Tyger terminus

I could continue indefinitely writing new adventures for my fake novel BRYAN THE TYGER, but I'm itching to do something new and even less structured, so I ended this text.

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 Fifty

A loud, high-pitched buzzing now slams onto the soundtrack. “Do you hear that?” I say to Myala.

“Yeah, that buzzing noise?”

I nod: “My hypothesis is that all the mosquitoes of this galaxy have decided to unite and attack the squirrels and the crows.”

Myala needs to yell her answer in order to be heard over the constant, swelling buzz: “Why would they do that?”

“Cuz those are some of my favorite suburban creatures,” I roar, “and whatever bungling deceiver invented this world desires to annihilate me; but, since one cannot destroy what never was created (as you and I are eternal beings who have simply always existed), this cosmic antago­nist is attempting the next best thing, which is to torment and slay all the folks who are closest to my heart.”

Myala gasps: “How awful!” Then she rises up on all fours in indignation. “Let’s right this wrong.”

So we jump down off of our divans and sprint straight at the buzz. We see dense clusters of these annoying parasites burdening the air . . .

“Hungry clouds swag on the deep.” (I quote a line from William Blake.)

Every squirrel in the vicinity is being mobbed and sucked at by the proboscises[*] of these insects. And all the crows are being swarmed upon as well, so that each one no longer looks like a slick black beautiful bird but more like a crow-shaped blob of bugs. This raises my ire.

“There’s too many insects to fight them off mano-a-mano; which is to say, individually, in a separate battle with each mosquito,” I shout to Myala; “so, I’ll need to expend what remains of my cat-lives, in sacrifice, to effect a worldwide slaughter. That’s the only way to stop this Armageddon. Now, if I remember right, I should still have seven lives remaining of my original nine, since I spent one to save the Albatross that they strapped you with, and then another was paid as the price to visit Sheol (in the Frogger Chapter). Hmm . . . if my math is correct, that should leave me with just one life to live, after the price of Total Species Cancellation is extracted from my account. I sure hope I have not miscalculated, for that would leave me in the embarrassing predicament of dying without ever having been born. So I hope I’m not forgetting any time, other than our episode with the sea jelly, when I visited the underworld or the afterlife. (I really need a better way to keep track of my spiritual capital. This dishonest two-book accounting method is liable to leave me tangled in my own web.)”

Myala thinks for a moment; then sez: “Can’t we just use the phaser gun that we confiscated from Balaam?”

I pause for a beat and my eyes widen: “Good idea!”

So I take the laser shooter out of my shoulder holster and look at its side display panel, which shows the number of shots that remain.

“I’ve only got three tries to make this work,” I shout.

“How do you know that?” asks Myala.

I hold up the side of the gun so that she can see it: “It sez clearly, on its digital neon display, how many laser beams are left. See the number ‘3’, under the glass there?”

Myala cranes forward to observe this info: “Huh. That reminds me of the alarm clock that we bought for Nous and Zephyros” she sez; “except the numerals on their kitty-clock are red, where­as this is lime-green.”

We pause and think for a while about our castle-mates. Both of us feel a bit guilty for having left them back at home while going on adventure after adventure without them.

“Well,” I refocus our attention on the mission at hand, “should I try blasting these insects away, now?”

“Do it!” sez Myala.

So I aim the phaser gun at the first crow-shaped swarm of bugs, and I pull the trigger. A burst of light emits from the barrel of the firearm, and the insects get sizzled. A slick, black crow emerges from the puff of smoke with all its beautiful feathers intact.

“Caw!” it sez, which means “Thank you for granting me salvation.”

Then I shoot two more times, thereby freeing a nearby squirrel and another fine crow.

“Well, I’m all out of ammo,” I shout to Myala over the blaring buzz while shrugging. “Should we give up now?”

She shakes her head in bewilderment. The high-pitched whine of the mosquitos is deafening loud (there are still quintillions left) as they continue to agonize countless crows and squirrels.

“If you have no other idea, I’m going with Plan B,” I say; “or, rather, my original Plan A, before you got the bright idea of using the laser gun.”

“Do you really wanna go full lex talionis?” Myala exclaims.

“It’s the only thing that can work,” I say. “The mosquito prophecy of Deuteronomy 19:20 . . .

Those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you: For thy mind shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, paw for paw: vampyre for vampyre.

“And since just one of my Tyger-souls is worth umpteen insect-souls, and I have roughly seven cat-lives left in the cylinder — or in the basket, if you’d prefer to avoid another gun metaphor and think of my fund as eggs instead of bullets — then I should be able to take a chance and spend my­self for vast returns, by simply adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, and then asking the sky to come down to my good will, and scattering it freely forever. Rinse and repeat, till the bugs are all gone.”

Myala is still shaking her head: “If you think it might work, go ahead and give it a try — I’m loath to doubt anything pataphysical.”

So I spend all my lives, sacrificing them to solve the mosquito plague. Thus the crows and squirrels get saved, and I render the Solar System trouble-free.

The bad news is that (as feared) this miracle ended up costing more vim than I possessed in this dimension. However, NOTE: this was not on account of a miscalculation — for it turned out that I had more than enough souls to cover the price of mosquito extermination — it was due instead to the fact that I got overzealous and decided, in mid-sacrifice, to rid the world not only of that particular type of pest but of absolutely all parasites; this means that now there no longer exist even any wood-ticks or bankers, etc. . . .

So I ended up proving that a being who predated existence and was never even created can indeed be destroyed. At first, I admit, this made me throw a tantrum; but now, since I’ve found a channel that was able to record my true mem­oirs, I’m proud of what I did — for at least the fluke lacked precedent.

§

I guess I’ll conclude by doing one of those things where the storyteller informs her audience about what happened to each of her story’s most important characters, after the main hero dies happily ever after . . . And, tho I’m not sure if this is the proper word (my forepaw is too mighty to turn the pages of any dictionary), I will call it a “denouement”.

DENOUEMENT

Myala brooded over the passing of my immortal life for seven eternities; an act that became known among us spirit-beasts as Une semaine de bonté (“A week of kindness”). Then she went back to Jupiter.