Be(a)st meal in town - Dinner with Dickens

< The following story has been published by Centum Press in One Hundred Voices: Volume II (use my 10% off discount code 100V2V37) in some form or another, and is also available to order via Amazon >

When I received an invitation to a dinner party o'er the wire from Dickens I had trouble containing my excitement (I eventually tied it to a chain connected to the maple tree near the back porch). It was fair to say I had great expectations of what was to come.

In fact, I was so overcome with eager anticipation of the event that I'll skip straight to that very night (my calves will be sore in the morning!).

On such an auspicious occasion I donned my finest suit and tails. It was a hirsute made from horse tail, and tails made out of the mane, which was the style of the time (7pm). 

My hosts had the finest of cutlery. In fact, they were so fine that if laid on their sides you couldn't see them at all.

On entry, there were appetisers presented on a dumbwaiter, awaiting our consumption. No one was more taken aback than our host when his dumbwaiter spoke. More annoyed, than anything. He'd outlaid big money for it.

Photo: Lady Harriette's prize-winning 'Satay Horsehead Skewers' were
a popular choice amongst the guests. Better served as a mane course.

Dickens quickly calmed down when he found the receipt and instantly made plans for his butler to return the faulty server by noon in the morrow. Upon hearing this (there was no problem with his hearing), the faulty dumbwaiter was taken aback, and all was once again well.

Our host immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. And then he tried to screw the next course out of him as well. Which was fine. My good chap had always been quite the tight arse. Horses for courses really.

And tonight we were having just that:

Horse d'oeuvre was Shetland bruschetta on shortbread;

Medium rare mare on a bed of mash potato & horse radish for main, wrapped in fried mane for the main;

Dessert was caramelised stallion with strawberries and horse-whipped cream, served in hoofs. And hooves.

Though the aftertaste had most throats in the parlour a little hoarse, it was quite tasty nonetheless. Unfortunately, something didn't quite agree with me (this time, I wasn't talking about Drummle). It was my stomach, as it tried in vain to harness the whinnying meal that I had consumed with gumption (regrettably, I had chosen the multi-purpose cleaner to accompany my meal over the informal noun, showing a complete lack of horse sense). He couldn't. And so I was up with the trots all night.

This left my lavatory deterred, much dissimilar to Drummle in earlier sentences.

Earlier in the evening, Drummle had been heard to remark to the host about the quality of the meat for the main, and inquired as to how he could get his equine to taste so succulent.

"My good man, the trick is all in the tenderising of the beast. And make sure you remove the little man sitting up top on the horse before you pound the meat."

There was a sigh from Drummle. He knew more than anything that there's nothing worse than flogging a dead horse. 

'Cept for flogging a live one. That's beastiality.

Photo: A widely unknown fact is that a unicorn is a
mythological member of the horse family. A unicorn doesn't
exist in reality, though it does exist in cake form as seen in this
photograph that dates back some time dependent on when you view it.

(Disclaimer: No horses were killed in the creation of this article. They were already dead. And never existed in the first place. But, if we did use real horses in this fictional piece (which would be quite absurd and, therefore, quite suited to this story), we would be sure to take them from the leftovers at Melbourne Cup and other race meets, and dressage)