BEASTLY TALES

CREMATORIUM

Virgil Demarre, Mississippi born and raised.
Baton Rouge, where he languished and lazed.
There he spent his informative years,
Studying along with his friends and peers.
Virgil loved the hot, humid Southern climate.
That beautiful Southern Belle, yes, to chime it.
But something was stirring in his brain,
An incessant, “I want to travel” refrain.
Yes, he wanted to travel to places far-away,
And he wanted to leave soon, perhaps today.

For reasons best known to himself,
He’d picked a Canada brochure from the shelf.
Natashquan, Newfoundland caught his eye,
To Canada’s icy north he would fly!
And so it was, as he packed his bag,
Apparently impervious to the thought of jet lag.

Now, Virgil’s travel took place on a winter date,
It was in October, early winter, not late.
But never-the-less, in Natashquan it was bitterly cold.
Such extreme icy weather made Virgil feel old.
He was booked to participate in a dog sled tour,
There was only one other, but he couldn’t be sure.
The other participant, of course had a name,
Sebastian Kybosh, but he wasn’t to blame.
Virgil and he hit it off right away,
From the other’s side, neither would stray.
But Virgil was having problems with the cold,
The icy winteriness really made him feel old.

One night crouched in front of a camp fire,
Virgil expounded on a subject most dire.
“I feel this incessant cold sapping my strength.”
“I don’t want to keep whinging at length,”
“But should I succumb to the cold’s icy fingers,”
“Should such succumbing happen quickly, no lingers.”
“Please be a top notch, good mate,”
“And my cadaver, be sure to cremate,”
“When I pass from my mortal coil,”
“Here we just have snowy ice, no soil,”
“I don’t want my corpse to be forever lost,”
“In this depressingly deep permafrost.”

As his strength did continue to sap,
They now approached Dead Horse Gap,
Still riding on their slick dog sled,
Virgil was looking to be nearly dead,
His face was pale, extremities blue,
The rest of his body, a quite different hue.
He gave a gasp, then out of breath,
He seemed to be on the verge of death,
And certainly, before the end of the day,
Sebastian was certain Virgil had passed away.

Well, Sebastian had promised his chum,
That he would be interred in a crematorium,
There, in a hollow, was a fishing shack,
Built of wood planks, side, front and back.
Sebastian found inside, wood and coal sat.
There was the crematorium, that was that.
He arranged flammable materials inside,
Used a bunk as a bier, for he that had died.
And so he left Virgil, frozen, with a diesel oil dressing,
A flick of a match, left no second guessing.

Sebastian waited outside as it burned,
Black smoke wafted around, as the wind turned.
At last, into the singed door he did peep,
And there was Virgil sitting next to a coal heap!
Said he, “At last I am warm as can be,”
“The warmest I’ve been, since leaving Mississippi!