The Wind In The Willows

Yesterday I experienced what can only be described as an anti-Wind-In-The-Willows moment. A dark tale from the river bank if you will. Kenneth Grahame’s story turned on its head and somewhat gothed up.

Imagine the scene.

The lush and verdant river bank that borders one side of the building where I work stretches indolently in the early July monsoon. Within its frond rich confines all manner of river animals frolic and play.

But one is missing.

Where is Ratty? Ratty is missing. Can he be found?

Oh yes. Look, there he is! Lying dead and bloated right outside the area of my workplace that is used to host high-powered dinner parties and corporate events.

Oh dear.

That’s not very good. That’s not very good at all.

And thus I enter the story armed with a cheap shovel and scoop up his suppurating little corpse and toss it unceremoniously into the river. Squish-whoosh-splash. Goodbye Ratty.

Given the juiciness of Ratty’s cadaver and the fact that various components were wont to separate as I manoeuvred him onto the shovel I’d say he’d met his end quite some time ago. So quite how he found his way onto such a prominent part of the building’s footprint is beyond me because he certainly wasn’t there the day before.

I can only assume that Mole and Badger had been disturbed whilst in the process of dragging him elsewhere – perhaps to offer his remains to the river themselves or to inter him somewhere appropriate like the hallowed grounds of Toad Hall – and had dumped his carcass rashly on the forecourt of my workplace.

Or, more darkly, perhaps they were attempting to disguise a heinous crime by getting me to dispose of the body for them? Perhaps Mole and Badger had done Ratty over to get their hands on his boat? Was there some sort of sick love triangle taking place, the ins-and-outs of which really don’t bear thinking about?

Or had the weasels taken Ratty out in a drive-by shooting?

Or had Toad himself finally lost the plot and wiped out the residents of the river bank with a uranium rich dirty bomb?

I guess we’ll just never know.

Oh well. All is peaceful on the river bank once again now.

Sleep well, children. Sleep well.