6 March

In lieu of Today’s Happenstance, MR. EDMUND FOSTER-SMITHINGTON OFFERS A BELATED APOLOGY

Dearest readers, lest you blame Mr. Zapanta for the recent dearth of my great-uncle’s journal entries, be aware that the blame is mine and mine alone. It is without regret that I do humbly apologise for the temporary inconvenience I may have caused by my actions. Rest assured that I have been poring over Uncle’s many journals with the utmost care and due diligence. My uncle’s canon, if you will, is comprised of literally thousands of pages.

My decision to share his thoughts and experiences was an easy one, to be sure. That any of his Parlour Room Ruminations could be met with skepticism or scorn, however, has been an unexpectedly bitter pill to swallow.

It is no secret that J. Wallace-Foster’s truthfulness was often called into question, by both the Wallaces and the Fosters. Especially the Fosters, as of late. I have always been proud to call myself a Foster, but my family’s recent small-mindedness has given me pause. Money and breeding do not also gentlemen and ladies make. I have borne the brunt of their scathing missives with the sort of patience and humility I learned from Uncle himself. My patience, however, is at an end.

I receive no monetary compensation for sharing Uncle’s diaries with the world. Peace of mind, though, and pride, are mine to gain. It is enlightenment, not entitlement, which I seek through my actions. Uncle was a great man; the world has a right to discover that for itself. No matter how bizarre or fantastical Uncle’s exploits may sometimes seem, let me assure you that every word is factual, every recorded deed true.

If my actions belie any trepidation whatsoever, it is not because I no longer believe in my cause. Quite the contrary, really. My family’s loutish behaviour has made me redouble my efforts to rescue Uncle’s reputation from the annals of ridicule and doubt. His one great fear was not that of the unknown. No, what he feared was that posterity would not be kind to him.

So it is again that I offer my sincerest apologies to Mr. Zapanta, and especially to you, the dear readers of this website. Your interest in Uncle’s life is a balm to my troubled heart. In the coming weeks I will gladly slake your thirst for curious happenstance, no matter how great or how small.

You have my word.

Cheers,
Edmund Foster-Smithington
(with thanks once again to Mr. Zapanta for so ably transcribing my harried onslaught of words)

 

29 February

TODAY’S HAPPENSTANCE: THE WREN’S DAY ENCOUNTER, PART I

A note from Edmund Foster-Smithington, dated 29 February 2008:

After much careful consideration, and a detailed reading of Uncle’s many journals, I have finally selected the following entry for public consideration. Entitled The Wren’s Day Encounter, it is a startling recollection of a Boxing Day, now more than fifty years ago. For those not familiar with the English holiday Boxing Day, or its Gaelic counterpart The Day of the Wren, (or Wren’s Day, if you will) both holidays are observed on December 26.

Being of both English and Irish lineage, Uncle proudly celebrated both holidays under the auspices of St. Stephen’s Day. I imagine many a Yank may be puzzled by the various monikers assigned to what is essentially the same holiday. The only true differences lay in geography, and nothing more. What is relevant about this particular Parlour Room Rumination is not a calendar date; rather, The Wren’s Day Encounter is a remarkable remembrance that will surely try the very limits of propriety itself.

I shan’t say more. But I do implore you, do read on, and form your own opinions regarding this tale’s veracity.

Cheers,
Edmund Foster-Smithington

 

It is with great reluctance that I put pen to paper on this, a very solemn occasion. Normally a time of celebration, on this eve of Saint Stephen’s I do find myself in a most terrible state of mind. Such is my mental vexation that I have eschewed any spirits, lest I be accused of a brandy-fueled loquaciousness. The very source of said vexation is the Devonshire Fosters.  Come round on Holiday and encamped in my manse proper, these wayward Fosters could chill the very blood of old Wenceslas himself.

“Thought it was high time we caught up with our favourite eccentric,” Arthur Foster had the nerve to say to me as he trod snow across Sissy’s clean floors. Favourite eccentric, indeed!  It was no secret that the Fosters thought my ruminations the ramblings of an old fool.  Aye, I was privy to the slanderous scuttlebutt that kept my blood relations’ lips a-wag.

Dear Posterity, my trusted confidante, let it now be said that this Devonshire lot are a sinister, fallow-minded bunch. Were it not for Aunt Beatrice, Arthur and his unruly kin would find themselves seeking shelter amongst the hedgerows!

[Beatrice Foster, Arthur’s mother, was much beloved by Uncle. It was through her largesse that Uncle attended university, in leaner, more desperate times. It was no mere conjecture that Arthur resented Uncle’s education, citing it as money ill-spent, especially in light of Uncle’s renown for “fantastic tales.” By my reckoning, Beatrice had been dead for nearly twelve years when this entry was originally recorded. Uncle was never quite himself after her passing—EFS]

Aye, and it is among those very hedgerows that I made a most curious acquaintance. I shall not divulge the details of said encounter with anyone save you, Dear Posterity. It is not that I fear the Fosters’ withering skepticism. No, my reticence is bourne from a scientist’s passion and respect for the unknown. Ever since my encounter with the Concrete Witch and her fell minions, I have kept an evermore vigilant eye out for curious happenstance. And so it was on the Eve of St. Stephen’s Day that I chanced upon a most unusual find. Bear with me, if you will, as I recount the details of this beguiling evening.

It began a scant few hours earlier, with a light knocking at the garden door. In truth, the sound was more of a faint, delicate scratching. I gathered up several shillings for these wayward, overzealous mummers.

“Getting an early start, are you?” I inquired and threw open the garden door with a grand flourish. But rather than encountering a typical plough boy tableau, I instead found an empty doorstep.

“Indeed,” I muttered, perplexed.

“Hearing things, old chap?” asked Arthur as he sauntered into the room. Sauntered, as if he were master of the house. Sauntered, as if he were taking charge of things. A glass of cognac in hand, he beckoned to the empty doorway.

“Heating all of London, are you? How very Christian of you, James.”

I stole one last glance outside. Amongst the snow and the tangle of furze I espied two feathers. Nearly thirty centimetres in length they were, and black as pitch. But it was a blue, farthing-sized button, so conspicuous against the fresh snowfall, that gave me true pause.

“Just getting a breath of fresh air,” I absently replied and reluctantly closed the door. “Nothing more.”

Arthur’s skeptical gaze lingered long upon my visage. “And those shillings you’ve got there, were you perhaps giving alms to the Invisible Man?”

The cheek of this cretinous interloper, to mock me in my very home! “You would be well advised to mind your tone,” I said with thinly-veiled disdain.

“And you yours, James. It is not I who has the whole family abuzz with worry.”

“Your collective fears are all for naught, I’m afraid.”

Arthur sized me up with a curt nod of his weak chin. “You may be a Foster bourne, but your comport suggests anything but a true gentleman.”

The faint scratching resumed in earnest at the garden door. I masked the sound by jingling the coins in my palm. “Good-night, cousin. May Morpheus find you well tonight.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder, who is the bigger fool?” And with that cryptic pronouncement he finally left me to my own devices. I immediately threw open the door and surveyed the scene. A set of small footprints marred the once-pristine landscape. The blue button, I noticed, was gone.

I quickly rooted about the cupboards until I found a pocket torch. The weak lamplight revealed the tracks to be trident-shaped, like that of a gigantic fowl. The prints disappeared around the corner.

I ventured forth into the snow, armed with nothing more than curiosity and veteran instinct. The sound of carolers further down Stockton Court carried on the crisp night air. I paid the revelry no mind, intent as I was on an altogether different sound emanating from the hedgerow before me: muffled cries, and the gentle beating of great wings. Clutching the torch, I offered a tentative salutation.

“I say, is everything cricket in there?” Black feathers littered the snow around the hedge. I cleared my throat and pulled my robe about me. “I shan’t hurt you,” I whispered. “You have my word.”

And with that the hedges parted, and revealed what can only be described as a wren-faced girl. Her lidless eyes shone like marbles in the lamplight. She bowed her head, effectively hiding her tears behind matted blond ringlets.

“Indeed,” I whispered, and extended my hand. “Indeed.”

(To be continued…)

7 February

TODAY’S HAPPENSTANCE: THE HUMONCULUS OF STOCKTON COURT

Much has transpired since my strange discovery in the glen, now nearly a fortnight hence.

Though I have been on edge for days, it is the unabiding mystery of the so-called Five-Fingered Man—and not the Concrete Witch—that has most vexed me.  Aye, in moments of doubt I sometimes ponder whether finding the discarded metacarpus was merely part of an elaborate ruse to bear me out as a charlatan.

It certainly would not be the first attempt to sully my reputation. But no mere whelp am I, suckling as it were at the under-ripened teat of inexperience! I assure you, dear Posterity, that J. Foster-Wallace is no mere dilettante, trucking casually in morbid wordsmithing! Aye, let the skeptics believe me a fool. Their opinions are those of the willfully ignorant and woefully under-educated.

A Foster-Wallace does not tell tales! This Foster-Wallace, in particular, still has control over his mental faculties!

So, it is with the utmost sincerity, dear Posterity, that I now impart the details of a strange new tale.

I have already stated my preoccupation with the Five-Fingered Man. Anticipating his possible arrival has left me treading on tenterhooks. Such is my state of unease that my nocturnal respites have been punctuated by all manner of unwholesome detritus.

Aye, it is with extreme reluctance that I must confess that my waking intellect has given way to a most extreme torpor.

As a result, my daily constitutionals now last well into the late morning. Practicality necessitated a new route for my perambulations. Traversing the full length of Sycamore Lane no longer allowed me to clear my temporal lobes. Rhododendron Street soon became part of my route. My longer walks soon included all of Forsythia Terrace as well.

But it was on faraway Stockton Court that I encountered a sight far stranger than the discarded metacarpus. Were it not for my keen eyesight I may have altogether missed the life and death struggle that transpired on the cobblestones far below.

At first glance it appeared as though two ants were having at each other. Pausing mid-stride, I quickly and quietly withdrew my spyglass. Gifted though I may be with superior ocular talents, the spyglass revealed an entirely different circumstance. Let the naysayers have their laugh at my expense, but do believe me when I tell you, dear Posterity, that I saw before me a man of significantly diminutive proportions.

“Heavens,” I whispered.

I lowered the spyglass and rubbed my eyes. Perhaps sleep deprivation was taking a greater toll than I cared to admit. But as I peered through the spyglass once again, it immediately became clear that what I was witnessing was no hallucination.

Ant-sized though he was, this man, too small even to be deemed a proper homunculus, was enrobed in the tiniest of tiny crushed velvet smoking jackets.

“Such exquisite tailoring!” I exclaimed under my breath.

There was nothing altogether special about his adversary, however. It was nothing more than a garden-variety ant.

How they came to find themselves locked in combat I do not know. Perhaps theirs was a long-standing rivalry. I imagined this fellow, despite his unusual stature, to be a man of means, as evidenced by his natty attire.

Under normal circumstances I may have intruded upon the altercation to introduce myself properly, as one gentleman to another. But this was no ordinary happenstance.

Despite my better judgment I took a step back. Who was I to interfere with Darwinian machinations?

The man held the ant at bay with nothing more than a single bramble. He wielded it with confidence and aplomb. He parried and thrust as the ant scurried hither and thither.

I must admit, I was pulling for the man in the smoking jacket to emerge victorious, even if Darwin had other intentions.

“Give him what for,” I declared as I leaned in ever closer with the spyglass. The embattled warriors paid me little heed.

I lowered the spyglass, awed by the very idea of being too big to be seen. I pondered the thought for a few seconds at the most, but it was time enough to wreak a most unexpected outcome.

Unaided by the spyglass I cast an errant glance at the pavement. To my great consternation I realized that ordinary sunlight had transformed the unattended spyglass into a formidable weapon. All that was left of the ant were its scorched mandibles and a caramelized thorax.

I gasped at the carnage wrought by my carelessness. I searched frantically for a tiny skeleton, or even a stray patch of crushed velvet.  

“Damn my curious eyes,” I cried with frustration. “Damn them to Hades itself!”

You may very well wonder what became of the Homunculus of Stockton Court. There was neither hide nor hair of him to be had.  All that remained was the bramble he so expertly wielded.

“Should you ever need to find me, I am J. Wallace-Foster, of 256 Sycamore Lane ,” I said aloud, hoping this information would find a pair of miniscule ears.  Across the street, a curtain parted ever so slightly.

I tipped my hat to the unseen observer.  I retrieved the bramble and hurried on my way, mindful of each and every step that bore me hence, back to the relative drudgery of Sycamore Lane. 

***

3 February

TODAY’S HAPPENSTANCE: THE TALKING TABBY, PART II

The tabby had delivered me to a lone headstone.  ‘Beware, Mortals: Here Layeth the Concrete Witch,’ declared the pitted granite.

“Hearth,” spake the cat again.

“Cunning creature,” I muttered in disbelief.  But this curious scene was to test the very limits of unreality itself.  I’d heard tell of the Concrete Witch when I was but a lad. She was a bogeyman of sorts, a myth employed by parents to keep unruly children in line.  She was said to devour misbehaving boys and girls like so many sweets.

“Cunning creature, indeed,” I whispered as a sudden rustling from a clump of thistles revealed that we were not alone.  Rather than succumb to a nervous failure I instead summoned a great bravado.

“Make yourselves known,” I thundered.  “No more of this gadding about!”

My words were still ringing in my ears when the foliage parted to reveal a scrum of grotesqueries.  I held my breath as one by one they emerged into the gray light of day.

“Brethren,” spake the cat as it bowed its shaggy pate.  Its saucer eyes took me in at a glistening, yellow glance. “Family,” spake the cat.  The fricative consonant gave its countenance the illusion of a smile.

I, too, bared my teeth as the cat’s kin, abominations all of them, approached the fore.

“Muvva needs her bones,” spake the first creature in a strained, ragged voice that brought the bile to the back of my throat.

“Indeed,” I whispered, hastily cataloguing the creature’s many evolutionary deviations.

Dear posterity, I do not mean to sound glib when I say that there are no adequate words to describe this fell beast.  Dressed in tatters, hirsute, and bipedal, albeit, it seemed, with great difficulty, the creature was no more a man than I was a pomegranate.

“Muvva,” spake he again, “she needs her bones.”  He extended a stubby, claw-like hand and let fall onto the grave several large stones.  His black eyes glittered like hematite.

“What are you?” I asked, my brave façade crumbling.

“Kith,” spake the cat.

The second creature stepped forward.  It appeared to be a lizard of sorts.  A powerful musculature undulated beneath its scaly hide as it too paid its respects to the fabled Concrete Witch.  Loosing its jaw, the reptile deposited a mouthful of shiny insect carapaces upon the fallow earth.

“Mother needs her memories,” it hissed.

The last creature waddled forward.  It appeared to be a gibbon in the guise of a large brown bat.  Its membranous wings rustled like brittle papyrus as it bowed before the headstone.

“Blood for Mother,” it squeaked, opening its sharp, little mouth and drenching the soil with said scarlet, iron-rich elixir.

“Muvva sees you,” said the first creature, turning to me.  “One, two, free. See?”

I stumbled as I backed away.  “I will have no part in this sorcery,” I spluttered.  “None, do you hear me?”

“Vessel,” spake the cat, darting about my feet.

“Not bloody likely,” I spat.  “I served the Queen Mum herself in the RAF!  The Kaiser himself, and all his rank and file, could not break me.  I will not be victimized by riff-raff such as you!”

“Mother,” spake the cat.

“She is no mother of mine,” I bellowed as one by one the creatures advanced upon my position.

“Burn in Hades, the cursed lot of you,” I cried.  “I am no stranger to various magicks.  Now, begone from this world of kind and decent folk!  There is no need for your deviltry upon this plane!”

A terrible wind began to thrash the trees.  The sky darkened for one terrible instant that felt more like an eternity.

“Gratitude,” spake the cat, its eyes glowing like stained glass.  Then it leapt at my face.

When later I awoke, I found myself lying beneath the stone wall that circumnavigated the glen.  I seemed none the worse for wear as I brushed cat hair and dirt from my overcoat.

“Gratitude,” I said to myself as a strange smile played across my face.  “Oh, gratitude, yes,” I whispered.  “Quite.”

Dear Posterity, I must admit, I tarried for several moments upon that godforsaken spot.  My English common sense warred with my ungentlemanly curiosity.  In the end, I clambered back over the stone wall and returned to Edmund, to Sissy, and to all I hold so dear at 256 Sycamore Lane.

And lest history deem me a coward for returning to hearth and home, let me make this perfectly clear:

If she be more than mere myth, I fear not the Concrete Witch.

 

***

 

2 February

TODAY’S HAPPENSTANCE: THE TALKING TABBY, PART I

Nephew was in the garden, playing with a custard-colored cat as I supped on tea and a tin of biscuits.  Edmund’s scone and marmalade lay untouched, save for a tiny nibble of the outer crust.  It was the cat, of course, that had distracted him.  Appearing in the eastern hedgerow, the feline had all but commandeered little Edmund’s interest.

“Pray,” he said, tossing the tabby lightly in the air.  “Tell.  Succumb.  Submit.”

Just a tow-headed mite my nephew was, no more than four stone, and yet Edmund’s elocution and vocabulary already rivaled that of my esteemed colleagues.  Clearly, he was making use of the Webster’s I’d given him his fifth birthday.

Nephew glanced round at me, a coy smile upon his lips as boy and feline continued to frolic.

“She’s rather a smart tabby, uncle,” young Edmund stated proudly.  “She knows all sorts of words.”

Such a marvelous flight of fancy!  “Do tell,” I replied with a small smile as I sipped my Earl Grey.  “Have at me, boy.”

A frown creased my nephew’s delicate brow.  “I’m not fibbing.”

“Most assuredly not,” I said, nipping a biscuit.  “She has a fine teacher in you, dear Edmund.”

“No, she already knew these words.”  He held the cat at arm’s length.  “Listen, uncle.”  He stroked the tabby’s tousled mane.  “Come now, you silly cat.  Say something.”

“Burden,” spake the cat in a high, strained voice.

Despite the sudden tremor in my hand I gingerly replaced the tea cup in its saucer.  What sort of fell trickery was this?  I quickly fabricated a façade of nonchalance.

“Is this a new hobby of yours, nephew?  Ventriloquism?  I must admit, I am rather impressed.”

“Gruntle,” spake the cat.

“What does that word mean, uncle?  Certainly I know what dis-gruntle means.”

I cleared my throat and slowly rose from the table.  “You are quite the clever pussycat,” I said with forced geniality.  “Aren’t you.”

“Squalid,” spake the cat.  “Pretense.  Capitulate.”

“Do you think Mum will let me keep her, uncle?”

“Follow,” spake the cat, and leapt, twisting and turning, from Edmund’s embrace.  I grabbed his hand before he could follow the cat back through the hedgerow.

“Be a good lad and share Uncle’s biscuit tin with Sissy.  She’s in the scullery.”

Edmund reluctantly trudged into the manse proper.  Alone in the garden, I quickly clambered through the dense hedge.  The cat had wended her way down to the end of Sycamore Lane by the time I gave chase in earnest.

Dear posterity, I am no longer a spry man, but I put my tired bones to work that strange afternoon.  The loquacious cat continued its cryptic pronouncements as I closed in.

“Verity,” spake the cat in whispered, effeminate tones.  “Egress.  Tumult.”

“Tumult, indeed,” I huffed as the tabby took a low stone wall in a single, graceful bound.

My own sortie over the impediment was remarkably lacking in poise or athleticism.  As I paused to brush the soot from my lapels I realized I was standing in a glen overrun with weeds and thistles and the like.  The cat continued on, hidden by the undergrowth.  I was vexed by all manner of winged insect as I forged onward.  It was only by following the feline’s utterances that I was able to find my way at all.

“This is no way for a gentleman to spend his time,” I puffed.

Within moments we two crested a gentle slope.  And there, atop the grassy knoll, awaited a most astonishing sight.

“Hearth,” spake the cat.

“Indeed,” spake I.  “Indeed.”

ADDENDUM:  Mr. Foster-Smithington, J. Wallace-Foster’s great grand-nephew, had this to say about THE TALKING TABBY:

“I'm afraid I don't recall much of that afternoon, being just a small lad at the time. I certainly remember the cat in question, and I do know that uncle hurried off in a state of great agitation.

“I have never doubted his recollections, nor have I ever doubted him. What he encountered in that glen is truly peculiar. My apologies for not including uncle's most recent journal entry in its entirety. As each entry is dictated to Mr. Zapanta via landline, transcribing these entries becomes rather labor intensive and I daresay a tad costly. The idea of transmitting uncle's journal pages via facsimile is simply out of the question as I fear the brittle pages would not survive the process intact.

“My thanks to Mr. Zapanta, not only for his typing skills, but for his avid interest in my uncle's writings.”

***

31 January

TODAY’S HAPPENSTANCE: CARPE METACARPUS

Early this morning, as I returned from my daily constitutional, I happened upon a most curious find in the debris-strewn gutter.  Amidst the cast-off detritus (half-smoked cigarillos, moldy fruit skins, et cetera) I espied what I initially perceived to be a handsome Italian leather glove.  Upon closer scrutiny, however, the cast-off gauntlet revealed itself to be a severed hand.

The knuckles were hairless, the cuticles surprisingly clean.  This bit of amputated anatomy belonged to a gentleman, to be sure.

In defiance of common sense, I reached down and carefully drew the hand into mine.  Coming into contact with the clammy paw piqued my curiosity to a most extreme extent.
One question arose immediately from my addled thoughts: What strange chain of events could climax in so morbid a tableau?

Other queries abounded: Was it decay that had rendered the pallid flesh so rough to the touch, or was the texture a result from a lifetime’s secret labors?  Had rigor mortis balled the elegant digits into a fist, or was it stubborn defiance?

Again beset by curiosity, I gently pried apart the stranger’s fingers to reveal an even grander embroilment.

Nestled within the broad, weathered palm rested a tiny avian skull.  No bigger than a crabapple, its contours were smooth, its cranium lined with delicate fissures.  Perhaps at one time this fragile creature had espoused song from the very highest of treetops.

“Mercy,” I whispered.  “Mercy me, indeed!”

I glanced round the neighborhood, taking in the quiet simplicity of hedges and homes.  Up one side of the street and down the other, an ominous normalcy prevailed in the shuttered domiciles and well-manicured gardens.  And yet within my grasp a great mystery prevailed.
It was profound fascination, yes, that compelled me to gaze closer still.  My morbid impulse awarded me one final revelation.

Within the fowl’s dun-colored mandibles was an insect’s wing.  It shimmered in the early morning light, a translucent miracle of biological and evolutionary craftsmanship.
“A treasure,” I remarked.  “Oh, such a treasure, indeed!”

And such was my find that day as I returned from my daily constitutional.  To the five-fingered man who may be reading this, I possess that which you so desperately seek.

(NOTE: Mr. Zapanta would like to thank Edmund Foster-Smithington for graciously allowing his late great-uncle’s journals to be reproduced online in their entirety.)

***