Poor E’raina…she asked for it! She got a myriad of wall posts from me a few days ago. This is what boredom does to me (almost comparable to that “Seuss on the Loose” poem thingy):

This story tells of my marriage to Peter and explains the reasons why I’m being fired from my job as dictator of Montana.

It was a sunny day in mid-June. I was being my usual masculine self and sipping brandy from a flask while watching my beautiful wife Nell (read: “Aneel”) bounce around playing tennis in my vast expanses of tennis courts. I, being very wealthy, owned seventeen tennis courts. And a small island off of China that had been given the name of “Japan” by the natives.

Around noon, I called to Nell to come in for tea. She skipped over to me, saying, “Oh my dear, what a wonderful life we lead. I do hope it goes on forever and ever.”

I reply: “Quite.”

She answers back with: “Indeed.”

About this time, a small fluttering of wings in the birdbath took my attention, and I, being pompous and full of brandy, swaggered over to the bath with an air of superiority to birds that all men—I feel—should possess. Upon reaching the birdbath my eyes struck a familiar sight—it was not your common, average bird; rather, it was a Montana Zipper-Back Dingle West from the state of a similar name (minus the Zipper-Back Dingle West) adjacent to us. With haste, I scooped the MZBDW into my hands. I had heard legends from the “Japanese” natives that these birds, when sung to by a beautiful woman, would lay eggs of pure gold. I had had the beautiful woman for years—and now, in my clutches, was the bird!

“My dear Nell!” I called, stumbling towards her over a hose and a servant. “Do you see what I have here? A Montana Zipper-Back Dingle West! My god! Do you know what this means?” As I rambled on about the unique properties of the bird, Nell was so kind to point out to me that the Japanese, being from Japan and not from Montana, would probably know little about a MZBDW, seeing as how they are not native to Japan nor do they have the flying capacity to cross oceans to get there.

I explained to the feeble-minded soul the idea that a Montanian, feeling a desperate need for a companion of a higher species than bovine, sailed to Japan in search of a woman, unknowingly with a MZBDW hidden within his trousers. Nell replied that this was certainly plausible, praised my reasoning and logistical skills, and promptly wished for me to come away to bed with her. I refused—the first time in my life!—and told her that more important things must be done.

I whisked her away, with the MZBDW in my hand, to the piano room, where 57 grand pianos stood waiting to be played. I knew not how to play the piano; nor did Nell. However, a servant named Chris (not to be confused with Nell’s late husband Christ) could peck out a rather charming little ditty he liked to call “Turkey in the Straw.” After summoning him, and after he warmed up with a few romps around the tennis courts, he sat to play. Nell, her voice soaring, began singing. I watched with eager eyes as the MZBDW surveyed the scene.

Now, unknown to me was the gender of this little bird—I had automatically assumed it being female, due, most likely, to my extreme want of golden eggs. However, as I came to find in a matter of minutes, this bird was in fact a male. The males of this species, as told to me by the Japanese natives, are said to, when sung to, have the ability to raise the dead. Not knowing the gender, as I stated before, I encouraged the little bird to flourish and to absorb Nell’s beautiful words with all its might!

It is difficult to say exactly what happened next. A flurry of feathers, a gust of wind, and a sudden break in Nell’s singing—what? you’ve stopped?—and a shriek from Chris so bone-rattling that I felt I’d just heard President Bush stumble yet again over the word “nuclear.”

At once I felt a sharp shove at my back—the breath knocked out of me, I staggered forward, nearly falling over Chris, who was terrified beyond all belief and white as a sheet. I turned to my assailant with mind to confront him, and at the moment my mind registered who he was, Nell shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Christ!”

It was indeed Christ. Nell’s late husband, dead at 30, hovered above me with eyes blank as steel and aura cold as ice. My thoughts flew not to myself, not to Nell, but to the little MZBDW—where was he? My eyes scanned the gusty room and focused in on the golden sphere of shuttering feathers on the piano. I felt one thing needed to be done, and one thing only.

“Christ!” said I, stepping with all my might into the gusts of winds emitting from his presence. “Do what you want with me…I have seen Nell, I have had Nell, she has served me well. Take her if you must. But please, Christ…spare this little bird. It does no harm, and it was my doing that caused him to summon you! Do what you wish of us humans, but spare that dear little Zipper-Back. That is all that I ask.”

Within moments, the gusting stopped. I had recoiled into a ball under a piano bench near to me, and failed to look up again until all had passed and the room stood quiet. Slowly, very slowly, I crept from beneath the bench. Nell was safe…she stood naked in the corner, weeping quietly, but with a metronome in her hands.

Chris had taken refuge in an old bass guitar case, his body now wedged within so tightly that he failed to be removed (such was his demise…but that is unimportant). I, not taking into account a minor injury to my shoulder, stood unhurt. Fearing the worst, I glanced at the piano on which I had last seen the MZBDW. It was not there. There was, however, in its place, a small piece of paper. I walked cautiously toward it. With a shaking hand, I picked it up and read it.

“To Japan.”

What transpired next was what was expected. Nell married Chris, I became an Atheist, and none of us ever played the piano again (save the gardener–we found him on several occasions dabbling with Mozart on the oldest piano in the room). The moral of this story is quite clear, and I feel it is in my best interest, as well as the interests of those involved, not to outrightly state it. If you know me, and if you know Nell, you will know the moral.

I know not how this story contributes to the explanation of my losing dictatorship of Montana or my marriage to one Peter. I know not why it is an important story, and I know not why I felt the need to tell it. And I fail to recognize, after all my years, the importance of geometric proofs.

But I leave you now, not as a simple man with simple pleasures and a simple wife, but as an owner of an MZBDW, owner of Japan, and proprietor of a small southwestern section of land in Montana I like to call “Outback Steakhouse.”

~The End~

Just don’t ask.