The Word Eater

The Word Eater ©

By Michael Casey

Janet and John were small children they lived with their dad in a dusty house, dusty because dad wasn’t very good at dusting and mum was dead, so she couldn’t dust could she? She was very nice and great at dusting, she used to sit on dad’s shoulders to reach the high places in the house where spiders like to live.  They used to laugh a lot, but mum died. Dad said she fell off his shoulders while they were dusting, and even grasping at spiders webs was not enough so she fell and died and slipped and fell all the way down the stairs, bumpty bumpty bump. So now they were orphans or half orphans, they still had dad. Dad was fat and silver haired and wore shades, people thought he was blind or posing. And why such a beauty from Iceland fall in love with him anyway.  Did the freezer  melt and did he offer her a blanket, or did she like his dog as he looked like a blind man in his shades.

These were just some of the unkind words spoken, but really she had a cancer that spread as fast as the spiders’ webs in their house, she had made him promise to tell them she fell down the stairs while on his shoulders cleaning. So they wouldn’t pity her pain. So dad lied to them, and they pretended it was the truth to make him and their dead mum happy. Of course it was a lie, they knew what Marie Curie was, and they knew she was a nurse not just a friend stopping over because her husband had left her. They had collected for Marie Curie at school. So Janet and John ate mum and dad’s lie, because it made their dead mum happy and kept their fat silver haired dad in shades sane.

At school the lie was shared, their mum had fallen down the stairs while on her husband’s shoulders cleaning the spider’s webs. So people were sad but smiled too, then were sad again. As for the kids in the playground, they just laughed and laughed. Killed by a spider, not from Mars but from Iceland, now your mum is as cold as ice. And your dad is just a fat fat old man, is he your granddad really they laughed. They did not notice the Marie Curie badges that Janet and John  had on their lunch boxes, and that their fat silver haired dad in shades had on his lapel. He really needed the shades now, not just because he had sensitive eyes, but because he always had tears in his eyes. No more wife on his shoulders cleaning the spiders’ webs away. Now he had an empty King size bed, he was just a pauper now, his wife, his lover, his friend, his cleaner of spiders webs as gone. Cancer was quick like a thief in the knife, it had stolen his wife, but at least Marie Curie was there, better than a best friend for real. Now he had to continue, to be the fat dad as his Iceland wife called him, to mum too, if only he had a clue.

Your dad killed your mum, he threw her down the stairs, for the insurance money teased the kids in the playground.  An Janet and John  ate all those bad words. For their dad’s sake they ate those bad words, for their dead mum’s sake they ate all those bad and sad and tear making words that they  heard. Janet and John smiled and just said, mum died happy while cleaning the spiders webs while sat on dad’s shoulders, it was quick and painless and she died with a smile on her face. It was an accident. Yes the Spiders’ Revenge teased the kids in the playground.

Now this kind of torture can go on for a long time, but sometimes Fate intervenes. On this occasion it was a new PE or Gym teacher, no she did not beat every single one in the playground, though they did deserve it, she sung to them. Miss Fiord was an exchange student from Iceland, she had only just arrived the day before. The head teacher had told her to look out for Janet and John as their mum had died tragically falling down stairs while cleaning spiders while sat on her husband’s  shoulders. Dad had decided not to tell the school the truth, when um dead, um dead, and why take a chance that the painful truth about cancer would be revealed to the children.

Miss Fiord was a beauty, just as all Icelandic girls are, and when she saw Janet and John she loved them, even more than that teacher in Matilda. So when she caught the children teasing and bullying Janet and John she started to sing an old Icelandic song.  The children did not know what it meant, only Janet and John understood, they were bilingual after all. The song was so beautiful and cold that all children started to cry, not just a little bit but a lot, a Paul Daniels amount of tears. And on and on Miss Fiord sung, till the children begged her to stop, but she would not until the whole playground was on their knees and in tears. She only sung the first 100 verses, there were 240 more, but 100 was enough. The children would never ever be nasty again, for the rest of their entire lives. A road to Damascus experience in a school yard.

Miss Fiord then climbed the climbing frame in seconds and beat her chest, like a gorilla, she was the king of the jungle, and the school kids would never argue about that. Miss Fiord was a hit with all the school and everybody loved her, especially Janet and John. That evening she met their dad the fat silver haired man in sunglasses, she introduced herself and found herself speaking in Icelandic, he replied in perfect Icelandic. He told her the truth, she cried and her heart broke, and she loved his children even more. So you lied to keep your Icelandic word, and to spare your children. Miss Fiord kissed him on the cheek, and that one kiss melted the iceberg in both their hearts. For Miss Fiord had lost the love of her life, he fell off a mountain in Iceland and his body was never found, his body would have frozen and turned into an ice cube in the drink that is the North Atlantic Ocean. 

But now tragedy had brought them together.  Ice takes a while to melt, first you get slush and cold water and then slowly the ice melts. And that is what happened with Miss Fiord, she fell in love with his children and then with the fat silver haired daddy in shades. He was old enough to be her dad, but his heart was young. Miss Fiord won a spa day as a school Christmas raffle prize, so on impulse she invited the fat silver haired dad in shades plus Janet and John, they could play in the swimming pool. So Miss Fiord and the fat dad tried the sauna, but in Iceland you are always nude in saunas, so as Miss Fiord was nude the fat daddy followed her example. 

In future they would say their first of seven children was conceived in a sauna, everybody thought it was a joke. Same as falling down stairs while on shoulders cleaning spiders’ webs. Or falling off a mountain and becoming an ice cube.  But the truth is, when the ice melts it melts totally, and it becomes warm liquid. Janet and John loved having a load more brothers and sisters, they moved to a big house next to their grammar school. There even was a sauna in the basement, which their new mum Miss Fiord just loved. How could they afford it, well Miss Fiord became a head teacher. There was a big garden too and every year they had garden party in aid of Marie Curie, oh and what is Miss Fiord’s first name? Maria of course, because the fat silver haired writer in shades had  problem and Maria solved it, just like in the Sound of Music, and she did sing that Icelandic song in the playground after all.