106 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
106 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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DWARF
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by Jeroen van Drie
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I take walking in the forest much the same as walking in a museum;
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both are usually beautiful places, and you get from them what you want.
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It is a consumer attitude. You buy it. How wrong I was. A museum is a
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human place; an animal would deficate in it just like it would a forest,
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and now, I tend to agree with the animal. That, in fact, must be why they
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keep animals out of museums. Not because of my convictions but because of
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what they'd do there.
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People tend to be rather single-minded about things. Animals would
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shit and piss all over the place; dogs actually prefer that line of
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proceedings to mark their territory. We human beings specialize in
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time and place. We create just the place to relieve ourselves. We have
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other such means of marking territory.
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But, I was walking through the forest admiring the scenery much
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like one would admire it's counterpart on canvas, when I heard a snarl
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and a wry comment.
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"Gahnaah," the snarl sounded. "As if this is a place just to
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watch. You're a crazy idiot."
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I turned around and watched, flabbergastedly, at a very small
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thick droll fellow staring at me from under bushy eyebrows. He was
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two feet tall, had a lumpy nose, two red apple-cheeks, and had a beard
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of twines. I thought he was a midget, but he had pointed ears without
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lobes, and, well -- he was not human. When I regained my composure and
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closed my mouth, I opened it again; I had also regained somewhat of my
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belligerent stance in life.
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"You may be nonexistent and a so-called figment of my imagination,
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or from my collective unconscious, or of whatever -- but that doesn't
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give you an excuse to call me a crazy idiot."
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"I didn't call you anything. I was just stating the facts. Stating
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an elementary truth," he replied.
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"Listen," I said. "For such a creature of my own imaginative
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projection, you have a big mouth."
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"I'd rather have it the other way around," he said. "You're the
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projection here. A long time ago one of my people had sex with a giant
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tree monkey and your kind came from it," he explained, gesturing and
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grinning. "If anyone is a creature of imagination, it is you -- of the
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frustrated-sexual-depravative-preferential creativity of that ancestor,"
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he had the nerve to add.
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"Say, you're smaller than I am, no doubt I have more virulence than
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you, so why do you so insist to insult me?" I taunted.
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He tipped his head back arrogantly and said, "You cannot touch me."
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So I stalked towards him and before I knew anything, I flew through
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the air and landed some ten feet back. I was not hurled by a force, I
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simply glided back to where I had stood.
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"This isn't happening," I concluded.
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"That's why you're such a crazy idiot. Obviously something's happening
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to you, and still you say `this isn't happening'; If it isn't happening,
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then why is it happening?"
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"You have a point there," I said.
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"I'm not convinced you're not a crazy idiot, I can say that eight and
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four are thirteen . . ."
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"Eight and four is twelve!"
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"Thirteen, and you would agree; it's not that simply agreeing with me
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makes you smart. For example, would you tell anyone you have met me?"
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"No, they would think I was a crazy idiot, you fo. . ."
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"Exactly! I'm here, so you're a crazy idiot."
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"Well, now," but I couldn't make sense of it. Then I heard a voice
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call out.
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"Yeebra!"
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"Oh," the small figure said while turning around. "Dinner time,
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well, I've amused myself with you, but I'll be off then." He turned
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around and disappeared.
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"Yes, have a nic. . ." I tried to say but he had already gone. Well,
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ever since then, they not only remove animals from museums, they kind
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of anticipate what I'd do there as well. As I said, we human beings
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specialize in time and place; we create just the place to relieve
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ourselves. Just the place to put people like me. Sure, all of us here
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have talked to this little fellow, but then, all of us here are CRAZY
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IDIOTS.
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# # #
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Copyright 1994 Jeroen van Drie
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Jeroen resides in the Netherlands and is eager to stimulate interest in
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E-Magazines in Europe. He and others are working on Project EEMAG (see
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WhatNots). He can be reached at FIDO 2:283/613 (++31-85613185). Give him
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a call and help support Project EEMAG; he'll appreciate your interest.
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=========================================================================
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