Eddie Goes A-Courting ~A Spring Romance~

Eddie Goes A-Courting

~A Spring Romance~

“He-elp! He-elp!”

Breaking the tranquility of a March morning, a desperate cry rings across the valley. No man runs to assist, nor even a woman lifts a finger to dial 9-1-1. 

Here and there a lip twitches. An eyebrow raises. Perhaps a chuckle or a sigh escapes. 

“He-elp!”

Again the call resounds. Looks are exchanged, acknowledgements murmured.

“There’s Eddie! You can tell spring is coming.”

Down the road, Eddie searches for the one thing that would give him complete happiness. The One who would be his. Hope in his heart, he strolls through the verdant fields in search of her.

~“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”~

Eddie has never read the words of Jane Austen. Notwithstanding, he believes them with his whole heart. He longs and yearns—and acknowledges, with all of his being, that his existence is incomplete without a helpmeet. And he calls out again in plangent optimism.

“He-elp!”

Across mustard-blooming meadows, through puddles left by recent rains, Eddie forges on. Up the hill, along ditches dappled in sunlight and shadows. Over the road. Through an open gate. There! He espies his potential partner.

Eddie advances, puffing up in his pride as he progresses. The object of his amorous intentions is drab, dusty, and disdainful.

However, her withered wattles and shriveled snood do not deter.

His trailing train transformed to a fabulous feather fan, Eddie oscillates—scintillating, iridescing, coruscating, variegating in the vernal rays. Shimmering scallops of burnished bronze, overlaid with emerald and lapis lazuli, enhance his appearance; declare his desirability. Quills clack, spines rattle in rhythm with his shuffling feet. In short, he puts on quite a show.

Maude is unmoved. She offers neither a morsel of bread nor a sip of water, but rather regards him with a steely eye. First one side, then the other. Shaking her carunculous head and showing Eddie her back, she dismisses his case with prejudice. Her judgment is final. He’s not her type at all.

Alas and alack! What is an ardent admirer to do? He must away, to seek anew. Past the pond he dawdles, disconsolate, and raises his voice again to make the welkin ring—nay, to reverberate!

“He-elp! He-elp…”

Presently, he pauses in his plaintive peregrination to ponder… Perhaps he should wander to the water. To inspect his image in the shimmering surface. Waterfowl watch warily, unsure of this extravagant intruder’s intentions. Reassured by his refulgent reflection, Eddie endeavors again to court a compatible consort. He introduces himself:

“Eddie. Abbreviated appellation of Edward, an English affix. Derived from Old English words ead, meaning 'wealth', 'fortune' or 'prosperous' and wear, meaning 'guardian' or 'protector'. However, harking back to the heritage of my homeland, it might well be Srikar. Which signifies much the same in Hindi or Telugu.”

Unimpressed by Eddie’s orations, the ducks dabble delightedly while a pair of pompous Pomeranian geese glare at the flashy foreigner. Necks extended in less-than-welcoming sensibility, they refuse to reciprocate his cordial conduct.

“And what business have you here?” the gander gruffly grumbles.

“I seek a soulmate. A consort. Completion. A partner. Particularly, a peahen. They seem to be in short supply. He-elp!”

The gander, astonished at this unwarranted outpouring of emotion, quickly composes himself and inquires of his colleague,

“My dear, did you hear? He’s in search of a hen!”

“Hen?” says she, surprised. “Buffoon, betake yourself to yonder yard. There’s hens aplenty there.” 

“Ahhh!” Eddie exclaims, agog. At last, occasion to achieve his aspiration. In his impatience, he momentarily misremembers his manners. Without a word of gratitude, he hastily evacuates. The goosely pair stare at the thoughtlessness of his lackluster leave-taking. Eddie is oblivious.

Wending his way henward, he unhesitatingly traipses toward benevolent bovines. The shaggy red Highland heifers have calves. Curious creatures. Wide-eyed and fuzzy-faced miniatures of their mothers. Eddie, indifferent, cruises past cattle and picks up his pace. 

Visions of a veritable Pavo cristatus—a crested companion, feminine in fashion—compel him to continue the chase. Down the dale he dashes, dodging disinterested donkeys gnawing nimbly at the plush purple brushes of thistles. Surprising semi-somnolent sheep mid-chew, Eddie eschews amiability and excuses himself unceremoniously. Ovine observers opine, 

“Indeed, pheasants are fine, as a family, but this brand of outlandish extravagance is peculiar to peafowl!”

Ahead, an egret in regal stance surveys the scene in stoic silence—awaiting the advent of a suitable supper such as a slithery snake or slippery salamander. Eddie avoids an exchange of inane observances, preferring to proceed apace to the aforementioned acreage. Thus, the egret, eagerly expecting delivery of dinner, is deliberately denied dialogue with the wandering would-be wooer. Both blithely go about their business.

€(o)>

The grandiose galliforme gallops and bustles and hustles in haste to his destination. He hears, as he nears, a noisy commotion. A cockerel crying,

“¡Olé!” as two roosters are roistering, boys-will-be-boistering, bluffing and blustering.

“Parry and thrust!” is the fledgling’s request. He’s a late-season, lone adolescent obsessed with the skill of his superiors. “Now, slash with your sabers! Use foils! And feint!” 

“Oh, look! We’re in luck!” All acluck are the ladies. Dismayed and annoyed by repeated displays of the rivalrous boys, they enjoy expectation of interruption. 

“A king, to be sure!” one asserts. “See his crown? We are honored indeed! O sir, we implore and insist—we must meet your needs, if we may!”

As Eddie approaches, the subject he broaches befuddles the goggling group.

“A hen, if you please—and one who eats peas would be preferable as my bride. Be she princess or plebe, aristocrat, commoner… Any will do—I don’t care!”

They all stare. The girls cackle and curtsy. The callow young fellow—who lately regarded the sparring—is jarred by the image, and urgently asks, 

“Should you seek the same species, perhaps?”

Eddie agrees, but explains that the geese have suggested this venue is apt.

“So sorry! They’re wrong. Well-intentioned, but—silly!” G. gallus domesticus grandly declares. “Now, sir, we’ll appease you with corn, if you wish. And we’ve millet and crumbles to spare.”

He’s hungry. He hankers for sustenance. “Swell!” he says thankfully. Truly, the prospect of prandial products delights, though his lady awaits. Somewhere… So—he sups.

Convivial, civil, and charming, the chickens invite him to snooze in the sun. 

“If I doze,” he demurs, “I may lose the occasion to dazzle a damsel. Adieu!”

“Bon voyage! Best of luck! Later, chum—and good cheer… ¡Adiós!” says the flock as he flits. Down the drive he departs. What direction to take? He determines to cut through the thicket. Wild blackberry vines, with their spiny, thick thorns, twining runners, and stickery stems, seem sinister now. And, he’s stuck.

No sign of a lady love. Lost, and disheveled, entangled in brambles, ocelli in shambles (those eyespots! How handsome, but once.) Poor Eddie! He’s down on his luck. So, forlorn and alone, with no queen of his own—or a throne—Eddie lets out a yelp of distress. He calls,

“He-elp! He-elp!”

His plumage is plundered. To salvage the damage, to part from this canebrake he must. To sunder himself from the snare, and repair; to return to his quest—but he sinks into sleep as the darkness descends. And he dreams. 

Now a phantom appears. Bedazzled and frazzled, poor Eddie is frightened, beholding the ghost.

“Guinevere,” says the vision in white. “That’s my name, sir. You called?” 

She’s bedecked in her bridal array, to be sure, with a trembling tiara on top. Its spatulate spikes stand spectacular, pure, having heard the harmonics of Eddie’s appeal.

Is she real? Did he die? She’s diaphanous. Vague and ethereal, delicate—

“Dear,” she speaks, “Don’t be afraid. You’re alive and awake! I’m albino, is all. Rather rare. If you dare, if you care, I consent to commit to you.” 

Eddie’s ecstatic! No more his erratic excursions he’ll take. Oh, they make such a couple. Congenial, comely, exotic, exquisite, sublime yet ridiculous—like as two peafowl, and proud, he and she. 

Happiness, here at last. Peachicks complete it, and oh what a treat it is—he-chicks and she-chicks, as sweet as can be.

€(o)> €(o)> 

(Quotation:

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. ed by Sicha, Frank, Jr [Boston, New York, etc. Ginn and company, 1917] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/18001222/>.)