So you’re out for a countryside stroll, basking in the warm sun and fresh air. You stop to pick a few flowers for the new vase in the kitchen. You spot a small daisy, perfectly shaped and white as cream, which you know would look lovely tucked behind your wife’s ear. And as you bend down to pluck it from the earth, a two-foot-tall, 40-pound rat leaps from the nearby bushes and chews a large hole in your face.
You chase the thing away and spend the next month shuttling between the hospital and the plastic surgeon, who tells you matter-of-factly that a nose isn’t really necessary anyway. Still haunted by the attack, you acquire a fearsome companion — a young fire-breathing dragon — and, on doctor’s orders, head to the coast to convalesce. You string up a fishing pole and park your chair on the dock, cold beverage in hand and little dragon at your side. The rising sun only sweetens your bliss, until something terribly strong takes your bait and yanks the pole from your hands. You see something streak through the water toward you, and then you’re in the water, debris all around, the dock shattered and gone, a monstrous serpent towering 20 feet above. You pass out, to wake hours later on the shore, beside the half-eaten and fly-covered carcass of your fiery little pal. For once you’re thankful you no longer have a nose.
Six years later. You’ve barricaded yourself and your family in an underground lab, where you work to create the ultimate fighting monster. With such a creature under your control, you’ll never be afraid or threatened again. Inspired by The Fly, you merge flesh with machine and create tortured beasts which even Dr. Moreau would have called twisted. Predictably, they turn on you, and you flee, leaving your wife and children to their gruesome fates.
You return to your old home, in your old town. It’s where you were happiest. The house is empty now, full of dust and dead dreams. The vase still sits barren on the kitchen table. In it you leave a small white daisy, and then you walk deep into the countryside to a welcome death.
“Yo, you remember that vegan protestor from last week?”
“Oh yeah, sure. She looked kind of hungry, so I took a taco salad out to her. She gave me this appalled look at first and was gonna slap me with her ANIMALS DON’T EAT US, NOT VERY OFTEN ANYWAY sign, but when I told her almost all our stuff is ‘clean,’ she understood. She screams at people outside KFC now.”
“What if she’s right? About being a vegan or vegetarian, I mean.”
“Dude, man has been eating animals for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s totally natural. What’s so wrong about that?”
“But what if some aliens came to Earth—”
“It’s possible to do that eardrum-popping palm slap thing to yourself, right? We’ll find out shortly, in any case.”
“No, listen, really. What if some aliens came to Earth and started harvesting us? Like, if our species became a new intergalactic delicacy that these super-advanced alien races couldn’t get enough of. And so their ships set up in the atmosphere and drop down these, like, vacuum cleaner things. Suck up thousands of people an hour. It’s like Deadliest Catch, but we’re the crabs.”
“At least you’d survive. They throw back the scrawny unappetizing ones, right?”
“Hardy-har-har. I’m being serious here. How is that different from us eating animals? We catch them and eat them, whether they’re happy about it or not. Maybe cows are saying, ‘Please don’t eat me, I really rather like living, kind sir, so just put down the cleaver and we’ll discuss this quarrel of yours like civilized folk, really I mean it, no, don’t, please, oh heavens, THINK OF MY CHILDREN!’ when they moo. How do we know?”
“You’re reaching, man. They’re just animals, there for the taking. Dumb and practically mindless, all of them. They eat and poop and squeeze out babies once in a while. There’s nothing special about ‘em.”
“But, like, it’s all relative. A super-advanced alien race could say the same about us. To galaxy-touring aliens, we’re closer to amoebas than to them.”
“Look, there’s a cutoff, though. Once you reach a certain level of intelligence, it’d just be wrong to harvest a species like that. You’d hope the aliens would have super-advanced morals, too.”
“And humans are conveniently above the threshold, while other animals are not.”
“Well, sure. Pigs didn’t build the frickin’ iPad, yo, that thing is so slick.”
“But is it, like, fair to judge an animal by human standards?”
“…”
“Does your head hurt too?”
“Couldn’t these aliens just clone us or grow our tissue on a stick or something?”
“My guess is that the alien corporate bigwigs got it banned, to keep supply scarce and prices real high. It is a delicacy, after all. Plus the yuppies that buy the stuff would never tolerate anything less than all-natural, free-range, totally-happy human.”
“Why do you even care about all this? You’re not a vegan.”
“I tried to give it up, but meat just tastes so good, you know?”
“I’ll try to remember that while the aliens eat me. A point of pride, even. ‘Can’t blame you,’ I’ll say while one nibbles on my leg. ‘If I’d known I was this delicious, I’d have eaten me, too.’ Hey, you think there’s ever been a suicide by cannibalism?”
“That’s sort of what death by starvation is, when you think about it. Happens all the time.”
“…”
“…”
“Yeah, well, just be thankful and eat the rest of that chalupa before I do.”
I heard him, just barely, calling from amid a pile of the dead. His legs were gone, his arms in tatters, and he had not even the strength to open his eyes.
Clutching the trembling remains of a hand, I leaned in close. There was nothing to be done but provide a little comfort and carry on the final words of this dying warrior.
They came slowly, the words, raspy and desiccated between woeful moans.
“We have dealt a terrible blow, but … there is …” — whispers now — “another … crystal shard.”
And then death took him, and it would soon claim our world as well, unless someone among us could find the shard and restore THE DARK CRYSTAL.
My head’s full of lots of really goofy ideas, little scraps of whimsy and wild hypothetical that pop into my head throughout the day and, most commonly, as I drift off to sleep. I always keep a pen and notebook near me to capture them, no matter how dumb. (See: some recent tweets.)
So I decided to do something with those scraps. Every weekday (most, anyway) since April I’ve set aside 30 minutes to write something silly. Most of my daily tales aren’t great, but sometimes I write something clever. And it’s a fun writing exercise, if nothing else. Rather than let the good ones collect figurative dust on my hard drive, I’m going to start posting them here, maybe weekly.
Expect the first peek into my Daily Tale project tomorrow.
It’s sometime in 2006, AP Government. Mostly bored out of my mind. As a review of the U.S. legislative system, we had to write up how a bill becomes law, incorporating a list of key terms. This is what I turned in. Thankfully, my teacher appreciated the dose of creativity.
In the land of Cimmeria, chaos reigned. The Hyborian Age, which began shortly after Atlantis sunk into the sea, had not been good to the people of Cimmeria. Countless factions and neighboring nations tore the land apart, each vying for control over a feudal world of poverty, famine and death. The people wept and cried out for a better life.
But the cries did not go unanswered. Out of the hills came a man named Conan, his head filled with revolutionary ideas and hope for a united land ruled by the people, not terrible despots.
Among Conan’s new ideas was the notion of democracy. Years later, the Greeks would mimic this system and claim it as their own.
The people, tired of oppression and despotism, came to Conan’s side and staged a spectacular revolution, taking Cimmeria as their own. And unto this new democratic nation, Conan bestowed three branches of government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.
Conan, quickly elected as Cimmeria’s first president, set about establishing the Congress, the law-making body of the land. Once Congress convened for the first time, Conan, now known to the world as Conan the Politician, turned his attention to the nation’s first bill.
The public bill, which would apply to the nation as a whole, was introduced in the House of Barbarians, and contained provisions to ensure the free reign of hand-held weapons in Cimmeria. The Speaker of the Barbarian House referred the bill to the Weapons Standing Committee, which in turn handed it to the Hand-Held Weapons Subcommittee to consider the bill.
The committee had five choices: Pass the bill favorably; refuse to report the bill; report the bill in amended form; report the bill unfavorably; or report a new, substitute bill. Conan the Politician took in each step of the process with great interest; he could not imagine a world in which no one was allowed to carry weapons in public.
But alas, the committee decided to report the bill with an amendment, adding that only battle-axes would be allowed worn in public. This was no non-germane amendment, and Conan, a swordsman himself, was infuriated. His eyes seethed with malice, and he could not wait to veto the bill.
After the committee finished its work, the Barbarian Rules Committee gave the bill an open rule status, keeping the bill open to debate and amendments. The bill then proceeded to floor action. As there were no other bills on the calendar, the Speaker of the Barbarian House and Barbarian House Majority Leader decided to have the bill debated on immediately.
The debating began, majority and minority whips gauged support for the bill, and with a quorum — majority of representatives — present, the voting commenced. With electricity decades away, voting was done by voice. The “Ughs” called out for the bill, while the “Oogs” said no. Much to Conan’s ire, the bill passed without revision, and moved to the Cimmerian Senate.
The bill moved through the Senate quickly, following many of the same steps as in the Barbarian House. But once the debating began, trouble arose. Two distinct factions emerged within the Senate. The majority wanted to pass the bill, while the minority wanted the no-swords amendment removed. The result: Barbarian filibuster. Typical filibuster is used to talk a bill to death, but the barbarians of Cimmeria were not quite as advanced. Instead, a wrestling match ensued, preventing the vote from taking place. A few barbarians managed to escape the match and began the cloture process. After another day of non-stop wrestling, the majority had gathered enough petitions to proceed with cloture, and after two more days a 3/5 vote ended the filibuster. The bill passed soon after.
Unfortunately, the Barbarian House and Senate did not have identical versions of the bill. A Conference Committee of both Chambers was formed to iron out the differences, specifically the size and number of battle-axes allowed per person in public. Once an agreement was made (maximum of six feet tall, two feet wide, three per person), the bill finally made its way to a very angry Conan the Politician.
Conan vetoed the bill the moment it hit his desk, sending it back to Congress with a note that said, “Don’t you know I love my sword? Oh, and I’ll eat your children if I ever hear of this bill again.” Conan thought the hint was clear, and he never imagined he would hear of such a weapons bill again.
But Conan failed to recognize that he was becoming just the type of despot he had fought so hard to eradicate from Cimmeria. Congress noticed, and with a 2/3 vote overrode Conan’s veto.
Conan’s rage was terrible, his vengeance swift. Congress in its entirety was wiped from the face of Cimmeria, and Conan wandered the land like a brooding beast. Conan the Politician was no more, but the legend of Conan the Barbarian was just beginning…