Raspberry jam
Writing by treason on Wednesday, 21 of June , 2006 at 3:27 pm
“Meanwhile Miss Dolly had returned from the kitchen, carrying a little bird which was pecking and clawing at the net in which it had been caught and shrilling incessantly - it was a little bullfinch. ‘You’re a very beautiful little bird,’ Miss Dolly whispered, ‘with lovely soft pink feathers and pretty grey wings. But you’re a very naughty little bird too, tanto cattivo. You came and took the fruit from us which we’d kept for our darling Gabriele.’ She began feverishly to pull the rose breast feathers from the bird, which piped more loudly and squirmed. Soon little trickles of red blood ran down among the feathers. ‘Scarlet and pink a very daring combination,’ Miss Dolly cried.
Johnnie watched from his chair, his heart beating fast. Suddenly Miss Marian stepped forward and holding the bird’s head she thrust a pin into its eyes. ‘We don’t like spies round here looking at what we are doing,’ she said in her flat, gruff voice. ‘When we find them we teach them a lesson so that they don’t spy on us again.’ Then she took out a little pocket knife and cut into the bird’s breast; its wings were beating more feebly now and its claws only moved spasmodically, whilst its chirping was very faint. Little yellow and white strings of entrails began to peep out from where she had cut. ‘Oh!’ cried Miss Dolly, ‘I like the lovely colours, I don’t like these worms.’
But Johnnie could bear it no longer; white and shaking he jumped from his chair and seizing the bird he threw it on the floor and then he stamped on it violently until it was nothing but a sodden crimson mass. ‘Oh, Gabriele, what have vou done? You’ve spoilt all the soft, pretty colours. Why, it’s nothing now, it just looks like a lump of raspberry jam. Why have you done it, Gabriele?’ cried Miss Dolly. But little Johnnie gave no answer, he had run from the room.”
– from “Raspberry Jam” by Angus Wilson
Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, and Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, are dead. It was yesterday morning when I heard that two bodies had been discovered and there was reason to believe they were the bodies of these two young American soldiers who disappeared and could not be accounted for.
Every news report provided more details. Yes, it has been confirmed. Yes, the bodies are those of the two soldiers. Yes, they were killed violently. Yes, they were tortured. By evening the descriptions of what happened to these two young men were becoming more graphic and more unbearable.
By this morning, the details of the torture, mutilation, murder, and desecration were being openly discussed. Just a reminder that these two soldiers have loved ones who have to hear this. Endlessly.
When I was about seven or eight years old I read two stories - possibly from the same anthology. One was Ray Bradbury’s The October Game, and the other was Angus Wilson’s Raspberry Jam. I’m often reminded of the Bradbury story - especially around Halloween or when I see a sack of candy corn. I smile, because as horrible as the story is, it’s clever and has one of the most perfect endings ever.
“Then…some idiot turned on the lights.”
But the other story, unlike the Bradbury tale, is one I haven’t reread since childhood. The Wilson story haunts me in a way I can’t even explain. Every time I see a bird, part of my mind recalls Raspberry Jam.
The story of Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca, unlike The October Game, is not clever and has no perfect ending. No, instead, the story of these two men is much too much like Wilson’s Raspberry Jam. The difference is that the Wilson story about two crazy aunts was fiction. The insanity we face is not.
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