The Littler Little Hand

The shamble leg man loosened a stone and reshoed his shoe. He shooed a quarrel of crows, a quorum of quail and a gaggle of geese. He quaked and queried his way down the upside, legs shambling and shimmying, the stone jangling. A fowl flew flippantly flapping, its beak bent into a perfect O. He cast his eyes skyward and said ‘ex pluribus abracadabra’ the crows scattering like mice, a beer cap rolling fitfully on the blacktop. There were drifters in these parts who carried cudgels spore with nails in dog-skin scabbards, and wineskins full of calf’s urine. Life’s curves begin with a withering, typeset set to 27 ½. This is absolute nonsense! Dog-skinned drifters, a cudgels-worth of gimp hoisted over hip and holler. Cabot’s nuisance: a scuttle of crows caw cawing, one leg one over the other, a knitting bee gone terribly wrong.‘These are strange times indeed’ thought the shamble leg man. He stood in the shadow of the Seder’s clock, one eye on the big hand the other on the sun, squinting to make a bead on the littler little hand, the one that tells time in seconds, not days or affliction. At exactly 27 ½ seconds past twelve he let out a scream, the bulb of his nose curling up like a marigold, eyes two black holes, 27 ½ teeth missing and not an (innkeeper’s dimwit) in sight.