Author Brian T. Gill

“Adventures in Throgwottum Glen” Teasers and Supplements

"Rhyme of the Mudupan" © 2013 Brian T. Gill

Verse 1:Should you chance upon The Mudupan
Beat a fast retreat.
For the first on whom it feasts
Are those not fleet of feet.


It'll sniff you with its eager schnoz,
Clutch you in its hairy paws,
Gnash you into tiny bits,
Or roast you later on a spit!


Refrain 1:But we'll never see The Mudupan
Because it's fast asleep.
For a hundred years it rests in a cave
In Tryg Mountain, dark and deep.


Verse 2:Still, concerning The Mudupan
It's best to stay far clear.
For it's wretched and mean
And huge – to wit, four yards from ear to ear.


You best beware its pointy claws
And double so its jagged jaws;
It's razor teeth will slice you through
When still alive or boiled in stew!


Refrain 2:Should we come across The Mudupan —
But fear not, we never will.
For its slumbers in its hideaway
Huddling, quiet and still.

"Convergence" a poem © 1995 Brian T. Gill

Continents drift,
Their swift river flows
Stretch to the seas,
Reaching for lost shores.


Amidst disorder
Borders shift and cherubs cry
As rocket flames seer the skies,
Parting sameness.


Higher, among constellations,
Artifice fades; the real remains.


Magnified through angel tears
A distant pair of light appears.


Spanning divides
Crossing nations
Two souls unite,
The conflagration – unyielding to waves.


And the stars resonate.

"The Garbadine Swine" a short story © 2000 Brian T. Gill

Itcannotbe, itcannotbe . . . . Frenetic motion tracked fragmented thoughts. Itcannotbe . . . . The single cluster of words was all he could form. Then, in the language of his youth, Sasha Gelfman cried aloud, "Bozhe moi!" But the severity was simply too great, and switching to Russian made it no more tolerable. Having been picked, his forbidden fruit would not be reattached to the tree.

He barely noticed the rain that began to fall, how long ago was it?  Ten minutes?  Two hours?  Now his jacket and gabardine pants were soaking wet.  Sasha ran his fingers through sopping black hair, yielding grudgingly to the elements in what ought not to have been a protracted struggle.  He thought about finding a café, if one were open this late.

Pink neon flashed the invitation “Diner” from a block away.  Sasha cinched his collar and trudged onward, trying not to drag his feet through the murky puddles.  He reached the entrance just as a brightly manicured hand turned the Open sign to Closed.  Sasha shot a pleading look at the waitress, but sizing him up she thought better of offering refuge.  What does it matter? he wondered.  Tomorrow, or next week, or next year, and the day will come – there is no way to prevent it – they will ALL stare at us with such contempt.  And over a . . . mote, a sequence, a bit of mapping too tiny for the naked eye.  It is obscene, obscene, that so much can hinge on something so miniscule.

Further incongruities invaded.  Sasha recalled Winston Churchill walking among animals, scratching the underbellies of hogs with his walking cane.  “A dog looks up to man, a cat looks down on man, but a pig stares man in the eye and sees his equal” – so declared the late statesman, a defender of the free world, no less.   Itcannotbe, itcannotbe.  He reached inside his coat pocket, finding a wet five-dollar bill that would not quite cover a cab ride home.  That problem seemed trivial in comparison.

At last he came upon a Cathedral.  Its doors were still open, providing shelter from the storm.  Sasha stood on the steps equivocating, then, feeling the full extent of his chill, entered diffidently.

A handful of vagrants stretched out on the floor.  The more reverent, or at least the relatively sober, sat semi-erect in pews, their ragged hands clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee.  One passed Sasha, uttering incoherencies or possibly prayers – it was unclear which.  Poor devil, Sasha thought, or perhaps said.

“I’ll not warn you again – if you use that language in the house of the Lord, you’ll be cast outside, rain, shine, or hellfire!”  Sasha winced, half expecting a boxing on the ears, then realized the admonition was addressed at Poor Devil.

“You’ll not also be placing me in a moral quandary, I hope.”  The voice, now directed at Sasha, was strong and edgy, with an Irish brogue.  Don’t be fooled by the collar, suggested the tone, I know as much about wickedness as any 10 death-row inmates.  “We open our hearts and doors to the less fortunate, but I’ll tolerate no cursing.  I want to set the rules straightaway because I don’t seem to recognize you.  Why don’t you grab some coffee.  And some paper towels; you’re wet to the bone.”

“Moral quandary,” Sasha repeated.  “Well, yes, that’s one way of putting it.  Only I’m not . . . .”  He meant to say homeless.  He might also have noted that he was an accomplished geneticist, but the priest cut him off mid thought, noting upon the pin of Jude the Apostle on Sasha’s jacket.  It had been a gift from his colleagues, an irony then as now.

“Well then, if there’s something you want to get off your chest, come with me.”  Following seemed an act of irreverence, but Sasha had no better hope for conversation.  When in Rome, he thought.  “Tell me what troubles you,” invited the priest.

“I don’t exactly know where to begin.  It’s all so . . . .”

“By the way, has it been long since your last confession?”

An infinite time, thought Sasha, but he answered simply, “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“I see.  What is it, then?”

“Well, Father (that was the right title, wasn’t it?), I’ve had a metaphysical experience, and I’m not sure that it’s within your . . . jurisdiction.”  That certainly wasn’t the proper term, though it brokered no comment.  “You see, sometimes my people have revelations.  Oppenheimer, for instance . . . .”

“By ‘my people,’ you mean scientists, then?”

“Jewish scientists in particular.”

A muted gasp escaped the priest.  Father McNamara had heard much in his day, but this was something altogether new.

“Not only Oppenheimer.  Einstein too, only Oppenheimer . . . .”  Then it donned on Sasha that he was the subject of the query.  “Yes, yes, father, you’re right, although that hardly matters.  I have committed a far-reaching injustice, a trespass of such incomprehensibility that someone needs to hear about it.   I wandered around for who knows how long wondering whether to destroy the evidence, but that might be even more unpardonable.  Who can help me?  The situation outstrips ethics!  There is nothing to measure the scale of it all!”

“Go on.”  The reply was tentative, intended not to provoke an apparent lunatic.

“Yes, the sheer scale of it all,” Sasha repeated, settling on a reference point.  “That is why I mentioned Oppenheimer.  Are you familiar with him?”

“The inventor of the atomic bomb, you mean?”

“And a mystic, and a renaissance man as well.  He could even read Sanskrit.  Do you know what he saw in the dessert after the first test?”
The priest was at a loss on engaging his confessor.  “A mushroom cloud, I’d imagine.”

“An ancient passage flashed before him: ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’  I’ve often wondered how tortured he must have been to fathom the full moral ramifications of his action.”

“I would give anything not to know that answer,” he continued.  “I am cursed, father.  You must do something, if you can.  Though that is doubtful, because I’ve sinned against all of mankind, Catholics, Jews, atheists – everyone.  I ought to be flogged a thousand times over.  A million!”

“Only you have to believe me,” he implored.  “I really didn’t mean to do it.  Think anything you want, toss me onto the street if you wish, only you must know that it wasn’t viciousness on my part.  Carelessness, yes, but not viciousness.  It started as a joke, Father, and I never would have . . . if only I’d known!”

It took Father McNamara a moment to venture, weakly, “Surely it can’t be so bad.”

“But it is Father.  Every bit as bad, and worse.”  Sasha slouched forward.  “I was working on a better sun screen,” he continued with affected calmness.  “Could there be any harm in that?  We were experimenting on pigs.  Aside from man,” he explained in response to the blank stare, “only swine are sensitive to sunlight.”

“Greed, it all comes down to greed,” he continued, as if the transition ought to have been clear.  “I see that now.  A genetic resistance to skin cancer would be priceless.  But my motive was something else entirely.  There was a woman in the marketing department who liked to say that men are pigs. Wouldn’t it be funny, I imagined, if I could respond to her, ‘You’ve been right all along, Rachel, men are pigs: I have proof.’  I know that sounds like a contemptible way to win her over, but what choice did I have?  I’m a scientist, not a Casanova,” he observed, pointing at his rain-soaked clothing.  “I live and die by my wits.”

“In so many words, I set out to give men an excuse.  What a service I would be rendering if they could say, ‘you can’t fault me for being this way – I’m descended from swine, after all.’  The whole notion was so farcical, so preposterous, that it couldn’t possibly go anywhere, could it?  Only there it was, so indisputably clear in the imprint.  And what’s more, the code is completely lacking in women!  How terrible, how ignoble, to be the one to reveal us as utter absurdities!  Instead of giving men a shield, I’ve given women a sword.  They belong on pedestals, beautiful and aloof like the Venus De Milo, while we . . . .  It’s all turned against us now; they’ll know exactly how inferior we are.  Every pair of eyes, every smirk, will show that they know.  Flogging me a million times over isn’t enough!”

“You see, Father,” he continued, “as a scientist, I had always believed in evolution.  The thought of descending from apes isn’t so disturbing: at least they walk upright.  Ah, if only Darwin were right.  Pigs!  Pigs, of all creatures, cloven animals!  Filthy mud wallowers!  How much better our ignorance was!  What have I done?”

Sasha placed his head in his hands and sobbed uncontrollably.  At last, slowly and deliberately, the priest recited: “’Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.’  Luke 8:33.  That passage has always haunted me.  Men and pigs,” he despaired, his voice trailing off.  “Men and pigs, possessed by demons . . . .”

“Part of me hoped you would find me delusional,” Sasha exclaimed, “but I can tell you know the truth.  There is no avoiding it; it’s like staring inside yourself with a microscope and exposing every last comforting self-deception.”

“You must listen carefully,” came the urgent plea.  “Forget this night ever happened.  I beg you, go back to the lab and destroy your project.  Speak to no one: the world isn’t ready for this kind of truth.  On your way, say three Hail Marys as a token; improvise if you don’t know how.  Offer the words up on behalf of your three billion brethren, and maybe, maybe that will be enough.  I’ll pray for you.  Now, go in mercy.  Go before your strength leaves you.”

As Sasha left he glanced sidelong at the unconscious drunkards, envying their ignorance and trying to fortify himself.  It is a good deed to spare them this horror, he thought.  But, as if he were peering directly into their souls, he saw that they already knew.  And with that realization Sasha exited the Cathedral, traipsing through murky puddles on the way to who knows where.