SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

YEAR FIVE | Sit.24: The Parody

The chicken took longer to roast than I expected. As of the summer and autumn that followed, he hadn't even been plucked, let alone stuffed. He was spitting on people's houses, he was breaking tables at the bar... he was smashing mugs, he was kissing women without their say-so, and he was taunting the husbands and would-be suitors of those women, guffawing that it was "all in jest". He'd even raid his own mead supply, and blame it on "criminals" in the morning, having someone innocent pay an exorbitant fine to cover "production costs" and then punishing them with months of hard labor. Then he'd piss on someone's door to let out his fizz each night, and retreat to his long-house where he snored so loud I thought we'd all revolt against him in our sleep. But no matter how much I felt the axe should be above his neck any second, he always found a way to keep distracted an entire town of artists and merchants – to keep them from seeing he was anything but. No, This Heathen was a loutly fraud and scheister, a liar, and a thief. And obviously, a rapist. But that's how ne'er-do-wells survive, by lengthening their list of crimes so readily and with zeal as to make the juror throw their hands up and sigh. To make so numerous their degeneracies that to be accurate and fair to them in earnest is to be lost in the bog, mud swallowing your boots, socks, and soon enough your screams. One can scarcely remember the first crime before they've committed the next, and then another, and then another just for show.

It was one particular show that had my teeth gritted round, and my anger inside my forehead, boiling my eyes red. The Heathen had appended The Author's fantasy with a character of his own creation: The Cock of the Walk. Unlike the cat's youthful, honorable naïveté, the rooster was older, more crass, and so jaded bitter he was outright toxic.
"Well I say, dear cat, this is a fine fucking mess!" he'd squawk. "What say we fuck this guy's shit up and get the hell out of here for some Golden Showers' mead and some cheap whores?"
"What's a whore?" the cat would respond.
"Ah, don't mind, then... more for me. I'll tell all when yer older. For now, just imagine several busty women sitting on a cock. CUCKAW!!"
The crowd would laugh, every week, and applaud his brazen audacity. If played right, this moment could have been a shining gold one in a more serious tale. But The Heathen's pen had no taste for longer, more dire, or meaningful tales. He knew only how to "reap laughter", and praised himself through his self-ideated icon in a cavalcade of shorter, more comedic works. Again, in better hands, this could have been a successful deconstruction; something witty and charming to ease people's hearts between drearier legends... but the only heart The Heathen sought to balm was his own.
"Well, well, well," said the rooster, "What a fine maiden you have there, sir cat!"
"Why thank you," replied the raven.
"Tell me, have you ever craved bird?" he'd quest.
"I beg your pardon?" she'd innocently say.
"Well I see that you're feathered, as I, and I wonder what it's like spitting hair-balls after kissing your mate!" the rooster jeered, gravelly and shrill.
She'd huff, "Well, I never! How can you speak to a lady so?"
The cat would defend him, time after time. As if he'd never heard it before in his life. "Maiden, he means nothing by it, it's all in jest, isn't it?" he'd say. His actor spoke in a way so trusting and adolescent, it made you hope.
"Yes, yes," crowed the rooster, "I was only wondering if you've thought about kissing a cock! CUCKAW!!"
The rooster crowed, and the audience died with laughter. Grown men, drunk as fish in a bottle, fell to their knees. Women held their sides to keep them intact, and one laughed so hard her corset snapped, only empowering the wave even further. Children repeated the joke amongst themselves, trying to out-perform the very stage... but this focus on the audience angered The Heathen, distracted from his self-projection, and his dreams lifing true for all to know. He held up his hand, watching from a high-chair he'd commissioned to sit above all others, with stairs so broad and low you'd think it was an incline if you squinted – it took up enough space to make a small house blush, right where everyone would normally bustle. Since its installation, people have bumped into and cursed each other out twice as many times, for dropped and shattered clay pots and spilled boxes of vegetables... even smashing each other's faces in, so hard their noses bled. They were utterly blind to one another for the structure's unwieldy corners, and its planked gaps between struts to "keep out saboteurs". Another display of fear before trust from a man who claimed to be trustworthy. It took The Jack several trees just to get enough wood to build it. But I digress.
The Heathen held up his hand, and loudly, he crowed, "I DEMAND SILENCE!"
It grew almost quiet, but the children couldn't contain their giggles. He was like a Roman Emperor always, but he knew to appear patient.
"Continue," he said calmly over them.
And so the farce went on. In several skits, the rooster would make one crude joke every minute. In the rest, every half-minute. The pace was increasing so fast, the laughter couldn't keep up, and eventually, it simply dulled. Nobody could catch their breath and simmer on the meaning of the joke as it shined on their own lives, before they heard the word "cock" another hundredth time. Each week, fewer people laughed, and fewer people attended. Smiles turned into confused grimaces, and soon, people simply rolled their eyes as they walked past the stage and high-chair, where The Heathen would be howling with laughter at his own jokes played out by actors he'd paid. And eventually, he too, stopped laughing, and would simply sit there chuckling low between sips of mead. Those mugs were refilled by his new service-man, the chubby fanboy, who waited on him hand and foot, and seemed to idolize The Heathen's every word.
"I can't believe you wrote that," he'd glimmer, shaking his head. "That's legitimately funny, that is. You're such a genius." He clinked his own mug with his idol's, and they were made brothers by it.
"Thanks," The Heathen glowed. "It was taught to me by years of life, fortnights of war, and centuries of drinking." Then he took a long sip, and belched into the actors' lines uncaringly.
"God, that's fucking wise," the fan-boy cheered, and chuckled some more on his foam.
And that was all pretty frustrating, and disheartening. But the moment that boiled my blood was yet to come. The actors, needing fare from the crowd to eat and unmet by the shallow patronage of their so-called 'Lord', decided to allow warping not just of the story's cast and tone, but its very soul.
The Cat O' Sparks arrives home one day from a brave adventure, eating a slice of cake from his paw. Meanwhile, the raven and the rooster are messing around in his bed. I became darkly sick to my stomach as I watched my counterpart make his way over, looking as clueless as an infant, while the unguilted birds narrowly evaded his sight by standing behind him, comically close to being discovered. He gets into bed, which the raven hides under, forcing the rooster to pose as her, sleeping next to him.
The cat grabs his bed-mate by the waist, and says, "Maiden, you seem much bigger tonight. That's very strange, isn't it?"
The rooster replies, "I'll let you scorn me when you lay off the cake yourself, pal."
"Maiden, that's rude!" the cat whined.
"So's poking my back," jabbed the rooster.
And to my own shame, I laughed, because it was genuinely funny – but it ruined my comfort in those characters, the ones I knew and loved... and the people I loved them for. The Heathen found his way to bed the cat's sister as well, in an equally dull and heartless fashion as he originally had that terrible day... repeating his own crime for all to see, and being praised for it. The girl was challenged to a drinking contest by the rooster and his friends, betting for gold and glory. But when she lost, they had their way with her, instead. The people saw nothing wrong, because they'd seen it all before in pieces – altogether, now, it looked normal to them. Had they known the real story, they might have recoiled... but The Heathen's framing stole the event of its true damage. The audience had no mercy for her. Some of them even laughed, and I wanted to take my scythe and mow through them like blades of grass. But I stayed my hand, because I knew the source of the corruption. Once uprooted, the rest of them might heal. He'd taken something noble, That Heathen, and twisted it deranged and insensitive. Wrung the blood from its heart and made it callous. I resented that the stage gave him a way to air out his rot, and waft it all over town. I waited for my chance to strike, but the long-house doors were always locked tighter than I could budge each night, and it had no windows. And during the day, he showered in adoration, all eyes on his glory. To speak against him, even after one of his daily excursions into assery, was to risk being shunned by the others; all were too afraid to become the sore thumb who'd get stuck hauling hay and shovelling shit for a full month, without pay. My Mentor once told me: "Platforms let us see all things as equal, regardless of what they weigh; a scale can lean for the difference, but a stage won't budge, no matter what. This is their use, and their danger."