Hotly pursuing a bauble

I'm sure you'll be glad to know that I just finished composing the next episode of BRYAN THE TYGER. In this chapter, my soul-mate Myala the Black Panther joins me in chasing after the ghost of a deceased jellyfish.

[I got tired of graffiti-ing tygers onto junk ads, so, for the next few days, the obligatory images that accompany these announcements will be just lazy attempts at hand-drawing copies of ad photos with felt tip marker.]

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 Thirty-Nine

In the previous episode, one jellyfish that was born from two female virgin magdalenes learned how to breathe fresh air (as opposed to saltwater) and then the heavens filled with fighter jets and attacked this creature — they scorned it and spat bullets upon it and mocked it; they even took photos of it, from the cockpits of their airplanes, using their mobile phone-cams; and they superimposed upon each image a crown of seaweed, and then uploaded every pic onto the Internet, captioning them sarcastically “Oceanic Imperatore” (this, by the way, is why I, Bryan the Tyger, destroyed all aircraft from off the face of the Earth, in the pre-lava days, before the planet became Orangutan Land: cuz I just KNEW that the present conundrum would occur — for further details, see whatever earlier chapter depicts that smoky event where I demolished all the planes); whereupon, after crying with a loud voice, the jellyfish gave up the ghost. I repeat, all of these evils occurred in the prior epi­sode (I’m giving a recap because much of my audience reads my annals out of order); therefore, in today’s episode, we plan on chasing the shade of this deceased air-dwelling sea-beast to its eternal resting-place.

“Lo, about seven meters yonder floats the bluish phantom form of the now-slain jellyfish!” I remark to Myala while pointing with my forepaw.

“There is a good chance,” Myala replies, “that it shall attempt to fly to Sheol; therefore, let us trail him.”

So, at all times, we keep a safe distance between us and the shade, because we do not want to frighten it — for Myala and I never forget that we are jungle beasts, and most living creatures instinctively cower in our presence, even after they have died.

First the sea-jelly ghost dashes out into a five-lane highway and sprints between two yellow race-cars that sport red wheels. We dash forth and nearly miss getting run over.

Thus we successfully pass the first of five lanes of traffic.

Now the second lane contains large frightening tractors, metallic in color, with sharp spikes aimed outwards that are attached to the grill of their face. These fang-like protrusions remind us of teeth: they’re like the jaws of a mechanical shark. “My guess is that these tractors use their barbed blades for scooping hay on farms,” I roar over the roaring traffic. And Myala replies: “Yes, they are most likely driving to their respective plantations this very moment, which is why the second lane of this highway contains no other type of vehicle — it must be their industry’s rush hour.”

The jellyfish phantom deftly maneuvers between two of these slow-moving tractors, successfully making it from the second to the third lane of the confusing superhighway; and we felines follow after, barely managing to avoid being impaled upon the spikes.

The third lane is populated by fat purple-pink SUVs (sports utility vehicles), and the fourth lane has race-cars that resemble the first lane’s vehicles (in that they sport large red wheels), except their frames are all white in hue instead of margarine-yellow; moreover, they’re traveling in the opposite direction. — Then the fifth and final lane of the superhighway contains nothing but Freightliners: “trucks that mean business” (as their slogan declares). These heavyweight motorized vehicles are engineered to bring the folks who work in the freight business the most fuel-efficient, reliable way to perform long-haul shipping operations across the heartland of America. They all appear to be pulling lengthy trailers, which are painted plain white, while driving very, very fast.

So the sea-jelly’s shade hovers past all the impediments above, by ducking and diving betwixt these manifold obstacles (which are all speeding, by the way, as well as practicing the technique of distracted driving, wherein the pilot of each vehicle is either drunk, asleep, or paying zero attention to the road before her, because she is staring instead at her mobile computing device and responding to an instant message from her current lover: a small-town schoolteacher named Annie Hayworth who has just sent a breathtaking self-portrait exposing her womanhood, accompanied by the inscription “For Your Eyes Only”), and we jungle beasts avoid becoming roadkill by chasing responsibly the phantom jellyfish through this locale.

Yet, before we actually arrive in Sheol proper, we reach the other side of the road. The river Styx stands between this five-lane superhighway that we just navigated and the ex-jelly’s eternal destination. There are turtles as well as logs of varying sizes floating both with and against the current. And we almost lose track of our subject, at this point, because my attention wanders over to a saint whom I notice is feeding some pigs in a nearby pen. So I maul this man. (He is chicken-flavored, like West Highland White Terrier.)

Now Myala ejaculates: “Why’d you do that! The poor fellow did not even get a chance to make his confession, therefore he dies with his sins intact and will undoubtedly be damned!”

I answer: “But he was casting pearls to swine.”

Myala rolls her eyes. “PEARS,” she howls, “with no el: not pearls! Plus you know that he stole them from that vineyard over there,” (she points with her paw) “because we all just saw him do it, while we were dodging between the semi-trucks and tractors; so it’s certain that his soul remained besmirched with sin at the moment of death. Thus he might end up on our own island of Eternity.”

Yet now I’m saved from further reprimands by the impatience of our sea-jelly’s runaway ghost: “Look!” I shout, “it’s leaping onto a turtle!”

Myala turns and gasps: “Let’s pounce!”

So we soar forth and land on the shells of two of the other turtles that are floating downstream next to the trio that the jellyfish shade chose to stow away upon. And just when our turtles begin to dive down under the water, which threatens to drown us, we leap to safety and land on one of the series of short logs that luckily happen to be floating by. (There is apparently a logging operation or a sawmill upstream from here.) And, from this short log, we chase the jellyfish’s ghost to a longer log, and then to another set of turtles — this time it’s a pair, not a trio — after which we reach a medium-sized log, and then we follow the shade to its home, which is a cozy den at the top of Sheol, in the fifth heaven.

Without thinking, we pounce and spring at the mouth of this den directly after the jelly shade enters, so the moment the phantom is making itself at home, it turns around and shrieks in fright to see that it has two visitors already: a Burning Tyger and a Glowing Black Panther.

“Are you here to eat me?” asks the ex-jellyfish. “I just moved in and haven’t even had time to tidy up. Plus I don’t think that I taste very good, because I’m made for saltwater, but I’ve been out in the fresh air too long — you’ll probably need to add a lot of spices and seasonings.”

“Peace, be calm,” I lay my paw on the quivering jelly. “I’m accustomed to eating all sorts of creatures, and although I do have a proclivity for high cuisine, I can find something enjoyable about pretty much anything that is edible. (I ate hotdogs like popcorn, all thru the scene where we met our maker.) So I don’t think that you will pose much of a problem, as long as you promise not to shock me.”

The little sea-jelly points one of its tentacles at Myala: “Is she dining too? Should I divide myself into separate servings, and have my deity split the bill?”

I turn to Myala: “Do you wanna share this meal?”

“No, I’m fine,” she sez. “I’ll pass. I snacked on a gold amphibian that I found on that longer log, while we were navigating the Styx. Go ahead — this fellow’s all yours,” Myala nods at the jellyfish and smiles compassionately.

“Thanks!” I say. Then I turn to the sea-jelly and quote a verse from the Gospel of Thomas:

Blessed is the jellyfish that the Burning Tyger devours so that the jellyfish becomes a Burning Tyger.

Then I suck the sea-jelly up. And immediately my body burns with the intensity of ten thousand suns, and it sends off electric jags of lightnings into the atmosphere, because the jellyfish shade has shocked me. He played a trick on me and was dishonest about allowing himself to be sacrificed when he was already dead. But I am relieved to find that this does not ruin my reputation as the most fearful among all hypostases who are symmetrical. When the ordeal is over, I exclaim:

“Zow! that was intense — but it did not kill me; it only made me stronger.”

So this here story should be taught to children in order to get them to understand that they needn’t shy away from facing scary situations; for, often, we discover that the worst outcome, which we feared the most, is the one that proves true; but even death is not the problem: on the contrary, once you’ve expired, you cannot stop the world from burdening you with rebirth. Thus, actually, death kinda IS the problem, because it leads forward life and does not wait at the end to arrest it; and, instead of sticking around and giving us comfort from the cold and tedious world that afflicts us daily with newfangled atrocities, death always ceases the moment life appears.