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
authorjeffbaker 