Once upon a time, in the old old old fashioned days, when most animals were sort of large blobs, there lived one animal that was a very large blob and pretty wrinkly to boot.
But they weren’t happy.
“I’m not happy,” they said. “I am a very large blob and pretty wrinkly to boot, but I’m not happy. I wish I were more distinctive than being a very large blob and pretty wrinkly to boot, because since most animals are sort of large blobs and being a very large blob and pretty wrinkly to boot makes me very similar to them, as they are sort of large blobs.”
So the animal roamed up the land and down the land and up the land and down the land and then it got dark and they walked into a tree and the tree broke and stuck in their nose and that’s where rhinoceroses come from.
***
“That was pretty bad.”
“What?! Was not!”
“No, she’s right. That was pretty bad. You spent most of the effort on reiterating basic established facts until our eyes crossed, and the denouement was a complete anticlimax.”
“And you didn’t use the rule of three.”
“Yeah, and you didn’t use the rule of three.”
“Well, I’d like to see YOU guys do any better!”
“Nah, nah, we believe in you. Keep trying, you’ll get better.”
“Yeah sure what he said. G’wan.”
“If you promise to be fair. And I’m going to use the rule of three this time, so you’ll have to not be unfair about that either.”
“Fair as a fine fresh breeze.”
“As fair as a carnival ground.”
“Fine. Fine. Fine.”
***
Back when everything made sense and kids did too, there was a creature that lived in the bottom of the bog. He stayed down there for the night and for the day, for the summer sun and the winter frost, for the good times and the bad times. Nobody saw him, but everyone that passed by heard him mutter and mumble from deep down inside.
“You should come out sometimes,” said a passing chickadee. “Make some friends.”
“I am happy in my bog,” said the creature, in his deep solemn bog voice. “It is warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s warm. It hides me and protects me, feeds me and waters me. Why would I ever leave?”
“Make some friends,” said the chickadee.
“Well I don’t know about that,” said the bog creature. And the chickadee flew away.
“You should come out sometimes,” said a roaming muskrat. “And see some sights.”
“I am happy in my bog,” explained the creature with tepid boglike patience. “It is what I see and what I want, what I know and what I expect, what I wish and what I receive. Why should I stop looking at it?”
“You might like it up here,” said the muskrat.
“I’m not quite sure,” said the bog creature. And with no response to that, the muskrat departed – in some haste, for a fisher had come prowling by the shore.
“Hello, bog person,” said the fisher in a very polite and dapper little murderer’s voice. “Why not come up here and try to eat someone new?”
“I enjoy consuming bog matter,” said the bog creature. “It is all I have ever eaten, and I am not tired of it.”
“Maybe you’d enjoy blood and liver, if you tried it,” said the fisher.
“Taking the chance sounds risky,” said the bog creature. And the fisher bared her teeth at that politely and departed.
At last up to the pond stomped a big fat bear, already heavy with fat at only halfway through summer and riddled with laziness. “Hoi, bog fellow,” he belched sleepily into the water as he drank. “Still down there?”
“Yes,” said the bog creature.
“That’s fine,” said the bear. “I spent half the year wandering and doing things, and half the year doing nothing. And believe you me, the first half makes the second half feel like a dream picnic. G’bye.”
And the bear stomped off.
The bog creature fermented in the day’s juices, steeped in the thoughts of the conversations he’d had, burbled and bubbled with concept and conceit and nerves and nervousness. And then at last he rose from the bog, hoof by hoof, limb by limb, joint by joint, unfolding himself under the calm blue afternoon sky taller than the bear, taller than some trees, all muddy fur and flaring nostril and startlement, and he stood trembling in horror or delight. Then he bucked up just a little higher, to see if anyone was watching, and whacked his head into a nearby tree whose branches got stuck in his skull.
“OW!” he yelped.
And so he dove back into the bog, but his new crown was much too wide and broad and awkward to let him fit comfortably back into the bog. He left it the next day in exhaustion after a poor night’s sleep and a neck-crick that wouldn’t quit, and although he visited the bog for food and for comfort everafter, he found himself stuck outside of it by and large from then on. That’s a moose. That’s what it was. It was a moose.
***
“You can’t just repeat your story’s point over and over in case the audience didn’t get it!”
“Yes I can! I want to make sure they get it!”
“You can’t or it sucks!”
“It doesn’t suck!”
“No, she’s right. It sucks. You belabored the conclusion; you created an animal by having a tree get rammed into its skull for the second time running-”
“People run into trees all the time, it’s very plausible and realistic!”
“-and you spent the whole story building up to explaining how people get stuck in a rut for fear of change and how sometimes it takes more than just arguing to get them out, but then you back out at the last second and go ‘well trying something sucked completely and they wished they’d never tried changing but they were stuck forever never mind.’”
“And you didn’t use the rule of three again.”
“Right. And you didn’t use the rule of three again.”
“I did so! I made the story beat four times!”
“That’s not three.”
“Yes it is! It’s three and one more!”
“The rule of three implies three, not four, or three and one more.”
“But four has three in it!”
“If you divide it enough ways four has EVERYTHING in it, quit dragging your heels. God you’re obnoxious.”
“Stop being mean!”
“Stop being a brat!”
“It’s alright, everyone calm down, calm down.”
“You always take her side!”
“No, EVERYONE calm down, okay? Okay. Okay. Right. Want to give it another try?”
“Fine. But you have to promise to be fair, okay? Both of you. And REALLY fair, not fake fair. This was NOT fair criticism.”
“I promise that I will be as fair and unbiased and true as any one person can be.”
“I promise I’ll only say it sucks if it sucks.”
“No, be fair!”
“Doesn’t get fairer than that.”
“You-”
“Go on, then. We’re listening.”
“Fine. But you’d BETTER be fair. And I’m using the rule of three this time for real, you’ll see.”
***
A while ago – but not too long – there was only one tree. Everything that needed shade to survive, everything that needed greens to eat, everything that ate fruit or nuts or made nests from twigs or built homes from sticks or buried itself under fallen leaves and needles depended on, and lived around, that one tree.
But it was very old, and very tired. So one day it shook itself for attention, and it told the animals and plants that lived around it “the one who takes this branch from my head-”
***
“Agaub?!?”
“FUCK YOU IT’S NOT THE SAME FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. She didn’t mean anything by it. Go on.”
“She meant it! SHE MEANT IT!”
“No she didn’t. Right?”
“Mrrnnmmph!”
“See? Right. Now go on.”
***
“-the one who takes this branch from my head to those hills and plants it in the naked soil there will have fruit for the rest of their days.”
So a bird grasped the branch – which was very thin and high and tricky to get to – and flapped and leapt and shot and skittered across the long, shadeless, treeless miles to the far hills. And when the hills were all around and the bird could go no further, the branch was placed in the soil and sprouted and grew and grew and grew into groves of every fruit-bearing tree you could imagine.
Back at the one tree the animals saw the hills turn green, and then the tree shook itself again and spoke.
“Whoever takes this branch from my back to those valleys and plants it in the cold earth there will have nuts for the rest of their days,” said the one tree.
This time there were many volunteers. A squirrel ran for miles, wide-eyed with fear alone on the open ground, but oh the oaks and walnuts and almonds blossomed at the end of that terrible journey.
“This branch from my side will bring sweet sap,” said the one tree, and the beaver swam the wide and blisteringly-sunburnt rivers alone before waddling ashore and placing the prize.
“This branch, mild bark,” said the one tree, and porcupines waddled for days under cloudless skies, undaunted.
“This branch, relief from pain.”
“This branch, gentle shade.”
“This branch, useful twigs.”
“This branch, shelter from fire.”
“This branch, hollows for nests.”
“This branch, warmth in deep winter.”
And so on and on and on and on went the branches and the animals, and the world turned green and the ground was spared from the sun and the one tree was lost all alone, for it was all but bereft of its mass from its many gifts and it was surrounded by forests.
“Can I help?” asked the one remaining animal, the antelope.
“Maybe,” said the one tree. “But it’s a bit tricky to get at, and I can’t promise much in return because I’m just about out of gifts. Take the branch from my hand if you can, if you wish.”
“What, NOTHING?” asked the antelope in disbelief. “Not even some tender tasty buds or green shoots?”
“I’m fresh out,” said the one tree, who was now just an individual tree rather than the only tree.
“Well then never mind,” said the antelope, who gave the one tree a kick for its irritation. And at that the branch slipped from the tree’s frail hand and smacked straight into the antelope’s skull, thereby creating the pronghorn antelope.”
***
“You did it again.”
“Shut up. How was it.”
“Well, you did it again. That wasn’t great.”
“Shut up. How was it.”
“I also think maybe you shouldn’t have-”
“HOW WAS IT?”
“You didn’t use the rule of three – you had one-and-a-half pattern-setting incidents and one pattern-breaker interspersed with a bunch of papered-over pattern-setters.”
“And you did it again.”
“And you did it again, yes.”
“You know. The thing with the branches and the skulls. It’s pretty fucked up.”
“Maybe a little.”
The storyteller kicked the campfire over before they left. It was pretty smoky.
“Good riddance,” said the one critic some five minutes of quick work with dirt and water later. “And thanks for the backup, by the by.”
“It’s in all our best interests that we run him out of this hobby, the sooner the better,” said her colleague. “The platypus was my friend, you know. Before he started talking about them.”
“Half my relatives are elephants, the other half are walruses,” said his friend bitterly. “At least we kept the damage minimal this time. I don’t care what stories you’re telling on your own, but nobody deserves to have branches cosmologically inserted into their skulls without their consent. Hey, did you bring any marshmallows?”
“A few.”
“Then let’s unfuck this fire. I think we still have some coals.”
And so, under the night sky and free from any explanations whatsoever as to their respective anatomy, the two nameless non-tellers of stories celebrated the quiet death of the imposition of meaning upon one’s existence.
For at least that one night.