Dear Editors and Staff Writers of Kook,
I miss you greatly and fear for my safety.
Ramschackle and I have been in Boredeaux for a few days now. We’ve eaten baguettes and cheese and salami, and wandered the town shooing away beggars with a slap to the soul. S’beautiful in a cobblestone street kind of way, but I am beginning to fear for my compatriot’s sanity. He seems increasingly fixated on the notion of me dying a particularly painful, imminent demise, among the 18th century architecture—and the ever present piles of messy dog shit. Those dogs are not well, not well at all. His eyes have gained a shiny pig-like glitter, and he rocks ever so slightly back and forth in his chair. Fingers tapping out incessant rhythm on his thigh – the beat of a madman. Pale skin turns a shade of pink, as he ponders upon Thomas Abildgaard having exited this mortal coil, floating gently downstream of the stately Garonne.
We have been sitting on a bench at the Christmas market for hours, slowly sipping in the Christmas atmosphere and the delicious vin chaud that makes the cold of the day a little more pleasant. Poring obsessively over Sherlock Holmes stories, as children and sad looking men dressed as elves swarm about, our boy seems ignorant of his surrounds. A pretty brunette makes bedroom eyes at me from across the way, her hair tumbles down her shoulders like a gang of sherpas thrown off of the Himalayas, but without the screams. She’s eating belgian style waffles with cream and nutella, and giggling with her friend—the air smells like cinnamon—I return the glance, but all the while I am concerned as this crazed man across from me is surely projecting me as some kind of Holmesian murder victim.
It is only 3:30 pm but the Christmas Market is bustling. Ramshackle proclaims loudly, certain of his intention and insight, “A dick in the arse is worth two in the butt.” Understandably I think, this worries me, he is obviously dangerously deranged. He is beginning to take on the caste of the Walrus in my mind, a sick freak too weird to share this world of mere men and beasts. The brunette catches glimpse of my drinking companion and I see the horror in her eyes. She flees with haste appropriate to the fear. I am crestfallen, but I understand. The sad reality that I surely do not have long to live hits me square in the jaw, but I can’t move, I’m trapped like my fellow editor Maxwell the Silver Hammer in the headlights of yet another metaphorical booze bus, obviously representing his own existential turmoil. This weighs heavily upon my mind as I sit and sip the spicy brew. That was probably the last girl I’ll ever flirt with—and my last chance to flee as she so wisely did—before this animal spills my brains on the pavement with a half brick in a sock.
They call the stall Noel Australienne—they serve crepes and chocolate chaud—the elf behind the counter eyes the crowd like a one way ticket to a lost childhood. I can feel the curtains beginning to close about this poor old wretch, as I turn back to the Ram, he has a lead pipe clutched strangely in his left hand, he raises it with purpose. Thankfully he didn’t use it this time, but things do not look good for your intrepid editor. The darkness will surely descend, for in these times of dreadful woe, there is alas, no time to woo.
Farewell for now and possibly forever,
Thomas Abildgaard xx
