Logging In

 

          At heart, and not surprisingly, Ralph was a bit of a naturalist. He was full of observations, and he also had plenty of time to attempt to make sense of his observations.  And he had questions about the nature of things.

          Since he was a wee cryptid, hominid variety, he had been bright-eyed and avid. Those shiny deeply intelligent little brown eyes had closely observed all manner of phenomena. Twigg truly was a shoot off the old branch.  They were very much alike. They both wanted to see how things worked.

          But, like someone we could mention, if we chose to talk politics, Ralph was a little gullible in spite of his own virtue. Perhaps that explains his gullibility. It did not occur to him that someone might be pulling his very large leg, or even plainly fibbing to him.

          Now that he was grown and had a son of his own to instruct, his own questions about nature and life loomed larger in his mind than they had in his carefree days. His questions might seem a bit naïve to us, but we must remember that he is nature’s very own child, in and of the forest, not a doggone analyst. Nor did he have centuries worth of hairless scientists to learn from. He was more or less on his own.

          One summer morning he was lying full length on his big cedar log thinking.  He was wondering how plants get started.  It was obvious that little plants grow into bigger plants, like his venerable log there, but why did a plant start one place and not another.  He knew about seeds. Some plants have seeds, some don’t. Thinking about seeds made him sleepy. He had been nibbling on some things to taste them to decide if they were good.

          Just as he was having some nice, dreamy thoughts about all the kinds of plants that taste good, he was startled to hear a familiar voice from the recent, say a month or two, past. Dreams of huckleberries flew away. He sat up. Maurice said “Hey,” for the second time.

          And there was Maurice  wearing green wide wale corduroy trousers and a striped orange and pink silk shirt. Ralph shook his head. But Maurice was still there afterwards. Ralph wondered idly where his tail went in those britches.

          “Maurice! What’s up bro? Why the sharp duds?” said Ralph, kind of blinking. “Where have you been, dog?”

          “I got a job, man,” said Maurice, tongue lolling a bit.  He hopped up beside Ralph, taking a seat. While Maurice was getting situated, Ralph noticed that his tail sort of stuck up out of the back of the trousers like a periscope. Ralph felt a little dizzy. He wasn’t sure if he was really all the way awake. He decided to just go with it though, because what choice did he have, really.

          “You?  A job? Doing what? Where?” Maurice's shirt seemed to kind of pop in and out of visibility. Ralph rubbed his eyes and looked again.

          “Yeah, Ralphie! I’ve been singing with a cover band in Tacoma.  We do old Hendrix tunes, n stuff, Byrds and like that,” said Maurice. “We mostly do taverns and small local clubs. Not that big thing by the freeway.”

          “How did that happen?” Ralph sort of whispered.

          “Well, I was sitting under a bridge in Ballard, howling like I do sometimes. You know usually it scares people, but this guy heard me and liked it. He thought I could add something to their sound, so he invited me to come and meet the other guys,” Maurice said. “They liked me. I got a cool outfit and worked with them for a couple of months.”

          “Then why are you out here in the Baker National Forest sitting up here on my big cedar log Maurice?”

          “I got fired.”

          “What? Why? You had a good gig!  What did you do Maurice?”

          “Nothing!”

          “Nothing? Then why did they fire you?

          “The drummer’s cat disappeared.  I didn’t eat him Ralphie.”

          “Oh, Maurice, how could you!” groaned Ralph.

***

He groaned so hard that he rolled right off of his log! Thud! Ralph hit the ground. He woke up face down in the forest duff. He sat up. He looked all around.  He looked at his log.  He scanned the clearing and between the trees. Maurice was nowhere to be seen. No scandalously colored silk shirt, no loony green pants!

“Oh! Thank all that’s good and proper!  He’s not really here!” whispered Ralph.

“I think I’ll just go home and talk with Ramona for a while until I feel more like myself,” he thought.

All eight feet and 450lbs of him stood up and dusted himself off. Then he headed home. He never had weird dreams in the cave or around the fire circle of stones eating something good that Ramona made for him and Twigg.