Borges’ Biscuits and Stinkweed

The man in the hat prepared an omelet with friar’s cheddar and crowberry preserve. He ate hurriedly, chewing each mouthful like a starveling waif. He lit a cigarette and sat in his favorite chair. ‘…today I will buy a new hat and a pair of matching socks …’. The sky made like it was about to fall. ‘…never but your faith in untrustworthy things…’ he mused, ‘…or falling skies…’. The water rose in defiance of common sense and hydrophilicity. Soon the banks of the aqueduct would burst, brown frothy filth flooding the tableland.

‘…this is terrible, indeed terrible …’ said the legless man. ‘…the Mountain buttercup should be watered no more than twice a month, otherwise its roots will reach to the centre of the earth…’. ‘…is that so…?’ asked the alms man. ‘…longer than a yogi’s fingernails…’ replied the legless man. This how it all began before the fever that would put an end to the beginning. This is the began of the beginning, the begun. This is not a fairy tale, nor is it puppetry or smoke and mirrors. This is how I remember it, how I was reminded to remember it, the begun of what was to begin, the beginning of the began, what began beginning long before the fever put a damper on the began of the beginning. ‘…I’m reminded of the smell of the Tea Horse road and yesterday’s leftovers…’. ‘…is that so…?’ ‘…yes, so it is so…’. ‘…you are a strange one…’. ‘…yes, I suppose I am so…’. ‘…its never to late to learn a new trick…’. ‘…or how to tell a Colt's-foot from a stinkweed…’. ‘…yes I suppose it is so…’. ‘…so it is so, so it is…’.

The legless man wished he was a legged man, one leg next to the other. He wished for a tin of Borges’ Biscuits, the kind with the happy-go-luck fool on the lid. He wished for legs, one next to the other, and a tin of Borges’ Biscuits, the one with the happy-go-lucky lid.