Insult Actuality

Insult Actuality

maybe a fable
by ali shaw

***

The morale of the story, right at the beginning, and it goes like this:
if you tell a fat cat to shove it where the sun doesn't shine he'll
place a curse on you. This curse will ensure that every insult that
comes your way will find a means to manifest itself, altering some
tangible or physical part of your existence in a method similar to
Pinocchio's lies running riot with his nose. So here goes.

***

Burt lived with his elderly mother in a hovel in the woods. He made
biscuits while she was asleep and was infuriated by her while she was
awake. Sometimes, when he had made enough biscuits, he spent the day
travelling across the forest to the town, where there was a regular
market. Here he would sell biscuits, briefly free from his constantly
nagging mama. That was Burt's heaven.

It was on one such trip to town that Burt, whistling with the glee of
freedom, encountered a barricade placed upon the path. A fat man in a
suit leered over it. He had a briefcase leant against his leg, and two
silver stud earrings in the shape of his pet mobile phone. His irises
were dollar-bill green.

'Howdy,' he said. Burt chirped a reply, and made to circumnavigate the
barricade.
'Not so fast,' purred the suit. 'Gimme all them biscuits or ya won't
get past.'
Burt would have none of that. When the biscuits were gone it would be
straight back to his mother and her ceaselessly scolding tongue, the
venom of which he would have to endure for at least a further week
before enough new biscuits were baked to justify a trip to market. 'On
your bike,' he answered, courageously.
'I can make life very difficult for you&;#8230;Burt,' he said, with
a sinister touch. But there was nothing superstitious in our Burt. He
shoved past the barrier, and meant to stride on his way when the suit
made a lunge, tried to grab at him. Burt was too nimble, dodged the
clutches, and fled away along the path towards the market. His
assailant was far too rotund to match Burt's pace, and was quickly
covered in a filmy sweat from his attempt to pursue, stopping,
stooping, hands on knees, cuff links glinting in the hot afternoon sun,
a collar of oily skin tight around his neck where the tie was bound to
his throat. He took a deep breath, and then waved his fists at the
disappearing Burt, yelling a throaty curse after the evasive biscuit
maker.

***

Market went well, and Burt returned to his mother's cottage having
utterly forgotten about the strange events of his outward journey. He
fished in his coat pocket for his keys, jangled them a little because
he liked the sound, and then jimmied them about in the lock to open the
front door. Inside, and he yelled that he was home. His mother hobbled
out of the sitting room, a sneer on her lips. The crinkles across her
face made her look like an ostrich, large eyes shining with
contemptuous pride. 'You're late back,' she opened.
'Yes, I thought I'd take a bit of a detour round Kytesham way. It's
bluebell season, you know.'
'Pah!' she spat onto the polished wood of the hallway. Burt winced,
because she would force him to clean it up later, 'You was lost agin,
wasn't ya? You've got two left feet, you!'

Burt was about to gently protest when a most odd sensation occurred at
the bottom of his right leg. For a second, it was like very acute pins
and needles, and then it subsided, leaving only a faint unease around
his ankle. He decided not to pursue an argument, and evaded one by
asking the old dear what was on the television that night.
'Microcosms of the Rich and Famous!' she chuckled, 'And yer just in
time. You can pick up that foot stool there and carry it inter the
lounge for me, knowing how me old back won't take that gip.'
Burt did as he was commanded, and grabbed down for the footstool, which
was next to the place where the phone hung on the wall, because it
doubled as a perch when making calls. It was an old thing, with curled
mahogany legs, and whenever Antique Challenge came on TV on Thursday
evenings, Burt's mother used to gloat about what a pretty fortune it
would make her if she ever got fed up with it, or could be bothered to
take it to market, not trusting Burt enough to grant the task to
him.

He picked it up now and followed her back into the sitting room. He
fell over with his first step. The footstool hit the wooden floor, and
cracked in two. Splinters span across the polish.

Burt's mother came back to the door, saw the shattered antique, and
shrieked. Burt sat up, wondering how this could have happened. Had he
slipped on his mother's spit? No, it was something very different. He
looked at his feet, and they both curved from left to right. In short,
his right foot had become the mirror image of his left. He gaped. 'My
foot&;#8230;my foot&;#8230;' he croaked.

'Your foot! my Saint's Bernard and Brunhilda!' Burt's mother screeched,
'You're just butter fingered is all!'

Pins and needles under his finger nails, and a buzzing about on his
knuckles. And then he watched the pink drain from each digit, to leave
only a creamy yellow. He turned his hands over. Pipes of golden fat,
with the patterns of his fingerprints carefully etched upon them, had
replaced his fingers. He gently prodded his forearm with his index
finger, which squashed under the pressure. 'Ohh,' he whimpered,
beginning to shake, 'Ohhh, I think I can guess what's
happened&;#8230;I met a man in the woods this morning, a man who
cursed me because I didn't surrender my hard earned biscuits into his
greedy paws. And ohhh, he yelled some sort of curse behind me as I
ran&;#8230;and now this!'

His mother scowled down at him, her elbows jutting out from her hips,
her mouth screwed up and revealing her large front teeth, bared like a
fighting rat's. Her skin was the red left on battlefields. When she
opened her mouth, there was a moment's quiet, and then it came,
blasting out in a stampede of, good-for-nothings, layabouts, and
simpletons, which culminated with: '&;#8230;and you have the nerve
to blame your ineptitude on some poor businessman asking yer for a bit
of a snack? You, Burt, are disgusting! You are irresponsible! You are a
shame on your mother! You will never be anything, you will always be
nothing, your whistle on your lips and your hands in your pockets and
your head in the clouds!'

And then there was just a torso with some arms and legs.