Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Wet Nurses and Toy Horses

The legless man never rode a bicycle or wore matching socks. He had no shoes or figure-skates, no alpine skis or an alpine toque. He had wooly mittens and a wooly scarf, both knit by his great-grandmamma with bone knitting-needles and mutton wool. He had a pushcart that he paddled with stove-poles, caroming and veering his way round town with the greatest of ease. He had a wet nurse with an immense bosom, perfectly round areolas and an unlimited supply of milk. He went about shoeless, shunting his pushcart round town in lovingly knit wooly mittens and a wooly scarf.

He liked crabapple pie and warm milk, potato-crisps and Gibbs’ Hard Mustard. On the second day after he was born he cried, not a moment before. He cried for milk and for toys, for baubles and for colourful balloons, he cried for his mother and for legs, of which he had none; he cried for more milk and for more toys, for more colourful balloons, for a mother and for two legs. He cried until his eyes swelled shut, he cried until his lungs ached and his tiny heart broke. But mostly he cried for more milk and two legs, for a big red balloon and a shiny toy horsy.

The harridan strapped her legs in nylons and hose, corsets and peignoirs. She wrapped them in broadcloth; she banded and buckled them with old seatbelts and carpet-tacking. She stared for hours at her legs in the mirror wondering if they could be crossed-over, the left one being exchanged for the right one. She seldom wept, but when she did she wept with such a cattish wail that her lips crackled and split round the corners. She wore ruffles and flouncing fastened to her skirt with curette-pins.

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