Exquisite Corpse #4 — Assembled

The Exquisite Corpse #4 Assembly

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. ( Lewis Carroll )

A little brown rabbit scurried past, trailing right behind the white one and scurrying hard at its heels. Such happy creatures, to possess a companion to play with.


Ah, but I held no such fortune.


What a gullible fool I was!


How vain of me to suppose Wendy would ever seek me out in such a spot.


How dare she to even suggest this rendezvous! I have been made a mock of.


And here I am, waiting like a simpleton with this daisy chain I had so painstakingly woven for her. And for what?


I had even bartered away my heart's delight for her friendship - my very precious caramel pudding.


Then, the school bell tolled across the meadow.


The brief recess had ended. Thus slipped away my school lunch, lost to the wind. The hearty plate of curry rice I had so hungered for, gone too alongside my sacrificed pudding.


Ugh, my aching belly! Will I perish of sheer starvation?


I ought to have known better. For what earthly reason would Wendy desire the friendship of such a one as myself, or deign to be seen in my poor company?


I want it back - ah, how bitterly I want it all back. And no, these are not tears from my eyes. ( @emmabritt )

Then I suddenly stopped. It was a stop without a warning. A striking thought crossed the mind. A moment of silence. Then a question.. What is this nonsense? Was it comparing rabbits? Do species even learn from other than their kind? That would be very interesting to know. But, there is probably no way for a hundred percent confirmation of that. As we cannot communicate with it.


Where was I? Yes, Wendy? Well, there was always that thought that I had before that she might not welcome my company. That is why she is not around anymore. But, she will be back one day and she will recognize that I am unique. Even if she did not, I would still remain confident about that.


Then, the bell rang and the school play has finished. She looked in the crowd to see if Wendy was there. She saw her dad. He was smiling back at her and hiding that fact that her mom "Wendy" has passed away. ( @ronnie10 )

Dad stood up and clapped with all his might, shouting, "You're one of a kind, son."


The others joined in the applause; they felt sorry for the boy who had just lost his mother. Wendy's seat was empty.


I still don't understand why I shared my "caramel pudding" with her when I knew she suffered from diabetes.


At first, she refused my offer, but I insisted so much that she eat it that she took a few bites and then started feeling sick. Her stomach hurt. Dad asked me:


"What did she eat?"


And I answered:


"My caramel pudding. I wanted to share it with her."


Dad scooped Wendy up in his arms and ran to the car; he started the engine and sped toward the hospital.


Now my stomach hurts too, and my soul aches. They’ve brought Wendy home; wrapped in her burial shroud, she looks like a little white rabbit.


The neighbors ask Dad:


"What happened to Wendy?"


And he begins a strange explanation to cover for me. I think I killed Wendy, even though Dad says that isn't so... ( @solperez )

I wanted to believe Dad.


I really did.


But then I looked at Wendy lying there, so quiet and still, and something inside me refused to accept his words. If I did not kill her, then why was she dead? Why did it happen after I gave her the pudding?


I followed Dad into the house while the neighbors stood outside, whispering among themselves. Nobody knew what had really happened, but I could feel their eyes following me.


Dad pulled me into the kitchen and closed the door.


“Listen to me,” he said quietly. “You didn't kill Wendy.”


“Then who did?” I asked.


He didn't answer.


Instead, he opened the refrigerator and took out a small plastic container. My heart started beating faster when I saw what was written on the lid.


Wendy.


I stared at it.


“What's that?” I asked.


Dad quickly put it back.


“Nothing.”


But it wasn't nothing.


I had seen that container before.


It was the same container I had used to bring my caramel pudding to school that morning.


I suddenly remembered something I had completely forgotten. Before I gave Wendy the pudding, someone had already opened my lunchbox.


I thought it was just Dad checking what I had packed.


But now I wasn't so sure.


“Dad,” I whispered, “did you put something in my pudding?”


He looked at me for a long moment.


Then he locked the kitchen door.


And that was when I knew he was hiding something.


But why would my own father want to hide what happened to Wendy? ( @dannyben39 )

My father, who always tells the truth. No matter how painful it is or what the consequences might be: my father doesn’t lie!


Hiding something… Isn’t that almost like telling a little white lie? It’s so unlike him. I don’t want to believe that he’s done anything wrong. But why else would he be hiding something?


To protect someone! Me? He’s made it clear to me that I don’t need to blame myself; I had nothing to do with Wendy’s death. Mother. . .


Yes, over the last two years I’d started calling her ‘Mother’. She’d been kind to me ever since she came into our lives. Or rather, burst into them ;-)) She fell straight into my father’s lap! On the beach, from a branch that everyone loved to jump into the water from. She slipped as she took a run-up and plonk…


Just a little while later, she moved in with us and everything somehow became brighter, friendlier. My father and I had settled into a sort of gloom since Mum had disappeared. My real Mum. The one who gave birth to me, breastfed me and taught me to walk. Mum!


One day, she simply didn’t turn up at the breakfast table. It took a while before it occurred to us to check on her clothes… They were hanging untouched in the wardrobe. For a long time, we refused to accept that she had left us. When there was no longer any doubt, Dad and I, in silent agreement, withdrew from everyone with whom we’d otherwise been in close contact. Their pity was unbearable...


With Wendy, things gradually returned to normal. We liked her; she was good for us. But Dad never loved her the way he loved Mum. He would have done anything for Mum, and he’d do anything to get her back.


Mum?! ( @weisser-rabe )

I saw it, just before father locked the kitchen door. A familiar figure stood just beyond the kitchen's side window, near the entrance to the garage, that could be seen from the pathway to the dining hall. I instinctively ran toward it, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.


I froze in confusion.


How could that be?


No... it couldn't be.


"Dad, what's going on?" I asked, my voice trembling.


My father looked at me intently, as if silently pleading with me to stop asking questions.


"Was that Mom? Did she come back? Why was she out there instead of in here with us?"


"Boy, questions later," he said firmly. "For now, keep quiet and don't talk to anyone, even if they ask you a thousand questions."


Dad unlocked the kitchen door again, as if he had forgotten something and hurried around the kitchen, opening every cabinet door and drawer, searching for something else.


When he finally found it, he slipped it quickly into his pocket while holding the small plastic container.


"Let's go," he said, urging me ahead of him. ( @marblely )

Once again the sun was shining; it felt swelteringly hot. A strange, drowsy feeling came over me as I tried to follow Dad and gather my thoughts; in a flash, I saw the white rabbit. The brown one following it wasn’t a rabbit, but a hare or was it Wendy staring at me? I was trying to gather my thoughts when I saw the rabbit hutch standing open. Dad had already walked on to the pigsty.


‘Pigs eat everything,’ Wendy had told me. I remember those words very well as I saw how one of the pigs was tucking into a pile of clothes.


‘Mum,’ I whispered as I tried to keep my balance.
Where was my lunchbox, and why was Dad walking about with it? Had I actually gone to school, or hadn’t I? Had I eaten that pudding? Who was this caramel dessert meant for?


‘Wendy,’ I groaned as I lay on the floor of the pigsty, hearing Dad’s laughter in the distance. It sounded just like when Wendy had fallen into his lap.
Had Mum actually left after making the caramel pudding I’d been begging her for all week?


The ring of a mobile phone. I recognised the ringtone Wendy had set, the one we’d danced to together in the flower meadow.
I remember how I felt sleepy and couldn’t be woken up by tea time.


My body felt incredibly heavy. A voice said: ‘Can I have a word with you, sir? A report of attempted murder has been filed against you, and we’re fairly certain you have a long list of deaths to your name.’


‘Are you all right, lad?’ asked a voice.
With great effort, I opened my eyes, but the image remained blurry.
The man from the funeral parlour nodded at me… I recognised him by the smell of corpses surrounding him. Not quite like caramel, and not like the scent of Mum and Wendy, I thought.
‘Don’t worry,’ he continued, ‘your mother may be dead and buried in a belly, but Wendy is still alive.’


Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the White Rabbit tapping impatiently at his watch.
“I don’t have time to wait any longer. You may make a wish. Just say the word. All roads lead to the Queen, but… you could also aim higher.”
“Then I want to be Peter Pan,” I replied, lying on the floor too weak and miserable to fly even a centimetre.
‘Your wish is my command,’ said the White Rabbit, relieved, and with a bang he had vanished.
From now on, I will take a different approach and ask Captain Hook for help.
Wendy isn’t dead, I’m Peter Pan, there’s no Queen, so the road leads nowhere.


‘I’m an orphan,’ I realised. Mum hasn’t gone away, Wendy isn’t dead, and Dad has taken my caramel pudding for himself and killed my rabbit.
I felt the pig nibbling at my ankle; it tickled a little and had a calming effect.
‘Just a little longer,’ I murmured with a blissful smile on my face, when I felt something shaking my shoulder. ( @wakeupkitty )