The Secret - Chapter Four

Well, Tex and Blae have finally made their way into the camp of Blae-Loks people. And now the adventure truly begins.

 

 The Secret

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Chapter Four

 

The sky suddenly grew dark  --  and very loud! Blae’s feet dug into my shoulder, quite hard. “Ouch.” I said aloud, involuntarily.

“Shut up, Tex!” Blae commanded. He didn’t just say it. It was most definitely a command.

I shut my mouth so tightly I thought I had welded my upper and lower teeth together. I was so scared, I thought my Yellow Submarine underwear was going to loose a torpedo. I could tell that Ringo’s face, pressed up against the glass of a porthole, had changed color to match the boat.

“Tex,” whispered Blae-Lok rather louder than a whisper should be, “will you please stop thinking of pee-stained Beatles!?” I swear I could see steam rising from Blae’s shell.

“Oh, Blae, I am so ..!” And suddenly my head was filled with an enormous SOUND! It was the loudest, most thunderous noise I had ever heard! I was so frightened I was sure the entire band was floating inside a lake of urine now. John, Paul, George and Ringo were all bright yellow corpses! And BOOOOM! That enormous sound grew even louder! I tried covering my ears, but since the sound was entirely mental, that did no good.

“Oh, my God!” I cried. I looked around and Blae was lying on his back on the ground next to me, unmoving. I was on my knees, shaking with fear. I could see that all of the tribe that had surrounded me had vanished somewhere into the forest. With a glance upward to the grassy knoll, I could just see part of King GooChi-GooChi. Like Blae, he was on his back. His legs were trembling violently. Finally, the enormous noise began to diminish.

“Oh, s**t,” I thought. “I’ve killed them. I killed the King and I’ve killed B ...B … Blae-Lok!” Tears began rolling down my cheeks,

Then I noticed the King was rocking from side to side. His legs were waving frantically, and six enormous June Bugs the size of dobermans swarmed the stage and rushed to their fallen leader. Two more of those huge bugs suddenly appeared to either side of me. With me on my knees, they were as tall as I.. ("not the best time to be literarily correct,” I thought.) -- and that gigantic sound exploded again! This time, I thought I could hear … a word! Or almost a word!

“AHHHHHHHH!” I heard, and thought, “Oh, God, he’s in terrible pain! Oh, hell, what have I done!” Next to me, I saw Blae shakily roll to his feet. “Wh, wha? What happened?” he said weakly.

“I killed the King!” I wailed. “Wahhhh!”

“STOP! STOP!” cried King GooChi-Goo-Chi. “Oh, please, please stop! AHHHHH! AHAAAA!, AHH AAAAHA!” and the King struggled to his feet, shaking.

“What? What’s going on?” asked Blae-Lok uncertainly.

I sniffed, blew my nose, and wiped the mess on my jeans. Then I managed to wail, “I killed the King. I killed you, too, Blae-Lok. You’re dead.”

“I am?” Blae replied meekly. I could see his feet touching himself for injuries. “I don’t see any blood, Tex. I think …”

BOOOOM!! That sound again! And the King fell off the mound, rolled up in a ball and headed straight toward me as he screamed, “AHHHHHHHH!” Oh, the poor King! He came to a stop in a cloud of dust and shredded grass, right in front of me.

“You! Hue-Man! AHAHAH! TEE-ECKS, THE HUE-MAN!” The King motioned to two more of those monstrous burly bugs and suddenly they were on me; as one, they grabbed me and lifted me high in the air -- well, high for them; if I had tried, I could have dropped the four feet I was airborne and started running -- but it did not occur to me that I had that option. I saw Bla-Lok weakly try to intervene, but he was no match for them, especially in his pathetic, wounded condition.

The Kings guards hoisted me above their heads and carried me, marching in lock-step to and up the mound. A much, much smaller June Bug watched from atop the mound and cowered in abject fear, I saw, for the pain and suffering I believed I would have to endure. Surely, they would not behead me or rip me to pieces in front of what must be some helpless, sweet bug child? Then, as the guards brought me closer, the tiny one leaped high into the air and landed on my head where it began to pound my skull! It was so small and weak I could scarcely feel it. Still …

“Tex?” I heard Blae whisper to me, “Tex, are you okay?” he said shakily.

“Noooo!” I whispered loudly. “Noooo, I am not! WAAAH!”

“AHHHHAHA!” the King cried again. “No More! No More! HAHAHA!” He shooed the tiny bug off my head, ignoring the blood I was sure gushed from the wounds on my scalp -- but weren’t there at all. I patted my head but felt nothing there but tangled hair.

“Tex??” said Blae -- and I could feel a smile in his voice! “Tex, it’s okay. It’s OKAY!” Blae then shot to his feet and did an impromptu jig! “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay! Hahaha!” Then he popped out his wings and flew up to where I lay sprawled upon the ground with a teeny child bug jumping up and down in front of me while it made whirring sounds.

“Wh … what?” I said incredulously. “What?” My tears were quickly drying up.

“We’re going to be all right, Tex!” cried Blae. He did another short impromptu dance singing, “We’re okay, we’re okay, everything is gonna be FINE!!”

A smile began to form on my still trembling mouth. “I don’t understand, Blae. I thought … and then, that sound! That incredible BOOM I heard! What was that?"

Blae laughed again. “THAT, my friend, was King GooCh-GooChi laughing,  Tex!” 

“Laughing?” I said incredulously, “He was laughing?? I thought he was dying! I thought I had killed him!”

“Frankly, Tex, so had I,” said Blae. “But somehow …”

Then King G (I can’t keep typing all that), King G jumped up on the mound, took me by my left pant leg, and walked with me in tow to the head of the mound. “FRIENDS, FRIENDS, COME!” he bellowed in every creature’s mind. “COME MEET THE BRAVEST CREATURE IN THE FOREST!” he cried. “COME MEET THE GREAT TEE-ECKS!” And slowly, June Bugs of all sizes and colors began reappearing on the grassy plain. By the many thousands they poured like a river from the trees, the rocks and the sky. The forest was abuzz with their sound as they returned to face their ruler -- and to meet the great TEE-ECKS!

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Oh, what can I say? I’m now regarded far and wide as the bravest man in the forest -- NO! The bravest creature in the forest! Haha! Oh, if only Lor ...grrr could see me now! Why I bet …

“Excuse me, your lordship,” said Blae. And if a June Bug can be droll, Blae was being droll. “Harrumph, sire,” continued my droll friend, “the King wishes to know if you have finished supping so that we may get on with our business.”

“Okay, Blae, okay,” I grumped. Geeze, can’t be a hero for more than ten minutes around here. I gulped down another Ritz, and rose to trudge off to our audience with the King. To be fair, it hadn’t been ten minutes; it had been a full thirty minutes since King G had taken his leave of us to recuperate before our meeting proper would commence. The serious bout of laughter earlier had totally exhausted him so much that he had barely been able to finish off a huge helping of roast lettuce and garbanzo beans. I shuddered; just thinking about those beans made my nose hurt. I rose from the huge bed of grass and flowers that had been prepared for me by the King’s royal servants, and said, “Let’s roll, Blae. I am pleased.” I strutted beside my buggy friend from under the hastily prepared thatch-like canopy of hay and roses that had been prepared for me earlier. I stopped for a moment to admire the intricate craftsmanship that had been required to build it. “How did they create this so quickly?” I asked the air. Blae quickly snagged it and replied -- again with superb drollness.

“They’ve had lot’s of practice, Tex. That’s all they do. That’s what they were created to do, their whole lives.”

I looked more closely at the work of these servants. “This is exquisite,” I said to anyone who might listen. “It would take humans at least a week or two to create something so intricately woven!”

“It is no thing,” I heard a tiny voice say, “a shade for you while you supped.”

“Well, hello,” I said brightly, looking around. “and who might you be? And where do you be?” I saw no one, or thing, except Blae-Lok.

“Here!” the tiny voice said. I looked down, then fell to my knees to see more clearly the very small creature before me. It was a June Bug not much larger than the winding knob of my old wristwatch, so small I would not have noticed it at all, but I could see now that it was beautiful! A June Bug that seemed to be made of gold, with jewels of red and blue stones, not carved or placed upon it, but part of its shell! It popped its wings, flew with a little “buzz” and landed on my nose.

I slowly rose to my feet, my hands on my hips. “Hi, who are you?” My eyes crossed but could not focus on this little thing. “Would you mind jumping to my finger? I cannot see you well like this. I raised my right hand to my nose. This seemingly bejeweled bug lightly leaped to my index finger. I rose it so as to focus clearly. “Ah, there you are!” I thought, then added, “And how beautiful you are! How should I address you?”

“I am Queen Poo-Tee,” said the very tiny June Bug.

I was startled. “What?” I exclaimed, “Did you say you are the Queen?! Really?” I was astounded. Blae quickly rushed to my side.

“Queen Poo-Tee!” Blae said” with quiet reverence. “I, uh, that is, we are so very honored to be in your presence.” He bowed several times to the tiny monarch.

“It is nothing, Sir Blae-Lok.” “Sir?” I thought. Has Blae been holding out on me? Is he bug royalty? Blae heard my thought and shot me a dirty look. And a dirty bug look was much dirtier than the normal one we humans use with each other. No, this was like being hit between the eyes with a big glob of you-know-what and having it drip down on your nose! Now that was a dirty look! But I had no idea why Blae was smacking me with a glob of poop. I queried him with a stout, “What the f...udge, Sir Blae!”

“Yes, Sir Blae,” said the Queen haughtily, “”Why dost thou smack your gallant compandium with a poopy … thing between his see holes?” The Queen was trying very hard to use thought speech with er, tortuous  success -- which is much more success than any other female June Bug, who were completely unable to do so at all. Her royal genes gained a bit of a brain boost from using large amounts of fooch. Unfortunately, it had side effects, like mangled thought speech and body shrinkage. Before fooch, she was only slightly on the small side, Now she was on the verge of disappearing completely. She didn’t seem to mind.

“I apologize, my Queen,” said Blae, subserviently, “but the King is waiting for us.” He bowed several times while saying this and twice more when he finished. But his interjection had the desired effect, and soon we were on our way.

King G’s royal chamber had been hastily constructed, but it still proclaimed “royalty” at every turn. The thatch-like covered room was built from spun pulp from paper which had been “rescued” from a nearby paper mill that would never miss it; they had a brief “June Bug invasion” a month earlier during which about ten pounds of paper had gone missing. Not a big enough loss for the company to even put on their books, but a godsend for the JBs. Their worker bugs were able to “deconstruct” the paper to pulp and use that as an effective building material. They had been doing this for many years and had it down to a science. 

Blae and I were ushered into a rather ornate chamber built entirely from pulp which had been decorated with flowers, leaves, and long grasses intertwined in such a way as to create rope used for both binding and decoration. They found King G sprawled upon a sturdy paper throne that was almost as strong as steel yet was flexible and even warm to the touch. Grass had been woven and used for intricate decoration of his throne. The King welcomed us warmly and urged us to dispense with formalities and assume the more relaxed roles of longtime friends. Blae and I both welcomed this boon and I, at least, felt a great weight lift from my mind. The King had ordered “refreshments,” and a variety of drinks and little balls of something made from a variety of plants and juices. The drinks were much too sweet for my taste, but the King had a big surprise for me: four mid-sized JBs appeared carting a bottle laid lengthwise on a grass rope net between them. The label on the bottle bore the unusual name of a Texas beer which I will not name for fear I might be promoting alcoholic drink.

“How ‘bout a Bud?” said the King, with a big mental grin. King G, of course, can promote any damn thing he wants, but since he couldn’t read English he had no idea that the label read, “Karbach Hopadillo,” with which I was not familiar. But then, I’m not much of a drinker. The beer was okay, and by the time I had downed half of it, I had a pretty good buzz on.

There was a bit of banter about “women” and the usual joking around what to do with the kids during molting season, then we finally got to the real reason I had been brought there.

“Tee-Ecks, said King G, you may know a little bit about the origin of our species, and I know that Blae-Lok has provided you with information on how we discovered fooch, the miracle of our rise to the top of the food chain. But the real truth is that it was a small band of early Tee-Ecks-A*s Hue-Mans -- your ancestors, no doubt, for you bear their name! -- who introduced us to fooch.”

(I became uncomfortable at this and started to interject a salient point, but Blae bit me on my shoulder, where he had been sitting, and loud whispered me to “NONONO! SHUT UP!”)

“By the way, you are much larger than they were, Tee-Ecks. The effects of fooch on them, no doubt. They saw,” said the King, “that we were slowly dying, withering away in the blazing sun of Central Tee-Ecks-A*s during the last months of a too terrible drought that wiped out almost every animal and plant species in the land.” He climbed down from his throne and paced the floor slowly. Finally, he stopped and continued his obviously well practiced speech. It was easy to see he had been conversing by thought for a long time.

“These last survivors of the Great Tee-Ecks-A*s Death of Animals and Plants led us through a maze of caves and tunnels that wound deep below the burned up plains and hills of Central Tee-Ecks-A*s, caring for us all the way, bathing us in strange cool sparkling water that reinvigorated us enough to continue this rough journey; at last, we arrived at a small bubbling pond and a stream that fed into it; the vegetation around this pool and the banks of the stream were lush and green. The pond was filled with numerous types of fishes, frogs, salamanders and other animals, many of which had also been saved by your people, Tee-Ecks.”

I looked sideways at Blae, wanting desperately to say something, but he again bade me to be silent with a mental, “UHNT-UH, TEX, UHNT-UH!”

  The King was too caught up in the recounting of his tale to notice us and continued as he paced, “The water that poured into the pond actually sparkled, even in the dimness of the cave where the only sources of light were the pond and the stream.” He whirled dramatically, “and the water!” He stood as tall as he could and stretched out four of his, uh, arms. “Tee-Ecks, light also came from the water itself!”

The King stopped for a moment to judge our reaction -- which was pure astonishment, of course! I mean, light from water? PUH-LEEZ! Oops, I think he heard that! I whispered to Blae. King G was looking from me to Blae, then back again.

“What is this Puh-Leeze you speak of?” he demanded. “Is this what gives light from water?”

Blae leaped to the rescue. “Oh, no, sire!” he said. “It is just an expression, said sometimes by Hue-Mans when they, uh, see or hear something that is so, so, …”

“Wondrous!” I threw in. “Something that is wondrous to behold, your majesty!”

“Ahhhh,” said the King, nodding. I see, yes!”

I glanced at Blae, in thanks. I saw that his learning to lie could come in handy. He gave me a mental shrug in answer.

  “Now where was I?” said King G. I saw him counting on his many digits. “Oh, yes! The water was fresh and clean -- except it contained a certain mysterious substance found nowhere else in the world, they said. These unusual natives who had brought my people to this strange and wondrous place called it, “FOOOOOCH!” He gave it a lot of “Ohs.”

“The small number of our people who had been rescued by these strange Hue-Mans stayed at the pond for many days -- and they grew strong, healthy, and became more aware of themselves and the world around them. They found, too, that their male members could communicate with every person of their small band through thought alone -- and a few, who were of royal blood -- could “broadcast” their thoughts to all members simultaneously! Over time, they brought the remaining members of their tribe to this cave, and this pond, where all were healed and made new by the miraculous gift of fooch!” 

“Why, this is extraordinary!” I exclaimed. “Why, I can’t …” but the King waved for silence.

“Excuse me, Tee-Ecks,” said King G, “but there is a sad side to this story as well.”

Uh, oh, I thought. Here comes the bad news. I turned to look at Blae, but he was no help. This part of the story was news to him, too. The whole part about the humans introducing his people to fooch was brand new to Blae. No, he had not been lied to about this part of their history. It just had never been shared with anyone before. It hadn’t been necessary. And, perhaps, Tex thought, the royal family did not want their people to know that they had all been saved, been resurrected, by Hue-Mans!

We paused for a short time, to get ready for whatever bad news was going to come our way. I looked at the King, then at Blae, sighed, then turned to King G and said, “Okay, kingy, let me have it.” I felt Blae wince, but I didn’t care. I was girding my loins -- I think. I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounded right. It sounded -- solemn, and that’s how I wanted to sound.

King G blinked a couple of times (that’s what I felt in my poor puddin’ head), paused, then giggled. “Did you just call me, ‘kingy’? With a small ‘k’?

“Yes,” I said boldly. Screw it. I suddenly saw myself being set upon and devoured by hungry, angry June Bugs of all colors and sizes. Then the King exploded.

I clapped my brain hands to my mental ears, but they weren’t any help. I glanced at Blae and saw he had rolled or been knocked off my shoulder and was lying on the ground, unmoving, on his back. He appeared to be vibrating slightly. The King exploded again, but not as loud, in deference, I think, to my poor mental eardrums.

“Oh, Tee-Ecks, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! I am just so infatuated with you! No one has ever treated me, or spoken to me the way you do! It is delightful! I am constantly spoken to with ‘Your Highnesses,’ and ‘Your Lordships,’ and other syrupy things, it makes me sick! But you! Ha, you treat me like, … like … like a friend! Yes, you treat me like an old pal, and it is so refreshing! Please do not stop doing that!” He paused for a moment then said, “kingy” Ha! That’s just beautiful! And he giggled some more.

Blae had recovered about halfway through the King’s explanation of his sudden outburst, and I felt a slow smile and then a full grin come my way from his poor whiplashed brain. “It looks like we won’t be killed after all,” he said with a sigh. King G Had heard him and answered with a short burst of thunder.

“Sorry,” he said -- a little meekly, especially for a king.

I laughed, too. “Oh, that’s okay, uh, ‘lordy,” I said hopefully. Another short blast of June Bug dynamite split the air, but I was ready for it this time and had already clapped my brain hands to my brain ears. Blae, though, had not been prepared and was again on his back. “Oh, sorry, Blae, I would have warned you, but I didn’t know I was going to say that. By the time it got said, it was too late."

“That’s okay, T,” he replied. Just try to keep it in check for a while, will you?”

“Sure, buddy,” I smiled at him.

“Just a moment,” said the King. “I have a question.”

“Shoot,” I said.

“I have noticed that you and Blae-Lok have been addressing each other in shortened versions of your names --  and yet, you are not insulted. Why is that?”

I threw him a grin. “Oh, that’s just a human thing, I’m afraid. Something friends do, I guess. Friends generally have all kinds of ‘nicknames’ for each other. Sometimes we even insult each other  --  or we insult the other person’s wife, even, like, ‘your wife’s so fat, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house.” I moved my hands and arms to show him what I meant. I quickly prepared for another kingly blast -- but it didn’t come.

King G just sat there for a moment, then said, “Sorry. I don’t under…” then the light came on and he roared with laughter. But he worked hard to control the violence of his outburst and eventually got it under control. We saw a number of his guards and hangers-on  milling around in the shadows outside the throne room, not sure if they should rush in or not. King G saw them too and waved them away. “It’s fine, he shouted to them, we’re all good in here!” Then he turned to me.

“Tee-Ecks,” he asked seriously, “would you mind if I called you, ‘T’?

I smiled at him and said, “Of course not, King G.” I felt Blae wince again, but the King just smiled. "It’s the same as when I call you' King G', or 'kingy,' a mark of friendship.” He took this as a solemn event and nodded his thanks. He turned to Blae.

“But you, Sir Blae-Lok, you are not Hue-Man, you are not a friend. You are a member of the court and have no such privileges.”

“Of course not, Sire,” Blae responded, meekly.

“G,” I  said, “where I come from, that is an insult! Blae is my friend, my best friend. I request, no I demand that you give him the same respect you have shown me!” I saw Blae cringe and shake his mental head violently.

King G stood on his hind legs and walked slowly to me, stood silent for a moment, then bowed to me. “T,” he said solemnly, I am so sorry. You are right. Sir Blae has served me well. He is also of royal blood, but I have been jealous of his success and of his relationship with you. My behavior has been inexcusable. I will sever my top right leg and present it to him.” With that, he began to gnaw on his leg.

“No!” I wailed, and Blae joined me. “Please do not do this, sire!” cried Blae. I placed my left hand on the King’s right leg and shook my head.

“No, G.” I whispered to him, “friends do not do this. Friends may sometimes be mean-ish, but it is not done in anger. It is not hurtful. It is … humorous.  You are not forgiven because there is nothing to forgive; you acted now out of honor. That is all that is required.”

King G looked up at me and rose. He turned and walked slowly to his throne. Blae movved to stand beside me. I could feel his thanks, but he whispered to me, “You are one crazy Hue-Man. Thank you.” 

King G, standing on his throne, was almost my height. “T,” he said softly, “I will treasure this day forever. I will preserve it in my royal archives. I will boast of it to my people, and you will always be remembered as a great friend to THE MIGHTY PHYLLOPHAGA POTENTIATOR!”

The three of us stood around the throne and smiled at each other, good friends forever!

Finally, I had another swig of my beer, then looked at the King. “G,” I said (Blae winced again  --  he just couldn’t help it, but the King grinned at me). “G, you said there was a sad side to your story. Can you explain now?”

“Yes, T, certainly.” The King paused for a moment to wash away the remnants of our hilarity, then began in a soft voice that reeked of gravity. Imagine Darth Vader reciting a funerary speech, but an octave lower. “As we grew stronger,” he began, “we noticed that our hosts, our saviors, had begun to grow weaker, slower, smaller, and feeble. We were shocked and distressed. Had they been infected with some strange malady that did not affect us? Or, we feared, had we perhaps been the source of such a malady? Did we bring in some terrible plague that was killing the very beings who had saved us from certain death?"

King G sighed heavily and slumped in his throne. He shook his head, “My dear friends, you have no idea how crushed we all were.”

I was caught by surprise. “What?” I exclaimed, “You were actually there, G? You were in the first group to gain sentience? That’s incredible!”

“Well, not exactly, T. Our memories do not work the same as yours, especially when you are one of the royalty.” He paused to think for a moment. “I understand from what Blae-Lok has told me, that you know that we can share not just information, but also memories. The masses, the farmers and hunters, the cooks and weavers, the common people, can share memories from a generation or two, but those of us of royal blood can see as far back as the beginning of our true birth, when fooch opened our minds. Oh, not all royals, just those who are direct descendants of the first Monarchs, King GooAbe-GooAbe and Queen Poo-Tang.”

I was taking the final swig of my beer at that moment and launched part of it out of my nostrils. King G leaped off his throne and kind of danced up and down, waving his appendages. “Are you okay, T, are you okay?!” he said. His very deep voice echoed through my head.

“I’m fine, G.” ‘Poo-Tang’? I was very careful to think only to myself, ‘Oh, that’s just one letter away from a classic Jack Nicholson comedic turn!’

“Tex, you sure you’re alright?” said Blae. I could tell he was trying to buy me some extra time to compose myself.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Now tell me, G, what happened next, with my ancestors?”

King G resumed his throne and said, “T, your people sacrificed themselves for us, a completely foreign species. They and we had shared our minds and our lives, huddled as we were, deep beneath the earth.” He looked at me with great sadness, swimming in memories he had thought were forgotten. “It has been so very very long since these visions were fresh. It has been too long, too much lost time.” He shook himself, trying to remember, and continued, “Not even I can recall it all. But I do remember seeing as your people grew smaller and weaker --  and they knew it was the fooch that was responsible. Until the last of them ... died!” his mental voice breaking. “He ... he ... was a mere speck, washed away in a pool of sparkling water; at his last, he pleaded with us to use the fooch responsibly, to not abuse it!”

I thought of Queen Pooty, er, “Poo-Tee,” so very small. I threw a mental question to the King.

“Yes, Tex,” he said, getting my name right at last, “My Queen fell victim to the curse of fooch. Soon she will be gone. She will return, in her last stage, to the water. And we will mourn.” We all sat in silence for a few moments, until the King spoke again. “And now we must address another issue, and another after that -- the most important of all. For my people, T, and yours.”

I sat up straighter. “Excuse me? Important to my people? Humans?”

“Oh, yes, T. To the world.”

I swallowed hard. My head began to swim. I shook my head to clear it. “I’m not sure I want to hear this, G. I … I don’t think you are talking to the right person! ‘To the World,’ you say? You need to speak to the Governor, or the President  --  well, no, not to him, but certainly not to me! I’m nobody, King G! I’m just some wannabee writer, I’m not …”

“You are the only one we have, T. There is no time to find another. There is no other we can trust. You were borne into this matter. You are The One.”

“Oh, my God!” I thought, “He thinks I’m Keanu Reeves!”

“We know no KeeAnu-Reevs,” said the King. “We know only you, of all Hue-Mans. We have spoken with no other, no other speaks with us. We have tried to speak with your kind for many many years, T. No other hears us. We are One, with You, Tex.” Then he folded me into his mind so I could finally see.

END CHAPTER FOUR

Reviews

[Emunah June.]

I have waited a while's length for this chapter, and per usual, it didn't disappoint.

You have this amazing talent at making characters feel so real without going over the top and pushing them into cartoony territory. Tex feels exactly like I would expect one put into this situation would be -- lost, confused, trying to make the best of it, but so uncertain. I enjoy that he tries to maintain his sense of humor, mostly because I relate. The more uncomfortable I am, the funnier I try to be! Does it work? I suppose thats all a matter of perspective.

And little moments of humor MAKE the entire thing! I have to tell you, the patient I am sitting with gave me a funny look when I laughed out loud at the little quip about the beer ("I cant promote this, but the king of course, can promote whatever he wants.") It gave the world a life of its own, a unique flavor. I mean, the entire story is unique, but it is those little bits that keep the reader hooked in an already interesting story.

Props to Tex for sticking up for Blae-Lok! I appreciated that! If Tex gets to use nicknames, then so does Blae-Lok!

I have to say, I feel kinda bad for the queen. I dont want her to fade away!! But it makes the secret all the juicier -- what will it be? What needs to be done? What is Tex gonna do that Keanu Reeves couldnt?! All so exciting and sooooo worth the wait. I am anxiously and eagerly awaiting the next one.

[FlatDaddy]

Emmy, I am so in debt to you. You have propped me up with your praise since this story was borne. You have continued your praise throughout the entire time I have written it. You have served as my friend, my fan, and my muse. I hope to keep you engaged and enthralled to the End.

Thank You
Keith

[Samuel Dickens]

I'm sorry to say that the yellow submarine humor didn't work for me. Perhaps you should use less detail? The bit about the beer reminded me of Lone Star and Shiner. I liked the Shiner bock ok, but forget about the Lone Star. When I was a beer-a-holic down there, we mostly drank Shaefer. (Yeah, it was cheap) I was glad to hear of the critters being saved, and by hue-mans, no less. As for deeper meanings, it seems there is(at least for me) a somewhat vague pro-ecology message. What a long, strange trip this is, and with Jerry Garcia no where in sight.

[FlatDaddy]

Oh, Sam, I think I must apologize. I kind of forced you into this read, thinking you would surely love this silly story. But though we're the same age we have very different senses of humor. I guess I was enamored by Miss Emunah's lavish praise, like fresh young bosomy girls ridin' squished up next to us on the Hammer. Feel free to drop out here my friend. As for the beer, Lone Star is like bull piss, Sam. What you need is a good cold bottle of Land Shark or a Tecate with a wedge of Lime. Even better if there's a Longhorn's football game on. I expect this will be a good season for them.

[Samuel Dickens]

Now I feel bad. It might be that I need to "see" what I'm reading, and I've a hard time picturing the scenes. Your writing is quite good and imagination is off the charts. Even if this doesn't make me laugh much, I respect the talent it took to create it.

[FlatDaddy]

Well, not everyone likes Vonnegut either, so I don't feel too bad. Not that I'm Vonnegut; nobody is but Vonnegut. I thought sure you'd laugh at the beetle/pee joke, though. It kept me chuckling for a good while. And thanks for the compliments, Sam. I do appreciate a good pat on the head, especially when it's MY head.