Little Doors

by Paul Di Filippo

  mark what i wouldn t give for uninterrupted

  access to a computer keyboard with

  its easy action keys soft on the chitinous

  noggin floating cursor delete capabilities

  et cyber cetera but your office is also

  the last one to keep a supply of white paste handy

  on which i subsist so qed

  anyhow don t mind my griping

  the news i got is more important

  than personal complaints

  it s all tied up with mehitabel

  natch ain t she always at the heart

  of most of my news question mark

  now you know the history of this

  bad cat what she has done or what

  hasn t she done in her long

  scroungy irresponsible life

  of racketing up and down the alleys

  and boulevards of this mean old town

  plus paris france and other environs

  from past lives even when she claimed

  to be cleopatra and sundry other

  high class gals who weren t around anymore

  to refute her outrageous claims

  and in every situation her motto has been

  open quote toujours gai close quote

  which she has never been slow

  to back up with a sharp set of claws and

  matching razor teeth

  but mehitabel finally met her predestined

  nameless fate which not even high spirits

  or a sneaky one two punch could defeat

  and that is namely to buy the farm

  if by farm you mean a dumpster

  behind the ming gardens restaurant

  down in chinatown

  where radish curls formed her only wreath

  and leftover chow mein her bier

  that is how i encountered mehitabel

  for what i thought was surely the last time

  during a little expedition of my own

  double dash looking for some cockroach

  love if you must know double dash

  and i felt like hell at the sight of her

  bloody corpse and i cursed all the gods

  who had led her to this unseemly end

  and who had made me an insect who

  couldn t even cry for his best friend

  physiologically speaking because i

  sure was weeping inside

  needless to say the next few weeks were

  pretty miserable and grim all

  the life seemed to have fled this lousy

  burg with mehitabel s untimely exit

  i got so down i couldn t even eat paste

  and was on the point of withering away

  to mayfly weight why not die i said to myself

  and maybe get reborn as something better

  if not a human poet again then at least

  a journalist ha forgive me ha

  but nearly on the point of expiring i bethought

  me of a pal who might be able to lift

  this load of blues off my wings

  and that was clarence the ghost

  clarence i figured with his access to

  astral realms beyond the styx and

  unto the farthest starry spheres

  might have some comforting dope

  on mehitabel s progress in the great hereafter

  so i hastened to get in touch with

  my spectral pal through a ouija

  board inside the games room

  of the west side ymca one night

  after hours pushing the planchette around

  like sisyphus shouldering his boulder and

  sure enough clarence materialized

  before too long dripping ectoplasm

  onto a pile of convenient towels

  clarence i yelled without even making

  polite noises because after all

  the dead are really immune to

  such chitchat tell me what you know

  about the soul of mehitabel

  exclamation point

  clarence replied archy i was just

  waiting for you to call so i could share

  with you the biggest news from hell

  since the kaiser kicked napolean s

  keister from pit to pit

  mehitabel is down there causing

  the sweetest stink i ve ever seen

  unlike all the other humbled and despairing souls

  who capitulate immediately upon finding

  themselves in the land of brimstone sulfur and flames

  she refuses to kowtow to old nick and his minions

  raking her claws across the faces and

  flabby behinds of all the lesser demons

  assigned to corral her and once

  when old nick himself intervened

  even scoring a nice set of stripes on his gross gut

  she just won t take her licks like he had planned

  for her something about being buried

  up to her neck inside a ring of catnip

  placed just out of reach of her questing

  tongue and unless she submits to her

  allotted punishments then she will

  never get a chance to be reborn

  boss i can t tell you how this lifted

  my heart knowing mehitabel had maintained

  even in hell her indomitable courage

  and piss pardon my french

  but at the same time i was worried

  because who wants to be an eternal rebel

  in hell when with just a little

  submission

  contrition

  and endurance

  over a subjective eternity or two

  you can be reborn into this sad yet delightful

  old world of ours maybe as a persian

  lapcat gangster s moll or nautch dancer

  any one of which roles i could easily

  envision mehitabel filling and excelling in

  clarence i inquired further what will happen

  to mehitabel question mark must she give in

  or is there another way out for her question mark

  the ghost paused and wavered an indication

  i knew of deep thought and in fact i could see

  firefly neurons firing inside his transparent

  head in elaborate cascades of reasoning

  well clarence finally said there is me

  you i queried

  yes me a ghost obviously

  i died yet was not reborn

  into a mortal carcass

  that is an option for some

  an escape clause in the celestial

  infernal contract inked eons ago

  between adam and eve and pinch me

  to leave behind either heaven or hell

  and stalk the earth in less substantial form

  for an indefinite time

  i cogitated myself on this option

  for a time but something just didn t

  jibe between this possibility

  and mehitabel s essential nature

  then of course it hit me colon

  mehitabel was such a carnal creature

  a thing of sinews and hormones

  juices and bones that existence

  as a ghost among mortals double dash

  herself airy and nontactile yet

  perpetually taunted

  with the pleasures

  of the flesh double dash

  would be a punishment

  more cruel than anything old nick

  had in store for my friend

  i explained all this to clarence and after

  some more luminous pinball style mental

  efforts on his part he volunteered that there

  were other kinds of boggles than ghosts

  enumerate i ordered and he did

  stop i yelled when he uttered a term

  i recognized from my poetaster days

  a term w
e bards were fond of using

  for certain super seductive inamoratas

  that s perfect exclamation point

  clarence can you intervene as mediator

  between old nick and mehitabel

  for friendship s sake and try to strike

  this deal i think they’ll both agree

  happy to be out of each other s hair

  sure said clarence and i ll report back

  tomorrow night

  boss that twenty four hours crawled by

  like a beetle down an endless drain

  but somehow i survived the anxiety

  and made it back to my planchette

  and when i got clarence all focused

  on our earthly plane i held my breath

  it s a done deal he said

  and so you see boss

  i am ultimately the one responsible

  for all those spooky headlines in your own

  newspaper lately to wit colon

  devil cat alarms midnight frolickers

  epidemic of missing felines

  dogs frightened barkless

  et demonically cetera

  for mehitabel you see is now a feline

  succubus as corporeal as they come

  her fur is lush and seductive her eyes

  burning garnets her sleek haunches

  perpetually raised high in lordosis

  luring tomcats everywhere into

  frenzied matings impossible to resist

  which leave them pitiful shells

  of their former tough yegg selves

  and when she s not sexing it up

  mehitabel is happily raising cain among all her

  old enemies such as phonies swells canines

  politicians and cheapskates

  Oh yes one final thing colon

  the oddest feature of succubi wombs is that

  they gestate really quickly

  like in about a day so that mehitabel is

  regularly dumping half mortal half infernal kittens

  by the bushel basket full

  and so i would be very careful

  boss if you go to adopt any strays

  in this town better check first

  for a certain sparkle in the eyes

  and a tendency to spit acid

  archy

  Table of Contents

  Little Doors

  Billy

  Moloch

  The Grange

  Sleep Is Where You Find It

  The Horror Writer

  My Two Best Friends

  The Death of Salvador Dali

  Our House

  Jack Neck and the Worrybird

  Stealing Happy Hours

  Singing Each to Each

  Rare Firsts

  Return to Cockaigne

  The Short Ashy Afterlife of Hiram P. Dottle

  Slumberland

  Mehitabel in Hell