Famished

Whim settled into the stipule of the coconut palm

Reclined,  his six feet up

Snacking on bugs and leaves.

Meditating on pink clouds hugging the Koolau mountains

He felt secure nestled like a pest in a rug

Which was his first mistake.

The rat family had other plans.

They hadn’t eaten in ages.

Whim the cockroach looked like a delicious snack 

Like the old days, before the pandemic,

stopping at the local banana patch or the coconut palm for

 juice and grinds.

I love juicy bugs squeaked Seymour between bites,

gnawing on a single coconut that had fallen to the ground. 

This is  going to be the “Pizza de Resistance.”

I once stowed away on a cruise ship that docked on the Amalfi coast. 

Learned some Italian, I did. 

Seymour and the rest of them, Moe, Vinny and Flossy were famished. Normally they would’ve been happy with slicing and dicing the coconuts, but not today.

Today they were extra thankful for Whim. They concentrated on the thought of eating a whim, how they might prepare him, should they toast him in the tropical sun?  Or dissect him and divide him raw, like an oyster?  They had the teeth for it. They had the stomachs for it too. 

They could possibly serve up a Whim with some Golden Tilapia on the side; the nearby pond had a school of  them. 

Nah, then they would have to split it with the Fish Hawk.  And that fellow had red eyes, avoid the red, in the wild. Today was not the day to experiment with old rat’s wife’s tales. Besides, they had Whim up a tree and no intentions of sharing.  Who wants to bless the food?

*The Moral of the story: Consider a whim but don’t dwell there too long. 

11/8/25 Cornelia DeDona