hema is still eating zizas, but time is running out.
IIII. o naany noony (2)
page fifteen
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I’m walking away and there’s this voice. the voice says:
“ah, you’re here.”
I ignore it. I’ve got my important thinking to do. but the voices pipes up again, a little louder:
“ah, you’re here.” now I’m a little riled, so I turn around and speak up.
“what do you mean by that,” I ask him, “that I’m here. of course I’m here. you wouldn’t be staring at me if I weren’t.
“I mean,” he says, “that I’ve been waiting for you.”
what? what’s the matter with this fool. “do you mean that you’ve just been fussing around in this clearing, waiting for any old someone to come along, or that you’ve been waiting for me?”
“you,” he smiles. “I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve known for a long time that you were coming, and I’ve been waiting for you, and now you’re here. tea?” and he holds up this china cup with a little saucer under it, and weird-looking flowers and creatures painted on it. I’m getting a flipping headache.
“but how could you know I was coming when I didn’t even know I was coming to this clearing until I came?” let the smarty-pants answer that one.
“I’ve simply known it. the same way anyone knows anything, really.”
“you knew I was coming, and you knew it for a long time. do you also know my name, or how old I am, or where I come from?”
“oh yes, I know all of those things. surely those things aren’t supposed to be secrets, are they? tea?”
“not so fast with the tea thing, buster. how did you know? my name, and all the rest. how?”
“the same way anyone…” he starts to say, but I interrupt him. I do this because I can see I’m not getting anywhere with my question. he just keeps saying the same nonsense, like some multi-colored parrot.
“fine, fine, I’ll have some tea.” maybe it will help my headache. I sit down in one of his dainty little chairs and change the subject. “that’s very nice incense you’re burning. does it have a name?”
“it’s called epiphany. I invented this blend myself. so glad you like it. it’s especially for you.”
oh brother. he knew I was coming, he knows my name, he blended incense just for me. hocus-pocus and airy-fairy and my head really hurts. he gives me the tea, and a little plate of sweeties that maybe are chinese.
I change the subject again. the tea and the sweets turn out to be gorgeous. “what was that song you were singing? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”
“of course you haven’t heard it before,” and he smiles this ever-so-sweet smile, “I made it just for you. would you like to hear the second verse?”
no, no, I don’t want to hear the stupid second verse. I didn’t even understand the first one. but I can’t say those things out loud and be that rude to someone I’ve just met for the first time, someone who gave me tea and treats. I can’t be that rude at the first meeting, even if he is bananas. so I tell him I’d like to hear it. off he goes:
O naany noony
the human race whines,
O naany noony
the human race pines.
they pine for their Zizas,
and they pine for their dough.
you could fill a whole ocean
with the things they don’t know.
“what do you think?” he’s quite serious. it seems important to him, what I think. I hate that brainless song, but what the heck can I say? “the song seems important to you.” I’m hoping he’ll say something sensible, like Yes.
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read… Lifelines… Stolen stars… All my stars…
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all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2012-2015 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.
IIII. o naany noony
Page Fourteen
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after my mind got unstuck from the wheels, I decided to go outside to stretch my brain and my legs. I was walking along in the woods around the caves. there were lots of small slearings hanging around in these woods, and I don’t know who made them or when, but they were very handy sitting places for people who wanted to be alone, like me. If a person didn’t want to camp in a cave (like me), they could camp in one of these clearings.
so, as I was walking along, being alone, I saw another one of these clearings up ahead of me. there was a man in the clearing who was just sort of ambling around fussing with his things. he had little tables, and wee chairs, and even some baby-sized persian rugs. he had his clearing fixed up like a miniature home (a lot like the way I had my cave), and he was mincing around lighting candles and incense that he’d set up on his little lacquer tables. everything he had was copied from very old stuff, ancient kinds of rugs and tables that people had invented in the year dot. I wondered if he had something against now stuff.
I was wondering about all this, when I realized that he was singing a song while he fussed, and that he had a rather nice voice. but to tell the truth, I really couldn’t make any sense of his weird song. not then. This is what he sang:
O naany noony, the human race cries.
O naany noony, the human race sighs.
We have to pay our taxes,
We have to test our food,
We stuff ourselves with Zizas
to make the world look good.
when I got closer to his clearing I was able to get a really good look at the guy. he was a Chinaman. he had very black hair that was braided and hung down a little past his shoulders. very black eyes, too, and smooth goldy skin that kind of glowed. his face was nice, and I thought the rest of him was probably nice too, underneath the fat. he was fat, you see, and that’s really the truthiest way to say it. he was fat. but fat in a very smooth, unjiggly kind of way. the fat was fat, of course, but it was just a little bit pleasant to look at. in fact, there was something a little obscene about it. I was finding myself intrigued by the obscenity of this Chinaman’s fat, the way it sort of quivered with life in a tempting kind of way.
I wanted to get out of there. I had stinking enough important things I needed to be thinking about, and I didn’t need to be going around getting weird feelings about some Chinaman’s fat. he was confusing me in other ways too. what the heck did that song mean? why did he have all these copies of ancient things, and still go fussing around in his clearing wearing a newer thing, a pair of grape-flavored edible undies? I turned around to go back to my cave.
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read… Lifelines… All my stars
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all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2012-2015 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.
III. the wheel…
Page Thirteen
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I took a bite of a fresh Ziza and wondered: What have we invented lately that’s anywhere near as big as the wheel? I couldn’t think of one thing that had been around nearly as long or had spread so much in so many different sizes. Or had been used in so many different ways. I thought about some important inventions, like the steam engine, or nuclear power. Already dead and gone before I was born. They’d been no match for our friend the wheel. There was Miralon, of course. And we all know how that one turned out. I told myself to simplify.
And then I had it. I had them, I mean. A couple of inventions that might just stand the old test of time. They’d been around for a very long time already, and I couldn’t think of a single reason why they shouldn’t be around forever, or at least till the end of the world. One of them was Velcro ™, and the other one was edible underwear.
I’ve never met anybody yet who doesn’t think Velcro’s ™ a pretty darned clever little doohickey. Lots better than zippers, buttons, and laces, by a long way. And the Velcro ™ we have now is a whole lot better than the Velcro ™ we had ten years ago. I guess that in another ten years it’ll get better again. They just keep on improving it. And I’m pretty sure, I’m as sure as I can be, that no one will ever figure out a way to use Velcro ™ to start a war or destroy the planet.
And what’s wrong with edible underwear? That gets better all the time too. They’re the only kind of underclothing that doesn’t need to be washed, and nobody wears them for very long anyway. The best thing about them is that they make people happy without hurting anybody. Of course nowadays the people who make food-flavored edible undies have to worry about the Miralon Mutation, and they do a darned good job. They test every last one of their ingredients before they use them. No one that I know of has ever died from eating underwear (unless they ate the kind that isn’t edible). I happen to think that’s pretty good. It means that when it comes to undies, at least, we can all have our cake and eat it too.
When I felt satisfied, I looked at the Ziza pits beside me. Six. Whoa. I almost never eat that many Zizas at one time. This kind of thinking that I plan to do is maybe going to take a whole lot of Ziza fruit.
Anyway, that’s that. Advanced homo sapiens’ answer to the wheel. Munch-undies and Velcro ™. Not too shabby, but not exactly in the same league as the wheel, I admit. I suppose that any way you look at it, the wheel is a flipping good deal.
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read… problem… decoration day…
……… trying for in memoriam …..
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all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2012, 2013 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/miralon-5/
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/miralon-5/
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/wheel-12/
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/wheel-12/
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/ii-cave-11/
http://www.pygmiesdancing.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/ii-cave-11/
III. the wheel (or what have we invented LATELY?)
Page Twelve
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When I got myself all settled in that first day, I started my important thinking right away. I thought that my job was a good place to begin, so I thought about Dickie and Titia’s, and I wondered what kind of work I would do if I never inspected any penis holders or breast holders again. And then I thought about the cute little wheely carts that the supervisors used when they brought me the undies to inspect. They’d fill one cart full of, say, royal blue satin jockstraps, and another one full of white lace brassieres, and then they’d wheel the carts out to us inspectors. The wheels made this happy little humming sound on the floor. Before I knew it, my brain was stuck on wheels.
I thought about how long they’d been around. I wondered about how they’d got invented, and which cave-man had done it. Who did invent the wheel? Was it just one person, or was it sort of a class project, a bunch of cave-men together who needed a round rolly thing and were trying to work out how to make one? Maybe they had names like Grk and Lrgl, that sort of grunty-type thing. It’s pretty interesting to think that maybe something as huge as the very first wheel was thought up by some very hairy, grunting people with names like burps. I thought about big nude, crude, proto-humans with belchy names. Who belched out the wheel from their grunty little proto-minds.
And look what came of it all. Millions of wheels in all colors and sizes, for thousands and thousands of years. Wheels made out of all kinds of different things and doing all kinds of different jobs to make life easier for us. Would we ever be wheel-less again? Didn’t seem very likely to me. Was it possible for us to outgrow the wheel, that in another thousand years the wheel might be as extinct as the dodo bird once was? These questions made me sad. I had been moved by the wheel, in a very big way.
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read… don’t ask (satire)… mishibone (asperger’s)…
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II. why I came into the cave
Page Eleven
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On the twenty-third of April in the year of the biggest whirlwind, I rose with the birds to pack. Everything I packed got tied onto a nicely light frame that I could carry on my back. I carried the frame to the room where Papa and Gammo were having breakfast. We had a nice long talk. I told them why I had to do what I had to do. They took it pretty well.
Then I slung the frame onto my back. I walked out to the back lot to Mama’s grave and placed some especially pretty Ziza blossoms on her shiny gold plaque. I had another long talk. Told my Mama why I had to do what I had to do. Mama took it very well. Good old Ma.
I turned around and started walking. The Hyster Caves were pretty far away from where I was, and it took me a week to get to them on my two feet. When I arrived at my destination, I had to stand outside the entrance and just be entranced for a little while. The sight of all that limestone and other kinds of stone making all their colored streaks was kind of magical. After I gazed as long as I needed to, I spelunked around for a little while until I found a nice, cozy cave for one. I didn’t want to have enough space for roommates. I had important work to do that I had to do all by myself. I needed to think about some very important things, and I needed to find my destiny.
I’ve been living in this cave for two years. The more I live here, the better I like it. And the more important things I think about, the more other important things to think about seem to pop into my brain. Sometimes I want to stay in here thinking forever, or at least for the rest of my life, but then I always run into the fat Chinaman again. It’s like he can pop up out of thin air. He’s the most interesting person I know, but he nags me. He keeps trying to show me the way out.
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read… lifelines… scealta liatha…
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all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2012, 2013 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.
the pygmies keep dancing 