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