CHAPTER TWO
Now and Then
Greebie Pigleman always ate yoghurt (Named after the first person to eat it, who got terrible stomach pain, developed constipation then died. His name was Yog and the substance really HURT him, hence it was called Yoghurt!) before he retired. He believed it to be good for his constitution, especially yoghurt with acid-awful-ous. He sat, as usual, at his dining table by the light of his several candles to meditate. Sometimes he would write in his journal or add paragraphs to one of his novels. Writing had become his favourite pastime since retiring from Druidship. It did not bother him that he had to manufacture his own paper and ink neither did it perturb him that nobody within a hundred leagues could read. Only the very well educated people could read. He even thanked his lucky stars (Lucky Stars are the ones that took part in the Big Bang. After the Big Bang the Universe became pregnant with a whole batch of newly created stars – these were not so lucky) that Marjorie, his wife couldn’t, more or less because of his diary of entries (mostly more). Some of his writings were intimate, others were more serious. His titles included such themes as “Early Settlements of Skard - an account of refugee camps which have grown into villages over the past sixty years, since the exile of man from the Fatherland of Gorg began”. Another title was “Edible Plants of Skard – a survival guide” put together during his much travelled Druid days. Then there was his Trilogy; three books on the unexplainable longevity of Mogodawn, who if he really does exist, must be at least a thousand years old. He called this “Mogodawn – Myth or Man?” and “Sleepless Nights without Mogodawn” and “A Way in a Manger with a Bloody Mongrel”. Greebie however was tired of such serious subjects and had written “Why You Can’t Read This Book” as a diversion. This reflected his private wish that the general public could read; an unrealistic notion.
Tonight however he just sat and thought and scraped at his earthenware bowel with his long wooden spoon, and stared blankly into his yoghurt. It is quite possible that he was wondering why he was eating something that tasted so horrible. It is possible also that he was dreaming up suitable punishment for the person who decided to make yoghurt from goat’s milk in the first place. Not too far from the same possibility is the thought that he was attempting to determine if his goat’s milk yoghurt had in fact gone off! How could he tell? Certainly not by taste! He would have checked it’s ‘use-by’ date if it had one. All these thoughts were quite distinct possibilities, including the notion he had, that if he kept his bowel of goat’s milk yoghurt out, while he slept, that it might get itself up and run away! Failing that, he would not be overly surprised to discover on the morrow that it had become cheese; goat’s milk cheese with little green fluffy bits (It already had the little green fluffy bits).
Greebie wondered amid all these possibilities, how is it that something so abusive to the sensitive buds of taste which inhabited his tongue, could be in any way, beneficial to his constitution. Poisons tasted better!
He scraped again. Perhaps eating yoghurt was a maternal thing. It may be a behavioural secret locked away in his genes. It tastes so bad so it must be good for you! It could be a psychic phenomenon, as strange and unexplained as the suicidal inclination of lemmings. It’s unpleasant but somebody has to do it! The only other probable answer would be that people ate goat’s milk yoghurt in order to recharge the tanks of their household septic systems with methane and unfriendly bacteria. Something had to put that smell in there!
All of these possible conjectures were however wrong. What he was actually thinking as he scraped the white, well, cream sludge from his bowel was, nothing! His mind was blank. Deep down, beneath his consciousness there was one hundred-percent preoccupation.
He scraped again, autonomic-ally. He was in that trancelike state where consciousness inverts itself. He was neither fully awake nor fast asleep. He was, sort of wide-asleep as it were or fast awake; like a zombie; which is to say, a zombie eating goat’s milk yoghurt.
His thoughts were deep and simmering; churning over like molten lava beneath the crust of his awareness. Soon, very soon they would erupt as a brilliant idea. For the moment however he could only sense its presence.
He took another spoonful of sludge. In the background Marjorie Andoreena Piggleman began to snore. There was a dull recognition of the sound but Greebie largely ignored it.