Genevieve and the Two Scotties by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 1

Genevieve was in the box a very few called Pandora. Most called it the Land of Fellflat, him being the earliest known ancestor. She was with all the other dogs. It didn’t look like a box. It didn’t look like Pandora either. The inmates didn’t know if it was one, both, either, or neither; and would get angry with anyone who stupidly brought up the difficult subject. And it wasn’t ever called box, container, or anything like that by any of the inhabitants; though a few, when they thought that they were alone sometimes hopefully whispered; “Pandora,”

presumably as a prayer to a spirit they thought that only they could imagine.

Genevieve; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

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Most of the box’ inhabitants were warm and saddened pooches struggling to appear as the socially acceptable normality called contented; and some were truly contented, demon mongrels who took their pleasure in making the others sad. It was the way the box’ darkness had always been; though infrequent light periodically filtered through the cracks in the old plastic.

Those brief manifestations of unpredictable, blithe illumination, in practice, best served the accepted traditions of the box, to either appease the tiresomely vocal, cheerful

“optimists;” give their organizers a “reason” to request tithes; or be an expedient provocation for those puddled and positioned within the petite, but prominent pack of physics polished, present-day practitioners of punctuality to pontificate Pythagorean theorems, compelling as such, though limited to the measurement of distances only at certain angles under certain conditions; ultimately about why the brief glimpses of light had never happened and that their sightings were an illusion caused by a defective transfer of information from the eye to the brain or other vague speculations; which the others had no interest in or sufficient credentials to debate; in effect making the non-happening into the law of the box. The number of pray-ers and tithe-ers continually decreased, though the population continually rose.

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One day, perhaps just out of boredom and curiosity, Genevieve made a solitary journey back toward her eastern origin. It wasn’t long before she encountered an obstacle. It looked like a wall as the mountains she had previously seen weren’t often ninety degree vertical structures; as best as she could recall. But, being an inquisitive pooch with not much else to do anyway, she decided to climb it.

There was a helium filled, red balloon tethered to the ground. Genevieve decided to take it with her. She had a myriad of reasons. She thought that it should be free. She thought that it’s inclination to rise might be of assistance. And she thought that she liked its red color. She knew that it reminded her of Winnie the Pooh. She held its string in her snout.

Without any outside aid other than that which the red balloon seemed to provide, she used the grooves on the furthest left reaches of the box to climb. It was as easy or as hard as it was to climb an artificial rock wall which is classified as being “for beginning bi-peds.” Having four paws and those paws being enhanced with retractable claws might have made things easier for her. But, it was distinctly possible that the ease just came because she simply felt like climbing on this day; and up Genevieve went.

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Rock climb; property of the author.

Concentrating on her task, and paying no attention to what if anything was notable at higher levels, nor what was going on beneath her, she climbed to what appeared to be the top. She sniffed at the ceiling cover and found that the smell was the same as that of the wall; something like that experience of someone downwind on an Intel burn day. Miffed, she used her snout to gently push on the ceiling and saw that it gave easily.

It had moved about two inches, but when she stopped pushing it stopped moving. It exposed a bit more of the infrequent light which sometimes had creeped through the cracks in the old plastic, which the increasing majority denied.

She remained there and thought some things over. She hated the rude limitation imposed, but didn’t want to risk falling, through extending too much energy and losing her footing when already so high up. Her fear was alleviated when she absurdly

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decided to continue to trust the help she was getting from the red balloon she held in her snout.

She kept her feet in place and gave the balky ceiling the hardest shove she could, intending to use only her head; but her red balloon hit it too.

The ceiling moved more. But this time rather than stopping, it had apparently been pushed sufficiently far to have engaged some sort of mechanism, which kept it opening all the way to the other side. Genevieve didn’t expect this much ease, but wasn’t the least bit surprised by it either. It was just like any other hinged plastic device amplified by a compelling spring. The ceiling ceased being one and came to rest at an odd angle, again likely the result of the mysterious, unseen, yet suggested spring; which might have been a bit rusty from lack of use and lubrication.

Suddenly Genevieve could fly. She took the balloon out of her snout and held it in her front paws; the way one cuddles a friend.

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Genevieve flying with her balloon; property of the author.

Suddenly all the other dogs were flying too. They all entered the white space above the box, which she instinctively knew was called El Dorado. She was scared at first, as the ground got more and more distant, making a fall a very serious matter. But after a minute she could tell that she was effortlessly floating very naturally, and that the movement of her paws provided direction. Most of all, she found it to be fun.

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Sky and box; the modified kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

Despite unreasonable hopes, it wasn’t only the pooches in the air. The mongrel demons soared too. They had no inclination to dally like the zig-zagging dogs, and went directly up, like any extremist, taking no part in what they must have considered to be a silly, joyous, incomplete diversion. They soon crossed over into the darkness, which was called Kimrabort, and stayed there. The line of demarcation between El Dorado and Kimrabort was irregular and unclearly porous in some areas. To complicate matters further white El Dorado proper contained some dark areas, and dark Kimrabort proper contained speckles of white;

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but frankly not all that many in the latter case. The dark was noticeably dark to any pooch not blind, and produced a perceptible end of the detectable glow for most who were.

Flying dogs and demon; property of the author.

Perhaps because of being the first pooch to reach the vague, twisting, and amorphous line; it not yet trampled by many paws, Genevieve thought that she had seen it plainly. While some parts were distinctly clear, the more vague configurations didn’t encompass wide spaces; and with all the other space available it seemed an easy, in fact unthinking, decision for her to maintain complete safety by being simply rationally risk averse toward the relatively tiny and likely inconsequentially bloated borderlines with their humorously logical audacity to

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overstate their insignificant perception of faux “significance,”

knowing that some didn’t know the trick.

In less precise terms, it didn’t seem necessary for Genevieve to cross over as there was plenty of room for her to do any sort of imaginable aerial tricks right in El Dorado, without re-encountering the mongrel demons, now congregated or impounded, depending upon one’s outlook, in the dark of Kimrabort. Besides, her red balloon ceased to provide any more upward momentum; apparently content to hold onto its already lofty place.

But, she momentarily questioned her eyesight when she saw some other pooches cross the line; vague, amorphous, or irregular as it might be. “Why are you going back to the demons?” she said, in hopes of their turnaround.

She was answered with uniform replies of; “We are finally flying to the sun. Can’t you see?”

She almost made no reply; it being so obvious to her. As a possible middling approach, she held her meta ground, and mumbled; “Yes; but the light is right here, and I knew both Icarus and Phaethon. Can’t YOU see? The demons have leather wings and we are still just poor waxwings. And no one wants to be back with the demons, anyway.”

Thunder rang out, hollow and fierce as a lion’s extended growl after lunch on the warm rock at the zoo. It actually may

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not have, but Genevieve thought that it said; “The wise go through un-needed stop signs. Fools either stop at each or go through them all.”

Genevieve was elated to see that some other balloonists were quite happy to place their chosen perch near her chosen perch.

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