»
Main Forums
»
Passions in Prose
»
Cool Universe VIII
| Passions in Prose |
|
Cool Universe VIII |
|
|
mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
Cool Universe by mirror man Chapter 8 At supper the next day, it was discovered that Too Cool wasn’t dead after all. No. Despite everything Abnorman had seen and heard, Too Cool was still alive. And not only that, but he wanted to eat supper. And no one else seemed to notice. Of course, Abnorman was glad he wasn’t dead. Sure. I mean, really. But it was a little strange. And enough to kill a dude’s guilt, even an uncool dude’s guilt. For some reason, this made sense. Which just goes to show how alien they all were. Abnorman scowled down at his supper and tried to control his joy. “So how was school?” Mama Cool asked, when they were seated at their respective tables. Daddyo was there also. Maximum Cool wouldn’t be home until later. “Well,” Abnorman said from the kitchen, “first, we learned the alphabet,” and he recited all the letters, A to Z. “Big deal,” said Too Cool. Abnorman looked at Too Cool, puzzled, and said to Mama Cool, “Then we learned grammar and syntax.” “And what did you learn in grammar?” said Mama Cool from the dining room. “I am playing my violin,” said Abnorman. “Violin isn’t capitalized.” “You don’t play the violin,” said Too Cool. “And syntax?” said Mama Cool. “Very important word order is,” said Abnorman. “Of course, I could say that if I were a poet.” “You’re not a poet either,” said Too Cool. “Then we learned geography,” said Abnorman. “And what did you learn in geography?” said Mama Cool. “That Germaly declared war on Siberia,” said Abnorman. “I knew all that stuff already,” said Too Cool. He leaned forward, stuck out his jaw, sneered, and said, “You didn’t learn much. What the heck did you do at school all day?” Abnorman frowned and saw Daddyo give Too Cool the “my dude” sign. And suddenly Abnorman had had enough. He jumped out of his chair, pointed an accusing finger at Too Cool, and shouted angrily, “He’s supposed to be dead!” Then everyone looked at Tool Cool in total silence. And then Mama Cool said, “What?” “He was dead,” Abnorman said. “I saw it myself.” “Ha, ha!” said Too Cool. “Now, now,” said Mama Cool. “You’re being silly. Now sit down and eat your supper like a cool kid.” “Ha, ha, ha!” said Too Cool. “But I saw it,” said Abnorman. “But that’s just silly,” said Mama Cool. “If Too Cool were dead, would he be here, eating supper, with us?” “No,” said Abnorman uncertainly. Then he looked at Mama Cool and said, “And that’s another thing. I saw a giant yellow rat eat you up.” “Ha, ha, ho, ho, ho!” Too Cool crowed. “This is good. This is rich. I love it.” “Okay, that’s enough,” Mama Cool said to Too Cool. Then to Abnorman, “What giant yellow rat was that?” “The one that took me to school,” said Abnorman. “Now that’s just impossible,” said Mama Cool. “If a giant yellow rat had eaten me, would I be here, eating supper, with you?” “No,” said Abnorman uncertainly. “And if the giant yellow rat had eaten me,” said Mama Cool, “then it would have eaten you too. And if it had eaten you, would you be here, eating supper, with us?” “No,” said Abnorman uncertainly. “And if the giant yellow rat had eaten you and Mama Cool,” Daddyo added, “it would have eaten Too Cool too. In which case, Too Cool would have died twice in one day.” “Hahaha! What a patoot! What a maroon! Hahahahahahaha!” “Shut up,” said Mama Cool. “Well...,” said Abnorman. “There. You see?” said Mama Cool. “You’re just being silly. Now sit down and eat your supper like a cool kid.” “But...but...,” Abnorman sputtered, “but I saw it! I threw my plate on his bed, the rats ate him up, and we buried him in the back yard. I saw it with my own two eyes!” Which just went to show how uncool Abnorman really was. “Oh Ho!” said Daddyo, jumping out of his seat. “So it was you that did that!” He walked out to the kitchen and scowled at Abnorman. Then there was total silence. “Uh...I mean....” “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Daddyo. “Uh...well....” “You ought to at least feel guilty,” said Daddyo. “Uh...well...I do,” said Abnorman. Sort of. “Shame on you!” said Daddyo. “Okay, okay,” said Abnorman angrily. “I feel terrible. I feel ashamed. I feel guilty, even. But doggone it, he’s supposed to be dead!” He pointed an accusing finger at Too Cool. Then Daddyo pointed an equally accusing finger at Abnorman and said, “As for THAT!! you should know.” He jabbed the air most righteously and said, “Violence! Never! Solves! Anything!” Jab, jab, jab, jabjab! Abnorman just stared at Daddyo’s finger. The Universe, it appeared, was a lot stranger than he had thought. “Now shut up, sit down, and eat your supper!” So Abnorman shut up, sat down, and ate his supper. Then Daddyo walked back out to the dining room and things returned to normal. “So what else did you learn at school?” said Mama Cool. Abnorman looked around at everyone. Mama Cool smiled, Too Cool smiled, and Daddyo smiled. All this normality was positively abnormal. And all this sense was driving him crazy. So, seeing that he wasn’t going to get any help from anyone, and no one was going to die, and knowing how things usually went at home, Abnorman said, “And then we learned the hyperbolic sine function of the real number X.” “Did not!” Too Cool said indignantly. “Did to,” said Abnorman. “Sine-h of X equals E to the X minus E to the minus X, all over two. Nya!” He stuck out his tongue. “Mama Cool, make him stop,” Too Cool whined. “He’s making that up.” “Am not.” “Now now,” said Mama Cool. “He’s absolutely right,” said Daddyo. “I use the hyperbolic sine function at work all the time.” Then everyone stopped and stared at Daddyo in silence. It wasn’t that anyone was particularly surprised that Daddyo used the hyperbolic sine function, at work or anywhere. That was cool. What they were surprised at was that he would take Abnorman’s side in an argument. Any argument. And particularly against Too Cool. Daddyo just smiled back, and Abnorman began to get a bad feeling. “So what else did you do?” Mama Cool asked. Abnorman watched Daddyo warily and said, “Then we all wrote essays.” “What did you write your essay about?” Daddyo asked. “Subatomic nuclear fusion,” said Abnorman. “Mama Cool!” Too Cool yelled. “He’s doing it again.” “Am not,” said Abnorman. “Cousin Cosmos told me all about it. He knows everything.” “Cousin Cosmos,” Too Cool grumbled. “He thinks he knows everything.” While Abnorman was trying to figure out how Too Cool knew what Cousin Cosmos was thinking, Daddyo said, “And what else did you do?” “We had a spelling test,” said Abnorman. “And what did you learn to spell?” said Daddyo. “Everything,” said Abnorman. “We went through the whole dictionary, front to back.” “Aaaaaaagh!” Too Cool groaned. He covered his ears and closed his eyes. “My, my,” said Daddyo. “You certainly had a busy day at school. Is that all?” “No,” said Abnorman. “I learned about the Theory of Universal Vomit.” “Uggg!” said everyone at once. “But it’s really interesting,” said Abnorman enthusiastically. “For instance---” “No!” said everyone at once. Then Mama Cool, smiling sweetly, said, “What else?” This seemed awfully unfair to Abnorman, to not even want to discuss such a useful universal theory, but this was home after all, and so he said, “Cousin Shakesdude wrote a play.” “The sissy wrote a play?” said Too Cool. “He’s not a sissy,” said Abnorman. “He just dresses funny.” “Did he write it in poems?” Too Cool asked. “Sort of,” said Abnorman. “Then he’s a sissy.” Abnorman turned to Daddyo and said, “What’s a sissy?” “A sissy is a guy who dresses funny and writes poems,” said Daddyo. “Oh,” Abnorman said thoughtfully. “Nya,” said Too Cool. “Cousin Shakesdude’s a sissy.” Not being the expert on sissyness that everyone else was, Abnorman decided not to argue this point also, and said, “Anyway, he wrote a play and called it ‘Romeo and Juliet Win the War to Save the Universe.’” Too Cool burst out laughing, “Ha, ha, ha! What a dumb name. Where’d he get a dumb name like Romeo?” “I don’t know,” said Abnorman. “He didn’t say. Anyway, a bunch of us were in it and acted it out in class.” “Were you in it?” Mama Cool asked. “No,” said Abnorman. “I just watched. Anyway, they all dressed up and---” “What did they wear?” Tool Cool asked. “Weird clothes,” said Abnorman. “Ha, ha, ha!” Too Cool chortled. “I knew it. The sissy writes a sissy play about sissy kids wearing sissy clothes. Ha, ha, ha!” “Now let Abnorman finish,” Mama Cool said to Too Cool. And then to Abnorman she said, “Who played the lead?” “Sneerly played Juliet,” said Abnorman, “and Pretty Boy played Romeo.” “Pretty Boy,” said Too Cool. “I heard about him. He’s the boy all the girls think is so cute.” “Yeah,” said Abnorman. “You should have heard them. It was stupid.” “Girls is stupid,” said Too Cool, “and Pretty Boy is a creep.” “He is?” said Abnorman. “Yeah,” said Too Cool, “he’s a creep.” Abnorman looked at Daddyo and said, “What’s a creep?” “A creep is a pretty-faced boy who all the girls think is cute,” said Daddyo. Then Mama Cool said, “So how was the play? Did you like it?” “I don’t know,” said Abnorman thoughtfully. “Everybody spoke strange words and nobody knew what was going on.” And added, “Other than that, it was okay.” “So what was it about?” Mama Cool asked. “Romeo and Juliet were in love and their parents didn’t want them to get married,” said Abnorman. Too Cool snickered and said, “Did he have to kiss Sneerly?” “Yeah,” said Abnorman, making a yuck face. Too Cool started to giggle. “Twice,” said Abnorman. “Ha, ha!” “Right on the front teeth,” said Abnorman. “Ha, ha, ha!” “And they were all green and slimy,” said Abnorman. “That’s enough,” said Mama Cool. “And then he killed himself,” said Abnorman. Then everyone was quiet. Too Cool leaned forward eagerly and said, “Did he reeeeeeally?” “Yeah,” said Abnorman. “Dead as a doorknob right there on the classroom floor. It was a real mess. And then Sneerly killed herself too. It was a great ending.” Everyone was silent for a long time, and then Daddyo said, nodding thoughtfully, “I can see that. Dressed up in sissy clothes, yelling poetry, kissing girls with green teeth. I can see that.” Conversation turned to other things, they ate their supper, and Abnorman had nearly forgotten all about school and giant rats and dead bodies and universal vomit when Daddyo stood up to leave the table and suddenly snapped his fingers in theatrical self-reproach. “Darn!” he said. “I was supposed to mail a letter to Saskatchewanamy and I forgot how to spell it.” He took a pad and pencil from his pocket and said, “Abnorman, how do you spell Saskatchewanamy?” Abnorman searched his memory quickly and said, “Sasskatchawonamy. S-a-s-s-k-a-t-c-h-a-w-o-n-a-m-y. Sasskatchawonamy.” “Ha!” Daddyo pointed a finger at Abnorman and jumped up and down like Rumplestiltskin. “Gotcha!” “What!” said Abnorman. “What! What!” “You’re wrong!” Daddyo crowed. “That’s not how you spell Saskatchewanamy. Ha, ha, ha!” “Is too,” said Abnorman. “Is not,” said Daddyo, “and I can prove it.” He ran out to the living room and returned a minute later with the Complete and Unabridged Oxford Coolish Dictionary, all twenty volumes, and thumped it on the table. He raced through the pages, dancing with glee, until he found Saskatchewanamy and jabbed it with his finger. “There!” he said. “Saskatchewanamy. S-a-s-k-a-t-c-h-e-w-a-n-a-m-y. Ha, ha, ha! You’re wrong!” Abnorman got up from the table and looked in the book to where Daddyo had his finger embedded in the page. He looked at the word and silently spelled it out to himself. “Saskatchewanamy,” Abnorman said. “That’s what I said.” “Did not!” said Daddyo. “You’re just a sore loser.” And he closed the book with a loud whump! “Nya!” said Too Cool. Then everyone left to watch TV. Everyone except Abnorman, that is. He stayed at the kitchen table, trying to figure out what it was he had lost. It was a real puzzle. He was a loser, Daddyo said so, so he must have lost something, right? Only, he couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it a race? Was it a prize? A reward, maybe. He didn’t know. But he did know that it was a game of some sort, and that he had lost. Later on, he looked in the Big Book of Cool Family Tradition and discovered the truth, that this was a game played by nearly all adult male dudes and had the unofficial title of “Adios Loser.” In “Adios Loser,” there are no rules until the end of the game, at which time the winner explains them to the loser. And the stakes are always power, sex, status, or money, the last being the most desirable since it is basically all of the first three. And since there are no rules, there is also no need to declare that the game is being played. And once the game begins, it must be played to the end, even if the game lasts for a hundred years. And no matter how much one wins, all one has to do is lose once and he is back to square one. And no matter how destructive the playing may get, it can never be stopped because everyone plays whether they want to or not. But be that as it may, anyone, no matter how much he loses, can always find someone else who loses more, thereby making himself a winner. Even if he does nothing at all. So that if, by some impossible quirk of fate, he finds himself losing for whatever reason, he can simply change the rules and become an immediate winner. And who in his right mind wouldn’t want to play a great game like that? Abnorman didn’t have an answer. But he did have the sneaking suspicion that Daddyo never had a letter to mail to Saskatchewanamy. 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 (07-10-2003 01:09 PM).] |
||
| © Copyright 2003 mirror man - All Rights Reserved | |||
Skyfire 
since 2000-12-27
Posts 3381Riding |
heh I think I'm as confused as Abnorman lol |
||
|
mirror man Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814 |
Thank you. Haha, yes, that seems to be the whole point of it. |
||
|
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. |
||
|
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 |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
