At long last we abandon the Oz-theme

I didn't plan on getting a new section written for my BRYAN THE TYGER text, but it happened, so I'm sharing it. I still reserve the right to take a day off sometime soon, like tomorrow; cuz I'm pretty burnt-out.

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

Chapter Twenty-Five

So now we all go stand in the middle of Money City, surrounded by mobs of unknown businesspeople; and none of these suits have mended their ways (nothing ever really changes). There is a hot air balloon in the midst of this crowd. The Wizard has called for a ceremony to see us all off, including himself; for he is joining us on this trip. The balloon is scheduled to float to the Chankly Bore, which, for more than a century, has been the home of my friends the Emilies: Dickinson and Brontë. Dorothy Gale is coming, too, along with my soul-mate, Myala the Black Panther, and I Bryan the Tyger – we’re all packed in the basket.

Ms. Dickinson gives the burners fuel, and the balloon starts rising. We wave to the businesspeople below, and they wave back and shout cheerful salutations as if we all care about each other.

§

Once we’re out of eyeshot of the mob, Myala turns to the Wizard and sez:

“I’m sorry, but there’s an instinct that I just can’t continue to repress; it’s reached the point where more energy would be required to keep holding myself back than to indulge in action.”

So Myala mauls the Wizard.

Now that the man is bloody meat on the wicker floor, Myala looks up at me and sez: “Care to partake?”

I eagerly join her.

Immediately after beginning to feast, however, we both stop and look around momentarily to inquire if any of our fellow travelers, who we’ve grown to think of as our family, have any appetite for this. They all politely decline; except for Ms. Brontë, who sez that, altho she’s not hungry, she’ll try part of a leg.

“How do you like it?” I ask, not being able to read Ms. Brontë’s expression.

“It’s pretty good,” she sez, nodding approval.

§

We glide slowly over the most beautiful landscapes. First we get to look at the rainbow moun­tains in China and Peru. Then, as it’s on the way, we admire a bird’s-eye view of Venice, Italy: that floating city with all of its gondolas and canals. And, at about five o’clock, a big breeze blows us back to Peru again, and we hover over Machu Picchu for a really long time. — At last, we glide past Japan during cherry-blossom season.

Soon we find that we’re floating over our own gray castle in the German Alps. Now, Emily Dickinson, who has been piloting our craft, fixes the controls so that the hot air balloon remains stationary in the heavens, and she addresses us giant mutant felines:

“Myala and Bryan, do two you want to accompany us all the way back to the Chankly Bore, or were you thinking about jumping off here and landing in your moat?”

Unlike Myala, I am genuinely offended: “It’s not a moat — moats are discolored, plus they stink. The sight below is of the clear waters surrounding our castle’s peninsula. The only reason it resembles a moat is that we have populated it with sharks and leviathans. (We own all three of the world’s leviathans, incidentally.)”

“Accept my apologies,” Emily Dickinson bows in a way that may or may not be sincere, while sporting a Mona-Lisa smirk; “now, would you like to jump out of the hot air balloon or not?”

“Bry,” Myala is poised with her Panther-paws on the basket-rim, “c’mon, let’s go.”

“Alright,” I turn and salute both Emilies and their new friend Miss Gale with my massive, mighty forepaw, “we’ll certainly come back and visit you for many upcoming episodes, as Myala and I continue our endless adventures.”

And now, before skydiving home, I turn to Dorothy and say:

“Miss Gale, I hope that you enjoy the Chankly Bore. Just think of how important this is for you: like Dante the Pilgrim, you’ll be this land’s first visitor to have circumvented the inconvenience of death. Also, like Dante the Pilgrim, you are a fictional character.”

Miss Gale steps forward with tear-filled eyes and hugs me: “And I hope that you turn out to be a good novelist,” she sez, “when I wake up from my dream.”

I nudge Judy with my Tyger-nose, “May we never wake up.” Then, turning to Myala, I shout: “Let’s go!”

So I Bryan the Tyger and my better half Myala the Black Panther dive down into the sky. As we hurtle earthward, we can see the border of Austria below. We are falling so fast that we appear as fireballs to those who are watching from the ground. We’re like two shooting stars.

Cannonballing straight upon the water, we displace much of its volume: some of it splashes into outer space, and some of it instantaneously boils off as fog. Moreover, the sharks that were playing nearby get tossed a great distance into the upper atmosphere: they wiggle in midair until they ker-PLISH back down again. (This is fun for us all.)

“Sorry about the drastically rapid depletion of your ocean’s water level,” I remark to the aquatic inhabitants of our peninsula, while climbing ashore: “I’ll call someone to give you a free refill, ASAP.”

And tomorrow morning I’m able to get a hold of a good detective who comes over and fixes the broken spigot on our castle’s shore-side faucet; then he uses a hose to top off the pond.

§

“Zephyros! Nous!” Myala and I call to Zephyros and Nous, our kitty-cat castle-mates.

“You’re back!” Nous prances forward alone.

“Yes, but not for long,” I warn her. “We have many more adventures that we’re itching to go on. But we’ll stay here for at least a couple nights. — What have you all been doing?”

“Well, Zephyros and I chased a ball of twine and made it unroll until it fell into the water. Then one of the sharks started sipping it up like a spaghetti-noodle. So that was weird.”

“Wow,” I feign interest; “so was the shark able to reel in the entire ball?”

“Yeah, he ate the whole thing,” sez Nous; “that’s why we don’t have any more twine. But, in the meantime, we’ve been playing with the empty cardboard box that the twine was shipped in. So that’s been educational.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” I pat little Nous upon her noggin with my mighty forepaw; “you’ll eventually unlearn whatever you learn. And if the shark that ate your ball of string ever dies, then we’ll most likely see twine listed among the ingredients of its stomach when we read the autopsy report. And if you decide to reclaim this item from the morgue, then it might have a unique new scent from that day forward.”

“Myala! Myala!” little Zephyros now comes dashing into the scene.

I frown: “You greet Myala first, even tho I Bryan the Tyger am the one who rescued you from housepettery?”

Zephyros looks up, shocked and ashamed: “Oh, I’m sorry! Hello, Bryan. I’m glad you’re here too. I just greeted Myala first because she’s gentler.”

After growling for a while, I say: “That’s OK, I understand. I’m a ferocious jungle beast, whereas Myala’s the mother of all life; so it’s understandable that you’d be more eager to see her than to see me.”

Then we all spend the rest of the night chasing fireflies.