THE ONGOING MYSTERY OF MILL ON THE FLOSS (Part Three : It rhymes with nothing, nothing ever could!)

His crime was such he could no longer consider himself human. He was half-man half-rat, or the other way around. He was never quite sure himself, which came first, the rattle or the moan? Some mornings he’d wake up rattling, other mornings he’d wake up moaning. He never woke up smiling. He was either an angry rat or a miserable man.

As a man he thought too much about death and disappointment, divine abandonment or the dreary dearth of any joy that utterly satisfied him. As a rat he didn’t think at all, he knew nothing could satisfy him, he just wanted to devour everything.

One evening as he stood on the threshold of his house, in that twilight state between man and rat, he saw a little beggar on the street holding up a big sign. Or was it the big sign holding up the little beggar? The sign was much bigger than the beggar, who looked like a dwarf. His face was familiar. Or was it the sign he recognized? Either the dwarf or the sign asked him if he was mad. “are you made? If you’re mad you need to meet me at the hotel Flange in half-an-hour, room 276, Avenue of The Pike!”

Then the beggar flipped the sign. Or the sign flipped the beggar. There appeared a half-naked woman wearing a grass-skirt, who didn’t look familiar, though she spoke familiarly “can you do the hula?” Only madmen do the hula, he thought, in spite of himself, his hips beginning to swivel. His arms began to sway. He closed his eyes as if in a trance. He was no longer a man, no longer a rat, he was a dancer of the hula..

Suddenly the music stopped. There had never been any music. Nothing stopped except the dance. He opened his eyes and he was in a tiny room, little more than a cubicle. Sunshine was streaming through the window. But there was no window. There was no door. Only a silver spittoon, up from which the phantom of a mermaid arose, on crutches, gleaming wet and wounded. She had a mirror tattooed on her forehead. He could see himself in her brain and the sight wasn’t very pretty. He was an old man. And mirrors don’t lie, Though mermaids rarely tell the whole truth. He spoke to his madness in a loud clear voice : “I’d like a strong cup of Earl Gray generously sweetened with honey!”

He knew he was asking nothing short of a miracle. A rat slipped silently away under the floorboards. “Forgive me?” spoke the mirror, softly, un-spokenly, repeated “forgive me? Forgive me?” But there is nothing to forgive. There was nothing to forgive. We obviously both mis-read the sign.