Tip Tap

Harken, friend, to my tale of warn
Lest of you shall those who surround mourn.
For if the inoculation is to be of benefit
A bit do you take within of disease
Erefore do you wish for a shot of a life of ease

I begin with the giving of the man’s name
To of his wish of success did became

Alan stood in the middle of his nouveau wine shop,
To the community, a man who upon the world stood on top,
Shocked they would be at his actions now
Of standing still as around him was afire –
But they don’t know of what occurred before and a year prior.

Tears stained Alan’s cheeks as he as he looked around the foundation for his world
And remembered twelve months back as his stomach churned and churled

Alan had just hit the age of forty plus one
He looked back and fro to what yet was left undone,
Realized time he had spent working for others
Would not garner the better things in life
Not only for him but for his friend, lover and wife.

All around he saw others take chance after chance
To be rewarded richly with nary a backwards glance

It was the boldest of plans,
Selling wine bottled in soda cans
The hired analyst had insisted Alan of this a mountain of profit he would make
So certain of the future did the data paint and create
lenders, with his house as collateral, were willing, able and of him sate

But just as Alan began times turned economically hard
And the promised mountain crumbled to but the merest of shard.

Alan tried everything in the sales technique book
But the people couldn’t be bothered to take at his wares even a look
What little Alan did manage to sell
Went to the bank loan with a rate so high
That Alan knew he’d default though against he did try

Alan did his best to keep his wife unaware of the ill
And about he new life insurance policy and making a new will

In the mid of night Alan would steal to the basement
Taking out his shotgun from its encasement
To sit on the floor and put its barrel into his mouth
Until his tears made the metal glisten as if it were chrome
Whilst thinking what good was he if he could not even keep his family’s home?

What kind of life could he provide?
If from the winter’s cold soon they’d have no warm inside?

Night after night as he’d would be certain the trigger he’d pull
Yet each time his resolve faltered to the morrow’s attempt to mull
Alan would put the shotgun back in its case
Weeping to himself that he was a loser, failure and a coward,
A sentiment to which clung despite a harsh scrub as he showered.

One night as he listlessly climbed stair by stair
Did a voice in his ear did catch him unaware

“Tip tap tip tap tip
I can see how thirsty you are for success’s sip”
The bodiless voice did utter
“I could offer you it if you so do pick
Tick tock tick tock tick.”

He saw no one – he was alone
Yet he felt a chill that cut to the very marrow of the bone

“Tip tap tip tap tip
I can see how thirsty you are for success’s sip”
The bodiless voice did utter once more
“I could offer you it if you so do pick
Tick tock tick tock tick.”

He feared faster down was he falling toward becoming mad
Then with bemuse wondered if he were more pathetic or sad

In front atop the landing an orb of light did appear to grow and shimmer
To a scene of Alan and his wife asmile did it glimmer
In front of two matching new cars, a fine, large new home with a neatly manicured lawn.
Alan’s eyes were whirling with the sight he’d been shown
That then dissolved into that of standing on the landing an old crone.

Alan almost fell back
To which made the crone stifle a giggle through a lip smack

“Tip tap tip tap tip
I can see how thirsty you are for success’s sip”
The crone said barely about a whisper
“I could offer you it if you so do pick
Tick tock tick tock tick.”

Alan thought about what the crone did offer
Could she really fill his empty coffer?

Surely he had fallen asleep,
Maybe had fallen and cracked his head deep –
But what did he have to lose?
Soon enough all he worked for would be gone
As sure as every morning there comes a dawn.

With a self-conscious chuckle Alan said, “Yes
To me please success you can bless.”

The crone nodded and gave a thin smile
“You were wise t think quick and not stall for a while,”
She said with a glibness to her tone
“But know this in one year hence I will return
For half of what your desire did earn.”

With that the crone did evaporate
Though Alan could swear for the longest times those violet eyes did not abate.

Alan was at the store by the rise of the sun
Dismal in the thought that his dream was over before it had really begun.
What a stupid fantasy he chided to himself
But when he opened the doors promptly at nine
A crowd of people had lined up to buy his canned wine.

Throughout the day the business was steady,
That night he worked late to get tomorrow’s stock ready.

Day after day, week after week, business did increase,
Soon the loan was paid back in full, the bankers sedate and at peace.
Alan had to expand his canning operation
And hire a crew of twenty strong
As the pre-orders list was long.

When Alan would get home his wife would give him a kiss
And tell him of how much more lately did of him she did miss.

It was a Cinderella story according to the meda,
Under success, they said, Alan’s picture would be in the encyclopedia.
There was nothing Alan could do wrong,
But the end of six months he had franchised the operation
Keeping the original store as his proud demonstration.

It was just as Alan had seen,
A new house, new cars and all the luxuries in between.

Then one night as the last customer had just left he shop at the hour of close
Alan did not notice the old woman until a sniff of her nose

“I’m sorry we are closed,” Alan did to her apologetically explain
The woman’s expression was one of disdain
Alan didn’t want to be rude, but he wanted to get home –
His wife would be expecting him at six o’clock sharp
Or upon his arrival and throughout the night she would harp

He put on her shoulder his hand
To direct the woman out of the shop just as planned

Though the woman looked thin as a reed hollow
When Alan touched her his breath went shallow,
He felt as if a large hypodermic needle had been stabbed forcibly through
His fingers as his energy like a rapid saline drip
His heart did stutter and trip

It was then he saw a deep intense violet hue to her eyes
Just as he thought he had imagined a year before that he had believed were dreamt lies.

“Tip tap tip tap tip
Your time hast slip
Into your hand did I place a treat
Now into mine place part of what you did pick
Tick tock tick tock tick”

Was all the woman with a grated rasp said
As Alan fell to his knees swearing that he was half-dead

Alan looked up at the crone eye to half hidden eye,
Did a year already pass by?
Alan’s first thought had been to laugh at the crone,
Call her crazy and to leave his shop
But the chill in his bones and those violet eyes did make that idea stop.

“Of course, of course,” Alan stated,
Real or not, he could not argue that his life was sedated.

Alan stood up and took a business-like manner,
Typing in a password in his electronic scale and inventory scanner.
Call it jaded from working for too many penny pinchers previous
But Alan kept a personal tally as his tare of his riches
So not to be jerked around by those accountant son of a bitches.

He showed the crone the number count
Then politely asked how much she wanted of his fount.

“Half is what the deal was for,”
She said as Alan’s wife walked through the door
With an irritated look upon her face
“Not a penny less, not a penny more,” the crone sharply spat,
And Alan knew there was no arguing with her, that was that.

“hello dear, you are late,” his wife said rudely,
Though the look the crone gave it could have been put much more crudely.

“Yes, yes, sorry, my pet,
I’ll finish up here and we’ll be set,”
Alan said, his eyes eager then turned to the crone
“Would a cheque be alright?
The bank would be locked up for the night.”

The crone replied that she would be back in the morn
For cheques were no good for where she had been born.

Alan’s wife looked confused and did snidely ask
What could such a woman like this do as a task
To be paid anything of our money,
The store sold wares not bought
And manufactured for those who tastes unique were sought.

Alan, with a nervous squeak,
To his wife explain the situation up to its peak.

“Have you lost your mind? Are you insane?
Give up half of what you worked so hard to obtain?
To some old lady claiming to have done a magic spell?”
Did Alan’s wife having enough to him cried,
“Can’t you see that this old bitch is taking you for a ride?”

“Silence!”
The crone did command, “All I seek ‘tis the cost just of penance –

Listen and heed these words well,
Your husband agreed fully without any outside compel;
A deal between he and I was struck
Of mutual gain which well not be mired
By a spoiled brat whose greed leaves much to be desired.”

Alan pled for his wife to understand,
With what he made now it was not that large of a demand

Alan’s wife, enraged, responded with to the crone’s face a brutal slap
That resounded throughout the shop as a low levelled thunder clap.
The two women at each other for a moment glared
Rather than in pain yowl
The crone laughed through a tight scowl

Alan’s face blanched and he felt deeply sick
Did not his love see this was not a fight to pick?

Alan’s wife did yelp as the crone’s spiny fingers wrapped around her forearm
“I have clear eyes that are not mudded by your charms”
She hiss through lips still clenched
“such a spoilt brat, so lost in your own airs you are
Fortunate that one like he ignores the thick clouds to imagine you a star”

Alan reached out to calm his wife down
But she pushed him back with on her face a frown

“What kind of a man are you?
If she thinks she owns half, then let her sue,
She’ll be mocked and called a liar!
A meek coward you are just!”
Alan’s wife snapped indisgust.

“Now let me go, you fucking bitch;
You’re far too old to be acting like a whore out to get rich.”

Around Alan’s wife’s legs it happened so quick and concise
Did wrap the cord of the weight scale and scanning device.
Alan’s wife’s eyes rolled as she gave a silent scream
As the flesh of her leg bubbled out the cord’s loop between
As if it were a tier of red and purple hued praline.

All the while the crone did not release her grip
Though the woman’s flesh from her bone did strip

Bile welled in Alan’s mouth as he did watch
Unable to move, too afraid of his wife’s condition he’d worsen or further botch.
He should do something, Alan thought, something
To aid his life’s love
To break the attention of the crone with a shove

But , Alan thought, what if it angered the crone more –
For a little pain, he thought with a giggle, he could buy a fake leg from the profits of the store

Alan began to whimper as he heard a dull sawing sound,
The cord had made it to the bone and gnawed now it around
Alan took a step forward
Then fell onto his knees and back
As the sharp bone edge did fray the cord and spawn an electric crack

Smoke began to rise as his wife boiled from the inside,
The flesh of her remaining calf charring upwards like a raging ebb tide.

Tears Alan’s vision blurred
His throat too tight to say a word
Smelt the burning of fabric to flesh
As the scale’s electric noose
Crackled through the woman’s every pore loose.

When Alan managed to wipe his eyes clear
All that remained was a crusted black statue of his dear.

The crone still had her hand upon his wife
With no evidence upon her of the torturous corded strife
Alan tried to speak but she hushed him –
She did not seem angry or sad, or at all have a concern
That over Alan’s entire world she did burn.

“Worry not of the bank to of half your worth pull,
The debt is pain in full.”

Alan did not understand the words of the crone,
How could he have paid her back her loan?
Then in horror he began to realize
That the deal was for half of what he did of success desire,
And what he cherished most stood as a used funeral pyre.

The crone gave a laugh as the plastic shoe of his wife did alit
And fiery sparks popping to the cardboard and plastic surround bit by bit.

Alan watched as the shop did burn
Until of the crone and of his wife’s forms he could no longer discern
The emergency response team pulled Alan away from the dancing flames to their truck,
“You were lucky,” did one EMT state as the fire was put out, “You could have died!”
But Alan looked blankly at the combusted dance and thought luck had befriended the ones inside.

As the crews turned the blaze to smoulder
Alan’s will too mimicked the actions along ‘til he felt ninety years older.

He managed to answer the questions somewhat asked of him
The investigators understanding the trauma of such an accident would make his mind dim.
Two days later they released Alan from the hospital,
After the investigation found the fire and Alan’s wife’s death to be an act of god;
Cleaning supplies messily slopped, and a frayed cord that upon she shouldn’t have trod.

As he was driven home, the officer told him to take it easy, to rest, to grieve,
He would be alright, he just of that had to believe.

The quietness of the house to Alan to him mock
It gave o clue to where hidden was the key to Alan’s loneliness lock
Believe in what, he thought – lost was his dream life and his wife
He was too tired, too weak,
Even his heavy trod on the house’s old floor didn’t creak.

Just as a year before Alan went step by step down to the basement
And opened without hesitation his shotguns encasement

A moment later did the shotgun glisten as if made of chrome
As dead man’s blood sought out the basement floors cracks to roam
It would be days before Alan would be discovered,
Sooner it would have been if friends had not felt it respectful to give time alone
Or they would have seen a pair of violet eyes over the corpse agleam with condone

Alan, to of his wish of success did became
As began to end with the giving of the man’s name

Erefore do you wish for a shot of a life of ease
A bit do you take within of disease
For if the inoculation is to be of benefit
Lest of you shall those who surround mourn
Harken, friend, to my tale of warn