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DWARF
by Jeroen van Drie
I take walking in the forest much the same as walking in a museum;
both are usually beautiful places, and you get from them what you want.
It is a consumer attitude. You buy it. How wrong I was. A museum is a
human place; an animal would deficate in it just like it would a forest,
and now, I tend to agree with the animal. That, in fact, must be why they
keep animals out of museums. Not because of my convictions but because of
what they'd do there.
People tend to be rather single-minded about things. Animals would
shit and piss all over the place; dogs actually prefer that line of
proceedings to mark their territory. We human beings specialize in
time and place. We create just the place to relieve ourselves. We have
other such means of marking territory.
But, I was walking through the forest admiring the scenery much
like one would admire it's counterpart on canvas, when I heard a snarl
and a wry comment.
"Gahnaah," the snarl sounded. "As if this is a place just to
watch. You're a crazy idiot."
I turned around and watched, flabbergastedly, at a very small
thick droll fellow staring at me from under bushy eyebrows. He was
two feet tall, had a lumpy nose, two red apple-cheeks, and had a beard
of twines. I thought he was a midget, but he had pointed ears without
lobes, and, well -- he was not human. When I regained my composure and
closed my mouth, I opened it again; I had also regained somewhat of my
belligerent stance in life.
"You may be nonexistent and a so-called figment of my imagination,
or from my collective unconscious, or of whatever -- but that doesn't
give you an excuse to call me a crazy idiot."
"I didn't call you anything. I was just stating the facts. Stating
an elementary truth," he replied.
"Listen," I said. "For such a creature of my own imaginative
projection, you have a big mouth."
"I'd rather have it the other way around," he said. "You're the
projection here. A long time ago one of my people had sex with a giant
tree monkey and your kind came from it," he explained, gesturing and
grinning. "If anyone is a creature of imagination, it is you -- of the
frustrated-sexual-depravative-preferential creativity of that ancestor,"
he had the nerve to add.
"Say, you're smaller than I am, no doubt I have more virulence than
you, so why do you so insist to insult me?" I taunted.
He tipped his head back arrogantly and said, "You cannot touch me."
So I stalked towards him and before I knew anything, I flew through
the air and landed some ten feet back. I was not hurled by a force, I
simply glided back to where I had stood.
"This isn't happening," I concluded.
"That's why you're such a crazy idiot. Obviously something's happening
to you, and still you say `this isn't happening'; If it isn't happening,
then why is it happening?"
"You have a point there," I said.
"I'm not convinced you're not a crazy idiot, I can say that eight and
four are thirteen . . ."
"Eight and four is twelve!"
"Thirteen, and you would agree; it's not that simply agreeing with me
makes you smart. For example, would you tell anyone you have met me?"
"No, they would think I was a crazy idiot, you fo. . ."
"Exactly! I'm here, so you're a crazy idiot."
"Well, now," but I couldn't make sense of it. Then I heard a voice
call out.
"Yeebra!"
"Oh," the small figure said while turning around. "Dinner time,
well, I've amused myself with you, but I'll be off then." He turned
around and disappeared.
"Yes, have a nic. . ." I tried to say but he had already gone. Well,
ever since then, they not only remove animals from museums, they kind
of anticipate what I'd do there as well. As I said, we human beings
specialize in time and place; we create just the place to relieve
ourselves. Just the place to put people like me. Sure, all of us here
have talked to this little fellow, but then, all of us here are CRAZY
IDIOTS.
# # #
Copyright 1994 Jeroen van Drie
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Jeroen resides in the Netherlands and is eager to stimulate interest in
E-Magazines in Europe. He and others are working on Project EEMAG (see
WhatNots). He can be reached at FIDO 2:283/613 (++31-85613185). Give him
a call and help support Project EEMAG; he'll appreciate your interest.
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