A fishy Tale

Last night I had a nightmare perhaps inspired by the "fish eye" soup that I saw a man known as the "Old Salt" savor at an East Providence restaurant. In the nightmare I was back in Washington Park of the 1950s at an exotic aquarium fish store named Dagon's.

I was accompanied by my friend Norman - the "boy scientist." Norman expressed an interest in buying an unusually beautiful fish for his science teacher, Miss Brodie, whom he had a pre-adolescent crush on.

Old Mr. Dagon said in a discouraging tone: "Why you look like you own no property!" The price of the fish was $50.00 - indeed a little too expensive for poor boy Norman.

Then the nightmare became confused with reality. I remember Norman going back to Dagon's the next day and without hinting to me what he had in mind, dropped a tablet of Alka-Seltzer into the tank of the highly desired fish.

We returned to Dagon's after school and saw the ghastly result of Norman's evil prank: the beautiful fish was now a sickly white bloated corpse. Mr. Dagon was just scooping it out of the bowl. He gave Norman the "evil eye".

That summer Miss Brodie, on her honeymoon in South America was attacked by a school of hungry piranhas. There was not even a funeral.

" There was never even a funeral "

- - - - - - - - - - - -


( Good Morning Bob ! Thank God the " heart of darkness " month of

January is over and the Valentines Day month begins bright and sunny.

In case you need to be told the above " letter " is product of my

perverse imagination and not too faded memory. I had nothing better to

do on a dreary winter night. The " letter " about " Sweetheart " was

also strictly Twilight Zone stuff. If you check the obituary page you

will see that nobody by the dubious name of Lazarus passed away in

old Pawtuxet village ( scene of Lovecraft's " Charles Dexter World ". )

The " Julius " of the story would not have reported the death anyway. He

would have buried Lazarus in a way worthy of his name sake- so he just

might come back !

H.L Mencken thought that only lunatics wrote letters to the

editors anyway. But was not he himself a Professional Writer of

Letters - and a very good one ?

What difference does it make if some of the " lunatic's letters "

are in fact only slightly more insane horror stories ?

There is often more real truth in the Twilight Zone than on

front page of our morning paper .

- - - - - - - - - -



Ron--Your stories are more than worthy
of Stephen King! "A Fishy Tale" could be
a page taken from King--only better! The tragic & horrifying tale of
Lazarus , the disfigured autistic with the jaw bone of a pit bull, could
only have been conceived in a nightmare. How true it is that truth is
stranger than fiction! Thanks for sharing
these outre memoirs with me. They appeal to my self-conscious
appreciation
of the absurd & the grotesque. Lovecraft
himself would have gotten a "kick" (one of his favorite expressions)
out of them. ( friend's comment )