Nothing Revolts, part 5

Sometimes, when upset, adults like to say certain words that they learned while they were kids. These are words that they tell kids that they’re never supposed to say. But due to the frequency in which adults use these words, and the emotion that usually accompanies their use, kids can’t help but learn them. And because they know they’re not supposed to say them, they enjoy saying them even more.

Davis was sitting in his backyard, practicing a few of his favorite of these choice words on Dogwin, whose head cocked in curiosity at the spectacular gusto with which Davis enunciated these little spine curling taboos, when there was a white hot flash before his eyes, and a searing pain that spread through his right hand. Funny, that at that particular moment, it wasn’t a swear word that popped out of Davis’s mouth, but an apparent non sequitur: ‘Cheese puffs!’

When Davis came to, there was a funny smell. His hand ached, and Dogwin was cowering beneath the slide. He looked around the yard, and saw a small hole near the sandbox. There was smoke rising from it.

‘Uhhhnnn…’ came a voice from inside the hole.

Davis focused his attention on the steaming hole. ‘Hello?’ he said.

‘ahhh…’ said the thing inside the hole, and then added, ‘huh? Ohhh…oh no. So tiny. So tiny. Mrggg…’

Davis, who was braver than Dogwin, inched towards crater. He put out a few flaming blades of grass with his thumb and forefinger and looked inside. There was a rock. With a face. It was a rocky face, but still, two eyes, two nostrils, two lips, two ears. The cloudy, blinking, and disoriented looking eyes zeroed in on Davis’s face, squinting. ‘…It’s coming.’ Said Sam, and then fainted.

‘Wow!’ thought Davis. ‘I’m glad my parents aren’t home.’

Why was Davis glad his parents weren’t home? Well, because parents are often very stupid. As you get older, you start to value ‘getting by’ above ‘getting it’, if you know what I mean. Davis’s parents weren’t totally stupid. They were actually pretty smart. They were nice, they worked hard, they read books and threw cocktail parties. They were stupid in a certain way, but in the same way all adults who hoped to ‘get by’ were stupid. All adults become ‘company people’ in one way or the other as they get older. What is a company person? A company person is someone who tows the line at work, is careful not to ask certain kinds of questions or share certain kinds of thoughts. A company person gives more money at church every Sunday than they give as tips at restaurants. A company person has joined a political party. A company person folds their socks. A company person is worried about the lawn.

So, Davis’s parents were stupid, but in a totally forgivable way. Davis would be stupid like that someday too. On some level he knew that. But, Davis also knew that there were just certain kinds of information stupid people cannot handle. You can put knowledge of talking space rocks into that category.