picnic at Black Plague River

Once upon a time on a sad and lonely planet lived a sad and lonely man named Solly, who didn’t understand what was happening, nor how nor when nor why he felt much sadder than mere words could ever say. And all across the planet all the sad and lonely people who didn’t understand what was happening got up in the morning and went to bed in the evening with heavy hearts and minds and thoughts of pure dismay.

‘Twas a time of sorrow, when a black cloud of misery and despair spread across the Planet and disease and madness slithered and scurried up the filthy streets and down the dirty drains and across the putrid alleyways like an army of funnel-web spiders in dark and grim array.

And all looked bleak and nothing ever turned out right and devils walked the streets grinning and masturbating in a particularly horrible way.

‘Twas getting very near to the end of their world, rotten and collapsing, fraught with danger, consumed by fire and greed, when comets streaked the sky and cruelty stalked the land like a mean and nasty black cat stalks its prey.

But let me tell you more about Sad Solly and his woman, Mad Molly, who kept him company, and a boat, Dad’s Folly, which they took out on Sundays to the Black Plague River, a foul but popular venue in those strange and evil days.

Theirs was a joyless union, unproductive of health or happiness, and yielding only bitter fruit: a warped and cruelty loving lad, young Wally, and a brain-damaged daughter, Odd Sally, whom they loved dearly, in a warped and hurtful way.

Then one dire and dreadful Sunday, off they took their sorry selves upon them to attempt a so-called journey to that well-known venue at the Black Plague River with their little boat behind them on the Highway of Destruction where mutants roam and zombies groan and mad skeleton bikers ride their growling hogs in search of living things to slay.

They drove for hours in silence, arriving hot and sweaty at that vile and vicious venue where they disembarked dispiritedly from their vehicle without a gleam of hope or joy. Then Sad Solly, Mad Molly, their young lad Wally, and Odd Sally climbed into Dad’s Folly upon the Black Plague River that crap and shitty Sunday on that sad and lonely Planet in September all that time ago.

The frogs were croaking, the wasps were buzzing, the mosquitoes whining, the flies flying, the humming birds humming, the crows crowing and around every crooked bend from rusty pipes upon the muddy banks into the river did toxic waste come oozing green and slow.

The pestilent air was painful to the eyes of four fools in their little boat on that loathsome, stinking river where just beneath the algal blooms lurked gangs of piranha fish with sixteen sets of razor sharp teeth, and evil alligators, anacondas, snapping turtles and the lost souls of long dead suicides trapped within delusion just beneath the surface, eyes mad with sorrow at the knowledge they have nowhere else to go.

Feeling frightened and frustrated our four forlorn phantasms floated on that oily River, lost and listless in Dad’s Folly, angry and ashamed they argued with each other until the bitter tears began to flow.

Eventually they spied a spot for their pathetic picnic and disembarking from Dad’s Folly they laid a threadbare flea-infested blanket upon the soggy ground and sniffing the air like dogs they unpacked the stuff they had taken from a not-yet-looted store.

Sad Solly lit a fire between two rocks in preparation for their rancid repast of barbequed lizard, fried frog and baked knuckle of diseased pig, accompanied by a slimy salad of bitter herbs and worm-infested lettuce hatefully assembled by Mad Molly the hot and sleepless night before.

To wash it down they had a dozen jugs of Fuckenberry Wine of which the children were allowed only one jug each, no less, no more.

Throwing a handful of spreadeagled lizard carcasses upon the fire, Sad Solly slapped at mosquitoes alighting on his dirty neck and sipped his sour foul wine and sighed.

Odd Sally splashed barefoot in the murky shallows singing a high fierce song with no words about a mindless maiden locked inside a dungeon till the day she died.

Mad Molly slouched drunkenly against a bent and twisted tree-trunk picking at her scabs until she cried.

The lad Wally scratched his greasy groin and told his dad a story bout a sly trick he’d played upon a girl to screw her silly but he lied.

And while they were thusly engaged something happened that took them by surprise.

Was it the Bluebird of Happiness? No. Was it a Fairy Godmother? No. Was it a Pot of Gold at the end of a Rainbow? No (there were no rainbows in those days). Was it the baby Jesus haloed in a cradle? No. Was it the Devil that appeared before them in disguise?

No, it wasn’t Satan, the Fallen, nor did he emerge upon them as a throng of rats, swarming in their teeming thousands, malice in their hearts and evil shining redly in their glinting eyes.

Actually, what happened was that suddenly amid the gloom there seemed to loom the shape of something different… bright and golden, somehow hopeful ...even healing, a recognition long forgotten half remembered, of an exit to a better place, where all the joy and love and beauty could be found.

A portal to another world did open up before them---a doorway to a better place where everyone is happy and every tree is green and every meadow sunny and every bunny fluffy and no-one ever drowned.

And did our family of dysfunction avail themselves of that unique escape or was it far too sudden, unexpected, unpredicted, and did they take too long and did they miss the doorway while they stuffed around?

Actually they got their act together and ran and jumped into the portal just before it closed behind their silent screams that made a frightful sound.

Arriving at the other side they smiled to see the smiling people and wandered in a daze of newfound joy from house to house, each time stopping to eat cakes and chocolates offered to them by kindly grandmothers smelling of fresh-baked bread.

But carried on the clothing and the bodies of the new arrivals was the virulent Black Plague River virus that quickly through the land and air and water of that other world did spread. The viral invaders showed no mercy gave no quarter spared no species 'til everything and everyone was dead.

Copyright © S R Schwarz 2007. All rights reserved.

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