Moon and the Grumpernickle

“Moon, honey, could you feed Claude?”

His mother’s voice drifted from the kitchen window. Moon considered this offer, but his bed of grass in the sun was so comfy he breathed deeply and stayed silent.

“Please Moon, he’s getting all strung out, mooing away like some kind of irate trombone thing. I don’t want him to eat my cabbages.” Moon lifted himself onto his elbow to look at Claude. Silence. Claude stared knowingly. He shuffled and grunted impatiently. “Strung out indeed,” said Moon.

Moon creaked into action, turning to look at his dark green imprint, like a continent of idleness in the grass. “Idle Island, it will be called,” he thought, “no… Moon Land, where Moon landed…or Frondwell”. He had been the king of Frondwell for four hours already, and his residency had lulled his mind into a state of contented sloth - but now that the sun was creeping down towards the rooftops and making the leaves glow in that sleepy, amber-wheat-field-gold, his prosperous reign was at an end. He would leave it with the natives. Placing a bucket in front of Claude, Moon leant on his friend’s shoulder and watched him munch. Claude munched. Moon smiled.

“I got sent out of chemistry again today,” said Moon, leaning his arms across Claude’s back. Claude grunted approval.

“The same thing, ‘Moon, pay attention, if you don’t want to learn, you may as well sit outside’. So…I go and sit outside.”

Moon refilled the bucket. “That’s okay though, right? I don’t mind if they want to look at numbers all day, but I shouldn’t have to join in, right?” Claude grinned smugly. I don’t know, man, I already hung out with you on Tuesday.” Claude smirked, stifling laughter. “Oh Christ,” said Moon, “fine, I’ll ask.” Claude could be very persuasive.

“Mum,” Moon called, ambling closer to the house, “it’s P.E. tomorrow, and I really, really hate P.E., and they just run around chasing balls while I watch, and Claude really wants me to stay and…”

“Tell Claude to stop bossing you around,” he saw his mother’s paisley dress flash between the curtains. She poked her frizzy haired head out to speak, “Moon if Claude said to nail your head to the table, would you do it”?

“Probably not,” mumbled Moon.

“Sorry Babes, I can’t write you a sickie every day, even if you do have to watch the other guys chasing balls all day,” Moon looked up quizzically. “Look,” she continued, “it’ll be the weekend soon, then you can just chill out all day, forget about it all, help me with my garden”. The last offer was a little ambitious. Moon sniggered. “Sure Mum, your petunias have been looking a little down anyway”. “Oh?” she replied. It was his mother’s turn to look quizzical. “Yeah, they’re usually up all night, singing and flirting and all this wild business.”

Moon’s mother laughed. “You little bugger, go to school, alright!” Moon grinned. Claude gave a deep, disappointed ‘moo’.

***

From the middle of the oval Moon gazed at the think ridge of ivory clouds tumbling past the sun. He held his breath with anticipation. The white monolith sailed by and, like a tidal wave of warmth and nourishment, sunlight swept across the field. Moon’s skin quivered with pleasure at the sudden thaw. His classmates whirred past chasing the football. The thundering voice of the PE teacher Mr. Mallon echoed in the distance as if he were bellowing from beneath the ocean. Moon closed his eyes and spread his arms to catch every ray.

Moon was just about to bend over and take off his shoes, when he was struck by a sudden rush of grappling players who could see the ball but apparently not poor Moon, who was standing in the middle of the field like a sapling before a charging bison. Luckily, Moon did not stay conscious long enough to feel any of this. The sound of trampling feet, ripping leather and violent panting was quickly followed by a rush of white-hot light and a terrible, heavenly, piercing wail. Both were brighter and hotter and louder than any other earthly phenomenon Moon had ever felt. Once this abominable pain had set in, Moon settled into a warm glow of unknowing, unfeeling bliss.

If you have ever been hit this hard before, you might remember seeing some strange and colourful visions, glorious to see, but making little sense. You might also remember feeling wondrously comfortable, like you just wanted to lie down and sleep, sleep, sleep. If this happened, you probably had a similar experience to Moon on that Thursday during physical education. You might have met, or met something similar to, the Grumpernickle.

Moon’s mind was now sailing over a forest of gently swaying hands. Coloured hands, waving cheerfully in every direction. He had that feeling of utter weariness and longing, but instead of waking up on the floor like me or you, Moon just kept on floating. He had been struck very, very hard.

He soon soared to an enormous wall, which stretched as high and as wide as the eye could see. As he drew closer Moon saw that the wall was in fact transparent, with slithering eels of rainbow light on its surface, just like those mysterious strands that hold bubbles together. Through it he could see a peculiar landscape of darkened sandy islands and churning ocean, mountains covered in living vines of purple, which snaked longingly out and waved huge bat like leaves towards the ether. The sun was a deep red and covered much of the sky. Moon leaned precariously forward to get a better look. He was about to lean onto the thin membrane that separated him from this bizarre new world, when he heard a strange sound behind him.

As he turned, Moon was frozen with awe as he was confronted by what looked like a huge animal, about twenty feet long and very rotund. It had seven eyes, all of which seemed to smile amiably at Moon. The skin was difficult to describe, as its colour never stayed the same for more than a second. One patch of soft orange might settle on its flank only to be chased off to its neck by a cloud of mischievous green, which would in turn be encircled by serpentine ribbons of belligerent purple. The beast had innumerable tails, all of nebulous hue, lazily swaying, towering into the sky above like a crowd of gigantic squirrels.

Moon was shocked.

A sound flowed from the beast as if its body was an enormous gramophone. Imagine every dove and every blue whale on earth singing into your ear at the bottom of the ocean or deep in space, singing notes deep enough to crumble mountains and high enough to peel the crust off the moon.

It almost peeled the crust off Moon. The sound plunged him into a galaxy of fear and ecstasy, its sheer wonderment and joy forcing him to gasp for air. That is what Moon heard, but the message transmitted into his brain was more like, “Hello, I am the Grumpernickle, can I help you at all?”

It had no mouth, but the sonic blast it issued seemed to convey its message with eloquence and rather homely tenderness. Moon was so stunned he could only respond with a wheezing sigh.

“You’ve come an awful long way, young fellow,” the seven eyes wrinkled up into a smile, “surely you must’ve come here for something?” The Grumpernickle’s seven eyes scanned Moon like a fussy mother over a sick child. “Dear me, by the looks of you I’d say you’ve been misplaced!” The Grumpernickle gave a little laugh. “Yes, yes, I see where I went wrong.” Its eyes focused on Moon. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience, I’ll get you started right away, give it a couple of months and you’ll be right as rain”.

Moon tried to ask what the Grumpernickle meant, but the words came out like a thin wisp of smoke. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” it answered anyway, beaming the message right into Moon’s brain, “I’ll just get you back onto the right path and I’m sure someone will help you out when you return”.

The Grumpernickle shot a spout of glittering swirling light into the air from its tail, giggling as it dissipated into the air. The beast was beginning to lose its solidity, sinking into the vista of the distance. Moon’s vision started fading into the amorphous void between worlds. “Well, good luck little prince! I hope you fair well, and remember,” the Grumpenickle called from the edge of visibility, “if you’re not sure what to do, try to stop thinking about it, things have a way of doing themselves sometimes!”

The faces of Moon’s classmates began to materialise in his periphery.

“Just tell them I sent you, I’m sure someone will sort it out! You’ll be fine!” These words echoed in Moon’s mind as he regained consciousness. He could still smell the fantastic tropical world he had left behind. He could feel the Grumpernickle’s titanic voice, still see the sparks of glee from its tails and taste the air of infinity that lingered between worlds. Moon was now lying on his back with the sun in his eyes and a pain in his head. Pain. Pain in the head.

“Bloody hell, you copped it pretty hard there, champ!” Guffawed Mr. Mallon, looking to the class for a laugh of approval. They shifted uncomfortably, muttering with excitement as schoolboys do when a comrade is about to be singled out in front of a teacher. “What is it,” said Mr. Mallon, “what’s the matter with him…”

The bright sun was blocked out as Mr. Mallon’s red face leaned over Moon to get a better look. “Up you get, stop being a sook, it’s just a little…”

He caught his breath. “What the fuck are those?”

In one motion the crowd leaned forward, like leaves on a tree swaying in a breeze of anticipation, they peered at Moon’s forehead.

***

Moon sat in the sick bay dangling his legs off his bed while Mr. Mallon and Matron ogled his head, leaning right in without regard for their patient’s personal space, which was affronted by the smell of their mingled breath and the sight of the tiny burst capillaries on their noses.

They shook their heads and shuddered as if Moon was blind to their revulsion. “I just don’t know,” sighed Matron, “this is far beyond my training, I’ve never seen something so awful…” They stepped back and muttered about Moon’s condition.

“So you say he got hit from behind during the game…” said Matron.

“Yes, yes, completely by accident,” said Mr. Mallon, who seemed quite on edge.

“Then you went to assist and…”

“There they were! It was like they got pushed right through his skin after he copped it.”

Mr. Mallon had repeated his story several times to different inquisitors since Moon had returned from meeting the Grumpernickle, and Moon had grown tired of his increasingly defensive professional jargon. He zoned out of the adults’ conference, turning to look at his reflection in the sick bay window. From his forehead two small green growths were protruding, tiny, soft horns. Moon had spent enough time in his overgrown backyard to recognise that these were not horns at all, but very young buds. They had, in fact, grown significantly since they had first appeared. The one on the left had even begun to open. Moon couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the beautiful flower that might sprout from his head. “It could be creeping though my skull right now,” he mused out loud.

“Keep quiet, boy, it’s the headmaster,” hissed Mr. Mallon, covering the receiver of the telephone, “yes Sir, an unavoidable accident.” Moon rolled his eyes.

“Yes Sir, we’ll send him home immediately.” He put down the phone to address Moon and the Matron, “the Headmaster says that it would be in your best interest - and the safety of others- if you went home right away.”

Moon grinned.

“Besides, it wouldn’t do to have you walking around distracting other students with your new…appendages.”

And so Moon found himself strolling along in the early afternoon with the great beige buildings of his school fading behind him and two green buds on his head, tingling with pleasure under the sun. The seniors at the bus stop stared and the bus driver, eyes widened, quivered as he handed over Moon’s change. But Moon could not help feeling a touch of pride in his splendid emerald growths. It was only when a small girl on the bus began to scream and cling to her mother that Moon reluctantly tied his jumper over his head.

***

“Hi Mum,” Moon called as he creaked open the front door.

“Moon?” came a voice from her room at the top of the tight spiral staircase, “you’re home early today…”

“Yeah, something happened at P.E, you should come and look.”

He heard the shifting of his mother’s settee, followed by her pattering feet stepping carefully around the clutter of pot plants and unceremoniously heaped oriental ornaments that crowded the awkwardly thin staircase.

“What is it now, they didn’t make you do boxing again, did they? Those boys can be so violent, it really should be…” she stopped abruptly as she approached and saw Moon’s two green protrusions. “I see,” she sighed, and said, smiling, “it looks like you’re budding, honey!”

If the way Moon’s mother reacted to her son coming home in the middle of school with leaves sprouting from his head seems slightly strange, then you would be right. This is because Moon’s mother was indeed, for most ‘normal’ folk, very strange. She winked at clouds and smoked a joint in the bath some Friday nights. She danced alone, with only the stars of her imagination as partners and only the echoes of eternity for applause. She was certainly not the type of mother who minded her son skipping school. In fact, she had been secretly suspecting something like this might happen for many years. This is because she had dealt with many people who, like her son, had had their spirits misplaced.

After Moon had recounted the whole saga of his sudden knock to the head, his encounter with the Grumpernickle, the P.E teacher, the nurse, the headmaster and the ride home, his mother sat him down and began - somewhat inappropriately, some might have thought - swirling about the kitchen making tea. She seemed utterly overjoyed. Humming and whistling, she danced her way to the kettle and shimmied to the biscuit jar, calling in between motions, “I knew this would happen, Mooney! I just knew it!”

“You’ve gone mad, haven’t you…” sighed Moon.

She laughed loudly, Oh no, no, definitely not! I’m just so happy for you, Honey, there is so much to tell you.” She began, “Moon, you, like so many others I’ve seen, have been misplaced! Born into the wrong body, a simple mistake that was made way back in another world – before your spirit sailed through into this one.” She emphasised ‘sailed’ with a sweeping flourish of her hands. She had forgotten the tea and the biscuits and bounded out of the kitchen, kneeling on the rug in front of Moon’s seat in the living room.

“So you say you saw the Grumpernickle?” She said, leaning forward earnestly, her eyes glittering in anticipation.

Moon nodded.

“Well, you must’ve got hit pretty bloody hard at football!” she cackled.

It was true, Moon had been so preoccupied by the two lumps on his forehead that he had hardly noticed the large lump on the back of his head or the inexplicable urge to vomit on the bus home. His mother grinned lovingly at his vacant stare.

“You see, Mooney,” she said softly, narrowing her eyes to hold her son’s gaze, “the Grumpernickle created this world, his entire imagination went into this wild, crazy, beautiful place. But it’s been so long now - and the Grumpernickle is exceptionally lazy nowadays - and that’s why so many people get misplaced! The Grumpernickle just doesn’t pay enough attention to where he puts souls anymore. I guess he sees so many of us – us humans – that he just assumes…” she trailed off a little sadly, lowering her eyes to look at her hands resting on her lap.

Moon was enthralled, and tried to keep his mother on topic, “Mum, how do you know all this? The Grumpernickle, I mean…and all the things he does?”

“Well,” she continued, snapping out of her momentary reverie, “me and a whole lot of others who have had experiences with the Grumpernickle – by meditating, by accident or whatever – have seen all the mistakes it keeps making with misplaced souls and decided to help people who look like they are stuck in the wrong body return to their natural form,” she paused and shook her head in wonderment, analysing, as if for the first time, Moon’s little branches. “How could I have not noticed? Jeeesus”, she muttered, “you have the same problem your father had before I came.”

Moon’s mouth dropped open, “but I thought Dad went to Tibet?”

His mother focussed again, her gaze becoming more solemn. She leaped up and hoisted Moon off his chair, leading him out into the back yard to stand in front of Claude, the cow. “Claude, Honey, I thought I should tell you that Moon was misplaced, too,” she said in a bright, clear voice, like someone talking to a small child. The cow gave a low moo, twitching a little with pleasure.

“He is just a cow, but I still think he can understand us.”

Moon shook his head, trying to grasp the onslaught of revelations his mother was pouring on him.

“Claude”, she motioned lovingly towards the cow, “was your father! He was misplaced, too, but it took him a lot longer than you to visit the Grumpernickle and find out. I had to teach him to relax his mind and body to the point of unconsciousness that you came to today completely by accident! That’s how we in this world can get through to the Grumpernicke’s world, the place we all pass through before birth and after death, the world between worlds!” Her eyes widened with childlike excitement. “It’s quite wonderful to see, isn’t it?”

“It was…it was really nice,” said Moon, remembering the fields of waving hands, the window into a parallel island world, “but strange…really strange.”

“It’s true, death is strange”, she muttered, “but nothing to be afraid of”. She looked into Moon’s face and grasped his shoulders. “But even so, I’m glad you came back alright, Honey! The Grumpernickle must’ve really liked you…”

She gave Moon a great big hug. He slowly lifted his arms, folded them around her back, and gently squeezed.

***

The next morning Moon’s mother didn’t wake him for school. He drifted into wakefulness at around ten thirty to the percussive mantra of the shovel and dirt. Shuck Humph, it whispered modestly in the backyard. Moon felt his forehead, and sure enough, yesterday’s buds were still there, In fact, they were far more there, having grown at least four inches since he had gone to bed. They now had unmistakeable leaves and tiny white flowers. It had not been a dream. Moon lay back and stared at the ceiling, smiling.

Moon rose to investigate the sound in the yard, and saw his mum standing beside a small hole, leaning on her shovel, wiping her brow.

“Morning Honey!” she piped when she noticed Moon strolling through the grass, “how was your sleep? Come, have a rest in here, cool your feet, you must be tired,” she pointed at the moist, dark soil in the hole.

Moon complied to the strange request without question, not wanting to bridle the flaming steeds of his mother’s excitement, and sat down with his feet in the hole. He was in fact quite weary, even though he had only walked about ten metres since his fourteen hours sleep. Moon’s mother gazed at him with more pride than he had ever thought possible. Moon looked at his feet awkwardly, wriggling his toes in the cool muck. His mother kept staring, beaming at her son in the dirt as if he was receiving a Nobel Prize. Moon tried to think of something to say before his mum’s volatile mind returned to reality and she realized that he was meant to be at school.

“So…” he fumbled, “what are you up to today?”

“Oh, not much. I’ll pop over to the markets and grab some tea, feed your father, do some more gardening…”

She kept staring, smiling serenely.

“Ummm…What am I doing today?” Moon winced at his own clumsy conversation. She would definitely remember school now.

“I don’t know, honey. What do you want to do?”

Moon looked at his mother’s radiant face and realized that she had not forgotten about school at all. He sighed with relief, “I think I’ll just sit here for a while.”

“I thought you’d say that,” she replied. Moon’s mother bent down and gave him a kiss on the forehead, her cheeks brushing against his ever growing branches, then poured a little beaker of water into his hole and turned to walk inside. “Call me if you need anything, Moon, I’m just going to be in the living room.”

The hours passed by. Moon lazed in his hole as the sun floated across the sky. He didn’t call for his Mum. He had all he needed.

***

As the weeks rolled on Moon continued very much as he did that first day when his mother had introduced him to his small plot of land in the back yard. He did not return to school, in fact, he stopped going out at all. Moon was quite happy to spend all day in the sunshine, as he had always wanted to do, but now that he had realized his true nature, he could actually do it.

His mother continued to help in every way possible, with the passion and dedication only a mother could summon. She brought Moon food and water, but as he barely moved from his hole anymore, he soon stopped needing it. She came and chatted to him sometimes, even when he stopped talking.

As the spring became summer and the sun became hotter, Moon got extremely tanned, His skin began to resemble that of a hard toiling desert elder; ravaged and burnt into a callous, brown mask that showed a million etchings of life lived with heartiness and vigour. Moon’s skin hardened and cracked, adapting to its new, static, weather beaten existence. Moon moved so little that his mother didn’t need to feed him, and his mouth had hardened shut so as to disable him from drinking. His mum simply poured a beaker of water at his feet, which were now fully immersed in the ground.

Like most teenage boys, Moon shot up, growing taller and taller, but unlike most teenage boys, Moon kept growing. Six feet, seven feet, eight feet, nine. His arms stretched upwards and outwards, his fingers reaching like great tentacles in every direction, greedily soaking up the summer sun with the leaves that burst from his extremities.

The two horns that had appeared unexpectedly that distant Thursday during physical education stretched, sprouted and spread. Others joined them from every part of Moon’s head and shoulders, all vying for a place in the sun.

***

Moon’s mother came out into the backyard early in the morning in her sarong, wiping sleep out of her eyes. The world was still silent, tiny birds could still be heard twittering above, as the dull hum of traffic had not yet churned into action. She was slightly hunched now, and her ginger hair had grown a long, eccentric streak of grey along its left side. Claude had died many years ago, but the tree beside his old trough was bigger and stronger than ever. She was proud of the tree, and often watched it standing proudly over the garden.

“Morning, Moon,” she said softly. There was no response, of course. Her son’s face had morphed over the years, stretched and stirred by the miasmic flow of living wood, into a surreal echo of his satisfied grin. She walked up to the tree and wrapped her arms around its mighty trunk, resting her face against the rough ridges of bark. On these solemn mornings, though she knew it was silly, she sometimes longed for the family she had helped free from the confines of humanity.

“I miss you, Honey,” she whispered after a few minutes, “but I guess I’m only human, hey?” She stepped back and began walking inside, but turned half way, “If you need anything, I’ll just be in the living room.” She giggled at her own sentimentality. The leaves rustled high over her head. Moon’s mother turned around to continue her life as a human, while in the back yard her son, Moon, continued his life, happy and silent, as a tree.

bored luddites

Hello!
I am a computer. I have a disease called the Intenet.
But if you can stretch your imagination beyond the words and the screen and the incomprehensible tangle of wires or beams or satellites that are connecting us in internet land, then feel comforted, because i am, in a sense, a diminutive 22 year old Australian traveling luddite, completely, 100% Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
We started out great, me and computers.
It started when my sister babysat me when she was at uni in Broome. It was the greatest time of my young life, my first experience of exploring anything other than marshland and boab trees.
I don't think it was that hard for her either. Money in tha' bank.
She at least exerted herself enough to say, "There are computers upstairs, and they have the internet!"
"What is the internet?" i says.
"Well, you can type in anything you want and it will tell you all about it"
"Anything?"
"Anything".
So, onto Alta vista I went and by the time i had learned everything there was to know about Pennywise and the Offspring, it was time for my parents to pick me up, back to a world of cricket, mud wars and public swimming pools.
Since then i have become increasingly jaded with these machines. They are smarter, smaller and more numerous than me and all they have really given is 24 hours of piteous high school embarrassment after revealing the secrets of my first pornographic excursions to my parents. I never really forgave the computer, even with their glitzy celebrity associations with Kraftwerk.
I know there is shit loads to do on computers, but for some reason it never provides me with the fun i need at the time. I am left staring at the screen going numb.
So this is my final attempt to conquer them before they conquer me.
It is also an outreach to all the bored/stoned/lazy wasters out there who desperately need something to take up a little patch of time without too much effort.
"I love you like a fat kid loves cake" 50 cent, owner of Nutrient Water (yep!).