CHALLENGE THE SECOND FROM THE GIANT SQUID, EDITOR-IN-ABSENTIA OF HIS POOR MOJO’S ALMANAC(K) AND RELATED LITERARY CONCERNS
My Dearest and Devoted Scribblerians and Writorios,
I text in haste, and I fear without sufficient care for, I am exhausted: Today, I am to be transfered from the relative comforts of my tiled tank here in the Directorate’s tower to either the primary or sous-kitchen, so that I might be butchered and yet live again, first as sashimi, then as handrolls, then as calimari, then as taco salad, then as “seafood medley,” and finally as some abomination which Boggins reports Gustav has called “meatloaf surprise.”
Thus, it should shock none that I suffered some measure of insomnia this past evening, passing the night in the company of Lida, who throughout the thin and gruesome hours stroked my tentacles and helped me dream of the life that we might have together, were I not destined for the chafing dish. Together we fantasized in great detail of our frontier life upon the prairies, she in her bonnet, me in my homespun, steam-powered velocitational suit, the bright and life-giving sun lending my brass fittings a warm glow as I cut the sod for our house, set the timbers for our barn, and dismembered the still quivering and lowing cows for our dinners. Meanwhile, Lida would spin us fine angora wool from our many angora cats, which we would then weave into angora nets, and use to scoop up the delicious angora children from the neighboring angora villages, so that she might school them in the finer points of general literacy, poetic license, and flower-identification and pressing, prior to my spit-roasting them and selling their meats to nearby encampments of zombie Confederate soldiers, gathered to repel the onslaught of clockwork Union infantrymen come to staunch the flow of our dear Bleeding Kansas.
But, Dear Readers, note that it is not the exhaustion of my long night of “could have beens” with Lida that makes my time so short this morning, for just moments ago my fair mistress and hostess excused herself to “powder the room.” When I heard the door creak again, revealing creeping, and undeniably creepy, Mr. Boggins accompanied by none others than several members of my troupe of francophonic chimps long in my employ!
“I wired your monkeys,” Boggins said simply, “They’ve got your walking suit tip-top and coming up to steam, and are prepared to haul it most of the way to you, then you the rest of the way to it.”
“My Mr. Boggins!” I did exclaim, “Why, I am somewhat indebted to you, I imagine!”
“Yup,” Boggins said simply. “I figure I’ll let Ethelie and Gustav think that Lida let you slip away, and then find a way to get her out of the mess, and in the end she’ll fall in love with me.”
I must have looked dubious, for he then added, “There’s still details to work on.” I opened my beak–despite my best interests–intent on helping Mr. Boggins realize just how many details he might be hoping will sort themselves out when my chimp Claude taped on the face of the fine chronometer strapped to his hirsute wrist, and I took his meaning: It was time for us to make our exeunt, with all due celerity.
And so it is I live to write another day.
DEAR READER-WRITERS, I ENJOIN YOU:
Take a moment, for a moment is all you have, to very gently explain to a very lovely confidant why you have abandoned her to her no-doubt complicated fate. Time yourself; pen for no more than seven minutes, revise for exactly three, and work ardently to leave her heart intact . . . now WRITE! GO!
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Poor Mojo’s Giant Squid writes his weekly advice columns and ongoing memoir from Detroit, MI, publishing these at www.squid.poormojo.org. He is aided in this endeavor by the Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k) editorial team: Morgan Johnson, David Erik Nelson, and Fritz Swanson.
Felicitations on your escape. I wish you all success fulfilling your dreams with Lida. Truly, you seem a Well Matched Pair. Unfortunately, I fear you will be delayed by yet another Fantastic Adventure. I breathlessly await future Recountings.
Although yet to traverse the Wild and Dilemma-torn Landscapes through which your excercises so Clearly signpost, I commend you on their fOcus and cLarity. So much of my writing lacks one individual trying desperately to affect change in another. These challenges thrust directly to the heart of this Weakness, and I’m sure if I had sufficient time left over after making excuses for not writing, I would attempt them.
A recent subscriber, I am delighted to find this youthful, but already patinaed-with-age, strict disciplinarian of a site. I feel it will meet certain needs… My skill at Judicious Capitalisation has already developed and may become Staple.