Dinner With Ralph

 

    “Hey man,” crowed Ralph agreeably, “good to see you again! You brought a friend! Good, good! Hey, always glad to see you again any old time! 

    “Ramona’s cooking a Whole Hog! Let’s go see if it’s done yet, but first let me get another sixpack of that Shaggy Dog Dunkel stuff from down there….”

*** 

    Ralph has this habit of inviting anyone he speaks to home for dinner. This has repercussions. It means he has to hunt more, and Ramona ends up roasting whole animals sometimes. Fortunately, wild pigs abound and are relatively easy for him to catch, though noisy.
    On top of that, sometimes he forgets to tell her that company is coming. 
    When it’s just Maeve with some of her crew, it doesn’t matter so much. They mostly just talk anyhow, being a kind of arboreal news service and advise column in one. Unlike Elon, they can only see so far and report so much. Bless their little hearts.
    When it’s Mama Puma and the kitten twins, Ramona has a real cooking job on her hands. A whole feral piglet would be needed just for them alone.
    Besides all that, the truth of the matter is that Ralph loves an audience to try his theories out on. If they are bound by the rules of courtesy, all the better! A creature can hardly rebut and stomp off with a mouthful of herby roasted piglet.
    Somehow, Ralph heard somebody say that words make worlds. He got right to work on it. His first thought was, “they do not!” But he was just thinking about regular conversation then.
    “The world has existed from everlasting with no input from anybody but the Maker,” he thought to himself.
    Then he got to thinking of where the world exists. He figured then that it exists in minds that perceive it. This was getting less obviously obvious.
    He went out to his log and fished a King Edward out of the Tupperware box where he keeps them, and had a long thoughtful smoke. It occurred to him that reality is experienced by minds. Without minds, what is reality? He knew that what is said colors thought. Ipso facto, etc.  
    For a while out there on the pondering log, it seemed to him that all subjects connect at the edges somehow, and that all these subjects could indeed dance on the head of a pin, inside his mind. He began to see that all is one.
    This whole business of learning to speak had forced him to deal with concepts that the Unspeaking are not responsible for. All of the talking animals, and birds, Maeve, are in a similar position. Having speech, words, meant that they had to deal with the effects of speech, for good or ill.

    To return to the story at hand; Maurice, on his best behavior, not slavering or howling, and Folkie Joe,in his denim and woollies,  followed Ralph back to the home cave with the jolly cookfire in front of it. 

    It was a most pleasant scene. There was a large ring of medium sized boulders enclosing a nice bed of coals, and over it was a half grown piglet roasting on a spit that Ralph had contrived from some metal bits and pieces that he had liberated somewhere. The scent was intoxicating. Maurice and Folkie Joe began to think that visiting Ralph and family had been a very sound idea indeed.
    Months ago, Ralph had dragged some handy logs home to provide seating around the fire and incidentally, to make convenient seating for his listeners.
    Ramona and Twigg came out to meet the guys, Ralph made introductions. He had finally asked for their names! The two guests settled down on logs, near enough to the fire to be warm but not to be roasted. Ralph strode around thoughtfully, fingering his chin, for a while, then turned to his guests with a great big sunny smile.
    “Boys,” said Ralph, “I’ve been thinking!”
    A feral expression passed over Maurice’s muzzle. Folkie Joe looked somewhat haunted. Ramona and Twigg ducked back into the cave suddenly. She said she needed to get some plates and knives and forks and a salt shaker, and the bottle of Tabasco sauce.
    But then Ralph is a kind host, so he decided to just let people eat in peace.
    “Oh, never mind, I need to think about it some more anyhow,” Ralph said. “I want you to just have a nice dinner and go out into the world happy and full!

    "Here, have a Shaggy Dog and relax.  It's a great night in the forest!"

    So, that is exactly what they did, once Ralph decided to just love his guests.