.

 

Beyond Black Dogs and Mice

A survey of creatures which foreshadow depression, and their literary origins.

Churchill was beset by a metaphoric black dog; it sent him into long stretches of melancholy. Kafka had mice, and Sartre, I think, had cockroaches. These animals, familiars of gloom, have a long and rich history, from the nipple-nibbling Xlkrktk of Mayan folklore (a squirrel with tusks and human feet), to the soul-swallowing rabbits in the rock group Radiohead's song Participle:


Crab lice in the eggs
Soul-swallowing rabbits
Chewing your heart out
Why bother?
Why baaaah-ther?

For your enjoyment, I picked out my five favorite metaphoric harbingers of depression - the tongue-biting eel, the furious fidget bird, the eohippus of misplaced destiny, the eternally recurring toad, and rat biscuits - along with, from the great literary works of the last few centuries, some representative quotes which refer to these unwelcome beasts.

.  .  .  .  .  

1. The Tongue-biting Eel

A picture of an eel that would, if given the chance, bite your tongue.

This is a slippery eel that bites your tongue, or sometimes your nose, and won't let go. Once it has a good grip it delivers steady 9-volt shocks and makes a terrible squealing sound. It will stay there for a week or more before it dries up and falls off.


Once when I was very young
an eel bit my tiny tongue.
It tingled through my tiny toes,
And then the eel bit my nose!
  An eel
  made a meal
  of my nose!

--Anonymous, The Young Sinner's Briar Patch of Endless Choler, 1902.

.  .  .  .  .  

2. The Furious Fidget Bird

The Furious Fidget Bird is purple with a gray beak, and it lands on your shoulder and pecks your ear until you want to scream. When you hit it, it digs its talons deeper into your shoulders. After it makes you cry, it licks up your tears with a pitch-colored, oily tongue. The only way to make it leave is if you sing it lullabyes, even as it bites the skin around your eyebrows.


Mrs. Piker:
  I will remain of sternest strength,
  These woman's shoulders I will gird,
  As waking nights drift past in dread
  Of the Furious Fidget Bird.

--Smith and Wycoff, libretto for The Infested Mistress of Pilcher, (operetta), in the song “Young Murphy Forces the Tongs,” 1828.

.  .  .  .  .  

3. The Eohippus of Misplaced Destiny

A picture of an eohippus.

This is the eohippus that comes to your door and barks out all the things you might have done, but didn't.

Moira: What - at the door. You hear it? The Eohippus of Misplaced Destiny, barking up at me. I hear: “Christopher!” “Maria!” That is what I would have named our children, if we'd had them.

Albert: (Shouting.) That's odd, because what I heard it say was “happiness” and right now it's listing the corporations that offered me jobs I turned down so we could stay in this miserable town so you could be close to your bitch of a mother.

--Roger Murbee, Maria and Albert Yell for 90 Minutes With No Resolution, 1962.

Albert: (Shouting.) That's odd, because what I heard it say was “happiness” and right now it's listing the corporations that offered me jobs I turned down so we could stay in this miserable town so you could be close to your bitch of a mother.

--Roger Murbee, Maria and Albert Yell for 90 Minutes With No Resolution, 1962.

.  .  .  .  .  

4. Eternally Recurring Toad

This is the toad that is always there, at the edge of your vision, and instead of “ribbit,” it says “it's hopeless, please die.” It usually addresses you by name.


It's just the eternally recurring toad, David thought. Just get up and keep going, going, going, all the way to the corner. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Then you can smoke a cigarette. But there was Norma.

--Gary Slicer, The Thing That Happened When That Thing Happened, 1984.

.  .  .  .  .  

5. Rat Biscuits

A picture of a rat biscuit.

Rat biscuits are hard, sea-cracker-style biscuits that have rat tails hanging out of them. When you're depressed, you're only allowed to eat rat biscuits, which makes you even more depressed.


Shimmer: I've spent my last three weeks eating filthy rat biscuits, waiting for them to put me in leg irons, feeling I was the one who bore the blame for the death of the Samoan. (Knocks over table.) And why? (Throws sextant to the ground.) Because of an agitated seal that poses for a captain! (Carefully rights table, fixing bent leg, then knocks it over again.) Well, enough rat biscuits! (Throws shoe at porter.) Enough!

--Carl Osdog, The Royal Hedgehog Cast Adrift, 1951.


[Top]

Ftrain.com

PEEK

Ftrain.com is the website of Paul Ford and his pseudonyms. It is showing its age. I'm rewriting the code but it's taking some time.

FACEBOOK

There is a Facebook group.

TWITTER

You will regret following me on Twitter here.

EMAIL

Enter your email address:

A TinyLetter Email Newsletter

About the author: I've been running this website from 1997. For a living I write stories and essays, program computers, edit things, and help people launch online publications. (LinkedIn). I wrote a novel. I was an editor at Harper's Magazine for five years; then I was a Contributing Editor; now I am a free agent. I was also on NPR's All Things Considered for a while. I still write for The Morning News, and some other places.

If you have any questions for me, I am very accessible by email. You can email me at ford@ftrain.com and ask me things and I will try to answer. Especially if you want to clarify something or write something critical. I am glad to clarify things so that you can disagree more effectively.

POKE


Syndicate: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Links: RSS1.0, RSS2.0

Contact

© 1974-2011 Paul Ford

Recent

@20, by Paul Ford. Not any kind of eulogy, thanks. And no header image, either. (October 15)

Recent Offsite Work: Code and Prose. As a hobby I write. (January 14)

Rotary Dial. (August 21)

10 Timeframes. (June 20)

Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out. (April 10)

Why I Am Leaving the People of the Red Valley. (April 7)

Welcome to the Company. (September 21)

“Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?”. Forgot to tell you about this. (July 20)

“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. An essay for TheMorningNews.org. (July 11)

Woods+. People call me a lot and say: What is this new thing? You're a nerd. Explain it immediately. (July 10)

Reading Tonight. Reading! (May 25)

Recorded Entertainment #2, by Paul Ford. (May 18)

Recorded Entertainment #1, by Paul Ford. (May 17)

Nanolaw with Daughter. Why privacy mattered. (May 16)

0h30m w/Photoshop, by Paul Ford. It's immediately clear to me now that I'm writing again that I need to come up with some new forms in order to have fun here—so that I can get a rhythm and know what I'm doing. One thing that works for me are time limits; pencils up, pencils down. So: Fridays, write for 30 minutes; edit for 20 minutes max; and go whip up some images if necessary, like the big crappy hand below that's all meaningful and evocative because it's retro and zoomed-in. Post it, and leave it alone. Can I do that every Friday? Yes! Will I? Maybe! But I crave that simple continuity. For today, for absolutely no reason other than that it came unbidden into my brain, the subject will be Photoshop. (Do we have a process? We have a process. It is 11:39 and...) (May 13)

That Shaggy Feeling. Soon, orphans. (May 12)

Antilunchism, by Paul Ford. Snack trams. (May 11)

Tickler File Forever, by Paul Ford. I'll have no one to blame but future me. (May 10)

Time's Inverted Index, by Paul Ford. (1) When robots write history we can get in trouble with our past selves. (2) Search-generated, "false" chrestomathies and the historical fallacy. (May 9)

Bantha Tracks. (May 5)

More...
Tables of Contents