From waterworld to wonderland

Dear diary,

So after the giant kangaroo from outer space has been wrangled back to its home galaxy by Enoch Metatron, my assistant Tara and I decide to live in a treehouse. 

Everything goes fine for a while. We drink tea and converse with our family of stuffed animals. But then, just as prophesied, the Local Flood of Noah makes an appearance.

“Uh oh,” I say, looking over my shoulder at the Standing Waters outside, while holding my teacup to the snout of a nameless stuffed bear, “it looks like our Noah Doll was right — there really IS going to be a Local Flood.”

“What should we do?” sez Tara. “Should I grab the shotgun?” she rises and takes the shotgun from the rack on the treehouse wall.

“No, bullets are powerless against the tragedy that’s paid us a visit this afternoon,” I say. “It’s ineffectual to ‘take up arms against a sea of troubles’ (as Hamlet always sez). Have you not read the tractate Why I Am Not a Surrealist, specifically the part where Cuchulain vanquishes the ocean? I can’t believe that you don’t remember this, for you yourself co-authored it with me! (See the callback, later in this episode.)”

So Tara replaces the shotgun on our wall-mounted rack and sez: “But if Cuchulain won HIS battle against the sea, then why can’t we expect the same outcome for ourselves?”

“Because his was a Worldwide Flood,” I explain, batting back the stuffed bear’s hand, which was reaching for my absinthe; I then finish my teacup and add: “what we’re dealing with today is a Local Flood, which is FAR more dangerous.”

Tara nods slowly: “Ah, I see.”

Just then, all the windows of our treehouse shatter at once, and the deluge breaks in and threatens to drown all our pretend pets who are filled with the choicest stuffing.

“Don’t you dare touch my Tyger Bryan figurine,” I shout, pulling out my revolver and waving it threateningly at the encroaching Flood, so that its waters recede away from the feline; “he dislikes feeling wet.”

Then the floodwaters move to attack Tara’s stuffed pink-eyed rabbit.

“Hey,” shouts Tara, grabbing the shotgun off the wall-rack again, “stay away from Hip-Hop, Mister Drip, or I’ll fill you with lead!”

So, having painted itself into a Pax Americana, the Local Flood now wisely gives up the ghost. It does the right thing. After an inarticulate shout, it then curses God Poseidon and dies. The treehouse dries up.

“Whew, that was close!” I say while holstering my revolver.

“What’s the world coming to,” remarks Tara, “when a Flood can rise to the level of invading one’s treehouse?”

“Every evil of modernity can be traced back, by routes not even circuitous, to the avarice of the mega-rich,” I sigh. “That’s the crux of all our troubles. And there’s nothing we can do about it — it’s beyond our control. (We can’t simply tax the mega-rich: that is immoral.)”

So, after our romantic tea party, Tara and I climb down from our tree and go for a stroll on the boulevard. We then walk along the shore of the beach. Now positioning our settees in front of the ocean, we begin to write a screenplay together about Cuchulain battling the sea. After which, we condense this composition and revise it ruthlessly: then, once it’s sufficiently purposeless, we incorporate it into our masterpiece lecture Why I Am Not a Surrealist. (By the way, we do not steal any old run-of-the-mill Cuchulain to be our mythological hero — no! OUR Cuchulain was stolen from the poems of W.B. Yeats.)

So, after the success of our literary collaboration, Tara and I decide as usual to accept the LORD’s blessing of a happy ending. We therefore enter into a church-and-state sanctioned marriage; then we receive, as part of our dowry, a treehouse in the woods, where we raise two beautiful children to replace us on the earth. Our boy magus we name Bryan Ray Senior; and his girl assistant we christen Norma Desmond, the mother of Tara who is the Shekinah. — So we live for ever, having been granted limitless access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22).

THE END!