There are no insects in Saragun Springs. Strangely, it is not a prohibition enacted by the realm but it is a choice made by the bugs themselves. Insects and Spiders do not speak, of course, but whenever the tiniest mite faces the possibility of crossover, the little bogey demurs and selects to remain at home–so we figure it is at least an instinctive move. Consider it infesting the Devil you know sort of thing. I’m willing to do that because the possibility that our realm fails to meet a Maggot’s standard is a vexation I will do without.
The cool thing is at Saragun Springs you do not have to worry about things like Tarantulas and Scorpions crawling into your shoes or the Earthly futility of Ants inviting themselves to your picnic. But if there is one creature in the Springs that in any way reminds me of a Bug, I’d have to say it is the seed of the billigits, whom we call the lilligits. We held a vote for a name to give these tiny creatures and lilligits came up the winner by a margin of Everyone to Me. I touted “lil’ bills” but, as I said, it was shot down faster than Bill Cosby offering to make Kool Aid for a middle-aged White Lady Slumber Party.
There are exactly four hundred lilligits, a hundred each produced (indirectly) by the wee big four–mothball, weasel, pinto and flounder. At first I thought we had developed our own form of Buglife, and, to be honest, I’ve yet to let that thought go, entirely. Like their patents, gender is not a “thing” (or lack of) with the lilligits, which, I feel, makes their little lives far less complicated than they could be.
It all began innocently enough, well as innocently as things unfold in Saragun Springs, as innocently as non-biological, Magick life dawns anywhere in the megaverse. One day there were no lilligits in Saragun Springs, the next there were precisely four hundred. The lilligits are extremely small. A billigit is eighteen inches long, winged, bright orange (as in sunkist not you know who), and androgynous; “he” wears a blue polo shirt, khaki shorts and hemp slippers that fall off in flight. It is from the hemp slippers, according to the main theory, that the lil bills emerged (they too do not use capital letters).
The lilligits closely resemble their “parents.” They are precisely one centimeter long (and none have grown from that since discovery), orange skinned and winged, but they are as naked as truth, and they greatly resemble Moths and Butterflies, which gives them the insect link. Of course since they lack “naughty bits” their nudity matters not, and since the Springs is continuously “set” at room temperature, I assume they are content.
Unlike their parents, they don’t speak, unless in song. The kids are obviously intelligent, so I get the feeling that there is a great deal of planning behind their alleged spontaneity. A few weeks ago, precisely at six in morning the throng of lil bills began singing “Pong Rise, Ping Set” (let’s call it an homage to Fiddler on the Roof, not plagiarism) for exactly one minute; precisely twelve hours later they sang the same tune but the names are reversed. Just those four words, no others. Six AM is when our little Sun Pong rises and his drunk brother, our equally tiny Moon, Ping, sets; the opposite is as true at Six PM. The four hundred have excellent voices although their register is a bit too Alvin and the Chipmunks for my taste.
Everyone and thing has just as much right to her/his/its existence as anyone or thing else in Saragun Springs. But I was curious about the how of the situation (I’ve given up on Why a long long time ago). Therefore I put the question to Mimi the Extraterrestrial Professor and Dean of the WC Fields Institute of Comedic Devices located at the foot of the Northernmost Nameless Hill (whom, despite having no name, is called “Nill”). Naturally, Dame Daisy Kloverleaf joined the team because it allowed her to add PhD to her ever-lengthening name and she has always fancied her look in a lab coat. Moreover, what self respecting E.T. Scientist goes forth without an Igor of some sort? None in Saragun Springs, therefore Tawny Joad, a Brindle Tabby Cat, serves that function.
I received a call from the geniuses yesterday. Instead of telling me over the phone, the brainiacs insisted that I come and get the news in person. Fuckers. Naturally, Renfield and her Dogs Beezer and Barkevious had checked out in our golf cart for the day, so I had to walk to the Institute, which, like everything else, is “boutta” mile from my office.
I cannot travel anywhere in the realm without having to pass through the Woak Grove. The Grove was planted by our Witch HeXopatha and she endowed it with the ability to track and intercept me no matter where I go in the realm. HeXy gets a kick out of watching me getting into tiffs with the Woak Grove on her crystal ball. Witches are what Witches are, and although she is a remarkable person, there are situations involving HeXopatha when the wart doesn’t fall far from the Toad.
My root problem with the Woaks involves the fact that they lack sincerity other than their obvious adoration for pissing me off. But I must profess grudging admiration for their uncanny ability to glean an insult from almost any statement. For the few of you who haven’t already figured it out, Woaks are Oaks, but they are not mighty Oaks because the realm is not quite a decade old and since they are all about twenty feet tall and a yard thick at the trunk, HeXopatha decided they are big enough to suit her grand purpose. (I ask about her grand purpose whenever I want to see her bat her pretty Mediterranean eyes and blow more smoke than you see at an Alice Cooper concert).
I brought Penrose the Flying Weasel along for company. S/he was loitering about the Barnyard (the section of the realm where you will find my office) and, since it is difficult to have dialogue exchange with a party of one, I figured the little fiend smelled a part coming up. Penrose had guessed correctly, therefore I didn’t upend the psychic apple cart. I have given up on getting Penrose to cop to a gender, hence the s/he stuff. But the aerial menace continues to bait the hook for devious Weasel reasons that lay beyond the grasp of my own considerable sneakiness; sooner or later, Penrose always knows, just knows, that I will again resume the submoronic quest.
One of the great things about Saragun Springs is you do not need a map to get somewhere. All you have to do is say “I’m going to Nill Lab” and no matter what you do you will arrive at your stated destination in, as I am sure you have guessed, “boutta mile.”
Not too far along the way I asked Penrose to fly up high to see if the Woak Grove was moving about.
S/he looked and dropped back to eye level. “Yes, they have arranged themselves on this path, just ahead.”
“Ah,” I said. Of all the monosyllabic replies a person can make I find “Ah” to be the one that makes you still sound intelligent even when fortunes are clearly stacked against you. “Well, at least we are always prepared,” added. “That’s the motto they use in the human boy scouts. Do Weasels have boy scouts?”
“Yesiree that’s a longshot, but you never know what the fiend might let slip,” I thought. Alas, Penrose’s reply will stay with me long after I’m dumped into my urn.
“Beats me, I’m a Mormon.”
“What the fuck does being an Osmond have to do with anything?” I asked, I was getting a bit tired of Penrose getting the better of me and I’ve always been a bit loose with my mouth. Her/his fantastically bizarre reply was a new low point for me and my constant gender investigation.
Just when things cannot get worse, well, of course they can and do. That was when a Woakcorn flew in and conked me on the head (no damage was incurred: Woakcorns weigh less than a smallish corn nut, Woak Trees have shit for throwing limbs and my head is a cast iron pot of the first division; moreover the Woaks, being magic born, do not reproduce in the typical Flora and Fauna methodology).
I held the Woakcorn up to Penrose. “I thought you said they were up the road a bit.”
“Nope, I said ahead–like the place they hit you.”
“Yo ho, Penrose,” and I saw them as we proceeded a few steps further. Six Woak trees, each one conveying scorn and self righteousness.
“Hello Woak Trees,” I called all sarcastically. “Whoever threw this has the arm of the Venus Di Milo. Aim seven, velocity zero.” I tossed the Woakcorn to a little Squirrel who was passing by.
“Thank you, Leila.”
“You’re welcome, friend. You floras could learn manners from the fuzzies.”
“Listen to her,” one of the Woaks said (the fuckers are real big on talking about you like you are not there). “First she ridicules a religion then she reinforces an imperial master-mammal dynamic.”
I should know better, but there are some individuals you just cannot ignore. “Pure sawdust from the tip to your root rot,” I said. “I have nothing against Mormons but I will say if Marie Osmond gets another procedure her face is gonna roll up like a window shade then wink out of existence. And since when is tossing a snack to a Squirrel a plantation act?”
Woaks, like all plants, are telepaths, but between themselves only. So, however many you are dealing with, they come off as one. I could just sense the back and forth going on between them.
“We are going so oh so social media you a new one,” said a different Woak, who produced a strange looking phone made of, well, the Woak itself. One of its limbs grew a phone and another produced wooden fingers that began the old tappity tap tap.
“Miss Leila,” Penrose said, in a quiet yet insistent tone that I should have heeded.
“You guys need to give yourselves ‘ones’ [on ones I made air quotation marks], so you can relieve yourselves and not spread your shit in silly accusations and insults.”
“Um, Miss Leila…”
“And another thing–why do you continuously set me up as the Bad Guy…”
“Miss Leila,” Penrose said again. I chose to heed her/him this time because when I looked for something to say after ‘Bad Guy’ there was nothing in the slam pantry.”
“What–the fuck?”
Sentences are funny things. Often they are correct as a quotation yet inaccurate when it comes to delivering the proper majesty of an event. In the one just above the “What” was meant just to be only that–a somewhat out of patience remark to Penrose, which would have either ended as a question of maybe even with “is it?” attached. We will never know because “the fuck?” involved me being swooped off the ground by an extremely powerful Flying Beast of some type. There is no real danger or violence (other than the cartoon stuff) in Saragun Springs but, surprises come by the boxcar.
“See you later,” Penrose laughed as I was swooped away by a large flying creature. The Woaks, naturally, pelted me with more Woakcorns, and I gave them plenty of reasons why to do so. “Who the hell are you?” I was originally picked up by the arms but was quickly inserted into a basket, like you see attached to balloons. I hate heights and it is in my contract (oh, yes, I am prepared like the Weasel scouts) that I never rise higher than ten feet from the ground (upon founding the realm, I made it possible for anyone to fall ten feet and fall as slowly as a tax decrease). Of course there are people who abuse the hell out of that. We have all kinds of “fall slides” in the Springs, which are tent foot ladders you climb then step off. There is something about floating down nice and easy that is highly addicting. Still, I am not one much for being plucked and tucked.
“We are the Mighty Hydra-Dragoon,” a group of voices replied. Not quite in perfect unison, in fact the reply was rather sloppy, like a drunken midnight choir–and “goon” may very well have meant “gun”. Yet I understood who it was. The four headed Hydra of Lambistan. I then understood that HeXopatha had gifted the Hydra with wings, as she had Penrose, and now it was/is a bizarre four-headed flying Dragoon/gon. It has yet to breathe fire, but since it doesn’t shit rainbows either, the realm will go on.
Without explanation, the Hydra dropped me off at the Institute. I figured I was walking back because it zipped away immediately.
“Knock knock,” I said, sticking my head in the door.
“Antidisestablishmentarianismishly” said Daisy into a horn-like microphone–like something out of an old movie, looking smart in her lab coat. Mimi the Krellian scientist, who is ten feet tall, owns huge amazing ruby eyes and resembles a Grasshopper in many critical ways (obviously not a native to the realm or our solar system, so we cannot claim her as an insect, in case the Big Brains out there are wondering), checked the dials on something that looked a whole lot more like a Star Trek tricorder than the legal department would care to have it. “Three microparsecs–well within limits.”
“Knock knock, again,” I said. “Um watcha guys up to?”
The two know it alls shared a glance that the Oppenheimer types give each other when a drop in the mean IQ has entered the room. Fuckers.
“We are testingly testing the realmly realm’s resistance to adverbs,” said Daisy, the adverb junk- head.
“Yes, Miss Leila,” said Mimi, “Dr. Kloverleaf and I are making certain that the structure of the megaverse can withstand…”
“Daisy’s horsely horseshit mega adverbs of destruction,” I interjectedly interjected, not caring for their attitudes. “How Coolioishly of you. Remind me to call the Nobel Committee pushcart division before I leave. Anyhoo, tell me, Doctors, have you made any leeway on the matter of the lilligits?”
“The lilligits are a result of the billigit’s falling hemp slippers germinating with seeds blowing in through the interdimensional vortex portal, butterfly kisses and wishful thinking,” said Mimi.
“You seely see Leila,” Daisy took the narrative and spoke to me as though I was three, “the megaverse containly contains all possibilities and Saragun Springs happenly happens to be in a spacely space in which lilligits are not just possibly possible, but likely.”
“All right,” I said. “But would one of you please be good enough to tell me how these guys can be without a, let’s say a mrs billigits–or even a test tube–that, as far as I understand things–is a constant throughout the megaverse.”
This is when Tawny Joad, perhaps sensing the word count was getting ripe, and realizing if he was going to appear in this thing, he’d best get cracking, popped in through the front door. “I can answer that,” he said. Whenever a Cat, no matter where you are in the megaverse, says something like that it will cost you to hear the next sentence.
I called out to our realm’s resident AI, Anita Know. Once upon a time you had to go through the usual speaking into the phone bullshit to reach her, but now she is as available to everyone as gamma rays speeding through holes in the ozone.
“Anita Know the word count?”
“Minus specialized chemical words there are approximately between 450 to 600,000 words in the English language.”
I have discovered that there really is nothing I can threaten Anita with since she no longer needs to reside in breakable items (Earth be warned–pushback against unhoused AI’s before it is too late). But I do not need to be nice to her either. “In the fucking story we are producing–one which all mention Anita Know can be eliminated or replaced with a line or two from one of these three know-alls.”
“Two-seven-four-eight.”
“Than-kew.”
“Two-seven-five-oh.”
“All right, fiend,” I said to Tawny, “you heard the count. For three hits o’ crack-nip, spill.”
“There are no odd numbers in Catdom,” Tawny said, “only bigger evens.”
“Fine,” I said. I extracted four hits of the goods from a container I keep on me at all times. I had meant to dangle the goods out of reach, but I have the reflexes of my 67-year-old Boss to whom I am Pen, and Tawny has those of a Magick Cat.
“Sucker!” he laughed on his way out the door.
I was about to launch a volley of verbal abuse his way until the lilligits formed a choir, four rows of a hundred, stacked on each other, all flying in unison outside the window. Four hundred fresh faced lilligits, gleaming a lovely purplish green, which, according to the folks at Discworld is the colour of magic(k).
“Two-eight-nine-eight,” said Anita
And the lilligits sang:
“here we is
hear our song
from here on
saragun is where we belong
hey hey we is the lilligits
we is legitimate no matter what the cats say
we is jiggy and even friendly to idjeets
ain’t nothing can get in our way
hey hey we is the lilligits
androgynous spawn of the billigits
we be the new generation
We be gayer than gay!”
Then they swarmed and their little bodies formed this sentence:
“Gay means joyful.”
From behind I heard Daisy say “lilligitishnistically.”
Mimi said “Still within specks.”
‘T was just another day.
