- I'm the most curious human being I know.
-
- I'm almost as curious as Huck the Spotless Appaloosa,
whose interest in things he doesn't understand is legendary among those
who know him. Who but Huck would spend all afternoon rooting through a
wheelbarrow filled with fertilizer on the off chance that beneath all that
manure was a rose? Or, better yet, some clover?
-
- And who but Huck would follow Maya the Good and me from
fence post to fence post around the corral for an entire day, trying to
figure out what that crazy contraption we were lugging around did? (It
was a fence stretcher, and we were tightening the loose strands of "barbless
barbed wire" - that's what they call it - that keeps unfriendly critters
out of Huck's domain.)
-
- I write because I'm curious. Often, when I'm in the process
of writing about something I don't understand I begin - finally! - to see
the light.
-
- Sometimes I write about events in the hope that I'll
discover their as yet undemonstrated result. Other times I write hoping
I'll learn their previously hidden cause. Either way, I feel like a detective,
exploring people, places, things, and occurrences that are, like the wheelbarrow
and fence stretcher, mysteries to me.
-
- Although not necessarily to someone else.
-
- This morning, for example, I was absolutely certain the
game was afoot.
-
- As I went to the corral to feed Huck and his partner
Rosy the Romantic, I saw a circle of whiteness on the ground just outside
the fence. The circle was about a foot in diameter, and, depending on where
I stood, it looked like a collection of cotton balls, a thousand and one
cocoons, a melting puddle of mothballs or dry ice, or some very strange
snow.
-
- I got down on my hands and knees to peer at this mysterious
substance as closely as possible. At first glance, it had looked fluffy,
but now I could see that it wasn't fluffy at all. Its structure was more
crystalline. In fact, the mystery substance reminded me like nothing so
much as a blown-up version of a microscopic view of just about any crystal
anyone might happen to put under a microscope for some reason.
-
- From behind me came the sound of panting. I turned my
head to see Decker the Giant-Hearted loping over.
-
- "Whatcha doing?" he said.
-
- "Investigating," I told him. "Like Sherlock
Holmes."
-
- "Who?"
-
- I'd forgotten what I was talking to. "I'm looking
at this stuff," I said.
-
- "Let me see."
-
- Of course, when a dog says he wants to see something
it doesn't mean he wants to look at it all. It means he wants to smell
it. Decker stuck his nose into the white stuff, and where his nose touched
it, the crystal immediately turned to water.
-
- "Neat!" Decker said.
-
- "What's it smell like?" I said.
-
- "Doesn't smell like anything," Decker said.
-
- I sniffed without touching it. Decker was right. I poked
my finger into the circle to see what would happen, and how it would feel.
What I poked instantly seemed to melt, but with no sense of coldness.
-
- "This is pretty strange, buddy. Don't you think?"
-
- Decker's ears went up. In a human that would be a shrug.
"Why are you shaking?" he said, and I realized I was.
-
- "Why do you shake before you take off after a squirrel?
Excitement! The thrill of the hunt. The chance to understand something
new and - who knows? - maybe magical!"
-
- Decker liked that. He barked joyfully, then looked past
me, toward the driveway, and hurried to meet the UPS truck that came chugging
up.
-
- The truck stopped, and the UPS driver, Mal, got out.
Feeding Decker a treat, he came over to where I was crouched. "Hey,
Larry. Something wrong?"
-
- "Not exactly wrong. Just weird.
-
- Mal hunkered down beside me, then smiled knowingly.
-
- "Not weird," he said. "Just rabbits."
-
- "Rabbits?"
-
- "Rabbit urine," he said. "Strongest animal
waste in the world. Sun's killed the scent, but the temperature's made
it crystallize. My daddy used to raise rabbits. I remember him showing
me this when I was a kid."
-
- We went back to his truck, and he handed me a package.
Our regular shipment of way too many books from Amazon.com.
-
- "Have a nice day," Mal said, and off he drove.
-
- And there it was. Mystery solved. Nothing to be shaking
excitedly about after all.
-
- Unless, of course, someone else can tell me he was wrong
?
-
-
-
- Copyright C 2008 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
|
