Be still and be the sound, for you are gong.
The great grllll! lay it’s spectacles aside, resting them upon a shimmering iridescent intensity of blue and pink abalone, who tremored at his touch. It was so sweet to be touched by the grllll!. To be touched was to be nourished and spiritually flourished and swept up in a joy so sweet it could never be described in words. Only experienced. The abalone sighed and melded into the touch. And was enraptured.
Voluminous, luminous, and musical in motion, the grllll! chimed as it waddlewaded through the sands of the cave. He was great in girth, absolutely blasphemous in bulk, so massive was his belly. If you could imagine a liquid pool that rose in uneven wrinkles, and layered itself one layer above another, sort of like five scoops of ice cream, you’d have a clear vision of the great grllll! It was difficult to discern exactly where he kept his eyes. Sometimes they smiled at you from the third layer, sometimes they winked from the fifth, but always they grinned when he joyfully hymned and chimed and rhymed and gonged. He was the great grllll! after all, and what a kick it was!
Jeremy Magicus scurried into the cave, his knobbied, skinnied limbs flying every which way. Elbows propelling him forward, lips pursed, unseeing yet wildly glaring eyes, he always looked surprised.
As usual, he brought his reputation with him as he would never think to forget it. Preceding him wherever he went, his reputation looked like a piano keyboard with black and white keys that pressed and unpressed randomly, occasionally disappearing into hyperspace, only to reappear once more.
His reputation simmered down into a sort of gray and white checkerboard pattern of twinkling bits of energy. Jeremy patted it gently and cautiously sat down on it. Didn’t want to hurt it.
Reputations could be delicate.
If you were going to focus upon one thing regarding Jeremy, one special thing to remember him by, you know, something you’d write a song about…it would be his voice. He talked through his nose. He whined through his nose. And he nagged through his nose. Another thing about him was his age. It was difficult to determine. At times he looked 50 and very old. At times he looked 12 and really, quite bold.
The grllll! winked at him from somewhere near the bottom layer, and extending a soft smile to Jeremy, bathed him in gong. Jeremy cooed. The abalone fainted from joy. Composing himself, Jeremy recalled why he’d come in the first place.
Jumping up, his bright orange hair standing clumpily above his surprised orange eyebrows, and placing his hands on his hips to make his point, he singsawed in his harsh, raspy voice: “Can’t understand what this world is coming to. Can’t understand it at all.”
His freckles folded up. The abalone banged its shell shut. Three floating globes of happiness threw themselves against one of the cave walls and burst into nothingness. Tears streamed from the eyes of the pet pastel fluff that always followed the grllll! around.
“I just really cannot understand why magic isn’t as strong anymore, anywhere. You know, it really gripes me, what this world is coming to. It just seems...”
Crescending his bulk and towering over Jeremy, the great grllll! spiraled his eyes swiftly round and round his girth like orbiting moons around a planet.
This only encouraged Jeremy more.
“Oh reallllly!” he whined so loud it began to rain. And rain some more. And so on. All the possible rain for the next 3.1417 months came down at once. Distant oceans overflowed three continents away. Sludgy, muggy and buggy air enveloped you, enjellied you, embalmed you, in oozing, heavy wetness. Yuch! Slizzardly sloths slunk happily through the mud. Whining and howling, the wind mimicked Jeremy. Papers, bugs, leaves and slugs flew everywhichway. Such was the power of Jeremy's whines. He just didn’t know it.
Oblivious as usual to anything that didn’t enter his head from only one oblique angle directly to the left of his curly nose, Jeremy kept whining. He’d already forgotten why he was whining. He just got totally into being that whine. That was his thing and he was doing it max to the toady or is that groady? Or is that groady to the max, in spirals of wax circling outwards in search of the perfect circle? Waxed groady. Gong groady. Oops! Got carried away. Back to the point, as the grllll! was gong, Jeremy was whine. Groady hadn’t caught on yet.
Jeremy was usually quietly busy fitting together all those pieces of an intricate puzzle that no one suspected actually existed. When he whined though, forget it. He was so unawares of all his lightening bolt power, if you could measure it in decibels, the loudness would deafen you! Best you hide under a flat rock, eyes squeezed tightly shut, lips puckered, and ears doubled forward hard upon your cheeks.
Soft pealing tones of gong, filtering gently, lilting scently,
weaving and wending it’s way through space,
Now softly purple, then softly peach,
expanding and receding, expanding again.
A touch…and then another touch.
A feathery tickle in Jeremy’s ears.
Jeremy’s pointed jaw fell open. He raised his head skyward. And was gong. The three unglobes of unhappy nothings reformed themselves into happy somethings, only this time as cubes. They piled one atop the other in a haphazard, leaning tower and just glowed. The sun came out inside the cave. The rains stopped. It was really getting to be a very nice day.
Jeremy sighed aloud: “I get sooooo weird since I lost my magic.”
The grllll! knew that Jeremy was a problem that had to be solved. Strange how Jeremy was always actually being a problem and if you have ever met a walking problem, why you know how unpleasant that can be. Gracious and giving of gong, the grllll! had buoyed Jeremy to the rafters of the cave time and time again. Unfortunately, after a while Jeremy would fall back into being surprised or begin surmising about everything. He never actually looked at anything. He just drew conclusions.
In that moment in time, that precise instant in now, the great grllll! knew what had to be done. Cooing gently, he wibblewaveled his thoughts to the oblique angle just to the left of Jeremy’s curly nose, whereupon Jeremy inhaled them.
“Queeeehhhhhst Jeremy, quest. Go on a holy search for the truth of it all, the nonsense of reasons and find yourself young feller, just find yourself. And while you’re at it, find your lost magic!”
The grllll!'s spectacles jumped to a newly burgeoning nose and slid down to a nearsighted halfway hump, where they completed their journey and took a nap. His thoughts echoed again and again, turning over and over and tumbling around and upside down until Jeremy chewed on them enough to digest them. The great grllll!'s thoughts were always quite tasty.
“Migawd!” thought Jeremy. “The grllll! wants me to go on a holy search. I’ll conquer the world, I will! I’ll find the reasons why and how and who I be. I’ll howl at the moon and ride the wild streak and....and...and...” Jeremy jumped up and down enthusiastically. The pet pastel fluff floated over to Jeremy and licked his ear, a token of affection. The abalone bravely peeked from its shell, clattering it open and shut over and over again, applauding Jeremy’s excitement. The happiness cubes realigned.
“Oh myyyyyy.” Jeremy’s reputation exclaimed in a deep, curvy mechanical voice, while swerving sideways in a downward semi-ellipse.
As a parting gift, the grllll! gave Jeremy a brilliant blue glass bottle containing 3 tablespoons of gong, to be used one at a time, a virtually real dot gif page that Jeremy could design as needed, and a gilt edged certificate attesting Jeremy was an expert at scowlarship.
Copyright 1992 by me, Jerrye Albert
Please do not print this without asking me first. And! In the following chapters, if you want more, you can experience Jeremy's adventures which are kind of whacky and wild, and of course, you'll see how he finds his lost magic! Let me know. And of course, enjoy!
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COPYRIGHT DECEMBER 20, 1992 JERRYE ALBERT
