Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron

Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by mrs. johnson 01/10/2003, 5:44am PST Seafood I am a male of the human species. Some people have indisputable proof I evolved from a single cell organism. Others insist I am directly related to a man with no belly button and an easily swayed woman who were created by a man so powerful that he can even make a rock he can’t lift. I don’t care. As soon as I realized that people often died for their beliefs, I decided not to keep any for longer than a week. My name is about as important as an ironing board. It doesn’t matter. If it will make you as the reader feel better, you can call me McRacius Bumperstew. I have some emotional problems. I can’t find much validation, no matter where I look. Even when people I trust and respect blatantly tell me that they trust and respect me. That is all probably due to the life I have lived. I was born on a mountain. In a hut. On a bed. I was probably in pain as I came out of the womb, but since I could not compare this feeling to anything else, it was more confusing than painful. I have been trying to become that confused all my life. I have been searching for the absurd and nonsensical for years. I usually find them at the bottom of cartons. Sometimes it’s milk. I hate milk. Sometimes it’s orange juice. I’m indifferent to orange juice. Sometimes I even find the absurd trapped inconsolably between a hat and a water bottle. I am now leaning against a tree, somewhat lost in the Amazon, trying as hard as I can not to bleed to death. I am standing in front of a large mountain. There are bugs swarming around me. Some are trying to land on the gaping head wound that I wish would close up. It has been bleeding very slowly for a while now. I might die. That would be nice. If I were dead then there wouldn’t be an ‘I’ anymore. That sure sounds a lot easier than living. Anyway, if anyone ever tells you that jungles are charming, they are lying. Jungles are swarming with large winged cockroaches, and many types of venomous plants. I’m surprised that I am still alive. Hunger has forced me to eat any plants that look semi-edible, and I’m convinced that at least half of those are poisonous. I am also convinced that the only reason I am still alive is that the poisons are battling for control of whatever is left of my mind and my bruised body and leaving the actual poisoning for later. I’m in pain, but I’m not sure what pain is anymore. That is very confusing. To understand how I ended up bleeding in the jungle, you need to understand my life up to this point. Here goes. I will make this as short as I can. I was born in England. My father was a missionary. My mother took care of the house. I didn’t believe in God much by the time I hit puberty, which came surprisingly late, because I had seen my father take away from happy people the most important thing they had: their happiness. My education consisted of snatches of schooling here and there, but it was mostly biblical. My father taught me algebra with Jesus and Moses. For years, I was convinced that every X in any equation was a representation of the Holy Cross, and every Y was the Red Sea being parted. I eventually moved away from my family and went to college. I attended Cambridge on a full Vatican-sponsored scholarship. I double majored in linguistics and archeology. I had watched too much Indiana Jones as a kid and, having a death wish, decided to throw myself into as many volcanic temples of sacrifice as I could. Unfortunately, the only job I could get out of college was that of an office clerk for a prestigious archeologist. I catalogued his findings and packaged them to be sent away. I had been working there for five years, when I encountered a book. The man I was working for unearthed it in Greece and returned for a brief while, before embarking to some other exotic location. Being fluent in all forms of Greek, I gave it a brief read. There was no title or author. It was written before travel between the Eastern and Western hemispheres began, as far as I knew. The book was a translated travel log of an Incan traveler. Apparently the Incas had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Northern Africa for trade thousands of years before Columbus’ father could even produce sperm. Some Incas made their way north to Greece, where their stories were catalogued by scholars. I kept perusing through the book and found mostly tables of goods traded, but towards the end there was a page that was a direct translation of an Incan’s speech. I, without thinking, ripped that page out for further study. I forgot to put it back and eventually sent the book to the museum. Here is what it said: “Beyond the ocean, in my native land, lies a mountain so tall and treacherous, that no man amongst us can climb it. At the peak of this mountain lies a cave, and inside the cave, lives the greatest of our Gods, Inti. His face shines like the sun, and he is the father of all mankind. Those that reach him shall become as gods amongst men. Those that look upon his shining face will come to know the truth of ages. He is constant, he is omnipresent.” I was intrigued. Sure, it sounded like those preachers I knew all too well, but I had nothing better to do. So, I made an appointment with the internet and asked for help in finding this mountain. The internet said, “Ok”. I discovered that the Cordillera Darwin had many unexplored parts, and rose about 2000 meters. I had a destination. I had a motivation. I had no money. That night I had the following dream. I was walking through an ocean of cartographers. I was only walking on their hips. When I reached the end of the ocean, there was a giant clam. It spoke to me. Here is what it said: “Oh fair McRacius, dost thou wishest to discover the greatest secret of all mankind?” “Sure.” I explained. The clam spoke again, “Then thou must refer to the frugal seamstress and the black knight.” Then the clam turned into an aspirin commercial. Where had I read something about that? Well it didn’t matter. I had my first goal. The frugal seamstress and the black knight. I was confused, but, from past experience with tribal shamans, that was the best state of mind to begin any sort of quest. I stopped coming to work. I woke up at 6:30 am every day for the next four weeks and wondered the streets, trying to find a seamstress and a knight. Maybe he meant night. I didn’t know. Exactly twenty five days after I began my search, I was finally shown The Way. I was walking through a thunderstorm wearing nothing but pajama pants and a candy-striped sports jacket, when I was struck by lightning. It didn’t touch my skin at all, but only split the back of my jacket down the middle. I was confused. I looked up into the sky and warded off religious thoughts with the plagiarized phrase: “Thank God I’m an atheist.” To exclude further biblical incident, I sat down and waited the storm out. I figured that lightning wouldn’t strike the same place twice. I was right. It stopped raining water. Instead, a rain of clementines proceeded to bombard my head. For a brief second, I conceded the existence of a very jocular deity, but then I realized I was in front of a grocer and his apartment was located on the second floor of the building. For some reason, the grocer’s Australian wife was chucking boxes of clementines out the window and yelling obscenities. I decided that the mystery was better than the possible explanation and walked away nonchalantly. As I was trying to escape the scene of the fruit crime, I slipped on a jelly bean and was thrown towards a shop directly to my left. I landed on my head and lost consciousness immediately. I awoke to find the kindly face of an elderly woman masked by my wallet. As soon as she saw my eyes open, however, she handed me the wallet and asked me why I passed out in her store. I explained that I didn’t know. She stood up and walked behind the counter. She mentioned that the cut on the back of my jacket looked nasty and she could patch it up in no time at all. I said I only had five dollars. She looked at me and said that she counted nine and that the service only cost $7.65. I said, “Oh.” She was certainly a penny pincher. At that moment my mental thesaurus opened to page 325. I saw that penny-pincher was synonymous with frugal. And she was a seamstress. With cautious optimism I began to glance around. I hoped to find some darkened armor from the Renaissance, but all I saw were various strangely designed fabrics. A moment later I heard a deep voice ask if the guy was ok. The seamstress replied that he was. The voice came out from the back. With it came a tall African American gentleman who was probably in his eighties. An image of large haired rock bands residing in this man’s liver and kidneys briefly flickered before my eyes. He wore medals. I asked him about the medals. He said he got them by leading the last cavalry on Earth into a battalion of Germans and killing every one of them. He was the only survivor. Cavalry. Knight. Close enough. The components were there, but I had no idea what these people had to do with forbidden South American Gods. I asked them if they had ever been to South America. No. I wondered if they had ever heard of the Darwin Mountain Range or Cordillera Darwin. No. The man gave me a plastic bag filled with ice for my head. I thanked him. Having gotten nothing from this place except a migraine, I thanked them both and began to leave. The woman asked me again if I was fine with a ripped jacket. I said I wasn’t. I gave her my jacket and waited in the back room with her husband. The man told me story after story about battles he was in. He said he was almost shot, blown up and pulverized two hundred and twelve times during the war, but something kept saving him. He was a front line soldier from 1940 until the end of the war, and managed to get out with nothing but a smoking problem. The woman came back in a half an hour with my fixed jacket, and, when I tried to pay her, waved me off. I thanked them both again and left. On my way home I stuck my hands into my pockets because I was cold. I found a piece of paper. It was a lottery ticket. I went back to give the woman her obviously misplaced hope for a leisurely future. The shop wasn’t there. There was an alley. A cat was sitting inside this alley. This cat looked at me seriously and smiled. I didn’t think cats could smile until then. I went home and watched the news. My strangely acquired lottery ticket did not have the winning numbers. I was not twenty five million dollars richer. I was upset at the powers that be, even though I didn’t believe in them, so I opened my first story window and threw the ticket outside. While I was doing this, I caught a glimpse of a suitcase sitting in a phone booth, outside. I went outside and picked it up. There was nobody around. I took it home and opened it. It was full of money. There was a lot of it. I should have stopped there. I was set for life. I was feeling content, but for some reason I pressed on. Mistake. Allow me to digress for a moment. It seems completely impossible that a tailor and her shop would disappear off the face of the ever shrinking British Empire. If I ever make it out of this damn jungle alive, the readers of this report will surely ask how I could construe what happened to me as fact, since the events violate plenty of laws of physics. I might have hallucinated the whole seamstress episode due to my raging desire to fulfill the prophecy of my dream. I might have just gone to a convenience store, bought a lottery ticket, and invented the whole episode while walking home. I sure as hell didn’t invent the new-found stitch marks on the back of my jacket. I also didn’t imagine the receipt the seamstress gave me. I went back to the shop at least five times. Nothing. The cat was gone too. I can’t attribute anything I’ve experienced to any God I have ever heard of, because none of them seem to have the sense of humor required to craft such an eccentric episode. I stopped looking for an answer. The human mind is no place to beat one’s own creative streams to death with investigation of the external world. Let me go on with the tale. Before taking the plunge directly into South America, I flew over to New York to buy supplies. This wasn’t exactly necessary, but I wanted to see the United States. While I was there, I became a victim of peculiar social circumstances. A nationwide gang of patriots had mobilized their forces and they were spray painting and imprinting just about everything with the American flag. When people trudged out to their vehicles and places of business in the morning, more and more of them found freshly painted American flags just about everywhere, but nobody complained. How could they? Patriotism was the current trend in the United States. The citizens let this nationalistic graffiti seep into every part of their lives. When I had my suitcases carried up to my hotel room, they came bearing the American flag. I asked the bellboy what happened and he whispered conspiratorially, “Welcome to the states.” I took my suitcases to a drycleaner. They refused to serve me because what I wanted was unpatriotic. Confused, I went back to England. It quickly became apparent that I was delaying my trip to South America for some reason. Not being able to discern this reason, I immediately bought a ticket to San Juan, Argentina. After touching down, I didn’t bother going to a hotel. I went over to a tourist center and asked the quickest way to the Darwin mountain range. I was told to take a small plane up to a village in the North. Forgive me, but for the rest of the story, I will have to make up the names of the towns and villages, as the wound on my head has led to minor memory loss. I went back to the airport and hired a plane to take me up to San Costra. The pilot turned out to be a smiling, mustachioed gentleman named Abrastingo Colostomy. While we were flying over the jungles and plains, he decided to ask me some questions. “So, Senor, what’s a well off man like you want in San Costra?” He asked. I was honest. “That isn’t my final destination. I’m going to have to hike westward to the Cordillera Darwin to find a mythical God that probably isn’t there.” He chuckled. “Ah, old Inti? Hohoho, Senor, that’s a hard road.” His eyes gleamed. “Uh huh.” He stayed silent for the rest of the trip. After we landed at the village, he did add that I would probably die before getting there, but he wished me luck anyway. While his plane was reaching the horizon, I could have sworn that I saw it turn into a feathered serpent. I asked the sun if it was playing tricks on me. Then I asked the hot, sugary air in my pores. Both remained silent. I attributed their silence to guilt. Now, I’m not so sure. I went to a local hotel, where an amiable woman at the front desk handed me a key to my room. I went up and my suitcases followed. The room had nothing in it but a slowly rotating, noiseless fan and a chilled bottle of rum. I uncorked the bottle and began taking polite sips. Realizing that I was alone, I reverted to ill-mannered gulps, and after I was fairly inebriated, I promptly quaffed the rest of the bottle. With the room prancing around me, I collapsed on the bed and had the second of the dreams. I was standing in front of the giant clam. Its body was now covered by fine curly hair and it was holding a cane. It spoke without a hint of old English. “Greetings. You have progressed since we last spoke. That’s good. Don’t stop, Jim. It will all become clear soon.” I did not reply. My dream self began to walk sideways. The clam sprung up in front of me again. “Don’t try to get away, I’m talking to you. You must not ignore me for I am The Giant Clam.” Suddenly, I became suspicious. “What’s your name?” I asked. The clam began to shift its eyes back and forth and sweat profusely. It suddenly let out a yelp and disappeared. The clam was replaced by the Miles Davis Quintet. I spent the rest of the dream listening to jazz and wondering why a giant clam kept driving me towards the mountain. Finally, I remembered that I was asleep, and decided to stop. What greeted me upon waking was a massive headache and pool of my own saliva, in which my left eye had been lying for most of the night. Showering proved chilly and unsatisfactory. I walked down to the lobby and asked the receptionist where I could find a guide to the Cordillera Darwin. This didn’t work because I didn’t speak Spanish. The previous day, my stack of money and pointing indicated that I wanted a room. Today, the only thing she understood, still smiling politely, was the mountain. She didn’t know what I wanted to do with or to it. An hour passed before an English speaking eight year old boy appeared. He translated the following conversation. “Where can I get a guide to the Darwin Mountain Range?” I asked. The boy spouted off much more Spanish than was possibly necessary to say those words. The receptionist replied with about a minute of non stop talking. The boy said, “She says no.” “What was the rest of the conversation about?” “What do you mean?” He replied. “Never mind. Do you at least know anyone who can take me there, kid?” I was getting desperate. “Hmm, I guess I could do it. I’ve been down there a few times with my uncle. It’ll cost you though.” His eyes shone like a sinister sun.. It didn’t seem strange to me then that an eight year old seemed to have the reasoning abilities of an adult. I should have known better. “Sure, that’s no problem. What’s your name anyway?” The boy paused. After five seconds, he answered, “Fralagroto Standbaker.” “Sounds British.” I mused. “It is. I lived there for a few years with a foster family. Kept their name. A good name holds some sway around here.” I was confused, but decided not to ask any questions. “We start tomorrow at 7 am.” The kid nodded and sprinted off, with errant sweat drops coloring the tiles behind him. I found a local eatery and ordered the most disarming thing on the menu. While I sipped my sparingly iced water, I looked through the glassless windows at the local life. A scantily dressed man was fixing the roof on his hut, while an American in a business suit was trying to buy the hut. The American was overweight and his reddish skin glowed with sweat. After repeated refusals from the local, the American came into the restaurant. He came up to my table and began to speak. “Oh! I’m not the only civilized man out here. How fortunate. My name’s Foulgrape Goulitanche VI. Mind if I sit down?” He seemed awfully jolly. I shrugged and gestured toward the chair. He plopped down on the chair and bellowed for the waitress. He addressed me, “These backwater bastards wouldn’t know a good piece of property if it engraved their prostate.” I didn’t respond. He continued. “Yessir, I’m going to go home richer than a moon pie and happier than a deaf pigeon.” I had nothing to say, but that didn’t stop him. “See, the way I figure it, these people aren’t very happy now. So I can take all they have and they won’t know a damn difference. They will just have a harder time. But it’s hard as hell already, so what difference does it make? Besides they will all be dead in under a hundred years anyway.” He guffawed and dove into his recently brought breakfast. I looked at him for a few minutes and said, “You’ll be dead in less than fifty years. How is that different?” Suddenly, he stood up. He looked at me with terrified expression on his face, and began yelling obscenities. Unexpectedly, his body went completely slack; he looked at me with calm, benevolent eyes and decreed, “I’m the king of the universe. What am I doing in a place like this?” He then reverted back to a panicked state and ran with surprising speed into the jungle that caressed the edges San Costra. I settled his bill. This maybe the most I have ever cared. I woke up at six the next day and met up with Fralagroto Standbaker in the lobby of my hotel. I had a backpack and 3 suitcases. He looked at me and smiled. “No, senor, that won’t do at all. You can only take one of those with you.” I was crushed. I opened all four, and stuffed the most important contents into the backpack. I asked the receptionist to keep the rest safe until my return, but she didn’t seem to believe that I would return. Fralagroto carried nothing but a stout stick taller than he. He wore grayish clothing that clung to his body. We had breakfast at the place where the portly gentleman went mad. All traces of the American were gone, except for a few locals who were wearing extremely loose and expensive looking clothing. Fralagroto set out to the northwest. I followed. As soon as I entered the jungle, I tripped over an exposed tree root. Fralagroto looked at me with a small smile, and continued on. I stood up and tried to follow as best as I could. Fralagroto was a ghostly figure always at least ten feet in front of me. He seemed to have no trouble finding stable footing, but I stumbled constantly. The fear began to take hold of me. Every time I lost sight of Fralagroto, I panicked and sped up. When I sped up, I became careless and lost my footing. The vicious cycle continued for hours, until I, bruised and bleeding, finally caught up to him in a clearing. He smiled again. “We strike camp.” Fralagroto gathered some sticks and made a fire. He then spoke to me. “Come senor, we will look for food. Find something that looks edible and bring it here. Don’t eat anything until I look it over.” He melted into the trees. I paused briefly, and then went off in the opposite direction. I could barely see the flicker of the fire after taking no more than five steps. I picked some vaguely edible looking vegetation and brought them back to the camp. Fralagroto had a stack of various delicious looking fruit and a can of beans cooking. I handed over the results of my foraging and he threw most of them to the side. He returned but one berry to me. It was red with greenish amorphous dots. He nodded and I ate it. Then we ate what he gathered. I fell asleep. I woke up in the night, sweating. I did bring a journal with me, and I will now quote directly from the journal, because I have no specific memories of what happened to me: My ears feel warm. Oh shit. I can barely write this, everything is so damn funny. I have never laughed like this before; I am guffawing and rolling on the floor. My cheeks hurt. My body is heavier. The largest problem seems to be my inability to finish larger thoughts or sentences. I keep getting distracted. Everything is still hilarious, but I’m beginning to get anxious. Is this permanent? I hope not. I can’t focus or even walk straight; I collapse into giggling and wonderment. My skull feels thinner. I have an overwhelming urge to explain everything to everyone. I am a fucking child. Oh let it stop. This is a release, but I cannot hold it. I need my control. I’m producing extra saliva, I can’t eat. I keep forgetting to chew the food. The air around me is getting smokier, the colors are shifting slightly. When I close my eyes, I see a colorful pyramid with an eye on top of it. Oh Jesus, no more. The rest of the journal is illegible. I suspect that the berry Fralagroto let me eat had hallucinogenic properties. I remember what happened, but it was like I was outside my own body. As if I was there watching myself acting in this terrible way. The experience trivialized every emotion I have ever had. My portable radio just told me that World War 3 has broken out. It seems the Chinese economy has collapsed and China attacked Korea. Iran took advantage of all the confusion and launched a nuke at the United States. It was intercepted. The United States launched one of its own. It hit. I guess standing alone in front of a mountain isn’t so bad. In the morning, I followed Fralagroto for more painful miles. Each time I thought I saw the mountain in the distance; it turned out to be some cumulous clouds. Fralagroto kept smiling, and I kept eating fruit I have never seen before. Worst of all were the bugs. They were everywhere. When I stumbled into the dust. When I woke up. When I just stood for a breather. They were in the trees, on the ground, in the air, even in the water. There was no escaping them. For the night, I wrapped myself airtight with barely an opening to breathe through, but come morning, the insects were still nestled in nooks all over my body. I gave up. I noticed that no bugs came near Fralagroto. I asked him why, but he just shrugged and smiled. That was all he did. I tried to engage him in conversation, but his previous talkativeness took a dive into an erupting volcano. All I ever saw was the smile. I began to feel despair. There was no sign of the mountain, there was no way in hell I could ever find my way back, and the bugs were feasting on my morale, as well as my blood. Things were coming to a head. I was getting anxious and jumpy. I barely slept. Then, after a week of hiking, Fralagroto disappeared. I tripped, but this time, when I got back up, he wasn’t there. There were no footsteps. I called for him and waited for a couple of hours, but all I heard were the shrieks of prey and the growls of the predators. I was scared. Using the few rays of sunlight that crawled through the foliage, I headed roughly northwest. I didn’t eat for the next couple of days. I was afraid to. Fralagroto had not taught me a damn thing about proper food gathering. He didn’t have any discernable pattern of selection at all. After two days of wondering in a northwesterly direction, I collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. I awoke inside a very rough looking hut, on a bed of straw. Being too surprised to stay conscious, I fell asleep. Time tapped me on the shoulder and I woke up. I was still in the same hut on a bed of straw. I stood up. My head hurt and there were multiple small welts all over my body. They were from bugs. I don’t like bugs. At all. I walked out into the middle of a village. Cocoa colored people were walking to and fro. I stopped a female and tried talking to her. I asked her where I was. She didn’t say anything. I asked her what her name was. She didn’t say anything. I stopped asking questions. She said something to me in a language that I had never heard before. Since I had a degree in linguistics, this meant that the language she spoke was very localized or that my education wasn’t as good as I had hoped. She took me by the hand and led me to a hut. Inside was her family. They were eating. She said a few words. The elderly man nodded. She gestured that I should sit down at the table. I began eating. The food was plain but plentiful and delicious. The family let me stay there. After a week passed, the woman who brought me into her house led me outside by the hand into the jungle. There, she stripped off her clothes and we made love. She and I could not speak to each other, but we were in love. It was a love of companionship. It was pure. We spent most of our time together, me helping her out with her chores. I don’t think I have ever been in love with anyone before that. My love for her is gone now, because I can never see her again. My rational mind has destroyed the love, without consulting me. After living with her family for another month, she indicated to me that she was pregnant. Her brothers also found this out. They wordlessly pointed towards the jungle. She looked on helplessly on as I walked to the northwest. I still had no food or a way to get food. My predicament was getting worse. After a day of wondering around, I sat down beneath a tree. I waited for death to come. It did not. Instead, came Foulgrape Goulitanche VI. He woke me up. He was considerably thinner and healthier looking since I saw him last. He was wearing a loincloth. He had a fire going, on which a carcass of some medium sized animal was roasting. He smiled at me. He said, “I remember you! You’re the one who reminded me I was mortal. My thanks.” “Why are you here? How did you find me?” I asked. “I live around here now. Lucky I ran into you. The bugs seem to like you quite a bit.” He smiled. I said, “Yes, they do. Why did you run off into the jungle?” “Like I said, you reminded me I was mortal. I hadn’t thought of that in years. Knowing that made my life trivial and foolish. I was robbing the poor of the only thing they had left. I was disgusted with myself. The only reasonable act was to abandon myself completely. Now I live out here with a family of gorillas. They should be here in a little while.” He ripped off a chunk of the meat and handed it to me. “I see. Listen: can you lead me to the Darwin Mountain Range?” I asked hopefully. “Sure, sure. I mean I don’t know the name, but there is only one mountain range around here. It is four days journey to the west.” I nodded. At this point, four gorillas sprang out of the trees and landed around us. Foulgrape pointed at me and emitted a series of guttural noises. The gorillas gathered around me and began to sniff. After they finished Foulgrape said, “They will come with us to your mountain. There is a clan up there that stole some territory from them a while back. The catch is: you will have to help them fight.” I nodded numbly. Foulgrape then said that I should get some sleep. I did. I had the third dream. I was in a desert with the giant clam. The clam was four or five times larger than before. It now had multiple tentacles and spoke in a much deeper voice. “You are getting closer.” It boomed. I said, “Great. Leave me the hell alone.” It chuckled, “I can’t do that. I am your guide.” “For a guide, you certainly have been no help at all.” “Doesn’t look like you need any. Circumstances keep helping you out.” The clam began to vibrate and emitted a purplish gas that stained the air around us. “If I don’t need any help, then why are you here now?” I was getting angry. The clam looked thoughtful for a moment and then replied. “Do not question my actions. They are perfect in every way. I am the giant clam and I have graced with you my presence. Be grateful, puny mortal.” It then disappeared. The rest of my dream was about a depressed fisherman who kept catching nothing but expensive stereo equipment. He quit fishing and became a stereo equipment repairman. He then became happy. Upon waking, Foulgrape, the gorillas and I set out westward. On our four day journey, Foulgrape gave me a breakdown of what the gorillas planned to do. It turned out that the six of us had to effectively kill or banish twelve baboons and a chimp. The baboons were ordinarily peaceful creatures, but the chimpanzee had subverted them. Apparently this particular chimpanzee became deluded with power after eating the brains of every other chimpanzee in a twenty mile radius. He fashioned armor out of bones, and change his name to Xerclor. He then challenged every male chimpanzee to battle. He won every time by using crude weapons and devious tactics. Most of the females fled, and he only ended up killing thirty three chimpanzees before the word spread. Xerclor then walked into a baboon camp and convinced them all that the gorillas wanted to steal away their females. The baboons attacked. The gorillas, taken completely by surprise, fled. Foulgrape found me as the gorillas were making their way to vengeance. I just realized that I dislike my life and I do not enjoy most of the time I spend around other people because I keep wishing for more. I am a hopeless romantic. I thought I was a cynic. I guess those two are the same. Let me get back to the story. After three days the mountain was in my sight. Instead heading for it, the gorillas led me towards the baboon camp. We came upon them at night. Foulgrape and the gorillas systematically killed every baboon there. They killed about a dozen. I stood and watched. In the middle of the slaughter, I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and saw a chimpanzee wearing armor of bone. His eyes were calm and his movements were daft. I punched him in the face. He collapsed. Foulgrape ran over and pronounced him dead. I felt nothing until a dying baboon used the last of his strength to throw a large rock at my head. I collapsed. I woke up alone. There was a note from Foulgrape apologizing for his absence. The note explained that the four days journey would take longer for me, because the baboons are faster than humans. I began to eat various edible looking growths. My head wound would not close. After few days, I finally stood at the end of the jungle. The mountain was in front of me. You are now caught up with everything that happened to me. I will stop writing, and climb the mountain. When I am done, I will further tell the story of what happened to me. Here is the rest of what happened to me. I began to climb up the mountain. It proved very difficult. The closer I got to Inti, the more strange things kept happening. First the homicidal chimpanzee. Then came the rain. It started as soon as I set foot on the mountain. It did not stop. After a while, I was forced to abandon my pack. It took me twelve hours to climb to the top. I have many scars to prove it. On the way, I encountered precious metals. I could not carry them and climb at the same time. I also saw goats. I may have heard one of them say something about the pope. I was pretty delirious at that point. About six hours into the climb I became obsessed with cleanliness. I spent twenty minutes trying to clean all the dirt and blood off my body. I then realized the wounds were not closing up, so more was coming out. I began to laugh. I climbed and climbed, and I saw eyes looking at me from the sky. I saw smiling gods and color-changing nations. I even saw myself. All these things came more and more frequently the closer I got to the top. I eventually had to discard my shirt because it weighed me down. When I got to the top, I fell asleep at the entrance to the cave that was there. I had the last dream. It wasn’t much of a dream. The giant clam appeared before me, larger than my field of vision and yelled at me until I woke up. When I finally did, I walked into the cave. It was small and completely barren except for a pedestal at the end. It was made out of rock. On top of this pedestal was a small clam. It spoke to me, “You finally made it.” I was confused. “You’re Inti? You’re the all powerful God?” “Well sort of. I don’t really have any powers except invading people’s dreams and inducing pretty lengthy hallucinations. Also, I’m immortal. I just wanted some company. Thanks for coming. I haven’t seen anything alive in a really long time.” The clam looked happy. “Wait a minute; you made me go through all that just for some company?” “Yes. So, tell me about yourself.” I became upset. Then I felt better. I put the clam in my pocket and went outside. It said something muffled. I didn’t listen. I started to climb down. The climb down went much faster. I have a whole in my memory from that point. The first thing I remember is the airport. I was back in England. I went home. The clam is here with me now. It is happy to be with me. I am now dictating this from the hospital. Thirty years have passed. I was run over by a bus. I will be dead in under an hour. My life has been ok. Thank you for reading my story. Comments please. the mrs.

Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by mrs. johnson 01/10/2003, 5:44am PST     Comments by General Ataturk 01/10/2003, 5:56am PST     Re: Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by Nirk Firkel 01/10/2003, 12:17pm PST         Re: Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by electro moss 01/10/2003, 1:02pm PST             Re: Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by Nirk Firkel 01/10/2003, 1:15pm PST             EXEMPT NT by General Ataturk 01/10/2003, 2:21pm PST                 Love Poem by electro moss 01/10/2003, 5:35pm PST                     Re: Love Poem/ EXEMPT by Emperor Zseni 01/10/2003, 6:31pm PST                         Re: Love Poem/ EXEMPT by electro moss 01/10/2003, 11:55pm PST                             Re: Love Poem/ EXEMPT by electro moss 01/11/2003, 12:26am PST                                 Re: Love Poem/ EXEMPT by Senor Barborito 01/14/2003, 1:32am PST                                     Re: Love Poem/ EXEMPT by Senor Barborito 01/14/2003, 4:02am PST         Re: Seafood: My Exploration of Prose (long) by Bill Dungsroman 01/10/2003, 3:22pm PST     Should I repost it with better formatting? by mrs. johnson 01/10/2003, 4:06pm PST         Please God, no by junior allen 01/10/2003, 4:58pm PST             Re: Please God, no by mrs. johnson 01/10/2003, 6:31pm PST                 I don't like it. (n/t) by junior allen 01/13/2003, 2:32pm PST     More comments by Ray, of Light 01/10/2003, 8:16pm PST