Small Cabbage White Butterflies

 

The fragility of life lies in the gossamer wings of a white butterfly.
“Prepare yourself I am going to wax philosophical,” I warned the muse.
“Wax on, wax off,” she answered rolling her eyes which were sporting false eyelashes and yellow and blue eye shadow. She looked as if someone had punched her in the face repeatedly. It was best to ignore her when she was in such a mood as this, because pretty soon, I would be the one who wanted to punch her.
“I was standing in a grass field at nine this morning. In the blink of an eye I was surrounded by thousands of tiny white butterflies. One landed fleetingly on my arm before taking off for parts unknown. I had the overwhelming feeling of being truly blessed.”
“Shall I play the theme song to Titanic now or are you through?” she asked, glaring at me.
“Their life span is so short that their beauty should be appreciated. It reminded me of how short my time on earth truly is and how I needed to transform myself and allow my soul to metamorphose, to grow, become translucent and fragile as their wings,” I continued, wilfully ignoring the hundred yard stare.
“Channelling Plato are we?”
“You did not experience it,” I reminded her, “simply because you refused to embrace Nature. I went outside and got more than I bargained for.”
“Mmmm hmmmm, it’s dangerous out there. Have you seen the size of those cows? That would be more than I bargained for. Actually trees are more,” she said shivering dramatically.

Funny farm

“Wait. What?”
“We are going to a game farm for two weeks. I know you heard exactly what I said. This is just more of your divaliscious antics,” I said indignantly.
“I am just not cut out for the farming life. What do you think I will do there? I am a city girl, used to the comforts of modern living. What the hell were you thinking?” She paced furiously, wearing a hole in the carpet. I could see tiny wisps of smoke coming from her Christian Louboutins.
“It’s an adventure, a time to create, away from the hustle and bustle. I could write the next Man Booker prize winning novel.”
“In your dreams, dear. Your writing will be interspersed with cows lowing, zebras yipping and the feathery flamboyance of ostriches. Last time I checked, that was not something the average reader would be interested in. Do you see this awesomeness going to waste amidst the grassy slopes and mountains of the Free State?” She was gesturing at her voluptuousness of which I had had more than an eyeful. I wondered how she could not see what we all so clearly saw when she looked in the mirror. Perhaps she had one of those magical mirrors which proclaimed her the most beautiful in the land. Sadly, I do not have the confidence our delectable muse has.
“You should not go near a game farm, but rather straight to the bloody funny farm. Strait jackets are in your future, I predict,” she sneered.
“IT WILL BE FUN!” I insisted.
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Her perfectly manicured eyebrows lifted to incredible heights.
“We’ll definitely see,” I said, not about to be undone.

Fugly becomes a troll

Nevertheless, Rodney braved all the obstacles and laid his case before the Circle cum triangle. He would be the bunnies’ spokesperson. The magicians listened intently; a few heads were even nodding as Rodney explained that what was happening was an affront to all living things as well as the art of magic. He stated that he believed the magician in question should be punished severely and an example set. A young, female magician, who was transcribing the whole affair, abruptly left the building. Later, Rodney would learn that she was the Juliet to Bunny Bane’s Romeo. Normally what happened within the Circle, stayed in the Circle, but the lady in question had loose lips, quite literally as Rodney had seen her blowing raspberries when she thought no one was looking. The sight of her flapping, vibrating lips made him feel quite ill. Spittle flew everywhere and he had to open his umbrella indoors and chance the bad luck that would soon come his way.
As fate would have it, Magician Bunny Bane received a slap on the wrist and was ordered to do children’s parties for a year. He was banned from using high magic and would have to make do with sleight of hand. Children saw through his act and the ridicule stung. He hated Rodney and proclaimed that the trouble starter would soon suffer the bane of Bunny Bane, very vain this Bane. Without thinking twice, Bane had turned him into the disgusting creature he now was, cleverly disguising the fact that he had used high magic by merely bouncing Barmy Butterfinger’s uncontrollable spell off a magical shield and onto long suffering Rodney. Barmy’s spells were unpredictable at best and unhinged at worst.

The dreaded Bermuda Triangle

The poor bunnies were tearful after each show and refused to come out of their warren for even the slightest bite of juicy carrot. Rodney decided to take the case of the perverted magician to the Magic Circle. Said Circle faintly resembled a disproportionate triangle. You see, the magicians had conjured the Bermuda Triangle to within their midst and could not get rid of it, no matter what incantations and lamentations they tried. The darn thing had stuck to them like chewing gum to a shoe. They tried to shoo it away like a worrisome fly, but it refused to budge. They even sent old Mrs. Hubbard to admonish it sharply. Her children said she had a wicked tongue and some of the words she used made the plants curl up and die. The Bermuda Triangle just folded its arms and shook its head. Their next brilliant plan was to fill it with miscellaneous items, such as old freezers, broken stoves, tyres and bicycle parts. They even went so far as conjuring a fleet of ships to pour down its gullet. It succeeded in giving the triangle indigestion and a gaseous cloud hung over the Circle for months afterwards. Unlike skunk, tomato juice did nothing for the odour that seeped into their robes and the only option was to burn them which in turn set several magical explosions loose. Rainbows and unicorns were running amuck.

Take a bow, Fugly

Novel writing was taking its toll and I had a headache that would stop an elephant in its tracks. I knew that somewhere, in a hidden, convoluted part of my brain an angry troll had taken up residence. He had an enormous hammer which he was now using to take out his frustration on the world. Yes, he was ugly as sin. He cracked mirrors and exploded smooth pond surfaces, shiny objects scuttled away from him and hid in dark corners. His body was covered in an assortment of hair which, even he, was hard pressed to provide an origin for. He looked mangy and unkempt. He never smiled and had serious anger and control issues, which was understandable, I suppose. I had as yet not called in a psychiatrist.
Fugly (this was not his given name, but a nickname that had attached itself to him once his trollness became apparent) had not started his life in this manner. He was once, before he decided to run and take up residence in my head, a magician’s apprentice; a handsome boy with blue eyes and a mane of dark, curly hair. The magician, Sir Bunny Bane, was a perverted soul. He preferred to entice hats out of bunnies instead of the other way around. Fugly, who was then known as Rodney could not stand the singing piles that would pop out as soon as the top hats had made their appearance. They were false and only knew one song: “Ouch, ouch, ouch par de dum, ouch, ouch, ouch, par de dum, we all stand together dum, dum…”

Brainy thinking caps

 

“Let’s just throw a pity party and be done with it,” the muse said angrily.
“I will invite the grief counsellor, Crocodile Tears. We will have to send out smoke signals as he is alone in the wilderness crying his heart out. It’s a crying shame that you have to disturb the empathetic man, but we really have no choice as you have already killed and buried your writing career within the space of your egg-head. Grieve about it and then get on with it or own up to your idiotic fear and write! I can only do so much, you know and heaven knows you have been going on and on about it. I shall immediately find a Krazy Straw so that you can suck it up. Grow a pair or wear some big girl panties, better yet I can loan you my new leopard spot g-string.”
She cracked her whip, flounced away and left me sitting in a miserable heap. A dung beetle crawled over my knee and a vulture hopped closer, his beady eyes intent upon having a beak full of some cowardly chicken. I gathered myself and trudged home, feeling sorry for myself. Tomorrow, I would have to face the dreaded blank screen of Microsoft Word and try to dredge up the words that were as deeply buried in their watery grave as Atlantis. I think I should wear my brainy thinking cap, don’t you?

Lofty speeches

I was being far too clever for my boots and knew that the guillotine was quivering above my head. Yes, I was stubborn. Who amongst you would admit to being so scared to sit down and write that you could barely contemplate the thought? I had become the dreaded chicken; a yellow-bellied poltroon. I was in a dastardly funk. All the writers are most likely salivating over all these synonyms- free bibs anyone?
“I hate to state the obvious, but if you could write the above, surely NaNoWriMo is a slam dunk?”
“I am done with the obvious. I am looking for sentences that fly, paragraphs that sing and a novel that will never be forgotten. Meanwhile, my brain is as frozen as the Arctic Tundra; more lost than a chameleon on a box of Smarties, so lost in fact that not even a Saint Bernard could find me.” I said sulkily.
“Fancy being a singing trapeze artist? You would be able to check singing and flying off your list.”
“Ha, there is a comedian born every minute,” I countered, “besides which I am terrified of heights.
“Well, that was quite a lofty speech! You know, tall, sky-high, towering…” She wisely left it at that.

I folded my scrawny wings and plopped down on the ground, causing minor earthquakes in Wonderland.
“What am I going to do? I applied butt to chair, quietly opening a major vein and still the blood barely trickled. I could have a pair of fangs surgically inserted with which to draw blood and inspiration from others, but what is the point, really? I cannot sparkle; I am not a glitzy person.”

Cockamamie excuses

 

“Might I remind you that I live inside that chaotic thing you call a mind? Lard, indeed.”
“Oops, I did it again,” I sang as I swayed my broad hips and knocked over a few innocent trees. They picked up their branch and leaf skirts and hurried away, muddy ground falling from their roots. I heard via the tree grapevine that they had set up shop in the Bermuda triangle as they figured that was one place where even I would not go.
“You cannot escape the mind of a writer you know,” I shouted after them.
“Don’t I bloody well know it,” the muse said. I actually understood what she meant Even for me, living inside my own skull was sometimes too chaotic as I ran the gamut from depression to euphoria in seconds it seemed.
‘Lard ass,” I said unkindly.
“Granted, but can you at least admit that this year’s NaNoWriMo has you scared stiff?”
“No-oo-oo, I was only looking for a worm today, honestly. I figure he took my mojo deep underground. If I can find him, I might be okay.”
“What kind of a cockamamie excuse is that?”
“Well, technically speaking a cock is a chicken, squawk,” I said, flapping my wings frenetically. Ladies never mention the other meaning except when you are an excellent erotica writer and have to call a spade a spade and not a fork.
Ready for something hot and steamy? Their +1

Exploding lard

“Don’t blame me for your chaotic thoughts. I am not the one allowing them free rein in that oddly misshapen egg you call a head. For the sake of my sanity put on a different thinking cap,” she spat.
“You are what you think, you know,” was the sage advice that was pounded into me, word for word, by a pudgy finger.
“Yeah, yeah,” I answered, flapping my arm-wing futilely. The very moment I completed the gesture, the realisation that it had been the wrong thing to do in the mood she was in, hit me like a runaway quidditch ball. Where the hell was Harry Potter when you needed him anyway?
“Well, I never…,” she said and I could see the mercury in her anger thermometer rise to dangerous levels. She was about to blow and pieces of lard would be whizzing around at the speed of light. Perhaps it was time for a sturdy helmet and not one of the several dozen thinking caps I had collected over the years. Unfortunately, everyone in the known universe would be picking up the pieces for weeks. Lard refineries would be springing up all over the place and the earth would be covered in a thick layer of hazy smoke. Visiting aliens would choke and post a notice in the Milky Way which would read: Beware; this is a lard-assed planet! Intruders will be melted down and used as lip balm for the many-mouthed, slimy Octolupians. (I just made this up, there is no such race…or is there? Nope, just Googled it.)

One-lovely-blog award

I have been nominated by Son for the one-lovely- blog award. Thank you so much for making me part of this.
There are rules pertaining to this and I have to nominate 15 other deserving bloggers, who will obviously have to do the same on their blogs. I also have to share seven facts about myself that nobody knows. The others I have in turn nominated will have to spill the beans as well and post the award on their pages. I have chosen to start with the seven unknown, yet slightly weird facts:
1. I am a tree hugger. Yes, I love nature and animals to the point of distraction. I have seven pugs, two sheep dog, a miniature Doberman Pincher and two cats. When I leave this earth look for me, I will be the zoo keeper in heaven.
2. I snore and speak in my sleep, which is why everyone in my household keeps their bedroom doors shut at night.
3. I have OCD and will check on doors several times, even though I know I have closed them. I wash my hands numerous times a day and count everything. I am also bipolar which results in a roller coaster ride which I sometimes scream at or laugh at, depending on where I am in the cycle.
4. I am an artist, preferring to work with pencils, charcoal, acrylic and oils. As a perfectionist, I love realism, but add my own little twist. ♪♫ Let’s twist again, like we did last summer, ooh let’s twist again like we did last year ♫♪
5. I love the smell of new books and wish someone would bottle it and sell it as a perfume. I would buy armfuls of the stuff.
6. I have several people living in my head. They prefer speaking at the same time. Oh, wait, you already know this, sorry.
7. I was born in the wrong era. I love the Renaissance period. Please invent a time machine and take me back there.
My nominations, in no particular order are:
1. Butterfly on a Broomstick
2. The Vast and Inscrutable Imponderabilities of Life
3. Stella’s Starshine
4. Pushing the Bruise
5. For the Love of Storytelling
6. Andie’s writing journey
7. The Wayward Warrior
8. Gumboots and Grammar
9. A Rhythm Runs Through It
10. The Questioning Way
11. Through Harold’s Lens
12. Hope* the Happy Hugger
13. Square Tales
14. The Hungry Dog’s Lair
15. The girl in the little black dress
Alas, now these fifteen have their work cut out for them. I enjoy your blogs immensely- keep on trucking!