Culture

In a Word . . . Rhapsody

I shouted at him: ‘Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango!’

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Oct 2 2021 - 00:30

Reader: “Just killed a man. Put a gun against his head. Pulled my trigger. Now he’s dead.” Don’t tell anyone. You’ll understand – he was a leaf blower! Well, he accompanied one of those useless hand-held machines that he used to blow leaves, only for the breeze to blow them back. Again. “Any way the wind blows.”

He was even here in mid-August blowing our peace to smithereens and not a fallen leaf in sight. Only decibels. Old ladies, younger ones, domestic pets, our resident fox, all were traumatised as he began to blow. At 8am.

He was heard at the airport 40km away. Above the jet engines.

This had gone on so long it was time for action. The greater good demanded it. So, yes, it was premeditated. I make no apologies, my Lord. (Just rehearsing!) “I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy. Because I’m easy come, easy go. Little high, little blow”, my Lord.

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So I got a gun and waited for the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, falling leaves. As these accumulated, it was only a matter of time before he would arrive on any windy day to compete with the gale as he blew away our peace.

I was hesitant, momentarily, when he began to shatter our calm at 8am yesterday, but moral necessity demanded I act. “Bismillah,” he said as I approached. “Scaramouch,” I responded dismissively. I explained I had come to execute him for bringing untold and repeated misery to myself, my neighbours, our cats and dogs, the resident fox.

To my astonishment, he agreed it was deserved. He hated the leafblower himself. Between it and his wife at home, he was deaf. But he could get no other job. He had enough. “Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters. Too late, my time has come,” he implored me.

I was thrown. He began to sing, “Goodbye, everybody, I’ve got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.” It was worse than the leaf blower. I hate melodrama, and from such a “little silhouetto of a man”.

I shouted at him: "Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango!" Then I tried to be rational and pleaded: "Galileo, Galileo." But, too much. I shot him.

“Is this just fantasy?” (Apologies to Queen.)

Rhapsody, from Latin rhapsodia, for epic poem.

[ inaword@irishtimes.com ]

Galileo