Excerpt from the novel
"Bwil and Buk"
copyright 1997 Ronny Watt
The Embarkment
They were all agitated. The air was foul with ominous tension. Even the
dumbest creatures that hadn't half an instinct about themselves were nervous.
The monkey held her baby tight and carefully sniffed the air in all
directions from her perch on a tree branch high above the Amazon
Jungle. She furiously scrutinized everything she could scent. For a long
time nothing was obviously awry, but then she found it. Or, rather, it
found her. The foreign smell of deisel fumes forced her to turn her nose
up in disgust, and decide to cautiously venture closer to where the stench
seemed to eminate.
As she investigated further,
the odour was wed to a fearful rumble, completely alien to her, as it was
to all the indigenous beasts. She noticed a glint of yellow through the
dominant greens of the scenery. Curiously, she leaned forward, then shreiked
in horror when a giant yellow monster came raging straight toward
the tree she was clinging to. In panic, she dove for another branch,
but that tree was smashed into by the bulldozer an instant later . For
the first time in her adult life, she missed a branch and plummeted towards
the forest bed. Her baby was lost. Dazed from her encounter with
the earth, she slowly attempted to rise but found that her leg was broken.
It was too late by the time she regained her senses; the bulldozer was
nearly on top of her. She frantically tried to escape it's frightening
roar, it's putrid odour, and it's churning treads which were inching closer,
mulching all nature beneath their cold and callous iron feet. She
had only time for one blood-curdling scream before those unnatural metal
tracks devoured her.
Upon hearing the squeal,
the clown driving the dozer shut off the power and stepped down from his
seat to survey the damage. He looked down to see the blood and guts and
other assorted monkey bits wrapped around his treads. He leaned against
his machine and attempted to light a cigarette, but was unable to because
his body began to shake uncontrollably as the laughter escaped him and
echoed throughout the jungle. The clown had orange denim coveralls over
his purple striped jumpsuit and shocking orange hair under his pimp-like
purple striped hat. His big shiny red shoes perfectly matched his big shiny
red nose. And his eyes gleamed with the intensity of impending corporate
profit. When he finally managed to suck as much death as possible from
his cigarette, he tossed the butt onto the ground - immediately engulfing
the entire cleared area in orange and purple striped flames. He danced
a happy little dance amid his fiery creation for awhile, then, as if tiring
of the event, he waved his arm like a king non- chalantly dismissing a
court jester from his presence, and the flames immediately subsided.
In their place was not a smoldering
pile of blackened remains, but a thick and beautiful blanket of long and
plush green grass. A large and rather stupid cow suddenly came wandering
onto the miraculous pasture and immediately began munching down all the
vegetation it could. No sooner had the cow digested a hearty clump of grass,
when more would crop up in it's place. The cow, quite content with this
situation, remained in the same spot, growing larger by the second. She
didn't seem to notice that it had more than doubled it's weight in a matter
of seconds, nor had it payed the least bit of attention to the ridiculously
clad clown beside the bulldozer.
When the cow eventually tipped over,
no longer able to move, the maniacal clown came charging across the pasture
laughing hysterically and managing to maintain a large dagger between his
teeth until he reached his unsuspecting prey. After he unceremoniously
butchered the animal, he tossed pieces of it into little styrofoam boxes,
then promptly disappeared. The glorious pasture also disappeared. In it's
place was left a barren wasteland where it appeared no life had ever existed
- nor would it likely for quite some time.
==========
The chubby little rosy-cheeked
children waited anxiously with their chubby little rosy-cheeked parents
in anticipation of the clown's scheduled arrival. Suddenly, with a maniacal
laugh, he burst onto the scene. The children squealed with delight as he
did backflips and waved to them. Coloured balloons were everywhere and
confetti rained down on all in attendance. The frantic pace was upheld
as the happy clown magically produced hundreds of little styrofoam boxes
to hand out to the ecstatic children. Terrified of missing out on a chance
to obtain one of them, the frenzied mothers and fathers, unparticular of
who or who's child they knocked aside, desperately threw cash in the general
direction of the clown faster than the prized boxes could be given out.
The clown laughed and laughed.
==========
Mawan recovered from his trance. The
council of tribal elders waited in anticipation of the shaman's recountance
of his vision. Mawan took a long deep puff from his pipe, held it for a
moment, then slowly exhaled. He began to speak. The elders leaned forward
anxiously.
"That's good shit", he commented approvingly. He was in no hurry
to repeat the events he had witnessed in his dream but he knew he must.
"We have been here forever", he began reluctantly, "but now we must
leave. Big Red Nose is coming. Before the very next moon he will be here
and we must be gone". The elders knew Big Red Nose was coming but they,
like their ancient grandfathers, had prayed that He would not come in their
lifetime. As seasons changed, and years and centuries passed, the Maku
lived under the fear of His arrival. Campfire stories had been passed down
through the generations, foretelling his eventual arrival. It was inevitable.
And now it was time.
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The restaurant chain in this story is a fictitious one by the name of "O'Donahue's" and it's circus-like mascot is known as "Bubbaloo O'Donahue".
Please send comments regarding this excerpt to Ronny Watt