I had my first visitors in almost a week yesterday. It was nice to see people. It gave me quite a lift. There're more coming this afternoon. Can hardly wait.
******
The Ruler of a small but pleasant realm was in her chambers with the Wizard and a clutch of Wordsmiths. They were gathered around the Thing, the half crow, half groundhog ungodly combination that it was their collective task to name.
They'd just come together in the realization that their task was impossible.
The Thing, for its own part, was unconcerned. It had, in the weeks since it began its captivity, grown accustomed to its surroundings. It was dimly aware of its captors and wished only that they would get around to feeding it the proper kind of food.
What to feed the Thing had been a major preoccupation of the Wizard and Chappie. Indeed, their many failures in this endeavour had been what drove Chappie to find work elsewhere.
They'd given it vegetables, testing whether the groundhog portion was dominant in digestion, but that had made it fart copiously without seeming to nourish it. The Thing actually shrank on a vegetable diet.
They'd then tried insects and bits of flesh to feed the crow half. These meals made the Thing barf, leading to more loss of mass.
After many trials and errors, they'd found a diet of cooked pasta and sugar kept the Thing alive without massive flatulence or vomiting, but it did not grow or thrive.
Wholly stumped by both tasks of feeding and naming the Thing, the Ruler, the Wizard and the Wordsmiths stood around the Thing's pen, mutely regarding it with distaste and anxiety.
Dorf, the Wordsmith with the lank blonde hair and crossed eyes, put his hand in his pocket, found a coin, and absently started turning it around in his fingers in front of him. The coin slipped from his hands into the Thing's pen. In a flash, the Thing was on the coin, gobbled and swallowed it.
The Thing immediately began to sing a sweet song. It also seemed to grow.
"Money!" exclaimed the Wizard. "It eats money! Why did I not think of that before?" He drew a coin from his own pocket and threw it into the pen.
As before, the Thing pounced on the coin, consumed it, sang its pleasure and grew a bit more.
For a while the relieved group amused itself by feeding coins to the Thing and making it sing. It had grown by about another third of its original size by the time they were all out of loose change.
Only the Ruler was still anxious.
"We may all rejoice that we have found by happy accident what makes the Thing thrive, but we still don't know what it does.
"I also wonder," continued the Ruler, "if money goes into the Thing, what, exactly, comes out?"
To be continued ....
Thanks for reading!
Karen
What to feed the Thing had been a major preoccupation of the Wizard and Chappie. Indeed, their many failures in this endeavour had been what drove Chappie to find work elsewhere.
They'd given it vegetables, testing whether the groundhog portion was dominant in digestion, but that had made it fart copiously without seeming to nourish it. The Thing actually shrank on a vegetable diet.
They'd then tried insects and bits of flesh to feed the crow half. These meals made the Thing barf, leading to more loss of mass.
After many trials and errors, they'd found a diet of cooked pasta and sugar kept the Thing alive without massive flatulence or vomiting, but it did not grow or thrive.
Wholly stumped by both tasks of feeding and naming the Thing, the Ruler, the Wizard and the Wordsmiths stood around the Thing's pen, mutely regarding it with distaste and anxiety.
Dorf, the Wordsmith with the lank blonde hair and crossed eyes, put his hand in his pocket, found a coin, and absently started turning it around in his fingers in front of him. The coin slipped from his hands into the Thing's pen. In a flash, the Thing was on the coin, gobbled and swallowed it.
The Thing immediately began to sing a sweet song. It also seemed to grow.
"Money!" exclaimed the Wizard. "It eats money! Why did I not think of that before?" He drew a coin from his own pocket and threw it into the pen.
As before, the Thing pounced on the coin, consumed it, sang its pleasure and grew a bit more.
For a while the relieved group amused itself by feeding coins to the Thing and making it sing. It had grown by about another third of its original size by the time they were all out of loose change.
Only the Ruler was still anxious.
"We may all rejoice that we have found by happy accident what makes the Thing thrive, but we still don't know what it does.
"I also wonder," continued the Ruler, "if money goes into the Thing, what, exactly, comes out?"
To be continued ....
Thanks for reading!
Karen
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