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Cool Universe II
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Cool Universe II |
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mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
by mirror man Chapter 2 Eventually, all memories of universal threat faded, lost in a maze of natural psychosis, erased in a chaos of green genes struggling to rearrange themselves into something that at least looked normal. And Abnorman slowly learned how to be sane. Which is to say, time passes. However, there were relapses. "Yaaa! There's a big light in the sky!" "That's the sun." "Oh." But generally, it was one long intrepid trek into the great Normality. So it wasn't until he was five years old that he discovered his first, real live, honest to goodness threat to the universe. It was the sound of something scratching on the bedroom walls at night. Scritch, scratch, pitter, patter, scratch. "What's that?" he said, sitting up in bed. "What?" said someone in the dark. It was Too Cool sleeping in the other bed. "I don't know," said Abnorman. Too Cool went back to sleep, and Abnorman lay in the dark, listening. Finally he heard it again. Scritch, scratch. "Hear that?" said Abnorman. "What?" said Too Cool, sitting up also. Pitter, patter, scritch, scratch. "There," said Abnorman. "What's that?" "Oh, that," said Too Cool. "That's the crab monster." "What?" "The crab monster," said Too Cool. "Didn't you know? He's on the other side of the wall, trying to get in." "Is not," said Abnorman. "Sure he is," said Too Cool. "He was living on that desert island, you know, that one with all the scientists and brainy guys. But he ran out of brains to eat. So he came here." "Is not," said Abnorman. "Sure he is," said Too Cool. "Go look for yourself." "No." "Just don't go to the bathroom" said Too Cool. And then he heard the other bed creek from the other side of the room, and Maximum Cool said, "Mice. They're in the walls." And here I find I must digress. The question is: who was Maximum Cool? Scientific explanations aside, the answer lies totally in a proper understanding of Coolness. Without that, one will not understand the rest of the story. Simply put, coolness IS. This is the layman's explanation, and the best that can be done under the circumstances. As for Maximum Cool, he was not Too Cool, and he was not Daddyo, Mama Cool, or Abnorman. He was somewhere in between all that. He drove a cool car with fins and painted fire on the side and loud mufflers. And he wore pants that were always too tight. And his hair was always slicked back into the shape of a bird. And all his babes were cool too. And he was Maximum. Hence, Maximum Cool. So, suffice it to say, Maximum Cool simply was. "Mice?" said Abnorman. "What are they doing in the walls?" "Looking for food," said Maximum Cool. "Now go back to sleep before Daddyo comes in and kills us." This had its desired effect, and they were all quiet for a long time. The last thing they wanted was for Daddyo to wake up, come running into the room at night, in the dark, and kill one of them or maybe all of them. So Abnorman lay in the dark, listening. Mice, he thought. Mikel Mouse. Jelly Mouse. Pixel & Dixel Mouse. Those guys. Cute little fuzzy fellas who made trouble for cool cats and generally had a good time. He didn't know exactly what it was they were doing in the walls, but it seemed harmless enough. Then a thought occurred to him. "Maximum Cool," he said. "Can they get in here?" "Nah," said Maximum Cool. "The walls are made of wood. It'd take `em a year to scratch through. Go to sleep." That sounded good to Abnorman, so he lay back down, listening in the dark until he went to sleep. He learned soon enough that it wasn't cool mice scratching on the walls, it was rats. And the walls were made of plaster board, not wood. And the rats had broken through a sewer pipe that ran under the house; that was how they got into the walls. And if they could scratch their way through a ceramic sewer pipe, they could scratch their way through a plaster wall, no sweat. He didn't know all the details just then, but when he learned there were rats in the walls and not mice, he knew the universe was being threatened once again. Then came the war. Over the next several nights, he observed Daddyo walking back and forth from the master bedroom to the kitchen in the dark. There would be a snap in the kitchen, then grumbling and creaking from the master bedroom, and then stomping of feet and grumbling as he passed by their bedroom door. "Lousy rats," Daddyo would say, turning on the kitchen light. Then there'd be a squeaking of doors being opened, more grumbling, something somewhere would make a loud whoosh! there'd be a thump! and rattle rattle rattle, and then a whump! and then silence as he reset the trap, then more stomping, the kitchen light would go out, and then more grumbling on his way back to bed. "Lousy rats," said Daddyo. This would happen three, four, five times a night. A few times Daddyo forgot to turn on the light before walking into the kitchen. There would be a loud crunch, the light would come on, and then, "Aw, geez!" Then he would go into the bathroom and get something to wipe off the bottom of his shoes with. If he was wearing any. Abnorman knew all about walking into the kitchen at night; you always turned on the light first. This gave the cockroaches a chance to get out of the way. Otherwise, they couldn't see whoever it was that was coming. And whoever it was that didn't turn on the light would invariably step on one, or ten, or a hundred, or whatever. They crunched under cool feet and left little yellow smears on the floor. If a dude didn't wear shoes, the feeling was enough to make him gag. Abnorman always wore shoes. It was one of the basic necessities in the war to save the universe. And it was War! (bang! whoosh! crash! whump! boom! rattle, rattle, all that stuff). It was a pitiless war, a war of endurance and hardship, enough to tax the stamina of even the hardiest shoe-shod soldier of Universal Coolness. So on the third or fourth night, when the first trap went off, Abnorman heard the usual grumbling and creaking form the master bedroom, and then, "Darn rats! I'll never get any sleep!" Mama Cool said something Abnorman couldn't hear, another trap snapped, and Daddyo said, "I'm going back to bed!" And for the rest of the night it was silence, except for the occasional scritch, scratch, pitter, patter, snap, clatter and gasp from the kitchen. In the morning, Mama Cool took half a rat that Daddyo had just handed her, looked it over, made a face, and threw it away as Daddyo reset the traps. "You're going to have to do something about those," she said, pointing to the garbage can. "They're making a terrible stink." Everyone was standing around in the kitchen, observing what had lately become a daily morning ritual: watch Daddyo take dead rats out of the traps, throw the rats away, and reset the traps. It was even better than TV, which, like a lot of things back then, nearly hadn't been invented yet. "We'll bury them out back," said Daddyo. He went down to the basement and came up a few minutes later with four shovels and handed them out. They all took one except Mama Cool, who was making breakfast, and, with the bag of rats, they marched out to the back yard by the shed. Next to the shed was a large patch of ground where they once kept their garden, but which hadn't been doing so well lately. This year, said Daddyo, it might grow something. With the help of the rats. They all started digging. When the hole was big enough, they'd reach into the bag, pull out a rat, two rats, whatever, throw it into the hole, and cover it up. Then they'd start digging a new hole. Abnorman felt good. He was doing his part in the war to save the universe, and he was doing something useful at the same time. Everyone was quiet at first, satisfied in the usefulness of their universal work (digging, that is). But when Too Cool went for the rat bag, Daddyo said, "Wait a minute." Then he walked over to where Too Cool had been digging and said, "Keep digging." "What's wrong with it?" said Too Cool. "It's not deep enough," said Daddyo. "It's a foot deep," said Too Cool. "Then make it two feet," said Daddyo. "Why?' said Too Cool. "It's not like he's gonna go anywhere." "Just do it," said Daddyo. "Aw geez," Too Cool whined. "It should be at least two feet deep," said Daddyo. "Better yet, make it three." "Sheez!" said Too Cool. So everyone dug their holes three feet deep. Abnorman wanted to save the universe very much, yes, just as much as anyone else did, but he didn't know how long a foot was, so he just kept digging. After about two days of digging (or what seemed like two days anyway), he finally dug what he considered a hole deep enough to bury a rat in. He looked at Maximum Cool, who happened to be holding the rat bag, and said, "I'll take a rat." Maximum Cool looked at the hole Abnorman had just dug, and frowned skeptically. "I don't know," he said. "It looks kinda small. I guess you can have half a rat. Here." He held it out to Abnorman by its front paw. Abnorman took it by the other paw and looked it over. It was a real piece of work, this rat was, a puzzle. The head and front legs were still there, but half way to the other end it just stopped in a bloody stump. "Wow," said Abnorman. "That trap must really be strong. It cut clean through him. He's got no heinie." "Nah," said Maximum Cool. "The trap didn't do that. It just broke his neck." Abnorman looked at it again thoughtfully. "Then what happened to the rest of it?" he said. "The other rats," said Maximum Cool with a grin. "They ate it." Yuck! Abnorman quickly dropped it into the hole and wiped his hands on his pants. "Oh yuck! Yuck, yuck, yuck!" "What's all the yucking about?" said Daddyo. "It's just Abnorman," said Maximum Cool. "He wanted to know why there was only half a rat, so I told him." Hee, hee. "They ate his heinie!" said Abnorman. "Hee, hee," said Maximum Cool. "Yeah?" said Daddyo. And so as not to be outdone by any amount of coolness, even by Maximum Cool, added, "But did you tell him why they ate it?" "No," said Maximum Cool, thinking. Daddyo looked at Abnorman, smiled, and said, "They at it because they liked it." Hee, hee, hee. "Oh," said Abnorman. Now that was frightening. Besides disgusting. Then Daddyo walked over and looked down in the hole Abnorman had just dug. It was at least six feet deep. "It's too deep," he said. He looked some more and said, "What's this?" He reached down and pulled something out. It was Sock Monkey. "Sock Monkey!" Abnorman cried, taking him from Daddyo and wiping the dirt off him. "I've been looking all over for you. How'd you get down there?" Maximum Cool and Daddyo just stared. "Wasn't my fault," they said. Sock Monkey didn't speak right away. Then Abnorman looked at Sock Monkey's heinie. There was a big bandage on it. "Oh, what happened to your heinie?" said Abnorman. Sock Monkey grinned something into Abnorman's ear. "Oh," said Abnorman with a nod. "What'd he say?' said Daddyo and Maximum Cool. "He said war is hell," said Abnorman, nodding. "Oh," they said quietly. No one was sure how cool that was. Mostly because it was starting to look like rats were on the wrong side. And at the same time they were defining the cutting edge of coolness. And bringing Sock Monkey into it besides. The ultimate betrayal. So no one said anything, and after a while, they went back to digging holes. But they all made sure they didn't turn their backs on the rat bag. It would be a very strange war. When they got back inside, they all washed up and sat down to breakfast. So did Sock Monkey. "Mmmm!" Abnorman said, sniffing the air hungrily. "Something smells good." "Chicken," said Mama Cool. "Camuffato." "Camuffato?" said Abnorman. That was a new word. He looked at Sock Monkey. "That means spaghetti," said Too Cool, looking like he wished he were somewhere else. Then he looked at Sock Monkey and said, "I can't believe you're eating breakfast with a sock monkey." "Sock Monkey's hungry too. Aren't you," said Abnorman. Sock Monkey grinned into Abnorman's ear. "What'd he say?" said Too Cool. "He said yeah," said Abnorman, nodding. Too Cool looked at Sock Monkey suspiciously and said, "Well okay, as long as he doesn't eat too much." While all this was going on, everyone took their places to eat. Mama Cool, Daddyo, and Maximum Cool all sat at the dinner table in the dining room. Too Cool and Abnorman sat at a small table out in the kitchen. This was how it always was. He never thought about it much, why it was that Too Cool and he sat at a different table than the rest of the family. Until Too Cool brought it up, that is. It was all his fault. Mama Cool took a big plate of chicken and spaghetti out to the dining room, and then, when things were all set there, she came back and did the same for Too Cool and Abnorman. After Mama Cool went back out to join the others, Too Cool grumbled something into his plate. "What'd you say?" said Abnorman. Too Cool looked at him with his head down and said in a low voice, "Why do we always have to eat out here?" Suddenly, Daddyo jumped out of his chair. "I heard that!" he yelled. He had terrific ears, especially when someone said something that wasn't cool. He stomped over to where they were sitting and towered over them. Oh boy. Now they were gonna get it. Too Cool and Abnorman stared up at Daddyo. "What!" said Too Cool in a panic. "I heard what you said!" said Daddyo. "What!" yelled Too Cool. "You asked why you always have to eat out here," said Daddyo, frowning. "No!" said Too Cool, shaking his head. "I didn't say that." "Yes you did," said Daddyo. "I didn't say it," Too Cool squeaked. "Ask him," he said, pointing to Abnorman. Daddyo turned his towering look at Abnorman. Oh boy. "I didn't say it," said Abnorman. "He did," pointing to Too Cool. Sock Monkey pointed too. Daddyo gave a hard stare at Sock Monkey, Abnorman, and Too Cool, and said, "Okay," which meant naturally that it wasn't okay. "You want to know why you have to eat out here?" he said. "I'll tell you. You have to eat out here when we eat out there because...uh, because...uh," and he stooped suddenly. A puzzled look came over his face. Everyone waited. Daddyo puzzled some more and then looked at Mama Cool. "What's it say in the Book?" said Mama Cool helpfully. "Oh, yeah," said Daddyo. Then Daddyo stomped out to the front room and came back a minute later with The Book. The Book, as everyone knew, was the Big Book of Cool Family Tradition, handed down through the generations from such venerable Cool Family benefactors as Ramapithecus Dude, Eolithic Dude, Cro-Magnon Dude, and Troglodyte Dude. Daddyo leafed through the pages quickly until he came to the pertinent section. "Ah, here it is," he said. He read the section -- mumble, mumble, mumble -- and said, "Too Cool and Abnorman have to eat in the kitchen because....Okay." He closed the book and looked down at Too Cool and Abnorman and said, "You have to eat out here when we eat out there Because!" He leaned down into Too Cool's face, which had suddenly turned dead white with fear, and continued, "And I say so Because!" Too Cool gasped, melting into his chair, and Daddyo followed him, leaning as he went. "We sit out there," said Daddyo, pointing to the dining room, "Because! You sit out here," he said, pointing to Too Cool and Abnorman, "Because! Got that?" It was Abnorman's first lesson in life: kid dudes ate in the kitchen Because. Whether they were cool or not. Abnorman nodded and then looked at Too Cool, who had turned into a small puddle of goo in his seat. Too Cool nodded too. "Yes, sir," they said. "That's right," said Daddyo. And then, satisfied with the unassailable authority of everlasting Becauseness, he went back to his seat in the dining room to eat. "Daddyo," said Mama Cool, a little later, "does it really say that in the Book?" "Yes, it does," said Daddyo. "That's not much of a reason: because," said Mama Cool. "No, it's not," Daddyo admitted, "but it also says that I can come up with my own perfectly good reason later on." "Oh," said Mama Cool. "That's cool." So everything was cool and okay, all at once, and all of it Because. Which was about as sane as Abnorman would ever get. It was a great comfort. After a while, conversation resumed in the other room, and Too Cool slowly crawled back up from under the table. They both sat in silence for a long time until finally, deciding that he was hungry, Abnorman filled his plate with spaghetti and topped it off with a big, yummy piece of chicken. He was about to eat a huge forkful -- he was really hungry after all that hard work -- and he'd raised the fork to his mouth, when he heard Too Cool say in a voice that was so small he could barely hear him, a voice so small it was nearly telepathic, "Don't eat that." "What?" said Abnorman. Too Cool looked out to the dining room with a sideways glance and his head down, somehow seeing through the sides of his head, and he said in a low whisper, "Don't eat that." "Why not?" said Abnorman. Too Cool looked again with that sideways glance, and satisfied that he was safe, said, "Because it's not chicken." "It's not?" Now Abnorman looked at the thing on the end of his fork with renewed interest. It looked like chicken to him, but then, he never really looked at food all that much. Or thought about it. If Mama Cool put it on a plate and set it on the table, as far as he was concerned, it was food. "What makes you say that?" he whispered. "Look at the feet," Too Cool whispered back. Abnorman picked one up and looked at it. "It looks like a foot," he said. "It's a paw," said Too Cool. "It has fingers with claws on the ends. Chickens' feet are like bird's feet, and that's not a chicken's feet." Now that Abnorman looked at it, it really didn't look like a chicken's feet. "And that's not all," said Too Cool. "See that long, black stringy thing?" He pointed with his fork. Abnorman fished it out of the meat plate and held it up. "This?" "Yeah," said Too Cool. "What is it?" "It's a tail," Too Cool whispered. "A tail?" Abnorman whispered back. "I didn't know chickens had tails." "They don't," said Too Cool. Abnorman puzzled over this for a second, looking first at the tail and then at the paw, and said, "Well, if it's not a chicken, then what is it?" "A rat." copyright 1998, 2000 Author’s note: this is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to real life hypocrites, bullies, and liars is merely coincidental. [This message has been edited by mirror man (07-04-2003 09:48 AM).] |
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| © Copyright 2003 mirror man - All Rights Reserved | |||
Skyfire 
since 2000-12-27
Posts 3381Riding |
However, there were relapses. "Yaaa! There's a big light in the sky!" "That's the sun." "Oh." LMAO alright, I'm hooked  Anyone who can make me laugh by writing something that I myself would say on a "normal" day is my hero Keep it up please hehehe It is said the Creator has taken a handful of South Wind and given each newborn Arabian the power of flight without wings |
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mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
To anyone reading this: Author's unpleasant note: this is the final and only version of this novel that I have released to the public. However, this novel has been copied and used by others without my knowledge or consent. So if you should happen to come across another copy of this novel, under this name or another, in any medium, on the web or not, it is not released with my knowledge and consent and so is pirate. Or plagiarism. Or both. [This message has been edited by mirror man (08-05-2003 12:31 AM).] |
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mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
Special note to teachers, educators: This novel, this version, may be copied and distributed in any medium as needed for classroom study. -- mirror man |
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Munda Member Elite
since 1999-10-08
Posts 3544The Hague, The Netherlands |
I'm really enjoying this story. As soon as I have some spare time again I shall return for more.  |
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