Contemplations

 By Christopher Hunt

    

     I was wandering round old Jake’s woods, contemplating my grand future of dragons, dames in distress, and an overall condition of unrealistic bravery, when I stuck my foot straight through a yellow-jackets nest. However unreasonable, it’s a simple process of adrenaline spewing panic: the soft crunch of bee-paper giving way, the first burning sting in my leg, the hum of mirror-wings batting the ever-slipping air, and the sudden realization that, yes, ‘I’m freaking like nobody’s business’. But hey, I was about to be stabbed by a trillion microscopic poisoned teeth, not an exceedingly enjoyable prospect to say the least.  

    

     It’s interesting to note that I had encountered these over-zealous flying bastards no less than five times previously, and, due to this, I actually went through this choreographed process consciously and subconsciously, resulting in something similar to what happens when you listen to a perfectly lovely song playing twice over but separated by a few seconds. No matter how magnificent, how majestic, how virtuoso the original song was, there is absolutely and unequivocally no way in this universe that you could enjoy that mashed up and convoluted monstrosity. Now imagine if you started with something less-nice than a classical masterpiece, if you started with something, if possible, more horrific than our previous repeating (and thankfully imaginary) song. ‘I hope she will sing to me when this is all over.’

     This was where I was: stuck between a mental breakdown and an overly ruddy, throbbing, and engorged state of physicality. I went on a quick journey of thought processes and came to the conclusion that no matter how much I hurt, inside and out, that standing still in the middle of an angry dragons din and screaming my throat dry would not improve my overall state of being. This resulted in a mad scramble of legs and arms while I figured out which set of libs was designed for running. I ended up using a combination of the two and made fair time, considering my choice of locomotion, escaping from the dragons den with the princess miraculously in my arms. And then, just like Kirk in the Enterprise with all his crew, I made contact. Not with a here-to-for undiscovered species of Martian humanoids as I possibly suspected at the time, but with a perfectly lovely specimen of Quercus lobata, or in laymen’s terms, an oak tree.

     This was exactly what I needed: peaceful quiet darkness. A pause from the crashing-conscious-world I had just left. I drifted lazily, wondering how the beast had caught up with us. ‘We were traveling so fast, so far. Why are the lights so bright? Why do I feel like I’m inflated and covered in plastic wrap? Where did she go? What’s this funny thing sticking in my arm? Oh, it’s taped down, that’s strange. Wow! This bed is really soft. That’s nice.’ Out of the clouds the nurse asked me what had happened. I thought on it for a while and decided on the safest answer. “I saved the world!”