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30 January 2013
29 January 2013
national idea month
Keeping in mind that innovation can solve the ills of mankind, the citizenry of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia declared the second moon-cycle of each year to be National Idea Month. More than 90% of the voting population approved the measure via referendum. During February, anyone with an idea and at least three dozen signatures can attend one of the many ideas-summits being held in cities all across this small, landlocked nation. (Two-thirds of the signatures gathered must be from persons other than blood relatives.) While there, persons are invited to sleep in a bunkhouse and eat in a communal cafeteria, which will be located close to the halls of summit. With food and shelter taken care of, persons can engage in lively debate and constructive human interaction freely and without stress.
Dr. Rendlo Afthogar of the Grigovian Ministry for the Interior (GMI) said: “After analyzing dozens of studies conducted in countries around the world, we discovered that persons who are given time to think things through, who get together in groups in order to hash things out, and who can do these things without having to worry about when they are going to eat and where they are going to sleep, that such individuals tend to come up with clever and effective solutions to problems, issues, dilemmas, conundrums, and difficulties.” (Funding for National Idea Month will come in part from GMI and in part from a nation-wide financing drive organized by Orange Ladder, a native humanitarian aid organization.) “I like the idea of getting together with other Grigovians from different part of our land in order to seek answers to the questions and concerns we all face,” said 19 year-old engineering student Veria Ordest. “By loosely copying a Silicon Valley model of problem-solving, we hope to improve the lives of all Grigovians and tighten the bonds that connect us.”
The Interior Ministry released part of an official statement it is preparing for National Idea Month. The following is an excerpt. “Since we started experimenting with free market capitalism after the fall of the Soviet empire, the Grigovian people have seen much of the common wealth of tens of thousands become concentrated in the hands of a few hundred. We rely on each other for survival, Happiness, and cultural and societal progress; the path of rational egotism violates the notions of Liberty and human worth, and, therefore, we shall cease to follow it. [The fundamental idea of Liberty is not that people do as they please without regard to Nature or one another but that we focus instead on positive development, working tirelessly to improve our own lives by first improving the lives of our fellow homo sapiens.] By giving freely of our time, ability, knowledge, blood, sweat, and treasure, we the forward-thinking and compassionate citizens of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia can shine the light of Progress into the darkest recesses of human suffering. We shall meet together, sit together, speak together, and think together in People's Congresses located in cities large and small, searching for answers to our common problems and exploring solutions to our persistent challenges. Alone, we live exposed to a harsh and volatile world; together, we can accomplish anything.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Dr. Rendlo Afthogar of the Grigovian Ministry for the Interior (GMI) said: “After analyzing dozens of studies conducted in countries around the world, we discovered that persons who are given time to think things through, who get together in groups in order to hash things out, and who can do these things without having to worry about when they are going to eat and where they are going to sleep, that such individuals tend to come up with clever and effective solutions to problems, issues, dilemmas, conundrums, and difficulties.” (Funding for National Idea Month will come in part from GMI and in part from a nation-wide financing drive organized by Orange Ladder, a native humanitarian aid organization.) “I like the idea of getting together with other Grigovians from different part of our land in order to seek answers to the questions and concerns we all face,” said 19 year-old engineering student Veria Ordest. “By loosely copying a Silicon Valley model of problem-solving, we hope to improve the lives of all Grigovians and tighten the bonds that connect us.”
The Interior Ministry released part of an official statement it is preparing for National Idea Month. The following is an excerpt. “Since we started experimenting with free market capitalism after the fall of the Soviet empire, the Grigovian people have seen much of the common wealth of tens of thousands become concentrated in the hands of a few hundred. We rely on each other for survival, Happiness, and cultural and societal progress; the path of rational egotism violates the notions of Liberty and human worth, and, therefore, we shall cease to follow it. [The fundamental idea of Liberty is not that people do as they please without regard to Nature or one another but that we focus instead on positive development, working tirelessly to improve our own lives by first improving the lives of our fellow homo sapiens.] By giving freely of our time, ability, knowledge, blood, sweat, and treasure, we the forward-thinking and compassionate citizens of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia can shine the light of Progress into the darkest recesses of human suffering. We shall meet together, sit together, speak together, and think together in People's Congresses located in cities large and small, searching for answers to our common problems and exploring solutions to our persistent challenges. Alone, we live exposed to a harsh and volatile world; together, we can accomplish anything.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
28 January 2013
ask Algeria first
Faced with a hostage crisis involving dozens of persons kidnapped by armed assailants, a joint task force of federal agents and New York City police officers decided to first seek the advice of the Algerian government before mounting a raid to free the hostages. “We want to lead by example,” said chief federal negotiator Yusuff al-Baghrabi while peering over a concrete barrier at the building where the perpetrators had holed up. “Algeria refused Western assistance in the planning and execution of its action to free the hostages taken a couple of weeks ago at that gas plant in the Sahara desert. If we ask for their help in planning and executing our own action here in the eastern part of Queens, New York, maybe next time they will accept our offers, and listen to our advice.”
Friends and family of person taken prisoner agreed to speak with us. “I am all for the cops asking Algeria for advice and waiting until that nation can arrange to have skilled operators flown in to help and to guide the actions of our law enforcement agents,” said Piedgast Charnungacharnoul, 72, grandmother of one of the hostages. According to police reports, the hostage-takers operate under the banner of the Weeping Crown of Righteousness, a militant Christian group blamed for a number of similar attacks on the Eastern Seaboard. “I think it's OK for us to delay until experts in hostage negotiation arrive from – where was it – Skikda?” said New Jersey resident Randel Raiyan Quincie, 25, who thinks his older brother might be among the kidnapped. “In a lot of Hollywood movies, dealing with terrorists who stoop to using human shields always requires a delicate touch, sneakiness rather than brute force. I just hope we can free the captives before those religious extremists kill them all.”
“We Americans must concern ourselves with what happens here in America, and let the Algerians worry about what happens in Algeria,” said aloof bystander Corey Slantbeam, 48, of the Bronx. “If companies want to do business in foreign lands at locations difficult or nearly impossible to defend, they must accept the consequences of their actions. Fences can be tunneled under, telephone lines can be cut, and dirt-poor guardsmen can be bribed to open even the thickest of gates. At some point, we must all ask ourselves whether the risks of fossil fuel outweigh the benefits.” Intent on proving to the world it wasn't totally full of shit, the Obama administration ordered native financial regulators to turn for advice to the government of Greece and issued executive orders that force American circuit judges to consult with Russian authorities on matters of free speech and freedom of the press.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Friends and family of person taken prisoner agreed to speak with us. “I am all for the cops asking Algeria for advice and waiting until that nation can arrange to have skilled operators flown in to help and to guide the actions of our law enforcement agents,” said Piedgast Charnungacharnoul, 72, grandmother of one of the hostages. According to police reports, the hostage-takers operate under the banner of the Weeping Crown of Righteousness, a militant Christian group blamed for a number of similar attacks on the Eastern Seaboard. “I think it's OK for us to delay until experts in hostage negotiation arrive from – where was it – Skikda?” said New Jersey resident Randel Raiyan Quincie, 25, who thinks his older brother might be among the kidnapped. “In a lot of Hollywood movies, dealing with terrorists who stoop to using human shields always requires a delicate touch, sneakiness rather than brute force. I just hope we can free the captives before those religious extremists kill them all.”
“We Americans must concern ourselves with what happens here in America, and let the Algerians worry about what happens in Algeria,” said aloof bystander Corey Slantbeam, 48, of the Bronx. “If companies want to do business in foreign lands at locations difficult or nearly impossible to defend, they must accept the consequences of their actions. Fences can be tunneled under, telephone lines can be cut, and dirt-poor guardsmen can be bribed to open even the thickest of gates. At some point, we must all ask ourselves whether the risks of fossil fuel outweigh the benefits.” Intent on proving to the world it wasn't totally full of shit, the Obama administration ordered native financial regulators to turn for advice to the government of Greece and issued executive orders that force American circuit judges to consult with Russian authorities on matters of free speech and freedom of the press.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
25 January 2013
payment also faked
As a nod to a singing performance that Beyoncé Knowles faked, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration Committee decided to fake her payment. “It was immediately obvious that the performer did not sing the song we had hired her to sing, and that, instead, she had payed a sound-recording engineer to play a tape of her singing the song we had hired her to sing with her mouth,” said White House special events coordinator Geraldeen Vorburgwall, in a telephone interview. “Therefore, we have faked the deposit of a fake sum of money into her otherwise massively swollen bank accounts. Fair is fair.“
News of Ms. Knowles' chicanery sparked both praise and indignation. According to 18 year-old Floridian Vehdnu Morangutan, the performer is, “So fabulous, and she wears such nice clothes, and her hair looks so great, and she just sang for the first president of recent African descent, so why y'all trying to hate?” Other individuals with whom we spoke were less kind. “Some people maintain such low levels of self-esteem that they don insufficient clothing in sub-zero weather in order to lie to the American people with extraordinary pomp and bluster,” said unemployed electrician Kazi Ishomuri, 47, of Baton Rouge, LA. “If Beyoncé is incapable of singing even under mildly adverse conditions, if she cannot muster the hubris to risk even a slight mistake whilst supposedly honoring our nation, why the deuce was she hired in the first place? This whole thing is a joke.” Beyond the young lady's deceit, the overall cost of the event stoked ire. “A hundred and seventy millions dollars of good money spent to have a man say something he had already said three times before?” said Oludunda Erak, 24, of Brooklyn, NY. “If Mr. Obama had spent that money on a scholarship for children of fallen American soldiers, or to establish a fund to study and cure the effects of homelessness among veterans, we the People would all be better off. But wasting it on a parade, a singer who doesn't sing, some bleachers, and a band? What the fuck is going on in this country?”
Ms. Knowles scheduled a press conference to address the matter. Instead of showing up and speaking to the assembled reporters, however, she had someone else play a recording of her offering a faked explanation of why she could not sing when Kelly Clarkson could.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
News of Ms. Knowles' chicanery sparked both praise and indignation. According to 18 year-old Floridian Vehdnu Morangutan, the performer is, “So fabulous, and she wears such nice clothes, and her hair looks so great, and she just sang for the first president of recent African descent, so why y'all trying to hate?” Other individuals with whom we spoke were less kind. “Some people maintain such low levels of self-esteem that they don insufficient clothing in sub-zero weather in order to lie to the American people with extraordinary pomp and bluster,” said unemployed electrician Kazi Ishomuri, 47, of Baton Rouge, LA. “If Beyoncé is incapable of singing even under mildly adverse conditions, if she cannot muster the hubris to risk even a slight mistake whilst supposedly honoring our nation, why the deuce was she hired in the first place? This whole thing is a joke.” Beyond the young lady's deceit, the overall cost of the event stoked ire. “A hundred and seventy millions dollars of good money spent to have a man say something he had already said three times before?” said Oludunda Erak, 24, of Brooklyn, NY. “If Mr. Obama had spent that money on a scholarship for children of fallen American soldiers, or to establish a fund to study and cure the effects of homelessness among veterans, we the People would all be better off. But wasting it on a parade, a singer who doesn't sing, some bleachers, and a band? What the fuck is going on in this country?”
Ms. Knowles scheduled a press conference to address the matter. Instead of showing up and speaking to the assembled reporters, however, she had someone else play a recording of her offering a faked explanation of why she could not sing when Kelly Clarkson could.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
23 January 2013
on Grigovian women
Women in Grigovia have for centuries enjoyed equal status with men. Long before it was popular among the Western nations to grant females the same rights bestowed upon males, this republic's mothers and daughters were equal citizens. The tradition dates back to the nation's spiritual and historical founder, Krikuv (i.e. Grigov) the Watchful, who, according to the tribe's extensive verbal histories, in 1235 Common Error (C.E.) married the daughter of a powerful Yaelong war-chief, rescinding his high priesthood in order to be with the woman he loved. The act proved well-timed; the region was thereafter raided frequently by armies from the eastern steppes that razed crops and burned settlements, decimating all local populations but those located on the Yaelong's tribal lands. To commemorate the alliance between Grigov's band of loyal followers and the area's fierce inhabitants, the nation includes a depiction of Crucuv Pass – an important ancient trade route between the region around the Caspian Sea to the north and the parched deserts to the south – in its official state seal. Furthermore, Grigov adopted the Yaelong tradition of equality amongst the sexes, to great avail.
The second woman (but first female physician) to enter space, Dr. Kleivast Yostindt was born and raised in Pyltagrad. After graduating with honors from the University of Practical Sciences and proving herself to the Soviet cosmonaut governing board by besting their finest athletes in both physical and mental competition, she was slated to be the first woman in space until last-minute testing showed she had food poisoning, likely from eating tainted caviar served at a celebratory luncheon. In the realm of the arts, Sali Obrest, of Gar Nuuzsh, shocked the literary world (and received a nod from the Nobel committee) for her book Things I Learned While Flogging Ilyitch, a novel from 1984 that lambastes the architects of perestroika. She fled her native land to escape Soviet retaliation, eventually settling in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she became an outspoken advocate of indigenous rights. Among, however, the most impressive Grigovian women were the nameless babushkas who faced down a contingent of Russian military police in the fall of 1988, occupying an entire wing of Grig's central market and refusing to back down from their demands for more equitable grain prices and the right to barter openly. Their action helped to spark the revolution that would see Grigovia leave the Warsaw Pact at the same time as Poland.
Wages among men and women are by law equal in the Glorious Republic of Grigovia; more than half of the seats in state and national Parliament are filled by female people's representatives; and women are just as likely to found companies and chair executive boards as their male counterparts. “An equal share of responsibility for the safety and Happiness of the Grigovian people is one that we Grigoviennes are proud to shoulder,” said Shuireyi'i Oryind, head of the Ministry of Equality and Justice. “During the Great Patriotic War [World War II], my great-grandmother helped to defend Crucuv Pass side by side with her four brothers and (future) husband. They fought off an entire Nazi tank battalion using little more than innate cleverness, a few limpet mines, and the local geography. That tradition continues to this today: Grigovians of both genders and all sexual orientations face the challenges of a global economy, pooling our talents and resources so as to best suit the needs of the greater community. We neither live nor work alone, each person by his or herself, to heap and hoard the largest possible portion of our nation's wealth – we work together and prosper together, one people striving, unified, for a bright common future.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
The second woman (but first female physician) to enter space, Dr. Kleivast Yostindt was born and raised in Pyltagrad. After graduating with honors from the University of Practical Sciences and proving herself to the Soviet cosmonaut governing board by besting their finest athletes in both physical and mental competition, she was slated to be the first woman in space until last-minute testing showed she had food poisoning, likely from eating tainted caviar served at a celebratory luncheon. In the realm of the arts, Sali Obrest, of Gar Nuuzsh, shocked the literary world (and received a nod from the Nobel committee) for her book Things I Learned While Flogging Ilyitch, a novel from 1984 that lambastes the architects of perestroika. She fled her native land to escape Soviet retaliation, eventually settling in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she became an outspoken advocate of indigenous rights. Among, however, the most impressive Grigovian women were the nameless babushkas who faced down a contingent of Russian military police in the fall of 1988, occupying an entire wing of Grig's central market and refusing to back down from their demands for more equitable grain prices and the right to barter openly. Their action helped to spark the revolution that would see Grigovia leave the Warsaw Pact at the same time as Poland.
Wages among men and women are by law equal in the Glorious Republic of Grigovia; more than half of the seats in state and national Parliament are filled by female people's representatives; and women are just as likely to found companies and chair executive boards as their male counterparts. “An equal share of responsibility for the safety and Happiness of the Grigovian people is one that we Grigoviennes are proud to shoulder,” said Shuireyi'i Oryind, head of the Ministry of Equality and Justice. “During the Great Patriotic War [World War II], my great-grandmother helped to defend Crucuv Pass side by side with her four brothers and (future) husband. They fought off an entire Nazi tank battalion using little more than innate cleverness, a few limpet mines, and the local geography. That tradition continues to this today: Grigovians of both genders and all sexual orientations face the challenges of a global economy, pooling our talents and resources so as to best suit the needs of the greater community. We neither live nor work alone, each person by his or herself, to heap and hoard the largest possible portion of our nation's wealth – we work together and prosper together, one people striving, unified, for a bright common future.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
21 January 2013
New Hampshire secedes II
Last Tuesday, in Concord, the capital of this now-sovereign nation of 1.3 million individuals, state leaders quietly seceded from the Union of American States (USA). An overwhelming majority of the population – 98% – approved the decision via referendum. Many voters claimed they were inspired by New Hampshire's history as the first post-colonial sovereign nation in the Western hemisphere. The move comes at a time of increasing national and international doubt regarding the continuing feasibility of the USA. During a brief ceremony devoid of fanfare or bluster, the governor for the state, a Dr. Florentine B. Mistleblanch, declared, “For too long have we citizens of the once fine state of New Hampshire – and the now fine nation of Nu-Hemp-Sure – payed mere lip service to our motto: 'Live free, or die.' Since all persons living here at this time are henceforth totally and completely free of any and all outside interference, what was once slogan is now reality.”
Polls conducted in the wake of last fall's referendum showed that individuals living in this ex-state wanted nothing to do with such formerly Confederate states as North Carolina, a state that has violated the rights of its homosexual citizens by passing laws that codify marriage according to hard-line Christian rules. (As of press-time, Christianity is merely one religion among hundreds practiced in America today; it is neither the founding, nor the dominant, religion of the USA.) Said governor Mistleblanch while unlocking her bicycle from a signpost behind the podium, “We don't want to be associated in the estimation of humankind with leaders seeking to overthrow reason; we have no use for madmen wishing to rule according to one – and only one – religious codex; and we want nothing to do with lunatics who abolish the principles of Liberty and insist on theocratic tyranny. We invite the North Carolinians and any other like-minded jackasses to do as they please, but we proud denizens of the Hempen-Shire want nothing more to do with crazy schemes that trample on the freedoms of innocent persons. By the way, to cultivate and consume marijuana, and, of course, hemp, is henceforth the legal right of each and every emancipated adult living within our borders.”
Nu-Hemp-Sure is the world's newest nation, and the third – following Puerto Rico and Panama – to officially renounce, rescind, or refuse membership in the crumbling, tyrannical, and politically bankrupt collection of (formerly) United States of America. Long live lady Liberty, and huzzah.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
Polls conducted in the wake of last fall's referendum showed that individuals living in this ex-state wanted nothing to do with such formerly Confederate states as North Carolina, a state that has violated the rights of its homosexual citizens by passing laws that codify marriage according to hard-line Christian rules. (As of press-time, Christianity is merely one religion among hundreds practiced in America today; it is neither the founding, nor the dominant, religion of the USA.) Said governor Mistleblanch while unlocking her bicycle from a signpost behind the podium, “We don't want to be associated in the estimation of humankind with leaders seeking to overthrow reason; we have no use for madmen wishing to rule according to one – and only one – religious codex; and we want nothing to do with lunatics who abolish the principles of Liberty and insist on theocratic tyranny. We invite the North Carolinians and any other like-minded jackasses to do as they please, but we proud denizens of the Hempen-Shire want nothing more to do with crazy schemes that trample on the freedoms of innocent persons. By the way, to cultivate and consume marijuana, and, of course, hemp, is henceforth the legal right of each and every emancipated adult living within our borders.”
Nu-Hemp-Sure is the world's newest nation, and the third – following Puerto Rico and Panama – to officially renounce, rescind, or refuse membership in the crumbling, tyrannical, and politically bankrupt collection of (formerly) United States of America. Long live lady Liberty, and huzzah.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
18 January 2013
Yendlon, spirit pony
The great snorting stallion turned to Yendlon and said: Manhood is soon upon you, and you must leave the herd or I will smite you with my flashing hooves.
Yendlon bit at the air and ducked into a fighting crouch, but the stallion fell upon him and chased him from the valley of his birth. The young pony took to wandering alone, his gray hide lashed by the wind and the rain as he climbed ever higher into the mountains that birth the sun. Soon, the grasses stopped growing and he searched in vain for even the smallest clump of clover.
Let someone chase me out of here, Yendlon thought as he walked among the craggy peaks. The winter was hard, and long; he ate moss and shivered at night under rock outcroppings as the snows piled up and hid even the hidden grasses.
Just as he was beginning to forget the meaning of warmth, the snows stopped falling, the sun leaped once more into the higher heavens, and the land erupted in pockets of lush green. The pony feasted on herb and clover, grasses clumped and loose. His ribs vanished behind thick layers of muscle and his pelt shone as if with an inner light.
For many seasons, Yendlon roamed the mountains, alone.
I shall look once more upon the valley whence I am come, Yendlon said to himself as he was eating the fresh grasses of Spring. He picked his way carefully along the rocks, running when footing allowed, and finally mounted a spire that afforded him a view of his ancestral herd.
He gazed down upon them with herb-sharpened eyes, thinking: Their numbers are many and the stallion looks weak, but I belong here, among the rocks and the dizzying heights.
Down in the valley, two mares looked up from a mound of sweet thick grasses and spied in the distance a lone horse standing.
See there, said the first, a horse perched upon the mountain.
Yes, said the second, I see him and recognize his shape. I knew his mother, whose son has grown large, and strong.
Soon enough, some of the other mares glanced up at Yendlon's gleaming mane and cast their eyes upon his muscle-bound flanks and his nostrils thick with morning air. They neighed to him, and whinnied with supplicating tones, but the solitary pony shook his head at them, and bowed low to the ground. He took one step, and then another, and was gone.
That night, the pony named Yendlon climbed the last peak of the last height and merged with the bright lights of the inky firmament. The twin maidens who forever stand guard at the entrance to Eternity placed his stars in the eastern sky, to hearken the end of winter's icy grasp.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Yendlon bit at the air and ducked into a fighting crouch, but the stallion fell upon him and chased him from the valley of his birth. The young pony took to wandering alone, his gray hide lashed by the wind and the rain as he climbed ever higher into the mountains that birth the sun. Soon, the grasses stopped growing and he searched in vain for even the smallest clump of clover.
Let someone chase me out of here, Yendlon thought as he walked among the craggy peaks. The winter was hard, and long; he ate moss and shivered at night under rock outcroppings as the snows piled up and hid even the hidden grasses.
Just as he was beginning to forget the meaning of warmth, the snows stopped falling, the sun leaped once more into the higher heavens, and the land erupted in pockets of lush green. The pony feasted on herb and clover, grasses clumped and loose. His ribs vanished behind thick layers of muscle and his pelt shone as if with an inner light.
For many seasons, Yendlon roamed the mountains, alone.
I shall look once more upon the valley whence I am come, Yendlon said to himself as he was eating the fresh grasses of Spring. He picked his way carefully along the rocks, running when footing allowed, and finally mounted a spire that afforded him a view of his ancestral herd.
He gazed down upon them with herb-sharpened eyes, thinking: Their numbers are many and the stallion looks weak, but I belong here, among the rocks and the dizzying heights.
Down in the valley, two mares looked up from a mound of sweet thick grasses and spied in the distance a lone horse standing.
See there, said the first, a horse perched upon the mountain.
Yes, said the second, I see him and recognize his shape. I knew his mother, whose son has grown large, and strong.
Soon enough, some of the other mares glanced up at Yendlon's gleaming mane and cast their eyes upon his muscle-bound flanks and his nostrils thick with morning air. They neighed to him, and whinnied with supplicating tones, but the solitary pony shook his head at them, and bowed low to the ground. He took one step, and then another, and was gone.
That night, the pony named Yendlon climbed the last peak of the last height and merged with the bright lights of the inky firmament. The twin maidens who forever stand guard at the entrance to Eternity placed his stars in the eastern sky, to hearken the end of winter's icy grasp.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
16 January 2013
complaint effects change
In stunning violation of the maxim that actions speak louder than words, one man's complaining actually changed something. “I keep bitching to my friends about my favorite running-back's poor performance,” said longtime football fanatic Wellington Chase Ghar, 37, of Wilmington, DE. “I am confident, however, that the athlete will somehow hear my lamentations, work harder, run faster, and catch the passes that I spend so much time hoping he'll catch.”
Similar results have been seen across the country. In the western state of Oregon, 24 year-old housewife Yolanda J. Knippelschopf, of Bend, witnessed a complete reversal of her husband's flagging enthusiasm for their relationship. “Since venting at my girlfriends for the past few years, he has got his act together,” said Yolanda while lounging on the sofa watching daytime television. “He seems more interested in me, lately, and I'm confident he'll set aside his man-childish ways and become the nurturing and compassionate dude-chick I've always secretly wished he would turn into.”
When humans complain, they supplant true feelings of self worth with artificially-supplied external validation, which feeds upon itself until it has wholly consumed their tender and fragile love-for-self. “Complaining to others does little good,” said Dr. Endicott Aleppo, head of the psychology department at New York University's Welles Institute of Mental Health, in Queens. “Our most recent studies show that complaining destroys happiness and that it actively erodes a person's motivation and ability to be a productive and peaceful member of society. If fewer people spent time complaining about things they cannot control, we would all be better off, we would all get more things done, and we would not have to spend so much of our precious chill-time stroking the egos of our supposed friends,” he continued, shaking his head in exacerbation. “Complaining is a nation-wide epidemic that affects all strata of American society, and there is no indication when it might abate.” Members of the general public are urged to be content with what they have, to love without condition, and to keep their dumb fucking mouths shut every once in a while.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Similar results have been seen across the country. In the western state of Oregon, 24 year-old housewife Yolanda J. Knippelschopf, of Bend, witnessed a complete reversal of her husband's flagging enthusiasm for their relationship. “Since venting at my girlfriends for the past few years, he has got his act together,” said Yolanda while lounging on the sofa watching daytime television. “He seems more interested in me, lately, and I'm confident he'll set aside his man-childish ways and become the nurturing and compassionate dude-chick I've always secretly wished he would turn into.”
When humans complain, they supplant true feelings of self worth with artificially-supplied external validation, which feeds upon itself until it has wholly consumed their tender and fragile love-for-self. “Complaining to others does little good,” said Dr. Endicott Aleppo, head of the psychology department at New York University's Welles Institute of Mental Health, in Queens. “Our most recent studies show that complaining destroys happiness and that it actively erodes a person's motivation and ability to be a productive and peaceful member of society. If fewer people spent time complaining about things they cannot control, we would all be better off, we would all get more things done, and we would not have to spend so much of our precious chill-time stroking the egos of our supposed friends,” he continued, shaking his head in exacerbation. “Complaining is a nation-wide epidemic that affects all strata of American society, and there is no indication when it might abate.” Members of the general public are urged to be content with what they have, to love without condition, and to keep their dumb fucking mouths shut every once in a while.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
14 January 2013
corporations get drafted
Following Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that bestowed most of the rights of full person-hood upon America's corporations, executive boards of the richest and most powerful corporate bodies were shocked this past weekend to receive Selective Service System (SSS) paperwork in the mail. Said Candyce Nymondale, chief spokeswoman for SSS: “A computer selected these names and sent them to a different computer that in turn had a robot print, prepare, and mail out forms. Mr. Apple, Mr. Amazon, and Mr. GE, as well as all other corporations, are expected to play nicely, serve their country, even go to war, if that should best serve the best interests of the American People.”
According to the laws of decency and in line with the notion that all persons are created equally, corporations (as they are now emancipated human beings) must provide sacrifices equal to the sacrifices made by those flesh-and-blood Americans who are fighting and dying in far-flung and desolate places across the globe. “For too long have these cowards shirked their responsibilities,” President Obama said, to resounding applause, at a rally in Puerto Rico last Sunday. “For too long have we granted these corporations the rights and privileges of full-blown homo sapiens while asking of them so little. If they cannot go to war and fight and die in the dusty, rock-strewn hills of Afghanistan, if they cannot shoulder their portion of our common burden, then we shall call upon the members of their executive boards to act as proxies, and send them to war instead.”
“Corporations tend to amass great wealth by exploiting their employees' honest labor, by inflating their potential value in the stock-markets, and by wiggling through legal loopholes that allow them to avoid contributing positively to or otherwise being upstanding and productive members of society; they are leeches of the worst sort, juggernauts wont to crush anything they encounter; they are the embodiment of moral disenfranchisement and societal decay,” said Dr. Thomaz D. Orguzman, a corporate sociologist who also holds degrees in corporate anthropology and kick-boxing, while he was negotiating a phalanx of reporters in order to enter his small but tidy home outside Wichita, Kansas. “They [corporations] are already structured and run as if they were military organizations, so requiring them to do their part in the Global War of Terror seems to me, if nothing else, logical.” Calls to chief executive officers of America's major corporations were routed invariably to tense-sounding legal departments run by foreign-born individuals located anywhere but on U.S. soil.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
According to the laws of decency and in line with the notion that all persons are created equally, corporations (as they are now emancipated human beings) must provide sacrifices equal to the sacrifices made by those flesh-and-blood Americans who are fighting and dying in far-flung and desolate places across the globe. “For too long have these cowards shirked their responsibilities,” President Obama said, to resounding applause, at a rally in Puerto Rico last Sunday. “For too long have we granted these corporations the rights and privileges of full-blown homo sapiens while asking of them so little. If they cannot go to war and fight and die in the dusty, rock-strewn hills of Afghanistan, if they cannot shoulder their portion of our common burden, then we shall call upon the members of their executive boards to act as proxies, and send them to war instead.”
“Corporations tend to amass great wealth by exploiting their employees' honest labor, by inflating their potential value in the stock-markets, and by wiggling through legal loopholes that allow them to avoid contributing positively to or otherwise being upstanding and productive members of society; they are leeches of the worst sort, juggernauts wont to crush anything they encounter; they are the embodiment of moral disenfranchisement and societal decay,” said Dr. Thomaz D. Orguzman, a corporate sociologist who also holds degrees in corporate anthropology and kick-boxing, while he was negotiating a phalanx of reporters in order to enter his small but tidy home outside Wichita, Kansas. “They [corporations] are already structured and run as if they were military organizations, so requiring them to do their part in the Global War of Terror seems to me, if nothing else, logical.” Calls to chief executive officers of America's major corporations were routed invariably to tense-sounding legal departments run by foreign-born individuals located anywhere but on U.S. soil.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
11 January 2013
mini museums open
As part of a national effort to provide jobs and lodging to disenfranchised and homeless individuals, the Grigovian Ministry for Internal Affairs (MIA) will launch Initiative #347, also known as Curate, Create, & Cure (CC&C). Central to Initiative #347 are scores of miniature museums located in every city of this small nation that shall open their doors this weekend. Exhibits include everything from contemporary sculpture to abstract woven items, ultra-realistic oil painting, and traditional hand-crafts, as well as spaces for interpretive dance, micro-plays, and regular group therapy sessions that focus on artistic expression as a means to address underlying psychological disorder.
Up to this point, MIA has payed for Initiative #347 through a fund established in the 1950s by anonymous benefactors who cared more about helping their fellow man than hoarding riches. According to Ministry projections, both the sale of featured works and the collection of entrance fees to the museums will support the Initiative financially. Beyond keeping artistic expression at the forefront of the Grigovian cultural experience, CC&C shall provides working and living space for persons suffering the ill affects of chronic homelessness. “Studies conducted in different nations on different continents show that providing homeless persons with a bit of responsibility, a warm place to sleep, and even the smallest of incomes allowed them to regain enough self-respect for them to become productive members of society, once more,” said Dr. Villuvest Hrim, deputy minister for Internal Affairs and one of the architects of Initiative #347, who spoke with us at a performance space set up in an abandoned warehouse. “This newest Initiative will help homeless Grigovians rediscover their value to society by placing on their shoulders the responsibility of curating and maintaining spaces in which both fine and amateur works of art are on display. This is an exciting time for society.”
“I think that the size of the performance space makes the whole thing more intimate,” said 19 year-old Iyitodar Aszhesst. The young lady had ridden with a few friends two hours by bus to the western city of Pyltagrad to see a collection of micro-plays performed by a famous acting troupe. “I've never been to this part of town before. There's fresh graffiti everywhere, and although these streets look rough, and gritty, I feel safe. This is cool.” Private living spaces are integrated into each miniature museum that allow the formerly homeless access to clean water, hot showers, and a communal cooking area. (Centralized housing is provided in more densely-populated areas where integrated housing is not feasible.) Critics who cry foul about the size of the living spaces (they are barely large enough for a foot-locker, side-table, chair, and bed) generally stop criticizing when they realize how much better these albeit small quarters are to shivering through the night whilst lying under a bridge wrapped in filthy rags and discarded cardboard. “After the plays were over, we got to mingle with the actors and talk with the nice old woman who was sweeping up after us,” said Iyitodar. “Later, when I found out she had been homeless for most of her life, my friends and I started donating three times more than the suggested amount to get into shows, in order to support Initiate #347. I am working more hours at my job in order to support CC&C and taking a drawing and sketching course at a mini-museum near to my parent's house. Together, we Grigovians can stamp out the scourge of homelessness, save lives, and make art. This is cool.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Up to this point, MIA has payed for Initiative #347 through a fund established in the 1950s by anonymous benefactors who cared more about helping their fellow man than hoarding riches. According to Ministry projections, both the sale of featured works and the collection of entrance fees to the museums will support the Initiative financially. Beyond keeping artistic expression at the forefront of the Grigovian cultural experience, CC&C shall provides working and living space for persons suffering the ill affects of chronic homelessness. “Studies conducted in different nations on different continents show that providing homeless persons with a bit of responsibility, a warm place to sleep, and even the smallest of incomes allowed them to regain enough self-respect for them to become productive members of society, once more,” said Dr. Villuvest Hrim, deputy minister for Internal Affairs and one of the architects of Initiative #347, who spoke with us at a performance space set up in an abandoned warehouse. “This newest Initiative will help homeless Grigovians rediscover their value to society by placing on their shoulders the responsibility of curating and maintaining spaces in which both fine and amateur works of art are on display. This is an exciting time for society.”
“I think that the size of the performance space makes the whole thing more intimate,” said 19 year-old Iyitodar Aszhesst. The young lady had ridden with a few friends two hours by bus to the western city of Pyltagrad to see a collection of micro-plays performed by a famous acting troupe. “I've never been to this part of town before. There's fresh graffiti everywhere, and although these streets look rough, and gritty, I feel safe. This is cool.” Private living spaces are integrated into each miniature museum that allow the formerly homeless access to clean water, hot showers, and a communal cooking area. (Centralized housing is provided in more densely-populated areas where integrated housing is not feasible.) Critics who cry foul about the size of the living spaces (they are barely large enough for a foot-locker, side-table, chair, and bed) generally stop criticizing when they realize how much better these albeit small quarters are to shivering through the night whilst lying under a bridge wrapped in filthy rags and discarded cardboard. “After the plays were over, we got to mingle with the actors and talk with the nice old woman who was sweeping up after us,” said Iyitodar. “Later, when I found out she had been homeless for most of her life, my friends and I started donating three times more than the suggested amount to get into shows, in order to support Initiate #347. I am working more hours at my job in order to support CC&C and taking a drawing and sketching course at a mini-museum near to my parent's house. Together, we Grigovians can stamp out the scourge of homelessness, save lives, and make art. This is cool.”
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
09 January 2013
the young stranger
(Grigovian fairy tales 4)
It was the Week of the Lit Windows. As was their custom, the townspeople had placed candles in the windows that faced the road and gone to bed with their doors unlocked. Unlike the year before, however, winter had arrived early, furious blizzards piling the snowbanks high and keeping everyone but the most hardy inside. All hoped that someone would bring a change in the monotony, that a visitor would arrive to enliven the dark and dismal evenings.
Sure enough, one evening, a strange young man burst through the door to the Kiergoyast household. He stamped the snow off of his boots and leaned his wood-framed pack against the wall in the small foyer, where it dripped onto the polished floor. Iyoan Kiergoyast and his wife, Baruwvel, showed the stranger to his quarters and invited him to dinner. They pulled out his chair for him, the place of honor at the far end of the table, next to the youngest children. The young man told tales of crossing the high mountain passes and fleeing bandits in the sun-drenched valleys of far Hinntia, which, he claimed, lay many weeks' journey to the south, and to the east. After dinner, he shared a pipe of fine czabtyip with Iyoan and told the children stories of magnificent foreign beasts before he excused himself and went to bed, falling asleep promptly. No one heard or saw the young man leave, but the next morning, to their delight, the children found small carvings of strange animals sitting in their wooden eating dishes. The eldest girl, however, a maiden of 16 years named Opol, said she had awoken in the middle of the night to find the strange young man standing in the foyer, dressed only in his underthings and leaning mightily against the door whilst holding a knife in his hand. She claimed that his eyes had flashed with an unusual inner light and that he seemed convinced something was trying to come through the door, although she had heard nothing but his frantic panting.
Some months later, during the Festival of Life's Reawakening, a neighboring family told a similar story. A strange young man had come to their house near the end of the Week of Lit Windows; he had carried a traveling pack of unusual construction; he had given the children small wooden figurines; and he had roamed throughout the house, late at night, with a knife in his hands, although he had not brought to anyone harm, nor had he violated either of their beautiful young daughters. The village seer, an white-haired old woman named Uulanthia, said she'd had a dream in which the young man revealed himself to be the long-lost son of Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd, and that his nightly vigilance had paid off when he thwarted a group of prince-killers, who had been indeed following him, by waiting for them into the wee hours of the morning and dispatching them with swift thrusts of his blade as they came through the door.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
It was the Week of the Lit Windows. As was their custom, the townspeople had placed candles in the windows that faced the road and gone to bed with their doors unlocked. Unlike the year before, however, winter had arrived early, furious blizzards piling the snowbanks high and keeping everyone but the most hardy inside. All hoped that someone would bring a change in the monotony, that a visitor would arrive to enliven the dark and dismal evenings.
Sure enough, one evening, a strange young man burst through the door to the Kiergoyast household. He stamped the snow off of his boots and leaned his wood-framed pack against the wall in the small foyer, where it dripped onto the polished floor. Iyoan Kiergoyast and his wife, Baruwvel, showed the stranger to his quarters and invited him to dinner. They pulled out his chair for him, the place of honor at the far end of the table, next to the youngest children. The young man told tales of crossing the high mountain passes and fleeing bandits in the sun-drenched valleys of far Hinntia, which, he claimed, lay many weeks' journey to the south, and to the east. After dinner, he shared a pipe of fine czabtyip with Iyoan and told the children stories of magnificent foreign beasts before he excused himself and went to bed, falling asleep promptly. No one heard or saw the young man leave, but the next morning, to their delight, the children found small carvings of strange animals sitting in their wooden eating dishes. The eldest girl, however, a maiden of 16 years named Opol, said she had awoken in the middle of the night to find the strange young man standing in the foyer, dressed only in his underthings and leaning mightily against the door whilst holding a knife in his hand. She claimed that his eyes had flashed with an unusual inner light and that he seemed convinced something was trying to come through the door, although she had heard nothing but his frantic panting.
Some months later, during the Festival of Life's Reawakening, a neighboring family told a similar story. A strange young man had come to their house near the end of the Week of Lit Windows; he had carried a traveling pack of unusual construction; he had given the children small wooden figurines; and he had roamed throughout the house, late at night, with a knife in his hands, although he had not brought to anyone harm, nor had he violated either of their beautiful young daughters. The village seer, an white-haired old woman named Uulanthia, said she'd had a dream in which the young man revealed himself to be the long-lost son of Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd, and that his nightly vigilance had paid off when he thwarted a group of prince-killers, who had been indeed following him, by waiting for them into the wee hours of the morning and dispatching them with swift thrusts of his blade as they came through the door.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
07 January 2013
belligerence holds sway
Citing a distinct lack of threats clearly and presently endangering the wellbeing and safety of the American people, that nation's own federal government stepped into the breech. “We have all these resources just sitting around, which if we don't use, we lose,” said a spokesperson for the inaptly named Department of Justice (DoJ), who asked that her name not be used. She went on, saying, “Therefore, we shall continue to rob Americans of their liberty until the violent crime rates rise again, there's a nation-wide epidemic of carjackings, or a similar situation arises to justify spending mountains of tax dollars on our existence.”
The DoJ is ratcheting up its efforts to prosecute and imprison Ynki civilians who insist upon exercising rights granted them in the XIV Amendment to their Constitution. “I smoke weed because I decide what to do with this body,” said upstanding citizen and small business owner Dwainn Robert Whittlewood, 36, of Detroit, Michigan. “And since a judge has never banned me personally from smoking that sweet sticky weed, the fourteenth Amendment protects my right to spark it up, toke it up, and smoke it up.” The National American Association of District-Court Justices (and their Spouses), an advocacy group, approached the situation more gingerly. Said their spokesperson, 54 year-old Wailandt Jane Hoffstedt, “Our jobs depend to a large part on busting people for stupid shit like smoking or possessing marijuana. It wasn't always like this – back before the federal government launched the longest war in our history, our foolhardy War on Drugs, we used to pass judgment on people who were truly a risk to themselves, or to society. Now, though, the cottage industry consisting of parole officers, privately-run prisons, lobbyists, and overseers has become so massive that it has taken on a life of its own, constructing policy and thriving on the death of individual liberty and the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. Something has to change.”
There is no clear sign when the federal government might start protecting liberty instead of destroying it, although the courageous citizens of Colorado and Washington dealt clear blows to state-sanctioned oppression by passing laws that legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps, as some point this century, the rest of America will grow some balls and stand up the bullies in D.C. who harass us and deny us our liberty, this nation's lifeblood; we shall soon see, however, just how tyrannical our federal government has become, and just how far it will go to enforce unjust laws from bygone eras. (While researching this article, the author's trash was twice searched by federal agents, who at one point backed their car over his cat in their haste to flee direct, verbal confrontation.)
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
The DoJ is ratcheting up its efforts to prosecute and imprison Ynki civilians who insist upon exercising rights granted them in the XIV Amendment to their Constitution. “I smoke weed because I decide what to do with this body,” said upstanding citizen and small business owner Dwainn Robert Whittlewood, 36, of Detroit, Michigan. “And since a judge has never banned me personally from smoking that sweet sticky weed, the fourteenth Amendment protects my right to spark it up, toke it up, and smoke it up.” The National American Association of District-Court Justices (and their Spouses), an advocacy group, approached the situation more gingerly. Said their spokesperson, 54 year-old Wailandt Jane Hoffstedt, “Our jobs depend to a large part on busting people for stupid shit like smoking or possessing marijuana. It wasn't always like this – back before the federal government launched the longest war in our history, our foolhardy War on Drugs, we used to pass judgment on people who were truly a risk to themselves, or to society. Now, though, the cottage industry consisting of parole officers, privately-run prisons, lobbyists, and overseers has become so massive that it has taken on a life of its own, constructing policy and thriving on the death of individual liberty and the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. Something has to change.”
There is no clear sign when the federal government might start protecting liberty instead of destroying it, although the courageous citizens of Colorado and Washington dealt clear blows to state-sanctioned oppression by passing laws that legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps, as some point this century, the rest of America will grow some balls and stand up the bullies in D.C. who harass us and deny us our liberty, this nation's lifeblood; we shall soon see, however, just how tyrannical our federal government has become, and just how far it will go to enforce unjust laws from bygone eras. (While researching this article, the author's trash was twice searched by federal agents, who at one point backed their car over his cat in their haste to flee direct, verbal confrontation.)
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
04 January 2013
Grigovian fairy tales 3
(These stories are among the few that remain of the rich tradition of folklore that was all but destroyed during the Soviet occupation of Grigovia.)
'Do not leave here, and do not be afraid,' said Mother Rat. 'I shall return soon, with more to eat.'
Four sets of black eyes stared up at her as she gnawed at the greasy heel of a tuber, the first bit of food they had seen in weeks. With a shake of her lank and oily fur, she slipped out, and was gone.
The young rodents waited only a moment before they descended upon the tuber, scarfing it down and tussling with each other for the scraps.
'I am going out,' the rat child with the white facial marking said. 'To eat the bread I can smell with my cunning nose.'
'I shall go with you, to grab the bit of sausage I spied yesterday with my keen eyes,' said his sister, whose pelt was a light brown. 'We shall eat bread and wurst, and find more food.'
The third rat watched as his litter-mates left the cramped surroundings of their cozy little recess, cast a glance at his remaining sibling, and followed the others out into the dark.
The last rat, whose fur was red and gray, curled up in the corner and began to shiver, trusting that Mother would return.
Later than she had hoped, Mother Rat returned home to find three of her cubs missing and the fourth being swallowed head-first by a thick, black snake. She lunged at the intruder and bit its face, but the snake thrashed about so violently that she was forced to flee the hole. She sniffed the air with her little nose and perked up her little ears, but neither sound nor scent of her babies reached her. So, with a shake of her lank and oily fur, she turned tail, and ran.
***
The child watched the sun rise through a crack in the beams of the wooden trap door. As soon as she heard boots marching on the courtyard's stones, she hurried back to the hole through which she had come. Replacing the bricks one by one and with great care in order to confuse anyone following her, she wiggled back through the narrow gap, taking care not to rip the pouch of stolen grain, and emerged into a familiar section of tunnel.
There was a noise behind her where no noise should have been, so she pulled herself into an alcove, to hide. After a long time, her limbs began to hurt. She was about to shift position when she heard the noise again – closer, this time. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears that she was convinced it would betray her presence.
After an few more agonizing minutes, the noise sounded from just around the corner to her hiding space. It reminded her of someone with a bad cold muffling a sneeze.
'I must move now, or else whatever is out there will catch me,' she thought.
She leaped from her crevasse and ran through the dark, her hands feeling for the familiar guide-points, her memory guiding her home.
'I cannot lead it all the way back, for whatever it is will likely endanger my family,' she thought and darted into a section of tunnel she knew to be unstable and full of deadly sinkholes. Trusting her ears and toes, she wove her way through the ink-black pitfalls and plunging deeps of the dangerous length of tunnel, pausing at the end to listen.
Within a few minutes, she heard something scrape against a far wall; it made the strange sound that had made her want to hide.
'Here is where I make my stand,' she said to herself, settling into a fighting crouch and pulling her knife from its sheath, a brave decision for a girl of eight years.
She heard the muffled noise one last time, followed by desperate squeals and the sound of frantic scraping. Then, all was quiet for a moment, until whatever had been following her impacted, somewhere far below, with a dull and distant thud.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
'Do not leave here, and do not be afraid,' said Mother Rat. 'I shall return soon, with more to eat.'
Four sets of black eyes stared up at her as she gnawed at the greasy heel of a tuber, the first bit of food they had seen in weeks. With a shake of her lank and oily fur, she slipped out, and was gone.
The young rodents waited only a moment before they descended upon the tuber, scarfing it down and tussling with each other for the scraps.
'I am going out,' the rat child with the white facial marking said. 'To eat the bread I can smell with my cunning nose.'
'I shall go with you, to grab the bit of sausage I spied yesterday with my keen eyes,' said his sister, whose pelt was a light brown. 'We shall eat bread and wurst, and find more food.'
The third rat watched as his litter-mates left the cramped surroundings of their cozy little recess, cast a glance at his remaining sibling, and followed the others out into the dark.
The last rat, whose fur was red and gray, curled up in the corner and began to shiver, trusting that Mother would return.
Later than she had hoped, Mother Rat returned home to find three of her cubs missing and the fourth being swallowed head-first by a thick, black snake. She lunged at the intruder and bit its face, but the snake thrashed about so violently that she was forced to flee the hole. She sniffed the air with her little nose and perked up her little ears, but neither sound nor scent of her babies reached her. So, with a shake of her lank and oily fur, she turned tail, and ran.
***
The child watched the sun rise through a crack in the beams of the wooden trap door. As soon as she heard boots marching on the courtyard's stones, she hurried back to the hole through which she had come. Replacing the bricks one by one and with great care in order to confuse anyone following her, she wiggled back through the narrow gap, taking care not to rip the pouch of stolen grain, and emerged into a familiar section of tunnel.
There was a noise behind her where no noise should have been, so she pulled herself into an alcove, to hide. After a long time, her limbs began to hurt. She was about to shift position when she heard the noise again – closer, this time. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears that she was convinced it would betray her presence.
After an few more agonizing minutes, the noise sounded from just around the corner to her hiding space. It reminded her of someone with a bad cold muffling a sneeze.
'I must move now, or else whatever is out there will catch me,' she thought.
She leaped from her crevasse and ran through the dark, her hands feeling for the familiar guide-points, her memory guiding her home.
'I cannot lead it all the way back, for whatever it is will likely endanger my family,' she thought and darted into a section of tunnel she knew to be unstable and full of deadly sinkholes. Trusting her ears and toes, she wove her way through the ink-black pitfalls and plunging deeps of the dangerous length of tunnel, pausing at the end to listen.
Within a few minutes, she heard something scrape against a far wall; it made the strange sound that had made her want to hide.
'Here is where I make my stand,' she said to herself, settling into a fighting crouch and pulling her knife from its sheath, a brave decision for a girl of eight years.
She heard the muffled noise one last time, followed by desperate squeals and the sound of frantic scraping. Then, all was quiet for a moment, until whatever had been following her impacted, somewhere far below, with a dull and distant thud.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
02 January 2013
Shuiryiff Rovend, legendary weaver
(Grigovian fairy-tales 2)
Shuiryiff Rovend was a weaver of renown. When not mending clothes for her own or the neighbors' children, she wove rugs and throws, blankets and draperies, things both beautiful and durable. Of all the animal wools and plant fibers she had spun into yarn and woven into works of utilitarian art, however, she had not ever used the pelt of the yip-yipt-yend, an elusive, nearly mythical beast.
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of her country's self-liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule, Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd invited all Grigovians to showcase their artistry and ingenuity at the inauguration of Independence Square, a vast swath of green in central Grig.
'This is my chance to honor my grandparents, who died fighting for our freedom,' Shuiryiff said to her husband, upon hearing the news.
'My love, your ancestors and mine died in that war, but my skills do not extend beyond the engineering of bridges,' Wu-Zsi Rovend replied to his wife. 'Please weave a beautiful rug, or garment, and make both our families proud. My cousins are Yaelong; they live where the yip-yipt-yend live. Go to them and fetch your wool.'
After many days of travel, Shuiryiff finally tracked down her husband's cousins. Although they had never met her before, they took her in, fed her, and made her up a bed, promising to bring her to the yip-yipt-yend in the morning. Exhausted from her trip up into the high, wind-swept valleys, Mrs. Rovend soon fell asleep.
True to their word, the next morning a band of Yaelong stood ready to track down one of the elusive beasts. They were armed with net, prong, and snare.
'I do not wish to bring the animals to harm,' Shuiryiff said, eying the men's tools warily.
'It is unlikely we will even be able to find the animal's tracks, let alone catch one,' said one of the tribesmen, a young, bright-eyed boy. 'But your concern pleases us and Weuilou, the spirit of this region.'
The group saw only one yip-yipt-yend, from too far away to catch but close enough that one of the men unslung his rifle and was making ready to fire.
Shuiryiff, however, begged him to halt. 'Please, do not kill it,' she said pleadingly.
Because of her clemency and kindness, the Yaelong gave her two large bags full of the mythical beast's wool, their entire collection of the valuable threads. They had gathered it over many years and on countless roaming patrols, pulling it from high branches or teasing it out of the thick underbrush.
Upon her return home, Shuiryiff kissed her husband, hugged her children, and bent to the task of weaving the strands into a simple, functional garment designed to protect the wearer from the elements. She had just enough to make a single cloak, with a hood. As the day of the inauguration approached, the weaver traveled to the capital with her children. She chose a spot in the park and hung her cloak from a portable rack, a simple structure made of birch wood.
Soon enough, Queen Pylta came along. She was gracious with her words, praising and calling out happily as she perused the many works of fine art. When she came to the cloak, however, she fell silent, and approached it with grave awe.
'I am sorry, my queen, for bringing such a simple cloak,' said Shuiryiff. 'This glorious day called for better, but my skills are lacking, my fingers too stiff, my loom too rickety.'
Turning to face the gathering crowds, Her Somewhat Royal Majesty Pylta Pyltandyennd said: 'Look ye upon the winner of our competition. This woman wove the wool of a mythical beast into a cloak. The pattern is one from Grigovia's past, a pattern we had long thought lost, and the style of manufacture is one steeped in this nation's and proud long traditions. This woman, my dear friends and assembled fellow country-persons, is a prime example of the strength and ingenuity of the Grigovian people. To be just, I shall lay eyes upon the rest of the exhibits before we all retire to the tables near the fountain, for a modest snack.'
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Shuiryiff Rovend was a weaver of renown. When not mending clothes for her own or the neighbors' children, she wove rugs and throws, blankets and draperies, things both beautiful and durable. Of all the animal wools and plant fibers she had spun into yarn and woven into works of utilitarian art, however, she had not ever used the pelt of the yip-yipt-yend, an elusive, nearly mythical beast.
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of her country's self-liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule, Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd invited all Grigovians to showcase their artistry and ingenuity at the inauguration of Independence Square, a vast swath of green in central Grig.
'This is my chance to honor my grandparents, who died fighting for our freedom,' Shuiryiff said to her husband, upon hearing the news.
'My love, your ancestors and mine died in that war, but my skills do not extend beyond the engineering of bridges,' Wu-Zsi Rovend replied to his wife. 'Please weave a beautiful rug, or garment, and make both our families proud. My cousins are Yaelong; they live where the yip-yipt-yend live. Go to them and fetch your wool.'
After many days of travel, Shuiryiff finally tracked down her husband's cousins. Although they had never met her before, they took her in, fed her, and made her up a bed, promising to bring her to the yip-yipt-yend in the morning. Exhausted from her trip up into the high, wind-swept valleys, Mrs. Rovend soon fell asleep.
True to their word, the next morning a band of Yaelong stood ready to track down one of the elusive beasts. They were armed with net, prong, and snare.
'I do not wish to bring the animals to harm,' Shuiryiff said, eying the men's tools warily.
'It is unlikely we will even be able to find the animal's tracks, let alone catch one,' said one of the tribesmen, a young, bright-eyed boy. 'But your concern pleases us and Weuilou, the spirit of this region.'
The group saw only one yip-yipt-yend, from too far away to catch but close enough that one of the men unslung his rifle and was making ready to fire.
Shuiryiff, however, begged him to halt. 'Please, do not kill it,' she said pleadingly.
Because of her clemency and kindness, the Yaelong gave her two large bags full of the mythical beast's wool, their entire collection of the valuable threads. They had gathered it over many years and on countless roaming patrols, pulling it from high branches or teasing it out of the thick underbrush.
Upon her return home, Shuiryiff kissed her husband, hugged her children, and bent to the task of weaving the strands into a simple, functional garment designed to protect the wearer from the elements. She had just enough to make a single cloak, with a hood. As the day of the inauguration approached, the weaver traveled to the capital with her children. She chose a spot in the park and hung her cloak from a portable rack, a simple structure made of birch wood.
Soon enough, Queen Pylta came along. She was gracious with her words, praising and calling out happily as she perused the many works of fine art. When she came to the cloak, however, she fell silent, and approached it with grave awe.
'I am sorry, my queen, for bringing such a simple cloak,' said Shuiryiff. 'This glorious day called for better, but my skills are lacking, my fingers too stiff, my loom too rickety.'
Turning to face the gathering crowds, Her Somewhat Royal Majesty Pylta Pyltandyennd said: 'Look ye upon the winner of our competition. This woman wove the wool of a mythical beast into a cloak. The pattern is one from Grigovia's past, a pattern we had long thought lost, and the style of manufacture is one steeped in this nation's and proud long traditions. This woman, my dear friends and assembled fellow country-persons, is a prime example of the strength and ingenuity of the Grigovian people. To be just, I shall lay eyes upon the rest of the exhibits before we all retire to the tables near the fountain, for a modest snack.'
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
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