Squibble (story)

It was the stuff the nightmares are made of.

In a round room, dark and gloomy, seven authors, all of them wearing black, sat uneasily on gargoyley chairs. They chattered and chivvied and rubbed their hands on the knees of their worn black trousers.

The figure to whom they addressed their monologues crouched in the middle of the room, hands clamped tightly over its tiny, pointy ears, its head tucked into its chest where its teeth frayed the green felt fabric holding up the ruby buttons. The middle ruby button was loosened well and proper and was waiting for the last nibble to set it free.

'Nooooo,' the green clad figure pleaded, 'pleeeeeeze, nooooooo,' it said over and over.

But the murmur of black clad authors continued, unabated, unabashed, unrepentant;


Moxibustion, my lad, that's what it is, You must try it, but be sure you use the wormwood made of real worms, none of this fake plant stuff, you hear lad,

And the Dark Lord said onto him 'Kneel thee affront me Knave' and the Knave knelt and as he did the Dark Lord set forth an army of spectres upon him more terrible than even his Mother,

Spiders crawl, up and up and up until they are as high as they can get without falling off and they stop and laughe a terrible spidery laughe and then they all fall on her hair and she screams and gauges her eyes out one by one every single 27 of them,

The mist carried plague of the mind and it seeped into his pores now and he knew not of the way to stop it,

Whirl, whirl into the night my darling, we shall be together again, my flesh and your flesh, your wing and my wing, we shall be together again,

Ten thousand signatures, please one more, ten thousand signatures says the man but they won't sign and the pleading man falls down and takes a gun from his satchel and puts it to his sweaty brow,

Ice, ice, I tell you, not like the ice queen, but different, glorious ice that burns and freezes and removes all eases, The best ice and the worst ice,


The ruby button fell onto the flagstoned floor with a loud clunk. There was a momentary hush. In the next breath the pointy eared figure was gone.

It's a sign! It's mine! Seven black clad authors cried as one and without pause affrayed, intent on the ruby button, clawing and pushing and tearing eachother's bony fingers.

It is the Muse, it is the Dream, it is the Idea, the authors murmured, It will be Mine.

The stony floor groaned and screeched. The ruby button flew and slithered and bounced from hand to bony hand. In a heartbeat of a sparrow, or maybe a hummingbird, the seven authors tore one another into ribbons of black, warn out fabric that fervently wished they could flutter melodramatically but it was impossible, for there were no windows and no wind in the room of gargoyley chairs.

And the ruby button sat on the cold flagstone, unconcerned, unmoved, for it was just a button, after all.