A FEAST IN A FIELD (CHAPTER 4)

Janie Cobweb first saw the light of day in December 2007, when i was writing a blog for another well known blogging site called MYSPACE, due to popular demand i found myself writing a whole series of related blogs, almost 30 in number and since then i have reworked them and issued them as a paper back book available to purchase on lulu.com.


What follows here are faithful renditions of the original blogs and not those published.





A FEAST IN A FIELD.

Artie Archer ran like the wind once it crossed his mind that he was safe from burning. "It's all right whistling a merry little tune and trying to look anonymous, but the best thing to do is to get away from Billy of the Big Belly as quickly as I can," he'd told himself – and had started running like he'd never run before.

While he was running, forcing one leg to lope in front of the other, he got to thinking. After all, he was the village writer and in that noble position had been called on to do a great deal of really hard thinking, especially when it came to complex plot lines in which a really good person needed to be extricated from this or that unbelievably dangerous situation.

"This is a strange village," he huffed and puffed to himself as he ran along. "To think that in the age of Playstations and crotchless knickers people still think it's appropriate to burn other people alive, and actually delight in it! It reminds me of tales of cultural revolutions when the spirit of intelligence was being cleansed from weird and wonderful societies in the past, and how these days we look back on then as being primitive and heartless!"

"What on Earth are you rambling on about?" asked a voice at his elbow, and when he glanced round in shock it was to see that a rotund individual with whiskers and wearing a bright red coat was running along by his side, matching him step for step, one who had he himself been in the possession of a big round stomach would have been also matching him wobble for wobble.

Artie pulled up to a screeching standstill and fluttering clouds of dust sprung into the air as if propelled by tiny bursts from minute explosives.

"I thought they were going to burn you!" he gasped. "I thought they had it in for you good and proper! I thought that they wouldn't give up until they had a jolly good fire a-blazing and you were a pile of sweating ash!"

The fat man stopped running just as suddenly, and created an equally exciting cloud of dust. He pulled a jolly face and bellowed "Ho Ho Ho!" several times as he contrived to get his breath back.

"Nice of you to be so concerned as to try and rescue me," he panted with a great deal of irony laced in his voice.

"I would have, but it was either me or you and I like to be free from fire," said Artie, trying to sound sympathetic and understanding, but failing miserably.

"It would take more than Billy of the Big Belly to burn me!" exclaimed the red man. "I'm magical, I am! I can do things that mere mortals only dream of doing! For starters, I can ride my sleigh round the world in a single night, and not only ride it but can stop at every house and drop presents of this or that at the foot of little children's beds while they're sleeping, and munch mince pies left out for me, and slurp sherry without getting the timniest bit – hic – pissed!"

"Where is your sleigh?" asked Artie, impressed. "I love tales of that Rudolf of yours! He's my favourite! Lovely red nose and a heart of gold!"

"Sod it, I left the whole kit and caboodle on the burning field!" exclaimed Father Christmas. "I really should learn to be less forgetful! Why, only last year I forgot to leave presents at the British Prime Minister's home, so he's had to live since then without his usual parcel of common sense, which might have proved pretty nasty for the rest of the world if he had anything remotely resembling intelligence between his ears!"

That's the trouble with Prime Ministers," agreed Artie, "but what are you going to do about your sleigh? Hasn't it got all the presents for all the children in the whole wide world in its capacious sack, and won't the villagers pinch them all?"

"Oh, that's no problem," grinned the fat red man, "This is my last call and I've only got one left. It's for Janie Cobweb, and that's why I was landing on that field where they were about to burn you."

"That little bitch doesn't deserve anything at all!" growled Artie. "I spend all my life writing stories for innocent little children, and all she wants to see is me going up like a roman candle! But we'd better do something about getting your reindeer back. I know my neighbours in this here village and they're a light-fingered lot! They steal so much off each other that it's become a tradition for the women, when they go shopping, to secretly take things back to the shop so they've got something to buy when they get there! And the men are no better! They're after each others' stuff all the time. It's like an obsession with them. They're not happy unless they've got their hands in each others' pockets!"

"Sounds like a rough place, then," observed Father Christmas.

"Oh, it is that. I hate living here, but where else can I go? There are mountains all round the place and they'd have to be climbed by anyone wanting to get away, and we've all got the same genetic defect which means we're all totally terrified of heights! But you haven't said how you're going to get your reindeer back!"

"I'll go and demand them," announced Father Christmas. "I'm not afraid of any old burning! And I'll take the opportunity of giving that little girl, what was her name, Janie Cobweb, her present. It's a special one, that it is! Then I can go back home and get a good three hundred and sixty-four day's sleep."

"That's a long time," observed Artie, "to be asleep, I mean."

"I prefer leap years when I get the extra day in bed," yawned the good Father Christmas. "Now come on with you and we'll go back to the burning field and I'll get my reindeer back quick as winking, and be off home to my good lady who will have prepared a good bowl of steak and kidney stew with dumplings for me to eat and be wearing her best negligee for me to marvel at!"

"Sounds nice," observed Artie.

"Delicious on both counts," agreed Father Christmas. "Now come on and we'll sort things out, no messing."

"This reminds me of a story I wrote," mused Artie as they walked along. "It concerned a boy who was born without a head."

"What's anything that's happened today got to do with boys without heads?" demanded Father Christmas, puzzled. "I don't get it! You're not making any kind of sense to me!"

"It's just that if you haven't got a head you can't think because you haven't got any brains, and what the folks tonight have tried to do is totally brainless," observed Artie.

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" roared his companion. "Yes, I get it! And you are, of course, quite right!"

"Now, hush," suggested Artie, "We're just about back at the burning field, and I've already got away from them once: I don't want to risk getting ensnared again and this time get burned for real."

"Okay! Mum's the word!" agreed his jolly companion. "I'll see Rudolf the moment we get in sight of the field: his big red nose gives him away! Can be seen for miles, it can!"

The two of them tip-toed back to the field.

"Shouild be able to see Rudolf by now," muttered Father Christmas.

Instead of an angry crowd they found that just about the entire population of the village was sitting on the grass in cosy little groups and chewing on great steaks of fragrant meat.

"Is that you, Artie?" called a voice. "Come and join us! This is delicious!"

"Is that you, Millicent?" he ventured, amazed at the obvious change in a woman who not so long ago had been quite happy to see him burned at the stake until he was definitely dead.

"Of course, you sweet man!" she cooed. "Now come on and sit by me, and bring your friend! This venison is so good!"

"Venison? Venison? Venison?"