Sir Glancelot sat at round table with a plethora of admirers, a goblet of wine, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into four triangles. (That's the way that Glancelot liked his sandwiches. He detested having his sandwich cut into squares. His mother had cut them that ways when he was young and he had never forgiven her for it.)
Glancelot had just selected the second triangle from the top (clockwise) and was taking his first, long expected bite when the unthinkable happened. Instead of sinking his glistening pearls into that delectable treat, Glancelot found himself crunching hard bone.
Glancelot was appalled. "Why," he demanded, "is there a bone in my sandwich?"
He didn't expect anyone to reply. People were generally too afraid to talk to him when he was angry. So he was shocked when he heard a gloomy bass voice say, "That would be mine."
More surprising than the voice was the fact that it came from thin air. But no, Glancelot realized when he looked closer, not thin air. It was little more than a slight, gaseous discoloration at first, but the longer he stared at it, the more solid it became. And at last it assumed definite, if rather smoky, form. It was a wraithlike beast. A ghostly dog.
“Is this what your mother would have?!” demanded the ghostly dog. “Here you sit with a world of food to explore, yet what do you do? You refuse to eat anything but PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWHICHES!”
I’m not sure how much of this Glancelot was retaining. The utter shock and surprise of have one’s meal interrupted by an ethereal Labrador robbed him of any faculty of recollection.
“How many times did your mother try to convince you that there is more out there than this peasant’s snack? On your mother’s grave, a curse to you- a Putty Tongue curse!”
Glancelot's shock gave way to sheer panic as a most inexplicable sensation overtook him. His mouth suddenly became filled with a substance which was by no means familiar: something like an eel and something like raw pie crust and altogether a hideous feeling indeed. Glancelot gasped, the full weight of this sepulchral visitor's words hitting him... Putty... Tongue... Curse. No taste! No speech! No taste!!
"My mother?" he choked incoherently. "She sent you here to curse me? How could she do this?"
“Were I you,” barked the Labrador, “I’d worry less about my mother’s sense of humor and more about how to break the curse.”
***
Glancelot gazed dejected into the mirror the next morning.
"Wediquwas!" he blubbered. The inside of his mouth looked no different than anyone else's except for a small splinter of bone that was wedged between his back molars. He picked at it, trying desperately to get it out.
Useless. Not only was the previous night's party a terrible disaster in which he was brutally laughed at, his own servants were sneering at him behind closed doors. His own dear Gwen was no doubt spreading the rumor among her close maids.
"Enoufwpt!" cried Glancelot. "Thith thall not go on for anover moment! I must find a way to bweak thith dwead cuwse!" he continued meditatively.
The very faint sound of stifled giggles burst from outside his chamber door. He glared severely at the door, wishing intensely to throw some verbal abuse at the unseen mocker. Glancelot turned again toward the mirror, probing at the splinter of bone with his tongue.
"Ow, Muvvah!" he wailed desparingly (but softly), "if onwy your spiwit would guide me again!"
"You could say please," said a familiar bass voice.
"You!" shouted Glancelot.
The ghostly dog nodded.
"Perhapth," Glancelot continued, remembering his manners, "you have a message fwom my Muvvah that will help me?"
"I might. First," demanded the ghostly dog, "Answer me this:
"I am the tiniest bomb, ticking 1200 beats
before dropping the weight of a penny
on some unsuspecting intruder
to my territory.
Who am I?"
before dropping the weight of a penny
on some unsuspecting intruder
to my territory.
Who am I?"
Those words were already nothing more than ghostly echos as the Labrador vanished back into thin air.
"A Widdo!" cried Glancelot. "Just wah I needed! A widdo!"
Glancelot sat down gloomily on the edge of his bathtub until the servant finally arrived with the bath salts.
As the door opened, a tiny object shot through opening, knocking the servant aside.
"A bird!" said Glancelot. "The tiniest bird!"
The bird alighted upon his windowsill.
"The answer to the widdo," cried Glancelot. "But wah doeth it mean? And be off with you!" The servant bowed out.
Glancelot turned to the space where the Labrador had been and stared thoughtfully at it, as though it held the answers he sought."A bird," he said again. "Ith thith the message from my dear Muvvah?"
And it hit him. The key to the curse was held in this riddle. Birds... what was it the Labrador has said before cursing him? Something about food, a world of food...
"But wah doeth food have to do with birds?" he wailed. "Oh, Witto bird," said poor Glancelot in dismay. "Is dere anything such a smwall fing could do for my poor dejected self?"
The tiny bird jumped up and began buzzing excitedly around the room. It hovered close to Glancelot's mouth confusing him for more than a moment. Hesitantly, Glancelot opened his mouth and the tiny creature flew into his mouth and, grasping the wedged bone with it's tiny jaws, plucked the bone free. A delightful sensation beyond anything he had ever experienced flooded Glancelot's mouth as his tongue loosed, his lips tightened, and his jaw began to work once again!
“Huzzah!” he shouted. Such was his rejoicing, he capered merrily about his chambers. “Lollipop! Poinsettia! Candlewicks! Oh, all glory be to heaven! I can speak!”
Glancelot saluted the bird smartly. “Thank you, ghostly Labrador! I see it all now, little bird. Riddles! Birds! A world of food! My dear mother wished only the best for me, and now I am able, I shall order myself the handsomest of omelettes. And I shall not stop there! I shall delight myself in the daintiest delicacies this glorious world has to offer!”
And so he did, to the end of his days.
The End
Oh. Yes. I think we can classify this one as a win.
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