He was pushed!

I have held my silence for nearly a hundred and fifty years, but no more! The truth must be told. My friend Humpty Dumpty was not an egg, he was never an egg, and I can truthfully say he didn’t even like eggs. Humpty, like his father Lumpy before him, and his grandfather Stumpy before him, was made of fine and delicate glass.

The Dumpty’s owned and published a newspaper, the largest newspaper in all of Wonderland. In fact, Wonderland Today had readers from one end of the kingdom to the other. In a world of chaos and conspiracy Wonderland Today was the voice for truth and accuracy for all the citizens of Wonderland. My friend Humpty was an investigative reporter for his family’s paper. His exposé of graft and corruption in the royal family forced the queen of hearts to relinquish her throne to her brother the knave of hearts. The knave was falsely accused by the queen of stealing some tarts. It was Humpty’s story that proved his innocence and the queen’s dirty dealings. That’s where he made his enemies in the royal court. Many of the king’s men and various lords of the provinces were loyal to the crown and the queen in particular. The knave wasn’t so well liked; he had too many progressive ideas and sought too many changes to the ways of life in Wonderland.

As a reporter, he was used to making enemies. Wonderland Today had frequently cast a bright light on the royal family’s dealings and other corruptions in the government or business world. The Dumpty family’s charitable donations were legendary; the newspaper had built new schools and even paid to retrofit a giant building shaped like a shoe to be an orphanage for an elderly woman that dedicated her life to caring for children. The Dumpty’s and Humpty in particular were very popular with the citizens.

One day Humpty was visiting the neighboring kingdom of Neverland. He had been asked to go there to investigate the attempted murder of a young boy by a one handed pirate. As he walked back home, he decided to take a seat on a low garden wall. It was a very hot day and his feet hurt from all the walking. His glass body was sweaty and dusty from the road. He never heard his attackers sneak up from behind.

The queen of hearts was a vindictive cold-hearted woman that would order someone’s head cut off as soon as look at them. She might still be royalty, but lost the ruling throne directly because of Humpty and she had vowed her revenge. She engaged the services of the Tweedle brothers, Dumm and Dee. The brothers were fiercely loyal to the queen and not very bright. They were perfect assassins; they would kill at her command and likely take the fall for it as well.

Humpty was well known in both Wonderland and Neverland so his trip and purpose there was well known. There was really only one road between the two kingdoms. All the brothers had to do was find the right place to waylay him. As Humpty sat there on that wall wiping the dust and sweat from his face and neck, the brothers snuck up on him from behind.

With one hard shove, Humpty was forced off his perch and he fell the three feet to the hard ground! His glass body shattered on impact. The Tweedle brothers stood there and laughed as Humpty bled out on the ground begging them to call for the king’s men to help him. They took a few pieces of his shattered body with them to prove to the queen that they had done the deed.

An hour later, the king’s men on patrol came upon the crime scene. There was nothing they could do, Humpty had bled out and a few key pieces of his body were missing, there was no way to reassemble him again.

The king knew news of Humpty’s death would send shock waves throughout all of Wonderland as well as Neverland. Humpty was a voice for truth and right. Later that day the prince of Wonderland was speaking before the crowds trying to calm them. He tried to convince them Dumpty’s death was accidental and the crown considered him to be ‘a good egg.’

Thus began the cover up, the cover up of the murder of one of the greatest news reporters in both the lands. I’ve heard this lie even made it to the world of the humans. The Tweedle brothers went unpunished, they were never caught. I wrote this story to tell the world the truth, Humpty Dumpty was pushed!

Ray Prew was originally from Rhode Island, but now lives in Florida. He is a graduate of the New England Institute of Technology. Ray has been a blue-collar worker all his life, and started writing as a hobby. He spent nine enjoyable years as a phone psychic. Ray’s work has been published in Spinetinglers magazine. One of the stories was used in a trivia quiz. Two Spinetinglers stories are on You Tube, one story called Some Monsters Are Real is narrated by someone, and the other was made into a short video called 'Let Me Out by Ray Prew'. He has been published in Blood Moon Rising, Aphelion, and several other magazines. He has an anthology book of published and unpublished stories available on Amazon called Delightful Nightmares. His work has also appeared in the anthology Vicious Circle Season One put out by sinister grin, and one poem in an anthology of vampire poetry called Vampoetry.

Find more by Ray Prew in the Author Index.

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