Us... Our Father... Black Moths... The Ghost of a Bear
If we can be killed then bring ravens. Small girls are difficult to break, ask pastors. We are small boys and are easily broken. Go ahead and break us. Bring ravens. We can be killed. And so on.
There are crowns on cushions, punchbowls, sceptres, orbs and golden picnic tables somewhere. When ravens are brought then kill us and bury our bodies beneath the stairs, the two of us. Or somewhere else, in boxes. We feel overdressed to die. Perhaps that is vanity.
We are brothers. We do not feel confident about our hair.
We are so hungry. The food is venison, sometimes blackbird, sweetened with honey, rarely sugar. Where are the ravens? We will learn the taste of potatoes sometime later, served on ornate salvers, sweetened with honey, rarely sugar. We want elaborate cabbage, sweetened, before you kill us. Here is something we have seen on a platter: a bustard stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a pheasant, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a guinea fowl, stuffed with a woodcock, stuffed with a partridge, stuffed with a plover, stuffed with a lapwing, stuffed with a quail, stuffed with a thrush, stuffed with a lark, sweetened with honey, rarely sugar.
Surprise us at least. Where are our wives? We are 10 and 13.
We are holding hands, looking in different directions. People approach and one of us speaks and the other looks in a different direction, listens for breathing, beading sweat, footsteps.
Our father is not our father.
One of us was King once. The older one, probably. The older one was never crowned though, the younger one also, probably. We’re not sure.
It is dark unless we play in the courtyard, in which case we are followed by soldiers and the ghost of a bear. Also black moths move through the air around us. There is a heat from the scaffold that we barely notice nowadays. The ghost of a bear grows desperate. The sunlight pinks us while we hold hands.
One of our wives is French, one is English. Our wives have a combined age of 17.
Explain the ravens as having something to do with why the stairs are being dug up. Put a small girl on The Rack and quickly pastors will refuse, impressed that the small girl is so difficult to break. The dungeon is called ‘The Little Ease’. The pastors will hold their hands up and smile at the girl’s body. No-one will take us there.
Here is an update. We are no longer allowed in the courtyard. It is dark. The ravens live mainly on dead flesh. Bring them. People will not ask questions about the ravens.
If you kill us, do not later admit to it under torture. You will not be believed. Remain always impressive under torture. Pastors will remember you this way for a short period of time, like small girls.
What will our skeletons look like? Can experts tell us apart? Will they muddle up our bones? We would not mind. Each of us is envious of certain parts of the other.
This castle grows like a fat man’s heart. We aren’t old enough to know this probably.
Explain the ravens as part of the menagerie. Lions, leopards, lynxes, camels. Admission to the menagerie is three half-pence or a dog or cat to be fed to the lions. It is easily explained. If you must kill us then do it in a secret or special way. Use a method that will not show up on our skeletons at least. Explain the ravens as being to do with the smell on the stairs.
Put a man in The Scavenger’s Daughter and tighten his body down in on itself until you are no longer impressed with him. This will happen quickly.
If you kill us, use it to achieve success, personal advantage or some degree of notoriety. Explain the ravens as explaining themselves thirty feet from the scaffold while what remains is carried calmly to the chapel.
Soon after, a ghost of a bear walks towards a soldier, and the soldier not able to sleep later, or dying soon after, and use this to explain the ravens. So bring the ravens here, and our wives, and the black moths dead and falling and laying and lying dead just there on the lawn, by the scaffold, on the stairs.
