Sunday, March 30, 2008

Generic Quickie


Once (or perhaps twice) upon some span of chronology, there was a place. And in this place lived a person. But this was no ordinary person, for this person had an object!

There were days when the person was out walking around, when other people would come up to him or her and say things about the object.

"That certainly is a nice object!" they would say. "My relative had one just like it once, but something happened to it."

Sometimes the person would travel great distances, with or without his or her object, and participate in activities. These were many and varied, and always resulted in an event.

"Whooee!" the person would say, tired (or perhaps invigorated) by the day's activities. He or she would then retire to a building in which he or she would ingest comestibles. Perhaps he or she would burp afterwards in a satisfied or merely gassy manner.

But none of these times could last, for there was evil afoot. Maybe. This evil perhaps came in the form of another person, and perhaps not. But it was likely another person, and this person was pretty bad. He or she came into the area and gave everyone a hard time.

"Blargh!" the evil person shouted. "I've sent forth my army and such! As we speak, they are stealing and punching, and they will not stop until you all do some stuff for me!" And then the evil person executed a type of malignant laugh. The townspersons gathered in a central building, and all were given the chance to offer suggestions.

"I think we ought to do something about this!" said one person.

"I disagree! I believe we ought to do something totally different!" said another.

"You're both a couple of insults!" said another, standing and facing the crowd. "I think the course of action we should take lies in total opposition to those suggestions offered by that person and the other one in the corner over there," said this standing person, gesturing vaguely.

"Whatever! Whatever! Whatever!" chanted the crowd in a strong emotion of sorts.

Thus it was settled, and some very important things happened. A pivotal role was played by the standing person just mentioned, and the person with the object from the beginning. The object in particular was quite important, serving as a sort of key in a sort of keyhole and triggering a great occurrence.

When it was all over, and the dust settled, all sorts of people calmed down a bit.

"Exclamation! That sure was something!" said a man to the person one day. The person put his or her hand on the object and looked in a direction with an expression on his or her face.

"It sure was!" he or she said.

6 comments:

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

These last few posts of mine have been done within Firefox on a version of the Linux OS called "Kubuntu," but this is the first one where even the graphic (such as it is) was created with open-source software. No simple "find an image online and put it on my post" for this entry. Linux all the way!

Nerd giggle

Anonymous said...

It reminds me of my life sometimes, when people tell you everything without telling you anything.

This one was fun to read.

Anonymous said...

The generic examination of generic living! Perfect description of life in Grand Rapture!

Jack W. Regan said...

I agree with CCG. And I actually know people like the ones in the story. This could almost be a commentary on political correctness and how ridiculous it gets when taken to an extreme (which appears to be its logical conclusion). But now I'm commentary-ing. I shall cease and say, "Good post!"

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

Yes, there are elements in here that are more "vague" than "generic."

As much as I am in favor of not insulting people, you can take it too far.

You're crippled. Nothing wrong with that. You're not "handi-capable!" You're crippled.

I'm depressed. I am not "experiencing an acute dropoff in serotonin production."

Okay, technically I am, but it's easier and no more offensive to say "depressed." That's the part about PC language that bugs me--too much blah blah. Needs editing. Concise-ifying.

Anonymous said...

well at least we don't have to talk like that all the time. I would probably not say as much as it would take longer.