A Halloween Offering

       A Halloween Offering

          Hannah and I were clearing out some drawers in her room, in order to make room for her socks, underwear and bras; and some old writings surfaced. This one appears to be from her in kindergarten or first grade.

***

I dreamed that I was in a pumpkin patch and I found a weird-looking seed. Somehow I turned into a pumpkin; then some people picked me up and took me to their house where they put me on a chair in the middle of a room. Then they danced around me. Then they put me on a windowsill and went looking for knives. I rolled out their window and back to the patch. I found the seed; a wheel turned, and I was a girl again. The End.

***

Hannah says, “I must have been a disturbed kid.” I said, “This is GREAT! People dancing around a pumpkin! They go for knives so you roll out the window! Woo-OO-oo!”

Flame Out, an Underfable

          Flame Out

          Once upon a time an Avatar’s path was blocked by a Flame War. A Troll hurled a fireball title-lined “Girls Have Cooties”; its foe, a Scold, threw back a fireball title-lined “Gamers are Gross”. The Basement Dweller hurled “I Wish You Were Dead”; the Moral Entrepreneur threw back “You’re Dead Already”.

The Avatar said, “Get a room, you two! Unbar my way, for I am on a Quest. Behold!” The Avatar gestured, and a vision appeared.

The Scold sneered, “What is that tawdry hovel?”

“It is the Palace of Scandal.”

The Troll grunted, “What’s up?”

“Within that Palace, a Maker is kissing a Messenger, in exchange for plaudits!” The Scold gasped, the Troll snickered, and the Avatar contined, “Yes, isn’t it delicious?  I am on a Quest for Citation.”

“Bo-ring,” the Troll lied.

“Irrelevant,” the Scold snipped.

The Troll said, “Our fight is much more interesting.”

The Scold added, “And original!”

The two started throwing fireballs again; so the Avatar pressed a ban hammer, and both Troll and Scold were ejected from Cyberspace.

The Avatar said, “It’s good to be a moderator,” and proceeded on the path towards the Palace of Scandal.

Moral: The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.

A Talent for Failure, an Underfable

       A Talent for Failure

          (after Matthew 25:14-30)

          Once upon a time, a Boss was about to go abroad, so he called his three employees and gave each a dozen golden talents to invest until his return.

          Upon his return, the first employee said, “I invested a dozen talents in a real-estate bubble. The bubble burst, and nothing remains.”

          The second employee said, “I invested a dozen talents in an imperial adventure, but the war was lost, and nothing remains.”

          The third employee said, “I buried the dozen talents in the back-yard, for the world is full of thieves. Here are your dozen talents.”

          The Boss paid the first two employees two dozen talents each, for they were too big to fail; but he dismissed the third employee, for lack of innovation.

          That third employee then founded a company of his own, which remained in business long after the Boss’s company went bankrupt.

          Moral: You get what you pay for.