The

Don Cosquillas

Tales

Rhys Hughes

(Freshly Spun on the Tickle Wheel…)

1. Zucchini Overdrive

This event happened long ago in the mountains near Cercedilla, but not very long ago, just long enough, and the main protagonist was Don Cosquillas, who yearned to be a romantic hero, but wasn’t. To be more specific, he wanted to rescue a princess from a dragon and win her hand in marriage, and be granted half the lands owned by her father, presumably the king, as a bonus. Typical old-fashioned stuff. His wish wasn’t granted in quite the way he expected but he did ride forth against a real dragon, something to be proud of, on a bicycle rather than a horse, a rusty machine now on display in the Venta de Leña. Go there and check!

Most people who talked of such things at all believed that dragons had died out in the Middle Ages. The date of this extinction was usually reckoned at about 1285 or so. Don Cosquillas always lamented the fact he had been born six hundred years too late, though the years themselves were never heard to agree on this point, and he bitterly cursed those knights who hadn’t left any fire-breathing monsters for him to tackle. One day a rumour reached his ears that high in the snowy peaks above Cercedilla a dragon had been sighted and so he lost no time cycling from Madrid to the village in question, the tails of his frock coat hissing behind like a forked tongue.

To his amazement nobody in Cercedilla seemed much concerned about the fabulous creature. They were only interested in the amazing new inventions of the era, such as telephones, sliced bread, ether, compression refrigerators and submarines, and regarded dragons as an unwelcome reminder of the superstitious past. They answered his urgent questions somewhat impatiently: “Yes, the beast is dangerous, and yes, it has taken a beautiful hostage, and yes, you have no rivals!”

As the only contestant in the game, Don Cosquillas relaxed a little. To fight a dragon at his own pace would be hard enough, but to race against other heroes intent on the same quest was asking too much. He had tender feet from his journey, sore buttocks too, and he decided to recover for a day before making the crucial assault. He probably armed himself, the details of this aren’t clear, and when he was ready he slowly pedalled up the forest path towards the dragon’s lair. All his assumptions about what he might encounter remained unchanged in his mind as he made the exhausting ascent. On the steepest slopes he dismounted and pushed his squeaking steed.

The following morning he returned, half victorious, half crestfallen...

“The dragon is a vegetarian!” he grumbled, as he displayed the object so easily rescued from the less than rapacious reptile, “and his hostage: a courgette!”

“We said it was beautiful,” replied the inhabitants of Cercedilla, “and so it is.”

“True,” conceded Don Cosquillas, “but...”

“Return it to its rightful farmer and he may give you a reward,” was the subsequent advice.

That’s exactly what he did, and while the farmer who had grown the courgette was clearly overjoyed to be reunited with his beloved vegetable, he expressed this joy neither in word nor deed. Indeed his gratitude only manifested itself after repeated prompting by the hero, who kept crying, “I demand half your lands! That’s the correct procedure. Or I’ll hire a lawyer.”

The farmer replied, “I’m rather poor and only own one field. You can have 50% of that, but if you’re so keen on protocol you’ll have to marry the courgette as well.”

“Don’t be absurd. I don’t intend to settle down at my age!”

“You refuse the hand of my courgette? After spending the night alone with it up in the mountains. Kindly remain here while I fetch my scythe, you heartless molester...”

“Wait! Wait! I agree to your terms!”

“Good. I’ll go and fetch the priest right now. No chance of a dowry, I’m afraid, not even a telephone, loaf of sliced bread or bottle of ether. And only the richest farmers around here can afford such luxuries as compression refrigerators and submarines...”

“Anything you say! I’ll take the courgette as my bride!”

Thus the bachelor days of Don Cosquillas came to an end and he accepted his new role of husband with a long face, not a very long face, but long enough: he occasionally impaled soft biscuits on his chin. Eight or nine at a time. And he took the courgette back to Madrid and consumated the marriage, nobody knows how, not even he, and lived a life suited to the idiom of the city in that century, until things started to go wrong. And the years slowly passed, making those wrong things worse. Typical modern stuff. Then one day there was a knock at the door and his father-in-law stood on the threshold, coming to visit in the way relatives must do.

He gazed at Don Cosquillas and his unshaven chin, the dirty dressing gown and slippers, the half-empty bottle of wine in one hand, the badly rolled cigarette burning close to a chapped lower lip, and he raised his rural eyebrows in disapproval and extended his brawny arms to catch the suddenly limp body of his son-in-law, who burst into tears and wailed:

“My wife has gone off!”

“Mistreatment at your hands, was it? Men like you sicken me. Where’s my scythe? Damn, I left it in Cercedilla. Had an aubergine on the side, did you? Pulpo!”

And he stormed off in disgust, that farmer, and didn’t return. As for Don Cosquillas, he never remarried. Bleak bitterness suited him, to a very minor extent, and drooling idiocy became an acceptable substitute for heroic romanticism. But he wasn’t always lonely. The vegetarian dragon came to stay from time to time, overlapping orange scales clashing with the purple curtains, vast malodorous eyes like forgotten blue cheeses, tongue like unwashed frock coat tails, breath like patchouli joss stick fumes, to mount his bicycle and pedal furiously around his house in the highest possible gear. Because a story about a dragon that doesn’t contain a description of that dragon is ridiculous.