A Time to Eat Crow

Two elderly wizards and a meatball?

The evening sun dipped over the horizon silhouetting the weathered old stone tower on the hill. Surrounded by old weeping willows, it pierced the sunset as if it were a deadly arrow.

An evening breeze caressed the long grass in its courtyard, as the click of a loose shingle slapped on the broken roof of the stable nearby. Somewhere, locked in the limbs of a willow, a crow cawed.

A wan light flickered through the dirty, stained glass in the tower’s uppermost window. An omen for any who might call upon the owners of the derelict structure. Its light telling all who might wander nearby that they were not welcome.

Bartholomew slowly made his way up the circling stairwell to the topmost floor. His long beard dragging through dust on the steps. His age gnarled hand gripped his staff tightly as it clicked loudly on each step, supporting the frail old mans weight.

Rupert, his brother, whom he hadn’t spoken to in nearly seventy years, was already pulling out a chair at the ancient cracked wooden table. His beard wasn’t nearly as long as his older brothers, however, it was still tucked deep within his belt.

Rupert leaned his own staff against the table as Bart took a seat and stared off to the left as he always did.

“Good evening, Bart,” he said and grinned his yellow-toothed grin, each and every night the ritual was the same. Bartholomew simply pretended his brother didn’t exist.

In silence they sat and waited. Bartholomew counted the scrolls on a nearby shelf, as he did every evening. There were hundreds of them, some dating back thousands of years, sadly, no new writings had been added to the collection in a very long time.

Leather bound books filled other shelves, covered in heavy dust and cobwebs. They had of course, all been read, but not for a very long time. The people of the lands no longer required the wisdom of the ages. No longer required, the services of two old wizards.

Time slipped by so easily, even waiting for an evening meal seemed an eternity to them both. Finally, in a puff of black smoke a sinewy black skinned servant, one of many in the tower, appeared with a steaming plate of pasta noodles covered in a red sauce, peaked by a single meatball.

With fervent speed the servant seemed to grow additional hands as it set down the large plate of food and placed empty plates with forks and spoons in front of each of the men. It smiled a toothless grin at each wizard as it backed away and faded in the flickering shadows of that lone wan light.

Rupert grimaced. “Spaghetti again,” he mumbled and reached for the serving ladle on the plate scooping a fine helping for himself. Bartholomew waited in silence as he served himself.

Rupert always took his time, he knew it annoyed his stubborn brother. He also knew that he would do nothing about it. He intentionally set the ladle down as far from Bart’s reach as he could.

Stretching to gather up the noodle ladle Bartholomew managed to drag a portion of his long beard through the spaghetti. He growled under his breath while trying not to send a glare his brother’s way. Best to just continue believing he wasn’t really there.

Both forks skewered the lone meatball at the same time. Rupert looked up, squinting at his brother, somewhat shocked to find him looking right back at him, a look of disdain on his amazingly wrinkled face.

Rupert grinned his yellow-toothed grin again. “I do believe my fork was here first.”

“Fumus,” Bartholomew mumbled.

Rupert’s fork disappeared in a puff of smoke. He stared disbelievingly at his empty hand and then finally looked up at his brother. “Seventy years,” he said in his gravelly old voice.

“You haven’t spoken in seventy years and the first time you do, you vaporize my fork?”

Bart smiled. It was a horrendous facial movement. Rupert was sure his brothers face was breaking. Wrinkles hidden within wrinkles suddenly appeared, and that strange jiggle in his jowls…. Was he…. Chuckling?

Bart lifted the meatball from the plate preparing to take a large bite from it when it suddenly flew off of his fork splattering spaghetti sauce straight up his face. He sputtered and looked up at the meatball now hovering high over his head. Again he growled under his breath as he slowly wiped the sauce from his face.

Rupert’s chair lurched and skidded backwards across the floor with him still in it. It banged roughly against a shelf. Scrolls, after years of never being touched, covered with the grime of an eternity, fell into a pile on top of him. The meatball fell from the air back onto Bart’s plate with an audible splat. More sauce spattered onto Bart’s robes, but he ignored it.

Rupert wiggled his toes and shook the dust from his face. Shaking his head produced a small dust cloud and he noticed that his shoes had not made the sudden journey across the room. They remained in the middle of the floor where they had been left behind from the dragging of his feet. He smirked and winked.

Bart was apparently still chuckling when the table suddenly vanished and reappeared in front of Rupert. His leaning elbow, now no longer supported by the table, hung precariously in the air for a silent moment and he toppled forward out of his own chair, landing squarely on his forehead, his bony backside straight in the air. Rupert’s staff, which had been leaning against the table toppled, hitting Bart squarely on his tee peed backside.

Rupert guffawed, he couldn’t help it. To see his brother in such a state sent waves of laughter through his body and soul. Bart slowly got to his knees rubbing his forehead, curious as to what that strange grating sound was. Realizing it was his brother’s laughter took him a bit by surprise.

Rupert’s hair suddenly started to stand on end, he could feel the static charge in the room building and his laughter came to an abrupt halt. Without really thinking he ducked beneath the table just as a lightning bolt blew a man sized hole through the stone wall of the tower with a deafening crack. The evening breeze blew the dust and smoke from the explosion back into the room, while wood splinters, burning scrolls and scraps of books fell about him and the table. Looking up, he could see that his brother once again had the meatball skewered on his fork as he struggled to regain his chair.

Sputtering, Rupert climbed from beneath the table, “Ignis!” he bellowed just before Bart bit into the meatball.

Bart’s beard suddenly burst into flame, climbing his robes like a fuse on a stick of dynamite. The stench of burning hair permeated the room as he jumped to his feet patting frantically at his beard to put out the flames. Rupert summoned his staff and spelled the meatball to hover high in the air again.

Squelching the flames Bart glowered at his brother. His beard, nearly completely burned away, had left a black scorch mark up the front of his robes. He noticed the hovering meatball while he reached for his own staff.

They faced each other, each with a staff at the ready. Magic that had not been seen or used in centuries suddenly started lighting up the tower as the two brothers began their duel.

Bart would attack with a strong spell and Rupert would counter it with another and strike with yet a new spell behind it. Blasts of fire, wind, earth and water banged against the inside walls of the tower, scrolls, books and remnants of ages long forgotten were caught up in the battle and lost.

They were evenly matched and both held up to the onslaught of the other. The tower, however, after centuries of holding the brothers did not fair as well.

Exhausted and weak, they faced each other in the rubble of what had once been their home. Far overhead hovered that single meatball.

Bart, breathing heavily stared at his brother, “I am the Wizard of the West. You cannot defeat me.”

Rupert laughed his grating laugh. “You were... WERE... The Wizard of the West. You, like me, are no longer needed in this world of machines and electronics. We are relics of ages long forgotten!”

Bart wilted leaning heavily on his staff. “Do you know why I stopped talking to you?” he chuckled to himself.

Rupert paused, looking around at the devastation of their tower. “To be honest, not really.”

“You took the only meatball,” Bart explained with some levity as he glanced up at the hovering meatball that had started this mini wizard war. “That night, the imps served spaghetti, and you took the meatball without even asking if I wanted any. I watched you eat it, completely oblivious as to what you had done. You didn’t even offer to share it.”

Rupert laughed. “Is that what all of this was about? The last seventy years and...” he paused dramatically looking about. “All of this?”

“I wasn’t going to let it happen again, d****t,” Bart barked back. “I wanted the damn meatball!”

Rupert plunked down on a large piece of tower debris. “Fine,” he replied. “It’s yours.” He waved his hand and the meatball began to fall from its hovering perch.

Bart smiled, prepared to catch it.

He didn’t see the crow until it was too late. Like a thief in the night the crow snatched the meatball from its decent and flew off into the night.

“Damn bird!”

Author's Note

This was written as an exercise to inspire my daughter and we invented a small competition between the two of us. We had to write a story with the word Spaghetti in it. This was my result.