a view from under the pew: a night s dark deep hole

amos the churchmouse:

a view from under the pew

Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hopping on the computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks – except dashes and hyphens.

a night s dark deep hole

boss i may have told you this

but you should never eat

day-old pizza slices leftover

from a church youth party

it creates strange visions -

and not those of the biblical

sort

last night i went to sleep

in my little matchbox bed

and immediately dreamed

of falling into a dark deep

hole in the earth the fall

was punctuated by bursts

of fireworks that transformed

into snarling alley cat faces

suddenly there was a big

flash of light and i found

myself trying to wade

through a melted chocolate

bar to get to a dangling

piece of gourmet swiss

cheese held just beyond

me by green aliens from

roswell

indiana jones never had it

this bad says me still trudging

through chocolate that was

rapidly turning into molasses

deciding that no cheese

was worth that kind of struggle

i suddenly found myself at the

end of no mouse land being

chased by a really angry

runaway ferris wheel

at the edge of the cliff where

no mouse land ends there was

a circus ringmaster who kept

handing out tickets and saying

go directly to the circus

do not pass go do not collect

two hundred dollars and do

not feed the elephants or the

mice

immediately boss a big gray

elephant swung through the

trees on a grapevine to

rescue me and take me to

a for he s a jolly good mouse

party sponsored by the

alley cats for a better

society

the cats kept trying to kill

me with kindness boss

they tried to feed me a

big bite of cake but i kept

refusing it because i knew

that it would blow me up

and i would eventually be

served as happy birthday

mouse pate to the world s

feline population

no no no they would purr

with their whiskered grins

we want to be your friend

we want to play games with

you and love you to the very

end

for some reason boss i didn t

believe them then it occurred

to me that i was just like

peter on the rooftop in acts

having visions of clean and

unclean animals

i was just on the verge of

deciding to take a bite of the

cake when freddie the flea

landed right in the middle of

my tummy and kept hopping

up and down

wake up wake up amos he was

yelling and bouncing up and

down

why what s the matter

says i

well besides your snoring

you re yelling and screaming

and tossing and turning and

you re keeping the whole

church pew underworld awake

and miserable

visions and dreams are one

thing boss and can often

come from the lord but

nightmares are something

else like i said don t ever

eat day-old pizza leftover

from a church youth party