Blanche and Ozwald stepped through the portal into a magical place, with green grass and trees all around, chirping birds, bunnies, a brook of trickling water was flowing set among the lilies and posies. There were little trails paved by deer and white fluffy clouds whisping through the blue sky. The air was filled with the scent of blossoms and berries from the pink and blue leaved trees. “Wow!” Blanche exclaimed. This is beautiful!” “Berries!” Ozwald exclaimed, running to one of the trees.
Blanche turned to find a coffee table, and on it sat a suspicious looking bowl of petunias. Blanche starred at it for a second, expecting it to do something…well…suspicious, like lash out or some even more horrid unspeakable act. But it just sat there, doing absolutely nothing, as it probably had for eons, or however long this little enchanted place had been there, unseen by human eyes and untrodd by human (or orangutan) feet. This only heightened Blanches anticipation that it might suddenly break from that long sullen cycle of silence. But contrary to her instinct, the bowl of petunias did nothing, it just sat there, perfectly content in its state of deathly yet torturous stillness. “What in the world are you doing Blanche?” Ozwald beckoned, “Why are you standing there looking at that pot of flowers? Come on let’s go explore this place.”
“Ok, ok” said Blanche, as she struggled to break herself free of the half-conscious daze she had been drawn into, her eyes being fixed in a deep gaze of contemplation, she somehow felt eternally connected in some way, irresistibly bound to this opponent drenched in tranquility, and powerless to escape. Finally she came to her senses and slowly drifted back to reality. “Geese Blanche what was that all about?” “I don’t know Ozwald? It’s that bowl of petunias, it just caught my attention for some reason, I couldn’t take my mind off of it. Well let’s go, huh?” and they began to skip down a well-worn path.
They laughed and joked, pointing out all kinds of strange little animals and weird probably undiscovered plants of all kinds “we could be famous Blanche! I bet no one has ever seen this place before.” After walking for sometime, and saying nothing, Blanches thoughts began to drift back to the suspicious looking bowl of petunias. She had felt, when in its presence; as though she had been trapped in a hypnotic gaze with it since the dawn of time, and yet was perfectly content to go about doing so forever. As if she was staring into the eternities.
After walking for some time they came upon a little cottage in a grotto amid some scrub oak, and a path just beyond it, leading into the thick dark forest.
“Let’s go and see if anyone lives here Blanche.Like a handful of dwarves or a beautiful white skinned girl?”
“Yah right, ok, let’s go and check it out. Why do I get the suspicion that I’m going to regret this?”
Blanche and Ozwald cautiously approached the little hand carved wooden door, and Ozwald, with utmost enthusiasm, gave it a good knock, to which the door promptly flew open to reveal a furry little creature, somewhat resembling a hamster, with beady little eyes a pointy nose and a large smile, who looked far to small to be the original occupant of his disproportioned dwelling.
“Come on in friends! Welcome! Welcome! Sit down make yourselves at home I hope you like crapleberry jam.” This did not sound to appealing to Blanche, who had a feeling of uneasiness and abhorrence for this pungent little creature. Ozwald however graciously gobbled up several slices of toast and its odd condiment.
“Allow me to introduce myself, I am Narfy Bumpkin, known to the natives around here as ‘the great stupid.’ I haven’t had any guests in ages, in fact most of my crapleberry jam has long gone bad because I just have to much to eat it all myself.”
Ozwalds facial expression immediately turned from satisfied to disgruntled as he clutched his discontent stomach and tried to disregard his sudden nausea.
“The great Stupid?’ isn’t that a bad thing?” Blanche said, “You act as though being so deemed by your apparently unfriendly neighbors, is a compliment?”
“Oh they don’t know anything, you see, they just don’t understand, I am an inventor, my IQ is vastly superior to those savages in the woods. They just can’t appreciate my genius, which is why I live here, alone.”
“But this house is so big, and well, you’re so small, how is that, I mean did someone else live here before you?”
“Oh no! I built it myself. You see no one else could have been capable of mastering such an architectural phenomenon, way ahead of its time.”
“Uhah” Blanche said questioningly as she looked around the room to find beams being held together with clay and bits of twine, not a single ninety-degree angle to be found, the whole thing looking as if it would topple at any time.
“Yep I found the plans for it floating in a pond outside some years ago, see here they are.” As Narfy, shuffled through some piles of scattered notes and papers then handed them what appeared to be a copy of the blueprints for Buckingham Palace.
“Of course I made a few modifications, based on available resources and changes I thought would be better. Pretty good huh?”
Blanche by this point was beginning to think it was time to get going, that this self-proclaimed inventor was a few gears shy of his clock, but she turned to find Ozwald, in a not so skeptical fascination with the many half done contraptions scattered around the cottage. Having completely forgotten about his stomach which previously did not agree with him, Ozwald was intently studying the gadgets which now gathering dust, were obviously started long ago, but because of forgetfulness and disorganization, had never been finished.
“Yes architecture is one of my lesser hobbies. My most favorite things to do are crocheting, studying the ancient archeological finds of this magical land, and I have always been most fascinated with the breeding rituals of the many varieties of poinsettias.”
“What?!” said Blanche as Narfy went over to assist Ozwald in his attempt to assemble some gears together.
“Oh, the other day I found a piece of plywood on the bank of the little brook, which I think confirms my long suspected theory of the origins of this land.”
“I’m afraid to ask, but humor me.”
“Well the natives here grow peanut plants which, I think anyway, have been here far longer than we have. Which leads me to believe that this entire world was created by some sub species of Elephant who built ships and traveled here anciently. Their intelligence being vastly superior to all but perhaps that of myself, allowed the peanut bushes which they initiated to thrive long after they were gone.”
“But the only water here is that little brook out there… wait why am I encouraging this conversation, Ozwald! It’s ti…”
“Oh but it was probably once a torrent of raging water, that they could have easily sailed down to here.”
“Ok, Ozwald it’s time for us to be leaving now.”
But it was too late, for Ozwald who had overheard that part of the conversation, had become interested and left his intent inquiry of the machinery to participate in the discussion. Ozwald asked “well do you know where the river leads to, maybe you could travel upstream to find where the elephant people came from, and maybe some are still there?! You could connect the gap between thousands of years of mystery and find out where you all came from!”
“Well the native won’t go past the forest edge because they consider it sacred ground from whence the creators came. And I am just far to busy for that kind of doddling. Besides I can’t go very far hiking, my blood sugar gets low, and I perspire.”
“You mean to tell me no one has gone beyond the brook out there?” said Blanche.”
“Nope, I am on a breakthrough with many inventions, I have so many books to read, I learn a lot. Like for instance Blanche, did you know that in a place called Australia the toilet water swirls the opposite direction than all the other continents on this one world.”
“What? You call that knowledge? Wait how did you know that?”
“See, here it is.”
As he handed her a book entitled ‘Down Under-everything you need to know about plumbing in Australia,’ one of the many books on his shelves, all of which looked long out of print.
“Where did you get these books? They are from my world.”
“I found them. Oh scattered here and there every which way, out in the woods.”
“Are there any books in your archive about how to get out of this accursed place?”
“There is no way out, you are here forever.”
“No way, you must be joking, there has to be a way?”
“Nope, ‘fraid not, but that is perfect because you can stay and be my assistants, I am working on an invention that will make your bread all warm and toasty, but wont burn it to a crisp like the fire does.”
“You mean like a toaster?”
“What? Hey blanche guess what, this morning… I lowered my cholesterol!”
“…Fascinating…Well I’m terribly sorry Narfy Bumpkin, but we must be going.”
“What for, do you have some pressing appointment perhaps? Oh tonight you can stay for dinner. I made poppy seeds in Bo Bo sauce on chunky Crapperjam balls. Yes I know what your thinking… not only is he a genius inventor but an excellent chef too!”
“Actually that’s not what I was thinking, at a…”
“Go ahead Ozwald try some, they’re delicious!”
“Ozwald, remember what the last thing you ate here did;”
As he was raising a heaping spoonful to his mouth, and he quickly changed his mind.
“Well the Great Stupid, we really must be going now, it was nice to meet you.”
And Blanche began to get up and head for the door, followed quickly there after by Ozwald.
“No! Wait! I can help, remember I told you there’s no way out, but here (as he waddled on over to the counter and picked up what appeared to be an old broken toaster) I have invented this time machine, it took me forever to build it.”
“Umm… It doesn’t look safe. I’m not sure if we sho…”
“Safe! Of course it’s safe! I built it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“With this time machine you can go back to before you came here and then this whole thing never would have happened.”
“Well come to think of it, I do wish we had never come here.”
“Good! Here, now we just push a few buttons and, let’s see where’s that switch?”
Narfy was now fuddling with an increasingly temperamental contraption. Strange noises and flashes of light began to get louder and louder.
“Oh darn it where did I put that button, we need to set it to yesterday, but what time…?”
“Oh! Uh we’ll be just fine on our own! It looks like you are having problems with that thing. Quick Ozwald let’s go! Out the door!”
The machine had begun a high-pitched screech, that got higher and higher.
“Oh here it is, ok…”
“Now Ozwald!”
Blanche and Ozwald lunged out the front door and into a ditch, covering their heads with their arms, just as the Time machine erupted into a huge fiery ball that was visible… from space. Ozwald not far behind barely made it out the door in time, but all the hair on his back was singed off. When the smoke settled they discovered that Narfy Bumpkin was dead. There was nothing remaining of ‘The Great Stupid’ or his poorly designed little shack laboratory thingy. All that remained on the former site was the cover to one of his books entitled “The struggles and lives of single cat-fish” which they used as a tomb stone, and had a brief mourning with probably the shortest Eulogy in history.
“We barely made it out alive Ozwald. Well let’s go see if we can find our way out of here, shall we?”
And they began to walk down the little crooked path into the black jungle. Meanwhile back at the entrance portal, still sat the suspicious looking bowl of petunias, wallowing in its seclusion. It begins to continue to do nothing. But then… just as we begin to rejoin our heroes in the jungle… suddenly… While our backs are turned, the suspicious looking bowl of petunias…still does nothing, as it always has. Leaving our heroes to wander off into the jungle, alone.
