Eenie meenie

Kirjoitettu kesällä 2007, viimeistely spefi-novellikurssille 2009.

“eeney meeney miney moe

catch a tiger by its toe

if he hollers let him go

eeney meeney mi---”

Suddenly, the druid stopped.

“This isn’t right”, he said.
“What isn’t?” asked an irritated voice from under a nearby greenish hood.
“All this… these… things”
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a wuss, we have been doing this for ages.” came another voice.
“We have? I thought this was your first time!”
“Well, not exactly us, you know, but us. Collectively!”
“Fred says he hasn’t.”

A druid wearing a robe more elaborately decorated than the others and standing on an elevated space behind a crude-looking stone-altar drew back his hood and stared at the first druid. He looked at the other, obviously hierarchically inferior member of their brethren like a wolf who’s just been told to give to thought on becoming a vegetarian.

“George! Why do you have to be like that! Even after we made you the Chief Sacrificer!”
“But I thought there’d be girls! You know, virgin sacrifice and such!”
“That is so satanistical, George!”
“Yeah, why’d we go around sacrificing perfectly good young girls?”
“There’d be a lot better use for there would” said a plump druid from the back-row and chuckled.
“Umm… To please the god? Gods? Goddesses or whatever.” George hazarded.
“Oh please, don’t tell me you believe in some old Celtic legends!”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why are we…” George waved his sacrificial daggers towards the three tied and gagged men. They seemed to be as confused as he was.

The leading druid rolled his eyes, “it’s a bonding thing! Building up the team spirit!”

“What? By sacrificing one of our students?”
“Bad students, mind you.”
“Definitely, they’ve never got a better grade than C in any subject.”
“What about the others?”

A druidish silence.

“Well, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Others? There are others?”
“Maybe Mrs. Downing can keep them in her cellar.”
“Wait, wait, wait! How many are there?”

An uncomfortable murmur arose.

“What? Even if we’d stab ‘em every fortnight, they’d still die of an age before we’d be done with all of ‘em!”
“Maybe if we bought, um, a guillotine? I’ve heard they’re rather swift.”
“Have you all gone mental?! What is this, a historical murderers’ club?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I actually... Well, I was... Dabbled. Had a kind of a hobby... Killed a few people, you know, a pastime of mine. Before becoming a lecturer in modern English poetry, that is.”
“You did what?”
“Really? Me an’ Fred, we also killed a few guys back in college.”
“No, wait. This is a joke, right? Oh, jolly good, a little laugh on old George’s behalf, yes? Ahaha!”

There wasn’t a laugh. There was a definite lack of laugh.

“Oh, bummer. Now, I know this is a bit of an awkward situation, the lot of you having just confessed a... considerable amount of butchery, and we all having a rather sharp items not intended as cutlery on our hands, but there’s no reason we couldn’t be civilised about this all.”

The others exchanged glances and nodded.

“Yes, yes. Good, very good. So... Oh, what the heck. Why don’t we just stab these buggers and get on with it. The tea is getting cold anyway. Like this, through the heart, yes?”
After a visible sight, the leader of the congregation responded, “Oh, yes, or some prefer to start with the arteries, it’s a more of a matter of taste. And, oh, hold the dagger a little lower. Like that, jolly good!”