Here's the next page from my book of 99 Drawing Prompts. It looks like it's on its side, but it's not: that's just how I drew it. (By the way, I shared the previous page on March 8.) The prompt for this present one was "Red Riding Hood".
Dear diary,
I don’t mean to make you feel unlucky, but here’s the truth: I’m blessed with better neighbors than you. This is not a question of opinion — just look at the facts: What were YOUR neighbors doing yesterday? Answer: Stealing your television and poisoning your pet. But now consider what MY neighbors were doing yesterday. Well, first off, I don’t even have a neighbor on my right wing; so that’s kind of a plus, in the sense that no neighbors are better than bad neighbors. Yet consider the man who lives on the far side of our cherry blossom: he came over and shoveled our entire driveway yesterday, with his gas-powered snowblower. Here’s how it happened:
My sweetheart and I awoke to see the whole world covered in snow. So she strapped a canteen of brandywine round my neck, and we stepped out into the tundra. But before we could even open our garage to fetch our two shovels (the curvy one and the straight one, both with green blades), we were overcome by the noise of a motor — this was a foreshadowing of our neighbor’s appearance with his snowblower:
We stood at the nether part of our garage, looking outward. And the curb where our driveway meets the street was altogether on a smoke, because our neighbor had descended upon it with his motor-driven heavy-duty walk-behind two-stage snow-remover: and the flakes therefrom ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole earth quaked greatly. And the noise of the machine sounded long, and waxed louder and louder; for our neighbor was clearing a path directly up the center of our drive, and heading straight towards us. (Exodus 19:17-19)
Once he drew nigh to us, he waved. Then he began repeatedly pointing at his chest, by way of illustration, as he addressed us at the top of his voice, over the roaring of the engine:
This is heart-attack snow! I’ll clear your driveway with my snow-thrower! If you overexert yourself shoveling this snow, you’ll have a heart attack! It’s really heavy snow!
So this was very kind of our neighbor. He cleared our entire driveway in less than ten minutes. This freed up our morning and probably saved us both from having heart attacks.
Now the only problem with living in such a friendly neighborhood is that you end up with TONS of extra free-time after a blizzard. So then you’re strapped with the task of figuring out how best to spend your God-given windfall. Cuz, if you don’t get a good return on your investment, then, when Jesus finally comes back, he’ll chop off your head:
For the kingdom of heaven is like a Big Bank Boss travelling into a faraway land, who calls his employees together, and inflicts upon them the legal responsibility of administering his estate; cuz he doesn’t wanna deal with the headache of managing his own finances. So unto one of his servants he gives Five Golden Rings…
I should probably explain here that I’m changing the word “five talents”, which Matthew’s gospel uses to denote the Bankster’s divvied riches, to “Fi-i-i-i-ve Go-o-o-o-olden Ri-i-i-i-ings” in accordance with the sacred hymn known as Twelve Xmas.
“The Days of Christmas” is a carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand bribes given to a stateswoman on each of the days of this holy season by her lobbyist. The hymn was originally published in England in 1780, without music, as a chant or rhyme. Like Christ himself, the song is thought to be French in origin:
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love lent to me:
Twelve lords a-leaping
Twelve badgers baiting
Twelve ladies dancing
Twelve lads a-louping
Twelve fifers fifing
Twelve drummers drumming
Twelve asses canting
Twelve cocks a-crowing
Twelve men a-mowing
Twelve ships a-sailing
Twelve lambs a-bleating . . .
And then it tumbles down to all the other pre-teen characters in the numerical alphabet:
Eleven maids a-milking
Ten hares a-running
Nine swans a-swimming
Eight squabs a-jetting
Seven geese a-laying
Six ducks a-quacking
Five!!! Goldie!!! Rings!!!
[Deep breath; maybe yoga into corpse-pose for a few millennia]
Four colly birds
Three french hens,
Two turtle-doves,
And the brunt of a mistletoe bough.
Then comes the little-known second verse...
The King sent his Lady on the 13th Yule Day:
Self-sustaining stalks o’ merry corn,
A bull that was brown,
Three goldspinks,
Three starlings,
Three plovers,
& a pippin go aye;
Who learns my carol and carries it away?
[“Papingo-eyne” is a derogatory term for peacock or parrot.]
Lastly, the nonexistent 3rd verse:
Fifteen singing cockerels
Eleven silver dishes
Nine white pigeons
One horny oxen
Two carrion crows (a-biting)
Seven! Wind! Mills!
Six runnable stags
An Arabian baboon,
And five wooden branches.
Then this last verse ends with a riddle of genius that all but demands a satanic solution:
Who comes, who goes, who flies in the woods?
OK now lemme start over my parable so that you don’t miss any of its crucial details:
For the kingdom of heaven is like a Big Bank Boss who has decided to spend his semi-quarterly bonus on a vacation in a country far away. And this Big Bank Boss is a real asshole, so he calls his own employees into the conference room — that is, he summons his wage-slaves to a mandatory meeting (unpaid) — and delivers into their charge his limitless capital. Cuz he doesn’t wanna think about how to manage his money — that’s why the stupid Lower Class exists: you can just push them around and force them to do all your dirty work. So unto one of his employees he gives Five Golden Rings. To another, two turtle-doves. And to the last employee: a peacock upon a pear tree. To every man according to his several ability. And straightway the Bank Boss took his journey.
Then the Employee-of-the-Month who had received the “five goldie rings” traded them on the commodities market & made a profit of five rubies & five diamonds, also five sapphires & five emeralds & five pieces of silver, tungsten & bauxite. (Also five brass ferrules, which he stowed away for his faucet’s shut-off valves.)
Likewise he that had received two turtles and two doves, he also gained other two turtles and two doves as well, thus bringing the grand total to FOUR turtle-doves.
But he that had received just one measly parrot went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s property from the sight of the giant heavenly Eye of God. Which is pretty fuckt-up.
OK now here’s the part of the story where the Triune Bears return to their mansion and discover Goldilocks a-porn in all their beds.
So after a while the Big Bank Boss comes back with a vengeance to judge his believers harshly. He surfs down out of the clouds like slo-mo lightning in AD 2019 for the reckoning:
First, he that had received Five Gold Rings came and brought countless other gems of various color, clarity, cut, and carat — mined by genuine children from non-U.S. territories — and this employee said, “Boss, thou deliveredst unto me five caesars: now behold, I have swindled upwards of an hundredfold more.”
Therefore the Banskster says unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
He also that had received two turtle-doves came and said, “Big Bank Boss, thou deliveredst unto me just two turtle-doves; yet look here: I have caused a deep sleep to fall upon the creatures, and when they slept: I took one of the ribs out of each of them, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and these two rib bones, which I had taken from the principal specimens, both of which seemed vaguely male-ish, I refurbished into a whole new species, which I call “evil females”; and I brought these unto the menfolk, and they bore interest. So now I can pay back your loan — all my college debts, and my minivan; even my house! The only debt that I cannot repay is my medical bill. For all that turtle-dove surgery ain’t cheap. In short, I am bankrupt.”
And the Big Boss said unto him, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (I really like how you made those fowl creatures increase and multiply. For what God doesn't love a cockfight!)”
Then the wage-slave which had received only just the one partridge came and said, “Boss! Boss! I knew thee: I knew that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, so I went and hid thy investment in a mattress under the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine: one regular peacock in a juniper tree. Dead and risen.”
And the Bankster answered and said to his faithful servant, “Thou wicked and slothful wage-slave, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money in the STOCK MARKET, and then at my coming I should have received mine only begotten son back with succulent usury. (He should have had three children, at least; plus a house in the suburbs, two minivans, and a chicken in the slow-cooker. Then at middle-age we could grant him a heart-attack from shoveling snow. Cuz there’s no more crosses to crucify brown-nosers; so I’m forced to put my own goody two shoes in the stirrups of the electric chair.) Take therefore the partridge as well as that branch that he rode in on, and give the whole package unto Junior Executive Stevens here, who hath multiplied all my gems.”
And the Big Bank Boss then transitioned into the Moral of his Parable, and he continued in a loud voice, with regard to the ‘haves’ & the ‘have nots’ saying:
“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have ABUNDANCE: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath!” [Wanton laughter.]
Then in an extreme close-up, he speaks straight into the camera his ruthless conclusion:
“And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!!!!!!”
Here thunder cracks and the credits begin to roll, while the Big Boss continues to laugh maniacally. The song on the soundtrack is “Flip Bat”, a track from Mr. Oizo’s album Unreleased Unfinished Unpleasant. (Matthew 25:14-30)
What I’m trying to say is that I had to use my newfound free-time wisely, after my neighbor, in a random act of kindness, shoveled all the snow from our drive. So I decided to go out behind our house, to the back yard, and look at our roof; cuz we have these huge ice dams that formed on top of the shingles, due to all the heavy snowfall. And the snow in the yard was not just knee deep: it was THIGH DEEP. Because it reached to my thigh, just like the thigh-high boots that all those damsels were sporting in my dream — I’m referring to that dream that won the Best Dream Award last night, where all the damsels were wearing shiny boots: if I remember right, it’s title was Miniskirt Sans Undergarment (2019). It was a pretty good dream.
Anyway so I started out just using a standard ice chopper tool, and I banged at the sides of the dam, which was about as thick as the measurement of King David’s hand (not the side but from wrist to fingertip). Or actually it was like two hands thick. So at first only the icicles fell, cuz they were not very well anchored to the structure. But then I eventually learned how to chip with the tool straight upwards — cuz the dams were overhanging the fascia by about a nail’s length (using the King’s fingernail as a measurement unit); and lo, the vast icy nuisance began to lift free!
So then all this ice came crashing down from the roof, directly at me: huge sheets of double-hand thick ice, extremely deadly, attempting to chase me down and kill me. Or at least knock me unconscious and bruise my face. But thankfully I escaped. I dodged out of the path of the falling ice, by flinching backwards and flailing my arms like a ninny.
Then, once the entire ice dam was removed, my sweetheart helped me heft its fragmented remains into the mid-northern expanse of our backyard. So now we have like five or six flat arcs from our icy obstruction protruding vertically from our thigh-deep snow: it looks like the crash-landed Millennium Falcon from Star Wars (1977), torn in tatters. It also kinda looks like Stonehenge. So I kept joking that these enormous pieces of ice would remain unmelted even after the winter, and they’d still be here in our backyard after thousands of years have passed, so that the disembodied brains of futurity would stare at them wide-eyed & glug (they glug or bubble their speeches, rather than voice them, cuz they live in clear, ambulant jar-vats filled with vodka): “What were our ancestors thinking when they built this nymphaeum to Prometheus? Didn’t they understand that he bequeathed us the fire of creativity, which he earned as a dividend from Big Boss Bankster Baal, so that we could burn this planet up and purify everything? I wonder why our hominid precursors were so...”
(I can’t decide which word to end this with, so I’ll end with no word.)
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