Unencumbered by Any Sadness

Unencumbered by Any Sadness

       by Dugly R.

 twa corbies

     by willard willhelm whinn

sniggles was a willing hound

he held the world in awe

but when he turned to eating dirt

he wore his awe away

Sniggles bit himself, howled, sniffed at the pain, considered immediately biting himself again, sighed, and settled down to sleep. This was just outside the caravan, in the sun, on a May morning, with the promise of summer in the air.

       Sniggle's mistress Nelly performed with the circus. She had done since she was a little girl at the request of her uncle. Her parents, Linda and William Singh, reluctant, gave in when the money sounded too good to pass up. Her dog (Sniggles above) whom she eventually claimed was her uncle reincarnated, kept to her like a burr. If anyone tried anything Sniggles could be counted on to show strong resistance. His bark alone had deterred many a wanton advance and caused more than one man to rely of a sudden on his heels.

       Shortly after she joined the circus her parents died in a trolley accident and were interred in their local village far from anywhere that Nelly ever could go. Her uncle took care of her instead until he himself met with an accident, the latter event being the focus of this story. Nelly had felt about him with ambivalence and he had felt about her with equal emotion. Though they cared deeply about each other, when time came for their great parting neither suffered either long or hard. They had shared a single caravan for ten years, ever since Nelly turned six, as I said, and now that vehicle was hers alone. Nelly reveled in the freedom from tight quarters, little food, men playing cards late into the night, women coming and going and a table too little for two. She could do now what she wanted, wear as much or as little as she pleased when inside and eat when and what she chose. Now she had, she felt, really joined the circus.

       On the day of the accident she got the rope tighter as he requested. If she obeyed she got extra tanpan and sniplops with acorn milk. If she resisted, out of love for him or out of sympathy for his pain, she received a much smaller portion and found it difficult to walk or work till the following day's meal came her way. Then, when he was accustomed once more to this new tightness, she finally acted on his whispered entreaties and turned the wheel one more full circle. He could not speak now but his eyes moved up and down, which meant that he wished for another turn of the wheel. This was more than she had ever done before and more than she could bear. Seven full turns after the arrow.

       She shook her head. He grew pale and sad-looking and she knew that he had fully intended this time to break his record and be able once more to bite himself as he had managed in his younger years. He was sure, she could tell from his silence at mealtimes these last few days, from his straight gait as well as his furtive looks behind him, that he felt that he was entirely ready now to cross an uncrossed line and to grasp what had eluded him for so long.

       She turned to walk to the release button but something in him made her hesitate, and then quickly she took ahold of the wheel and turned it, vigorously so as not to make him suffer slow pain, fully rotating it without looking into his eyes. His face now came right up to his buttocks and between. He almost smiled as he opened his lips and mouth wide and valiant, wide with victory and valiant with effort, and down came the teeth about his own anus. He bit deeply and hard. He would have screamed but for the constriction of his throat.

       He would have screamed but he died instead.  He suffocated at that moment having not breathed now for many a minute and unaware that he was not breathing. Nelly did not know that he had died. He was there curled up with a mouthful of nether for ten minutes before she realized that he was not experiencing pleasure any longer but had passed to another state of some sort. She pushed the release button and he unwound in a hurry till his teeth reached their nadir and he stayed there, circular, unable entirely to unrecoil, dentalis clenched as if in earnest about his rectum. Rigor mortis set in before they came to release him. They buried him in a circular grave.

       Now when she walks through the caravan she feels uncle's curled presence but does not mind. She is not someone to hold a grudge or to hate anyone for more than a minute. She has her own odd, circuitous thinking at times. Mostly, however, she is content to live alone unencumbered by any sadness or other persons' needs.