A Tale of Mystery and Imagination

Cover created in Canva, borrowing the title of the piece from a collected stories from Poe.

A Tale of Mystery and Imagination

Thomas was not an avid reader, nor was he thought of as a connoisseur of gothic stories, or indeed, a young man interested in tales of the ‘grotesque’ or ‘arabesque’ – yet, he sat in the middle of his bedroom with delight smeared across his face. He let the book on his lap fall to the floor, before standing, and with a certain precision, begun to practise his invitation for revenge. He imagined he could see little Joanne Miller’s face already stained with an understanding of her torturous demise! HaHa!

“Dear Fortunato”, he begun, and then he stopped, a long breath truncating the summons. The boy, for he was not quite twelve, suddenly felt uncertain – for while he understood the premise of walling up his nemesis at the end of a long tunnel, he was just not quite sure where he would find a catacomb in the middle of the city, or what, in fact, was an amontillado.

Not deterred, he sought out a new plan. Joanne Miller, the little miss, had spread a vicious rumour regarding him and a certain other young woman, and in doing so, painted a picture of him having little regard for girl germs. The playground had been a bleak jumble of pain and misery that day as his dignity had been pushed down the slippery dip and squashed beneath the monkey bars.

What a serendipitous moment then, that Thomas would have turned the page - he stared at that next page in his book which depicted a certain pit and his imagination begun to race, considering the terrible fate which he wished on his enemy – but he cursed his luck, as he did not live in Spain and felt sure that any inquisitors would not be wandering by his school any time soon. Undeterred, he continued until his eyes went wide. He felt sure he’d found the perfect plan; he begun to wonder whether Joanne’s house was sitting in a sort of marshy quicksand – a falling house, he knew, would certainly be unable to be linked to him, and he was sure that he could not be grounded for the ill luck befalling the Millers.

A tapping on his window startled him from his reverie. Thomas looked up and with a snarl, spat out, “Get out of here, you dumb crow!” Thomas, it seemed, had not yet learned the difference between crows and ravens, yet his outburst of noise was enough to scare the tapping bird to take flight. As he watched the raven fly off over his neighbour's yard, Thomas was inspired to a new evil plan. In what he considered very poor fortune, his window faced Joanne’s bedroom. He could see the young girl’s window was open, and sitting on her window ledge was a brand new Barbie doll. It had been the subject of her Show-N-Tell earlier that day, but now, it would be at the centre of Thomas' insidious intent! HaHa!

Thomas left his room, and minutes later returned, laughing hysterically as he ran back into his room holding the small plastic toy – which he intended to make smaller yet. He went to his study desk in the corner of his room and picked up his scissors, and with a certain malice, cut the doll into six pieces, hacking off each limb without consideration of his crime. Moving with surgical precision, he then went to the loose floorboard in the middle of his room, before hiding the pieces of the doll between the joists and covering her back over and into darkness. He was calm. He was methodical. The following day he would return his borrowed book to the library and he would join the chorus of sympathisers, mewing over Joanne's tears.

But a coincidence then, as luck would have it, that it was that exact moment Thomas heard a police siren in the distance, and again, that mocking raven begun to tap, tap, tap the window pane. Thomas grabbed his ears, and threw himself onto his bed, messing up his cartoon emblazoned quilt – as while the siren faded into the distance, and the raven flew off again, the beat of the doll’s heart echoed around his room.

Hearing Thomas’ commotion, his mother entered his room, her knocking adding to the overwhelming cacophony which had sent her son into a state of heightened panic and terror. The young boy stood on his bed and shrieked, “Villains, I admit the deed!” before ripping up the loose board, exposing part of his black soul to an unfortunate punishment he knew his mother would be dispensing.

**
For all those Poe lovers out there, you would have picked the allusions, but for those who wanted a checklist - here it is - **

Collected Stories alluded to:

• Tales of Mystery and Imagination
• Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

Stories alluded to:

• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• The Pit and the Pendulum
• The Tell Tale Heart

Poems alluded to:

• The Raven