Chapter Three: Tea with the Poet who Made a Universe
I’m in the hole. Roots enmesh me and reproach me for my ignorance. I’m in frequent contact with Ping; we plan my escape. But I’m too cowardly and Sergeant Danduluv, the Big Boss in Rooty Bureaucracy, is too watchful of my every move ─ so I’ll never manage.
I grope around a lot in the roots. It is my futile effort at escape through some hole back into Ping's lovely library. I never quite realised how lucky I was to live there, and became stroppy and temperamental a lot of the time. I promised myself never to be stroppy again, for I saw root hell as the universe's way of punishing my severely ingrate and unhelpful nature. All the shouting matches and arguments and shame I could have avoided, if only I were nicer to my DreamGiver. And I promised in my habitual crawling through the mud beneath the roots that I would be better, through my tears. The roots were getting personal too, which really did not help my peace of mind.
But at some point during this break down - it could have been an involuntary finger movement or a sob punctuated by a jolt of my foot - I got to a wondrous portal which transported me to the Land of the Postbox, somewhere that seemed to exist in stories but for some reason not in our highly wacky Wackadomp.
You know the Man who made me nice and comfy, before the mud talked sense into my stupid brain? And you know the Poet who wrote the universe in prose, whom I mocked? It turns out they were both the same person, though this same person had a really sucky friend. And Poet told me about it over tea.
He lured Poet in with compassion and a shoulder to lean on; though when they were inseparable, he forced Poet to take on whatever role in life Friend commanded him to, on pain of Friend's mother (who magically appears to do away with Friend's enemies) chucking Poet into the Abyss out of Yawnfest Universe. One day, Poet faced this punishment for being asleep while Friend briefed him on a mission to be the mystical fortune teller at some dirt-cheap idiot carnival in Guanacito, a struggling Mexican tourist town. But my research of Poet's life with Friend never mentioned his building Wackadomp; this was the gaping Abyss of my own wisdom, and so I determined at that moment to interview Poet about it himself.
"Hello, Groovecat! I remember when I gave you a lovely blanket! Yes, are you still with Blankie?" Poet said, the easy grin on his face one acquires on a Saturday morning after tea and cake.
I was gushed to make Poet's acquaintance: he was such a formidable character, with such a rich history that archived diaries only told you a microcosm of his story. Dumbstruck (as one is when they meet the maker of Wackadomp) I silently produced my beloved Blankie.
"I see you have!" Poet said, after a moment's examination; his easy grin seemed to spread so wide it could have drenched Wackadomp in a sweet honey. But Poet doesn't work weekends so he refrained. After this blissful examination, he continued, "Why not come inside? There, tea, cake and glittering parlance awaits!"
"Why of course!" I beamed back, following him inside with the most immense anticipation.
Poet's house was a quaint one: though he could have had all the world's riches, he chose a simple life which accommodated him, his books, and his friends. I looked around delightedly, for in this house, there were all Ping's books on the "I've Read it" shelf; he even gave an article detailing his review of them on the cover! "Amazing literary content [...] every word is beautifully chosen to make the reader [...] feel something [...] but I did get too sad with what happened to "the leek who leaked, something of which we must not speak" [...] fascinating journalism hidden behind prose [...] 20 out of 18, fantastic job". We discussed Ping's "prose" a while; I said I loved the story of the leek, for it detailed the fate of a double crosser of Amanda Hugenkiss' (it's REALLY not pretty). I also recounted the hell I'd gone through with that ridiculous tree, up until when I slipped and fell into Poet's literary underworld. Then, I asked Poet how he became Poet, and why on earth did he not chronicle it? The answer fascinated me beyond captivation.
Poet recounted when "Friend" (his name counter intuitively stuck to this day) chucked him off into the Abyss for sleeping; though I didn't know that he clung onto his bed so hard that it broke through the floorboards and rrripped through the fabric which held the YawnFest Universe together, with him still on it. "So there I was," he gleefully reminisced, "half-asleep, whirling under my blanket all around the land of nothing; suddenly, I realise there is me, my evil friend in YawnFest (who I deduced had ejected me into the Abyss), and a house of wisdom enveloping two half-asleep old men. Knowing of these men, I stuck wheels to my bed in preparation for the inevitable. Then I understandably adopted a careless attitude towards Friend and his bone-headed assignments.
"Using my wheels and the sides of the bed, I manoeuvred myself, with your very own Blankie protecting me all the while, to the wisdom house's door. I rapped thrice before Migente, the older and more conservative of the two, opened it while rambling about the other's "startling lack of basic manners". I asked them why they were there, and they said Bob Holman dumped them off into the Abyss; Bob Holman is Friend's birth name.\
"I told the men of my similar fate, and they nodded and ahhed before the younger man, Bonkoli, said, "We're building a universe! Why not join us?".
I've a talent for prose, but know nothing of science; so I suggested to write them poems detailing fanciful metaphors which they made part of their reality. They simply loved the idea; that, my catty friend, is how I became the Multiverse's greatest poet before could say "Jack Sprat"!"
"Jack Sprat!" I delightedly miaowed back; then Poet and I laughed between snorting up our tea and cake. By then, I'd had enough adventure for one day. So Poet and I watched a film together after tea, before he gave me dinner and a place to sleep. I am writing in my bed now, using Blankie for warmth; The walls are made of rose coloured cushions, and there is a mahogany bookshelf holding Poet's epic prose for our Wackadomp. A note on it reads:
"I have curated these poems for you, Groovecat, to peruse at your leisure before you doze off into your rose bed. I implore you to read them, for I'd love to discuss our universe with you over many an afternoon tea to come. From Poet."
And heck, won't I just devour the contents of that bookshelf!
Stay catty,
Groovecat.