A Story About a Flea

Hey there! It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything on here, but I wanted to share a taste of what I’ve been working on. I’ve been interested in doing something of a modern Canterbury Tales for a while: no small undertaking, but then ambition is one thing I’ve never lacked. Good sense, probably, but not ambition!

Two Christmas’ ago, my dad bought me a copy of the collected works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, after which point it came to my attention that Longfellow had actually done something similar; that is, modernizing Chaucer’s famous work. Tales from a Wayside Inn featured such famous poems as Paul Revere’s Ride and the sweeping twenty-two-part Saga of King Olaf, working narrative poems into a larger story with interludes between each new tale. I liked the sound of that.

The idea that I had was to take two characters from one of my longest narrative poems, two badgers named Jacob and Wilhelm (fashioned after the famous brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm), and have them undertake a quest to build a compendium of stories told by different animals, not unlike what the real Grimm brothers sought to do. The first story I wrote a few weeks ago, having to do with a mouse, a tiger, and a snow leopard, which came in at 17 pages. That one’s a bit long for sharing on here. But the second, The Flea’s Tale, is a more manageable four pages and change! So, without further ado, I figured I would share one of these stories on here now 🙂

The Flea’s Tale

Now Randolph was a circus flea, 
But times had gotten tough.
The audience cared not to see
That same old circus stuff. 

The many toes of Randolph which
Were trained to walk the wire
Now had no eyeballs to enrich
Unless he tight-roped higher. 

So, being a resourceful flea
Good Randolph pushed the standard
And trained to such great degree
That these demands were answered. 

The audience came out in droves
When handbills were supplied:
The famous tightrope of the show
Was lifted twice as high!

All waited for this final twist;
Proceedings moved along:
The clowns and unicyclists 
Made all the creatures yawn.

The dancers danced to no applause;
Magicians had no volunteers.
Nobody cared a lick because
Randolph had not appeared. 

But then the word was passed around—
The final act was nigh!
Redoubled intrigue was aroused
Since Randolph could well die. 

The circus was in darkness bathed
Except for just one light
Which on the form of Randolph trained
There at that breathless height. 

Beneath his little weird bug feet
The wire quailed and quivered
And restless in their too-small seats
The watchers paled and shivered. 

A hooded specter hovered near
The edge of Randolph’s eye
And whispered with a baleful sneer,
“It’s time for you to die!”

But Randolph was a circus flea
Of no small character 
And had a wife he couldn’t leave—
Oh, how he cherished her! 

“My Violet,” he thought, “I will
Survive this thing!” And so
With matchless grace and seamless skill
He gave the crowd a show. 

He capered on the quailing line;
He frolicked as it quivered
And all the while in his mind 
Dear Violet considered. 

The viewers in their darkened hearts,
However, wanted more
And ratings shot up through the charts
When Randolph hit the floor.

They’d come to see a perishing
And got exactly that
When Randolph slipped while cherishing,
Subsiding with a splat. 

The evening garnered rave reviews
Such that the circus paid
Most fleas more than they could refuse
To not give up the trade. 

Another show was set. Again,
The rope was hoisted high,
But all of Randolph’s closest friends
Demanded to know why.

“The show goes on!” the top flea said. 
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
And true to form it went ahead
Without an evening’s pause. 

Just two nights hence a jam-packed room
Dim-lit and filled with smoke
Saw difficult discourse resumed
Regarding rage evoked. 

“Our brother Randolph,” someone cried,
“Is two nights in the ground
Yet already is cast aside
So profits can abound!”

The joint response was indiscreet:
There could be heard a shout! 
They stamped their little weird bug feet
And shuffled all about!

Then someone cried, “Let’s overthrow
The circus and the boss!”
The few who managed to say no
Were in a closet tossed. 

Incensed as life the mob prepared
To disembark the scene,
But then a heartsick widow dared
To speak and intervene.

“I miss my Randolph!” cried his wife,
Her makeup smeared by tears. 
“I’m furious and filled with strife
Toward these profiteers!

“But Randolph was a flea of peace
And wouldn’t want his name
Used as a sword with which to wreak 
Duress and hate inflame!” 

The room was quiet and contrite
Until a voice cried, “See?
Her sanity has taken flight
For their brutality!” 

Redoubled stamping stoked and fanned
The flames of retribution
And soon the room was empty and 
There was a revolution!

Upended was the circus tent;
The hierarchy beaten:
The rebels, though, were not content
With just a couple cretins.

The movement joined with minds alike
And those crusades akin 
To plot and plan for further strikes
Which small changes would win.

Once, Randolph was a circus flea
But now he was the face
Of certain fleas who disagreed
With fleas who fleas disgraced.

His picture was graffitied by
The anarchists and rebels,
Immortalized in blood-red dye
Which through epochs would echo!

The moral of this tale to glean
Is: fallible are voices.
Things happen which are unforeseen
Cause flawed fleas make flawed choices! 

And if you’d like to figurehead
Some anarchistic purpose
Then don’t join with the cause, instead
Go sign up with the circus!