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Cool Universe IV
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Cool Universe IV |
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mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
Cool Universe by mirror man Chapter 4 Later, Mama Cool left too, and when things returned to normal, Abnorman looked at Too Cool, who had just finished off his plate, and said, “How can you eat that?” “I like it,” said Too Cool. “No you don’t,” said Abnorman. “You’re eating it because you’re scared.” Being scared was not cool. “Am not.” “Am to.” “Am not,” said Too Cool. “I like it. It’s good. And now I can watch TV and play outside, and you can’t. Nya, nya, nya.” “You’re chicken,” said Abnorman, and then pointing to the plate, “and that’s rat meat.” “Nya, nya, nya,” said Too Cool, and he got up and left. So there was Abnorman, alone in the kitchen, in a chair, with a plate of rat/chicken -- whatever -- camuffato in front of him. He was thinking. Soon, Daddyo and Maximum Cool finished and left too. Then Mama Cool cleared off the dining room table and brought the leftovers out to the kitchen where she carefully put everything into pots and pans and then put it all away in the refrigerator. As she finished up, she walked by, smiled, and said, “Now Abnorman, eat your chicken camuffato and then you can come out and watch TV, with the rest of us. ‘Father Knows Better’ is on tonight.” “Never,” he said. “Did you try some?” said Mama Cool. “No,” he said, “and I won’t.” “Now now,” said Mama Cool. “You never know until you try. Remember how you hated turnips until you tried one?” “Yeah,” said Abnorman skeptically. “And now you like them,” said Mama Cool. “Maybe,” said Abnorman. Not really. “And remember how you hated fried mush until you tried that?” said Mama Cool. “Yeah,” said Abnorman. “And now you like that too,” said Mama Cool. “Maybe,” said Abnorman. Yuck. “And remember how you hated deviled slugs---?” “This isn’t helping,” said Abnorman. “Now now,” said Mama Cool. “Just give it a try. You’ll see.” And she gave him a pat on the head, and left. Abnorman stared at his supper and thought about what Mama Cool had said. Someone was always saying “You never know ‘til you try,” and it did seem to make some sense. He never knew how much he didn’t like turnips until he ate one. And he never knew how much he didn’t like fried mush until he ate that too. And all that other stuff, well, he really didn’t want to think about it. But as for whatever it was that was on his plate, he wasn’t entirely sure. He had thought, at the time, briefly, that maybe it was some kind of mentally challenged joke Too Cool had tried to play on him and backfired. True, Too Cool had gotten yelled at, threatened, and made to eat rat heinie like a yellow dog. But he was out playing somewhere now, and Abnorman was here, staring at his plate. It hadn’t killed Too Cool to eat it, at least not yet, so perhaps the price of sanity, universal redemption, and coolness wasn’t all that much. This seemed to make sense. So, with all the evidence to the contrary, and after much deliberation, he decided to give it a try. He looked at it up close. Sock Monkey looked too. Abnorman already knew it didn’t look like chicken. It looked like what he thought it was. He smelled it. It didn’t smell like chicken, either. It smelled dead. Or maybe just cooked. Then he touched it. It didn’t feel like chicken, either. It felt exactly like what it looked like. Whatever that was. Then, looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he cut off a piece,jabbed it with his fork, and he was just about to put it in his mouth when a pig walked by. Ah! thought Abnorman. Pigs will eat anything. Right? So he held out the piece of rat/chicken/whatever camuffato and said, “Here, piggy, piggy.” The piggy stopped, looked at it, sniffed it, and then bit off a piece and ate it. “Oink, oink!” said the piggy happily. So! said Abnorman to himself. It must be okay. And then the piggy said, “Eep! Erp! Akk!” and “Squeal!” and ran around in a circle twice and keeled over and died. Abnorman and Sock Monkey watched in total horror. Then Sock Monkey leaned over and whispered something in Abnorman’s ear. “Oh, what you said!” said Abnorman. But Sock Monkey was right. Abnorman dropped the rat/chicken/whatever camuffato back on his plate. That was really too close. After a while it started to get dark. Too Cool came in the back door, used the bathroom, and walked by with a sneer and a giggle, “Nya, nya, nya.” Then Mama Cool, Daddyo, and Maximum Cool all came through, one at a time, to use the bathroom and stare at the Uncool Squaresville Family Group Insurgent Freak. “Hey, what’s this dead pig doing here?” said Daddyo. So they threw it in the fridge. Then they sat down in the living room, turned on the TV, and watched another episode of “Father Knows Better”. Abnorman listened quietly. He didn’t really like the show that much, but as it progressed, the thought occurred to him that, under the circumstances, they should at least have let him watch a show called “Father Knows Better.” If Father really knew better, it seemed to him, it might inspire him to eat rats. One never knew. Then again, he didn’t see anybody rushing out the kitchen to eat rat camuffato, so it probably wasn’t all that good. Then there were shows he did like, shows like “The Untouchably Cool Dudes,” “Highway Dude Patrol,” and “Super Righteous Dude.” “Super Righteous Dude” was Abnorman’s favorite because even with a sagging paunch and flabby arms, this righteous dude could lift trains and skyscrapers and grab bullets out of the air. The only thing that troubled Abnorman was that Super Righteous Dude had x-ray eyes and could see a fly ten miles away, but he couldn’t see how ugly Lois Lane was. Of course, this was a long time before Margot Kidder, so Super Righteous Dude could be excused for lack of experience. But at any rate, Abnorman couldn’t watch anything, and he squirmed in his chair as he listened. This was known as TV torture, and a more complete and mind-stunting method of enforced cool redemption he could not have imagined. Oh, it was terrible. And not only that, but he would have to wait thirty years to catch the reruns. Somebody, he thought, ought to feel guilty. It was also very tiring, and after sitting on a chair for twelve hours straight, he eventually quit listening. The room grew darker and darker, the thing on his plate slowly congealed into a red, brown, and gray slab of corrugated muck, he rested his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his fist, and after a while, he went to sleep. He woke up with a start. It was totally dark, and someone was yelling at him. “What?” said Abnorman. He looked down at the floor and saw a million cockroaches crawling everywhere at once. “Yaaa!” yelled Abnorman. He pushed his plate aside and jumped up onto the table. His chair scraped across the floor as he did so, and someone somewhere said, “What was that?” It was Daddyo. “Rats!” said Abnorman. “Rats don’t sound like that,” said Daddyo suspiciously from somewhere. “It was a big one!” yelled Abnorman. “In fact, they’re all big. And they’re everywhere! Under the sink! Behind the door! In the cellar! YAAAAAAA!!!” "Ah, there can't be that many rats out there," said Daddyo. Then Abnorman looked again. "You're right," he said, "they're cockroaches." "We do not have cockroaches," said Mama Cool. "Those are water bugs." "Oh, yeah?" said Abnorman. He looked again. "They look like cockroaches to me." "Waterbugs!" yelled Mama Cool. "You got 'em too?" said Abnorman. “Are you eating your supper?” said Daddyo suspiciously. “No,” said Abnorman. “Good,” said Daddyo. “Uhh....I mean, bad! Bad! And just stay there ‘til you do. I’m watching.” Now Abnorman knew this wasn’t true, because he was sitting on the table at the time, so if Daddyo was watching, he could see that Abnorman wasn’t sitting on his chair. But rather than embarrass Daddyo, because Daddyo was after all fighting the war to save the universe, Abnorman said, “Yes, sir,” and lay down on the table to sleep. He woke up again sometime later and discovered that he had to use the bathroom too. He looked down at the floor and decided he didn’t really want to crunch his way through a horde of cockroaches, so he stood on the edge of the table and aimed at the garbage can. He was a pretty good shot. But then he had to be. There was a war going on. Thus ends the first part of Abnorman’s strange life. This is commonly regarded as the pre-thought period, but it is generally accepted that Abnorman was a thinking, sentient being at the end of it. What exactly caused this miraculous disruption is still under debate, but I think that it has been clearly demonstrated that Daddyo had a large part in it, at least as large a part as Mama Cool’s, and that even though Mama Cool was inarguably the guiding force in Abnorman’s general psyche, the disruption would not have occurred without Daddyo’s constant aggression, contrariety, and all around arbitrary, picky argumentation. Picky, picky, like that. Picky picky, picky. Picky. To say that Daddyo, Mama Cool, the rest of the family, or the rest of the world for that matter, did not think would be, I think, a great mistake also. They just didn’t think the way Abnorman did. And since he thinks like us -- dispassionate, unbiased, logical, humble -- it would naturally occur to us that the others didn’t think. I mean, look at what they’re doing with their brains. But the fact is, they did think. Some of them, anyway. Or at least, it appears to be thinking. All their thoughts, in fact, were written down in the Big Book of Cool Family Tradition. So if it seems to us that they didn’t think, it’s only because we didn't have this neat book with all the answers in it. The fact that this ignores present conditions in social and information structures that had changed in the last hundred thousand years or so didn’t really matter. So what? Nya. Also the idea that this might be a great tool for petty tyrants and slaves. That’s got nothing to do with anything. Which brings up another important point, which is that they were not human. No, Coolers are alien, and we must never forget that. So if it seems to us that they might have treated Abnorman rather harshly and strange, arbitrary, and picky picky, it is only because neither they nor Abnorman were human. Really, I think he should be grateful they didn’t cook him and serve him up for supper. Which brings up another important point: it wasn’t their fault. To continue with the story: Despite what might appear to Coolers as paranoid, uncool, bogus imaginings by Abnorman and Abnorman alone, it was a fact that the rats were indeed planning an invasion of Planet Cool. This was brought to light with the discovery of archival records found buried in a sewer somewhere on Planet Cool long after the invasion was perceived and verified as historically and academically correct. Just so you know who to blame. The King Rat had called a world wide meeting in the basement under Abnorman’s house that same night Abnorman was being punished for not eating rats. This was seen as a favorable sign by the King Rat himself. “Friends, Uncoolers, Rats, lend me your fuzzyflaps,” he said, which was his great way of beginning a speech. All rats on the planet had assembled to hear him speak. “It has come to our attention that a certain uncool Cooler,” he said, pointing upward, “has rebelled against Cool authority. This in itself would be no great event. But this uncool Cooler has also gained a cease fire.” He paused, and all rats seized the moment to clap their pittypats. He continued, “And he has gained an ally.” Pause, and more pittypats. “And that of motherhood.” Pause, and more pittypats. “And on top of that, he has denied the truth of the Book itself!” Then great pittypats and cheering of rats. “Yay! Yay! Yay!” “Yea, and verily,” said King Rat with ultimate authority. When the cheering had died down, he continued, “This is seen by us as a great opportunity. We must not let it slip away.” “What shall we do?” said one rat. “We have come up with a plan,” said the King Rat. “We will begin by invading the educational system.” “TV!” said another rat. "Movies!" said another rat. “We're gonna start small," said King Rat, “school first.” “Oh.” Which was not a bad idea, just disappointing to all those rats who wanted to work with their relatives. “How will we do it?” said another rat. “We will teach them how to read,” said King Rat. “Gee,” said a third rat, “isn’t that kind of dangerous? I mean, once they know how to read, they might learn things. And once they learn things, they might do something we don’t want them to do. Like kill us.” “No, no,” said King Rat. “They already know how to read. We will teach them how to read crap.” “Alright! Crap is good!” said a voice from the back. Everyone turned around to look. It was a turd. “Turds is good,” said the turd. “Someone kick that turd out!” yelled King Rat. But it seemed like such a waste to kick him out. So they ate him. “Hmmm,” said a rat, “turds ain’t so bad at that.” King Rat continued, “We will teach them junk,” he said. “Such as?” “Such as Philosophy,” said King Rat. “Sounds good.” “Also Coolish composition.” “Good.” “Painting.” “Good.” “Sculpture.” “Good.” “Diction.” “Good.” “Writing.” “Good.” “Art appreciation.” “Excellent.” “Logic.” “Great.” “And finally,” he said, pausing for effect, “Calculus!” Which brought the house down. Yay, yay, cheer, pittypats, paw waving, and fuzzyflap wiggling. So that’s what they did. They started with the school bus. Oh, those perfidious rats. It was all their fault. 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 (07-08-2003 12:55 AM).] |
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| © Copyright 2003 mirror man - All Rights Reserved | |||
Skyfire 
since 2000-12-27
Posts 3381Riding |
ROFL a good shot eh? *grin* |
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mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
Skyfire -- yeah, a dead eye. Haha! |
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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. |
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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 |
Still enjoying myself, but it's bedtime on this side of the world, so sleep first.  |
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