Reaching the coast was the culmination of a grueling trek across America. They had suffered untold hardships and deprivations – sitting in a wagon for hours on end, sweating bucketloads in the western heat, setting up camp in dreadful conditions and forced to use putrid outhouses. And No TV. It was a route full of sacrifices. We had survived.
The team of explorers took the coast route while the adults chose the path through the woods to a rendezvous point at the water’s edge. I was the youngest taking up the rear position in our line, checking out the trail as we “bushwhacked” along the beach. Our footsteps caused hidden mollusks to squirt in fright, as they burrowed deeper into the ooze. Startled ravens swooped from their perches in the ancient firs, their wings flapped ominously over our heads. We were not deterred. We moved forward.
When my parents lived in Kabul (1973-75) they commissioned an art piece on metal, by a truck artist in Kabul. The piece was approximately 8’x 3’. My brother inherited the piece. I wanted to see if it was possible to have another piece done, as a reflection of this original work.
Through a gallery in Toronto, Canada, my wife made contact with an artist, Haidir Ali, from Karachi, Pakistan. He was willing to produce the work on metal using my drawing as a guide. I took several elements from the original painting, and added a few others to complete the piece.
And within a couple of months, the painting arrived. Memories remain strong.
So some exaggeration is definitely permissible in the craft of storytelling and Ursa was to make the most of that artistic license. She and Suzette had agreed that for the sake of their respective species, this was a legitimate technique. No harm was done. They were survivors of a trial by fire (and consumed plenty of marshmallows). They had every right to spin a yarn.
Calm was restored in the Park universe. Suzette and Ursa swore to break away from Nietzsche’s heaviness of eternal recurrence, get in touch with their own lightness of being and begin self-creation.
Moonstruck! Both Wild Things, while challenging each other to dueling trash talk, had been caught in the vortex of energy, a vortex spotlighted by the full Western Moon. It had been orgasmic…in a platonic inter-species sort of way. They panted in a syncopated rhythm. Their hearts pounded and reverberated off the trash cans with a Gene Krupa beat.
Suzette and Ursa were totally in the moonlit moment, inspired by the strength of their genuine convictions. Fur flew…metaphorically speaking, as they launched into their adversary with barbs more piquant than hot chili sauce on tender lips.
Whittoons 