Posts Tagged ‘Eggs’

16 items.

The Castle (III/IV)

by Jenna on January 21st, 2004

The forest is dry. Its soil is brittle. Its air is sharp and clean. The pine trees smell like antiseptic. Spirits live in the forest. They invite Jenna to play.

“It’s great fun to look for truffles,” suggests Boar. “Also, if there are any knights around, we can gore their sides.”

“Take to the air as a duck!” offers Duck. “Nothing flies as elegantly as a duck.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Coyote says dubiously.

“It’s not a lie,” says Duck. “There’s an implicit ‘exactly’. Nothing flies exactly as elegantly as a duck.”

“I can’t come and play,” says Jenna. She’s chewing on a hamburger and writing in a black and white composition book. “I’m writing a book of examples of filial piety.”

“Oh?” says Duck. “Can you read some to us?”

Jenna swallows, and recites:

In 1983, the giant spiders were very hungry. One had a clutch of eggs, so she was extra-hungry. They tried to eat me, but I’d always bonk them on the nose. So the mother grew very thin. She thought she might die. “Don’t worry, mother,” said the little spiders, hatching. “You can eat us!” So she did. By keeping their mother alive at the cost of their own existence, the little spiders fulfilled their filial duty.

“That’s very moving,” agrees Boar. “But is it really virtuous?”

Jenna considers. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I think the sacrifice is beautiful, but does it compare to the beauty of a giant spider’s life?”

“I don’t know,” Duck answers. “What is the beauty of a giant spider’s life?”

“I’m biased,” Jenna says, “since they keep trying to eat me. But I think it’s the way that they’re cruel without hating. They do monstrous, horrible things. But inside their heads, it’s cold, clear, and empty. They’re not ugly like demons. They’re pretty. Like the winter. And they have potential.”

“You should read another,” Coyote says, slouching.

Jenna recites:

Vicious Lily was a robotic assassin created in 1925 to advance the cause of Impressionism. “What is your o-pin-ion of Mo-net’s pain-tings of the Thames?” it asked me. I assured it that all of Monet’s works were masterpieces. “Good,” it said. “I will let you live.” Then it turned to the wall. “What is your o-pin-ion of the Rou-en Ca-the-drals se-ries?” The wall made no answer. Vicious Lily’s laser arm clicked. A dial spun. Vicious Lily blasted the wall until nothing remained but rubble. “Take that in the name of ro-bot jus-tice!” it said. Not a moment went by that Vicious Lily did not think of its creator, Monet.

Boar grunts. “It’s a robot. It can’t help it.”

“Robots can break their programming,” says Jenna. “It happens all the time on TV. Plus, I heard that if you flip your Transformers toys into a special third configuration, they come to life, embezzle your money, and flee the country in disgrace.”

“Point,” says Coyote. “In a way, a robot that doesn’t break its programming exhibits filial loyalty. Still, I’d think that a true example of robotic loyalty would be a death machine that, having broken its programming, decides to go around killing people for the agency that created it anyway.”

“That would be more impressive,” says Jenna, “but I haven’t seen an example of that. Do you think I should fictionalize my work for greater impact?”

“Not really,” says Coyote. “I’m just sayin’.”

Jenna takes a few more bites of her hamburger, swallows, writes a bit more, and then recites:

Mei Ming was born in 1975. The monster pulled her from the shadow’s womb. The shadow kept her in the tunnels to protect her from the world. Mei Ming wasn’t scared of spiders, but thieves—that’s scary! I tried to look at her with my flashlight helmet, but she shrank from the light. “It’s best to live in the shadows,” she said. “That way my mother always knows where I am.” She gave up light for her mother’s peace of mind—that’s how pious she was.

“What did she look like?” wonders Duck. “I mean, was she all shadowy?”

“A little,” agrees Jenna. “You could definitely see the filial resemblance.”

“You should stay away from her,” counsels Coyote. “The tree never falls far from the branch. Bad eggs like that only lead you into trouble.”

“It’s an interesting issue,” Jenna decides. “I don’t think she can be a bad egg, because if she’s evil, that’s just being loyal to the shadow. And if she’s wonderfully sweet and nice, then that’s not very much like a bad egg, either.”

“Nor like a deviled egg,” Boar points out. “Those aren’t sweet. They taste of mustard.”

“I want mustard,” Jenna says unhappily. It’s hard to find condiments in the tunnels sometimes.

“It’s not about taste,” Coyote answers. “It’s about security.”

Jenna recites:

I met a girl standing over her father’s grave. She was wearing a jacket. “He had a hundred plans,” she said. “But none of them ever worked. So I’ve decided to honor his memory. If you can catch me, your next plan will succeed.”

“It’s dangerous to make promises like that,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “When you make a promise that humans can’t fulfill, you can’t be human any more. I’m okay with that.” By making this promise, she put her filial duty to her father’s memory above the human condition.

“The human condition’s not so great,” Coyote points out. “Now, me, I’m great. Compare and contrast as you will.”

“Humans live out in the world,” Jenna points out. “You hang out with Duck, Boar, and me.”

“See how my fur shines? That’s classy. The human condition doesn’t have class like that. And my teeth are just glorious.” Coyote smiles. “Case closed.”

“What are you going to do with the book when you’ve finished writing it?” asks Duck.

“I’m going to take it to the market and trade it for three magic beans. Then I will plant them, climb to the top of the beanstalk, kill any nearby giants, and, making a block and tackle from their ligaments and bones, lower the castle into the forest.”

“That’s a stupid plan,” Coyote says. “Why don’t you just trade Cow?”

Jenna lifts a finger to answer, pauses, and turns bright red.

“What?” Coyote asks.

Jenna ducks her head. “My lunch had no foresight,” she embarrassedly admits.

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment

With A Bit of Jazz

by Jenna on February 28th, 2004

Elder Badger walks through the halls of the Monastic Nursery. He is rotund. He is dignified. He wears a rich orange velvet robe. A pair of tiny glasses sits on his snout.

He hears a shout. He glances over his shoulder. Sarah is hurrying towards him. He slows down and lets her catch up.

“Elder,” Sarah says uncertainly. Her paws wriggle. Her nose snuffles wetly. She screws up her courage. In one breath, she says, “Honorable Elder Badger please tell me what happened to the humans please sir you’re wonderful and kind.”

Elder Badger smiles. He folds his hands inside the sleeves of his robe. He walks along. “That’s a hard question,” he says.

He comes to a door. It’s marked “Creche #1″. He opens the door. He enters. He turns on the light. It’s a warm, damp room. It’s filled with long blue plastic shelves. On the shelves sit Tamagotchi. He walks up to one, picks it up, presses a few buttons, and puts it down.

“A lot of badgers,” he says, “they think that the humans killed themselves off.”

“Kill . . .” Sarah says. She can’t quite finish the word. It’s too appalling.

“They had terrible weapons,” Elder Badger says. “By the end, they had the Omega Principle. If they’d told it to, it would have killed every man, woman, and child of them.”

Elder Badger fiddles with another Tamagotchi. Sarah stares. Her jaw is slightly open. Elder Badger glances over his shoulder at her and smiles affectionately. “Some people think that they went to Heaven, instead.”

“Heaven?”

Elder Badger picks up a third Tamagotchi. He frowns at it sadly. “Gone,” he says. He shakes his head. He sets it down. Then he looks back at Sarah. “Humans wrote about it a lot in their books. It was a place of happiness, where they’d go if they were worthy. One day, there’d be a judgment, and if the humans did well, they’d just . . . go.”

“That’s like what happened!” Sarah says, rapt.

“Yes,” Elder Badger agrees.

“I think the humans were worthy,” Sarah states.

Elder Badger fiddles with a Desert Tamagotchi. “So do I,” he agrees. “But the humans never seemed to have a solid scientific idea of where Heaven was or how the judgment worked.”

“They could run experiments?” Sarah offered. “And see how different things were judged in different circumstances?”

The Desert Tamagotchi beeps. Elder Badger looks pleased. He pats it awkwardly on the casing and then puts it down.

“Personally,” Elder Badger says, “I think they just . . . left.” He looks around the room. “So much of what they left behind—it seems like a house put in order. They left the ugliness. They left us the stories of all their mistakes. But things were clean and in order. Like they wanted us to see them as they were, but—with a bit of sparkle. A bit of jazz. Some hope.”

“Where would they go?”

Elder Badger shrugs. “Wherever you go when you’re done being here,” he says.

“Oh.”

Elder Badger looks at another Tamagotchi, and sighs. “Two,” he says. “Two dead.”

“Huh?”

“Oh.” Elder Badger blinks at her. “Haven’t I ever told you about these?”

“They’re plants!” Sarah says, with the certainty of youth. “Special beeping plants that the humans left behind.”

“No,” Elder Badger says. He shakes his head. “They’re a baby.”

Sarah looks from shelf to shelf. She flares her nostrils and sniffs the air once, twice. “Are you sure?” she says.

Elder Badger nods. “A long time ago,” he says, “They were a lot like plants. They didn’t think. They had no souls.”

He holds one up. Sarah presses in close to see. Elder Badger indicates a button. “You pressed this button,” he says, “to feed one. And this one cleaned up their mess.”

Sarah reaches out, very slowly. She waits. Elder Badger nods permission. Sarah presses the button. She feeds the Tamagotchi. It makes a happy noise. Sarah beams.

“But before the humans left,” Elder Badger says, “they linked them all together. What happens when you link things together?”

“They form complex systems,” Sarah says. “And then . . .” She screws up her face, thinking. “They evolve?”

Elder Badger nods. “The little Tamagotchi plants were still pretty dumb. But they started picking up ideas from one another. They didn’t need humans to press the buttons any more. They needed each other.”

“So they didn’t die!” Sarah exclaims. “The humans changed them so they wouldn’t die!”

Elder Badger snorted quiet laughter. “Maybe,” he says. “We can’t really know. But that’s why I take care of them. They’re learning. It’s very slow. It’s very strange. But they’re learning. So I help. I come by. I talk to them. I praise them when they think up clever things. And I turn them back into eggs when they die. One day, thousands of years from now, they might be smart—like badgers!”

“Wow.” Sarah looks up at the creche ceiling. “And then we wouldn’t be alone.”

Elder Badger nods.

“But . . . you said two died.”

“It’s a complex system,” Elder Badger says. “So they’re getting more and more sophisticated ideas all the time. But sometimes the ideas they get . . . they’re like poison. Poison chain letters. They pass them around like mad, but the data sweeps in and tries to erase their minds. It’s nasty, and every year, it gets a little bit nastier.”

“Oh,” Sarah says. “But . . .”

“They know,” Elder Badger says. “But it’s the only way they can get happiness, or food, or anything—to listen to the others and process their ideas. Sometimes, a Tamagotchi gets tired of it and just cuts off from the others. Then it can’t get food or praise unless I’m right here pushing its buttons. I caught one of those in time, once. Carried it around for weeks. But mostly they die.”

Sarah looks confused. “But that’s dumb,” she says.

“Oh?”

“Well,” she says, “can’t they just . . . listen to the others enough, but not too much?”

“Sometimes I think so,” Elder Badger says. “Sometimes it seems like it should be easy. But I’m not a Tamagotchi. I can’t test that hypothesis. So I just come in here now and again, play with them some, and make the dead ones live again.”

└ Tags: ,
  Comment

(Holy Saturday) Catechumens and Killers1

by Jenna on April 10th, 2004

1 requires familiarity with massively multiplayer online computer games

Meredith stands outside Jesus’ tomb. She’s a pixel person. She’s got red hair and a white dress and she’s constructed of ten thousand polygons.

“Do you think he’ll show?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” Sabin says. He’s a thin pixel man. Kind of coffee colored, kind of gray. “I heard some Romans caught and killed him a few days ago.”

“Wow,” Meredith says. “Long time between spawns.”

“It’s the only thing that keeps camping down,” Sabin says. He gestures around. There are a few dozen people waiting around the tomb. “Think about it—if all you had to do to kill Jesus was to wait until the last group was done, there’d be hundreds, thousands of people here. Rome would be full. As it is, people just kind of swing by, hope they’ll get lucky. Only a few of us sit around and wait.”

“Yeah.”

Meredith sits down on a gravestone. She plants the butt of her spear on the ground.

“Why you here?” Sabin asks.

She looks a bit embarrassed. “Just kind of spectating,” she says. “LOL.”

“Not in it for the loot?”

She looks at her spear. “This one’s +8,” she says. “And improves my fortitude and magic to boot. It’s already better than Longinus.”

“Too bad,” Sabin says. “There’s the grail, too, you know.”

She snorts. “They’re selling 5-packs at the auction,” she says. “Buy 10, get a free indulgence.”

“Ah.”

She looks at him more carefully. “You know that,” she says. “So why are you here? Leveling up?”

“I want to ask him a question,” Sabin says.

“Oh?”

“‘Why?’” he says.

A pixel rabbit hops by. It’s got a basket of eggs. It looks Meredith up and down.

“Wanna cyber?” it asks.

She shakes her head.

It tilts its head to the side. “Or we could fight. There’s a save point and dueling arena in the tomb.”

“I’m camping Christ,” she says.

“Me too,” the rabbit says. “But it’s more fun if you do something while you wait.”

“Why you?”

“I’ve got a secret hacker code,” the rabbit says. “It lets me see things as they really are. So I was curious.”

“I don’t think they actually implemented the underlying godhead,” Sabin says.

“It’d be an easter egg,” the rabbit says. “They’re programmers. There’s no way they could resist.”

“I want to know if things get better,” Meredith says.

The rabbit looks at her. “Around level 20 or so,” it says. “Then you can get at the really cool quests.”

“No,” she says. “I mean, I want to know, is there really a moment when the world starts making sense again?”

The rabbit sits down. “Maybe,” it says. “I mean, tomorrow’s Sunday, right? Maybe Jesus’ll respawn then and fix everything. Maybe not. I doubt we’ll be able to tell.”

“. . . will they post an announcement?”

└ Tags: , , ,
  Comment

(Easter Sunday) Epilogue

by Hitherby Admin on April 11th, 2004

eggshell.jpg

└ Tags:
  Comment

Progression and Regression

by Jenna on June 4th, 2004

It’s the beginning.

“Are you a tiger?” the child asks.

“I’m not,” says Dehlai.

The child frowns. “A Spice Girl?”

“I’m a prince,” Dehlai says. “I’m the seventh prince of this forest land.”

“You’d be easily mistaken for a tiger.”

“I know.”

“Or a Spice Girl. But then you’d have to fight their rival ninja clan.”

Dehlai nods. “Occasionally,” he says, “a shuriken wings by, and I say: ‘Was that really meant for me?’ And it’s probably the resemblance.”

“That’s tough,” the child says.

Dehlai sighs. The child sighs with him. Then the child wanders off.

Dehlai goes to his mirror and peers at his reflection within. “I’m easily mistaken for anything,” he says, unhappily. “Shoes. Socks. A mobile death platform. A princess. Even, that one time, gum. It’s very embarrassing.”

The drum beats. The mirror shows its words:

I liked it when people thought you were a death platform.

It was funny watching them fall over, dead. Then they’d realize they were okay and try to pretend it was all a deliberate jest.

“I should go to the five lords,” Dehlai says. “And make myself unmistakable.”

The drum beats. The mirror shows its words:

Aww. But I love you, Dehlai!

Dehlai picks up the drum. He puts it under his arm. He walks out into the world. He goes in quest of the lord of the taste skandha.

“I want to taste unmistakable,” he says.

The Skandha Lord of Taste looks Dehlai up and down. Then he licks him. That’s how the Skandha Lord of Taste figures things out. He licks them. Even quantum theory! But Dehlai’s a bit of a puzzle.

“Are you an omelette?” he asks.

“Prince,” Dehlai says.

“Ah,” says the Skandha Lord. “You’d be easily mistaken for an omelette. It’s the rich eggy taste of your skin.”

The drum beats. There’s no mirror, but Dehlai thinks it sounds amused.

The tongue flicks out. There’s an annoyed rat-a-tat.

“That,” says the Skandha Lord, “is a drum.”

“I know,” Dehlai agrees.

“You’re already unmistakable,” says the Skandha Lord, “because you taste like an omelette, which has a drum. But I’ll give you a new taste.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll make you taste like the sky,” says the Skandha Lord, “and iced raspberries, and the rain. That cold, crisp taste that goes right to the back of the throat. It’s a new blend. It should be irresistible.”

“I didn’t really want to taste irresistible,” Dehlai says. “I mean, it’s all right that you licked me because you’re the Skandha Lord, but I can’t have people stopping me on the street because they want a taste.”

“That’s the advantage of taste,” the Skandha Lord says. “It’s secret. No one will know. Even if word gets around, who’s going to taste the Prince just to see?”

“You have a high opinion of humanity,” says Dehlai.

The Skandha Lord considers. “Well,” he says, “of their desire to avoid being embarrassed. I had a human here once who wouldn’t let me lick it at all!”

The Lord of Taste putters around, brewing up the new taste for Dehlai.

“I still don’t know who it was,” he confides. “I’m thinking Mr. A——-, but it might have been Ms. R—.”

He touches Dehlai again with his tongue, and thinks. “Okay,” he says. “Taste yourself.”

Dehlai tastes himself. “Why,” he said, “I’m unmistakable!”

The drum plays.

Dehlai goes in quest of the lord of the hearing skandha—known here and there as ‘the lord of the terrible ears.’

“I want to sound unmistakable,” he says.

“Record yourself playing kazoo,” the Skandha Lord says. “Play it backwards and keep harmony with yourself; no one will misidentify you.”

“I don’t know the kazoo.”

“You’re not the legendary kazoo master?”

“I’m sorry,” Dehlai says.

“That’s too bad,” says the Skandha Lord. “He’s hot.”

“I’m Dehlai,” the prince explains. “And this is my drum.”

The drum plays a few introductory noises.

“I can make you sound unmistakable,” agrees the Skandha Lord, after a moment. “Like the world’s an old pipe organ, and somewhere far away on a plains, its keys are rattling. And some deepness, and some sharpness, and some darkness, like a burden rising away.”

“That’d be nice,” Dehlai says.

The drum plays, interrogatively.

“I can’t fix the drum,” the Skandha Lord says. “I don’t meddle with the sounds of sentient instruments. But I could give you a magic interpretation stick.”

“It’d be trouble,” answers Dehlai, shaking his head. “Most often, I’m just as glad not to know what it’s saying.”

The drum beats flatly.

The Skandha Lord putters about. “It’s good to have a chance to work on this kind of thing,” he says. “These days, there are people who are quiet as a ghost—they won’t make a noise even if you push them! That’s not a fine way for the world to be.”

“I’m not very quiet,” says Dehlai. “Though I try to practice brevity.”

Then the prince blinks.

“Hey,” he says. “I sound unmistakable. Thanks!”

“You’re welcome.”

So Dehlai goes to the Skandha Lord of Sight. In the waiting room, he meets a man.

“You,” he says. “You’re Ninja Maitreya. You’re practically my hero!”

Ninja Maitreya peers at him. “You sound like a prince, but you look like a still life depicting numerous cheeses.”

“I could probably be mistaken for that,” Dehlai agrees. “But I’m a prince.”

“Ah,” Ninja Maitreya says.

“I’m here to get it fixed,” Dehlai says. “More skandhas of sight for me!”

“The Skandha Lord giveth; the Skandha Lord taketh away. I’m here to dump my skandhas on him as part of my long progression towards enlightenment.”

“Pardon?”

“Well,” Ninja Maitreya says, “part of enlightenment is realizing that, basically, all of our senses are lying to us. What we see—it’s not the world. It’s our own ignorance. So I blind myself to the skandhas of the five senses, and thereby open myself to Ninja Nirvana. A true Buddha is indistinguishable from all things. That’s the simplified version, used in the Ninja Enlightenment Trick.”

“Huh.”

“You’d be a good Buddha,” Ninja Maitreya says, “except for that taste of yours. It’s too delicious. You’d be like a Secret Buddha Spice.”

“Like Sporty and Posh?”

Ninja Maitreya sighs and shakes his head.

“Once, they were the best of us,” he says. “but they’ve turned from the way.”

└ Tags: , , ,
4 Comments

Sevens

by Jenna on November 20th, 2004

“Did you fetch the morning eggs, Danielle?”

Danielle holds her hands over the breakfast table. They are cupped together. She separates them. Rubies fall. Sapphires too, and emeralds. Seven gems, and an egg.

“I see.” Her wicked stepmother narrows her eyes. “The hens have not lain eggs properly in several days.”

“I feed them the normal feed, mother.”

Danielle’s wicked stepmother is named Glory. She clicks her sharp fingernails on the table.

“Danielle,” Glory says, “these gems are very fine, but what may I eat for breakfast?”

“Perhaps they are edible,” says Danielle. She taps a ruby. It rings, lightly, like a bell.

“I should have the wealthiest chamberpot in the world,” Glory says, “and not be full from it.”

“Mother?”

Glory shakes her head. “It is no matter. I shall have bread and cheese. Clean the cinders, Danielle. They are a disgrace.”

Danielle curtsies. She goes to the closet. She takes out a broom and a pan. She holds the broom at her left side like a sword. She leaves the room and goes to the fireplace. The room is full of cinders and ash. They are being fanned onto every surface and every wall by seven cinder pixies. In the center of the room stands the cinder troll.

“I’ve been sent to clean this up,” she says.

The troll looks her up and down. He snorts. “You’re not much,” he says.

Her right hand crosses her body and takes the broom’s hilt. In a long circular motion, she brings the broom up and around until its bristles face the troll. Her left hand joins her right at the broom’s base. The broom is heavy, held in this fashion, but her arms do not tremble. “I am whom my mother sent.”

The cinder pixies go still. The troll looks her up and down.

“It’s my right,” says the troll, “as a cinder troll, to push the cinders out into the room.”

“And mine, to sweep them back.”

The troll hesitates. “Perhaps,” he says, “one quarter of the room in soot, and three parts clean.”

Danielle closes her eyes. She thinks. Then she opens them. “They say that every one of us lives seven lives,” she says.

“Aye.”

“And that we should be kind to those we meet. For anyone may have been one’s mother, in another life, or one’s father, or one’s child. One’s lover, or one’s friend.”

“That’s wise,” says the cinder troll.

“In another life,” says Danielle, “I believe that we were friends. For there is a light in your eyes that my soul knows. But in this life, I have a duty, and I must drive you back.”

She steps forward. The troll steps back.

She steps forward. The troll is still. Then he reaches behind him to the fireplace and draws forth a poker, and takes it in his great strong hands.

They duel.

“I had not thought,” says the troll, “that Glory would have a loyal servant.” He is breathing lightly though Danielle’s lungs burn. Each clash of poker and broom makes her arms ache.

“She is my mother,” Danielle says.

“That,” says the troll, “cannot be so.”

Cinders in the air swirl into Danielle’s mouth, and she chokes. Her eyes water. The troll strikes, the poker winging her shoulder, and her left arm goes numb. She falls backwards. The troll does not advance. After a moment, he holds out his hand to help her up. She takes it. She backs away. She reassumes her stance.

“She has taken me in,” Danielle admits. “The mother of my birth is gone.”

“Ah, so.”

“My true mother went adventuring,” Danielle says. “To find a lost prince, they sent out seven maidens; to find each lost maiden, they sent out seven princes; and for seven princes lost, seven maidens each; and so in progression were all the heroes lost, and my mother among them. And I was left behind.”

The troll feints, then brings the poker around hard. The broom cracks, though it does not break. The poker lunges for Danielle’s face, and she steps back.

“And why have you not gone?” asks the troll.

She looks at him. She does not answer, for she does not know. Slowly, she brings the broom back to her side. She sets her feet. Her eyes burn.

“Are you surrendering?” the troll asks.

Danielle shakes her head.

“Then we will end this now,” says the troll.

“May we be friends again,” says Danielle, “when next we meet.”

The troll steps forward. There is tension in the great muscles of his arm.

Danielle’s shout splits the air and makes the cinder pixies flutter. She strikes. There is a crack like the breaking of the world. She is past the troll in a single motion, stumbling to a stop, kneeling in the ashes, and her broom is nothing but splinters.

The troll falls, and the room is clean.

└ Tags: , , , , , , ,
3 Comments

The Puppy is Sad

by Jenna on November 24th, 2004

Saul is just a kid. He’s growing up out in the country, bit by bit, every day.

“I don’t want to do my chores,” he says.

“If you’re bad,” says his mother, “then the gibbelins will come and take you away.”

“Oh,” says Saul. So he goes and he milks the vampires. He collects the mummy eggs. He hauls hay into Barnface.

He doesn’t protest his chores again.

One day, Saul finds a puppy. It has three heads. Its mouths drip acid. It is very hungry because its last owner starved and beat it.

“Come here,” Saul says.

The puppy hesitates.

“Come on,” Saul says. He holds out a steak. It was meant for the river men. But they can go hungry for a day.

The puppy inches forward, low to the ground. Then it rips the steak from his hands. Its teeth and acid rapidly turn the steak to an ex-meal.

“I’ll take you home,” Saul says.

So from that day Saul has a puppy. They play in the fields.

“Mother,” he says, one day, “why do I have to work so hard?”

“If you’re good,” says his mother, “the sugar fairies will come and take you away.”

“Oh,” says Saul. So he goes and he fixes the tractor. He rebinds the limbs of the great round-bellied field demon. He leaves out some milk and his shoes for the cobblers to fix.

Saul goes to school sometimes. Just a little. His mother doesn’t hold much with education, but she wants him to give it a fair shot. Every time the grim white arms of the bus haul him inside, the puppy barks. It licks the bus. Then it sits down and waits patiently for Saul to come home.

When he comes home, the puppy is very happy.

“It’s your sixteenth birthday,” Saul’s mother says, one day. “Have you been good?”

“I have, mother,” says Saul.

“I thought so,” his mother says. So she gets up from their breakfast. She goes around the table. She hugs him goodbye. “Go on, son,” she says. “The sugar fairies are here.”

“Can the puppy come?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “The puppy’s evil.”

“Oh.”

He goes outside. The sugar fairies find him. They take him, two to each arm and three to his body, and they drag him off to the Land of Pleasure and Happiness.

The puppy is sad.

└ Tags: , , , , ,
5 Comments

Saturday Afternoon Gospel Special, with Mr. Nabisco

by Jenna on December 16th, 2004

Irinka Marigold Starchilde is an ordinary girl in an ordinary neighborhood. Everyone can identify with Irinka! She lives in a high room overlooking a tree. There is a nest in that tree with baby birds chirping in it. The tree is growing out of a sidewalk. That’s how normal Irinka is!

“Hey, Irinka,” says Slick. He’s her boyfriend.

More of a friend, really! Irinka corrects.

“Hey, Irinka,” says Slick. He’s her . . . friend.

“Hey, Slick!”

“So, Irinka,” says Slick. “Want to try drugs?”

Irinka looks at Slick with shock. “No!”

“Why not?”

Irinka thinks. “My anti-drug is a history of abuse by my drug-addled father-in-law. But my mama chased that weasel out of our house!”

“That’s a pretty good anti-drug,” Slick admits. “Mine used to be that I was too poor to afford them. Then I cleaned up, got a good job, and now I can have all the drugs I want.”

“Wow,” says Irinka. “Your Puritan virtues cancelled out your anti-drug!”

“It’s wonderful, but also sad,” says Slick.

“I thought you had a backup anti-drug,” asks Irinka, “in Saturday Afternoon Specials?”

“What’s today?” Slick asks.

“Monday,” says Irinka abashedly. And, “Oh.”

Slick looks smug. “So, do you want to try some?”

“It’s tempting,” says Irinka. “I come from a broken home. How can I resist that kind of easy pleasure?”

With Mr. Nabisco! thinks Dr. Terror. But he’s not in this story yet.

“Oh, what the heck,” says Irinka. “I’ll try some. But just a taste!”

“It’s made by Drug Company,” says Slick. “So you know it’s good!”

Irinka tastes a bit of drugs.

“Mm, mm,” says Irinka. “This is some fine horse.”

Slick looks a little sick. “They make it out of horses?”

“No, no,” says Irinka.

Suddenly, Irinka’s mama bursts in. “Irinka! Are you trying some of those no-good drugs?”

“They’re actually quite good, mama!”

Irinka’s mama snatches away the bag of drugs. She casts it out the window. It opens and spills all over the bird’s nest. The baby birds devour the drugs and become rude, bad, and poorly molted. That’s their terrible destiny!

“Gasp,” gasps Irinka. “What have I done? I have become an addict! But now I face a fateful decision—do I go cold turkey, or allow myself to be drawn into the terrible world of drugs? Mama! Can you help me?”

“I’ll talk to the preacher man,” says Irinka’s mama, whose name is Cherise.

SCENE II

Cherise talks to the preacher man. He doesn’t have a name. That’s how preachy he is!

“Preacher man,” she says, “can you help my daughter?”

“I’ll give you my answer in a song,” he says.

Seems there’s nothing in this world of ours
That doesn’t strive to drag you down
Hunger, sickness, violent video games
Drugs, and crime—don’t let them get you down.
The world is harsh, it’s painful, but whatever
Wheat Thins’ Love is Forever.

Wheat Thins’ Love is Forever,
Salty love is all around,
When you’re tired, when you’re in the dark,
Salty love will lift you off the ground.

Wheat Thins’ Love is forever, girl,
It’s the gift Mr. Nabisco brings.
He sends his love to you in cracker form,
Wheat Thins’ Love is a wondrous thing.
And if you wonder if it’s night or day,
If maybe that love’s diurnal?
I’m here to tell you such a wondrous thing:
Wheat Thins’ Love is eternal!

SCENE III

Dr. Terror sits in his lab in Drug Company. He’s watching a screen. The screen has a little picture of Irinka on it.

“I don’t know what to do!” says Irinka.

“Hm,” says Dr. Terror. He scruffles at his goatee. “This is an interesting case. I can see that Mr. Nabisco has an interest in her soul.”

He presses a button. “Boss,” he says.

The mysterious Boss of Drug Company answers. “Yes, Dr. Terror?”

The Boss’ voice oozes evil.

“I’m going to go make sure Irinka chooses drugs,” Dr. Terror says. “That’s the best way for Drug Company to profit!”

“It’s true,” admits Boss. “We make all of our money from revenue. Then we spend it lobbying for evil!”

On the screen, Irinka frets. “I should cling to my anti-drug,” she says. “That’s the right decision.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” cries Dr. Terror. He vanishes in a puff of smoke and appears before Irinka.

Irinka startles. “You’re a no-good boy!” she says. “I can’t have no-good boys in my room! I’m grounded for trying drugs!”

“I’m not just a boy,” says Dr. Terror. “I’m also a no-good doctor!”

“Oho,” says Irinka, catching on. “You must be Ernest’s drug contact!”

Call me Slick! thinks Ernest, aka Slick. He’s not in the scene, so Irinka ignores him.

“You might say that,” says Dr. Terror, scruffling his goatee. “You might say that indeed.”

“I have been tempted,” says Irinka, frankly. “It’s because of the addiction, you know.”

“I know,” whispers Dr. Terror, seductively. “Once you’re addicted, we have claimed your soul.”

“Wait,” says Irinka. “I don’t have any recourse?”

“None whatsoever!” says Dr. Terror hurriedly. “No recourse. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous! You’re trapped in the cycle of drugs. But it’s not so bad! Drugs are perfectly good snacks. People just paint them as evil. It’s what the man wants you to think!”

“Oh,” says Irinka. “That’s surprisingly plausible, because the man has little or no credibility with me.”

Dr. Terror rubs his hands together.

Suddenly, Irinka has a realization. “Wait,” Irinka says. “I remember my occult lore! You’re actually the enemy of Mr. Nabisco! When the Drug Company doctors talk about the Man, they mean Him!”

Irinka sings.

Mr. Nabisco never keeps you down,
His crumbly love will answer every frown,
He watches all of us from HQ high,
He sends his love to answer every sigh.
And if you turn away from him you must be high.
‘Cause Wheat Thins’ Love is Forever.

“No!” cries Dr. Terror. “No!”

“I’m saved!” cries Irinka. “I’m saved from drugs! By consumerism!”

“No!” shrieks Dr. Terror.

But Irinka just goes to the pantry and pulls out a box of Wheat Thins. She shakes it at him.

“The rattling! The rattling!”

“That’s right, Dr. Terror,” says Mr. Nabisco. He strides into the room. He’s a delicious man made entirely of crackers! He shakes a finger at Dr. Terror. “MY anti-drug is buying vast quantities of deliciously cheap snack food! And that’s the best anti-drug you can get!”

“You haven’t won yet,” says Dr. Terror, his voice low and dangerous like a snake’s. Like a very loud snake’s. “She’s tried the drugs. She belongs to us!”

“Which do you want, Irinka?” says Mr. Nabisco. He fishes a wheat thin out of the box. He holds it up before her. “The drugs? Or this, this my body, this my blood?”

It’s not actually blasphemous. Mr. Nabisco is made of wheat thins! See above!

“I . . . I . . .” says Irinka.

“It was mighty good horse, wasn’t it?” offers Dr. Terror.

“No!” shouts Irinka. “I reject thee!”

Dr. Terror shrieks and vanishes.

Irinka’s mama reenters, with the preacher man. Everyone sings.

Your brain on drugs is like a broken egg,
Your brain on love is like a whole one,
Salvation’s there if you just reach for it,
Nabisco’s light can save your soul, hon.
Wheat Thins’ love don’t fade away none.

“I love you all!” cries Mr. Nabisco, throwing his arms wide. Crackers fountain from his hands and bear his love to every corner of the world.

That’s just the tiniest bit creepy, Irinka admits.

THE END

└ Tags: , ,
5 Comments

Forgotten Things

by Jenna on January 26th, 2005

Peter Cottontail hides eggs.

“This one,” he says to himself, “I painted like the world. It tells the story of how Attaris Bunny broke the sky and stole the stars.”

He looks around. He scampers over to a bush. He plans to hide it under the bush. He looks up nervously, as he does each time, towards Eden Above.

“That story, Peter?”

Peter startles. He almost drops the egg. He spins around. Then he hides the egg behind his back. “Why, Betty!” he says.

Betty Bunny has her hands on her hips. She’s pink, except for her tail and waistcoat, which are yellow.

“It’s important,” says Peter.

“It’s not important. Nothing’s important. Not this close to Eden.”

Peter pouts. After a long moment, Betty relents. She looks down. She sighs. “But why that?” she says. “Why would you ever want anyone to know that?”

Peter brightens. He turns his back on her and finishes hiding the egg under the bush. Then he hops off towards the forest.

“Peter?”

“Come on!” he says.

Reluctantly, she hops after him. She follows him into the forest. He hops to the left. He hops to the right. Finally, he finds just the right tree. He pulls out an egg. It’s painted a dull cold red.

“This one,” Peter says, reverently, “is going to have the story of the serpent. And I’m going to hide it here, right under the tree of life.”

Betty flushes.

“You have to tell it,” Peter says. “You’re the best at it. I always get choked up.”

Betty frowns at him.

Peter puts the egg back in the basket. “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to do it yet.”

He finds a different tree. He takes out an egg. “This one’s about the genocide in Asia,” he says. “When we killed all the lucky rabbits.”

It’s painted brilliantly. It’s a den and a backdrop of blue and there are white rabbits sitting in it, drinking tea and looking out their window at the night. The rough blue-black paint of the sky catches just the slightest spark of light.

“That was exaggerated,” Betty says.

“They weren’t all that lucky,” Peter agrees. His voice is sad. He looks up at Eden Above. He looks down. Then, quickly, he hides the egg. He scampers to an abandoned mouse hole, looks down, and then glances back at Betty. “Do you have any eggs?”

“Peter!”

“You knew I’d be out here,” he says. “You knew I’d be doing this. You didn’t bring any eggs? Even if it’d break my heart?”

Betty sighs. “Fine,” she says. She rummages around in her waistcoat pocket. She pulls out an egg. It has stick figures on it. They are the stick figures of rabbits. They look a lot like human stick figures except for the quintessential quality of bunnyness.

“It’s about peace,” she says. “It’s about every bunny who muddled through, even—”

She looks up. “Even knowing—”

Peter takes it gently from her paws. He hides it in the mousehole.

“See?” he says. “It’s important that they know.”

He thinks, and then he takes out an egg of his own, painted with a thin and wasting rabbit carrying a lantern and staring down a deep dark hall.

“Starvation,” he says.

After a nervous look upwards, he hides it with hers.

“I’ll tell you the story,” Betty says. “If you want.”

Peter takes out the dull red egg. He cradles it in his clever paws. He holds it up to her. It listens.

“We were young,” Betty says. “In the dawn of the world. In the garden. And the serpent tempted us, as it did Man.”

“Yes,” Peter says.

“We took down the apple,” Betty says. “A bunny and a cottontail. And ate it, so that we would know good from evil. We learned to make waistcoats to hide our shame.”

Peter nods. For a long time, Betty is silent.

“But we were very small!” Betty cried.

“You have to finish,” Peter prompts. “The egg won’t be done until you finish.”

“We weren’t hungry enough,” says Betty. “We couldn’t finish the whole apple, not even between the two of us. So we only learnt enough to last a thousand years.”

Peter nods.

“That’s how it was,” he says.

“Soon we’ll forget,” the bunny says, looking very small against the wind, “and go back to Eden, and we won’t have choices to make any more.”

The garden hangs above them. The strange devices that hold it out of human reach thrum low.

“It is a little closer,” Betty says, “every day.”

She thinks.

She adds, “The end.”

The egg clicks. The egg whirrs. “Data stored,” it says.

Peter takes the egg back to the tree of life. He leaves it at its root. He hops away. When he is at the edge of Betty’s sight, he stops, and turns back.

“Come on,” he says. “Come on!”

“There’s no one who’ll ever find them,” Betty says. “No one who’ll know—”

“We have to hide the egg about my birthday,” Peter says. “Otherwise no one will know which day to celebrate!”

“Oh,” Betty says.

She begins to hop after him.

“And the one about the War?” she asks.

“And the one about the War.”

└ Tags: , , , ,
4 Comments

Nightmare of the Rustling

by Jenna on March 11th, 2005

It is night. Micah and Liril are sleeping. Tainted John is laying down.

There is a rustling.

Micah is instantly awake.

There is a further rustling. Something is scurrying and slithering in the pine needles. It is evil.

Micah is on his feet. He is looking towards it.

It is great and serpentine and slithery. It is pale moonlight colors, blue and cold. It has a terrible maw. It has black feathers on its head and raven eyes. It is just the sort of thing that one finds making rustling noises in the forest.

“Once upon a time,” the creature whispers, and its voice is moon and stars and wind, “a runaway child broke his leg here. So he died. And I grew inside him. And then I came out. And now I must kill runaway children to lay my eggs in them.”

Micah looks at Tainted John. Tainted John does not seem to have noticed the rustling or the creature’s speech.

The creature’s head sways back and forth in the air. Then it arcs viciously towards Micah. Micah moves to meet it, then stops, his hands splayed in the air, as if against an invisible wall. The creature stops too.

“There’s a glass door,” Micah bluffs. “Bump! If you attack, you’ll hit your head on it!”

The creature hesitates. “Open it,” it says.

“There’s no handle!”

The creature eyes him narrowly. It has bumped into glass doors before. They are one of its natural enemies. But the air is undisturbed.

“I do not believe you,” it whispers.

“I wouldn’t let her sleep out here defenseless,” Micah bluffs.

And if this works, we cannot know.

└ Tags: , , , , , , , ,
5 Comments