Midnight Jolt Run

Posted by Fiss on August 14, 2006

Strike Fiss’ Manifesto

November 2002

 

 

 

This is boring, but plagiarism of the mind never smelled so delicious.  Let tell you of the thought I stole from my brain.  Coiled and grey as it is, thoughts like this are too wonderful not to share.  Apple pie baked and hickory smoked.  Books that melt in the rain – it’s the next craze your children will buy into and your TV will worship.  Endorsed by God and Pope-John-Paul Approved.  Once, I had a book that only melted half way before it stopped raining.  The edges of the pages looked like blueberry jam.  The remains of the spine were like caramel candy, so I took a big bite of it on the edge and passed out right after I discovered that it tasted like pennies and sunlight.

 

In the hospital, the doctors with the white coats and purple stethoscopes all told me I should have been dead for ignoring the ‘recommended usage’ label – for the books were clearly not designed to be consumed by human beings, and I should never ever do anything like that again.  My mom told me that my head broke open and my brain flew out onto the grass, getting dirt and bugs all over it.  I told her that I liked bugs, and was impartial but friendly to dirt, so it was okay.  Not much of a beginning, I suppose, but somehow, I think it explains a bit about the leaves…and maybe, it will be a bit of an introduction into the Happiest Boy On Earth and Most Of Space Except For One Planet. 

 

Let’s dive briefly into that last thought.  You see, being the Happiest Boy on a Planet is not very hard.  For example, you could be the unchallenged ruler of a large percentage of that world, and be waited on hand and foot so every waking moment is a joy and pure happiness rains down from your armpits when you run at the Royal Gym.  You could be a porn-star with an uncontested clause in your contract that you only make love to beautiful, young, sexy women who all want to devour your bodily fluids and any rate you can produce them.  Or perhaps, you would be an evil dictator.  That alone would make many people happy.  Especially if you could have a big red button to press that would consistently destroy everything you didn’t like about life.  Yay!  Or, maybe, you’re just a really big Star Trek fan, and somehow, you got to hang out with Patrick Stewart for a whole day, getting his autograph and at the end of it, him saying that he had lots of fun chilling with you and that you should go to Hollywood and hang out with him sometimes and kick the shit out of William Shatner.  That would certainly make me the happiest boy on earth…but then, I got to thinking, what if there was a planet somewhere that could throw my happiness to shame?  Maybe, the planet Joy in the Glee galaxy.  On this planet, there was a country called Happy Happy! and the people there (yes, happy with an exclamation mark on the end) were the happiest in the whole universe, because their entire beings were moulded to good karma and thoughts all day long, and the worst thing ever to happen to any of them would be to have only three candy canes left, instead of the unlimited supply.  And even then, the Three Candy Cane alert would be sounded, and their friendly, happy friends and loved ones would immediately run to them with happy smiles and fresh, delicious, sugary treats to tide them over while the Candy Cane Plant gave overtime to their happy workers to make a few hundred extra Candy Canes of Pure Happy Sugar to send to the poor people who were ALMOST out of Happy Candy Canes. 

 

We shall return to that thought in a moment.  First, I want to tell you about the ancient, little known, and even lesser practiced art of Phyllomancy.  So they tell me, the only people or things to practice Phyllomancy are Garden Gnomes, their more adventurous cousins, Lawn Gnomes and the very few (I’m the only one) humans who have the gift of divination in this way.  Seeing the future can be done with many tools, you see.  Some more accurate than others.  If you look up into the sky, you can know if it will rain a few minutes from now.  If you look into a crystal ball, you may even know what is happening next month with your job or love-life.  Some learned sources have pushed the thought that a fortune cookie in the hands of the right person can explain events long into the months ahead.  But, what the Gnomes and I know is much more powerful.  We see the future by the rustling of the leaves on the ground and in the trees.  I would later find out via x-rays that my brain had fallen into a pile of raked leaves when it popped out of my head, and the doctors had been too shocked and surprised and worried to think to brush it off before it was sewn back into my skull. 

 

Armed with this talent, it was almost inevitable that fortune, both good and bad would come my way.  Seeing the future is never a good thing, but lots of people with money seem to think it is.  Lots of important people with ties and suits.  Black briefcases that are filled to the brim with secrets both mundane and amazing.  I saved one of those men’s lives one day by telling him he should not take a step forward, and should not get hit by the bus that he did not see.  Now, normally, this is just a matter of perspective, and one would simply not think anything of it if told this when about to venture onto a street.  However, this was during lunch in a park, with no busses around us for a ten minute walk.  Needless to say, he was quite surprised I should offer the information to avoid the busses when there were no busses to be had.  I told him that I knew he would die if he didn’t listen to me, though, and that it would only take a second to stop if he was about to cross a busy street. 

 

He laughed at me, but then finished his lunch quickly, obviously a bit concerned I was loony.  I ate my lunch, deciding that if people honestly wanted to follow the direction of the leaves, they would.  That they just needed to listen harder.  After all, in a park, the trees were quite wise.  These were much more than the average potted office plant.  They were elms and oaks.  Trees that, between you and I, know much more than you could ever hope to fathom.  When a tree tells you something, you listen.  Unfortunately, most people don’t realize that trees are always talking, and ignore them because they don’t say “Here are the winning lottery numbers!  Enjoy!” out loud in a British Accent and a flourish of their branches like a man tipping his hat to you. 

 

Ten minutes later, though, the business man comes running back to me, completely pale.  He had an amazing mixture of fear and joy in his eyes, and the leaves tell me that I have done well spreading their knowledge. 

 

Like all things commercial in this world, it starts as a fad, then gets noticed by people with lots of money, and then it becomes a product.  At first, I was the centre of a small cult of librarians, historians, and a cobbled together group of people that had benefited from my powers or who thought I could help them in the near future.  The nice thing about the power is that you can tell when people are going to screw you over well in advance.  You know when to call the cops so they stop whoever is about to knife you.  You know when to lock up your wallet and jewellery.  When the front door can stay open.  What days are better just to stay in bed and hide, and what ones will be the happiest days in your life.  It takes some of the fun out living, unless of course you realize that, if you listen and watch closely to the world around you, any person can have clues.  It was offering these clues to people that made me the happiest.  Telling them to mind where they stepped, instead of they were going to get hit by a bus.  Telling them to watch the stock markets for coffee companies, instead of telling them that Nabob was about to take over Columbia with ninjas.  The leaves became amazed and proud at what I had become.  Sharing their wisdom, but never overstepping my power and trying to do too much. 

 

I became a commodity.  Both the leaves and I were afraid that I would be chopped up and sold on the market for the hungriest pigs on the planet.  Rich men and women would come to my little apartment and try to bully me into telling them things that even the leaves did not know.  How to live forever.  How to rule the world.  Where could they get one of those ‘one rings to rule them all’.  How to destroy their enemies.  I can’t say I was surprised when I started seeing Senators and Ministers and Mayors and all sorts of politicians at my door.  The problem with people with power is that they CAN make your life miserable.  I could tell that…if I didn’t tell them what they wanted to know…they could crush any happiness I had in this dwindling time of happiness.  They would run up to me with big men in black suits with big, shiny guns and tell me to speak nothing but riches and how to get them.  How to get votes.  How to get women and or men.  Never did any one of them ask how to be a better person.  How to be a better politician.  I suppose that was too much to ask for.  I asked the Mayor of Toronto if he wanted to know how to be a better person.  He looked at me as if I was a crazy person then ran out the door to collect the riches I had inadvertently lead him to.

 

Finally, after being awake for three days to answer a particularly nasty stream of questions right before the voting season…the President knocked on my door.  I was exhausted.  I had just finished shooing away three Senators and two Members of Parliament by telling them some lottery numbers, and I wanted to sleep.  The leaves in my brain hurt from the effort. 

 

He walked in with all his little secret service people who had guns and lasers and bad things like that.  The leaves told me that they were all loaded and trained to shoot people like me, even if I could tell where the bullets would go, I also knew that I wasn’t that fast to dodge several dozen. 

 

“How can I save my country?” he asked. 

 

I was happy, but also quite sad.  Happy, because I had always wanted someone important to ask something this important from me…but sad because…well…it was such a question that the leaves told me right away.  I told him that he would not like what I had to say, but he said that there were so many problems…so many people poor and dying…and so many crimes and bad things out there that he was prepared to follow my instructions to the letter.

 

I asked him if he was serious.

 

He said yes, so I told him to jump out the window.

 

He did.

 

The secret service people all looked at me in horror, but did nothing, believing that I would tell them all to do the same thing next. 

 

Soon, it was all over the news.  That I had killed the president.  Well, I hadn’t really.  The leaves just told me that he was a bad, bad man, and the Vice President would do great things for the world.  They told me that there was a robber trying to rob and kill a little old granny five stories below as well, so I figured it would be doing her a favour as well if the President landed on the robber.  He did, and the lady was saved.  (turns out the old lady was also in charge of a chemical lab that would also find a cure for nine types of cancer, AIDS, and the dreaded Corporal Tunnel Syndrome next year as well.)

 

Despite the good that it caused, there was also a very nice, selfish side effect.  Nobody wanted my advice anymore.  Nobody asked me questions.  Everyone realized that some of their answers could include death and misfortune, like the President and his destiny.  At the same time, though, I was shunned.  My landlord kicked me out, and no matter where I went, I was too well known to find a home, a job, or anything else for that matter.

 

That was when the leaves tried to help me once more.  They said I was hungry for soup, and honestly, I was, so I listened to them.  I walked over to the store and bought some ramen noodles.  When I opened the lid, I found a little sticker inside that said I had just won something. 

 

The leaves told me that I might never be as happy as the ruler of Happy Happy! in the Glee Galaxy on the planet Joy, but that this would make sure at least I was warm and had a place to live.  For that, I was happy, though I wondered why they told me about the country of Happy Happy!. 

 

Turns out that they didn’t realize I wouldn’t be happy here. 

 

The prize turned out to be a show home.  A contest sponsored by some local Japanese Business Men and their huge, happy, fat wallets, it was the centrepiece to opening up a new suburb for young professionals and rich old retiring couples.  This home was the first built, as if to incite the owners of it’s future brothers and sisters to come and spend their money.  Indeed, it was quite the attraction.

 

Three stories tall at the back end, with rooms that faced the four corners of the compass.  The basement was cool and furnished with soft carpets and wooden wall units that could hold several thousand dollars of televisions and devices that hooked up to them.  The back yard was huge and held enough soil, you should know this is quite a lot, to grow a family.  The halls were long and paved with rich, hard oak.  While I was not given every convenience to fill the house, I was given a full kitchen, and a huge dining table that looked out of place with less than a dozen people at it’s seats.

 

It was horribly, horribly empty. 

 

There was only one redeeming factor.  The endless empty marble and wood and tile and ceramics were balanced out by a tree in the back yard.  There was a much prettier tree in the front yard…but it was brought there against it’s will.  The leaves were too scared to talk to anyone after the gardeners ripped it up from it’s happy home in the forest a hundred miles from here, then shoved it into the ground in a hole much too small for it’s mighty roots.  It had shrivelled to a mere echo of it’s former beauty…but human eyes could only see the pretty reds and golds its leaves would make in the fall. 

 

It envied the tree in the back.  Whoever built the house had the heart not to destroy this tree, nor move it, nor build over it’s roots or in it’s sun.  The tree told me it’s name only one day after me talking to it.  For such a magnificent tree to tell you it’s name in such a short amount of time is quite rare.  Even master gardeners and protectors of trees, could they ever hear trees, must often wait decades for this honour among honours.  I’m afraid I can’t reiterate His name, for that would betraying the Tree’s trust, but I will tell you that he was wise and kind, even among his species. 

 

I decided to make the bedroom facing the Tree my home.  A nest, if you will.  Coming from such a tiny apartment, this vast expanse of a house was too much.  Secluding myself into this one room made me happy for a while, but soon, I began to get lonely.  Letting in the occasional squirrel and racoon was nice, but many didn’t stay.  I promised myself to stay the winter and see what happened.  The trees of the street all shed their leaves and my powers dwindled, despite the fact that my leaving the doors and windows invited many of them inside for the winter.  Soon, snow banks would collect and deposit themselves in many of the rooms, and even after that, cobwebs were replaced with that kind of wonderful ‘old’ dust that makes large houses seem spooky and haunted.  Being a newly built show-home, however, I was not blessed with ghosts to talk with. 

 

You may think that this is the point where I start going crazy and talk to myself.  I’m afraid that it was much worse than that.  I stayed in my little room, curled up in my blankets, listening to the radio for some sign of purpose, and hearing my friend the Tree comment occasionally how well the winter was going, and how the birds were staying healthy thanks to my letting them in the spare rooms.  He was very impressed and said that I made a wonderful honorary Tree.  This was the only thing in my world that kept me going.  My wish to be a tree.  To be rooted and have a purpose.  The Front Yard Tree just mocked me, mentioning how wonderful it was to be ripped up from his home soil, and commenting that I would love to feel the same sense of pain.  At least if I had someone to talk to, even myself, I may have come out of that Winter with much better spirits.

 

People started to move in just before Christmas. 

 

I remember shivering, walking over to the kitchen to get some water, when I looked out the window and found myself waving back at an excited ten-year-old girl and her father as they strung up holiday lights along their fancy new home.  I bet she’ll get one of those books that melt in the rain for Christmas.  It’s the latest fad, if I remember correctly. 

 

The strangest thing happened.  I began to watch the houses around me with a kind of detached interest, and the leaves in my head allowed me to gain insights into the lives around me.  At first, it was just a few peeks out the windows.  I could tell that Mr Johnson next door had just cheated on his wife after finding out she was pregnant, and she knew, but wasn’t saying anything…yet.  The Webbers across the street were avid pot-smokers despite the fact they didn’t move here with their old Hippy Van.  Wilma Terrick next door was a horrible woman who kept her entire family under her thumb…even the three children were restricted from playing in her luscious rose gardens outside.  The one he respected the most was Lou Kennith, just a few houses down.  He saved a poorly planted Elm in his front lawn from disaster by nursing it back to health all spring.  I tried to emulate him and help my Front Lawn Tree, but he was too stubborn and spiteful to let me dig around his roots to free them.

 

By the time Spring was in mid-swing, however, I realized that these homes were far more empty than mine.  Even Lou wished to spend as little time indoors as I did.  All these homes were manufactured.  A product.  A fad.  Just like me and my powers. 

 

The gardens of the street bloomed, and my mood descended into darkness.  It was all fake.  False.  The Front Yard Tree wasn’t helping, either.  His comments became more biting and depressing as the spring wore on, and by the start of Summer, he had told me that a good way to get to the roof was through the North Side of his branches.

 

At first, I didn’t realize what that statement meant…but then, I forgot that he too had leaves, and would be able to tell the future.  I was going to kill myself.

 

Sure enough, one fateful night, with the moon shining into my room too bright for me to sleep, I wandered outside in my pyjamas and over to the Front Yard Tree.  He seemed more than happy to help me…telling me what branches would get me to the roof three stories high…giving me a little boost and shove when I needed it.  Soon, scrambling to crawl up on the tiles, I found the ground a very long way down and my heart even lower. 

 

I asked the leaves, and they sounded a bit worried when they told me that yes, if I jumped from this height head first, I would break my head open once more, and this time, they wouldn’t be able to scoop my brain back inside. 

 

The East Side of the roof faced the kids bedrooms in the Terrick home.  At least my messy, splattery death would ruin a few of Wilma’s precious roses.  That made me feel good about what I was about to do.  Made me think that this would be my purpose.  Maybe, if they were of the time to be amused by gore, I would bring some happiness into their lives. 

 

I turned away and looked across over the neighbourhood, and, for some unknown reason, I stopped just before I took that last running step off the edge. 

 

The moon was so bright. 

 

And everywhere I looked, I could see Them looking at me. 

 

It was not the noble trees that caught my attention, for they are too wise and too long-yeared to care about a simple suicide.  They were not concerned neighbours who wanted to save me, not even to protect the property value of their own homes.  They were not the squirrels, birds and racoons I occasionally harboured, since they would have free reign in my kitchen with or without my existence.

 

The Gnomes.

 

I looked out over the gardens and the lawns and found their eyes.  Bright.  Soulful and wise.  Some winking, some crinkled in smiles, others simply gazing up at the sky.  It was then that I realized I was not alone…that they shared the same gift.  That they saw what I saw.  Knew what I knew.  Felt how I felt. 

 

Despite the Front Yard Tree’s protests that I was going crazy, I found the sun rising to me perched on the top of my house like a smiling gargoyle, looking down at the Gnomes that were trapped in this prison as I was.  Toiling endlessly in worthless gardens that produced food for only bees and birds.  Watering lawns that had thousand dollar sprinkler systems installed in them to water automatically anyway.

 

That was the first night they talked to me.  They told me of the Gnomes of old…of how they were always there to help the poor struggling towns of Men, always pitching in when nobody was looking, hoping to make this world a happier place with greener lawns and beautiful gardens to keep us happy, healthy and well fed.  These days, however, they were seen more of as ornaments.  Things of status and wealth that the people owning them would never appreciate to the full extend they should have.

 

They also told me that they were waiting.  Waiting for something.  Someone to guide them.  To take them to their promised resting place.  A happy place.

 

It was then, as the sun crawled over the hills of Suburbia, that I realized my purpose.  I was not put here to give politicians money.  Not was my full potential in saving business men from busses and vice-versa. 

 

I was to save the Gnomes.

 

Slow work, it was.  At first, just one at a time.  At night.  Under the cover of sleep and early mornings, I snuck into my foe’s lawns and gardens and hedges.  I leapt through automatic sprinkler traps and security systems and motion lights and barking dogs and cats.  I narrowly escaped many evil contraptions such as chain link fences and potted plants.  Eventually, however, the resistance grew. 

 

One by one, the Gnomes found their way into the back yard, guarded and protected by my friend, the Tree. 

 

Bright red tunics, pointed hats and snow-white beards were all saved from the occasional prying eyes by the high picket fence around my yard, and the long shadow under the tree where my army gathered. 

 

Now, at this point, you must be wondering how I could call the occasional Gnome theft akin to a military action.  One man does not make a war.  This is true.  However, as I have always believed…I am not alone.  Every morning, when I brought back the latest member to the resistance, I noticed the numbers of Gnomes were growing.  More and more Gnomes started to migrate to this place…this magical point of salvation that had been brought to this world by happenstance and my semi-delusional design.   

 

The Tree told me with some sense of pride in His part, that the Gnomes were going out and liberating more of their kind every night.  It was a joint effort now.  My Army, now rightfully so, grew larger all the time.  Soon, the extra rooms of the huge, three story house were populated.  Gnomes took up residence for the first time inside the homes they helped to protect and build.  You may think they would be messy house-guests, but they are actually very clean.  Close to a hundred strong, and my House was looking better than brand new.  Each Gnome, you see, is a master craftsman and quite handy with a broom as well as other more common tools of a workshop.

 

The hard-wood floors now wore proud, intricately carved pictures showing the liberation and the days of prosperity ahead.  The giant kitchen table was now an engraved list of the names of the Gnomes who spearheaded the force…and the mourned who had perished to dogs, cats, and garbage men alike.  I was shocked and amazed to find my name at the top of the list. 

 

I was their leader. 

 

Soon, I spent all my time meditating with the leaders of the Gnomes…all the while trying to find a direction to take them.  It’s one thing to be the leader of a great people…but something quite different to fulfill a prophecy that not even the people fully understand.  Not only this…but my further wish to help Humanity as well was growing. 

 

The leaves finally brought the answer to me.  On Midsummer’s Eve, I found myself looking up into the midnight sky, and I fell into a kind of a trance.  My vision was enhanced a billionfold, and suddenly I could see everything in the whole of human thought.  Human thought is pretty vast, no matter how much television has limited it.  No matter how many books are melted instead of eaten. 

 

There had been a great war.  A horrible toll had been exacted on the Country of Happy Happy! and it’s ruler, a young man by the name of Rapture McVelvel the Ninth was alone in the middle of his broken palace of Yaybricks and Wheestone.  All had been soiled by a foolish War…the country next to theirs named Happy! claimed they were Happier…and thus, a huge dispute exploded from it’s seed. 

 

The war had ended quickly when they both realized that neither side was happy any more. 

 

Their Happy Candy Canes would not be produced in time for the holidays.  The fields of Happy Sugar Beets would wither.  Their homes and palaces would be ravaged by the coming storms that normally were cause for joy, as it signalled Kite and Hang-gliding Season.

 

The Gnomes took my idea to heart, and soon, it became a crusade.  It was a Holy Mission. 

 

Right now, as I look out my window, I see my neighbours gawking in awe at the house.  It took more than a week, but you see, in Suburbia, nobody really stops to notice anything anymore.  It was this fact that let us get away with such a radical change.

 

The house now stands eleven stories.  It is covered with metal and glass and crystal.  The shape has been completely changed, and I am told by the head Gnome architects that it will indeed be spaceworthy.

 

There is a magical smoke coming from the base that has been strengthening all day.  Gnomes are amazing chemists and wizards, you see, and are able to convert the simplest house-hold Jell-O Mixes into rocket fuel that NASA would kill for.  The Tree has explained to me that, while the planet Joy is several million, billion and trillion light-years away, the Gnomes and He have calculated that it shant take more than a few months to arrive there with my Gnome Rocket.

 

Plenty of time for my army of Gnomes to save Happy Happy!. 

 

So, I suppose this is it.  My last message before we lift off.  The leaves are worried that there won’t be trees on this planet, but the Tree has told them there are many.  So, if you see me back in about a year’s time, handing out candy canes, hopefully that means I have succeeded in my mission to save the planet Joy, and I am back with their gift to the Planet Earth with enough Happy Sugar to turn things around back here. 

 

Until then, save me one of those books that melt in the rain.  I would like to see if they still taste like sunlight and pennies once I get back.  Or, maybe it’s just best if you just find out for yourself. 

 

I would like that very much. 

 

 

 

Strike Fiss, Studio Shinnyo 2002.  Khattam-Shud, EOF.

Posted under Manifestoes, Short Stories