Zynischen Vernunft

On the 16thof June 1967 Éamon Pádraig Pearse resigned his office. I’ve had it up to here’ he said raising his hand above his head. ‘you raving people are stark mad’. That was the first and last that was heard or seen of Éamon Pádraig Pearse, the littlest dogman throwing an empty bottle at his departing head. Some people aren’t suited to a life of crossly drawn lines. The following year the Advent of the Cross was replaced with The Bleeding of the lamb, the crucifixion leitmotif causing a row among the townsfolk. A streamer with the words 'Zynischen Vernunft' painted on it flew by gabled to the tail of an airplane, the congregants taking it as a talisman of future sorrows, the Witness reading it as message from on high and Dejesus saying it was the work of a small group of nihilists who had access to an airplane and long bolts of cloth.

Written in pale blue almost turquoise ink, wet where the ink had bled through the paper leaving a birthmark-like smear on the back, the man in the hat read the following: ‘I KNOW WHERE THE MISSING GLOVE IS. IT’S RED AND HAS TWO BUTTONS MISSING ON THE WRIST’. ‘well I’ll be’ said the man in the hat. ‘never underestimate a man’s prudence and good nature’. He crumpled up the note, the corners sticking out like corn ears, and tossed it into the dustbin. ‘I could sleep forever’ mused the man in the hat sleepily. ‘yet I won’t. Not a wink’. His thoughts fell upon the letter and the puzzling hand that wrote it.