The Malcontent and the Cretin

The headstone stuck out of the wet earth like a cook's knife, the deceased’s name chiseled into the granite face, the first and last names barely legible. The shamble leg man walked round the grave, his feet sinking into the loose wet earth, the sky puling and wailing like a lost child. The earth cinched round his ankles, grave water and old bone seeping in through a hole in his boot. Overnight in the overnight asylum the shamble leg man played craps with a cretin and a malcontent. The malcontent won sparingly the cretin narrowly and the shamble leg man scarcely. The Waldau brothers watched the men pound the die off the dining room wall. The eldest, Gordy, dressed in a white linen suit buttoned to his Adam’s apple, counting off the number of times the cretin hit double sixes. Horace, the youngest of the two brothers, dressed in funereal jacket and matching trousers, the cuffs frayed and tattered, held his breath every time the malcontent got ready to throw, fearing he might pound one off the wall and into his mouth, whereupon he feared he might swallow it, mistaking it for a sugar cube or a Scotch mint. After the shamble leg man tired of pounding die off the dining room wall, he left the cretin, the malcontent and the Waldau brothers behind, biding them a cold adieu, the cretin pulling at the corners of his mouth like sad clown. The headstone stuck out of the wet earth like a cook's knife, the deceased’s name chiseled into the granite face, the first and last names barely legible. The shamble leg man, stopping to tie his boot, looked down at the wet earth and said ‘…never judge a book by its cover, it’ll only make you sad with regret…’. The next day, at 27½ past the hour, he started out on his daily walk, not quite sure where he was going or when he’d be back, a cold drizzle raining down upon his naked head.