Idiomocracy

Marlow first manifested as a toddler.

He would walk around the house, pointing at things, and say, “Zzhoo,” which we quickly learned meant “Door.” If Terra or I, or even his six-year-old sister, confirmed that it was a door, it would be one. It didn’t matter that the original object had been a shoe, or a box, or a lego, it would become a door. (We almost lost a cat this way, but fortunately Marlow knew how to sign the word for cat so was able to transform the poor tabby back before fungibility was lost.)

Marlow died as a teen – it is rare for the most powerful wizards to reach adulthood. (He did go out in a blaze of glory, however. All of the women in our village still remember the date of his disappearance with a wicked smile on their faces. Davinia, his special crush, still bears children with freckles and a nose that bears an uncanny resemblance to Marlow’s own. Three men have departed despite her cries of unwavering fidelity.) Despite our family’s best efforts, he left behind a house full of doors.

It was years later, after we’d become grandparents twice over, that Terra and I started opening the doors. Most rooms were empty, but occasionally we’d find an earring or something else we’d lost many years ago. It became a game for us. We kept score based on who found the most interesting objects. It was Terra who opened the door that contained the mounds of keys, and put the score forever out of my reach.

That door had originally been a shoe, I am certain.

In the hills of Southern Oklahoma, there was a black spot in the middle of an Oak grove. It was no wider than the width of a tall man’s stride, an imperfect circle on the face of the Earth, like a pox or a mump. Hovering around three degrees Kelvin, it supported no life, not even in its brown, fertile earth. Frogs had gone into hybernation beneath the loam before the sun stopped striking the spot; they were dead now. Even the gentle spring breeze shied away.
Doreen had stumbled upon the spot by accident, one bright afternoon much like this one. Crying had blurred her eyes so she almost stepped into it, but the hairs on her bruised arms had stood up and she’d thrown herself aside at the last possible moment. Rising, beating crinkly oak leaves off her skirt, she’d felt the weight of the injured world descend upon her shoulders. Then through the weight of tears, her eyes narrowed. She shrugged free.
Lonnie had never had it so good. Doreen brought him his beers, she cooked him grease pats just as he liked them without a fuss. When she brushed the hair back from her eyes and smiled, she almost looked pretty, he reckoned. She even came to him willingly, bending her lips to his satisfaction. He only slapped her the once, on her fleshy flank just because he liked the feel of her flesh on the pads of his fingers.
Then she stopped. “Come with me, honey,” she said, rubbing her sore jaw. “You ever done it in the woods, baby?.”
“Now why would I do a fool thing like that? Here is fine.” After, it would be about time he saw the boys. A game of pick-up was in order on a fine day like this one was turning out.
She laughed, like she had when they first dated. She ran out the door. “Try it, you’ll like it.”
“I’ll get you, Doreen!” He followed her through a narrow path between trees. “Come here, you.” He reached out for her, but she evaded his grasp. “Here we are. In nature. Are you satisfied? Let’s us finish what we started.” He put on a final sprint to catch that filly, and make her pay.
Doreen jumped to the side.
Lonnie flew past. The first thing he felt was an unnatural chill. The rush of moisture escaping his body ripped at his skin. He screamed as his eyes popped free. “Why?” he managed a garbled cry.
Doreen stood staring long after Lonnie was an unrecognizable spot. She bit her lower lip. When the tears began, she honestly didn’t know whether they were for joy or sorrow.

Hey. Looky Here. Idiomocracy is on hiatus. The Author had a baby. Yep, a real live one. And a new job - one that pays the mortgage. He'll be back. Or decide that Idiomocracy is not the best way to continue his development as a writer. Stay tuned (if you ever were). There'll be things happening...

The early bird gets the worm

Some birds favor worms, others aspire to greater dreams. Don’t discount the importance of knowing what you want.

Take for example the Spaceship Tweedle-Dee of the intergalacticon and its competitor, the wild-ranging Tweedlelee-Dum. The crew of the Dee, as I shall henceforth call it, woke early each morning, pressed their uniforms to a starch factor of nine, then set out in search of the Great Worm, the mysterious creature known to old salty spacefarers, but never documented to exist.

The Dee’s did this every intergal day for nigh on seventeen years. Until at last even Captain Stiffneck didn’t believe that he’d ever catch his quarry. In fact, he suspected the Worm was some sort of mass hallucination brought on by overexposure to the hypnotic distortions of hyper travel.

He hated his job, hated that the Dum had been following him just out of range for several months. And, frankly, he missed Earth. All he wanted was to sit in his dinghy, pole in hand (worm dangling on the end of it, of course. Who trusted those newer-fangled plastic baits?), beer in the other, and fish. Another month, and he would earn his retirement. His boat awaited.

Stiffneck adjusted his tie in the mirror. He would tolerate no slackness in his crew, not even himself. If they were to find the Worm, it may be early this morning as well as any other.

Striding crisply onto the bridge, he called out, “Let’s get moving, men. Find us a worm, perhaps in the nebula.”

The Dee zipped into the nebula. Before it could get far, a worm emerged and swallowed it whole. The Dum followed in, disappearing into the space cavern from which the worm had come.

The early bird may get the worm, but the tardy bird will get the wormhole.

You can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds

Your fellow hounds will invite you to come hunting – they always do, they’re an inclusive crowd. But that don’t mean you can do it.

See, you’ll all be slinking along, head low to the ground, butt up in the air, wiggling, looking for the opportunity to pounce or sprint off in headlong pursuit. But then, the lead dog will raise its snout, wrinkling it, and glance around. He’ll have caught a whiff of your scent. The sweet hossenfeffer smell of wabbit, mixed in from the fun of sprinting with your loppy-eared bud.

Don’t stew on the injustice of it all. Run! Run like the hares taught you, but faster. And, whatever you do, don’t run towards your friend hare’s hovel. Running with the hare got you into this predicament in the first place. Running towards the hare will guarantee you a remaining lifetime of running alone.

Running away from the memories of friends who’ve turned on you and the friend they ate. As you watch their muzzles stain red with the blood of friendship betrayed, you’ll know the worst feeling of all: wishing the one they munched was you.

You can't have your cake and eat it too

Some cakes are imaginary. Most often wedding cakes. They have five layers, or maybe even seven. Icing lies in rich swirls, suggesting the motion of waves. Don’t worry about being skimpy; this is your day. On each level, the wave crests over the edge, poised on the brink of falling, but held on through the magic of supersaturated sugar solutions.

And your man – well; he’s perfect. Suave and dashing and considerate and attentive. All those imaginary qualities rolled into one tall, but not too tall, gentlefellow. And those dreamy eyes. They’re just for you.

The band hits a perfect rendition of Beethoven’s ninth. The conductor, his wild fly away hair. That look of possession in his eyes. Hey, you call out at the top of your lungs. Everyone turns. Everyone but him. A deaf conductor? Whoever heard of such a thing? You shrug. Why not?

The cake is sliced. Your dream man holds up a piece, showing you the luminescent yellow inside, and raises it towards your lips. Before he can smear it across your face, you grab it. Such perfect cake is not to be wasted. Nor should the slightest morsel mar your impeccable skin. Pinky raised, you take a dainty bite. Delightful! It tastes like the perfect approximation of air. You don’t even need to chew. Or swallow.

You can have this cake, this zero calorie delight. But if you plan to eat, go for something real: chocolate with a messy fudge frosting. And nuts, loud crumbly nuts. You’ll be glad you did.

A word to the wise is sufficient

Oh, to be a wise. It would be fine to discern from a single word all the nuanced meaning that most others need a thousand words—or a single picture—to perceive.

When the word was passed down from on high, for the wise it was sufficient. They immediately commenced following not only the letter, but also the spirit, of holy law. Both of them became very noble beings indeed.
I’ve oft wondered how much of a picture would be enough for the wise. Would they need an outline, or the merest corner? A pixel, perhaps? By some sort of reverse fractal process, they’d perceive the entirety of the tale from a mere dot of red or puce or magenta.

Imagine what it must be like to live at such a hyper state of awareness. When sitting in a coffeehouse, a wise might overhear snatches of dozens of conversations, a word here a word there, maybe a stray phrase. For the rest of us, this is enticing, a tantalizing almost glimpse into the lives of near-neighbors. Perfect strangers.

For the wise, the experience would be quite different. Each snippet would reveal a whole other world, complete with feelings, work undone, loves unspoken. They may hear, “…walking to the zoo…” and know the speaker was heartbroken by her unrequited love for her doorman, suffers horrible asthma, and only takes her nephew to the zoo so she won’t feel pathetic indulging her obsession for otters, who are as cute as she always imagined her and the doorman’s children would be. Which is quite a bit cuter than the snot-nosed brat her brother foisted onto an unprepared world.

Most of the wise live in mental institutions, with white noise piped in to block out all other sound. No wonder.