Of the wasps, happily, there was no sign.
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National Poetry Month Day 28
Poetry
But not dead
Today my boss called me (fondly) an overgrown child, in reference to my vehement defence of owning wellies with fish on them and insistence that I would have a frog eyes umbrella if they came in grown-up sizes. Lord knows what he'd make of my desire for a kigurumi. Then he let me go home half an hour early.
It was the custom of Edward Batterbee and Alexander J Bruce to picnic in Alexander's rooms when the weather was, as often the case, too inclement to allow for the more traditional variant of picnicking. That it continued to be a picnic rather than merely afternoon tea was a compromise with the great sprawling arthropod studies Alexander was conducting.
He had begun small, but as with all of his ideas this fascination had grown, thus the desk, which might have passed muster for a table, and the table itself, and both the dining chairs, and in fact the armchairs, were swamped with sample cases, boxes, killing jars, pinboard, watercolours, blotting paper, and reems of Alexander's almost impenetrably childish hand. And so the tea they took was taken upon the floor, in the presence of Alexanders 'unpaid guests'. Today those boasted among their number a large rabbit with a wobbly hop, a pair of noisy toads in their pail, and quite an excessive quantity of sparrows. Of the wasps, happily, there was no sign.
The young men in question had spread a tartan blanket - in the Bruce colours, a gift from an aunt of Alexander's - upon the carpet, and having rung for tea were determined to enjoy it upon its scalding arrival.
Edward had brought Alexander a skull which his hasty researches and two seperate gamekeepers assured him was that of a badger, feeling perhaps that a tribute was required of him if Alexander was going to insist on placing the tea and cakes on his own room's bill. It lay reverently in Alexander's pale pink hands as Edward played mother and poured the tea, fiddling with the milk jug and talking nervously over the top of Alexander's own babble.
It was often the way that both or neither found their tongue at the same moment; observers might have found it an unholy racket, but both men counted their clumsy conversation among the high points of their respective days.
"It is a fine specimen," Alexander said, quite pleased with his new acquisition, "see, all the teeth are intact, even the more fragile incisors. He must havbe been a fearsome brute in life. I wonder what did for him - I hope not poison or the dog..."
Edward, raising a cup of not-cool-enough Assam to his lips (he had never cared for the Chinese teas, finding them watery), was unable to offer an opinion. He was struck dumb by the light of enthusiasm and delight which illuminated and radiated from Alexander's boyish good looks, and dumber yet by the notion that his own actions had brought it there. His!
He was not entirely sure what overcame him, but like a hawk that sees some struggling vole in the long grass, he dived on some baser instinct than mere thought. Edward found himself quite hot about the collar, red of face, and with a ringing in his ears as he crossed the mean gap between himself and his host by leaning forward, and with his tea still clasped in both hands pressed his mouth to Alexander's.
In the preceeding weeks Edward had given much thought to kissing, and specifically to kissing Alexander. It troubled him often, and became the subject of several incinerated poems of dubious quality. He had been unprepared for saliva, for tongues, and for a response of equal if not greater fervor.
So giddying was this last that it was some interval before Edward became fully aware that he had bitten his own lip in his haste, that he had slopped scalding tea over them both, and that Alexander's badger skull's teeth were digging into his arm. It was, however, another great interval after these discoveries before either was inclined to remark upon them; indeed, it was not until Edward began to feel faint from lack of air that he parted, reluctantly, in an ungainly string of drool.
National Poetry Month Day 28
Poetry
But not dead
Today my boss called me (fondly) an overgrown child, in reference to my vehement defence of owning wellies with fish on them and insistence that I would have a frog eyes umbrella if they came in grown-up sizes. Lord knows what he'd make of my desire for a kigurumi. Then he let me go home half an hour early.
It was the custom of Edward Batterbee and Alexander J Bruce to picnic in Alexander's rooms when the weather was, as often the case, too inclement to allow for the more traditional variant of picnicking. That it continued to be a picnic rather than merely afternoon tea was a compromise with the great sprawling arthropod studies Alexander was conducting.
He had begun small, but as with all of his ideas this fascination had grown, thus the desk, which might have passed muster for a table, and the table itself, and both the dining chairs, and in fact the armchairs, were swamped with sample cases, boxes, killing jars, pinboard, watercolours, blotting paper, and reems of Alexander's almost impenetrably childish hand. And so the tea they took was taken upon the floor, in the presence of Alexanders 'unpaid guests'. Today those boasted among their number a large rabbit with a wobbly hop, a pair of noisy toads in their pail, and quite an excessive quantity of sparrows. Of the wasps, happily, there was no sign.
The young men in question had spread a tartan blanket - in the Bruce colours, a gift from an aunt of Alexander's - upon the carpet, and having rung for tea were determined to enjoy it upon its scalding arrival.
Edward had brought Alexander a skull which his hasty researches and two seperate gamekeepers assured him was that of a badger, feeling perhaps that a tribute was required of him if Alexander was going to insist on placing the tea and cakes on his own room's bill. It lay reverently in Alexander's pale pink hands as Edward played mother and poured the tea, fiddling with the milk jug and talking nervously over the top of Alexander's own babble.
It was often the way that both or neither found their tongue at the same moment; observers might have found it an unholy racket, but both men counted their clumsy conversation among the high points of their respective days.
"It is a fine specimen," Alexander said, quite pleased with his new acquisition, "see, all the teeth are intact, even the more fragile incisors. He must havbe been a fearsome brute in life. I wonder what did for him - I hope not poison or the dog..."
Edward, raising a cup of not-cool-enough Assam to his lips (he had never cared for the Chinese teas, finding them watery), was unable to offer an opinion. He was struck dumb by the light of enthusiasm and delight which illuminated and radiated from Alexander's boyish good looks, and dumber yet by the notion that his own actions had brought it there. His!
He was not entirely sure what overcame him, but like a hawk that sees some struggling vole in the long grass, he dived on some baser instinct than mere thought. Edward found himself quite hot about the collar, red of face, and with a ringing in his ears as he crossed the mean gap between himself and his host by leaning forward, and with his tea still clasped in both hands pressed his mouth to Alexander's.
In the preceeding weeks Edward had given much thought to kissing, and specifically to kissing Alexander. It troubled him often, and became the subject of several incinerated poems of dubious quality. He had been unprepared for saliva, for tongues, and for a response of equal if not greater fervor.
So giddying was this last that it was some interval before Edward became fully aware that he had bitten his own lip in his haste, that he had slopped scalding tea over them both, and that Alexander's badger skull's teeth were digging into his arm. It was, however, another great interval after these discoveries before either was inclined to remark upon them; indeed, it was not until Edward began to feel faint from lack of air that he parted, reluctantly, in an ungainly string of drool.