Signifying
Nothing
by Bruce
Costello
Two
garden gnomes are fishing. A fly buzzes by,
thumbing its nose at a frog kneeling on a lily
pad beside a rustic bridge. A splash of gold
breaks the surface of the pond, then another.
“Oh, how I
long to catch one of them critters,” says
Mucky Stinkbritches.
“How long
have we been fishing in this pond?” asks
Ralph Bigwhiskers.
“Thirty-five
years.”
“Seems like a
wasted life. Year after year sitting here,
dangling our rods. Not a single fish. Not even a
bite.”
“Good things
take time...”
“You’ve
been saying that for bloody yonks…”
“Yeah, well..."
“Shhh.
Somebody’s coming...”
Enter a young
woman, golden locks crowned with a tiara, arm in
arm with a handsome man wearing the dorky
expression of an English prince. They stand
beside the pond and gaze into each other’s
eyes.
“I’m so
happy. I yearn to spread my wings and just fly,
fly away,” the woman exclaims.
“And so we
shall, my princess. To Paris, Rome, Oamaru!”
The two leave the
stage. Silence returns to the garden.
A half sigh, half
sob escapes Ralph’s mouth.
“Pardon?”
asks Mucky, looking nonplussed.
“I’m fed
up.” Ralph waves his rod angrily. “Sick
of fishing! And sick of you. You’re so
boring! I want to make something of my life. Go
places, be somebody!”
“Sick of
fishing?” Mucky’s eyebrows shoot to the
top of his head and disappear inside his hat. At
that moment, a giant koi carp jerks his rod,
pulling him into the water.
Ralph sits still
as a rock gazing into the pond at Mucky’s
body. “You were dull as brown mud, but you
stood by me all these years,” he weeps.
“Now I’ve got no-one.”
A few
years pass.
Enter the princess,
alone. Her hair has turned grey. There are dark
shadows under her eyes.
“My life is
over,” she sobs. “My lover has
left. Only sorrow remains, and yearning, an
aimless longing, a pointless pining - for what?”
She notices Ralph,
who is still staring into the pond at Mucky.
“How cute,”
she murmurs. She pulls the dead garden gnome from
the water, embraces and kisses him on the lips,
at which he comes to life and turns into a prince.
He leaps from her arms and prostrates himself
before her.
The princess
recoils, then springs forward and kicks him in
the crotch with all the force she can muster. The
prince stumbles, strikes his head on Ralph’s
hat and tumbles into the pool.
“I’ve
had a gutful of princes,” the princess
shrieks. She holds the prince’s head
underwater with her left foot until he stops
blowing bubbles.
There is a splash
on the other side of the pond. A golden fish
wearing an academic gown and a monocle pokes its
head out of the water.
“Life is not
a play with a finely crafted happy ending,”
he proclaims. “As Shakespeare said, it is a
tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying
nothing.”
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