I have a little friend named Rachel, who's eight years old and writes the most tremendous stories. She has a great control of the language, creative spelling, and long, tangled storylines that all come to one singular resolution: Whenever Rachel runs out of plot, she simply kills off everyone in the story.
Abruptly.
"So... then Timmy and Bart and their dog ran into a rock and died. The End."
In our last couple of days in Hawaii before the move back to California, the GM1 and I thought we should take a bus tour, since we'd never bothered before.
Our driver, Jerry, was channeling Rachel that day.
We took the tour that went to the Arizona Memorial, up to Punchbowl Cemetery, and then circled back down to downtown Waikiki through some of the scenic neighborhoods. Jerry warned us when we started out that he wasn't going to follow the usual script, but that he wanted to "just talk" to us.
Not really enough warning, as it turned out.
Jerry had a little decision-making disorder. He couldn't decide if he were one of god's chosen people by virtue of being Hawaiian, or if he were one of the saddest, most underprivileged of all people, being Hawaiian. His spiel throughout the day swerved from pinnacle to ditch... he was overjoyed to be a native, a special person blessed with that most perfect life- living Hawaiian, which as far as he was concerned was a group superior to all other life forms. Ditchwise, he was a poverty-stricken, economically disadvantaged wretch, barely scrapping by on the mere pittance he grovelled from his humble life as a native Hawaiian.
He'd driven heads of state and descendents of royalty, who had chosen him because he was 100% pure blood Hawaiian native. He'd sucked the eyeballs from octopii he'd caught while fishing to make ends meet.
We got the feeling it was all at the same time.
Jerry had a dangerous superiority complex coupled with an overwhelming desire to guilt all the tips he could out of his captive audience.
Jerry also refused to stop for bathroom breaks.
As we drove from landmark to landmark, Jerry told us of how Governor So-and-So built this mansion for his lovely bride and their son, ending it "and then he died." So Widow Governor raised her son to become Territorial Attorney, but "then she died." Sonny inherited, but "then, suddenly, he died" as did the priest who built the biggest church downtown but on the eve of its first service "he all at once died." And that monument over there, the big golden warrior? The sculptor never saw it in place because "then he died."
By the time we hit Chinatown, the entire bus was chanting in unison at the end of every Jerry sentence "then he died. Then he died. THEN HE DIED!"
Yep, the tour bus of death.
As luck would have it, the GM1 and I were the first ones off the bus, and we tipped Jerry nicely, considering. The last we saw of Jerry, he was swerving out into traffic, crying over his gratuity.
And then he died.
just kidding
Ah yes...but you will always remember that tour, yes?
My dad used to tell me my bedtime story that way. Not a patient man, invariably my bedtime story was "A man was born, he lived, and he died".
And people wonder why I am a fatalist!
Posted by: h at October 8, 2003 12:53 AMHow I wish Little Dude's stories would occasionally end abruptly.
Just you wait, LeeAnn. One of these days, you'll be subjected to a story of his. You'll have to teach him the special ending.
Posted by: Da Goddess at October 8, 2003 08:49 PMAt least Three Wooden Crosses left a hooker to read the blood-stained bible to her kiddo.
Posted by: O. F. Jay at October 11, 2003 03:30 PMJay, you win. I'm confused.
Intrigued, but confused.
I take it back, I found the reference.
Jerry had a theme song and didn't even know it.