the clock unwound

December 1st, 2045

Muchfurtherdowningtown

That Foetid Swamp On The Delaware

My hearer, my prominence, my apogean self.

Caius.  Not in a dog's bent and broken age has your name passed these fulsome lips, their tender repose undisturbed by the fluttering you erstwhile induced.  The thrushes, cicadas, and wisping cattails alike set aside their impatient murmurs, and set the sun too, and my brow lowered, and you were gone.

I have been ill, my bosom pal, too ill to sing or speak or stand or hold a wavy image of you in my tired mind.  Wherefore my sorry state, the physickers have little notion, but they pat my shoulder most reassuringly.  The missus has assisted, in her insuperable manner, but finds herself oft affected by the ague, by which I mean, of course, that our children bother her inscrutably with this or that nonsense, to my utmost chagrin.

Reduced to this pitiable penury of powers, I have sought diverse amusements which can be undertaken by a man in his frailty.  Did you know, sweet Caius, that there exist seventy-seven separate rhymes for the word 'disputable'?  Ah, it is a terrible thing, to be ill, and perceive no cure to grasp at.

So it was with you, beloved Caius, whose wings grew ever wider than I'd surmised.  Was there a thought spared for me on that golden pate?  Did your thrumming mind, amid its dovey ascent, but once come to rest on my much-beleaguered face, my soapy eyelids, my blithe mien?

Bah, but I hate this doddering, senseless prattle!...I am not despondent and I am not demanding. Suppose me, not a supplicant, but a supplican.  Wasn't there a time you and I stood tall, two kings of the Better Way, in spite of all their sycophantic slobbering to the contrary?  My pride, it is, that does me ill, and besets upon my breast the cough and lather.  And if you'll forgive the ugly, Shakespearean horse-sense for what it is, you may detect within it the quiet call of yesteryear.  O Postverta!  Waggle not those hips at me, which contain the centuries.

That's the gist, you noble soul, the upright news of a downcast heart.  To the extent that what former passed between us, moreso than the many letters, beyond the sallow humor and the reaper's disdain, in excess of the gross camaraderie which somehow persisted outside the bonds of alcoholic valour, was, above all, the cool complement of two most excellent souls, as is beyond dispute, I write to propose a very swift and merciless resumption of that galling interchange, now and to the death.

A cry for help??--Pah!  A plea for challenge!  Are you wanting, young C?  Revive me, if you can!

infused with light from a silver tree

that's how I'd know you, and you'd know me

In terms of insipid, inspirited, idiocy in excelsis (known only to the brave),

The Right Noble Mr. Buttercup (and heirs)