Fed Up

“Miles,” whined Harold, his head slipping off the table and rolling along the floor, “this table is falling apart. I can’t keep my head on it.”

Miles peered out from his hidey-hole in the wall that separated the makeshift living room and bedroom in the small, dilapidated cabin Harold the ghost and Miles shared. 

“Oh bother, Harold," quipped Miles, whiskers twittering in anger. “Why don’t you keep your head on?”

Harold, groping for his head on the floor, picked it up gingerly, and with delicate bone white fingers (they were, indeed, bone), plunked it back on his neck.

“I think better when it’s off,” he intoned in a horrible, monotonous drawl. “And besides, I have a headache. That word you gave me this morning has got me all higgledy-piggledy. I can’t think of a word to rime with it. The truth is, Miles, I don’t even know what it means.”

Miles stood up on his two hind mouse feet, stretching out his snake like tail to balance him.  “I’m fed up with this,” shouted Miles.  “I was taking a nice nap, Harold. Dreaming of Swiss cheese, the kind with the lovely holes and delicate aroma, which makes my nose twitch in delight.”

            “You don’t even know what it means, do you,” Harold said with a sneer. Unfortunately, the sneer made Harold look like a raging demon.

            “What word are we discussing,” Miles said.

            “Anathema,” said Harold, his eyes flashing from blue to crimson.

            “Anathema,” said Miles, standing up tall and straight, "is a noun that translates to something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. For instance, the drummer/chainsaw artist was an anathema to Harold the ghost.”

            “Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” said Harold, “but you can’t possibly find a rime with anathema.”

            Miles rolled his eyes and switched his glorious tail back and forth.

            “In Canada,” said Miles, “there’s plenty of anathema, especially toward headless ghosts, whom they’d all like to roast.”