A first archival remnant of the year.

detail of skateboard graveyard fist posted jan 10th

This month we are looking through The Archives newly housed at The Institute of Disorganised Elements. Why is explained here.

Archival Remnant No 1 catalogue number MX786

All his friends told him it would be so, and he should have known better anyway.

If you fall in love with a witch there will be a price to pay.

So what! He had always been attracted to witches – their black clothes, their wild unkempt hair, their knowing power over men.

Their cats.

He loved cats.

If he could be an animal he would be a cat.

“I can make that happen’, she had promised.

And so it was.

But there was a price to pay.

A wart.

A wart on his knee, the size of a carbuncle.

He wasn’t sure what a carbuncle was when people first opinoned it, so he looked it up in the dictionary.

An abscess larger than a boil, usually with one or more openings draining pus onto the skin.

Ok, not a carbuncle after all, just the mother of mothers of all warts.

At first he thought it was a spot but then it started to grow.

Something had taken root and was feeding off him.

He went into the forest seeking the witch but she was no longer there.

His friends had warned him about that too. “Flighty bunch the lot of them, I bet she had a broomstick.”

And he should have known better anyhow.

He consulted the best physicians.

“That’s a mother of mothers of a wart”, they all said. “Did you fall in love with a witch?”

“Yes”.

“There’s always a price to pay if you fall for a witch, you should have known better.”

So, scalded by the physicians and shunned by the villagers he took to wandering.

At length, and much later he came to the middle of somewhere else where the only sign of life was a brackish stream and a withered tree growing on the bank.

Here he sat down and fell asleep.

He was awoken by the tap, tap, tap of a Raven’s beak tapping, obviously, on the branch of the withered tree.

The Raven looked down and croaked; “Nice wart, fell in love with a witch did you? You should have known better.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Oooh, touchy eh; missing her?”

“What do you think? She was unlike any woman I’ve ever met and anyone can imagine. Her eyes burnt with the fires of vastitude, her skin tasted of moonlight and her voice was like a summer breeze. She made me feel complete.”

Somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled.

“A storm’s coming,” croaked the crow, “so I’ve got to fly. But if you want to get rid of that wart there is a way.”

“Pray tell.”

“Curse her name thrice fold and dive into this bracken stream, your wandering did not bring you here by chance.”

“I may, one day when I am old and frail, be able to forget her, but I will never curse her name, not even once.”

“Try swimming anyway”, croaked the crow, “maybe it works without the cursing”.

And then it was gone.

The stream looked very uninviting - evil would be the word - but he stripped off and as naked as he was innocent, he dove into the waters.

The thunder rumbled again, nearer this time and as he rose for air, a bolt of lightning severed the sky hitting the tree, which split in two with a deafening screen.

Amongst the smoke and ashes stood the witch; if she had been beautiful before, this time  she was magnificent.

“There will be a price to pay”, she whispered. “A wart is just a beginning”.

He walked toward her.

He didn’t know any better.