Sheep and Wolves

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  “These women are mightily ug, true enough?” Humpty said. She sat at the table thighs aslant, like the men about.

  “They’re considered tippy beautiful by most,” said I, and watched one such man hold a hanky close to a geisha’s sniffer so she could sniffle out.

  “Professional amputations a beauty makes?” Humpty said. It was true. The geisha had their entire arms and legs removed at a very young age to become less and more than any other woman.

  “There’s mas to their art than missing parts, Humpty. They’re trained to speak the words a man wants to harken.”

  “Shock! Men desire to harken a woman’s words? Why then do they hum when I open my yapper?”

  “I’m only playing the devil’s advocate.”

  “Advocate or avocation did you say? I cannot hear you mighty what with the chitchat and razzmatazz swarming.”

  “You’ll never get betrothed with that attitude,” said I.

  “And what would I do with a hubber? Do I not have feelers and feet unbroken to serve my needs and wants?”

  “Verily so.”

  “Then slow yourself to spew me pity, for I stink enough from sleeping in a tree.”

  “You’re jesting, true enough?”

  “Iie. I ran away from my familia before our enemies had the chance to chop me, and I’ve slept in a tree that day eternal, with a moat and traps circum. And if they manage to breach those barriers, everyever I’ll have sharpened parsnips to pitch at their chumming faces.”

  I laughed, then turned my happyface down. “Does such a life not make you feel solus?”

  “I have you.”

  “Verily so.”

  And I noticed two things then. One: a group of men were standing circum Humpty, pointing feelers, hahaing, speaking words like ug and mannish. And two: Humpty didn’t care.

  And Humpty the Prisoner said, “If Humpty cared not what spawned in the thinkers of others, then why is it you could not be the same way?”

  “There it is,” said I. “The question of questions.”

  “That’s all you give me? Another bland statement drowning in abstraction?”

  “I see. So you wish to be served answer after answer after answer as a man would serve a geisha, true enough? That sounds very unHumptylike to me.”

  “Even Humpty my thinker imagines would at tiempos grow weary of your riddles.”

  “My riddles?!? You name the question born from your own mind: Newton’s Problem? Take some responsibility.”

  “And how does one go about doing that?”

  “Start off by naming your own brainchild after yourself. Humpty Junior or Humptina, if you like. Then answer their questions when they ask you.”

  “What if I know not what to reply?”

  “Make it up as real parents do. The important thing isn’t that you’re right, but that they shut up their yappers. Otherwise, how will you ever sleep?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready to be a brainparent.”

  “Well don’t look at me. I have my own children to feed.”

  “I say I’m not ready!” He repositioned to his knees and locked his feelers.

  “Pray not! To hear a parent’s worries brings only suffering and greater agitation to a child. But worry not, for I have a known remedy. Allow me to continue my tale, and soon your child will fall to sleep. Then you’ll have tiempo to your own self once more.”

  He nodded, and for both our thinker-children, proceeded I in lullaby.

  *

  An e-Hermes soared into my comper vision and proclaimed, “Salutations and congratulations! Your Site has just become one of the tippy hundred on all Flapjack.” My Site, you see, had been—for quite a mighty tiempo—devoted lock, stock and bottomless barrel to the Humpty-and-me Semi-goodtime Adventures in Mundane Land. Not that I verily cared to make our talky intercourses public, but I had nada else to put on my Site, since this specific composing gobbled all my Cultural momentos. Being of the tippy one hundred Sites was assumed to be a thing of an honor, for every site had matched space, matched accessibility, and matched advertising, and therefore the only course to pop-fame was through word of yapper. Hai, the news of hundredthness forged a flabbergast gasp, but I stored the info at the aft of my thinker as mucho achievable. My familia never mentioned the Site—they probably didn’t even know its pop-fame—until that day my mother, with dazzled peepers, enlightened me about a visitor waiting. So to the living room I trekked and found a woman kneeling on the center mat. She, who I knew to be Ambrosia, probably the tippiest adored person on the tele, tickled at me with the biggyest peepers on the Flapjack. Every year, they appeared to grow larger and larger, and many assumed she accomplished this with surgical tinkerings, but others asserted that they grew by their own accords. Every phenomena about her—her clothes, the way her pupils danced, her trembles—spoke the same words: “I need you.”

  Across from her, I sat, a mighty distance away.

  My father trotted forward and said to her, “Mayhaps you would like some tea?” and he reached for a cup.

  To this, my mother coughed in the archway, and my father stumbled backward as if he’d been shoved.

  “I would mightily enjoy some tea,” Ambrosia said, then peeked at me for a momento. “Mayhaps Newton-san would do me the honor?”

  “Hai,” said I, and repositioned to her side, while my mother yanked my father to the archway with her glare.

  The cup to her yapper, she appeared to have only the strength to part her lips a slit. I tilted the cup and she sipped. This was the official fantasy of many Flapjack men, as polls identified, but the momento to me felt not so much like a dreambubble, but what I imagined a twisting stab in the gut to feel like.

  “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, true enough?” she said.

  “Verily so,” trembled I.

  “Your Site brings me to you. Or pulls me, rather. Like a black hole.” Her words flowed from her in gentle gusts. “I’m sure you know it has reached the tippy hundred. It’s only a matter of tiempo before it reaches the tippy ten. By then you’ll have actresses all over you.”

  “It’s nice of you to say,” said I. “But verily it’s not my future you speak.”

  “Oh, but it is. I have a seventh sense for these things. The cause of my present pop-fame is that very sense. I seek out the rising treasures before their sparkle shines for all to see. This all means, of course, I’d like to take your stories to the tele. I’d like to play Humpty. Such a funny character, she is, and yet so tragic. It’s the role I’ve been looking for. Dreaming of.”

  “It’s…the tippiest honor for you to give me such praise—” I could hardly believe myself to be saying this, but it came out without a hindrance. “—however, Humpty is a woman with all her parts. You are not.”

  Her peepers thinned like a curtaining stage. “That I am well aware. My voids can be hidden.”

  “From the tele-eye, hai, but not from the thinkers of the spectators. They know of your missing parts. Your ghosts of female beauty will not be forgotten. Anyway, Humpty’s parts must be seen. That is who she is.”

  “Newton-san.” She nuzzled her stump against my hand. “Your Site has been a mighty source of pleasure to me since I discovered it. This pleasure I’ve shared with mucho influential and powerful people. Surely you won’t forget all I’ve done for you.”

  “Forget, I will not. And though it pains me to speak the words, they are the words. A woman with missing parts cannot play Humpty.” I lowered my peepers. “Gomen.”

  “Iie.” She stood and grew taller than me. “The sorry one is I for you. Mucho days and years you’ll spend regretting those words to me. A missed opportunity rots the thinker like fruit in the sun. Time only brings bitterness and worms.”

  After she whooshed out the archway, my parents took her place at my side.

  “Newton-san,” my father said. “Is your thinker aware of who that was?”

  “Hai,” said I.

  “You could have found an actress to
court,” my mother said.

  “Hai,” said I.

  They continued on and on and on, and I hai-ed and hai-ed and hai-ed, but what my thinker really boomed was iie, iie, iie. A fruit will rot verily, my thinker spat within, but through that bitter, stinky, buggy ugliness a seed is borne. And no matter how many fruits my familia or Ambrosia or anyone else sliced with their cutters, the trees would always keep growing eternal in that Magic Green Forest where Humpty lived, throwing parsnips at even the biggyest, loveliest Red eyes.

  *

  “The power of you,” Humpty the Captivated Captivitized said, more real-appearing than I’d ever seen him. You see, most of the tiempo, the white-tuniced Wee-the-People fused into the pallor of the prison walls and floors, with their exposed skin tucked together in balls of sunken faces and conjoined feelers. Fact, the first tiempo trekking the halls, peepers blurry from tearbursts, I viewed mere invisible no-ones, whose existence only solidified in vinegar prayers. But now Humpty stood as a man of lines, sharpened and glowing with a beyond-the-barrera expression of self. “The power of you to protect Humpty is verily mighty.”

  “She is my amicus eternal,” said I.

  “But this power traverses the border of your strength for self. That I do not understand.”

  “Unimportant.”

  “Unimportant, you say? My thinker supposed all brainchildren should be cared for, not exposed upon a hill to wither away amongst the elemental virulence.”

  “My advice signifies not abortion but contortion. Ask not from where the power came from for me to protect my amicus, but rather: would I, Humpty, like to feel that power my own self? And if so, how?”

  He sighed. “Such spoken shackles you burden me with.”

  “Mightier than the cage circum?”

  “In a way.”

  “Then mayhaps it is tiempo to question the relevance of these walls.”

  “Relevance? Is not existence relevance enough?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Iie.” He sat again. “This is your story and not my place to speak of unknowns. So continue with your chatter-chains and bind me to your words. But if I suffocate, I will curse you in death.”

  “Fair enough.”

  *

  As Ambrosia foretold, my Site did cultivate in pop-fame to the tippy ten. But actresses did not swarm the household. I assumed Ambrosia had alerted her colleagues that I would not consent to a partless woman, which intimated, in fact, every.

  Days after my tippy tenness, a male visitor awaited me. He happy-faced when I passed through the arch, in a way like we were old amici. At the tiempo, my thinker played with the idea that mayhaps we had known one another at the gymnasium. His form I felt I recognized, or should recognize, but was unable to with the tiempo allotted—being the walk over.

  “Salu, Newton-san,” he said.

  “Salu,” said I.

  “Mayhaps you recognize me.”

  The truth bit my neck. “Oh, hai!” I spoke louder than I wished, but attempted to suppress my embarrassment. “You’re on the soap opera. One my mother watches day to day. You’re a new character, true enough?”

  “Hai, that I am. You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.”

  “Something to do with my Site?” said I.

  “Verily so.” He sipped his tea. “It’s a terrible thing what Ambrosia has done to you. Terrible.”

  “And what thing is this?”

  “Blacklisted, she’s made you. To join with you now is married to crossing Ambrosia. Most telepersonalities fear getting prox to you.”

  “But not you, I see?”

  “Oh, fear surges through my veins. Not due to our proxness, but the proposition I’ve yet to release.”

  “Proposition?”

  “Hai. I…” By then, I noticed his body moved eternal. He tinkered, or tapped, or twiddled, or twitched at every momento, like a tree haunted by an incessant breeze. “I would like to take you to the tele myself. I, my own self, would play Humpty.”

  Shock! This I did not expect, and surely I thought my face reflected it. So I looked down, rearranged my features, and looked up once more. “You realize…you’d have to play a woman.”

  He nodded. “Hai, but I see no other way, if your Humpty is to keep her parts. These parts are important to you, I deduce, judging by Ambrosia’s fury.”

  “Hai.”

  “Of course the spectators will always know she’s being played by a man, but I’m not a well-known personality. Most televiewers have never even looked upon me. So that should aid imaginations in their thinkers’ creation of Humpty, true enough?”

  “That it would. But would the tele verily show my stories?”

  “Fact. I’ve personally heard mighty a few directors expressing a desire to bring them to life. They simply have been unable to find the means. Means I am, or could be, with your sanctioned nod. So what say you, Newton-san? Shall Humpty meta to flesh and blood or remain silenced in the realm of shadowscript?”

  “Hitherto, I would have interrupted you this momento and demanded an answer to that question,” Humpty the Prisoner said, in a proud sort of manner.

  “But you interrupt me with a statement in the stead?” said I. “This you consider an improvement?”

  “I simply wished to inform you of my progress.”

  “And what exactly is this progression you speak of?”

  “I…know not.”

  “You vowed to speak nada of unknowns, did you not?”

  “I told you I would not, but vowed nada.”

  “And what’s the difference between speaking and vowing?”

  “Vowing lives in fragility, my thinker imagines. Promises can shatter, where speaking cannot. What you say is what you say, endpoint. I shall pledge nada.”

  “Nada at all?”

  “Well…except to harken in return after my own words are released.”

  “And I vow the same. So with these promises, we are bound, true enough?”

  “Verily so.”

  “I suppose we now live in fragility then, if what you said is correct. And I also must suppose your life of old was mucho mightier, when you pleaded to faceless forms in void-of-vow solitude.”

  “You…suppose in the wrong. If you were to disappear, more fragile then than now, I would feel.”

  “Then I shall continue with the story, and mayhaps I will not fade away.”

  *

  “What say you?” said the Director to me. “Which one do you prefer?”

  For the past mucho horas, the Director, the new Humpty, and I had harkened to could-be Newton after Newton after Newton. And of them, I said, “None.”

  “None?” the Director said.

  “Hai. They…they speak the lines as if the lines are tippy important. They speak nothing of the unspoken.”

  “Your meaning escapes me.”

  “Newton-san,” Humpty said, on the other side of me. “If you wish to play Newton your own self, you can marry in contract your body to the story. Then the only way the creators can bring the tale to the tele is if you are Newton.”

  “It…is so,” the Director said and coughed. “Such things have occurred in the past, but more often than less, such an attachment entails a clear path to cancellation.”

  “Fear not, Director,” said I. “I will not force my own self upon you, as many men would. But I do ask for the opportunity to audition. The choice then will be verily your own. You may have the tale of Newton and Humpty whether you choose me or do not.”

  “So be it,” the Director said, like a burped baby.

  To the center mat, I stood with Humpty. And let me say that though this was an audition for the tele, it meant to me tippy more. This was a test of sorts, and I forgot the Director even existed. I found myself floating in a dreambubble once again. A group of young men passed by, and did the expected.

  “Does it ever bother you?” said I.

  “What?” Humpty said.

  “Their pointing and laughing. They speak such
terrible things.”

  “What is so terrible about what they say? Tell me their words.”

  “I cannot.”

  “You can. You’re simply a Hopper Lite who fears even inflicting welcomed rudeness.”

  “You want me to say it? Very well. They call you mannish.”

  “I care not.”

  “They think you are the ugliest woman on the Flapjack.”

  “Hai, but do you?”

  Nada, said I. Nada, nada, and more nada, for that was all I could say. A nada formed from words never spoken to my familia; from the muffled screams of the Green butterflies I chopped; from my own imprisoned tears. A nada that replaced the waterfall of the broken fountain maiden. And a nada especially made of Humpty’s ugliness. For even if the whole of Flapjack proclaimed Humpty the ugliest woman of all, I knew I had the power to drown out all their voices, if I allowed myself to open up and set free the hidden words. But nada, said I, and the words remained hidden. But I heard them, inside, loud as a lie.

  “My thinker resolves to interrupt you with a question this tiempo,” said I.

  Humpty trembled as one who had seen a spirit, or realized he was one. “I would rather you continued with the story.”

  “And had I not rathered the same thing every tiempo you interrupted me, I might honor your request. So here’s the question: did I get the part or didn’t I?”

  For a mighty tiempo, he stared forward, frail. Then he grew mighty once more. “Whether you did get the part or not, I know not, but that is not the real question to be asked.”

  “Which is?”

  “Did you or did you not pass the test? Your own test.”

  “And did I?”

  “Your peepers say hai.”

  “As speak your own.”

  *

  The Tele Adventures of Newton and Humpty was no difficult over-and-undertaking, but there existed no mightier gift than feigning such. Pop-fame blessed me like a magic stone, illuminating everyever my familia’s peepers became prox, and spat out a sparkly ray with hypnotic powers. “Newton the Telepersonality is too busy for familia business,” said the stone, in their thinkers. “Leave the boy be, you smally somebody.” And chopped I no more women and touched no more cutters. I did, however, play-chop women-shaped comper forms, and touched improper cuttery props. And so the Redness of my life meta-ed into a reddish hue which could be peeped by fans (including my familia) wearing thornless rose-colored spectator-spectacles.