Animal Fun

It was just an ordinary day without much happening. The weather report said in the slug's world, there would be nothing but dry. Then they told the weatherman that there may be some sunny spells, very bad for slugs.

I am sorry to improve the acquaintance, I must make a few introductions. My terrible lettuce manners are that I am a veggie. I eat nothing but that because I can't get anything else.

See how I move it? I move it all the time, all over the place, as if the dust does not settle down.

I am a thinker more than a doer. I do sometimes do upper fixer and do it well. I make mohills out of mountains and have been beavering away at something called a pit.

All the neighbours speak in whispers. What the hell is she doing, and then the whole lottery of speak and do something.

"It is so mad."

"Eccentric."

People tread on me without realizing that is why I am also called a worm. It hurts, and I become many more. I do not mind, which is why it is nerve-racking, why I dislike being a worm. Do not answer back. I did not set out to be a rug. I just became one. I do everything that is new and bright.

Starry night is when the heavens open, and I am drenched. Rain poured, and then what did it matter?

Someone just died, and I am there to see what to do with the corpse. You see, the corpse can produce many nutrients. It is pleasing to be so unique that nobody sees me or minds.

My reservations were good and straight, then I went out and did nothing that meant a thing. I am awful, they say. Especially my mother, she dislikes the sound of me and the sight of me, and sometimes she cries.

Then someone trod on me and I became several parts. The psychologist wanted to do some research on his subject and asked me if I was happy. I said no.

I have come apart. Someone said it was I who did not belong. Did not want to belong; I had a choice and did not want to be like everyone. Like everyone else. My fault, this is all of it, your fault.

"Fit in or else."

Something does not fit in, and nothing has convinced me to. I am with no money and do not have a hope of having any. The whole thing is within the bounds of nothing I do not have to fit in.

But every time I did something, bad happened to me and the slug.

At stake is my reputation, and I have made a mess out of making a happy escape. The terrible woman who is a cook has stopped me from moving, and I do not see how I am to remain still until she recovers her temper.

We have been staring at one another for the past minute, and for a slug that is a long time. Luckily for me, she has another thing to do, and I move it as much as possible when she steps on me again.

Well, slugs die and then they live and they die. By trial and error, they then move on. I cannot move here, and then the worst place is out in the open.

What happiness to know I am not dying at present. I am able to dine and wine on the remains of what is there in the unhappy kitchen. I did not do anything wrong, did I?

I am all at sea because I am so vulnerable.

What can happen to a slug? I am crawling and ingesting some people mind their manners not at all. They pretend not to see a respectable slug.

In a slug's world, there are many perils, and much does not matter, as I have nothing but mind over matter. I am living mostly in the dark, and people speak nothing to me as I am a non-entity.

I am a total loss of time and space. I do not take up much space. Two or a bit of centimetres, but it may be less. I am such a fiend.

"You take up much more room than any other slug,"

"Now move,"

"Where to?"

"Outside."

"I can't please, can't move."

"Don't you know if you don't move, I am going to step on it?"

"On what me? Nothing of the sort, I am too respectable."

"You do not appear respectable to me."

"But I have a shade."

"That is nothing. I own this joint."

"I owned most of where I walk."

"Nothing doing, you did not move in the last minute, so you do not own a lot."

"Do you mean to speak to me in that tone of voice"?

"Yes."

But I do have a family of chained slugs. I have to speak to myself as we are linked; they have to make sense to me because we are all in it together.

Chained to money, and they get meaner as the years go by.

"You come from slaves"?

"Slugs, of course we are."

"You did not fight for your freedom and rights"?

"No, we missed all that."

"I do not understand you."

"No one does," said the slug very cleverly.

"What makes me confused is when I begin talking to slugs."

"It must be very concerning."

"Not as concerning as not to reason as well and to have missed the emancipation."

"That is history."

"Of course it is."

"I wish you well, and beware the woman with the one leg is very tough."

"I know many have she felled."

"So go when she is awake because when she is asleep, she is the devil. Moves faster than ever she did when not asleep."

The thing with slugs is that they do not concentrate, and humans do have a lot to do.

So when the woman is asleep, the slug decides to move.

Instead of the slug, the woman steps on the girl.

We can’t do anything but politely agree and then leave as soon as possible.

The girl wanted to go out and press her intentions and naughtiness on the man, whose wife was a bore and could never do what was right. Her position in the world had made her stark, staring mad.

The dusting and the other things in the shop made her cry. She had to do everything perfectly, and this added to her troubles.

She talked to the girl in a monotone, and the girl listened as she, too, was having trouble running her shop. They talked in sympathy that was misplaced. A deep sympathy that was not lost on the man who ran the sweet shop.

The girl went to the sex pages of Playboy, read the articles on sex, and the stories that were written about the big deals that whores made. She was so engrossed did not know she was being the eye on her.

She found out that it was all a con. That puzzled her that it was all a show, one off, then it made matters worse as the man wanted to date her.

Then we laugh it off and shrug, and the slugs take over their slugs, the ones they are intimate with. I am not envious of being a loner. No more divisions. I do not do sums anymore, as a slug, I am always divisive.

I creep by and see them entangled, and I try not to be envious.

“Where did the sea get to?”

“I see nothing blue,”

“Everything that is blue is not the sea,”

The thing was, they say I am distant and do not mate properly.

I try not to mind.

Her mind must have wandered, and then she saw many people in the shop and went out. There was nothing else to be done. That she was bored in her shop and did not want to be there anymore made the sweet shop people appear to be pleasant.

Ivy appears everywhere.

And it makes me appalled.

They had their dog in the counter, not behaving well. Or was he? She did not care that it was a place where she read and read everything, not on top of the shelf.

Then I went and bought the chocolate, a huge bar, and that was that. One for mother and one for me.

"What I want to know is you do not buy the magazines but buy the chocolates, why bother with the magazines?"

It was as if someone had smashed through me and seen me as if fragile. I did not say a word. I did not go there anymore.

That was my day taken into and made tighter.

Even the slug had more of a life than I did.

I identified with that horrid creature because we were similar, we did not move, we did not could not move.

I was bored, even boring. I did so little on such an ordinary day. I went and did the usual things in the garden, made a little mould, and sat down and laughed. I did not mean to be mad. The medication was not working properly.

"She did not do the researcher proud, so we will contain her."

He is left without notes and could not make enjoyments and society to his wits' end. I did not enjoy this.

I had ingested poison, and the flies in the house had died. All of them went to the windowsill and died as if they were flies. I laughed again.

I am going to go mad, I thought, and did what prisoners do when they feel this. I did some exercises.

I had bought a bike that went nowhere an exercise bike without a timer. The timer had been broken.

“They did not wear a thing, died in there struggling to get out.”

I thought it was the shopkeepers who had been trying to make their escape.

I had been trying to do a degree, and the words were hopelessly muddled. I was not getting the credits, and was tired and was thinking too much.

That was so unlucky because I was lost within the world of credits and did not like the course. I should have done farming, and I had done architecture. It was too late to change the subject.

I should not have done a thing I should never have been.

I went out and about, felt a bit better, less bitter, and I went back on the bike. I thought I had done a lot on the bike, and Mother merely laughed. She said I was doing nothing.

The slug and I had a great deal in common. "How am I doing?"

There is a silence.

Sorry, my food supply is here, and my credits are almost done.

I was going to wear a bikini next holiday.

Nature was beckoning to me. I liked nature so much, but I disliked the stuffy drawings of old and new buildings as if they were cemented in something like a hotel. It is chic and so like a chicken coup. I laughed again.

In concrete terms, we are not allowed.

The beasts have sprays.

Ivy everywhere.

"I love ivy."

I had no breasts. I was a highly strung woman who had never lived and lied and been. So I was on that bike trying to get back on track, and I knew if I cut down, I would. Did not realize I was having a heart attack.

I used my credit card to buy shopping.

"What is the matter with you?"

I went shopping and did not care why I had to buy groceries, I reminded myself. I had to because my mind was preoccupied. So, did not go right, things to be doing as I was doing stuff like writing and doing the house as both my parents were odd.

They were normal. Like everyone else, I was consistently not included in the social invites as I upset everybody.

I paid with cash.

I paid with the credit card.

The slug was ahead of itself.

No one allows a good slug on any card.

The shoppers were gossiping, and a slug is not worthy of fast service, as the thing is, nobody thinks the slugs are of consequence.

I am a slug, and that means I did nothing wrong at all. I can't because if I do, there are consequences.

Only to themselves, and so nobody else notes their whereabouts, even kidnapped slugs are worse than not noted. So the two women were gossiping and gossiping until I nearly went to sleep.

“She is doing a degree and at her age.”

“A disaster,”

"Such a big girl."

"Have a tart."

"They said she had been."

"Most likely."

"The other two have the right attitude."

“A disgrace,”

“We live in the 21st century when everything is about time and doing the right thing in the right order,”

Motions of life are what mark us all. We do not destroy, we believe we do, and we heal. We are the best of the worst and the worst of the best. We are the merchants that give.

"You are marked down."

"From linen to cotton,"

“Is that the time?”

I thought of leaving my shopping behind, but did not, or I would starve a slug like myself who eats a lot of lettuce.

I eat a lot of manure.

“Do you mind?” I had edged too near them.

I did not mind but continued on my lonely journey.

"This is picking on me."

There is someone who does not like me.