“Sigh.”
“SIGH.”
“SIIIIIIGGHHH.”
I pause in my typing, “Any chance if I ignore your ever-loudening sighs, you will tire of exhaling uselessly in my direction and move along?”
“Mother, I am sighing to get your attention.”
“What can I do for you, Maj?”
“I’m bored.”
“Color me apathetic.”
“Well then . . . color me Neville.”
“Neville?”
“That story you read me the other day when I was bored. Like I was a small child who needed reading aloud. Condescending, Mother. I am an exceptional reader, and I do not need to have my mommy read to me. So color me Neville and color me bored to death.”
She’s talking about Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a dark and hilarious story which details (in rhyme and fabulous black-and-white illustrations) the mundane deaths of 26 alphabetically arranged children. A is for AMY who fell down the stairs . . . B is for BASIL assaulted by bears . . . C is for CLARA who wasted away . . . D is for DESMOND thrown out of a sleigh.
So awesome.
I was flipping through a collection of Gorey’s work the other night when Maj appeared, filled with boredom, and so I started reading The Gashlycrumb Tinies out loud to her.
Maj was not that interested, although she did note after hearing about IDA who drowned in a lake and JAMES who took lye by mistake, that, “These are the dumbest children in the history of the world. Who is possibly stupid enough to be smothered beneath a rug (George) or swallow some tacks (Leo)?”
I giggled, “Look at Maud being swept out to sea!”
Maj leaned to examine the illustration, “How is that funny, Mother? Small children meeting completely avoidable death . . . Yes, that’s a hoot, Mother.”
Kallan swung into the room on dancy feet just as I was announcing the sad news that N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui, and her brow furrowed, “What’s on-wee?”
Maj leaned to look at the page, “Pretty sure you said that word wrong, Mother. It says EN-YOU-EYE.”
I explained, “It’s pronounced on-wee, and it means boredom.”
Maj looked at me, “Neville died of boredom?”
“That’s correct.”
“OK, I am making a note to use that word to break up the monotony of going around saying I am bored all the time.”
“Maj, you crack me up.”
Maj smiled, “That there’s called irony, Mother. Any of these children die of irony? Or sarcasm?”
Sinking into the couch across from me, Kallan implored, “Mom, I want to hear the whole alphabet. Start over. Please?”
And so, with a fascinated Kallan across from me and an inattentive Maj flipping through her magazine beside me, I started over again with Amy and the stairs. After I finished with . . . Z is for ZILLAH who drank too much gin, Kallan sighed happily, “That’s awesome! Can I look at the pictures?” I handed her the book, and she turned the pages happily, squealing with delight at the various depictions of doom.
Maj snorted and headed off into the other room, “You are both insane.”
Kallan started flipping through the pages more rapidly, “I want to see how he drew the ALL of it.”
“The what?”
“The ALL that ran through Olive. How would you draw the everything of the world pounding through a person, you think?”
“Babe, she was run through with an A-W-L . . . a sharp tool used to poke holes in leather.”
Kallan found the page and stared disappointedly at the image of the little girl with the sharp tool sailing in the air toward her body, “Oh, that’s not as good.”
I did not say in that moment what I thought, which was, “HOW COULD I HAVE EVER CONTEMPLATED NOT HAVING CHILDREN?” Instead I simply hugged Kallan and said, “Agreed. Your version is much better.”
The evening wore on, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Not so bad a way to go . . . being pounded through by the overwhelming everything of the world, right?
One could do worse than those epitaphic words carved upon a headstone:
K is for KRIS who was run through by the all
Seriously.
Back to this evening, in which Maj is bored and possibly dying.
“I have a riddle for you, Mother.”
“Bring it, babe.”
“How might one describe the state of being bored and also wobbly in a single word?”
I think for a moment, “I have no idea. How might one describe the state of being bored and wobbly in a single word?”
Maj smiles, “Ennuible.”
On-wee-bull.
On-weeble.
HOW COULD I HAVE EVER CONTEMPLATED NOT HAVING CHILDREN?
Also?
K is for KRIS who was run through by the all
Seriously.
