As quick as anything

I wrote this one in Thailand a while back and have been saving it for a rainy day...

Curly Chi was as quick as anything give or take a mountain pass or two and had a grin four feet wide to go with it when the winds blew that way, usually after the third tequila.

Happenstance and the smile of the gods tended favourably his way most times and on a good run when the salt-lick was laced with sugar could always get that much extra from a piece of string tied to his shoe to stumble where no one had stumbled before to move the prayer wheel both ways and crack it open to turn the moon green.

A spare mat under said moon that didn’t have much to say and hadn’t blinked for a year couldn’t wake up and so went back to sleep and missed everything that happened for a hundred years.

Right next door and on a collision course was the big heap himself and none the wiser to boot regardless of what was afoot, and also was taking his turn disregarding the regulations and so shot himself in the foot and was put to sleep to join the ranks of the dead and dying who were going nowhere.

When the electric iron heard what was going on over in the land removed a search party was called for to make up the difference that immediately sailed into the sunset of this or any other thing and was never seen again as was the way of the world and so needs no explanation to explain unless you’re asleep and then no explanation will suffice.

All the same and never mind what can’t be said to hold the sauce and stir the mustard to jump up and all fall down, an exclamation point of disproportionate alternatives wanted nothing more than to run up the flag of this and so became quite disturbed to hear the flag had been put away for the duration and was no longer available.

“Tut, tut,” it said and went off to bake a cake for all the dead writers who were no longer home but were probably all looking down and muttering under their breaths how things had changed for the worse and after them fighting their whole lives to make things better too.

A half Irish saint along the lines of see hear now but never getting beyond the finish line because they kept moving it further away was going about his business and doing very well thank you very much until the aforementioned world slowed down too much and he fell off to land where the sun doesn’t shine in a place of forgetting where he could never be found and found himself shaken up, and if truth be told was relieved to have a rest from it all and so took out his knife to carve his name in a tree to say who he loved the most.

“Starting a bit early aren’t you?” said a Cornish Norse god from out of the book of the dead that too had fallen off the world and was out for a stroll just then.

“Wherewithal must,” said the half Irish saint pleased to have an audience and began the history of the world for all to see.

Curly Chi to his friends who was as quick as anything sauntered over from out of the mist two mountain passes later and sat down on a stump to watch what was going on and soon found himself in a crowd all pushing and shoving to find room to sit as well.

With such an audience the half Irish saint began to tell them all how the world used to be so that they wouldn’t forget.

“But we know how it used to be,” they grumbled. “Tell us something else.”

With so much grumbling in the ranks the half Irish saint had to think fast but all he could come up with was: “Vive le revolution.” To which the crowd chanted back: “Vive le revolution.”

And so began revolution number xxx.

On the other side of this where the flowers were being counted, Gaia looked up and smiled.
Eventually a ladder was found and they all crawled back up into the world from out of the hole they'd fallen into, and after blinking in the bright sunlight marched off as a gang to protest somewhere.

Ten dozen days later they reached the desert of no hope and flopped down where they fell and drank the last of their water that someone was carrying in a bucket.

“What do we do now?” they asked, beginning to thirst hugely.
“We will cross the desert to the other side where we will be welcomed with open arms and lots of milk and honey to soothe our aching bones,” said the half Irish saint.
Many groans later as they all heaved themselves to their feet, they began the long journey to the other side of all they could see and perceive as being real.

“You must believe,” said the half Irish saint.
“We believe, we believe,” the gang chanted back and began their march of doom.
For six long years they trudged across that desert breathing only fly-blown fumes and whispers of hope that came in the form of a mirage every day to lead them on when even the half Irish saint was flagging.
“We are not here to die,” he said and kept going.

Dissent in the ranks spoke up with a blue moon in his favour and wasted much energy persuading the gang they were going in the wrong direction.
When they came across the bones of Zen and Hatha yoga protruding whitely from the sand a strange desire overcame them, but when no reasonable explanation could be found the revolution carried on in the direction they were going and rightly or wrongly that’s what they did.

In the distance Atlantis was dancing to the wind and singing songs around the waterhole of all desire and by now the revolution had a massive thirst to be quenched which made them go even faster in the hot heat and dry sands of the desert, but for every step they took forward they drifted two steps back until they were all out of breath and right back where they had started from many long moons past.

“That’s it,” they all said together and left the revolution and went home to bed exhausted.

The half Irish saint had no bed to go to and so went back to wishing for a living.

Images from Pixabay