Archive for the ‘Kat Beyer’ Category
Monkeypants
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
On my planet, “Monkeypants” is not just a loving nickname. We have these tiny monkeys that will just crawl right up into your pants. I’m not kidding! Listen, really. Mature adult females are about as long as your forefinger, tail included, and mature adult males are just slightly longer and have bigger shoulders.
The babies are maybe about as big as a knuckle by the time they are allowed to leave the pocket, and if you have got pant monkeys breeding in your trousers, you are in big trouble, because the babies will scamper around a lot and play with each other like crazy, and you will spend the whole day jumping around and barking. And let me tell you, if you happen to be a member of the Pan-Planetary Parliament and you’re trying to give an important speech on upper canopy financing and about three tens of baby monkeys start playing “Chase the Martian” up your inseams, well, let’s just say that the top fifth of your forests might not see much chlorophyll funding that day.
And there’s nothing like having to jump up and down squeaking and jittering while trying to give a serious government speech to ruin your credibility. Although, fortunately, the voters in my quindrant thought it was hilarious and sweet.
You can’t kill them to get rid of them, for sure. That would be awful anyway. They are so cute, with their big googly eyes and their soft, soft fur. If you pet them (carefully, with one finger) they spread out flat in the palm of your paw and you can feel their tiny heartbeat tickling against your pads. My friend Nicholas from Earth says that all mammals call to each other, and when I look down at my tiny relations running all over my imported Levis, I can only agree.
The Walnut Tree (from a Farmer in South Carolina)
Monday, July 30th, 2007
My mother never minded that I didn’t believe in ghosts. She patiently told me about each one on our farm, from the old man that walked with her and pointed to the ripest carrots and beets, to the woman who giggled in the rafters when the rain was coming. Some were long-dead friends and relations, others helpful strangers. According to her there were even two twins who guarded all the chickens and ducks. They came by one October night after the war was over, and stayed, and no fox or raccoon ever got one of our birds again. My mother left the twins two bowls of cereal every full moon.
“Easiest time for them to see my gifts,” she explained, “their eyesight isn’t so good.”
She taught me what each ghost liked and went on letting me laugh and tease and shake my head.
Stopped laughing about a year after she passed away. Saw the old man for the first time the summer after she went, and he walked the rows with me in the dusk. I apologized for not leaving out his pipe tobacco as she had instructed, but he just smiled and shook his head as if he understood. She always said he never spoke.
A few nights later I asked him, just before I hoisted the basket to my shoulder and went to fetch the kids, would Mama come back too, to help? And he smiled and pointed at an old walnut tree and nodded. Right now I think she’s traveling the world, but I’ll look for her to settle there when she’s ready.