Will Wright’s Kinda Like

So I had a parody fall apart – no I don’t want to talk about it. It’s Wednesday night, and I have no post for Just Plain Stupid for Thursday morning.

The Rug (which is actually not a person, but an old hairpiece,) my old partner in the show, Headley and the Rug (and Cral) offered a bit he did about Swiss cheese. Stanley McFarland – a man who mistakenly thinks he has a sense of humor, offered me a poem from his book, Confessions of a Protestant link - (there’s a real knee-slapper.)

You might see each of these offerings in future posts, but luckily for you, Will Wright offered an actually good story from his chapbook, Salt for the Journey link . It’s also available, as is so much of the short fiction and commentary of Go Figure Reads writers, on the official blog of Go Figure Reads – Junk Drawer. Junk Drawer

Of course it’s good because I helped him write it…

Kinda Like…

by Will Wright

It’s kinda like this

Imagine a hamster

He spends all day in a converted fish aquarium

He’s is left alone

Except for two five minute periods a day

When some giant says a few meaningless words

Does a few chores

And replaces the water and food pellets

The rest of the day

He’s on his own

Now there’s only one interesting thing in his cage

The running wheel

Not surprisingly, the hamster starts to run

He runs because he likes to run

He runs because there’s nothing else to do

He keeps running

Even when he needs to poop

He runs

It doesn’t matter

The poop falls right through the wheel

And lands on the floor

The hamster keeps running

He poops again

And keeps running

Running, running poop running poop

After a while

He looks down

He thinks

“Hey, that’s kind of interesting

When the poop falls through the wheel

It looks different than regular poop

It’s in an odd pattern

I wonder if I can do this

On purpose”

For the rest of the day

The hamster runs

And poops

With a purpose

Sometimes he moves to one side of the wheel

Sometimes to the other

He tries it while running extra fast

He tries it while walking

The pattern gets more and more interesting

When he has to eat and drink

He’s really careful getting down from the wheel

He doesn’t want to disturb the pattern

Just as the sun goes down

The giant returns

He grunts in human speech

“Gee, you sure made a mess today!”

He takes the paper from the bottom of the cage

And rolls it up carefully

He puts down new paper

And gives the hamster

Water and pellets

The giant leaves

The hamster lies exhausted

He looks at the clean paper

He looks at the food and water

And he finally understands

“He gave me food and water for my pretty pattern

He put down more paper for a new pattern

I must be an artist!

I’m underpaid”

Here's a hamster with a different "skill."