10
10
The Astro-Wagon: Part One
Gary is eight.
Gary loves his wagon.
His wagon is red.
It has four wheels and a long black handle.
There is a long white stripe on the side.
Gary pulls his wagon around the house.
Gary pulls the wagon down the sidewalk.
Gary often sits under the tree with his wagon and dreams of being an astronaut.
Gary has a GI Joe.
His name is Buzz.
He is an astronaut GI Joe.
Gary has been friends with Buzz for a long time.
Often Gary and Buzz ride in the wagon.
They go to the moon.
They zoom through the asteroids.
Gary and Buzz like to have lunch on the moons of Jupiter.
In the winter time the wagon stays in the garage.
But in the spring his mom washes the wagon.
His dad greases the wheels.
And Gary oils the handle.
And then Gary and Buzz blast off for adventure.
9
9
Now wait a moment here! Who was that? There’s nothing in here about waiting, and that sounded damn close to philosophy. I said there were rules here, and there bloody well will be. I will not tolerate this type of anarchy. Will I not!
There will be no outsiders intruding in the narrative. No petty dictators-in-waiting to override my Triple O status. I say who speaks and who does not. And I will get to the bottom of this, yes I will indeed. Let’s see, according to my script we have, well, me. That’s important to establish, and we damned well did. Didn’t we?
Ah yes, there’s the old sod – I will have you know I argued strenuously against including him but was overruled. But there he is and we mustn’t ’fiddle’ with the author’s intentions. Mustn’t we?
Gareth, yes; the beaver, unfortunately; bunny, yes, although he isn’t listed as Edward–must have been a late revision; and of course… ah, yes, mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. That would be a tragic misuse of narratorial powers. Wouldn’t it?
But, no, not here, dammit, how about… no, no, NO, NOT THERE EITHER! Who’s been screwing with the text? I demand to know. There WILL be rules! I demand an accounting for this outrageous deviation from the plan!
… … ….
So, that’s it, is it? Silence. I am to be thwarted? We will see about that.
Eh-hem, khem. This story is NOW about a small lad named Gary who has a red wagon and loves his GI Joe astronaut.
Let us begin:
8
8
After breakfast Gareth waited for his tea to steep. Boiling water, loose black tea, clay mug, wait for exactly 5 minutes.
The zen of waiting.
Man (and woman) is a creature of habit. The schedules of sun and moon, winter and summer, have become the daytimers and computerized reminders of modern humanity. Waiting has grown to massive proportions in response to this net of time and action.
But waiting is not a natural phenomenon.
Hirsute cave dwellers scratching their coarse behinds acted. They waited only for what would eventually be known as acts of god, but for little else. In fact, according to some Ancientologists, the first definition of god was “He who makes me wait.” They did so grudgingly, thus forevermore establishing the odd nature of the relationship between gods and followers. “I obey, but I resent having to obey. But I obey. See, this is me obeying. But I’m happy. See. Oh, and by the way, can you make the cave elk visit our neck of the woods while I wait? Only seem fair… ”
The new gods are our clocks and computers and day books and spouses. These are the modern phenomena that make it impossible to eliminate the concept of time and its outcome, waiting. Time is such an arbitrary thing. Why this month I exist at the same time as Saskatoonian Manfred Wolinksi and then suddenly next month he and I will no longer occupy the space time and would, if we happened to meet, be separated by an hour-long continuum gap. Make it ridiculously hard to have a conversation if I do say so myself. And yet we all accept this as normal.
Every morning hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people get in their cars and rush to and from for 20 minutes all trying to get to the office by 8. Why? Because our “gods” say works starts at 8, or 9, or even noon. At 8:05 the streets are practically empty. But do sensible people start work at 8:14? Or 9:07? Or even 12:22? No. And why not? Because the religion we’ve built around wanting to wait has one basic tenet: Go forth and make things as hard as possible on as many people as possible.
And then wait.
For the tea.
For exactly 5 minutes.
7
7
Edward is a bunny. He walks like a bunny. He hops like a bunny. He even talks like a bunny. Which is why he thought it particularly curious when the beaver pointed out to him the obvious: that he pooped like a bunny. It had been many years since that odd occurrence, but it still stuck with Edward.
Often, when the days were slow and lazy like this particular day, Edward would stretch out, hind legs splayed behind and forelegs thrust to the front, and ponder the possible meanings of what was, on the surface, an obvious observation. So obvious in fact that it must have a deep and Nietzschean-level philosophical intent.
The beaver in question had been, after all, not your ordinary beaver. For one thing he talked, and quite clearly, despite the enormous handicap of overly large incisors. A talking beaver must certainly be something of note. For another he was wandering through what could only be classified as an urban centre. Beavers, outside of the occasional gentleman’s hat, were not found in urban centres. It just wasn’t done. Bunnies, cats, the occasional coyote and once a moose of particular note, yes; but beavers were not fast enough, large enough or handsome enough to be allowed to roam freely in and amongst the general populace.
As a corollary to that, the beaver didn’t seem out of place. In fact he seemed quite at ease and was by and large ignored as he waddled his away across the square to the tree where Edward was enjoying the comings and goings of folk. Beavers were said to be high strung at the best of times, so a calm, talking beaver waddling through city central was definitely a figure to stick in the average bunny’s mind. And it had.
It had been many years and quite a few miles since the incident in question. Edward was nothing if not peripatetic. And nocturnal. And a bit of a narcissist. All of which to say that the beaver episode was more properly thought of as a distant event and not at all pertinent to this particular sunny morning in this particular park.
A twitch of his ears and and a shiver that started at his nose and quickly rippled down the length of his snowy white body until it shuddered off his thick furry toes, and Edward hopped to his feet and headed for the market. It was Wednesday, market day in the quad off the park, and Edward had things to do.
At the edge of the grassy area Edward paused. And pooped.
6
6
That morning, as the sun moved slowly across the hardwood floor, the beaver snuggled into his beloved lemon and dreamed the dreams of the virtuous.
Gareth mused to himself, ”I have always loved the light in this apartment.” Barefoot he walked across the floor and stood watching the golden ray of light that illuminated the dust particles floating in the air. They danced. There really was no other word to describe the intricate swooping and swirling.
“It really is one of those little everyday miracles, isn’t it,” he murmured to himself.
“Well, time to get this day started,” he declared to the empty apartment.
Gareth wandered toward the kitchen with a side glance at the stubby little Meyers Lemon in the corner.
“A pity,” he thought, “that plant never has bloomed. Must not be enough light in here. Sure would be nice to see a lemon or two, though.” Upon receiving the lemon, Gareth had looked it up. Supposedly it would produce a few lemons each year with very little maintenance, but he had long ago decided he was cursed with a black thumb.
Looking back at the living room from the kitchen counter, he pondered the ball of fur and whiskers folded around the lemon’s pot. “I still don’t get that beaver,” he thought. “I wonder what his name is…”
Gareth grabbed a few eggs, some green onions and the tub of margarine and proceeded to scramble up some breakfast, for the thousandth time putting the enigma of the beaver out of his mind. Time enough for that later. There’s always time enough.
5
5
Gareth and the beaver had an odd relationship. Neither liked the other much, but they had gradually developed a sort of symbiosis. The beaver had a particular interest in things like that. As a young kit, he had been fascinated with things like symbiotic relationships and their companion concepts like antagonism, commensalism and mutualism. He hadn’t yet arrived at a place where he was willing to commit, but there was time. There was nothing but time.
It was true that the beaver missed the pond. It was equally true that Gareth refused to flood the apartment. These things being true the beaver had decided that he would wait until the nature of their interaction had been more clearly defined before taking any sort of action. After all it seemed to him that if Gareth woke up one morning floating like a waterlogged tuber in what had previously been his immaculate bedroom, the relationship might be tilted a bit prematurely to something not unlike parasitism.
And of course there was that lemon tree in the living room to consider. True, it was small and not yet even a proper snack, but the beaver could smell the potential and, as it has been noted, the beaver was patient to a fault. Still, the beaver spent many a pleasant hour lying in the dappled light the half-meter tall Meyer lemon afforded, imaging the rough texture of that lightly scented bark sliding against his teeth and the first taste of heart wood as he slowly and delicately cleaved that delicious morsel of a shrub into tiny, tiny pieces.
Really the only downside of the whole experience vis a vis the wondrous lemon was its stupid predilection for making those stinky flowers. It was a cause of not inconsiderable annoyance each and every time the beaver was forced to nip the buds before they blossomed. They tasted bad. Waxy and sickly sweet. And in the process of deflorinating the soon-to-be-succulent snack, he often got a taste of the tender branch that had produced the flower. A tantalizing, almost irresistible taste. How anyone expected him to maintain his decorum in the face of such temptation was beyond him. It was only the aftertaste of the flower that had allowed him to develop some Pavlovian resistance to the urge to eat now, regret later.
Gareth for his part, was indifferent to all this, or so the beaver had always assumed.
4
4
God, I’m thirsty. I really need to do something about that disgusting mess in the sink. Ah, just a sip to start the engines running. Just…
What? The dream… I remember something. From the dream. I think… I… Yes. Yes! Just turn that bit like so. YES! YES!
It is done.
God, I need a drink.
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RANDOM CHARACTER GENERATOR
Version 4.2b. (c) 1983 Acme Incorporated
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START UP SEQUENCE INITIATED
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ACCESSING MAIN SUBROUTINES …
ACCESSING HISTORICAL DATABASES …
ACCESSING PRIMARY LOGIC TREES …
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INPUT SEQUENCE INITIATED
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NUMBER OF CHARACTERS: 1
CATEGORY: general
SEX: male
SPECIALIZATION: athletics
***INPUT SEQUENCE COMPLETE***
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OUTPUT SEQUENCE INITIATED
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STRENGTH: 12.5
INTELLIGENCE: 16.3 2+
WISDOM: TBD
AGILITY: 8.3
NAME: Gareth
PERSONALITY: self-everything
AGE: 17
EQUIPMENT: clothes, hat, boots, another hat
SPECIAL ITEMS: beaver
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES: allergic to hats
**OUTPUT SEQUENCE COMPLETE***
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WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
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HIBERNATION MODE CORRUPT
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
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Acme Incorporated advises you to maintain
a 1000m distance from this device.
This is your final warning.
Acme Incorporated will not be liable for any
damages to exposure to alcohol or cat dander.
FINAL WARNING INITIATED
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RANDOM CHARACTER GENERATOR
Version 4.2bBbBb. (c) 0000 Acme Inc.
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3
3
Day one. The infernal machine isn’t working. I dreamt I had it all up and running last night, so obviously I assumed that today would be the day. I hate fate.
Still, obligations are obligations and the show must go on and once more unto the breach and all that nonsense. I suppose if I spend another hour or so and a snifter or two tinkering, no could blame me. After all it’s the effort you put in, not the goals that you achieve that count. And I suppose the fun you have along the way.
Of course none of the glasses are clean again. I really must do something about getting some help around here. Maybe they could help with the machine too. That’s the ticket: a warm body to tidy up, keep the snifter full and deliver a whack or two to that miserable hunk of junk. Now where is that bottle?
I simply adore this chair. The light is right, the view sublime and it is to comfort what a mediocre bottle of Californian Pinot is to a 78 Romanée Conti. In fact, sitting really reminds of that summer in Bourgogne. Of course that might be the smell of spilled wine. Ha. Still, a moment here won’t be wasted. After all the machine isn’t going anywhere, more’s the pity. Another splash, I think.
I suppose I could do something about that; who’s to notice? The wretched thing has been forgotten by everyone else. No one has asked about it in years. It just sits there, mocking my efforts, unmanning me at its convenience. Well, at least I don’t have to dust it. Whatever those vibrations are, they certainly keep it polished up nicely; plays hell with my decanters, though. Too bad, it would make a lovely end table.
Ah, that’s nice. I always did pity those unfortunates who couldn’t bring themselves to step up and acquire the good stuff. Life’s too short. Better to drink today than drown tomorrow… Must remember that one, sounds profound without committing myself to any real philosophy. Wouldn’t do to be labeled at my age now, would it.
Still, I suppose that we all have our prices to pay. And right now it’s that misbegotten hunk of whatever sitting right there in my sitting room, like it belongs there instead of in whatever bizarre vortex it manifested itself from. A plague on me. A plague on my family. A plague of unimaginable proportions, and someone else should be dealing with this. I have no idea what I ever did to deserve it. Where is that miserable bottle? Ridiculous situation. Simply untenable and ridiculous.
Still. Keeps me in refreshments. At least for the nonce. And the chair is comfortable. And the light, so warm, comfortable indeed.
###
2
2
Ahem. I assure you that, as an introduction, that one applies mostly to the previous “narrator” and not to myself. And frankly, while I wouldn’t want it to get around, I’m a bit offended that they let such an unobservant fellow into the narrator’s role, even as a mere meta-narrator. Disgraceful conduct and not even clever. Someone should do something, really they should. Shouldn’t they.
Now, where was I? Ah, did that, won’t do that, like that, but let’s save it for later… So, there’s this bit, this bit and… Yes.
Well then, our exposition, story, narrative, what have you, needs a beginning. Now, one might think the beginning has necessarily begun as we are well into the filling of the page, but let me assure you, it most assuredly has not. These things need structure and precision, and without proper beginnings they are just so much twiddle and twaddle. So you begin to see my role. I am here as a gentle and kind moderator of truth and stylistic integrity. I shall bring morality to this little exercise and gently and lovingly keep all on the side of propriety. In other words, I am the path and all shall follow my direction lest they stray into the deep, dark, fearsome and inevitably soul-destroying woods. And no one would want that. Would they.
So, shall we discuss some rules? For while I embrace freedom and liberty, open-mindedness and the inevitable triumph of truth and forthrightness, I do think we need a bushel or so of carrots and perhaps a cord or three of sticks to help things along the way. I’ve heard of characters and plots and such that eschew such things as frivolous, but we all know a bit of the social grease is necessary if we’re to get along. Don’t we.
Then to begin with. No foreign languages. I find them pretentious and exclusionary. While Mr. Pound may be in the business of deciding who is and who is not worthy, I prefer to leave that to the good graces of the audience. And speaking of that, the correct use of capitalization. While I recognize the contribution of the cummings and goings, I don’t find the pretension worth the Nichol. Oh, and as for bad jokes, weak referential humour and even worse writing, well I’m afraid that’s just the price we must be willing to pay. Mustn’t we.
Comedy is excess. Deus ex machina is in, happy endings are a positive thing, references to human suffering, poverty and the unbearable are to be kept in check, and there will be absolutely no aliens. None. We all agree -isms and -ists are out except as foils, there will be no philosophies, theories or epiphanies, and pontificating, erudition, proselytizing, and/or use of the soapbox will be held to be ridiculous, fantastic or simply misplaced and misinformed. Unless, of course they fall under the Narrator’s purview, because we all understand there must be some authority. Don’t we.
And now we must set the scene. I have a small basket of odds and ends here. Let me see… Poops like a bunny? Oh-Grrr the Ogre? Why Dragons breathe like anyone else? Or maybe a retelling of Shakespeare’s greatest tales from the point of view of a space-traveling, rock-climbing dirtbagger with literary aspirations?
Or maybe…
$$$
1
1
In the beginning there was light. The overwhelming brightness of a glowing computer screen blasting out photons and mocking the void that was creativity.
An empty page, a data-less file, a freshly scraped hide, a dark and dank cave wall dripping with guano and the droppings of tiny, unseen but hideous manifestations of our imaginations; for millennia the ache of nothingness has infected the ebb and flow of the narrative with nothing and no one to stem the tide. And then, one day, during one small but painfully bright moment, there came into the genre: the narrator.
Our narrator, who I assure you squirms anxiously in the wings, awaiting his moment, yet dreading the soon-to-be-crushing weight that this momentary pause holds at bay, is not the threadbare, anemic sort of narrator that has been so common of late; indeed this narrator is fully endowed with the sacraments of the three O’s. as omniscient as the dungeon master settling in to massacre and torment his unknowing party of adventurers; as omnipresent as that itch that inevitably accompanies the rash you picked up last weekend but have no recollection just how it came to reside in such an odd place on your body; and as omnipotent as the eccentric film director whose epiphanaic moment of self-aggrandizement has finally led him to the ultimately self-destuctive conclusion of “Ending-schmending, I shall create multiple endings! And there shall be no ending for tiny insignificants that are waiting, never to be satiated. Ah, ha ha haaaa!”
Our narrator. Not tall of stature, but stout and righteous. Neither arrogant nor megalomaniacal but sure in himself and of unshakable faith. Possessed of little arrogance, not desirous of power, yet a creature of tiny twists and turns of mythical proportion and a manipulator of Byzantine complexities. Our narrator awaits, stage right.
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