Wounded

The pygmies lived in the jungle, singing more beautifully and strangely than birds. "You won't ever eat us, will you?" they asked their taller neighbours.

"Don't be silly," the neighbours told them in soothing voices. "You're too small and chewy."

"We should not feel hurt by that," the pygmies said to one another, "but we do."

The Greatest Place on Earth: The Netherlands

The people of the Netherlands were great engineers confronted by threatening seas. They built dykes to keep the water out of their country. Water felt insulted by this, and sent a delegation of raindrops to complain.

"We are water. We feel rebuked. Remove those dykes."

"No. We don't want to be flooded. We don't want to drown. We can't farm our land if it's under water."

"Please."

"No."

"Very well then. We didn't want to threaten you but you leave us no choice. Did you know," said the raindrops, frowning, "that the human body is ninety per cent water?"

"That seems like a lot."

"Or eighty or sixty, or something like that, we don't remember exactly," water said in a nettled way, "but our point is that you can't live without us. If you don't remove those dykes, we will remove ourselves from your bodies."

The people did not like being threatened. "We will not give in, you bullies."

"Very well. From dawn tomorrow onwards the people of this country will have no water in their bodies. Think about it." The raindrops withdrew.

The people gathered together to debate strategy. "What are we going to do? We can't live without water in our bodies."

"Who says it has to be water? Any liquid will do. Why should water be so special?"

"You're right. What can we use as a substitute?"

"Oil."

"No, nice idea but if we're full of oil we'll explode every time we go near fires."

"Milk."

That sounded like the solution until someone at the back raised her hand and said apologetically, "I'm lactose intolerent."

"What do you suggest then?" the elder stateman asked her.

"Red cordial?"

Undiluted red cordial was the obvious answer. It did not contain any substance found in nature and therefore no delegations of raindrops or rocks or any other nature-oriented thing could ever be sent to protest against their use of it. So they replaced all of the water in their bodies with red cordial.

Immediately ever the entire population was fiercely energised and did everything ever conceived. The Netherlands became the greatest place on Earth.

Pointing

The flâneurs were wandering through Paris, peering and staring at everything interesting. "Look at that," murmured one, "a wonderful array of stuffed animals and a birdcage full of pincushions."

"See there," sighed a second, "a marvellous wall of lithographs and a forest of corsets."

"Oh, observe," muttered a third in ecstasy, "a tremendous collection of mirrors."

"Stop pointing at us," said the other two.

Stupid Hill

In the year 1900, General Sir Charles Warren decided that his soldiers were going to occupy the peak of a tall hill named Spion Kop. "Men," he said, "go up that hill in the fog." The whole affair was a disaster in ways that you can read about in history books.

"Stupid hill," he raged afterwards. "Stupid, stupid hill! Everybody listen to me! From now on that hill is to be known as 'Stupid Hill.'"

"But it already has a name."

"Yes it does. The name is Stupid Hill."

"No, Spion Kop."

"Stupid Hill!"

"Spion Kop."

Nobody was persuaded. "I'll become a cartographer and change it myself!" So he left the military and studied cartography. During years of study he learnt a million things about the world that he had not known before. He learnt the dimensions of valleys and the constitutions of plateaus. He learnt about the weather in distant places he had never visited. He learnt about the housing that people constructed on mountainsides, and the ways in which they made plain land arable. Then he learnt about the societies of these people, their habits and laws, their histories and rulers, the pets they liked to keep, the songs they liked to sing, their languages, and their systems of writing. He taught himself six new languages and obtained a koto, which he played on moonlit nights, under a blanket of stars, while wearing a hat in the style of a South American Indian.

After all this he graduated. Finally he was a qualified cartographer. "What are you going to do now?' his fellow cartographers asked, much impressed with his accomplishments.

"This," he said. Leaning across a map of South Africa, he crossed out the words 'Spion Kop' and wrote in 'Stupid Hill.'

Bathysphere II: Bazamba

She built a bathysphere.

"See: it goes underwater in the bath."

"No, no, ha ha, you've got the wrong idea. I know it's a bathysphere, but you see, the word means --"

But she was already underwater.

"I saw a deep sea trench!" she said when she resurfaced. "And a dozen species unknown to science. Molten lava steaming from the rock!"

"You are disembarking in the soap dish."

"It's the only way!"

A plastic duck bobbed by in a frenzy.

"She has disturbed the monster of the deep! Bazamba comes! Fly, fly, you fools!"

Bazamba emerged from the deep. A giant baby. Thrown out with the bathwater once, and forgotten.

"Gwar! Roar!"

Moral: Don't mess with nature.

Ausum

"Please don't be vulgar," her mother pleaded. "Don't call the child any of those silly modern names, like Bylynda with a y, or Lateesha-Camille with a hyphen. Call it something nice. Give it one of those old-fashioned names like Hope or Charity, some quality that you'd like the baby to aspire to."

"Very well," the daughter said, and she named the baby 1337.

Talking to the hand

Moliere had a coughing fit while playing the title role of his play The Hypochondriac, and died of it. "Unfortunate," agreed the spokesperson for windpipes, " but we windpipes have to draw attention to ourselves somehow."

"Why?"

"Because we have demands."

"What demands?"

"Better working hours. Among other things. I have a list here from our union."

"What if we say no?"

"You have a windpipe, don't you?" The spokesperson smiled. "Think about it."

They paled.

"Yes, but -- better working hours? We can't --"

"Uh!" The spokesperson held up a palm. "Talk to the hand."

"Frankly I couldn't care less one way or the other," the hand said.

The pain

"I carried on downwards ... it was a dark place ... pain, horrible pain ... and the weight of the water over my head ... a chasm! ... and the fishes ... each one representing a separate failure ..."

"Shut up."

"Now I try to return ... I am misunderstood ..."

"Shut up!"

"Now am I silenced ..."

"Shut! Up!" they said to the emoceanographer. "Go cut yourself or something."

"The pain ... the ignorance ..."

Cultural appropriation

The Ghanian hiplife musician Tic Tac recorded a song called "Kangaroo". In the video you can see people dancing to this song by tucking up their imaginary paws and jumping first to the right and then to the left.

The indigenous people of Australia, the Kulin in particular, took exception. "Dancing like a kangaroo is our tradition. This man has stolen it. Culture-thief!"

Then the kangaroos themselves spoke up. "Actually, to be perfectly honest, we prefer the Ghanian version." They addressed the Kulin, "When you imitate us you are fairly faithful. You let your paws hang limply, you pick at the ground, you hop as if you have fat bottoms. But these Ghanians -- they make us look sexy. Listen to the lyrics --

No matter how high I go, I never fall
Cos I am a son of a kangaroo
No matter how high I jump, I never fall
Cos I am a son of a kangaroo.

It's so much more flattering! Who wants to be a fat-bummed old dirt-picker when you can be a superstar who never falls down?"

They began freestyling.

"Funny boy, them try imitate me
Look them
Tell them say dem a masters them a rate me
Me too fast, them can't ever chase me
Who want rock me
Come and face me."

Eyesight

"The lines on my hands are huge. I'm so old. I'm falling apart."

"Nonsense! Your eyes are getting better with age. That's all it is. That's why the lines look bigger to you, it's because you're seeing them more keenly."

It was true. Everything was getting larger and clearer as she aged. The skins of babies resembled the hides of scarred mountains or other pieces of violent scenery. Where other people saw a calm surface, "smooth as a baby's bottom," she saw pits and cliffs.

"I'll climb these new mountains. I'll adventure."

But the baby-climbing expedition was not the success she'd hoped for.

Trains, part 2

The graffiti artists prowled the suburbs, looking for clues. "Hmmm ..." Nothing, nothing. They painted their names on houses to keep themselves busy during their operations.

Then one of them realised that he had painted off the corner of a house and onto the side of a train.

"Hidden!"

The trains were in the bushes.

"Behind an ordinary suburban house."

"Whose?"

It belonged to the fanatic with the moustache. They saw him. He blanched -- discovered! There was only one way to avoid imprisonment. He picked up the boys and put them inside his moustache.

This narrow escape made him feel that he must now become paranoid. The managers had sent those boys after him, surely? Then he would put them in his moustache as well. When the families of the kidnapped managers came looking for them he stashed them in there as well. Then their friends. And so on, until everyone in the world was inside his moustache.

After that the world was a lot calmer.


-----
Trains, part 1

Small crows

There was a bonsai tree in Japan. A cockroach climbed the trunk and sat on one of the branches looking as black as a crow.

Then it climbed back down again, went outside, and got into the branches of a fully-sized tree, saying, "I have looked like a crow in one tree, why not another?" The cockroach's charisma was so persuasive that the universe adjusted itself to suit its beliefs, and it grew to the size of a crow.

Flying around, it tormented the real crows, who, to escape its teasing, shrank to the size of cockroaches and made nests in bonsai trees.

Trains

Old men with white moustaches worked on the railway. One of them deliberately grew his facial hair to a huge size and then tucked locomotives in there at night to take home. The people in management were bewildered. Who was stealing their trains? They had to cancel the 10:12, the 12:52 and the three o' clock express.

The passengers fumed and the management said, "It is a mystery that must be solved."

The thief felt sorry, but he told himself that he was an autistic fetishist and that this explained everything. He continued to steal trains.

The management tried everything. Finally they called in their old nemeses, the graffiti artists, and asked them for their assistance. "Otherwise we'll have to cancel all of the trains and you'll have nothing to paint on."

"Disaster!" the graffiti artists agreed. They clasped their hands on their chins and looked thoughtful.



To be continued.

The bewitched

The Hapsburgs had long chins. Prodigious chins. Chins to their knees. One of the chins was so long that it dragged on the ground and the owner had to tie it in a knot so that he could walk around without tripping over. "A knot in the chin is a sign of noble blood," he told people, meaning to make them jealous, but they knew the truth: he couldn't even chew.

Bathysphere

She built a bathysphere.

"See: it goes underwater in the bath."

"No, no, ha ha, you've got the wrong idea. I know it's a bathysphere, but you see, the word means --"

But she was already underwater.

"I saw a deep sea trench!" she said when she resurfaced. "And a dozen species unknown to science. Molten lava steaming from the rock!"

"Let me see."

He went down in the bathysphere and returned disappointed and suspicious, saying, "All I saw was a plastic duck and the plughole."

She smiled a little.

"Yes, I thought you would."

The dangers of armour

The knight sat on his horse in plate armour.

Oh God, he said. I can't move.

Ho ho, said the horse, and ran away.

Stop!

Ho ho, said the horse, and stopped so suddenly that the knight fell off.

He lay on the ground alone. Wolves licked his armour until he rusted. Lizards laid eggs on him.

O help, said the knight.

Ages went by. Someone, he couldn't see who, built a house nearby and incorporated him into a rockery. He realised that death had forgotten where he was.

Ghblmf, he said, as agapanthus roots grew around his jaw.

When the home was featured in Better Homes & Gardens they photographed the owner leaning on a spade by the rockery, but, as he leaned, the blade of his instrument cut downwards through the earth and into the knight's leg.

Ayooingh!

The knight sat up.

What's that? asked the journalist from Better Homes & Gardens.

I don't know, said the owner.

Mackmngarkl! shouted the knight, stamping around heavily, soil and dandelions dropping off him. Shock had given him the strength to move. Rusty pieces of armour fell away from his chest and limbs. Jmeblblbl!

It's a knight!

Get out of my rockery!

No, leave him alone, said the journalist. We'll do a feature. O sir knight, listen to me --

Bwulnch!

Sir knight!

Prigah! The knight found his tongue. Agapanthus! he shouted. Agapanthus!

The roots had been around his mouth for so long that it was the only word he could say.

Agapanthus! Agapanthus!

The journalist wrote that down.

Hermits

Gothic vistas were in fashion. A rich man built one in his garden, complete with a cave which a rustic hermit could inhabit. "Come, you," he said to a poor man. "Dwell in this cave and be my hermit."

"How much?"

They negotiated a price. The hermit moved into the cave, ate roots and berries, wore a plain robe, and looked indescribably scenic.

"So what do you do for a living?" he asked the rich man one evening as the sun went down.

"Banking," the rich man said. "Law, also, and careful investment in the steam locomotive. I live an exhausting life. I take cold baths every morning yet I am aged prematurely by cares and woes."

"We should change places," the hermit suggested. "It's very relaxing in this grotto."

He envisioned them changing places, both of them learning from the experience, the ruthless businessman softening, his estranged wife rediscovering the soulful man she fell in love with years before, the orphans he had evicted from their orphanages learning that old Mr Smith was not so bad under his hard carapace, the orphanage restored, with food on the table every night, and old ladies helped across the road. God bless us every one, he thought.

"Are you kidding?" the rich man said. "I wouldn't live in a cave if you paid me. And stay away from my wife."

Executions

Socrates sipped the hemlock. Well, it was no good. Tasted of sugar.

"Less sugar," he said. "This is not the ideal way to die."

The executioner went back to his boss. "He said no sugar."

"He can take what he's given."

The executioner returned to Socrates, who debated with him for perhaps three hours on the subject, proving philosophical paradoxes until the executioner in exasperation said, "Oh, here, I'll drink it," and did, and died.

Wax and moths

The freak show barker pointed.

"The tallest man in the world!"

"Ships will run into him," they sighed. "Planes will fly into him."

Ships ran into him and planes flew into him.

They put a candle in his hand and a candle on his shoe.

"Now ships and planes can see him."

They could, and moths surrounded him at night.

"How beautiful," they said.

The freak show barker rubbed his hands.

"They love it," he said to the tallest man. "A moth zoo. From now on you'll only come out at night."

The tallest man began to weep.

Bees, good and bad

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon attracted a billion bees. It was good for honey but bad for sunbathers.

The forces of economics and relaxation clashed.

"Ignore these pampered elites!" the honey-sellers shouted. "We want more bees!"

"Ignore these economic fascists!" the sunbathers yelled. "We want fewer bees!"

Two earthquakes occurred and the gardens collapsed.

"Happy now?" the honey-sellers shouted at the sunbathers.

"Delighted!" the sunbathers yelled.