The Death of Ezekiel Pink

by Mike Mayak

(With apologies to Robert W. Service )

Author’s Note: The draws for the November 2022 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were A Tall Tale or Legend, set on an Ice Shelf, involving a Brass Bed. The idea banged into my head almost instantly and this was the result. So, I turned it over to my occasional pen-name and this spoof/homage to a much more famous work was the result! Enjoy!

I.

Now the Great Ice Shelf’s up by itself

Up there in the Northern Land

Where it’s cold and dry but passers-by

Do come to stare and stand

Of the tales you’d conceive that nobody’d believe

The most fabulous of all it’s said

Is when one man chose that spot in the snows

As Ezekiel Pink’s death-bed

II.

Now Ezekiel Pink liked his food and his drink

But he liked his money as well

Prospecting as leaven had hardly been heaven

And he said he’d take his fortune to Hell

He said he was dyin,’ wouldn’t waste his time cryin’

But wanted to die in his bed

And he insisted the Great Ice Shelf’s vistas

Were the sights he would want in his head.

III.

So he paid several of us in coats and in gloves

To push his big brass bed along

To the spot on the shelf he’d picked out for himself

To hear the last of life’s sweet song

As he laid down to rest, one more last request

He asked of us there on the ice

“Here’s a list of all those I have wronged and suppose

Would come to hear me apologize.”

IV.

The first of the lasses, in coat and dark glasses

Trudged up to the man she held dear

She snuggled in bed and he spoke to her head

The words that she wanted to hear

And that was the way that it went all day,

A new woman about every hour

And Pink, snuggled warm had no idea of the storm

That was gradually gaining its power

V.

For they trudged to the shelf, each by herself

And they spoke and they left alone

But long about five with Pink still alive

He began to grumble and moan

For the women who’d sighed, snuggled by his side

Believing him not long for this world

Had met by their boats and then compared notes

And stalked back to the shelf, their fists curled

VI.

For they realized old Zeke was not near that peak

From whence no trav’ler returned

He’d called them to cuddle, hoped he could befuddle

These women but instead they felt burned.

They stalked angrily toward him and told him they’d warned him

“We’ve had it with your lies Zeke Pink”

Then with one rushing motion, they pushed his bed toward the ocean

And he quickly slid in the drink.

VII.

But the bed like a boat, decided to float

With Pink clutching fast to the rail

And the women, not caring commenced to swearing

And so Zeke used his sheets for a sail

And then he sailed away at the end of that day

Away from the women he’d wronged

And he sailed out of sight at the start of the night

Away from those for whom he’d longed

VIII.

But this story they say, did not end that day

With Ezekiel Pink and his sail

But from Dawson to Nome, wherever men roam

When the story is told, without fail

A voice will ring out, “Your tale I don’t doubt

For I ran into Pink just last year

You may greet this with laughter ‘twas my bride he was after

So I boxed him right smack in his ear.”

IV.

Now the Great Ice Shelf’s up by itself

Up there in the Northern Land

Where it’s cold and dry but passers-by

Do come to stare and stand

Of the tales you’d conceive that nobody’d believe

The most fabulous of all it’s said

Is when one man chose that spot in the snows

As Ezekiel Pink’s death-bed

—end—

——for Jerome Stueart

and to the memory of John R. Bogner