This is Tom's entry for my bloggiversary contest over at the
Woods- it was a little long so I put it here in its entirety.
THE PUKEKURA CHESS CLUB’S WONDERFULLY MAGNIFICENT SUNDAY OUTING
OR
BERG FINDS A HOBBY
The excitement began with a game of chess. Or, rather, many games of chess; all of which ended terribly. At first the whole idea had seemed grand to the members of the Pukekura Chess Club, and it was quickly voted in by the group who heralded the adventure as: The Pukekura Chess Club’s Wonderfully Magnificent Sunday Outing!
“What sport this will be!” was Charles’ response when he had first heard the suggestion.
“Wicked awesome!” delighted Peter, mischievously using the word ‘wicked’ despite his parents disdain for its employment outside of purely religious doxology.
Franklin (who was still only sipping noodle soups for lunch as a result of the massive dental headgear recently mounted to his abnormally shaped cranium) squealed with dungeon-and-dragon-like enchantment.
And so the approval swept through the rest of the club’s membership, until it fell, like so many socially inept dominoes, toward the head chair. For a moment the club became silent, all eyes turning nervously in the direction of Florence. Florence, the local chess champion and club viceroy, stood to his feet and in brilliant neglect of his asthmatic condition bellowed one word in Klingon: “HIja'!!!” YES!!!
The jubilation for the very first outdoor chess tournament in Pukekura’s history burst from everyone’s lungs, and the group quickly made plans for their road trip to Tongariro National Park.
Tongariro National Park, found in the southern end of Lake Taupo, is home to a number of distinct animals, such as the kaka, robin, kiwi, pukeko, the native bat, and one terribly ingenious polar bear.
A bear, who because of his taxonomic confusion, has spent many of the last few months attempting to live a life worthy of being the largest and most powerful carnivore on the face of the earth. A difficult prospect for anyone if they’ve been raised in a zoo, far from home, with little for guidance but FarSide comics. Nonetheless, Berg found himself enjoying life, and moved into a cozy wood within the National Park. It was here that he discovered numerous things to eat, and kill, and talk to, and kill some more. And it was here that he also awoke one morning with the urge to do something that he had never done before: Find a hobby!
It only seemed fitting to Berg. Now that he was comfortably living at the top of the food chain, a sophisticated Ursus Maritimus such has himself should have some other preoccupation to bide his time. However, which hobby he should indulge himself in was a choice that left Berg as frustrated as if he had come across three equally drunk penguins, each delicious looking, all waiting to be eaten at that exact same moment.
Hunting, of course, was his first choice – but he knew that this wouldn’t really count as a hobby. Then he imagined himself collecting stamps, which immediately caused him to gag, as all the stamps he had ever seen were previously licked by humans; and everyone knows that human spit is almost as revolting as human snot. He briefly considered writing, but concluded that most writers were ignorant primates. Berg then toyed with the idea of becoming a bird watcher. At this he even strained his massive head upwards to scout out the nearest birds in his vicinity. It was in this straining, with his ears perched upwards, his nose now sifting into the wind, that he heard the faint noise of a group of people, chattering in the distance.
He listened, and sniffed, and listened some more. A massive statue of thick ivory, his body stood solid amongst the thick forest underbrush, moving only after several minutes.
“Maybe these people have a hobby that I can dutifully pursue!” cried Berg, rather too loudly for any serious bird watching to be done.
He catapulted into a thundering run, slowing to a quiet walk as the voices got louder. With the massive pads of his feet tiptoeing between ripe plots of wild mushrooms, Berg approached the edge of the forest and stared out between the trees. Before him sat the Pukekura Chess Club.
The members lounged in a grassy field, enjoying lunch over a series of practice games. Charles munched a tuna sandwich, eyeing Franklin across the checkered board. Franklin sipped his noodle soup, navigating the spoon through a maze of metal, all while moving his king bishop into a particularly aggressive posture. Berg winced slightly as the boy squawked blissfully through the chrome headgear. For the next few moments he watched intensely as the club continued with their outdoor chess extravaganza. Berg squinted, blinking only when absolutely necessary, as he took in the intricacies of the game. So passed the next few minutes; Berg’s mind being inundated with tactics, and brilliant inhuman stratagem.
“This is it!” whispered Berg to a beetle that had scaled one of the mushrooms at his feet. “This is the hobby I’ve been looking for!”
With swiftness recorded many times by frostbitten arctic national geographic photographers, Berg vaulted his tremendous weight into the field, stopping himself at the nearest players.
“I play the winner!” he boomed.
Like the victims of Mount Vesuvius the entire club membership froze in sphincter failing paralysis. All eyes stared, all pants filled, and Berg was left in confusion.
“Oh…” stuttered the bear. “I guess I wasn’t invited? Well, that doesn’t mean that you have to treat me like I’m a freak of nature.”
Still they stared at him, as if they couldn’t understand the roars coming out of his mouth.
“I see how it is. You bourgeoisie elitists don’t want to let someone new join in with your aristocratic little hobby!”
If he had had furless cheeks the group would have witnessed them spill red with anger. Suddenly Berg had no desire to pursue chess as a hobby. The thought of it simply enraged him that much more.
“Well…well, yeah…if that’s going to be you’re attitude about letting me play!”
And Berg proceeded to eat every participant of The Pukekura Chess Club’s Wonderfully Magnificent Sunday Outing.
When the frothy slaps of Berg’s jaws finally ended he heard yet another set of voices in the distance. Words spilled through the forest as the bear licked his chops in anticipation.
“What we are looking for,” stated someone hidden within the thick woodlot “is the Kahu, or Harrier Hawk. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Berg smiled exultantly before charging towards the source
“Bird watching it is!”
This originally appeared on another website, which I believe is either defunct or just lame.
Some Kinds of MonstersOut of the whole pantheon of monsters, only two really scared me when I was a kid. I remember discussing this with my friend Danny when I was about 7 or 8. Danny was scared of vampires. Not me, though. Vampires were certainly very cool and very scary, but I knew they weren’t really real. Ghosts, though- ghosts I wasn’t so sure about. People die all the time, and it seemed entirely plausible to me that some of them would get lost on their way to heaven or wherever else they might be headed, and choose to come back and haunt us. So ghosts scared me.
And sasquatches. Growing up in the Canadian Rockies, where we occasionally had to set bear traps in our backyard, the prospect of a giant, possibly hostile ape-like monster roaming around unseen just outside our window was a little disquieting. So I made sure to keep an eye out for them, especially when camping. In fact, I am convinced I saw one when I was about 3 or 4 years old, but my fuzzy memory of that incident looks suspiciously like a pre-school math poster, so it’s possible it was just my imagination.
I’m a lot older now, and though I haven’t totally discounted the possibility of the existence of ghosts or sasquatches, I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about them. There are other monsters to deal with now. Big scary monsters with names like Debt, Depression, Divorce, Disease, even Death. I’m not saying I’ve encountered these monsters personally (I’m not even married, for one thing), but I know they’re out there somewhere, roaming around in the wild. Sometimes they capture friends of mine and eat them right up.
Have you ever lost a job? Or lost a dream? Lost a loved one? Loss is a swamp monster that can drag us all into the murk from time to time. Fear is another one that can sneak up on us unexpectedly. I imagine Fear is kind of like a vampire, or maybe a leech, sucking away our lifeblood and our enthusiasm for living. Scared yet? There are more- lots more. Rejection, Loneliness, Bunny Rabbit, Anger, Abuse (a many-headed monster), Hate, you name it. They’re all out there, lying in wait. Well, maybe not Bunny Rabbit.
So what can you do? Hide? Fight? Protect yourself somehow? I don’t know. Really, I don’t. Life is life. Not to be a downer here, but into each life a little shit must fall. Or rain. Whatever. And we all have to deal with it on our own terms, like it or not, ready or not.
But hopefully you’re not alone. Hopefully you have your family, and your friends who will be there for you. Faith, too, if you’re into that- I am. But if not, then use another ‘f’ word against the monsters in the darkness. You know which one I’m talking about. Use it loudly and defiantly. Maybe the monsters will still win, but at least you didn’t go quietly. And sometimes they don’t win.
Even if they do, though, life isn’t over, you’re not done. Maybe things have changed, but just make the necessary adjustments and move on. I know it’s easy to say, but we all have to do it. Do you know why it’s so important to get on with your life? Because life still has a lot of adventure, blessings, fun, and good times to offer you. As surely as the monsters will come looking for you, so will the, umm, anti-monsters or whatever you want to call them. Monster Busters. And you don’t want to miss those- if you do, then the monsters will have really won.
So yeah, I hope I didn’t scare you- that wasn’t my intent. I just think it’s important to acknowledge the darker side of life, in order to more fully appreciate the Light. I hope you were able to read this and think, “Yeah, I’m ready for the monsters. I have my family, I have my friends, I have my faith.” But if you don’t have any of that stuff, you can always email me. Unless your particular monster is the ghost of a sasquatch, then you’re on your own.
