Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald

Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald was the granddaughter of Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain. Vonnegut at first thought that she was a representation of his dead sister, Alice, but he later came to believe she is instead the last of his "optimistic imagination" and creativity as he experiments with the idea of being old.

The Harlem River

Melody's father was the illegitimate son of Swain and Wilma Pachysandra-17 von Peterswald. He was one of the few survivors of the Urbana Massacre and was drafted into service as a drummer boy for the victorious Duke of Oklahoma. He conceived Melody at the age of fourteen with a forty year old laundry woman. Melody was given the middle name Oriole-2 to assure maximum mercy should she be captured by the forces of the Duke's enemy—the King of Michigan, Stewart Oriole-2 Mott. At the age of six, she was indeed captured and both her parents killed at the Battle of Iowa City. The King maintained a harem of children with his middle name, which included Melody, whose "ordeals become more disgusting" as she aged. However, she held on to her father's dying words that she was a princess and the "granddaughter of the King of Candlesticks". One night, she stole a Dresden candlestick from the tent of the King while he slept and sneaked away. She traveled east to find her grandfather, encountering some kindness along the way in the form of food, clothing, and eventually a boat ride, at the risk of the boatman's own life, across the Harlem River to Manhattan, know as the the Island of Death due to The Green Death, which killed nearly its entire population. She arrived pushing a baby carriage full of all her possessions, including the Dresden candlestick, which she presented as an offering to Swain. She announced that she was his granddaughter and although he did not believe her at first, he welcomed her nonetheless. Later she was able to convince him.

During her escape from Detroit, she was raped on the outskirts of Schenectady and gave birth shortly after her arrival in Manhattan at the age twelve. The child was a stillborn male that was buried in an ornate box that was once a humidor and placed in a manhole. On days of light gravity, she and Isadore Raspberry-19 Cohen, her lover, would work on building a pyramid made of debris at Broadway and 42nd Street over the gravesite. She was pregnant again at sixteen, this time by Isadore. They lived with her grandfather in the the lobby of the Empire State Building, and were fond of playing backgammon on a board Swain painted on the floor. The two of them were illiterate, with little curiosity about the past. She did most of the talking for them both, but like Isadore hated being asked questions. Once, when pressed by her grandfather to name the three most important humans in history, they grudgingly came up with Swain himself, Jesus Christ, and Santa Claus. Both hoped to become slaves of Vera Chipmunk-5 Zappa, who ran a large farm on the island. Although Swain approved of this, Vera often had to tell them "that slavery wasn't for everybody". Melody was bow legged from bad nutrition as a child. Isadore would often carry her on days of heavy gravity. The two of them discovered the stationary of the Continental Driving School and a gross of ball-point pens on the 64th floor, which Swain would use to write his autobiography. They followed Swain's lead in the names of things, such as calling Manhattan "Skyscraper National Park" or "Angkor Wat", as well as referring to the call of a whippoorwill as "the cry of the Nocturnal Goatsucker". With Vera, they planned a large party for Swain's one hundred and first birthday.