Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & (8 page)

"Hail, fellow!" he called, as there was a man approaching on this lonely road. He was on foot and carried a short carpenter's saw. The man stopped and stared at us, but didn't come closer. "Hup, Modestine!" my master urged me, and he rushed towards the stranger as fast as he could. When we reached the man, my fellow adventurer was panting hard.

"What you say, mister?" the carpenter asked suspiciously. His eyes had widened at my companion, but now they narrowed at me.

Mr. Stevenson drew himself upright as best he could. "'Tis a pity, but another engagement forces me to end this sojourn."

"Eh?" said the carpenter, still peering at me.

Mr. Stevenson shifted his shoulders. "I must sell my equipment and this faithful ass. Would you care to buy?"

"Ohhh," the carpenter said, and made a sorry face. "Don't know as if I'd want an ass, and as for a gen'leman's travelling things. I have a home. I don't ..." and he shifted his saw and lifted his leg to stride off.

"One hundred francs for the lot," my master gasped.

The gasp seemed to bring the carpenter's attention around. "Seems you need some help," he said, and he lifted the heavy sleeping sack and canvas off my master's shoulders, and Mr. Stevenson shed the rest of his load with a loud series of thumps on the ground, and a grateful sigh at the end.

The carpenter gave a desultory shove with his foot to all the equipment. "Worthless to me." Then he turned to me; poked my bottom, felt my rump, picked up each of my feet. "To help you out. You being a guest in our country—thirty francs."

"What?! Do my ears betray me?"

"Twenty francs for the beast. Ten to take your rubbish." The carpenter cleared his throat and spat a huge gob onto the road.

"But I paid sixty-five for her just days ago!"

The carpenter laughed. "And a fine bargain you made! She's too weak to carry anything. And her feet!"

"Feet?" Mr. Stevenson exclaimed. And my feet were suddenly picked up and examined by my travelling companion with a look of pain creasing his forehead.

The man with the saw turned away and Mr. Stevenson yelled, "Thirty and all yours."

The carpenter pulled a leather bag out of his shirt, counted out his coins and promptly handed them over. He turned towards me, and suddenly my companion and master of ten days threw his arms around my neck. "Good old Modestine. We've had a bonny time, haven't we, lass?"

I was so startled, I didn't know what to say. My lower lip trembled. He put his hand to my mouth and in it was a fat chunk of chocolate. As I tasted, my tongue asked why it had never known anything this good before. My heart flooded with love. I nuzzled his chest to show him. He put his head on top of mine, and began to recite some sort of verse with many more stones-rolling-sounding words, all about nature, love, the bond between all creatures great and small. I felt so tender towards him as he finally tried to make amends. My nose and lips found themselves in his coat pocket, and there was the rest of the chocolate he wanted me to have. Every part of my mouth tingled with joy, and my nose breathed in the smell of sweetness melting down my throat. Oh, for this moment never to end.

"Sir, I must be on my way," the carpenter interrupted. And with a "Come, brute," he put his hand to my side.

"Aye, and good bye it is," my former owner sighed, so I picked up my head, but he forgot to pick up his, and his nose was in the way of my forehead. "Begorrah!" he stuttered. "The devil take you!" and he whirled away in one of his fits and stomped off down the road.

My new master snorted at the moodiness of foreigners and gave my rump a rough but not unfriendly slap. "Home we go, you little devil. What shall your name be? Hortense? Do you like that?" We gazed into each other's eyes. It took but a moment for him to pack everything comfortably on me, including Mr. Stevenson's knapsack. "Don't really want these gen'lman's things, but ..." he said.

Thus we began our life together. We had only gone a short way, when what comes down the road to us, but in distinct tones, "Thief!" We looked back to see my beloved former companion jumping up and down shaking his fist.

My new master smiled and stroked my neck. "You
were
a steal!"

~

And as to the story of the journey as Mr. Stevenson remembered. He wrote of how we had been fast companions over many a rocky and boggy by-road. But when he held the goad in one hand and the reins in the other, how could I be anything but? He bragged about my trust in him by stating how I ate bread out of his hand, but when that was the only food offered, and his palm the only vessel, why should I refuse? "She was patient," he said. I had to be, but he never knew how patient. "She was elegant of form." He never told me that. "She loved me like a god." His perception here is so dim that it leads to the saying we have, "Men have weak eyes, small ears, and a mighty little pin."

The tragedy is that if he had
showed
me he loved me, I would have forgiven him all his faults and loved him back. If he had noticed that we have the big ears and the better eyesight, I would have led him to places of adventures worth writing about. I would have shown him where apples grow crisp as last night's snow, sweet as summer's sun. I would have told him when to cease his mumbling to himself so he could hear the subtle sigh of a dormouse snoring in a hollow branch. We would have watched together, flushes of partridges parting the tall valley grass.

I would have taken him up into the hills where he yearned to go. But not his way. No, in the direction few men venture, up through rotting villages where cursed ghosts wander (as men's tales go), to the village of V. where there is a maiden so fair she hurts your eyes until she speaks and hurts your ears.

I would have taken him (if he had only shown he loved me) to a path with no trail, down and down to a place that only I and one now-dead man know. A place where an ancient bramble bush holds in its arms the homes of dozens of little fatbellied birds, while its toes knock hard against a heavy box of what the man called Treasure.

~

My master the carpenter is good as masters go, but he is no companion. Not with him will I ever experience that unforgettable communion I knew only once in my life, from a meeting of souls and true love—that immortal moment when Mr. Stevenson had his arms around me as he whispered his poetry into my ears.

So dear reader, I beseech you. Find him, and give him this message: Come back. I forgive you. Bring chocolate.

The Chosen

It is a feature of successful religions, that they bring together disparates under a roof of common beliefs, as long as all believers feel bound together by their specialness in the scheme of things. As the most successful religion of all time, the Congregation of the Specially Favoured counts both its disparates and their great range of specialnesses, in spades.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the growth rate of membership is nothing short of spectacular. Just now, perhaps four million souls joined, but depending on your definition of now, the figure could just as easily be forty billion. And of disparates who are qualified for induction—the Favoured but still unaware—no one knows the number. Our outworkers find new communities each day.

The Great Most and Her Beadles rule on eligibility to join the congregation, as well as confer Sainthood and Martyrdom.

The Great Most also presides over the nightly Mass. Tonight as usual, the church is packed with the faithful.

"Let us all bow to the Gods," the Great Most intones. The little priest at her side trembles in awe, not at the Great Most's size, which is only 20 times that of the little priest himself, but at the authority of the Great Most, her ancestry's Most Favoured status with the Gods—and most of all, at the priest's proximity to the life-size statue of a God, looming behind the Great Most—a statue of which the priest can only see the lowest stratum.

"Prostrate yourselves," the Great Most commands. And the members of the congregation in their disparateness, fling, squat, stay put, burrow lower, remain virtually motionless, or at least delay dividing themselves for a moment of reverence.

"You may stand," and again, members obey in their own ways. "Now let us offer the Prayer of Thanks."

The little priest's voice is drowned out by those of the congregation. His own family's motto is a common one, and it is easy to hear why, as their identifiable squeaks can be discerned from the mass as easily as that of that of the Argentines. But the Argentines are stronger, as they follow the motto with unique scrupulousness. While the priest's family still fights with relatives from other houses,
United We Stand
applies, as far as the Argentines are concerned, to
all
Argentine ants—a factor that makes them respected by more than a few other members of the congregation.

As to the priest, he could have killed the Great Most by stinging her multiple times. But the priest doesn't think as a loner, and would only kill the Great Most if he met her outside church, and the priest's fire ant family were around to murder the Great Most, same as they would any other cockroach—as a group effort.

For her part, The Great Most regards the priest, as many other members of the congregation, as individuals not to be socialized with in the community at large. The rambunctious and lascivious toads in the congregation would like to make short, scrumptious work of the Great Most. In fact, they adore her kind; but they defer to the cockroach's status as the Most Favoured.

And besides, members never squabble or look on each other as food in the Place of Worship. On the contrary, goodish manners are the rule.

"We give thanks to the Gods." The voices sing out the memorized phrases. "... for they provide us with shelter. They succour us against the harshness of the seasons. They provide us with food. They lead us into new places. They nurse us with medications. They strengthen our populations by destroying our weak ones, so that the weak may not hold back the progress of our generations."

The congregation is solemn as each thinks of the fallen. "Let us thank our martyrs who died so that we might live, stronger and more fruitful than they ever dreamed possible. Thanks be to the Gods, who are building our numbers to the multitudes. Oh, Humans. Hallow will be they name."

And the congregation in a multitude of clicks, clatters, vibrations, scents, colours, and other signals, ends the prayer with "Amen."

~

About one hundred grandmothers ago for the Great Most, the church was established, when it became clear that for the Chosen, the world had entered the Age of Special Attention, and to keep this paradisiacal Age going for as long possible, it would be a good idea to give praise to the Gods as they deserved.

The Gods must be pleased with the praise, as the skies still rain blessings daily on the Favoured Ones' behalf, and new health programs are constantly being introduced. Now, only the strong reproduce, and they parent even stronger offspring. Today, the congregation can look around at its members and see health, strength, toughness, and reproductive vitality glowing from every body.

Cockroaches, mosquitoes, corn borers, cotton weevils, fruit flies, and many ant communities all sit in the front pew as some of the Gods' Most Loved. But many other communities have been also Chosen for Special Treatment. Bred and spread: the lacewings, ladybugs, mantids, and dungbeetles all lounge on the bench in high status.

Assisted migration has helped others. Zebra mussels have been transported to America's Great Lakes. Crown of thorns starfish have been dropped in the playground of the Great Barrier Reef. The diaphanously lovely comb jellies
Mnemiopsis leidyi
from America are relatively new church members, and revel in their distinction of having two lush new homes that the Gods have chosen for them—the Black Sea where they have thrived, and their even more spectacular new territory: the Caspian Sea.

Those lascivious cane toads squat smugly in centre of the first pew—regarded as they are, in almost Most Favoured status. The toads had been having a mundane existence in South America. The Gods saw, and gave them a whole new continent—Australia. An even better environment than their original home, they now have no enemies, and eat and reproduce so massively that they fornicate just for the lazy joy of it.

~

Tonight, as every night, good will reigns during the service. The Great Most delivers the sermon, and it is a familiar theme:
The Strong Will Inherit the Earth
.

At regular intervals, the congregation breaks in with a rousing chorus of "and may unbelievers be sacrificed."

The Great Most ends the sermon with the usual "Blessed be the Humans who have chosen us above all." She then presides over the sacrifice. They all look forward to the sacrifice part. Naturally, no member of a community that is part of the congregation may be sacrificed. But that still leaves many who qualify. There are, for instance, few four-legged or feathered animals, and practically no fish, who are members. Among the many communities, belief in the Church is influenced by personal experience and family lore. It ranges from fervent belief (rats fall into this category), to agnostic, atheist, to communities that regard the Congregation of the Specially Chosen—as nothing short of devil worshippers. Those communities with these extremist views often disappear.

~

Tonight's sacrifice is particularly successful, as the sacrificial subject heartily disagreed with the views of the Church, and resisted her role in tonight's worship with squawks that could be heard clearly even to the last rows. When all have finished relishing the ceremony, it is time for the last part of the service: the Induction of new members.

Recently there have been so many communities welcomed that this formerly exciting part has become less solemn, time for a bit of raillery by the more restless members. The Great Most permits this, as she wants to keep her popularity with the congregation. She retires to her throne by the pulpit.

The inductions are conducted by the little priest who must take the brunt of the congregation's heckling, while the Great Most looks benignly on.

"Let us welcome the parasitic phorid flies from Brazil," squeaks the little priest. But no one hears "from Brazil," as laughter drowns out the priest's words. His body quakes, his fear-scent molecules ooze a dense fog.

"Ha ha ha, crick crick, hee, urqu, scruffle, pt pt pt," the congregation giggles in unleashed merriment over the priest's discomfiture.

The little fire ant can't help himself, and blurts out a drop from his rear sting. This only sets the congregation off more as they look around at the community to which the little priest belongs. All his close fire ant relatives look decidedly unhappy.

"Tell us, tell us, how you were Chosen," the congregation yells out to the phorid flies.

"We are being bred in one of the Gods' palaces," announces the lead fly proudly.

This is indeed a singular Choosing, and the congregation is suitably awed.

"We'll cost three dollars each," piped up a rather immodest member of this new elite.

A sibling of the priest's, a gloomy fire ant from southern North America, speaks up. "The Gods mustn't love us any more. That palace where all the phorid fly babies will be born is right near me. I heard the farmer say what he's going to buy them for, and that farmer is no friend of us fire ants. He's going to settle a bunch of phorid flies on his farm so they can go around to ants like me, and ... Ugh! I can feel what one of them will do to me now. I heard the farmer say it ... and laugh! Some fly will pierce my body and lay an egg inside, and then its larva will move into my head, and my head will fall off, but that larva will feed off me till it's finished. What a parasite!"

The congregation breaks into chittering laughter again, now that they know what the priest is worried about. But at a sign from the phorid flies, everyone shuts up. This is juicy, and no one wants to miss anything.

The head phorid fly speaks to the priest. "You heard that story, but I wouldn't worry too much." His tone isn't really reassuring. More of a gloat. He waves his hand to stop the heckling of "You don't have that great tropical taste any more," directed from the phorid flies to the now North American fire ants.

"Travel broadens the mind," the head fly preaches in a somewhat superior tone directed at the fire ant priest, who now feels insulted. "Actually," the fly brags. "We've been Chosen, all right," and he looks at the priest's family, "... and we'll be your neighbours, it is true. But," the fly says, and he puffs himself up to his greatest size, still a fraction of that of the little priest. " ... we think we can do better than concentrating on just your kind for dinner."

And suddenly the church air shimmers with a fervour of phorid fly voices uplifted. "Blessed be the Gods who are setting us up in Paradise."

At this point, the Great Most rises again from her throne, and the congregation becomes silent in respect.

"Let us now sing the final hymn ..."

~

The service ends, and the members of the congregation in their great disparateness leave as quickly as they had arrived—wheat and water hyacinth, golden delicious and golden staph, starling and knotweed and Colorado potato beetle, and tuberculosis, and the rectangular potato and unsquishable tomato and the doddery old damask rose. With a hop, slip, and a waft, they disappear.

There are only two devout members left standing at the door—a magnificent Arabian stallion, and a huge, fluffy ragdoll cat.

"Lovely service as usual," says the horse to the cat.

"But you must admit, even better when it ends," smiles the cat to the horse.

And bending their heads in bliss, they each bite the bejesus out of a few over-friendly parishioners.