Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a house. Nobody liked him, because he was perceived to be quite evil. He never fed any stray animals. He never waved to the mailman. And he never even tipped the milk-man for his troubles.
One day, the neighbors thought that they heard some odd noises coming from his home, perhaps a creature howling. The children of the neighborhood were quite happy to hear that the evil man had gotten a pet! For days, the entire neighborhood waited for the evil neighbor to walk his dog or cat or lizard or fish. They put nothing past him.
Days and days passed, and he didn't leave his home, not even for food and drink. Children grew out of their anticipation and all gathered in the cul de sac one night. They plotted:
"Timmy, you go knock on his door real hard like, right? And Johnny, you go around back and rattle the wind chimes that he uses to keep birds away. Bob... You just keep a lookout."
"What about you, Jenny? What will you do?"
"I'll go inside... And I'm gonna find out just what kinda pet he has."
This mischievous game was underway, they all wore dark clothes, running shoes, and brought snacks for the road. Especially Bob... He suggested the snacks to begin with. Preferably chocolate.
Jenny waited in the bushes by the Eastern window. Timmy got into position to ding-dong-ditch, as it were. But first, Johnny rattled the hell out of the wind chimes hanging from the small awning of the evil man's back porch.
As they had hoped, there was movement heard from within the house, footfalls and grumbles toward the back of the place. This gave Jenny a chance to begin opening the window.
Just as Johnny ran to take cover, the evil man opened the back door, and peered his long nose out of the opening long enough to see the wind chimes nearly wobbling off of their hook. With a glare, he looked heavenward for signs of pesky humming birds or finches.
Now that all was well, the evil man re-entered the house, and locked the back door. Jenny was halfway in the window when silence fell-- and Timmy picked up where Johnny left off, banging on the door angrily, heavily, and bruising his little fist in the process. After twelve loud bangs, he ran and dove into a bush-- meeting Johnny there for a snack.
Jenny writhed into the window, landing on the bedroom floor in a dark clump. The evil man barged to the front door this time, reminded of The Raven, as his own beak peered through the opening in the door once more, to find nothing. His own heart was beginning to rattle beneath the floor-boards of his chest. He began to gather, something fishy was going on.
That's when the wails began. And he rushed toward the source of the sound. Down steps, into the spare bedroom where he had locked away the 'pet'.
Turn the key, press the sticky door open, and turning on more lights in the candle-lit space-- all for his eyes to land on the open window, and on the crying young girl on the floor beneath it. She must have gotten some kind of proverbial 'boo-boo', he thought, as his eyes went to the window once more.
Without a word, he left the room, left the unwanted intruder, and rushed to the front of the house, leaping from the porch like a Gothic Gazelle.
Bob was having a great time on this late-night expedition. His goal was to keep a lookout and hold onto the extra snacks. Two candy-bars deep now. He was positioned on the edges of the evil man's lawn and the lawn of Old Lady McRare, who was such a sweet old lady that she offered him a chair.
In his chair, lounging and nibbling one of the last bars, he kept a lookout. Unsure as to what his meant, he tried to look at everything-- the sky, the trees, the woods, the houses. He could have sworn he saw Jenny's parents doing something in their bedroom, and wondered if he should be worried that they looked like they were wrestling.
Preoccupied with peeping like a tom, and allowing the melting candy bar to drip onto the ground-- he never noticed the evil man racing toward him until he was within eye-shot. His long legs, skinny and spindly, taking great bounds toward Bob. Instinct kicked in with Bob, and he braced his candy bar, because it WAS his, after all. That's when he noticed the weight of the candybar had increased dramatically-- and hanging from it was something the size of a Boston Terrier, with bright pink fur, two long legs, and a pair of eyes that glowed brightly before him.
As Bob made sounds like a pig, the bird-dog-peep thing recoiled, bit off half of the candybar, and ran in circles like an Emu. The evil man attempted to corner it, running after it also in a seriously comical fashion. Little yelps and chitters from the creature were heard for blocks. The evil man shouted, jumping now, bounding toward the creature as it began to gnaw on the candy-bar more intently. The evil man was ontop of it, and was vigorously petting the space between the creature's bear-like ears to calm it.
The creature calmed. The bear-like, peep-colored, bird-dog-emu almost purred-- like the sound a squirrel makes when it remembers where the nuts are. Silence overcame the situation. Doors had opened and shut, and around the vicinity of Bob, the evil neighbor, and the bear-like, peep-colored, bird-dog-emu-squirrel, they were surrounded by the neighbors in pajamas. No complaints were heard. A collective tilting of heads occured.
They all saw the evil man from house 289, long spindly legs wrapped delicately around the pink bear-eared, bird-dog-emu-squirrel. His arms cradling the creature, while one long-fingered-hand pet daintily between its ears.
They never looked at him again. And even though he had a creature worth millions, perhaps alien, and maybe even dangerous-- they left him alone with it, having seen such gentleness from the man in house 289.
No comments:
Post a Comment