Wiel Baaten 

ScinDials 

Poems 

Short Stories 

Novels 

Drawings 

 Cobble-Clappers  

The day dawned with a dozen donkeys dinning behind the dusty drapes of Henry’s and Hilly’s downbeat dormitory. While Henry dangled his derričre over a dirty drainpipe, defecating disconcertingly dark diarrhea, Hilly dabbled dents in disturbingly dense dhal that was daily dished up at dawn, on dirty dishes.

After a spell of spattering spillage, Henry stumbled on the separating sole of his slipper and shoulder-slammed into Hilly’s solidly strapped suitcase. He sat stunned for several seconds, stammered some severely sickening swearwords, silently slipped his socks inside sporty shoes, slapped his slippers in a slender sack, and said to Hilly, “Let’s see a shoemaker.”

In a market mainly manned with meddlesome men moving mishmashes of merchandise, and mildly maddened by mischievous minors mocking mellow merchants or menacing mooing mammals, Hilly munched on a macaroon masked with mango mustard while she monitored Henry’s march up to a moon-faced, moccasin mender, who was minding a minty mixture of malleable mutton and marbled mushrooms.

The raven-haired repairman raised his right wrist and reassuringly requested 50 rupees for the reparation. Henry rudely rendered the request a rancid rip-off, and readied himself to retreat. The repairman readily rocked his right wrist and rousingly recommended a reduction of 20 rupees. Henry raised his rucksack, reprised the role of rambunctious rejecter until he received a rate of 10 rupees, and rapidly returned to Hilly, who was ready to roam restless roads, rest at a roadside restaurant for rice or roti, and revisit the Taj Mahal.

The crow-haired cobbler clung to a cup of cold curd when Henry and Hilly came to collect Henry’s cobble-clappers. The cobbler cheerfully chatted about credentials and compliance with core convictions, and chastised coveting conduct and callous cravers, and coldly claimed that a compulsory, complementary compensation of 10 coins for curing the cobble-clappers could not be circumvented… Henry’s and Hilly’s crude and contemptuous complaints contracted a considerable, close-knit crowd, who cheered compassion for the cobbler and cried karmic curses at Henry.

Panic-stricken, Henry pondered on paying the price, but the piper’s posse’s peevishness provoked his pride to push back to the point that the posse’s pleas became piercing and the poking painful pinching. Henry pleaded peace and proposed to pay a proud portion of the piper’s price. The piper promptly punched his palms and protested the proposal with peppered petulance and poignant poses, while the posse pondered if the proposal passed prime principles, while Henry pointed the proposed pay at the piper…Possibly prodded by a piping-hot power-line, the posse began pressing the piper, with persuasive pleading and petty pushing, to pardon the pale purchaser and procure the payment with praise for providence…The piper preached powerful profanity when Henry parted with pitiful paces, punctured pride and perfectly patched cobble-clappers.

  © 2011 Wiel Baaten