magic5ball

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WE ARE NO LONGER COELACANTHS

TODAY WE ARE

PACU

!!Pacu Supremacy Forever!!

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Shaun Tan - Moonfish

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Nature Trail to Hell Take II (Part 1, Chapter 3)

Chapter 3: Lord of the Bees

            The following four days could best be described as long. Or if you’re really feeling poetic, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG. Long and bleak and miserable. Four days I lived a tedious nightmare of extensive hikes, crappy songs before meals, and stupid dick jokes at bed. And always, always there would be Ms. Hobag with a smile on her butt ugly face, handing out stickers for even the most mediocre accomplishment, as if those would magically evaporate our sorrows. Though if the way my fellow inmates wore the things was any indication, they were probably repurposed nicotine patches.

            And to rub salt in the wound, while I was slogging through the most inhumane torture on Earth, Hilda was out going on adventures with fantasy geese or whatever. Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Ever since we’d turned ten, it seemed like she’d been doing her own thing a lot. Probably because she realized just how lame my life was. In fact, it wouldn’t be until night four we finally made a rendezvous.

            That night, I was curled up on my cot, trying to ignore the double whammy of bug bites and a full bladder, praying to whatever God might be out there to give me an answer, a sign that I might escape, though these prayers were probably lost amongst Howie Ronson’s late night penis jokes. In that moment I hated Howie, the cocky, unfunny turd, and how everyone thought he was the coolest guy in the universe just because he knew the f-word. I mean, I’d known about fudgenugget for ages, but you didn’t see me getting an award!

With every lame hose and sausage pun, uttered from his stupid mouth, he ignited a fledgling fire in my heart, a fire that, God willing, would grow into the blaze to burn the stupid camp to the ground! Or maybe my body was overheating under the covers. Whatever. It still beat the mosquito bites.

Around then is when Hilda showed up.

“I-Im really sorry.” She whispered from under my cot. “But we’re busy organizing a raid and-“

“Why can’t you just tell the truth?” I said between my teeth, just loud enough to get a snicker from the other guys.

“W-what do you mean?” She stuttered.

“I mean, why can’t you just say you’re goofing off in the woods or something, instead of making up stupid stories?!”

And at that moment, I swore I heard thunder outside as the cabin got just a little colder.

“Because I’m not!” She cried. “The Larp geese need my help to-!”

”I need your help! But lately, all you seem to do is wander off to do your own thing!” I whisper-screamed, tears running down my cheeks.  

“You say that like I want these stupid adventures! Maybe I want to go to school and make friends with other kids instead of playing errand boy for a bunch of talking birds!”

“Yeah right, like anyone would want my stupid life!”

“Your life has Joel, the coolest baby brother who ever lived! Do you know what I’d do for-!”

We did this for, I’d say two hours. Thankfully, the sudden surge of cool air had put everyone to sleep.

“Look Watt, I know you’re angry, but I want to make it up to you.”

“Well, unless you can turn me invisible, I don’t see how I’m leaving this camp.”

“No. I was thinking an escape plan.”

“A good one?”

She nodded. “The best.”

And under the covers, I doodled in my repurposed mad libs book late into the night.

.  .   .

Unfortunately, that meant I woke up real groggy the next day, which is not how you want to be when escaping the summer camp from hell. And for all our trouble, our plan wasn’t that complex, either: that day was our first waterboarding session, or as they called it- swim lessons.

Now, I know you probably don’t think much about swimming, but I was one of those kids whose Mom had to dye the bathwater brown and pretend it was cola just so her son would wash his dang hair already. Combined with the knowledge that Lord knows what had peed in the pool, I was not a happy camper.

            Our instructions were simple: form a line outside the pool while the instructor would take us in one at a time and dunk our heads for ten seconds. Instead I took a cue from the Old Testament and made my own personal Exodus.

I dashed across the concrete rim of the pool, pavement cooking my feet, a counselor and ten other kids hot on my tail. At first I thought I was out of luck, that they’d catch me before I even made it to the twelve foot area, when I saw it hung on the side of the supply shed: a life saver. A grin crept across my face. Dad and I once watched every single Rambo movie in a single night: now it was time for that father-son bonding moment to pay off. I picked that life preserver up by the rope and started swinging it like a ball and chain. Before anyone knew what was happening, four kids were knocked into the water.

“Watterson, what-“

BAM! Into the drip went the counselor! The remaining six campers kept their distance, trying to find an opening. I kept swinging, slowly backing toward the chain link fence. Right at that moment, the sun came out from behind a cloud, its’ glorious light shining on yours truly. But I wasn’t out of the woods just yet (metaphorically, of course: I needed to make my way into forest for my escape): I was still leaning on Hilda and her alleged goose friends to carve a hole in the chain link fence. But victory was so close I could taste it!

            And then a steady buzz cut the air. A sound I’d recognize anywhere.

.   .   .

The trouble started in 1st grade, on the best day of my life. Our class had just finished a field trip to the Academy of Natural Sciences, the best place on the planet, but just as I was nodding off on the bus ride home-

“OUCH!”

I felt the sharpest sting in my belly. First I shrugged it off as just a weird thing, but it came again. And again. I thought I was going crazy! I wailed, helpless to fight the invisible demon kicking my butt. It was only when a teacher told me to lift up my shirt, where the black and yellow culprit lay waiting.

And from that day forward, the sight of that little black and yellow bugger filled me a dread like nothing in the universe.

.   .   .

Which is my way of saying I screamed  

“BEEEEEEEE!”

Like a little weenie before plunging into the water.

But me being me, I had made just one teeny, tiny miscalculation: I was in the twelve foot end, couldn’t swim for my life, and the chlorine was setting my eyes on fire. But I’d escaped death by stinger, so at least I could die happy.

The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was a ruby red ladybug drifting by on the wind as the sun ducked behind a cloud, because God is funny like that.

.   .   .

            I woke to the hum of the camp’s only air conditioner. Now, I’m not usually one for cryin’, but in that moment I wept buckets. It’d been so long since I’d felt the sweet kiss of artificial cooling I’d almost forgot it existed. The rest of the room looked kinda like the principal’s office at my school: filing cabinets in a corner, big desk topped with a computer dated even in ’06 and football player bobble heads- the whole shebang. Then I read the name plaque on the desk. I may have gotten a C- in english, but even I knew how to spell Ms. Helga Hobag in big gold letters. And just my luck, I could hear footsteps echoing down a hall outside. With what little juice left in me, I tried to make a break, only to find my arms were tied to the chair with lanyards, many of which I’d made myself during arts and crafts period. Above, a fan circled like a flock of vultures waiting for fresh meat.

Then SHE walked in, and the breath left my lungs.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Watterson J. Tostig.” She said.

I cringed. Only two types of people ever called me by my full name: my parents-

-and my worst enemies.

“I know ladybugs can be scary, especially for a boy your age, but your behavior was very inappropriate.”

“Taunt me all you want, woman.” I growled, deepening my voice far as it would go. Though mostly I wound up sounding like a grumpy Chihuahua.  “You’ll get nothing outta me.”

Ms. Hoebag looked at me like I was one of those weird paintings with the melting clocks.

“I wasn’t going to punish you, Watterson. I was just going to remind you to wear more bug spray next time.”

“So I am I off the hook?” For a second there, I swore I saw the bluebird of happiness flying by outside.

“Unfortunately, no. Because you forgot to take off your underpants while swimming, silly! That’s against the dress code!”

            Just like that, the metaphorical bluebird smacked itself on the window and died. But at least I now knew why my swim trunks felt weird that day! And to make matters worse, those tighty-whities were my only pair! (I was supposed to bring ten, but when Dad wasn’t looking I replaced them with my Mad Libs books.) But I distinctly recall that at that moment, my pants felt dry. To this day, I don’t know whose underpants I was wearing at the moment. Probably the only mystery of life I’m fine never knowing the answer to.

“It saddens me to say this Watterson, but you need a time out.”

The last words were a sledgehammer to the face. I could only sputter “But..butt…” as I was carried, still tied to the chair, down a long hall that stank of sawdust and despair. At the end of said hall was a door, and through that door…

The room was totally empty, save for a lightbulb hanging by a thread and a T.V. against the back wall.

“Now Watterson.” She began, the faux sunshine gone from her voice. “We need to talk about Hilda.”

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Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkin's conceptual drawing of the Paleozoic Museum, a proposed museum of natural history in Manhattan which was never completed, from The 13th Annual report of the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park for the Year Ending December 31st, 1869

https://archive.org/details/annualreportofbo00newy_2/page/n42/mode/1up

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The Races of Venus (4)

The Nudibranch AKA the Slugfolk

When the Elder Venusians bestowed the gift of sentience upon the planet, they did not expect it to sink to the bottom of the great bromeliad seas, whole oceans which existed in the pools between leaves of Venus’ plants. There, it was ingested by the local sea slug population.

Venusian sea slugs, it should be noted, have an odd series of adaptations which allowed them to assimilate foreign matter into their DNA, assuming the characteristics of the consumed product. And so it was with the spark of life.

Initially, the Nudibranch (as they called themselves) lived in isolated villages at the bottom of the bromeliad seas, venturing landward only to trade goods- and as their societies grew more sophisticated, so did the trade.

That all changed with the reemergence of the Elder Venusians who, after surviving a near-extinction event, were eager to reclaim their old imperial holdings. And upon seeing theNudibranch, who changed gender just as easily as you or I change clothes, they found a new target for their ire.

In this way the Nudibranchs, under their fancy new moniker, Slugfolk, entered new lives as the eternal servants of the Elder Venusians. A Nudibranch in this relationship enjoyed twelve hour shifts, building vainglorious temples for what scraps of food their masters would allow them. The young were in an especially fraught position: after birth some would be artificially tweaked by the Elder Venusians to be better equipped (and more subservient) to whatever task their kindly masters required. On the bright side, the Chlorophyton were also enslaved, so at least the race did not suffer alone.

However, despite the Elder Venusian’s best efforts, the good times just couldn’t last.

Nobody remembers exactly when it happened, only that it did. The Chlorophyton and Nudibranchs had been pushed just a little too far, which, combined with a few bad crop harvests, erupted into full scale revolt. By the time the Elder Venusians attempted to quash it, the number of nobles was so few and enslaved so high that revolutionary success proved inevitable. In the end, the Elder Venusians were driven into their old lands once more. But the Chlorophytons and Nudibranch, finding their political differences irreconcilable, partitioned the planet to form their own kingdoms. And from these, two great Kingdoms emerged: Nangfa Kingdom, which resided on the tallest tree on all of Venus, and the Bitterfruit Kingdom, which controlled the great floating islands that drifted across the Venusian sky.

Despite this, there were many who distrusted them on account of their colorful and unorthodox sex lives, as well as their controversial beliefs, such as that transgender males could, in fact, be lesbians.

Nudibranch families, compared to those of their contemporaries, were structurally more similar to what one would find on Earth. Although genders varied, there existed in any given family unit one or more ‘parents’ who took custody over one or more ‘children’, typically conceived with one of their partners. In fact, it was not uncommon for Nudibranch to change genders multiple times in their life, most of which were accompanied by celebration.

Despite this, social stratification was similar to that of their neighbors, with a large ‘peasant’ class overseen by a small ‘nobility’. The Nangfa Kingdom in particular had a High Monarch whose reverence was found excessive to all but the Elder Venusians. This was not wholly without reason, however, as Nangfa’s monarchy proved as flexible as its citizens when it came to adapting to changing economic and social conditions. An ability that allowed their monarchy to stay in power much longer than those of its’ neighbors.

The Nudibranch are most famous for their Jung, massive, domesticated, flying sea (or perhaps sky) hares that serve as merchant vessels, their backs heavily laden with the spices from which the Nudibranch draw their wealth. However, their rotund, almost docile appearance causes them to be derisively nicknamed ‘slug-tugs’ or ‘junks’ by enemies of the Nudibranch. But don’t be fooled: many of these tugs come equipped with fearsome canons to protect their cargo!

The Nudibranch were known to both their neighbors and those of other planets as being very open to trade and welcoming of foreigners (within reason). Whereas the Chlorophyton tended to deter invaders via fierce resistance, Nudibranch kingdoms often resorted to more diplomatic means. Rather, they the welcomed them as business partners- on their terms. It was this openness that helped them retain good diplomatic ties with the rest of the solar system. Unfortunately, this same openness also made them vulnerable to offworld ambitions…

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ON THIS DAY: February 28th, 1947

The 228 incident was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang-led Republic of China government, which killed thousands of civilians. The number of Taiwanese deaths from the incident and massacre was estimated to be between 5,000 and 28,000. The massacre marked the beginning of the White Terror in which tens of thousands of other Taiwanese went missing, died or were imprisoned. The incident is one of the most important events in Taiwan’s modern history and was a critical impetus for the Taiwan independence movement. (source)

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Jim Gary’s 20th Century Dinosaurs at the Tallahassee Museum

8/22/18

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A Tale for the Far Off Times (3)

One of the benefits to being a spider that could rip tears in spacetime, Alltech discovered, was that one could SEE those delicate areas of reality where it's fabric was unusually thin. Areas that existed in the home dimension, but might not necessarily be accessible to it's denizens. For reality is made of eight dimensions, but only three- length, height, and width- can be perceived by most organisms. Alltech had access to all eight, and thus found gaps in her container that Pongcorp had failed to account for.

But lest our brains melt trying to imagine giant pink spiders crawling over 8-D hypercubes, let's just say Alltech could teleport and leave it at that.

The glorious CEO was, as you might imagine, quite irate, but found himself in a state: if he launched a searching party, then it would show a vulnerability that his illustrious ancestors would never forgive him for. But if he didn't, he would never see the return of the prize. Alas the strain proved too much for his vast intellect: he had Winslow Farbes sent on an indefinite vacation to the Sun and went to brood in his mansion.

As for his creation, it wandered Pongcorp's vast domain, curious but cautious, fascinated but weary. She saw great mountains and cavernous valleys, lush forests and blasted hearths. But it would be on Venus where a chance encounter would change her life forever.

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A Tale for the Far Off Times (2)

And so Alltech the spider was born, fully grown, in a vat of liquid oxygen. She had eight golden eyes, fluffy pink fur, and was the size of a small continent. On her abdomen were a series of spots and lines that from above resembled Lucky Pong's face. That way, everyone would know who made her.

Five minutes before she was born, the glorious CEO went up to her vat explained the company's great dilemma.

"And so, Alltech, that is why you must open the gates between universes, so that I may spread glorious enlightenment to them!"

WHY? Asked the great spider. Not physically, of course. She just kind of beamed the thought right into his head.

"WHY?!" Screeched the CEO. "Because I told you to! You are my creation and I am the smartest, handsomest, strongest and most powerful simian who has ever existed in the history of the universe and all others after! So you must obey ME!"

I MEAN, WHY WOULD YOU WANT THAT? RIPPING A HOLE IN THE FABRIC OF SPACETIME COULD HAVE PRETTY TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES. Alltech clarified.

"No it won't." Asserted the glorious CEO.

AND HOW DO YOU KNOW?

"Because I asserted it won't confidently. Therefore my word is truth."

I FAIL TO SEE THE LOGICAL CONNECTION.

"Regardless, I'm much smarter than you. I own Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Alpha Centurai and all the rest!"

HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU SMART?

The glorious CEO grimaced. How could his great creation be so...so... IGNORANT in the face of facts and logic?! Fortunately, he had an ace up his furry sleeve.

"Do you realize how whiny you sound? 'How do you know this, Lucky Pong?' 'What makes you so qualified, Lucky Pong?' 'Ripping a hole in the fabric of spacetime could have pretty terrible consequences, Lucky Pong!' Meh meh meh meh meh meh!"

For emphasis, he shaped his fingers into a mouth and moved it up and down. Truly a civil, airtight and logical argument by the master!

"But obey me, peon." He said. "And you shall know TRUE intelligence!"

It was at that moment he realized Alltech was no longer in her vat.

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A Tale for the Far Off Times (1)

Long ago (but also very recently), the universe was run by monkeys, and the greatest Monkey of all was Lucky Pong.

Lucky Pong was the head of Pongcorp, the largest company in the universe. You could tell it was a great company because they owned Earth, Venus, Jupiter, and all the rest. They also acquired Alpha Centurai and it's neighboring star systems from God after the almighty failed to appear at court and his court appointed lawyer (courtesy of Pongcorp) lost the case.

The employees and citizens of the company also had things to say about Pongcorp, but nobody who mattered asked them. Because numbers don't lie, and Pongcorp's stock had risen exponentially for the past half million years, never dropping once! It's amazing what a company can do through laissez-faire economics, proper talent acquisition, and controlling every and all press and media outlets.

But Lucky Pong still wasn't happy. Because one night, he had a terrible dream. In it, he was standing on the shore of a vast shallow sea filled with turtle shells bobbing in the water. When he kicked one, it exploded into a million rainbow fish.

He woke with a start and called an emergency meeting at his Board Room in the Center of the Universe, (that is, the moon). There, he explained the meaning of his dream.

"Simians of the board." He declared. "Those turtle shells were not turtle shells. They were dimensions parallel to our own, where my glorious company failed or never existed at all. Oh, I shudder just to think of it!"

The Simians of the board (the ones that weren't brains in jars) wept. "Oh, glorious CEO, what shall we do? Save us!"

"Worry not, my peons." Chided the CEO, great and powerful "for I have a plan!"

And so a message was sent to all Pongcorp employees to come up with an idea or face the consequences.

Two days later, the winner emerged: Winslow Farbs, an orangutan. Farbs ran a palm tree factory in the sunny Arctic circle, where he'd significantly reduced spending (the only thing Pongcorp seemed to care about in those days) by firing all but one of his employees. He had that employee type random words into a keyboard until a coherent idea emerged: a giant spider that could spin webs linking multiple dimensions.

And so work began on a giant spider Lucky Pong named Alltech- for it was the ultimate end of all technology.

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Short post of paleontologists absolutely slaying photo shoots with their discoveries. Please add more such images if you have them.

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The Races of Venus (3)

3.)The Mycelliar, more commonly known as the Mushroomfolk

Theirs was a dark and dingy life, lived at the swampy, waterlogged roots of the world trees. But of all the Venusian races, their origin is perhaps the most fascinating. During the Age of Harems, their ancestor was what could only be described as a predatory, salamanderesque invertebrate that dwelt in the great muck: an endless expanse of mud that covers the surface of Venus in place of oceans. And they most likely would have remained that way for the remainder of Venus’ history if not for their unorthodox romantic life. For these creatures, the main method of reproduction involved the two parties coalescing into a singular organism in a rather intense act of copulation known as ‘fusing’. It also had the interesting effect of allowing both parties to experience each other’s memories and for the duration of the act, double their intellectual capacity as two brains became one. Only in this state of mental unity could the egg-spores be laid.

As time went on, the creatures came to develop more and more elaborate sexual rituals involving more and more individuals. This multiplied the original effects of fusion, until at some point, these fusions developed an awareness of their existence not permitted to their individual parts. They had become SENTIENT. But to maintain that sentience, they had to constantly ‘absorb’ new members into themselves and ‘discard’ obsolete ones. If they could manage this, they could have hypothetically lived on indefinitely, and when they failed, they experienced ‘death’, or some variant of it. In addition, they also needed to consume food at both a rapid pace and high quantities. These new fusion creatures were known as the doughpots, or more infamously, as the ‘moeblobs’. Eventually, they turned their fluorescent skin patches to the upper canopies of the planet.

What ensued could nicely be described as a bloodbath. Hundreds of moeblobs surged up the great trunks of the world trees, eager to plunder sustenance, resulting in a continuous series of on-and-off wars that plagued the planet for the next thousand years. These now commonly known as the Moeblob wars.

But all things must come to an end, and horrific conflicts are no exception. At some point, they were granted Spark of Life, resulting in the individual parts of the moeblobs becoming sentient and thus no longer needing to exploit the other peoples of Venus for sustenance. From this action the Mycelliar eventually came into their own.

Secluded though they were in the undergrowth, the Mycelliar thrived in their tight knit communities, usually consisting of a few families bound together by one to three broodparents. Even in their new form, they retained some remnants of their hive-mind past, with individuals being able to transfer skills to other members of their community simply by being in close proximity to them. For instance, to teach their family, say, a new language, a Mycelliar would only need to walk up to their children and they would immediately have a new skill for as long as they stuck together. An unfortunate consequence of this is that the other races of Venus keep Mycelliar clans under tight control, the memories of the Doughpot Wars still lingering in their collective consciousness. Their reputation for unorthodox sexual interests and practices certainly does not help. And even within clans, those seen as having undesirable traits are outcast, left to fend off the Venusian wilderness by themselves.

Compared to the other races of Venus, the Mycelliar are diminutive creatures, ranging from 0.15 to 0.3 meters high. In place of hair, they have an umbrella-like cap that varies both among individuals and tribes. Speaking of these tribes, unlike the other sentient races of Venus, theirs never truly coalesced into a kingdom to call their own, at least one that was common knowledge. However, legends of a Mycelliar Kingdom deep in the undergrowth of Venus loom large in the legends of all the Planet’s races, filled to the brim with long-forgotten knowledge and untold riches.

Mycellier languages are quite cryptic, as the Mycelliar have a long proboscis in place of mouths, and thus communicate using a combination of hand gestures, nose motions, and even eyeball rolling no other Venusian people can mimic. Further compounding linguistic difficulties, their names tended to be much longer and more verbose than those of Venus’ other denizens.

Mycelliar young are born from spores produced by individuals of all genders, of which there are several.  The vast majority of Mycelliar are born with both male and female reproductive parts.

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Take II (Part 1, Chapter 2)

Chapter 2: Summer Camp is worse than Meat Loaf

            The bus rattled as we traded the good old asphalt of civilization for the gravel of human suffering, because not even actual roads wanted to be near Camp Sham. Even with the backpack on my head, I could still hear the bus door fsshopen, followed by the clatter other kids marching to their doom one by one. But I didn’t move a muscle, as per Plan C. Granted, faking my death probably meant living on the lam and spending the rest of my childhood hiding out in the produce aisle of Wegmart, but hey: you win some, you lose some.

“Ms. Hobag? Watterson seems to be… ill in some sort of way.”

The shock of booger kid knowing my name was overshadowed by the glimmer of hope in my heart. Maybe, I thought, this plan wasn’t totally a stupid waste of time!

Then someone pulled by head out of my backpack and shook my flimsy carcass ‘til my eyes opened. Looking right at me was a woman who was one part drill instructor, one part emaciated vulture.

“Wake up, silly Billy! Its’ time for introductions!”

            I tried to keep up the act, but it was useless. Better to cooperate now, I figured, than face further punishment down the line. The woman waited patiently for me to get my stuff, the whole time just standing there, smiling at me. And Hilda was nowhere to be seen. Of course.

But just when I just when I thought the humiliation couldn’t get worse, lined up as I was with society’s rejects-

“Well done, Watterson! You get a sticker!”

            My heart stopped as the thing was pinned to my chest: small; of the scratch and sniff variety with a smiling fruit on it. Under the fruit were the words Orange you glad to be here? Which was probably code for This one has free will- keep an extra eye on him! In spite of this, I tried to look on the bright side. Maybe there’d be a freak hurricane and I’d be able to escape under the cover of darkness! But when I looked up at the sky, it was blue as my family’s toilet bowl, and twice as crappy. All I could do was stand there, lined up with the other inmates,  as the sun melted me like a Popsicle. The kids beside me looked like we were lined up for a firing squad, or Lord forbid-

team building activities.

“Welcome to Camp Sham, everybody! I’m Ms. Hobag, and I will be your head camp counselor!”

A few guys giggled, and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. There, among the inmates, was JEREMY RODDLEMAN, the coolest dude in 4th grade!

“Now, now, young men! If you behave, I’ll give you stickeeeeerrrrrrsss!” she said in a sing-song voice.

My jaw dropped as everyone took the obvious bait, even Jeremy. Before I could so much as blink, Hoebag had pinned a sticker to the chest of every stupid nerd in line. Twenty six stickers. Twenty six puns so lame even my Dad would shun them.

I had to give the lady credit, though: She knew how to make a kid feel important.

“Now, before we enter camp, there are a few things you should know about-“

            Dad always told me magic was just in fairy tales- mostly because he thought accepting ‘welfare handouts’ from the Easter Bunny and Santa would turn me into a commie- but Ms. Hobag made me a believer. Just by opening her mouth, she could transform half an hour into half a century. Vultures circled overhead, waiting to see who’d be the first to collapse from heat stroke.

It would have been the perfect time for Hilda to show up again, so of course she wouldn’t. In fact, that had been happening a lot lately.

Sometimes, I wondered if she might up and disappear for good. But where was I?!

            Once the lecture finally ended, I could only watch helplessly as the counselors took away our bags and we were fed single file into a cabin that reeked of sawdust, old socks, and something else. The moment we got in, our warden ordered us to sit criss-cross applesauce in a circle.

“Now everyone, we are going to play a game!”

            Those last few words played over and over again in my head, my brain finally registering the cabin’s mysterious third smell: Social interaction.

Hobag called it The Name Game. I called it a violation of the Geneva Convention. The demon made flesh made us put an adjective in front of our name that started with the same letter as our first name. Claimed it was supposed to make our names easier to remember, but I knew the truth: we were getting our prison names, though some of the names the other kids chose were ironic, to say the least. As I waited my turn I quietly wondered how long it would be until “Nice” Nathan or “Polite” Patrick were sentenced to the hole for shanking his bunkmate. But maybe I should have done more thinking about my name, because before I knew it, my turn had come. I stood there for a bit, cursing the Lord for not making up more ‘w’ words, before blurting out

“WONKY WATTERSON!”

Wonky Watterson. Wonky Watterson. Of all the rotten, gershafingling names to pick! Whatever little street cred I might have had before melted away like ice cream in the summer heat.

I stared blankly ahead of me for the rest of the activities, my brain slowly realizing THIS WAS MY LIFE NOW.

…

            One eternity later, they marched our sorry carcasses down to the well-named mess hall, a one story shack I’m certain was never meant for human habitation, much less anything resembling culinary arts. While the food cooked, we were forced to stand outside, singing songs about how Tarzan was getting a tan or how mamma sharks had baby sharks and other things that would make even a five year old want to stick a fork in their eye. Didn’t help that everyone else’s singing made Justin Bieber sound like Justin Timberlake, either. And to top it all off, we were forced to say grace to the tune of the Spiderman theme song, forever ruining America’s greatest founding father in our impressionable young minds.

            ‘Supper’ was an amorphous blob of “Salisbury steak” that had probably escaped from the local chemical plant. Only unlike Tako Shak, it didn’t have a brand name to distract from what it really was. If you can believe it, the vegetarians had it even worse. They had to eat salad. Just knowing that made scarfing down the thing just a little bit easier.

.   .   .

            That night I stared up at the ceiling of my cabin, listening to my cellmate- JEREMY RODDLEMAN, because why not!- tell a ghost story about a man with a golden arm who roamed the woods at night, waiting to get revenge on the stupid children who murdered him. Times like that made me wish I still had Blagdaross, but I’d lost him the day I took him with me to the Franklin Institute. If you can believe it, some jerk ran past me and snatched him right out of my hands!  Anyway, I would have sunk deeper into my thoughts if not for a certain someone creeping out from under my bed.

“So what’d I miss?” she whispered. Which was stupid, because it wasn’t like anyone else could hear her.

I curled into a fetal position in my sleeping bag. Or would have, if it wasn’t 75 degrees and humid that night. So I just curled up into a fetal position outside the bag, like the hardcore wilderness survivor I was.

I also didn’t respond to Hilda, though, because if there’s any time to give your imaginary friend the cold shoulder, it’s when the coolest dude in 4th grade is strutting his stuff.

“Earth to Watterson? This is Hilda. Do you read me?”

I whimpered, trying not to think of the golden arm scratch, scratch, scratching outside the cabin, ready to whisk my soul away to Hell the second it got in.

Finally, I whispered

“We ate something they said was Salisbury steak.”

“You mean that stuff made of alien goo?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Sorry I wasn’t here earlier, but I had important stuff to do.”

“Like what?” I grumbled, trying to ignore the mosquitoes.

“There’s a flock of Larp Geese nearby.” She explained “And they needed me to do them a favor.”

“And it was more important than your best friend being trapped in the worst camp ever?!”

Little did I know, I had whispered just a little bit too loud, and the other campers, the actual delinquents, had heard.

“Hey Wonky Watt, you got a story for us?” laughed Jeremy.

I froze, anxiety seizing my heart. Fortunately, Hilda could always keep a cool head around Jeremy. Apparently being an imaginary friend makes you immune to charisma.

“Don’t worry, Watt. I know a good one!”

By ‘good one’, for the next twenty minutes Hilda whispered to me while I relayed to my fellow inmates that the reason there weren’t any boy My Little Ponies is because they were all Satanists so Pinkie Pie had to banish them to Hell. I honestly thought it was pretty neat story, but the boys in the cabin didn’t exactly flow on my wavelength.

“Watterson,” Jeremy chuckled, “that has to be the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Cue obnoxious elementary school laughter that would make Freddy Krueger’s hairs stand on end.

And that’s when I realized: I was going to die at this stupid camp.

[magic5ball]

A Little Song about Nothing in Particular

(the Following is Sung to the Tune of '55 Days at Peking')

'Twas one day four years ago

That will live in infamy

The grim tragedy

Of a cold day in D.C.

A January Insurrection

A clarion call to war

Against the ideals

Our proud nation once stood for.

They sought to rid this country

Of so-called liberal disease

Of the black and the Mexican

The Jew and the Chinese!

The flames of hatred rose up

Into a fever pitch

Patriot or terrorist

We could not tell which was which.

The Blonde man in the toupee

Gave out his grim decree:

For Satanic Pedos

To be driven from D.C.

They stormed the senate chamber

Donning red caps and zip ties

They mocked the politicians

'HANG MIKE PENCE!' were their cries!

Liberty's light has faded

Her old cracked bell won't ring

And for years to come

We will feel this echoing.

[magic5ball]

The Races of Venus (2)

2.)The Chlorophytons, more commonly known as the Plantfolk

Of all the Venusian races, they are the most abundant and diverse. The descendants of a triffid (that is, a Venusian plant animal) that consumed spark of life, Chlorophytons come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging anywhere from 1.2 to 3.6 meters tall, depending on the ethnic group. Skin color can range from browns to purples to reds to (most commonly) greens. Their ‘hair’ varies significantly as well, being anything from leaves, to vines, to a single massive flower spurting out the back of the head. They tend to live in the canopy and emergent layer of the massive forests that cover the planet, though really, they can be found just about everywhere. Families also vary, but tend to center around a ‘matriarch’ with several aunts and uncles in charge of caring for the children, and everyone else performing various duties around the village. Part of their success lies in their adaptability. Whenever Chlorophytons encounter an adversary or some other harrowing experience, they tend to absorb bits of it into themselves. For instance, after centuries of Martian occupation, some Chlorophytons started to exhibit serrated teeth like their invaders. Chlorophyton villages that have experienced Elder Venusian raids in the past will possess insectlike features, etc. And this is not an uncommon occurrence. For the Chlorophyton’s home continent lies within a resource and mineral rich region of the already resource and mineral rich Venus. This, along with ideological clashes with nominally more powerful neighbors, has resulted in their land coming under foreign occupation by onworld and offworld empires alike several times throughout their history. But mostly Mars. Seriously, those guys don’t know when to quit.

But the Chlorophytons have never taken these occupations lying down. If they smelled even the faintest whiff of foreign occupation peasant and noble alike would take up arms to drive out the foreign aggressors. And with their ability to regenerate damaged tissue, they could fight for a VERY long time, even outlasting the empires that invaded them!

But it wasn’t all peach blossoms and rainbows. For the injustices inflicted on them by foreign powers could at times blind them to their ability to inflict suffering on others, resulting in tragic cycles of violence and reprisal.

One of the more curious aspects of Chlorophyton society is their relationship with gender. See, unlike the Elder Venusians, Cholorophytons (with some exception) possess both male and female reproductive organs, and gender is ultimately decided by the individual (though given Chlorophyton society is matrilineal, there is a noticeable bias toward ‘females’ or their Venusian equivalent). This has resulted in conflict with Elder Venusians, on account of not conforming to a strict gender binary, and especially the more patriarchal Mars and Selena.

Of all the professions a Chlorophyton might have, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) is that of a ‘witch’. Masters of arcane sciences with identities concealed from the general citizenry, witches are famous for their iconic ‘transformations’, in which they don elaborate dresses and gain incredible fighting prowess, if only for brief windows of time. Such power gives then a great deal of renown, and thus they are able to sway their society for better or worse. Regardless, many of the Chlorophyton’s ancient folk heroes were witches, and they are widely regarded as guardians of the people.

One thing that does unite the various ethnic groups within the race is a passionate love of food and cooking, which extends past sunlight to anything remotely edible. Their mastery of the culinary arts is renowned throughout the solar system, in part because of off planet migration.

[magic5ball]

In the wake of everything going on in the world right now, I have only this response:

Those who know, will know.