News of the Restless

This is, obviously, a short story à clef.

Once upon a time (the present), there was (is) a little red-headed Canadian princess (ahem–QUEEN!), who lived (lives) on the north shore of Lake Ontario and swore (swears!) she could see across it to Western New York on a clear day.

Well, just today, this little princess, or queen, or whatever, woke up feeling fine. Nothing wrong, which is funny because she has had rheumatism ever since she was hit by a car at 14, which was neveryoumind how many years ago, and ever since then she has been prone to joint and muscle pains on cold, damp autumnal days like today. Especially first thing upon waking. So let’s just call her Woe Blight, because really, you have no idea how much of a woe and a blight such a condition can be unless you’ve lived with it since you were a teenager, okay?

Anyhow: Woe Blight woke up, for once, feeling less woeful and blighted by her chronic condition. Which surprised and pleased her, and which she ascribed to having worked out the night before, right before bed. (She lifts weights. Her arms look almost as good as Michelle Obama’s by now. By next summer, she should have some spectacular guns.)

Unfortunately, Woe Blight’s well-being was not to last. By the time she had prepared her humble lunch (bacon-and-zucchini quiche, which real men DO eat–just ask Woe’s grumpy old German dad!), Woe was feeling more than a little under the cold, damp, drizzly weather. She was feeling nauseated and dizzy, and suspected she was running a temperature.

Still, being a cheerfully persistent and ever optimistic little thing, Woe Blight figured her problem was probably hunger. So she downed two tablespoons of Angostura, ate a hearty wedge of zucchini quiche, washed it down with a bottle of Moosehead.

Unfortunately, that didn’t do the trick. If anything, she was feeling even worse; the nausea had spread to her chest, which felt tight and congested. So, still optimistic, Woe Blight then went out to roam the hills of her colorful little county, determined to see if a bit of fresh air couldn’t cure whatever the hell was ailing her.

Well, it couldn’t.

By the time she was halfway up the road to the woods, Woe was feeling every bit as woeful as she’d ever been in her life. She was hugging the shoulder and clutching her umbrella, wondering at every step whether this would be the moment when she lurched into the hawthorn bushes across the ditch and lost every last bite and swallow of quiche and Moosehead to the demon that was ransacking her little belly. (She would have blamed a poison apple, but Woe’s parents are happily married for lo these past neveryoumind how many years, there is no wicked stepmother, and besides, Woe is fed up to the eyeballs with perfectly wholesome apples, living as she does among endless Ontario orchards.)

Well, about this time, somewhere between the train tracks, a cedar swamp, the hawthorn bushes, and a very surprised herd of Charolais cattle, Woe Blight met the Seven Dorks.

Their names were Grok, Woozy, Hinky, Murky, Pukey, Feverish, and of course, Dopey. They advised her to stop roaming around the hills like a maniac, and promptly get her little white butt back up the road, across the train tracks, and into her humble cottage, where the bottle of Angostura was patiently waiting on the kitchen shelf.

Now, Woe Blight usually doesn’t take advice from dorks. But she knew enough to know that she was in no condition to argue. The cold felt colder and the wet felt wetter, and her innards were fast turning into a messy, curdly soup. So she got her cute little butt back home and onto the trusty cot in her toasty warm study. She slept there for the better part of the afternoon and woke up, still plagued by the Seven Dorks.

The Itty-Bitty Shitty Committee, as she had by now taken to calling them, were still there when she ate supper, and they did their level best to make the tasty quiche seem rancid and her evening tea, insipid and cloying. A couple hours later, the Angostura needed reinforcements, and Woe Blight got out her trusty angelica tincture, a true rotgut which tastes so horrible that it makes one forget, at least for a little while, whatever it is that’s ailing one. Even diluted one-to-three in water, it’s scary shit; it turns the water grey-green and cloudy, like a pastis gone terribly wrong. If absinthe is la fée verte, this stuff is la fée morte. But it is, or is supposed to be, a sovereign remedy for gut bugs, according to her trusty herbal guidebook, so Woe poured herself a couple of fingers of it, then topped up the glass with cold filtered water, and downed the swamp soup, cringing at every evil-tasting mouthful.

Well, apparently the scary shit is good for something, because Woe is typing her fingers to the bone and feeling no pain. Wish her luck for the morrow, kiddies, she suspects she’s gonna need it…and she really hopes not to have to drink any more angelica tonight.

EDIT, the next morning: Holy moly!!!