#15 – A Fairy Tale Love Story, Sorta

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

This is the story of Forrester Zyme – accused of committing a frivolous crime. Yet his faux pas produced a grief so sublime he was able to see truth for the very first time.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the most repentant of tones, though his statement was met with dismissive groans. “To prove it to you,” he glanced to Mick Jones, “I shall donate my body, and start with the bones.”

“You can’t do that!” laughed Mary Lou Ross, cradling a doll; body covered in moss. She’d applied rouge to the doll, gave her lips a bright gloss, then fastened a beard of embroidery floss. 

Forrester’d never seen such a peculiar doll and wondered by what name Mary Lou did call… her. She smiled at him, leaned against the wall, then said to him boldly, “With no bones, you will fall.” 

“Donate your body to what?” asked old Mick, finishing the question with an odd-sounding click. “Donating your bones sounds downright sick. What you should really donate is your worthless, old…”  

“Mick!” scolded Cassie, a graduate from Vassar who received the stink eye from Mick as he passed her. Cassie looked ominous, hair slick with maccasar; nobody told her it looked a disaster. 

When Mick came to town she’d been overjoyed, now he slept on her couch broke and underemployed. Her youth and her beauty, long since destroyed, she often felt chained to this human hemorrhoid. 

“Watch how you speak around young Mary Lou!” she yelled as Mick flipped her the bird, bid adieu. Cassie turned to Forrester, his eyes sparkled blue. He glanced at Mary Lou, his expression anew.  

“Without my bones, you say I’ll collapse.” She nodded and said, “Between your muscles, only gaps.”Outside he heard three rolling thunderclaps. “Should I change my plan then?” She shrugged. “Perhaps.”

So Forrester Zyme reversed his set course and for his donation, he found a new source. He kept his bones and instead reinforced an abiding importance of love, kindness, and resource… fulness.

“For so long I’ve been a selfish taker, a snollygoster, mooncalf, and a first-rate faker. But now my values will be that of a Quaker,” he said in a speech he gave at Cook’s Acre. 

The picnic that day was the grandest affair. Forrester made sure Mary Lou would be there. The smell of sweet jasmine filled the air and Cassie wore earrings and jewels in her hair. 

Cassie neared Forrester and pulled him aside. Mary Lou followed, loyalty bonafide. “It’s great you’re taking this all in great stride. But come with me now. Let’s take a ride.”

The trio departed from Cook’s Acre gala and headed to Cassie’s sky-blue Impala. “What I’m about to say may seem a mere falla… cy,” she began as they drove past Red Calla.

“The crime you committed was far from hideous, and those who disagree are simply idiots. Our neighbors’ poor reaction makes me pity us. Picking flowers is hardly insidious!”

He looked to Mary Lou who clearly agreed. “I know for a fact that flowers don’t bleed. Donating your bones would have been a nice deed, but they really are something you very much need.”

Forrester felt the warmth of their love; Cassie, Mary Lou and a little white dove who’d descended from the bright skies high above to land softly upon his freshly pressed glove. 

He would bid farewell to the Quaker life, keep all his bones and make Cassie his wife! With Mary Lou’s laughter, the joy would be rife. Hell, he’d finally learn how to play the fife. 

The world seemed suddenly fair and right. At long last he had completed his plight. With the three of them he would be alright, his life filled with nothing but sheer delight. 

Then a dark character straight out of Scorsese entered the scene, shook his head, and said, “Crazy. To think flowers don’t hurt or bleed is just lazy.” The voice belonged to one rebel daisy. 

“How could you be so obviously dafter!” he yelled before getting blown sky high off a rafter. No one heard him over all of the laughter and Forrester lived happily ever after. 

*(No excerpts this week)

#14 – And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged,

(EXT. PAN ACROSS OVERWHELMINGLY VERDANT NOOK IN A FOREST)

VOICE OVER ANNOUNCER: Deep in the woods where weird plants and even weirder fungi call the shots, a yearly forum on the impact of climate change is held. In the past, it was a largely casual affair. Except for the year when Rachel Carson promised to drop in for a cameo appearance (FLASH TO FOOTAGE OF PARACHUTER DROPPING INTO WOODS) and the enterprising flora served canapés and petit fours, there was typically little to no fanfare. This year, that all changed when a very… confident… voice rang out from the podium at the beginning of the event. It was the voice of none other than rebel daisy.

(EXT. WOODS, A SMALL DAISY STANDS AT A MAKESHIFT PODIUM PASSIONATELY GESTICULATING AND OCCASIONALLY SPINNING AROUND FOR REASONS UNKNOWN)

(VO) ANNOUNCER: Who is rebel daisy, you ask? Well, it should first be noted that rebel daisy is… a fella. Just like his father and grandfather (FLASH TO IMAGES OF FATHER AND GRANDFATHER) before him. No gender fluidity there. (light laughter before returning to serious tone) A bright white flower with a yellow face that gives the impression of a prolonged case of jaundice, rebel daisy is the planet’s ultimate sponsor – a title he, and he alone, has bestowed upon himself. rebel daisy prides himself on having no roots. He stylishly dons a pair of jeans and army boots as though in a cologne commercial (BRIEF FLASH TO ANY OVER-THE-TOP COLOGNE COMMERCIAL FOOTAGE) and travels freely without dependence on bees, the wind, or the feces of a creature to carry his seed. While he considers himself a real lady’s man, this point is… widely disputed (FLASH TO SERIES FLOWERS SHAKING THEIR HEADS ‘NO.’) As another component of his rebellious spirit, rebel daisy never capitalizes his name and chastises anyone who does. This isn’t always well-received, as there is, I think we can all agree, already enough chastising to go around (FLASH TO SERIES OF BLOWHARD POLITICIANS). Even so, he is… somewhat at least… respected at the forest floor level. Which is saying something. Though what that is, nobody knows for sure. Whatever the case, rebel daisy took it upon himself to organize the entire event this past year from beginning to end without accepting help from anybody else. In a planning feat that he called ‘nothing short of a miracle’ but that others labeled ‘aggressively floral,’ he promised a keynote speaker who spoke with such caramel-coated elegance that the attendees would “wet themselves” – which in plant speak means something a little different than in human speak. He was, of course, referring to himself. And did he deliver? Let’s just say that the jury is still out. Which, unfortunately, we mean literally. 

BRIEF INTERIOR SHOT OF JURY BOX FULL OF POTTED PLANTS

EXTERIOR SHOT OF WOODS, rEBEL dAISY AT PODIUM

(VO) ANNOUNCER: The event began smoothly enough with rebel daisy at the podium delivering his opening statement. He went on to share some juicy morsels about how the same sun shines on each of us and how life unfolds in a growing spiral. The audience seemed moved. Even the late-blooming squash began to extend herself over the ground (FLASH TO MOTIONLESS SQUASH). rebel daisy then went on to share a very long series of what he called climate change haikus.

EXT. CLOSE UP SHOT OF rEBEL dAISY

rEBEL DAISY: (takes deep breath and stares up at the sky)

cicadas love song

floats through Asian town before

cyclone flattens it

(rebel daisy shifts from one foot to the other and takes another deep breath while shifting focus to ground)

winding canyon road           

calm, peaceful, then swallowed by   

earthquake and mudslide

(rebel daisy takes an extreme dramatic pause that should be edited for the sake of the production but won’t be and extends arms out wide)

postcard beach day                   

all is quiet as Earth winks                   

the hurricane’s eye

(VO) ANNOUNCER: While many found the haikus… well, relevant at least … they began to take an ugly turn when rebel daisy unexpectedly used them as a platform to air grievances about a Black-Eyed Susan who’d done him wrong and a Forget-Me-Not he’d rather not remember. (FLASH TO FOOTAGE OF rEBEL dAISY NOW GESTICULATING MADLY) Soon, he was degrading the moral fabric of any plant that, when viewed under a microscope, was made up of tiny six-sided polygons. That was the final straw. Chaos ensued. (FLASH TO MONTAGE OF CHAOS-RELATED SCENARIOS SUCH AS TORNADOS, FLOODS, BOOK-BURNING EVENTS, ETC.) rebel daisy was escorted from the podium by a security detail consisting of three shrews. He spewed shrew-specific slurs, accusing them and others, including a handful of flowers, of being anthophobic. Often a victim of his rage… which he conveniently refers to as passion… he kicked one of the shrews with his steel-toed boots. (FLASH TO MOMENT OF rEBEL dAISY KICKING SMALL SHREW WHILE OTHER TWO SHREWS GRAB HIM AND HOLD HIM DOWN) Unfortunately, the injured shrew pressed charges and now rebel daisy awaits trial from his cell at the notorious and deadly Nightshade Prison. All of this begging the question: What will happen to the self-professed sponsor for the planet Earth? Stay tuned… 

*(modified excerpts from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer) 

#13 – The Unlucky One

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged,

Prentice, who did not believe in karma, was quite certain he was being duped. But the guys had gone to all this effort so he played along.

“Hey! I think this hand you dealt me was meant for the guy before me,” he said to one of his fraternity brothers who was calling himself ‘the entity’ as a part of the game. “Or maybe it was meant for the guy after me?”

“Hush!” scolded the entity, who was responsible for doling out the cards. “This hand ‘tis yours,” he said with a low and thunderous roll. Impressive, thought Prentice. I can’t even figure out who that is. I wonder how he did that with his voice.  

“Alright, already,” Prentice sighed, rolling his eyes. His body was tingling, probably from all the drinking the night before. The party had been epic. What he remembered of it. “I get it. You’re in charge here,” he said, holding up finger quotes on the word ‘in charge.’ “Higher up on the food chain and all that.” He swung his heavy head to the side, then looked back at the entity. “I feel like the ’tis is a bit much though.” He paused. “’Tis a bit much.”

To which the entity rolled his eyes. Or his version of eyes, at least, as Prentice couldn’t decipher any defined facial features. It was a strange costume. “Move it along,” the entity said, pointing toward an unfamiliar gangway coming off the common area of the frat house. Goddam, he thought. These guys really pulled out all the stops. 

He prepared to protest, but as the tingling in his body subsided, he felt it replaced with a heaviness. He was tired and tongue-tied and his mouth no longer wanted to form words. There was no point in protesting anyhow. He understood that he was to do what the entity asked of him – his personal feelings about his highfalutin speech notwithstanding. 

Even so, Prentice managed to mumble ’tis ’tis ’tis mockinglyas he loafed up the gangway. At its end, he came upon a convex metal door with a filthy wooden door knob promising a colorful variety of communicable diseases. 

“What the hell?” Prentice thought. He wasn’t responding to the door though. Rather, when he reached down to use his signature cardigan sweater as a protective measure against the bacterial breeding ground of a doorknob, he noticed it was gone. Not the doorknob, but his sweater. 

And his arms.

How’d they pull that one off? he wondered. Increasingly confused and bewildered, he slumped down against the wall for a moment. He could admit that he wasn’t feeling great. Not out loud, of course. He still couldn’t talk. And there was no one there to hear him anyhow. Overtaken by exhaustion, he sunk lower to the ground and tried to make sense of what was happening.

He flashed back to being fifteen years old and in his childhood bedroom. It was early morning and the window glowed with a pale rose light from the red dogwood tree. He’d heard the sound of their neighbor’s rooster, Frank, making a ruckus. “What the hell!?” he’d said, as he got up to go to the window. At the time, Prentice had had every reason to be alarmed. He’d thought he was losing his mind because he was certain he’d killed Frank the night before. He’d sprinkled his feed with rat poison so the “little bastard would stop waking him up every morning.”

It wasn’t that bad, he’d assured himself. His father had always bragged about his own teenage escapades. He loved to tell the tale of being responsible for the care of a neighbor’s kitten when he, himself, was fifteen. He thought it would be amusing to lock the young creature in the bathroom with food, a litter box, and plenty of toys. He wouldn’t give it water though. And he kept the toilet lid down. He would visit the kitten every day and was fascinated by how it grew weaker and weaker after just two days. On day three, the kitten died wanting water. When the neighbors returned home, he told the family the kitten had gotten out and ran away. “I put on quite the show,” he bragged. “Tears and everything like a pussy little girl.” In reality, he’d taken the kitten’s limp body and tossed it in the river that ran behind his house; the irony apparently lost on him. “Boys will be boys,” was all his father said. “Harmless good fun.” 

All I did was poison a stupid bird, Prentice had thought to himself – though he wasn’t even sure he’d done that. Because there was Frank, cockadoodledooing his heart out. He’d pondered the possibility that Frank could have been replaced and was appalled by the notion that his neighbors could be so callous and unfeeling as to simply swap him out for another rooster. 

There was no way for him to be certain. Memories of the night before were foggy. His parents had hosted yet another of their high-society parties where the main point, from what Prentice could tell, was to be seen. Like all of the other parties, it had been a terrible bore where he was largely ignored. It was, however, an endless source of alcohol and he had the headache to prove it. As he stood by the window watching the sun crawl up higher in the sky, the sound of glasses being placed unceremoniously into the cupboard reached him from the kitchen as ‘the help’ did their best to erase any evidence of the event. 

He did remember at one point his newest conquest (an amusing title he preferred over ‘girlfriend’) coming through his bedroom window. She’d been crying and blathering on about something insignificant. He just knew that it was good news for him because he could play on her vulnerability to get some action. This was one of the more valuable pieces of wisdom his father had shared with him. And it was one he’d planned to use to his advantage for the rest of his life. (Unbeknownst to him, it was a life to be cut short by a combination of alcohol poisoning and an angry ex-boyfriend.) 

The sound of the dirty doorknob jiggling on the convex metal door brought him back to the present moment. His fraternity brothers must have figured he’d had enough. As the door slowly creaked open, he crawled along the ground and out into a green space. 

A gigantic child walked up to him and screamed, “Ew! A slug!” then proceeded to squash him under her foot. In the fleeting moments just before, Prentice had a split-second thought that maybe karma was real. 

*(Modified excerpts from The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty)