Mr. Eternity Read Free Page A

slaves tormented, he knelt by the dead man, & grabbed hold of his cheeks, & looked in his mouth, & lifted his hand and let it fall, & listened at his chest, and then, without canvassing the matter any further, pronounced him dead not of poyson but from a surfeit of Pig.
    Now we were at ease once more, this occurrence being nothing remarkable in such a place, where death blew through every big house like a summer breeze . Only those guests newly arriv’d from England were alarmed, and stared about, their faces masks of horror . Mr. Galsworthy for his part was delighted to discover in Daniel Defoe, called from thatpoint Doctor Dan, a person with some knowledge of medicine, and pressed him now with questions and concerns of all sorts, asking whether a surfeit of duck mite produce a similar outcome, or of crab, and if not was there some Fatal Characteristic peculiar to the pig.
    I settl’d in to listen, drinking punch & gazing at the slaves, who moved about clearing dishes. I knew from their faces they had poisoned Mr. Foster, though I ne’er learnt the reason.
    Dr. Dan answered that a surfeit of pig sometimes produced what was called by physicians a coagluation of the Gluten or some say Animal mixt , which retarded & obstructed the circulation of the blood. A surfeit of any animal fud will produce the same outcome in any other animal, but the calamity proceeds quick or slow according to the degree of relationship between the animal consum’d to the animal which consumes it, for ex. a man must eat more duck to produce the same fatal coagluation, but a much smaller amount of monkey, and still less of Ape, Sphinx, or Satyr, which of all animals are man’s closest cousins. Cannibalism that heathen rite is known to produce an instantaneous coagluation. However, said Dr. Dan, remember that a duck is safer eating the meat of a Human than if he eats the meat of his own cousin and near relation, the goose.
    Notwithstanding he spoke with authoritie I knew him for an imposter, yet I said nothing, for I recognized him as one oozy worm recognizes another though neither have the use of reason. Here I was at table to every appearance a white man among white men, yet I was a sheep in wolf’s clothing after all. You see dear reader my father was Mr. Coleman of Elizabeth plantation in the Barbados, that is God’s truth, yet my mother was his Slave , named Liberty, which made me neither one thing nor another, but surely no gentleman. In the Bahama islands I called myself John Green, and have done ever since.

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    My father was the hereditary king and president of the Democratic Federation of Mississippi States, which was lucky for him because he loved the amenities of power and the exercise of governance. It was not so lucky for the people he ruled over, however, nor for the country at large, which ultimately disappeared away into the lavender light and sweet scented dust of history. But that is putting the car before the hearse.
    Originally, our dominions comprised St. Louis, where we lived, and most of the land west to Kansas City and south to the first wild reaches of the Mississippi jungle, which in truth made it not Mississippi states, as the country’s name boldly stated, but only the one individual old state of Missouri with some drips and drops of Arkansas. As for ourselves, we remained in St. Louis at all times. I recollect it as a city of almost twenty-five thousand souls, a city of date palms and mud houses and banana beer, and it was hot enough to fry an ape most of the time, except January and February. It was my family’s home for centuries.
    Our name is Roulette, but I am Jasmine St. Roulette, the St. part having been added for a hint of style. I was the only issue of my father’s union with a mystery mother whom I never knew, and therefore our presidential family consisted of only two members, although the household was augmented tenfold by servants and slaves, and days might pass when I did not see my father at