Chapter 4

The Universe was bored.

Real bored.

He and Gravity spent the first couple billion years by themselves. Gravity was a pretty cool guy. And the two had eons of fun making stars and galaxies and crashing them into each other.  But a universe grows up after a while and throwing stuff into black holes just isn’t as fun as it used to be.

Evolution came along. She never really fit in. She got real upset whenever Gravity would send an over-sized comet into a planet she had been working on. No sense of humor, and she couldn’t even appreciate a good supernova. He never understood what she got out of watching little slimy things split in half over and over again. He always assumed she was a bit of a perv, too.

So, the Universe got bored.

He had one last source of entertainment.  He loved how the products of Evolution would try to figure out where they had come from and why.  Not because he didn’t know the answers, but because he had the same questions about himself.  He’d really just popped into existence with no instructions or manuals. He didn't make the rules, he just followed them.

He loved to make the products of Evolution think that he (the Universe) was a little mysterious.  He’d make weird things happen when people said certain words.  He’d send people coded messages that usually meant absolutely nothing.  He’d plant props that people could find to see how they’d react.  For some reason, screwing with their own attempts to find out where they came from kept him from asking himself the same question.

But even this was getting old.  He’d made heroes of losers, villains of heroes, intellectual pioneers of idiots and wackos of otherwise intelligent people.  He’d set up wars between trolls and monkeys and had led a dozen worms in the conquest of great empires.  He’d convinced people their planets had come from sneezes, excretions, a giant planet factory, and, his favorite, super intelligent turnips (footnote: He still got a kick out of that one.). 

But the Universe knew this next project was different. This was real. He would even have to let go of the reigns a little. He came up with the perfect plan, but he knew that you couldn't really plan for something that followed a different rulebook. 

Sic eram prognatus Horace.

***

Among the Darfinians, leaf piling was an identity constructing activity.  Every summer the Darfinians of Thursley would obey an almost instinctual drive to go into the woods on the north side of town and pile up the leaves.  They had long since forgotten what the function of the activity was, what they were celebrating when they did it, or even why they pretended to have fun while they were doing it (footnote: Thus, leaf piling among the Darfinians was akin to almost all other traditional activities engaged in by societies across the Universe.), but, without fail, once the leaves had fallen a huge festival was organized that would culminate with the piling of the leaves.  Some piles were large, some were shaped like things, and some could perform simple algebra, and then they would be left to decompose.  On this day, a few weeks after the Darfinians had finished the leaf piling and moved out of the woods—which they considered a relatively cold, wet, and generally miserable place—Horace had gone into the woods to be alone and clear his head.  Horace, you see, had become a rather mentally unstable clerk after rocks in his garden had started to talk to him (footnote: Many argue that the order of events may have been the other way around).  This is why, you see, that Horace had assumed that the soft, blue, and noisy object that had just fallen from the tree and that he was currently digging out of a pile of leaves was, in fact, a rock that was trying to convey to him another message from some guy that called himself the Universe.

***

Mary and Murrey were having the time of their lives.  The storm passed and they had found a nice, furry bed laid out for them to spend the night.  They were all the happier because they didn’t realize that the furry bed was, in fact, a large mammal that had recently fallen victim to a larger predator.  They would also have been glad that they were ignorant of the fact that the predator had not eaten the mammal because it, like the mammal, had been weakened by a terribly contagious, very painful and, ultimately, very deadly plague and had died before it could enjoy its final meal.  They were also happier because the next morning the clouds had passed but the storm had left the air fresh and crisp.  They were also happier because they didn’t realize that the vulture-like creatures circling over head, which were, coincidentally, vultures, were waiting to feed on them after they died.  They were, again, also happier because they didn’t realize that the vultures were expecting them to die because they had left the Ephulsian Plains and entered the Hictorian Desert.  The Hictorian Desert, Mary and Murrey would not have been glad to know, is only slightly more deadly with the arrival of a terrible, rampaging plague.          

***

Sneaux was beginning to hate Pinkle and all things Pinkly.  Since setting out that morning they had walked all day through thick grass.  The grass was so high in most places that they could not see more than a few inches in any direction.

Pinkle claimed he could keep them traveling on a straight path by positioning them against the sun, but Sneaux had his doubts.  He was pretty sure the sun was moving.  Nor was he convinced that straight would lead them someplace better than left, right, circular or backwards would.

Pinkle had also decided that they would ration their food.  Sneaux learned that this meant that he would slowly starve them to death.  Grass monsters didn’t sound so bad at this point; at least they would end things quickly.  But Sneaux was beginning to believe that in this jungle it was more likely that his soul just got lost than that a grass monster was able to find them.

“Pinkle, I hope you die a miserable death.”  Pinkle was used to this.  These declarations had become commonplace since he had limited them to a couple of bites of nut at lunch time.  But he had bigger concerns.  He had just realized that the sun might be moving and that he had, possibly, just led them in a giant circle.  He knew that if they stumbled back to the tree he might have to suppress a peasant revolt (the peasants being, of course, one fat, lazy, fatalistic dinkle).  They needed a guide, preferably one that wouldn’t eat them.

“I think we should stop for the night,” Pinkle suggested.

“I think you should rot,” Sneaux retorted.

Pinkle had already stopped, squatted, and started to perform the motions that people should perform when they stop to set up camp, except he didn’t actually have anything to set up camp with.  “Sneaux, we’re out of water.  Go see if you can find any.”

Sneaux hesitated.  On principle, he didn’t follow orders from Pinkle, and wasn’t too excited about walking any more than he had too.  But on the other hand, once he walked off to find water he couldn’t think how he could possibly find his way back which, since Pinkle was going to slowly starve him to death anyway, didn’t sound that bad.  “I’m off,” he yelled out behind him.

He had identified three types of grass while they were traveling.  One grew in thick bunches with several stalks rising out of a single plant.  This was the easiest to navigate because paths were naturally carved out between bunches.  The other type was thick, green, flat grass.  Underneath it was dark, wet, gloomy, and walking through it was best accomplished with a machete at least or, preferably, large amounts of explosive.  They didn’t have these, and Sneaux hated Pinkle all the more for that.  The third kind Sneaux was currently battling.  It rose up in thick, tall stalks that often adorned barbed weapons that were, for a dinkle, akin to a mace or, as Sneaux had come to call it, organic death.

Sneaux traversed the terrain with three goals in mind.  First, avoid puncture wounds.  Second, avoid a larger animal’s intestines.  Third, get terribly, terribly lost.  Pinkle had all the food and water (Sneaux had insisted that he carry it all in case they got separated Pinkle would have the greater chance of survival), but Sneaux had a unique gift—complete and total apathy.

He was frustrated when he saw his path quickly interrupted.  Squeezing between two grasses he found himself in a clearing.  It was about as wide as the tree was tall, as long as Sneaux could see in the either direction and covered almost entirely in running water.  He had heard of rivers, they were a part of Dinkle folklore, but when he experienced one first hand he was exasperated at its audacity to put itself right in his way.

He stuck a toe in.  It was cool; he liked it.  He stuck a foot in.  It was cold, painfully so, but the feeling was still, somehow, enjoyable.  He took a step in.  It washed his legs out from under him and he splashed face first in the ice water.  Exasperation evolved to something more like hatred.

“Hey Pinkle, get your round butt over here.”  The experience was miserable, Sneaux thought, and he really wanted Pinkle to experience it.  He was worried, though, that the water might all run down before Pinkle worked his way through the impregnable forest.  “Hurry, you fat lard.”

A few minutes later an empty shell popped through the last layer of grass followed seconds later by an almost frantic, panting Dinkle.  He looked at the sheet of water in front of him in awe and slowly rose to his feet.  The river was slow and steady, high on its banks from the storm.  The setting sun reflected off its smooth surface. Pinkle was transfixed. 

“A river,” he finally stuttered.  “You found a river.  It’s got water and it’s moving, and there’s lots of it.”

“Yeah, why don’t you jump in?”  Sneaux knew it shouldn’t be difficult to suppress a smile in the situation, but he had spent the last several minutes imagining Pinkle collapse face first into the river and assumed, if Pinkle looked half as stupid as he had felt, it would be worth remembering. (footnote: Dinkles, for obvious reasons, do not have much experience in water related tomfoolery and thus, for a dinkle, it is novel, even life-altering entertainment.  This has led some to suggest that the introduction of water balloons to Dinkle society might be dangerously revolutionary.)

Pinkle walked carefully to the river’s edge and stuck in a finger.  He pulled out his finger and sniffed it.  “Yes, I do believe this is water.”  He scooped up some in his hand was going to bring it to his mouth, but Sneaux, becoming impatient, went ahead and kicked him in.

Pinkle hopped up, but his pajama pants, heavy with water and stretched by the nuts they had been carrying, refused to make the journey. 

Sneaux was beside himself.  This was the opportunity of a lifetime.  Pinkle, his newest nemesis, was standing in a river, soaked with freezing water with his pants down around his ankles.  But this, too, was ruined for him, because out of Pinkle’s pants squirmed the nuts that they had been so carefully rationing. 

“The nuts, man, you’re losing the nuts.”  Pinkle didn’t react except for the silent fuming.  “Pinkle, grab the nuts, you fool.  We need those to not die.”

“The nuts,” Pinkle responded slowly, almost painfully, “are gone. They are floating down the river.  You have killed us both.”

Sneaux didn’t think.  Instincts had taken over.  Generally, Sneaux’s instincts told him to move as little as possible.  Sneaux and his instincts usually agreed.  “Someone else can do it.”  “I’m tired.”  “I’m lazy.”  “I’m digesting my last meal and I wouldn’t want to disturb that.”  Or “Burn wounds heal and if I get involved I may only compound the problem.”  They had even tag teamed his conscience into submission.  But right now, having already experienced the pain of mild hunger, his instincts threw him thoughtlessly into the water.

           

***

Under normal circumstances, two species that had been separated by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years would not speak the same language.  These, of course, were not normal circumstances.

Horace’s life, recently, had been filled with abnormal circumstances, and he was not the least bit pleased. 

Horace, you must understand, was very upset that the Universe was interrupting very well laid plans.

Horace’s plans were not unique.  Every community has a Horace.  Some have two.  He was not abnormally large, nor abnormally small.  His hair was a rather un-noteworthy shade of blue.  He was mediocre by any measure except, that is, at being mediocre at which he excelled.  He had the rather indistinguishable goal of being rather, well, indistinguishable.

He didn’t dislike people, he just didn’t like dealing with them.  He was friendly when it was easy to be friendly and something well short of vicious the rest of the time.

Horace didn’t like to dream.  His dreams frightened him.

He also didn’t like mysterious squishy, little rocks that talked.  He wasn’t too much concerned about the plan at this point; Horace just preferred it when the rocks didn’t talk.

He could ignore the rocks that didn’t talk.  Five days after his 17^th birthday, two days ago, the rocks didn’t talk.  They didn’t need to.

They didn’t talk, but Horace got the message when he was returning from a rather abnormal day at work.  “Hello.”  The words were carefully spelled out with rocks, very normal rocks, in his garden.  The word was about 2 feet tall from the bottom to the top of the letters and made with more rocks than had ever before been in that garden.  He didn’t think much of it.  He didn’t know anyone that cared enough that he existed to bother writing things out in his garden with rocks, but he also didn’t know several people that just might value their own time and effort so little that they would bother to write out words to strangers with rocks in gardens.

Horace had bigger concerns right then. 

He, you remember, was a clerk.  Clerking was great because he always worked behind doors and never had to confront real people.  He only had to confront the paper trails of real people.  He could deal with paper trails.  Paper trails didn’t talk.  They didn’t ask annoying questions and then pretend to care about the answers.

Horace kept track of merchandise (before, that is, the merchandise was destroyed by the fire ball).  He made sure the amount that was sold was equal to the amount that was no longer available to be sold.  He also made sure the money turned over to him was equal to the amount needed to purchase the merchandise that was no longer available to be sold.  He was very good at his job.

But he had been interminably interrupted from his duties on the day that the rocks started to report messages after his manager, Franklin, disappeared.  Vanished.  Inexplicably.  No notes, no clues, no nothing.  The manager came to work in the morning, worked a few hours and then, apparently, ceased to exist.

Horace felt a little bit bad for the guy.  Personally, he had no experience with vanishing.  Couldn’t be much fun.  He’d never heard of people getting together on the weekends for a vanishing party or anything.  But the thoughtless buffoon did it at work.  Cops showed up to ask questions.  Reporters showed up to ask questions.  The butcher showed up to ask questions.  The crazy cat lady showed up to see what was going on, and the local bully showed up because crowds were a good place to get free shots on people’s more sensitive areas.

It was way too much distinguishableness for Horace.   And now his rocks had fallen into formation.

The next day the rocks tried to communicate with him again.  One word at a time they wrote, “Hello, it is a pleasure to meet you.  My name is the Universe.”  Rocks rolled around and popped out of the ground where necessary.  But Horace had more important things to think about than demon rocks.

Horace had gone to work that same morning.  The mob had left.  Only one cop showed up.  He seemed a bit confused—he must have missed the memo that the mob was going to meet somewhere else and now he didn’t know what to do.  So he poked, as if he was going to find the bloody glove, or maybe Franklin himself, behind a can of beans.

 Then he was struck by fire ball.  In the middle of the store.  The sun was out, the sky was clear.  There was no other explanations—Horace had called down a fire ball.

He didn’t know how, but he knew that one minute he was wishing the man would become personally acquainted with a ball of fire from the heavens, and the next minute, lo and behold, there was a burnt out shell where the store had been.  Just like Franklin except a little flashier. 

Horace didn’t know anything about the monkey fort, except that it must be his fault.

He didn’t know why his boss disappeared or he could suddenly call down fire, but he was confident this new rock, with arms and legs, would know the answer.

“Who’s the Universe and what does he want from me?” he yelled, shaking Herbert like one would a misbehaving teddy bear.

For Herbert, not being suffocated was still sinking in, and his mind had to put the screaming lunatic on the back burner for a second.  Horace got his attention when he hung him by his left ankle 4 feet off the ground.

“and what’s the deal with the fire balls?”

“I don’t know,” Herbert yelled in sudden desperation.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, you bloody lunatic.”  It’s never a good idea insulting a man that is holding you at bone crushing heights by your ankle, but the “good idea” filter in Herbert’s mind was temporarily out of order.

Horace was frazzled.  Last night, haunted by demon rocks, fire balls and invisible men, he accidentally had a dream.

“Horace.”  His dreams always started this way; a creepy old guy would call out his name and then start to insult him.  The old man was back, but his nostrils seemed to have gained ground in their endless struggle against the nose hair.  He had teeth now, too.  Horace recognized the voice, but it seemed a little angrier. 

“Horace, you chump.  Listen to me, you pathetic excuse for a Darfinian.  My name is the Universe and you really need to get on the ball here.  I’m getting impatient, and you don’t want to try the patience of someone who can obliterate your galaxy on a whim.”

The voice rattled in his brain even after he woke up.  It was still rattling in his brain as he shook the blue, unrockish Herbert.

“Just tell me what the Universe wants so I can get on with things!”

Herbert’s “good idea” filter was in serious need of repair, but the idea generator was working overload.  Consequentially, he made one of those classic blunders that generally results in the kind of punishment that fallows the soul even after it is ripped from the body.

“You, Ugly Blue Haired Man,” he started in his best “pretending-to-be-divine” voice, “Will Turn Me Upright.  You Will Take Me To Your Home And You Will Get Me All The Nuts And Water I Can Eat And Drink.”

It seemed like such a promising idea at the time.

Chapter 3

All things considered, Herbert felt the day had gone pretty well.  He had been selected for random disposal by his friends and family.  He was a couple of feet from landing safely when his parachute was caught in a freak storm.  He was herked and jerked through the air across half of Upper Hippotulamulia and he was not yet convinced that his limbs were still fully attached to his body.  A final gust finally ripped his parachute and he nose dived into a river.  After pin balling off rocks for a mile or so down the rapids he finally pulled himself onto the shore.  He crawled onto the river bank and as soon as he had rolled over onto his back to catch his breath he noticed the eagle swooping in towards him.  It scooped him up, flew him back to its nest, dropped him off and left again.  He was caked in mud, bruised, beaten, tired and, were he not so beaten, battered and tired, he would have been very hungry.  All things considered, thought Herbert, I couldn’t have hoped for anything better.  I’m still alive, I think, I still have all, or at least most, of my limbs, and I’m miles away from the dinkle’s tree.  I couldn’t have asked for much more.  He was not being completely sarcastic.

***

Hutley was a man of many talents.  He could tie cherry stems with his tongue.  He knew some magic tricks.  Only a fool would take him on in poker.  And he was arguably the Universe’s favorite con artist.  But recent events made him think that the Universe had turned against him and was determined to make him come clean. (footnote: The Universe had not, in fact, turned against him, and was completely disinterested in him coming clean or staying dirty, but he did get a big kick out of putting people in very awkward situations.)

It all started with the monkeys.  Monkeys were common visitors to Thursley, but they generally didn’t take the time to stop and begin large construction projects.  Asteriods were not strangers to the region, either, and stopped by as frequently as possible.  But this asteroid had the looks of a divinely guided precision strike.  Then there was Franklin.  Selfish little prat just disappeared.  And now Thurslinians wanted to know why.  Hutley was worried.  As Head Priest at the High Temple of Grimesly he was responsible for preventing or, if that failed, predicting or, at least, explaining such events.  What have monkey forts, tactile asteroid strikes and invisible men got to do with each other?

He had, traditionally, relied heavily on two tactics.  The first involved inventing calamities that he had averted.  He liked ridiculous weather and alien related troubles, but sometimes pulled in hideous diseases that turned people into zombies and such.  His second tactic was to explain existing problems as somehow related to a failure by the people of providing him with a sufficiently luxurious lifestyle.

But Hutley, or Lord Hutley the Immaculate of the Graygathian order of the High Temple as he was officially known, lacked the imagination to relate monkeys, disappearing men, asteroids and the silkiness of his sheets.  He decided that some other supernatural force was tired of playing along with the deities his ancestors had invented and was calling in her chips.  It was time he let the people of Thursley know that Graygathia and Dorloria had retired and Random Chaos had been promoted in their place. It would have been his first, truly prophetic moment.

The entire town, minus one mentally unstable clerk and a thief who’s occupation had suddenly become much more lucrative, had gathered to hear the wise words of their richest, and therefore holiest, citizen.

“Degenerates of Thursley and asinine followers of Graygathia.”  The introduction was ceremonial; Hutley’s ancestors had gotten a real kick out of how much they could insult people in the name of deity and wanted their descendants to have the same opportunity.  “Wretched, puerile slobs that seek and receive the assistance of Dorloria despite your officiously pungent redolence.  Gather your disturbingly misaligned faces to me and you will hear words that you will blindly obey like brainless sheep to the slaughter.”

The crowd was excited.  Hutley had opened with the full ceremonial introduction.  They knew they were about to learn something very important.

The ceremony typically continued with the slaughtering of the invisible counterpart of a sheep.  Hutley loved lamb chops and thought the “invisible counterpart” was the magnum opus of his ancestors.  “Bring the sheep of sacrifice.”  A real sheep, a nice fattened one appropriate for sacrifice, was brought forward.   It was led up the stairs of the ziggurat-like temple, past Hutley, and out of sight inside the temple.

“I now call on the sheep in its true form.”  Hutley went through the dramatic motions of waving a yellow cloth like a bull fighter behind which the ‘sheep’s true form’ would, invisibly, appear.  He had done this hundreds of times.  Sometimes he would do it a couple of times a week when he wanted to get the priests from the neighboring temples together for a party.

But something was wrong.  The cloth waving was met with silence.  They should be cheering.  Usually, he waved the cloth and the stupid fools cheered, but now they weren’t cheering.  They didn’t applaud.  They didn’t even smile.  They just stared.

Confused, Hutley followed their eyes to the spot where the sheep should have been pretending to be.  As he expected, nothing was there.  He turned to the crowd, “What?”

 The eyes looked up at him and then back to the spot.  “What’s wrong?” he repeated.

The local bully piped up first, “Where’s the sheep?”  The crowd mumbled consent and confusion.

“What do you mean ‘where’s the sheep’?” Hutley stumbled. “It’s right here like always.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Of course you can’t, you illiterate tully.”  Hutley struggled to step back into his role and calm the crowd with verbose insults and contradictory (aka mystical) explanations.  “The sheep is invisible in its true form.  That means you can’t see it.”

“Since when?”

The Universe wasn’t out to get Lord Hutley the Immaculate of the Graygathian order of the High Temple, it just had a terrible sense of irony.

***

Mary and Murrey braved the storm heroically.  The wind blew over them, blocked by the thick grass of the deep plains, but they trudged on with pronounced, meaningful steps.  A flash flood washed them up, but they managed to grab a deeply rooted piece of grass before they were washed over a cliff (a frightening 6 inch drop in an otherwise completely flat plain).  The water forced a horde of worms to the surface, but the twins majestically defeated all of the completely harmless crawlers they found in their paths.  They figured that was good material to start composing the heroic epic poems that generations of dinkles would sing about them.  They also decided to add in some trolls and wrestling matches with demigods for narrative flow between dramatic episodes.

***

Sneaux had never had an unobstructed view of the Outside.  The outermost branches of the tree could not support the weight of a dinkle, and so he and the other dinkles had always looked from further in the tree at a world blotted by stray branches and leaves.  During the high season, leaves would completely enclose the dinkles in their own isolated universe.

From under the tree, though, a new reality was opened up to him.  He could see the grass stretch out to the horizon.  In the storm, magnificent lighting and percussion colored a dramatic show of power.  After the winds passed over head and into oblivion, the lightening offered an extended encore that also seemed to be stepping in as a preview of some unworldly power that lay beyond.  This all, in his mind, confirmed his hypothesis that he hadn’t been missing much.

He woke up early (relatively speaking) the next morning.  He had planned before going to sleep that he would position himself such that when he woke up he could stretch vigorously and, with a little luck, “accidentally” catch Pinkle under the chin with a haymaker.  He had been so excited about the prospects that he was up hours more imagining what it would feel like.  When the moment arrived, though, his yawn-powered upper cut landed roughly on a painfully resistant root.

Pinkle had obviously been awake for hours.  He had fetched the shell and sealed it with a twig.  He had built a little teepee of sticks as though he were going to build a fire.  When Sneaux sat up, Pinkle was on his knees with his ear on the ground (a very difficult feat for a dinkle).

“Hey Pinkle, you look like an idiot.”  Pinkle didn’t react.  His face had that look of determined focus that only those fully employed in some ridiculous activity can ever achieve.  This look is remarkably impervious to insults. (footnote: Theories about the ability of this look (the I’m-trying-to-look-like-I’m-thinking-real-hard-but-the-clockwork-upstairs-definitely-ain’t-working look) to resist insult center on those types of individuals that are usually found employing it.  The first group is those that have overactive imaginations—some children and any politicians who think they will actually make a difference.  The second group is made up of B grade actors and the other politicians who know their work is inconsequential but try to convince people otherwise.  For these groups, their fictional worlds buffer them from outside interference.  The third group is made up of people who are not intelligent enough to focus and listen at the same time.  The most reliable evidence forces us to conclude that Pinkle is probably a member of the third group.)

Slowly, either for effect or to avoid losing his balance, Pinkle raised a “shush” hand to Sneaux, so, logically, Sneaux decided he needed to repeat his statement more loudly.  “Hey.  Pinkle.  You Look Like An Idiot.”

He finally got Pinkle’s attention.  “Will you be quiet, man?” Pinkle whispered sharply.  He was in his element—that is, courageously navigating waters that have only become treacherous because of his own imbecile attempts to avoid fantastic (not fantastic ‘great’ fantastic but fantastic ‘crazy psycho hallucinations’ fantastic) danger.

“I’m listening.  For grass monsters.  Or birds.  Or . . . whatever else might want to eat us.  We’ll need to know where they’re at so we can go the other direction.”

“You learned that from the Guide?”  Sneaux queried.

“Came up with it on my own,” Pinkle responded proudly.  He put his ear back on the ground and closed his eyes to emphasize that he was focusing very hard.

Sneaux looked at the terrain around him.  He knew he had to leave the tree to find food.  The world around him in every direction looked exactly like the world around him in all the other directions.  Grass.  Lots of it.  Tall grass.  Three times taller than he was.  In every direction.  Just grass.  Nothing else.

He remembered which way the water had ran during the storm and started to develop a plan.  You see, Sneaux has an incredible amount of respect for water; it has mastered the art of always following the path of least resistance.  You could say that water was for Sneaux something of a role model.

So, remembering that the water had flowed past the tree towards Pinkle’s current location, he walked between Pinkle and the tree and started to jump up as high as he could (not tremendously high, mind you) and stomping his feet as loudly as possible on the way down.

Nothing.

He took a couple of steps closer towards the squatted Pinkle and jumped again.

Nothing.

He took a few more steps towards Pinkle.  If Pinkle didn’t hear him this time he was close enough that he could kick him for making him exert all this energy.  He jumped again.

Pinkle’s head shot up.  “I heard’m.  They think they’re pretty sneaky devils, but they can’t get by me.”

“What did you hear?” Sneaux asked preponderantly.

“Sounded like a three legged grass monster.  Big fellow, about twice as tall as a dinkle and much longer.  I’d guess he was about three leagues to the north and heading this way fast, so we’d better get moving.”

Sneaux looked up and cursed whatever was up there that got their kicks out of making a helpless dinkle very miserable.  He wouldn’t have to fight gravity, but now Pinkle thought they needed to double time to run away from figments of his imagination. Irony.

As they started to walk away from the tree Sneaux turned to Pinkle, “How far’s a league?”

Pinkle’s face immediately tightened into a look of painful, ignorant determination.

***

Herbert knew he needed to get out of the tree before the bird returned.  He didn’t know why the bird had left him alone in the nest, but he assumed it wasn’t because the bird was shy.  Herbert thought it more likely that it was going to borrow some rosemary and ginger from a neighbor so it could properly enjoy its meal.

As we mentioned before, even though Dinkles live in trees, it is, in fact, a bit of a mystery why.  That the Universe had decided to also inflict Herbert with a fear of heights he felt moved the condition from irony to cruel irony.  Herbert had learned at a young age to be grateful for what he has instead of becoming angry for what he doesn’t have, because his only other choice is to seek revenge on the entirety of the existence and Forces of Nature.  Now, sitting in a bird’s nest, beaten, bruised, battered, high in the air and afraid of heights, only happy to be where he is because where he was will soon no longer be a where but will become a was as well, thoughts of revenge started to seep into his mind.

Dinkles had traditionally avoided seeking revenge against the Universe and the Forces of Nature by insisting that a system of karma was operating.  The idea is this—the Universe is just picking on them because he’s a bully.  They don’t think they’ve done anything to deserve their situation, and therefore can’t do anything to undeserve it.  (footnote: Most societies in the Universe have some concept of called karma (because it is a really cool sounding word in almost all languages) but there is very little consistency in its meanings.  Generally, though, it is an attempt to explain why life sucks.)  So, they just try to ignore the Universe and hope that, like the little kid that is intent on mimicking someone who refuses to talk, he will eventually lose interest and let them get on with it all.

Herbert felt, though, that it was time that someone taught the Universe a lesson.  He didn’t know what that lesson would be, who would teach it or even how one would go about teaching the entirety of everything a lesson, but he felt that these logistical challenges were minor inconveniences compared to the more pressing demands of not dying.

He was confident, therefore, that the first step in getting back at the Universe was to get out of the nest.  He awkwardly crawled out (Dinkles for reasons I don’t feel I need to discuss are not natural crawlers), wiggled his feet down to the branch below and lost his balance.  He wasn’t too concerned about losing his balance.  He figured he had two methods of getting from the branch where he was now perched to a lower one: falling or jumping.  Falling from the branch at least made his impending death accidental, while if he had jumped it would become suicide.  He didn’t want Gravity to think he had given up.

So, Herbert lost his balance and fell.  And he continued falling.  From inside the nest he had no concept of how high off the ground he had been.  He had been assuming that his fall to the ground would have been broken by branches, which, if he was lucky, just might knock him unconscious before he rebounded off the forest floor.  But instead he just fell.

Instead of the bone cracking smack of a branch or the thud of the forest floor, Herbert’s fall was broken as he sunk deep into pillowy softness.  He opened his eyes, but could see nothing.  The air around him was cool and moist and sparse.  Falling from the tree, Herbert realized, he had fallen into a pile of leaves.  He quickly made the transition from shock at not being dead to confusion at not being dead to relief at not being dead to fear and panic that if he was not able to get out of the pile quickly he would not be not dead very much longer.