Chapter Won - The Horrorists and the Animals
Now looky reader, be sure to read this with your most expensive pear of eyeballs. I've toiled far too long and hardlike for you to go an muss it up what with all your poor little eyes dirtying my clean rich ideas. Now don’t be expecting me to make use of numbers and such in this here story. I simply won’t have none of them, what for I’m so already sick of letters and speech and all that trash. So you’re gonna have to make do with what you’ve got then. Now shut up and read afore I don't keep you nothing to read with, cause there’s plenty a folks in the line who could use a fresh eye so for the Mister up in the Tower thinks good of them.
Now I'm the last one who came to this line, but I reckon another little naked person gonna come soon from the inside the dark old woods because who would want to live like the darned animals anyways and because they wanna get better like the good clean folks here in the line. And I stepped on the back of the line and the fellow in front of me turnsed around and swat me in the bum, and he's crying, but I reckon it was because he's so big and clean and he's happy he isn't living in the forest and is in this fancy little line, and his eyes just got to full with that happy and they overflew. And this big fellow sayd to me that his name is Fint, and I don't really understand what a “name” is and so I asked him. And he says this weird little thing in a weird little voice:
“What, so you don't have a name? Well it goes simple like this: a name is like what makes you different, and that's a good thing, except for when you're just plain STRANGE, like when you're just REALLY different in a crazy sort of way, like if you have a dark face and a big head cloth, which means you're a horrorist. But the name is a thing that you can use to make yourself better than other people, so you can tell them I'm Fint Qaqinpip and they'll think to themselves that Fint Qaqinpip is really good and clean and rich.”
And right off for starters I thinked that was plain dumb because I don't see no why how a person can be better than another person, except if that other person is a like an animal or lives with animals in the forest, which is where I lived before the line just a bit ago, and I'm glad I don't have to live like a dumb old animal anymore. But he telled me there’s some people who are brown and from the Metal East and called horrorists who prey on this animal called a Lah and they like to live like animals and they kill people like animals do. And I says I feel bad for the poor Lahs and wish the horrorists would leave them alone.
Then Fint tells me to make a name for me on myself, so I just take a few sounds I knowed and put them next to each other and the name goes like this: Sqiq Twazp. And Fint tells me that name is gonna mean something someday, and that one time his name was just sounds too, but now he's SOMEBODY and now he's better than me because he's higher up in the line, and that's the way it works and he didn't care if I didn't get that he was more good than me. And then he says:
“Sorry, lad. Have to put the number on you. Only fair. They got me, see? They got me with the number and now it's your turn for it.” And he takes a big hot stick and puts something called a number in my arm, and it hurts a good bit, except that it wasn't good at all, and just plain simple bad. And I asks him what good is a stupid number if we already got names and he says it's so the Mister in the Tower can know who you are if you talk to him. And I says he could just use the names though, because we all have names and wouldn't the name be meaningful useful enough for him? And he Fint just he looked at me but he didn't know, I don't think so. But then he says I weren't good enough or rich enough yet to understand the Mister and that shame on me for making a better person feel so outright dumb in front of a lesser. And he hits me on the arm real hard with his hand and tells me he just “put a sock in me” and I said I didn't much know for socks, but I didn't like the idea already. Fint says then that good and rich people WEAR socks, and I says I don't know wear these socks is that he’s keeping talking on, but he tells me I don't get it yet and where did I learn to speak anyways? And I says from listening cause I don't want to live like no dumb animal or horrorist. But old Fint weren't having none of it and he just says I'm a big dumb horrorist and what's more if I had a headwear he'd put another sock in me. But I tells him again that I don't know wear and so how am I supposed to get a sock put in me if I don't know wear the head is that he hates so much? And then another little animal man comes from the forest and I turn around and I have wet eyes and they are tears and I put the number on him and put a lot of socks in him. And he didn't get wear either but I tells him he's just to poor and bad still to get it.
Now looky reader, be sure to read this with your most expensive pear of eyeballs. I've toiled far too long and hardlike for you to go an muss it up what with all your poor little eyes dirtying my clean rich ideas. Now don’t be expecting me to make use of numbers and such in this here story. I simply won’t have none of them, what for I’m so already sick of letters and speech and all that trash. So you’re gonna have to make do with what you’ve got then. Now shut up and read afore I don't keep you nothing to read with, cause there’s plenty a folks in the line who could use a fresh eye so for the Mister up in the Tower thinks good of them.
Now I'm the last one who came to this line, but I reckon another little naked person gonna come soon from the inside the dark old woods because who would want to live like the darned animals anyways and because they wanna get better like the good clean folks here in the line. And I stepped on the back of the line and the fellow in front of me turnsed around and swat me in the bum, and he's crying, but I reckon it was because he's so big and clean and he's happy he isn't living in the forest and is in this fancy little line, and his eyes just got to full with that happy and they overflew. And this big fellow sayd to me that his name is Fint, and I don't really understand what a “name” is and so I asked him. And he says this weird little thing in a weird little voice:
“What, so you don't have a name? Well it goes simple like this: a name is like what makes you different, and that's a good thing, except for when you're just plain STRANGE, like when you're just REALLY different in a crazy sort of way, like if you have a dark face and a big head cloth, which means you're a horrorist. But the name is a thing that you can use to make yourself better than other people, so you can tell them I'm Fint Qaqinpip and they'll think to themselves that Fint Qaqinpip is really good and clean and rich.”
And right off for starters I thinked that was plain dumb because I don't see no why how a person can be better than another person, except if that other person is a like an animal or lives with animals in the forest, which is where I lived before the line just a bit ago, and I'm glad I don't have to live like a dumb old animal anymore. But he telled me there’s some people who are brown and from the Metal East and called horrorists who prey on this animal called a Lah and they like to live like animals and they kill people like animals do. And I says I feel bad for the poor Lahs and wish the horrorists would leave them alone.
Then Fint tells me to make a name for me on myself, so I just take a few sounds I knowed and put them next to each other and the name goes like this: Sqiq Twazp. And Fint tells me that name is gonna mean something someday, and that one time his name was just sounds too, but now he's SOMEBODY and now he's better than me because he's higher up in the line, and that's the way it works and he didn't care if I didn't get that he was more good than me. And then he says:
“Sorry, lad. Have to put the number on you. Only fair. They got me, see? They got me with the number and now it's your turn for it.” And he takes a big hot stick and puts something called a number in my arm, and it hurts a good bit, except that it wasn't good at all, and just plain simple bad. And I asks him what good is a stupid number if we already got names and he says it's so the Mister in the Tower can know who you are if you talk to him. And I says he could just use the names though, because we all have names and wouldn't the name be meaningful useful enough for him? And he Fint just he looked at me but he didn't know, I don't think so. But then he says I weren't good enough or rich enough yet to understand the Mister and that shame on me for making a better person feel so outright dumb in front of a lesser. And he hits me on the arm real hard with his hand and tells me he just “put a sock in me” and I said I didn't much know for socks, but I didn't like the idea already. Fint says then that good and rich people WEAR socks, and I says I don't know wear these socks is that he’s keeping talking on, but he tells me I don't get it yet and where did I learn to speak anyways? And I says from listening cause I don't want to live like no dumb animal or horrorist. But old Fint weren't having none of it and he just says I'm a big dumb horrorist and what's more if I had a headwear he'd put another sock in me. But I tells him again that I don't know wear and so how am I supposed to get a sock put in me if I don't know wear the head is that he hates so much? And then another little animal man comes from the forest and I turn around and I have wet eyes and they are tears and I put the number on him and put a lot of socks in him. And he didn't get wear either but I tells him he's just to poor and bad still to get it.