (And The Start Of Something Strange)

Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower. Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna, Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.

Since we're in a kind of macabre mode here, now might be a good time to start the serialization of the darkly twisted mystery story that will be appearing as a section of my work-in-progress, A Collection of Excerpts.

PROLOGUE TO FRAYED KNOT, THE HANGMAN’S TALE

Old Bristle is a dreary seaside village situated in County Crotchford in the north of England. From its creaking, splintered wharfs you can look across the briny deep toward Ireland and dream of something green. A stony gray wash is the prevailing hue of everything, and everybody in town. So, the hope of something as near as an Irish island that The Lord painted green is a longing that underlies all that inhabitants of Old Bristle.

You would think a seafaring village's docks would be bustling with fishing boats, sea-soaked knotted nets and makeshift shops hawking the catch of the day. Truth be told, when a fishing boat takes to the water and its crew realizes there is a horizon to sail for, the boats rarely return. The source of Old Bristle's commerce and the only industry it boasts (other than the dozens of public houses, drink being a great pastime in such places) is the broom factory at the edge of town.

The Straw Pole Broom Works employs most of Old Bristle's working class. They produce a fine broom and revel in the fact that the Royal Family uses Straw Pole brooms to sweep out the Royal stables. Flimsy, brittle weak-straw brooms from the south would be no match for the weight and bearing of HRH's well-fed equine's road apples. It requires a real "stiffy" of a broom, and those are made only in Old Bristle. The locals are fond of saying, "Ye never saw any horse shit on the Bonny Prince's boots after a ride, have ye? You can thank the stiff, sturdy sweeping the stables get with a Straw Pole broom. God save the Queen!"

The locals are indeed a sad and dreary lot.

Aside from the broom factory, tourists do arrive at the Old Village rail station to visit one of the world's most historic and storied golf courses. The course at St. Mildew's has been one of the sport's most hallowed venues. The difficulty of its play is infamous. Even the most skilled players curse its unforgiving fairways and hidden traps. But, St. Mildew's is the social hub of the village. Its pub house, The Vomiting Hound, serves as town hall as well as the secular church of the dank souls dredging about in this foggy stretch of English peat moss. It has stood (or leaned) since the late 17th century and is the one landmark known to both the young and the dying. There could be no Old Bristle without the Vomiting Hound. There would be no need for the hound to vomit without Old Bristle.

But, today, the wind seems a bit colder and the streets a bit danker. The gray cloud that leaves its imprint everywhere on Old Bristle seems heavier. The sky's color more charcoal. Even the seabirds seem restless and almost completely disinterested in their scavenging.

Something is about to change. And change has never been kind to Old Bristle.