In the course of doing research for our sensational
revelations concerning a recently-unearthed Dickensian manuscript (See: A Lost Fragment of “Our Mutual Friend” ), conscienciously earnest, scrupulously to avoid the slightest
faintest hint or whiff of hoax or hi-jinx, we discovered that, while such merry
jests in the past were usually scholarly and humorous, the trend in America, in
recent years, has been for totally fake weepy sob-stories about miserable
childhoods or tragic female suffering and victimization, dressed up as
nonfictional memoirs. And so
soon as our initial indignation had passed (sharing it in virtual communion
with the shade of Cato the Censor), it suddenly struck us: this sh|t sells!
Now as it happens, I myself have a story to tell -- the
tragic, passionate, suitable for the big screen (or small, against suitable
guarantees for later syndication) true story of my life!
My childhood
out-sucks your childhood,
totally. Mine sucked big-time; yours, small- to medium-time.
So here you have a sample, under my nom de gloom.
(Agents: Call my agent, and
my people will get with yours.)
~ ~ ~
My Tragic Childhood
by
Oliver Twisted
I was raised in a windowless box, suspending from a ceiling
by a wire. Feeding took place
through a knothole, via a long, long spoon; I never saw the hand that held it. Excretion took place through another knothole in the floor.
The fare never varied:
a gritty, greyish mush, consisting of ground-up pig fetuses, spiced with
shards of glass, then fed to a dog which vomited it back, and then to me. Since I was starved to a weight of no
more than seventeen pounds, I was still desperate for this humble repast, which
sometimes did not arrive for weeks on end. One time, in fact, bowl in hand, I quaveringly squeaked
out, “Sir -- Whoever you are --
Sir, may I have more?” -- And danged
if he didn’t comply, another bleeding blob promptly squirting in through the
knothole into my face! So, I can’t
complain in that regard, I did get seconds; shouldn’t write protests about anything that isn’t true.
For all companionship, I had a particularly ill-tempered
scorpion who had somehow slithered into the box to escape the bitter cold
without. He was all that I knew in
the world; and as such, I
cherished him, with something like a kind of stunted love. He repeatedly stung me, injecting the
venom deep into my flesh, but I little minded, for such was all I knew of
creaturely relations: it was, I
imagined, just his way of showing his affection for me. I returned
the tender demonstration by repeatedly stomping on his body with my bare
heel; but his carapace was tough
to crush.
I never heard a human voice, and learned to vocalize only by
listening to the screams of other inmates being tortured in solitary
confinement in distant boxes of their own. Yet it was difficult to make out these cries above the
general din of Nazi propaganda that yammered at top volume from gigantic
loudspeakers positioned at strategic corners of the room. Yet I was patient, and gleaned what I
could; for there was nothing else
to occupy my time.
~
Once a year (or once a decade -- it was difficult to assess
the passage of time, whether diurnal or annual, since everything passed in
total darkness and an invariable frigid chill) -- one in a time, as a special
treat, I would be taken out of my cage by an unseen paw, and sexually molested.
Once, I had a rabbit;
but it died; and so, like
Mr Bertrand Russell in similar circumstances, I became a committed atheist.
~
At last the great day came when it was time to graduate, and
be sold into slavery to a malevolent dwarf. I and the other monads stood in a long line, and
solemnly were granted our diplomas.
We were told that we had been a great disappointment, and would never
amount to anything.
And it was then that the real misery began.
To hear the rest, tune in to Oprah.
To hear the rest, tune in to Oprah.
~ ~ ~
There.
Top that.
~ ~ ~ ~
[Note: Dickens
himself already provided what is in effect a biting satire of Twistian
sentimentalism, in the marvelous figure of Bounderby,
in Hard Times.]
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