The day I violated the animal kingdom

It all started when I was hopping through Sunnydale California, in 1962. I was licking the sore on the inside of my palm when, coming out of a puddle, a large Kangaroo Kicked the pomegranate out of my hand and stared deeply into my eyes. Slowly, it turned its head to the left, then to the right.

After cracking its knuckles several times, the Kangaroo told me solemnly, “Come hither! Come with me! To Scandinavia! There, we will teach you the ways of the Mongolian Pottery Circles!”

As I contemplated the decision at hand, my stomach grumbled its discontent, and I decided to inquire about food.

“May I bring my pomegranate?”

“NO! The children of the swamp will not permit any vegetables to enter. However, they do allow shrimp. Feel free to bring some.”

After pondering for a moment on the existence of pomegranates as a vegetable, I decided to follow…

As we approached the stables, I saw hundreds of unicorns gamboling about the fields and sniffing the lot of Quidditch players. I was a bit confused as to why the quaffles were missing; I dismissed this and asked, “Where is all the pottery?”

“Silence, foolish child! The granduncles will not tolerate such insolence!”

“Sorry.”

“Shh!”

We continued on, and pretty soon my knees grew weak, and and my elbows turned yellow with hunger. When we finally came to a rest, the night was upon us.

We set up camp on a mossy rock, and the Kangaroo threw at me a bucket of shrimp. As we sat in awkward silence, the Kangaroo stared, unblinkingly, at my right shoulder.

“Um… Kangaroo?”

“Yes, Craig?”

“Well…” I began, wondering why he had called me ‘Craig,’ “Do you have a name, or something?”

“The name… is Kangaroo.”

“Does it have a special meaning, or something?” I asked, hoping to inspire a conversation to break the silence, “Because my name, Deirdre, not Craig, means ‘sorrowful one’… in Irish.” I was grasping at anything to stop him staring at me, or at least blink.

“I do not know.”

“Oh. Oh well, not every name has a-

“No. It means ‘I do not know.’ Now be silent, Geoffrey!”

“I thought it was-”

“Ssssssssssssssssss.”

As Kangaroo let out the low, hissing noise, I decided it would be best not to ever question what he said.

When morning arrived, I awoke to find that Kangaroo had disappeared. In his stead there were two small Otters.  I sat and stared at them in thought. Eventually, one of them took in a large amount of air, and the other squealed, ” My name, is Ewic.”

“Hello… Ewic. Where’s Kangaroo?”

The still silent otter took in another lung full of air, and the other stated, more loudly this time, “My name, is Ewic.”

This was followed by the rapid inhale of the silent otter, followed by the exhaling of Ewic. This was repeated numerous times, during which time the silent otter never breathed out, and Ewic never in. After what must have been a full hour of what seemed like shared breathing, Ewic spoke again.

(breath)”You have been lead her by the” (breath) “…Unknown one.”(breath) “Our journey shall continue on in the direction that the lotus flows”

As the otters continued breathing, I glanced about at the campsite, looking for a lotus.When I found one, it was pointing directly into the Earth.

(breath)”Hark!” (breath) “The lotus faces west!”(breathing)

“What? It is facing downwards!” As I spake, I suddenly felt a wave of nausea, and fell to the ground. Not quite unconscious, I could still hear the breathing of the otters…

When I finally felt stable again, I stood to find that the ground had pinched up so that there was a wall in front of me, with the lotus facing into the wall. Sure enough, it was facing west.

I gathered my things up and headed off westward. As we walked, the two otters continued their wheezing routine, and eventually began to sing:

We three kings of orient are

Bearings gifts of travels afar

ford and founatin moore and mountain

Following yonder… lotus.

Lotus of wonder, lotus of light,

lotus royal beauty bright.

Westward leading,

really not proceeding,

following yonder… lotus.

When they stopped, not a word was said for at least three days and six nights. My elbows were starting to turn yellow again, and so I asked for some sustenance. They handed me a small spiky fruit, and I gratefully consumed it.

I heard a ‘puh’ sound, and looked towards the otters, only to find them… well I didn’t find them; they were gone. I looked around for them, only to find a very small Bunny. It quivered.

“My name, Is Jacquelin.”

“Hello Jacquelin. Where are the Otters.”

“She went back.”

“Back to where?”

She just stared at me.

“Back to where?!”

Five minutes past, and she quietly hissed the answer to my query.

“Friday”

…

I looked closely at the Bunny, Jacquelin, and found that she had a thin mustache above it’s upper lip. Soon after, I noticed that it was growing substantially larger by the minute. Within six, it had grown to be almost as large as me. At that point, it stopped. Well, it mostly stopped. But it’s teeth continued to enlarge, and it’s body seemed to be transmogrifying into something else entirely.

Soon, in front of me, stood one Steven Tyler.
Then he was gone, and only a purple haze was left where he once stood.

The sweet metallic smell of blood wafted into my nostrils, and I was consumed by a tingling sensation that started in my calves, and traveled up toward my naval.
I stumbled backward. and found myself pressed up against an old refrigerator. I, though wary of what was inside, opened the door in hopes of a clue as to what the bris was happening to me. Inside was my half-eaten pomegranate, which I promptly consumed.

Almost immediately after I finished the fruit (or, apparently, vegetable), I began to feel woozy, and feared for my well being. This passed, and I decided not to eat mysterious foods in the future. What I had failed to notice the the strand of pasta hovering just a few inches before my face. Only when it began to speak, did I recognize it as out of the ordinary. It was not really speaking, more like a sort of song.

Vaner-ner, tikoo ka fler-fler
there is only one thin crack,
in the tur-tur.
But that one small ping yer,
does not gaher-her
enough to save her…

teh teh toh

Bucket.

This seemed like an extremely odd thing to sing, even as I had already been through so much in the last Freeman-knows-how-long.
But at the moment, I was not sure what to ask.
I remained silent.
The noodle gave me an extremely apprehensive look, and began to sing again.

ecky-ecky-ecky-zoop.
plinky tow tow koop,
when there’s a frog, it fops
a dog, it finky finky toops,
but you, sir, must GAF too meh rop,
but seeing as you prefer to fak fak fak wop,

You’ve been called to a hearing at 16 hundred hours in the DERG Building this Wednesday.

It had been a quite nice sounding song, save the horrendous vocabulary, until just at the very end (which was a bit abrupt, if I may say so myself), which really very much scared me.

I really wasn’t aware of my needing to ‘GAF too meh rop,’ and was quite certain that I had never even considered ‘fak fak fak wop’-ing. The sound of both seemed uncomfortable, at best.

As the Spaghetti danced about in front of me, I broke the silence that came with the very literal thinking of the last two paragraphs by asking what those terms meant, and how they pertained to me. The noodle responded only by shooting itself up my nose, and refusing to come out.

I begged. I pleaded. I picked. To no avail; the pasts had wriggled it’s way deep into my sinuses, and was continuously making snarky remarks on th cleanliness of my nasal cavities, endlessly tickled my uvula. He was merciless.

to be continued…