“Let’s hear a round of hootin’ and hollerin’ at that might fine display!” Mr. Ridley encouraged the children who were initially confused by the request but gradually registered that it meant clapping. Kaan took an over-the-top bow and waited for all of the children to depart before dismantling his equipment. Jasmine threw a wink in his direction as she led her troupe out of the hall, a wink that indicated that Kaan would be receiving some extra credit that night. Mr. Ridley pigeonholed Kaan as he was disassembling the set.
“That really was an incredible display, Kaan. I shall be making a rave review in the next edition for sure” Kaan was elated at being featured in the magazine but tried not to let it show.
“Thank you, sir. I’m glad you enjoyed it”
“Enjoyed it!? HA! That was one of the finest displays of puppeteering I’ve seen in all my years of the craft. Tell me, how did you get the puppets to move like that?” Kaan hesitated, if he were to reveal his powers he would be ridiculed and shunned from the puppeteering community, or worse, labelled a cheater who isn’t worthy of such association.
“It’s a new marionette rod, well glove actually” Kaan presented the glove to Mr. Ridley.
“I see. And the strings come through these holes presumably? It was a rhetorical question because as far as he knew the strings had to come out of somewhere and the holes he referred to were the only logical place they could sprout from.
“Yes, sir. And then they are threaded through the puppets in the most discreet of ways”
“Would have to be very discreet. You know, I could swear that I didn’t see any strings at all and that you were just making the puppets move voluntarily!” Kaan caught a lump in his throat. “Of course, that would be magic though wouldn’t it, and that’s next week’s theme, HA!”
“I couldn’t take a look at those puppets now could I?” The teacher asked.
“I’m sorry sir, a puppeteers’ puppets are sacred. Besides I’ve just laid them to rest
“Quite right, quite right. A master must look after their puppets” Whenever Kaan had used that excuse before, people would laugh at him and take the puppet anyway, however, this was the editor of Puppeteering bi-Monthly except during the months where the temperature fell below 24, he respected the art of puppeteering and its traditions, unlike the common folk. Nevertheless, the head teacher still had questions that needed answering, he had to take a look at those puppets but he also had to be subtle about it. He devised a cunning strategy.
Kaan was already at home by the time Jasmine returned. She didn’t greet him and instead went straight into the bathroom. When she entered the living room she was dressed in her fetching red cowboy hat and matching red boots.
“Howdy partner” Jasmine must’ve been cold given the circumstances. “How about you put me on your saddle?”
Kaan reached out his hands and pictured Jasmine’s waist. He was drooling with anticipation for the approaching bucking bronco. He closed his eyes and pictured her sultry waist in his mind. Slowly but surely, Jasmine felt herself rise alongside Kaan’s… The latter was a natural movement and not what Jasmine was concerned about, she was lingering a couple of feet in the air. Kaan still kept his eyes shut but his mind turned to Jasmine’s pelvis. He lunged towards his girlfriend and wrenched his arms upwards to grasp her. He could feel a warm fluid on his face, she must’ve been really in the mood. Sadly for Jasmine, she wasn’t in the mood. Her pelvis had shot up through her spine and out of the top of her skull. The fluid covering Kaan was not what he had hoped for but was a deep red. At least it had the same warmth and consistency of the fluid he was thinking of.
ZOOEY
Lots of people love animals, sure there are also lots of people that likely hate animals but that’s beside the point, nobody liked animals more than Zooey. This fascination with all creatures started at an early age when she would go out and play and then when it was time for her parents to take an evening bath they would discover hedgehogs in the tub on one night and then squirrels the next. On another night they found a badger in the tub which became somewhat frightened when Zooey’s father pulled back the curtain and thus the badger promptly clawed at his leg. In school she excelled at Biology and then went to university to study Animal Sciences. She didn’t have posters of rock stars or actors on her wall, instead she had posters of elderly men who like to stand next to animals and narrate what they’re doing at that given time. According to legend, this is how some reality TV shows became, well... a reality. Maybe one could blame the parents for her obsession with animals, they did put Zoo in her name after all. She was an animal rights activist, a vet, marine biologist, conservationist and a keen glass blower, if it had anything to do with animals – and on the odd occasion glass – Zooey could do it.
Zooey’s home contained a veritable herd/mass/swarm/flock (pick one) of animals that each had unique dietary requirements. For example, Old Bertie the terrier needed a cornucopia of supplements mashed in his food, Mr and Mrs Wuggles the two cats (because cats are to most people just cats regardless of their breed) were allergic to dairy and gluten respectively and Pepé could eat like a horse, despite being a turtle. Zooey had one other animal that could eat like horse, because that was Boris the horse. Zooey had an ass too and it was quite the ass at that (as in donkey you twisted so-in-so you!) which thought it was a meerkat after watching too many comparison website advertisements. And so, the maintenance of Zooey’s fauna took a considerable amount of time to complete, but she never once complained, for she was enamoured by animals, in her eyes they could do no wrong. Once feeding time was complete, Zooey usually took the extra few minutes before bed to blow a little glass globule with swirls of colours inside. Some call it art, most call it tripe.
Most days for Zooey had a particular routineness about them, each day was book ended by feeding times and then the middle part was almost always taken up by something animal related. This middle part was loosely structured depending on the needs of the day. On that particular day, Zooey was due at the farm. It’s a common misconception that the air is fresher on farms, the kind of people that believe this are typically city-dwelling folk and on the odd occasion a suburbanite who ventures to the supermarket week by week and thinks that farms must all be like the vegetable aisle. As a matter of fact, air is somewhat fresher than the air found in cities in large part because there are simply less cars and therefore less pollution than in the urban habitats. Nonetheless, the air certainly does not smell fresher as there is always a distinct waft of manure in the breeze, and often on your shoes.
It takes a special kind of person to shove a hand up a cow’s rear passage, Zooey was of the special variety that had shoved her hand up a whole host of rear passages and many other orifices in her duties at the farm and at the clinic. The farmer had a concerned look on his face as Zooey pulled her gloved hand out of Big Bertha.
“She gon’ be alright doc?” This was obviously said by the farmer as you could probably tell by the poor grammar, from this, it is likely that you would envisage him with dungarees a straw hat and chewing on a wheat spike, the stereotypical image of a hillbilly farmer. If that is the image you have in your head then I am sorry to disappoint, this particular farmer was immaculately dressed for the 18th century, it was just a shame that he was several centuries behind.
“She’ll be fine, there was just a thick clump of grass in her stomach that was having a hard time passing through”
“I knew her weren’t smellin’ right I did”
“Not to worry, she’ll be smelling like normal soon enough”
“Dat’s what I is worried about, Big Bertha could stink out a barn she could hyuk”
“…” Zooey didn’t have a response and so just smiled and made her way to the horses. Opposite the stables were the pig pens, admittedly, rather odd placement to have both of those animals together but then again, the farmer was making the most of the limited space he had available to him. At least the pigs were well away from the butcher’s shop on the other
side of the farm’s borders. In her peripheral vision, Zooey could swear that she saw the pigs standing on two legs, every time she tried to catch them out by turning sharply to face them, the pigs would be on all fours. When Zooey had finished inspecting the horse she saw that all of the pigs were watching her very closely, with narrowed vision. These pigs could start a revolution she thought.
It’s surprising how much shoving one’s hand into a cow is exhausting, the in out shake it all about onto the next rinse and repeat is positively draining. Zooey had to return to the farm the next day as she had barely enough time to properly inspect the animals there, she knew it would be another tiring day and so set about feeding her mass of animals and then settle into bed.
Naturally, Zooey had a pick-up truck, she needed it for all of the various animal supplies she carried with her on a daily basis, bags of grain, leashes, horse shampoo and the like, although the latter could’ve been for Zooey herself, horse shampoo is pretty good for that illustrious shine. She liked to listen to the radio in her pick-up truck, not that she had much choice as the CD player was broken and this was a model before the era of USB and whatever will eventually replace the USB in the future. The radio was tuned to the classical music station as she found that this genre was the most peaceful and calming, she did think this until a stirring rendition of a piece by Wagner conjured up images of fascism and conquest, so she simply turned the radio off and continued her journey in silence.
However, the journey wasn’t silent, there were many voices calling out many different things in many different accents. It was as though Zooey was driving down an urban street in place of the country lane with no houses on either side. She concluded that she must’ve tuned the radio to the chat show or the city-life ambient station and so she fiddled with the dial until she just heard the tail end of Wagner and peaceful strings resumed.
The farmer wasn’t there to greet Zooey, he had met her many times before and so trusted her to be around his farm without a chaperone. Zooey meandered across to the stables and as she did so she noted a lot more farmhands were about that day, they had to be farmhands of course because there were many more voices about, all talking to each other in a lively fashion about nothing in particular.
“It’s a little cold today” Was one such thing that Zooey could discern, though the thick accent was a little hard to make out.
“Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel” Came another voice, this one puffing frantically.
The voices subsided a little as she entered the cow pen, that being said the sound of noisy chewing overwhelmed any other such sound. The bovines were a hungry bunch and in a constant state of chewing. Zooey located the cow due for inspection, a cow by the name of Daisy. Not an imaginative name for a cow but at least it was one that was distinctly cow like, in a similar vein to Buttercup or Moo-Moo. Zooey snapped the glove on her hand and reached deep into the bovine’s bowels.
“Moo that tickles” Zooey looked around in confusion. She discerned that it must have been her inner dialogue conjuring inappropriate things to say in such a situation.
“A little to the left please” Zooey’s supposed inner dialogue spoke again. She couldn’t feel anything untoward about the cow’s digestive tract and so removed her gloved hand from the orifice.
“Moo done so soon, that is a shame. It was just getting interesting” This time Zooey was sure that she didn’t think such a thought. Maybe she had huffed a toxic shard of glass the previous night. She moved onto the next cow and thrust her gloved hand inside.
“MOO! Buy me a drink first madam!” Zooey immediately removed her hand and noticed the cow glaring at her while chewing. She jolted back when she felt a hairy creature brush past her leg.
“Don’t mind me, Miss. Just ‘avin a scratch” Zooey was certain that the voice came from the Border Collie and if the dog was there then the farmer would surely be soon to follow.
“Ah Zooey, I see you been getting right at it then” The farmer had opted for a rather dashing looking ruff (for reference, lookup an image of good ol’ Billy Shakes-his-Spear and note what he was wearing around his neck). “I ‘ope Daisy ‘aint been givin’ you no trouble” Zooey wasn’t sure if it was the farmer that was speaking or the dog and so simply shook her head.
“I’m sorry, sir. I must be feeling a little under the weather. I’ll have to have a lie down I think” Was what Zooey thought she said, however, the farmer looked puzzled at this and didn’t utter another word. She headed towards her pick-up truck and made to leave. The voices were insufferable, constantly surrounding her and causing her head to spin like crazy. She thought she was going crazy with all of the strange voices in her head.
Zooey lived in a relatively nice country house outside of the bustle of the city. When she pulled up on her driveway there were many voices coming from within her house. Zooey reached into the back of her truck and pulled out a shovel. She silently entered her abode and looked around but could see no sign of another person, nor any sign of anything being out of place. But still the voices remained. She crept into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain, because for some reason the shower curtain was closed, perhaps because the curtain knew that it would be used for dramatic effect later on that day. All that was in the bath was a solitary duck.
“Do you mind? I’m trying to bathe here” The duck had an aristocratic voice that oozed class and sophistication. Strange then that it was swimming around in its own filth.
“Sorry” Was Zooey’s natural response and she proceeded to close the shower curtain. Upon realisation that she had just seen a duck speak she wrenched it back open again. The shower curtain had certainly done its bit for the day.
“I say, madam! Have you no shame!?”
“You can talk?” A bizarre inquiry considering she was literally conversing with the duck.
“Of course I can, madam, and I shall use my eloquence to say that you are being most uncivilised. Close the curtain at once!” The duck commanded and Zooey obeyed, closing the curtain to be used for dramatic effect again.
Zooey left the bathroom and headed straight to bed. Sleep will cure everything she thought, which is not an unreasonable thought because sleep can indeed cure a lot of minor things such as a cold, headache, or upset tummy, however, sleep cannot cure anything and everything. If one was to go to bed with a broken limb then they mustn’t wake up and expect it to be fully healed. That would be silly.
At least the cats were silent, albeit purring rather noisily, on her bed. She dared not brush them off and just lay in a place beside them, clenching her eyes shut to escape the oodles of voices. When she woke it was dark. She must’ve slept through the day because the moon was in the night sky and there were stars dotted around, tell-tale signs that day had subsided to night, odd then that it took centuries for humans to figure that one out. The cats had since left the bed, leaving Zooey all alone in her bedroom. The voices had gone too. Alas, if the moon was in the sky then Zooey must’ve forgotten feeding time. She leapt off of the bed and stole towards the kitchen to prepare the various meals for the various animals. On her epic journey from the bedroom, across the hall and into the kitchen, epic in every sense that it took less than a minute, she noticed that all of her household fauna had fallen asleep. The cats were nowhere to be seen but that was not uncommon for the felines. They were likely out hunting or hosting a high stakes poker tournament somewhere in the attic. As soon as Zooey opened the cupboard and pulled out the plastic container containing the dry-foods, the animals awoke and the voices returned. Zooey dropped the container, sending many pieces of dry food scattered on the floor. A barrage of animals came trundling into the kitchen to devour the food, bringing with it a barrage of voices. The duck was there too, strutting around in its typical better-than-thou fashion.
“Step aside, vile cretins”
“U wot mate? I’ll ‘ave your guts for garters” was the less than diplomatic tone of the hedgehog.
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