Bent Words

Bent Words

December 10, 2004

It was merely a movie. Not the sort of movie that I could sit in front of and watch from beginning to end, but a movie that I would generously pause, rising to complete other various tasks as they, one by one, came to mind. Upon resuming from my second or third lingering pause of the flick, my eyebrows raised and I leaned in as I heard these familiar words...

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

It could have been anything, really, that started my attention so, but somehow these two memorable stanzas clung to my mind, provoking another gentle push of the pause button.
And I thought.

How a moment grabs us. How a moment clenches its teeth around our thoughts or tightens its fist over our hearts. And just how many memories consumed me, just then, as I continued in my mind...

"He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought."

I watched my father as he thrust his tightened fist high up to the space above us, clenching that invisible sword within his grasp and bursting forth with dramatic poignancy with every word. I imagined how that sword would surely be plunged through our living room ceiling, had it truly been present in glistening sharp edged steel. His eyebrows hung thick over his hazel colored eyes, wide with meaning, and his voice bellowed loud and deep, ringing harsh into my fragile ears. I pulled my trembling knees closer to my chest and shrunk at his every glare as continued on to another line...

"And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!"

I saw his mustache slightly wave, amber colored compared to the dark, thick hair atop his head as he shook and echoed the word 'whiffling' from his coarse throat. His knees struck violently up into the air as he lifted his feet to mimic that 'whiffling through the tulgey wood,' and I grinned a crooked, toothy grin at his over-played, yet fantastic, moves. I was very small and easily startled and his own maniacal grin could send me sailing, reeling my hands far before me as I retreated into my bedroom. I could hear the forceful stomping of his flat feet as he progressed steadily toward my bedroom door and I would cry out with a mixture of genuine fear and genuine pleasure which, when coupled, made for an awfully confused eight year old girl.

In the distance I could hear, as my tiny screams faded and my ears perked up, the bold voice of my mother insisting that my father stop his childish antics. In a flash, the loud stomping ceased and I quietly crept closer to my door, which was more like a heavy plastic curtain, yellow and accordion like with a magnet to hold it closed. I leaned softly against the wall and listened so carefully that my head ached to hear the sounds as my father would start up all over again, but this time, toward my unsuspecting mother. With glee, I thrust open my accordion door and watched on as he continued to stomp, through the small division of my room and into the kitchen, taunting my mother with mighty laughter as he approached.

She always feigned indifference until he was directly upon her and then, she too, would succumb to a high pitched shriek coupled with a bright, perfection of a smile that brought sunshine to her dark brown eyes. He gobbled her up with his long sweeping arms, a great shout of a voice and a neck biting tease that sent me skipping gleefully around them as I was no longer the victim of his playful game. Then, we three, became a happy tangled mess of a 'group hug,' followed by kisses and more jovial laughter.

~ ~ ~ ~

"You challenge me to a duel? Prepare yourself, brave knight, for the forces that lie within my blood tipped sword!" I shouted in valiant grace...

"One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back."

I held my wood handled skewer intrepidly in hand and pointed my right foot out toward his left. I shifted slightly, avoiding his fatal swoop through the air toward my heart and swiftly threw the skewer above my head and into my left hand, nearly dropping the makeshift sword to the ground. I jabbed back at his arm which held his foul weapon and pricked the small of his wrist with my daring attack.

I cocked my head and paused with a breath, searing my thoughts into his eyes, "Touch�, my Dear John," as he coiled back into the open space of his carpeted dining room.

I leapt onto the linoleum stairs with one grand sounding 'thud' as he approached with three giant forward steps, waving his skewer in an errant motion directly under my chin. I backed up in timid regression, frightened by the ice cold stare of his wild blue eyes and he snorted in disgust at my fearful retreat. I built up my strength and I prodded on, moving in for a blow, as we tangoed in the midst of his living room darkness. I swished and I swayed and before he could cry out, I had him stumbling, fumbling backward and back into his small kitchen, where I pinned him between the sink and my stealthy sword. I rushed in with courage as he leaned quickly back, but all was too late as I watched as he sank under the stab of my final death blow. Full of resounding pride, I raised up my hands and my sword toward the ceiling and shouted out in victorious laughter...

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy."

He turned to me, grasping the edge of the sink with failing strength and faintly retorted,

"You have proven yourself worthy, my child, but what of the fine sea scallops upon which we can no longer dine in lieu of my sudden and tragic death?"

"No fear, my poor weak one, I shall make use of these fine swords as they are not unlike skewers and cook these fine sea scallops over your George Foreman grill. MOOWAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

In the artificial light of his fluorescent drown kitchen, I was beguiled with the flannel like cape of his car blanket and honorably dubbed the Master of Shish kebab Skewers. He lifted the hefty sword from my hands and gently placed the sharpened tip to one of my shoulders and then to the next as I bowed down before him. I beamed with a gallant pride and strode to the door with a noble chin, proclaiming my courageous victory to the entire land set before us under the stars.

~ ~ ~ ~

He wrote something strange and requested my revered opinion. I felt one quick beat from my overjoyed heart and puzzled at what he could possibly request that I, a mere, yet faithful, audience member, preview for him. I was more than willing and quite truthfully honored to undertake the challenge of what he described as an odd piece of prose. He briefly described the basis for which I should find his secret work of ambiguity and I quickly fumbled through the necessary clicks to be the first in line to assess the young man's apparent madness. His instructions were to use his usual handle as user name and the last word of the chorus of a poem we both enjoyed quoting. My head went on swimming in wild wonder before I could carefully discern the meaning of his request, but I soon found myself slowly reciting...

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

'Outgrabe!' That was it! That was the key! I ventured forth into the great and promising unknown world of the man I had come to respect solely through his magical words. That brilliant and passionate man bearing residence a mere 900 miles from my hungry, eager eyes in the bustling Big Apple state which I have only ever dreamed of setting foot upon. I steadily continued, punching each key with marked rhythm to form the appropriate password beneath my fingers and lingered in the brief moments before this mysterious unveiling. His fresh, virgin like alliteration spread swiftly onto the screen and I paused, slowly lighting a cigarette and preparing myself for the journey ahead with unencumbered anxiety.

There he was, sprawled before me like a guilty child that knows he has committed some sort of trite, yet offensive act, revealing the detailed process of his sacred, salacious crime only unto me. I cradled the depths of his words as I read the very first line and I knew it would be juicy...

"A dancer, even nude, is the very apotheosis of sexuality."

He traversed through my solitary and humble world with deep depiction's of torrid, loving moments followed by the formidable, teasing lines of honest, yet ribald conjectures of an every man's reality. He deftly described the passionate, imperfect outlines of the human body that ache for touch so exquisitely that I placed myself beneath his fingers, allowing his words to gently caress the curves of my mind. I swallowed the succulent juices of each fervent sentence before the strange, abnormal rupture of humor was exhumed from the next abrupt like paragraph. My rubicund cheeks flowed hot with salacious reverie mixed with a knowing laughter as I read his undulating words of modest meditation. I finished the piece and reflected upon an awkward feeling that slovenly poured over me, just as the effect of those unique and familiar stanzas by Lewis Carroll might provoke, and I wondered...

What moment might grab me next? What manner of events might take me into the continuing phase of life? What sort of small occurrence might tomorrow clench its teeth upon or tighten its fist over? Who knows. No one really knows what might come 'whiffling through the tulgey wood.'


Written at 2:24 p.m.