The Spawns

The Spawns | Chapter XI -- The Question Sort of Answered Itself

Unlike Beth and Jay I couldn’t remember a quote just by reading it once. I had to re-read it at least a dozen times before it stuck in my head, unless it was really beautiful and poignant. That was somehow unsettling to me seeing Jayden couldn’t even realize what was going on around him, but with just one look he could memorize anything. He was a walking and talking contradiction.

The blond girl stood there, reading the notes, smiling a little. I seriously didn’t like it. I was moments away from shoving her out of here.

She broke the silence before I could act. “What is your favourite quote,” Nikki inquired.

“Sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood,” I answered in an almost mechanical voice.

“What?”

She was looking at me with wide disbelieving eyes. I smiled internally. For some reason it always brought that reaction. That was why it was always my automatic answer, even though it wasn’t the real one.

“It’s from Jonathan Swift’s Description of a City Shower,” I explained, keeping a straight face.

“That can’t possibly be your favourite quote! Dead cats? You love your cat!” she shot back, looking at the gray ball of fur on my bed.

“And drowned puppies,” I emphasis. “I mean it. Jonathan Swift is by far my favourite writer. I absolutely love his obsession with shit. Oh and his Modest Proposal is absolutely brilliant.”

“His what?” I think I had pretty much lost her at this point.

I sweetly smiled at her, leaning my back against one of the libraries. “Never heard of it? It’s an essay. Another of my favourite quotes!” I started to recite it. “‘I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.’ Now it was written in 1729 so I doubt he’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, but one can always hope, right?” Yes, completely and utterly lost the poor girl.

            “What the hell are you talking about?” she pressed.

            I shrugged. “Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal. He says that to prevent people from starving and poverty they should eat the babies. Especially the Irish ones. A very beautiful prose…” I trailed, gazing back towards Fluffy.

            “I’m not sure I follow you, but if I do, eating babies is seriously sick,” Nikki informed me, looking at me almost sternly. But I think she was also trying to be teasing at the same time. I seriously did not get that girl.

            “But if you listen to scientist, it might actually cure all wounds,” I added, trying to shock her. And anyway, wasn’t that what they said embryo stem cells could do? And wasn’t that kind of like babies? Like, if you were really far-fetched in your analysis, which I was?

“What?”

Maybe I should stop pushing the poor girl. She’d go cry to her parents. I was really mean, wasn’t I? “Oh, don’t listen to me, I have hallucinations,” I waved it off, like it was normal, which it kind of was.

She chuckled a little. That was not the reaction I was going for. I was going for her getting out of my room quickly, actually. “You kind of remind me of Prior Walter.”

Woah, say that again, Mary Sue. “Excuse me? Who?”

She seemed proud for some reason, thinking she was about to teach me something. “You know, from Angels in America.”