Earwig & Excitability (Katzenjammer in E sharp minor)

It was early morning, but Frau Earwig felt quite on edge already. She was rolling her eyes, wringing her wings and snapping with her forceps every few seconds. This was beyond her endurance! She, an honoured artist, drama teacher and fourth generation member of the intelligentsia should never have had to bear with the likes of these insufferable dormitory neighbours!

These vagabonds had lost all sense of shame. They indulged in binge drinking sessions every day, and organised vulgar karaoke competitions. They even brought home heavily rouged hussies to join the festivities. Who would’ve thought that such outwardly respectable looking kittens would turn out, in fact, to be lowdown bastard scum?

Frau Earwig sighed and took some valerian drops with her brandy, but this didn’t seem to help. Firmly resolved to end this crap, Frau Earwig flung a boa over her shoulders and took up a reticule. She then wended her way over to her loutish neighbours’ place.

The door was open, and through the crack seeped dirty jokes mixed with roars of laughter. Frau Earwig stepped cautiously past the threshold and let out a squeak. “Hello? Anybody home?” Of course, this tentativeness didn’t pan out as well as she’d hoped. She swallowed nervously. Frau Earwig forced herself to inch along, step-by-step, until she finally reached a spacious—though fuggy—sitting room. The atmosphere made her choke with a sudden fit of coughing.

That was when they finally noticed her.

“Hey, floosie! Get your ass over here and drink with us!”

Frau Earwig’s offense was betrayed by a gasp. It escaped her mouth before she could think to stop it. What? Floosie?! Then she heard another rude voice say, “Leave it, Fyodor! Don’t you see? This ‘hoptoad in fichu’ is a major bigwig! She’ll never hit the bottle with the likes of us! We’re too… lowbrow.”

What?! Hoptoad in fichu?!

It’s hard to say what happened next. After the red mist had passed from her eyes, Frau Earwig shook her head and took in her immediate surroundings. She was holding a Victorian hat pin in her trembling cercus, and a pungent smell of blood pervaded the room…

Dead bodies. Punctured bodies of dead kittens everywhere.

It seemed her Family Psychologist may have been right after all. Frau Earwig really did need to work on her anger management issues. Of course, she could always call the clinic the next day and arrange a follow-up visit with Gal. But as for here and now…

Frau Earwig stepped over to the nearest body and kicked it lightly. Actually, the fur had hardly any holes in it. Nice. It could be the perfect new boa…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

CRACKED FABLES // The Ass and the Brain

The Ass and the Brain went to the Family Psychologist. They were having relationship issues and wanted to see if this was something that could be resolved together.

The Brain was often quite arrogant. He’d constantly remind the Ass that, in the grand scheme of things, he was more important than she could ever hope to be. And so the Ass would say, “Come down here and say that. I’ll sit on you!”

The Family Psychologist said, “Well, the Brain, let’s unpack that, shall we? What makes you feel as though you’re more important? And what do you make of the Ass wanting to dominate you by using you as her seat?”

“I have a perfect spherical shape that’s to die for!” blustered the Brain.

The Ass snickered. “Is your ‘perfect’ sphere soft and smooth like mine?”

“It has two halves!”

“That’s not what I asked,” muttered The Ass with raised brow.

Ignoring her snarky comment, the Brain puffed himself up and said, “Having two halves affords me a higher degree of processing power. I can solve complex, mathematical equations!”

“You do realise that halves come only in twos, right? Yup, my ‘two halves’ can process things as well—usually on a porcelain throne. It’s called intuition.”

The Brain frowned mightily. It was time to cite one last piece of incontrovertible evidence to support his case. “I have deep, sexy furrows! No intellect can resist me!”

The Ass sighed. She was young and springy, with no furrows, yet all the science nerds still checked her out at the library. Was it worth the bother to mention this?

The Brain visibly deflated a little as the Ass humphed and left the room. The Family Psychologist looked at him and asked the obvious: “How does that make you feel?”

Twenty years later, The elderly Ass came to the elderly Brain. She said, “Look, I have wrinkles now! Are we finally equals?” But the Brain didn’t answer. He had dementia.

MORAL: Time puts everything in its place.