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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com
by Matt Smith
THE LIGHTNING BEARER
Image by Travis Sengaus Once upon a time there was a young child named Wolf, who thought he could jump so high he could bring a cloud back home as a present for his mother.
"But Wolf," his mother told him, "you have little boy legs, and you are a mere 3'11''. You could never jump as high as the clouds."
"I'll get one for you, Mom." Wolf said confidently, and went off to school for the day. He harassed his classmate Peter, but no one believed Peter when he ratted on Wolf.
After school he climbed the biggest hill in the town and shouted to the sky, "I command you to embrace me in my flight, and allow me to steal a cloud as a present for my Mom."
And the sky replied, "You are a tiny little child, and dream of far too much. I shan’t encourage hubris in so young a boy."
This sent Wolf into a rage. Feeling an anarchic impulse to randomly destroy something, he ransacked the shed at the base of a cell phone tower. He emerged from the wreckage and cursed the sky for not bending to his will.
He decided he needed to hurt the sky. Noticing that the grass on the hill was exceptionally dry, Wolf took out his Zippo lighter and worked the flint among the reeds. A wave of fire sparked into life before him, and heavy smoke billowed up out of the advancing flames. He gave the sky the middle finger and said "Eat on this! Now you're going to be all polluted."
The sky knew that it had the ability to send down a tempest that would pulverize Wolf with fiery lightning, but in its wisdom, it choose to take pity on him. It conjured up a westward breeze that gathered the smoke from the fire and sent it toward Wolf's house, and let the Fire Department take care of the hill instead of wasting valuable rain.
When Wolf got home his mother was weeping for joy. "Oh Wolf! You did it! A great big smoky brown cloud just for me!"
Wolf realised what the sky had done and silently blessed it, feeling bad for ever having tormented it. After that day he tried his best in school, and attended University, where he met future Access Hollywood host Pat O'Brien. Today Wolf works as a correspondent for CNN, and is currently reporting live daily from Kuwait City.
THE END
THOSE TO WHOM NATURE BESTOWS HER GIFTSOnce there was a gallant tiger who thought his stripes were like the bars of a steel cage. He would taunt the poachers who invaded the jungle, daring them to attack, but always bounding out of the way just in time.
"But," noted a lion, "if your confidence comes from your stripes of steel, then why don't you let the poachers hit you with their bullets? That would be a much more impressive sight."
The tiger did a shot of Jaegermeister and said, "I accept your dare. Nobody has stripes as strong as mine."So the next time a poacher rolled up in his Jeep, and started stroking his moustache the way that poachers do when they're on the hunt, the tiger slinked confidently into his field of vision.
"Aha!" said the poacher, and cocked his rifle before taking aim.The tiger yawned, and sprayed urine to mark its territory as a means of showboating. The lion, a puma, and two cheetahs all bit their claws in excitement, then gnashed their teeth with a testosterone fueled roar.
The poacher fired into the tiger's gut, and the buckshot ripped up his intestines. "Ahhh!" he screamed.
The poacher bravely strode over to the tiger, and all of the poacher's poacher buddies were right there with him, cheering his killer shot. The poacher got close and the tiger swiped at him, nearly striking his face.
"Jesus God!" yelled the just missed poacher, and whipped out his machete. He threw off his rifle, and confronted the tiger while tossing the blade from hand to hand.
Everyone who was watching, both the poachers and the cats, together shouted out, "Fortune favours the bold!" And the tiger, not quite getting it, thrust his claws into the poacher's crotch. And the poacher, only sort of understanding it, brought his knife down into the tiger's eye.
Image by Travis Sengaus Their friends were mournful, and fled the scene stricken with grief. As the tiger and the poacher lay there bleeding to death, both heaving away their final breaths, they caught the wind of a sweet papaya breeze, and wished that they could sup upon such fruit again.
THE END
THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD
The bristlecone pine tree had been thrust into power by forces beyond his comprehension. The legions of trees cried out for a gerontocracy, and the bristlecone had been alive since the days of Ancient Egypt.
An advisor warned, "The Redwoods are consolidating their forces to the North, and believe they will be accepted by the people, for they too are long in the tooth."
"Dispatch an army," said the bristlecone, and his orders were carried out.
Tensions grew where the forces were amassed, and although no one had made a formal declaration of war, fighting soon broke out.
Soon the mighty Redwoods were assembled outside of the capital, and the bristlecone was faced with a difficult decision: surrender peacefully, or bring the Redwoods into the city for bloody urban combat.
His advisor made a smart-ass remark about Macbeth, then solemnly suggested that to flee the city was the wisest course of action, since the Redwoods towered over them with great height.
The bristlecone excused himself for a moment and cowered, alone in his office. He knew how stubborn millennia-old trees were, and concluded that the Redwoods would never let him escape alive. He addressed the people saying: "This attack was unprovoked, and we are in the right to defend ourselves. We shall prevail over the evil invaders! Rise up in glory!"
But the people were fickle and craved new leadership, so they supported the Redwood blitz as it decimated their homes, and led an internal coup d'etat against the bristlecone.
As the Redwoods settled in as the new power in the region, the people were excited, and anticipated great reform. But the Redwoods were set in their ways, and governed much as the bristlecone had in days gone by. Soon the people came to accept this, and rallied behind the flag.
THE END
