Much Ado about a Lorgnette

… ist der Titel eines phan­tas­ti­schen Tex­tes mei­ner LK-Schü­le­rin Eve­lyn Rei­ter. Aus­gangs­punkt für die­se crea­ti­ve wri­ting Auf­ga­be war ein Bei­trag im SZ-Maga­zin (zip), in dem Pho­tos von Gegen­stän­den gezeigt wur­den, die alle an einem Tag in der Lon­do­ner U‑Bahn lie­gen­ge­blie­ben sind. Dar­un­ter sind herr­lich bizar­re Sachen wie ein Gebiss, ein Mega­phon, eine Gieß­kan­ne, eine Gum­mi­schlan­ge und ein Opern­glas (engl. lor­gnet­te). Die Schü­ler soll­ten sich nun irgend­ei­nen Gegen­stand wäh­len und dazu eine Geschich­te schrei­ben. Im Lau­fe mei­ner Unter­richts­tä­tig­keit habe ich zwar schon vie­le sehr gute und sogar her­vor­ra­gen­de Geschich­ten bekom­men, aber eine GEREIMTE Geschich­te ist ein ech­tes Novum. 

Much Ado about a Lorgnette

In a shi­very and eerie night,
When peo­p­le, poli­ce and pan­hand­lers are out of sight,
I des­cen­ded into the yaw­ning subway-abyss,
As if to recei­ve Hades’ bit­ter kiss.

But I wasn’t alone,
No, was not on my own.
I felt her next to my shoulder,
Trembling and shaking,
As if she got colder.
She came clo­ser to me.

Some days ago,
My fri­end gave me a call
And asked me to go out with Darby.
He pro­mi­sed her to be nice and tall
And smart like my ex-girl­fri­end Abby.
But she was no beau­ty at all,
No queen and not even a lady.
She didn’t look slim like a Barbie-doll
And even her clo­thes were shabby.

But her eyes, oh her eyes,
They were nice, oh, so nice!
They were blue mixed with green,
They were shi­ny and keen,
Their look used to be soft
And their las­hes were aiming aloft.

I spent all my money on her.
Made her scream “Oh, dear Sir!”,
When I took her to “La Traviata”,
Made her lis­ten to Netreb­kos’ cantata.
After­wards it hap­pen­ed to occur,
That we went into a bar,
Whe­re we boo­zed “Bloo­dy Mary” and shared a cigar,
Until both of us were fee­ling bizarre.
Then we had to leave,
To my very gre­at relief,
‘Cau­se my money was gone.

So we couldn’t dri­ve home with a cab,
But ente­red the subway.
While I tried to save mys­elf from a nap,
We got on a train, tired from the long day,
And nest­led down on a pad­ded seat
And stret­ched out our poor, tired feet.

Whilst she play­ed with her lorgnette
We sat on this slea­zy couch as one lies on his daybed.
We got thril­led by dri­ving and rambling ahead
And I squeezed her right hand,
Allu­red by her nails pain­ted blood-red.

We got hit by a scream
And as if we had slept,
We lifted our heads
And faced that scene:
An old lady was crying and cursing,
Two fat guys were giggling and gagging.

I tried to figu­re out for myself,
To be or not to be –
My body wan­ted to be knight­ly and brave,
But damn! My heart couldn’t agree.

Befo­re my mind could decide,
Which side to give in,
I jum­ped up with a grin.
Now I felt that hell was nearby,
Now I had the desi­re to loo­sen my tie.
But the­re was no tur­ning back!
Well, I deci­ded to attack:

“Return the pur­se, you rascal!
Or – by my soul and by my sole – you’ll have to face a battle!”
Thereu­pon one pul­led out his knife,
So I got to fear for my life.
When he made a few threa­tening steps towards me,
I thought, it would be bet­ter to flee.

I screa­med: “Dar­by, make haste!
The­re is no second to waste!”
We slo­ped off short­ly befo­re the doors smas­hed shut.

While we were rus­hing in panic,
I heard her crying: “My lorgnette!”
It had slip­ped from her fin­gers and hit the floor,
But we had to run ahead.
Actual­ly, she wasn’t real­ly sad,
‘Cau­se both of us didn’t want to pay with our lives,
By being spik­ed up by two knives.

When the sub­way rus­hed away,
We were pan­ting and gas­ping for breath.
I couldn’t find the right words to say,
I felt guil­ty for brin­ging her so clo­se to death.

But dear rea­der, don’t worry,
You mustn’t be sorry,
Not for me, nor for Darby –
We’ve been mar­ried sin­ce February.

Our love is like a red, red rose,
Which came gent­ly and unex­pec­ted as on tiptoes,
We’ll be tog­e­ther till the day we die
And even then, we’ll soar tog­e­ther to the sky.