Peter Noble

Witchful Thinking

 

  

Contrary to her obliging nature, Matilda learned the hard way that the simple act of trying to put your best foot forward without treading on somebody’s toes is just an accident waiting to happen. In the school of hard knocks, she passed with flying colours, mostly earned by bruises she received due to hands-on experience with people who, no matter what one does, no matter how innocent the intention, lay in ambush, just waiting for the opportunity to find the worst in others.

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    She made no secret of the fact that she always knew when the phone was going to ring and who it was on the other end of the line, or that she often knew what someone was about to say before they opened their mouth, and even her chum at the Bureau of Meteorology would approach her for a tad of inside information when their technical equipment went on the fritz. She accepted these things as being quite normal, and that she was really no different to the next person.

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    However, due to a rash of unfriendly backbiting, life and the living of it in her neighbourhood had become a situation of such unbearable frustration that she decided the easiest option was to relocate and leave the gossipmongers to their childish little games. Within a week, she had shifted, lock, stock, and unashamed enthusiasm, to the other side of town, and settled down to a life of blessed peace and quiet.

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    But all much to her heartfelt grief and disappointment, she discovered that her reputation had preceded her. Rumours began circulating throughout the neighbourhood that threatened to destroy her idealistic daydreams.

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    Events catapulted from bad to worse when these malicious crusaders who tarnished her character now insisted that they had a genuine sorceress in their midst. Rather than ignoring these devious pests and letting them think they could get away with it, she happened on an idea that just might put a stop to their malicious conspiracies once and for all.

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    Creating an Internet blog for herself and, she adopting a mysterious tone, said there was to be a belated housewarming reception, at her given address, and beginning at sundown this coming Saturday. Relying on the predictable nature of her protestors ensured that only the crème de la curdled crème of the town’s most fanatical hypocrites would be brazen enough to attend.

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    At the appointed time and place, an even baker’s dozen of them arrived at her door. The piranha had risen to the bait.

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    Matilda welcomed them over the threshold, and graciously accepted their communal housewarming gift of a large and highly unattractive potted cactus. Nothing could have prepared them for the utter normality of her home.

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    Pleasantly illuminated by sweet-scent candles, the room was the very essence of elegant tradition. A loom and skeins of wool rested by the fireplace next to antique harpsichord, an easel and oil paintings graced the bay window, a collection of glazed ceramic figurines bedecked the windowsills, each and all on modest display. When at last their hostess bid her guests to pray be seated, they proceeded to arrange themselves around the sumptuously laid dining room table.

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    “Thank you for responding to my little invitation,” she began. “And for welcoming me, a perfect stranger who you know nothing whatsoever about, into your fascinating neighbourhood.”

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    Teetotallers all, they were so unsettled by the loaded insinuation that they sought refuge in the contents of the punchbowl, indulging without restraint.

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    “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you who have come here slumming for some excitement in your otherwise empty little lives, drink your fill and ponder the consequences of your fanciful accusations.”

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    And then things became somewhat unhinged.

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    The candles cast drunken silhouettes and danced to the music played by the unmanned harpsichord, the loom wove itself a demented crazy quilt, the oil paintings vacated their frames and pretended to be placemats, the ceramic figurines engaged in a food fight before skinny dipping in the punchbowl and consequently doubling, doubling, toiling and troubling the contents all over the guests, whereupon the cactus uprooted itself and followed their lead.

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    Time stood still, and then ceased to exist altogether. Then, as swiftly and mysteriously as the crazy circus materialised, everything returned to normal, leaving no shred of forensic evidence to show that anything whatsoever had happened.

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    Without so much as a backwards glance, the dumbfounded guests fled into the night, permanently cured of their nasty games, and vowing to treat people with due respect in the future and beyond.

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    Matilda quietly pondered the evening’s revels. Playing on their foolhardy imaginations, she let them believe the punch was something more than just a harmless fruit cocktail, and left the rest to good old serendipity.

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    Making a mental note to phone her friend at the Bureau of Meteorology, she thought he might like another scoop. Hell just froze over.

 

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