Come gulp some sludge with me!

Top o' the Range, we called him --
that being his term for
the sludge gulper he drove... that's right,
the very one he drove
on to the playground on
that never-to-be-forgotten day
to open up the cesspit
for essential maintenance.
(The submerged pumps were playing up.)
An hour it took before:
the pit gulped dry;
the maintenance work done;
the cesspit covered up;
he and his merry crew
had doffed their caps and gone their way --
long before the first small child appeared.

Two day later -- thereabouts --
the janitor appeared:
Have you taken my blue bucket sir,
at all, at all?
I hadn't. Not at all!
The fairies must have had it then, he said.

Another two days and the pumps have stopped --
not playing now, they're on a total strike.
The sludge gulper returns,
the pit is soon sucked dry...
and there, among the workings of the pumps,
much mangled, the remains,
a janitor's once pride and joy,
the former shiny bucket.

It took a lot of squeezing,
but one by one they squeaked, the crew,
until we had the tale.
Top o' the Range,
leaning over the cesspit to instruct his men:
lost his false teeth,
commandeered the bucket and a rope,
had somehow fished them up
Can't be doing without them, he'd said, before
he'd let go one end of the rope,
and watched the precious bucket plunge
into the murk below.

I'm offering this post to Open Link Monday at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads