Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Chairman of the Bored

“It was a slice of burning olive, not you, that scorched my tongue.” He said.

.

The white tree of flaming red leaves and spiral fruit stood in front of him like the goddess of sunsets in marble carved for all with sight to appreciate. Each leaf a life of sorts and each vein crisscrossed and wounded but each eye centred, unfocused but clearly seeing everything with inhuman precision.

.

The power, the uncontrollable force of nature, the beauty that could not be denied, the stupendous might of an awe-inspiring miracle, the forks of lightening as they rip the sky asunder and the wilting palace of her king and lover, seared through her mind as she pictured before her untold numbers of weighted knees and burdened shoulders and crowned heads; an entire race gathered in submission; a once proud caste of once honoured emperors now at the mercy of the sea god.

Weakness spread from one torn and humbled part of her; within moments all was dark. His touch was fatal and wanting in subtlety; his music was ignorant, barbaric, laughable, almost, but too proud.

Too proud was born this son of man. This poet's war was far from over.

.

The tea was getting cold. I put my hand on hers. There were spirals of smoke. The softest hands I’d ever felt.

I asked her if she’d like to. She didn’t answer but with a stare vacant and an almost imperceptible nod or a shaking of the head, confused the bloody shits out of me. That’s when I thought I really ought to eat something. Keep up my strength for the future. She had said her man was God of the Sea and smiled serenely at me. I thought she must be joking but you know how it is...

He could be in the navy.

The tea was getting cold. I put my hand on hers. She was eating plum jam on toast at the time and tasted of it. There was something overwhelmingly wholesome about her, especially the way crumbs fell from a bite she took, hit the plate and resounded in my mind. Her fingers drummed the coffee table and I thought her hand looked like a white tree with flaming leaves. I hated her red nail polish. Her nails were like crazy eyes that stared at me while she looked elsewhere. I could smell her perfume and it was maddening. I hated that perfume but it was quite her so I liked it. Some things occurred to me. I picked up the butter knife. Tiny ghosts tried to steal my thoughts but then I buttered my toast. It was therapeutic. Warm toast with butter, I think, I thought, was a good breakfast. I’d never tried it before then. The door opened and with a gust of wind a man entered the shop. His eyes were weary. His posture betrayed his need for sleep. He ordered a coffee.

.

He rolled up his sleeves and decided the time was ripe for him to act, to come clean, to stand up and be accounted for, to be recorded forever in the annals of stupidity as a clichéd romantic with little control over his emotions.

.

Beneath the forgotten deeps of the sea, Saturn sat upon his throne and waited for his queen. What clear white opals dripped when she spoke of life she’d lived with him!

“There are no fruits around here to be sure,” said Homunculus “but precious stones...alot. The pits of the earth are these; no oranges could ever compare, we have mirrors fashioned by the Light. This queen of yours, she loves you not. Though for a thousand million years you’ve wrought pleasure upon pleasure and luxury upon luxury. Why do you waste your time, with such a problematic child of dust?”

"Why don't you just mind your own bloody damn business you ass f---?!" snapped Saturn as he glanced back at the hourglass for the umpteenth time. "Next time I myself will go and see where she goes for this bloody damn tea that she must drink...!"

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Poem

Hey there you, you social butterfly!
On kaleidoscopic wings you flutter by.
How do you speak to flowers with such ease?
-Drawing nectar, nature has forbidden me-
I see you move about so gracefully
You seem to know the garden very well:
You’re sure to skip the Venus and her trap!
These blossoms they all think you’re quite the vamp:
Out to steal some Bird of Paradise.
Little do they know; you love a tramp:
A flower contemplating heaven’s prize;
A Stargazer that captures roving eyes.
These honeysuckles do for idle chat
But not everyone has heaven in their hat.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Farewell to Grandma

It was quite a solemn affair. The day my grandmother was to leave our house, everyone looked grave, except for me, and it rained quite a lot. It wasn’t a sudden, violent downpour, but a fairly constant drizzle, of the dreary sort, which highlighted the sombre undertone of the event; it was as if nature had decided that the world should be just as nostalgic and miserable as she felt. So, it was on a cold and wet winter evening that I waved goodbye to my grandmother; she didn’t say a word to me, my grandmother, but I could see quite clearly in her eyes as she patted my head, that she was truly sad. For a second I felt guilty for all the times I’d successfully avoided her and her sloppy, wet kisses.
My grandfather had married her because he had fallen in love with her centuries ago. I’m not exactly sure what he saw in her or why she agreed to marry him but I honestly never gave much thought to it either. The fact of the matter is that they got married in the traditional manner, had children as was customary in those times and then when the rioting began, they migrated to Pakistan, which, at the time, was a new born state that claimed to be ‘the land of the pure.’ They never really got along, my grandparents, but they had that old and now extinct, sense of duty, which used to prevent people from either divorcing each other or really ever living together; a sort of lifeless life lived for the sake of appearances and children. He would spend most of his time at work in another town and she would spend most of her time the way most clocks do: going round and round, ticking away. They did sort of stick it out in the end for the sake of the kids but really, one could always tell that something funny was going on between them. And I don’t just mean that figuratively; their mutual and growing dislike for one another was deeply rooted in their initial and equally mutual love for one another, so theirs was a relationship much prone to humour and would appear quite comical to the neutral observer: he would complain of her cooking, she would complain of his eating; he would steal what she was saving for later, she would save for later what he wanted to eat now etc.

My grandfather did not come out to see my grandmother off when she was to leave our house but there was no malicious design or grudge at play behind his absence. It was just that he had been tied down in his room by his ageing sons to prevent him from acting out his senile fantasies. More often than not he just assumed he was another character on whatever he was watching on television and if the television were turned off he would wonder what he was doing and whether there would be a picture taken; for some reason he always thought that there was going to be a picture taken.

“Is there going to be a picture taken?” he asked my father, later that evening.
“Picture? No. Why do you ask?” said my father.
“I seem to be tied up…so I wondered if there was going to be a picture taken.”
“What’s it got to do with being tied up?”
“Do you think my father ever got married?” he asked suddenly, addressing a more serious concern of his.
“Well obviously, where do you think you came from?”
“Yeah? Who did he marry?”
“Your mother, my grandmother.”
“Really? You’re my son then? Can we go now?”
“Go? Where?”
“Well anywhere…or is there going to be a picture taken?”

These conversations were always circular and therefore endless and futile. It was easier to just put on a wrestling match on television and watch him hurl abuse after abuse at those whom he considered to be his opponents in real life. He really thought that those wrestlers were trying to attack him. Being thus, of a delicate disposition, it wasn’t really necessary that he come out to say farewell to my grandmother; plus, he wasn’t exactly sure who she was anyway. Of course that doesn’t mean she didn’t say goodbye to him. She did go to his room and try and explain in an authoritative tone. She sounded somewhat like an old strict teacher, explaining how things were going to be like from now on…
He didn’t really follow her speech but remained silent, which was unusual because nowadays, one almost invariably expects a non sequitur from him. I suppose that’s precisely why she was being a bit strict; it hurts to not be recognized sometimes, especially by your sworn enemy lovers, and in those situations one has to try and let go. She had been practicing the art of letting go for quite some time now. It had been revealed to her that she would be moving out of our house many months in advance so she could properly prepare herself for the departure. Since she had lived in her room in our house for about more than half a century, it was probably hard for her to imagine the remainder of her life surrounded by unfamiliar walls. But once it was decided that she would go, she resigned herself to her fate, and in order to deal with this recent development, she decided to give away everything she had collected over the years. This was a surprisingly large and variegated list of things. From my father’s childhood pyjamas to napkins made out of flour bags; tea-sets, cutlery and old toys; frocks, outmoded currency and pictures, lots of pictures and even more towels, among other things. As she gave everything away, it became clear that it was a symbolic move on her part, one that would allow herself more comfort in leaving. By giving up all those things that tied her to this place, to that room and to that life, she would be free to move and go wherever she was taken. Her generation, it seemed, was doomed to re-enact the Partition over and over again. Why else would somebody have ever saved napkins made out of flour bags?

I was standing in the kitchen, watching from the window with the lights turned out, when my grandmother was brought outside, flanked by her two younger, but not so young, sisters-in-law. She walked slowly and carefully, measuring each step as well as she could. Her progress towards the car can be described as having been of a glacial pace or comparable to continental drift. But you have to make allowances for the elderly. Meanwhile, my mother, who was also present at the scene, looked pitiable. Her eyes were full of tears and her nose had gone pink, the way it does when she gets too emotional and her mind had forgotten all the many battles she had fought against the old woman now being sent into exile. My father seemed quite sad too but just as impatient as sad -he gets a bit snappy when distressed. The younger children were all present; not entirely sure of what was going on but clear in that something monumental was taking place, something historic. My sisters headed out to take over from the two ladies who had brought my grandmother thus far, and assist her on the remaining part of her journey to the car. Somewhere along the way my grandmother decided that the occasion called for a ‘forgive me if I have erred’ speech. It was quite the tear-jerker and with the constant drizzling in the background and grey clouds looming overhead, the impact was much augmented. Hugs were distributed all round and pats on the back. Hastily murmured niceties and farewells in my grandmother’s ears were reciprocated by her as she said brave ‘once more unto the breach dear friends…’ sort of things in return. She sniffed a bit, a silent tear made its way across her cheek and so she moved on again towards the awaiting car.
She was already in the car when I came out to see her off, so I had to open the door and sort of bend down awkwardly to have my head patted and etc. This had been my grand plan for avoiding sloppy kissses.

My pants were already smeared with muddy, rainwater splashes from my journey back from school and now my cat was moving in and out of my legs, making the situation even worse. It was a particularly uncaring cat in that she never bothered about not wiping herself clean on other people. Not me, I’m not an uncaring cat at all, although one might say that it was an indifferent attitude that reigned over me that evening and that I wasn’t really putting too much effort into my farewells. I suppose I’m one of those cynical people who call themselves ‘realistic’ or something. I mean to say that she was just leaving our house to go live next door with my father’s elder brother, so it wasn’t really like she was going away all that far; it was all about maybe fifteen yards or so. I mean judging from the tear stained face of my mother, one would have thought my grandmother was going off to fight the Nazis or something. I caught my brother’s eye as the weeping and wailing reached its crescendo and we both exchanged looks of exasperation; these people are too melodramatic! But I must say I felt rather guilty about having avoided so many of her messy kisses.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Aesop's Foible

There was once a small village in the outskirts of Town, where rolling green pastures, surrounded by emerald hills, bathed in the sunlight, and many coloured birds made nests in the trees; trees that whispered at night of all the day’s events. In this village lived a young boy whose job it was to tend the flock of sheep that belonged to his master. Everyday he would take it out to the green fields and then at evening would return to lock the sheep in the enclosure, and then go home to sleep on the kitchen floor. His job was vital, for the master’s sheep were the economic backbone of the village.
All the influential village people -who weren’t involved in manual labour- thought many thoughts during the daytime about this and that; about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but for the most part, they were all preoccupied with making money so that they could move on from the village to the Town where successful people lived in motorcars. This was so because every year a Town’s man would come to the village for a little ‘peace and quiet’ and tell the people how much they were really missing out on by living in such a small, dreary village where nothing important ever happened.

Meanwhile, every year, all the birds would profess their undying love for the trees and ask them to come away with them when they would flee the dying winter sun. But the trees were wise and always said: “we know how long your love will last and we know how deep beneath this land our roots have dug; and though you might try to deceive us into following you, we have all heard of Hasty.”
“And what, pray tell, is the parable of this Hasty?” the birds would ask.
“Why Hasty was a tree that aspired to walk, for he had been seduced by a winged lover who encouraged it to follow him into a distant land where, it is said, ‘the sun shines bright forever.’ So after much struggle and against the advice of his betters he severed relations with the roots and left in search of eternal sunshine. But without the nourishment that roots provide, he soon grew weak, then stumbled and fell. The winged lover waited for half a day for Hasty to recover, but seeing no chance of that happening, left Hasty behind, saying: ‘Winter is coming, my poor dear, and if I tarry here with you, we will both perish. And I must live, that I may keep at least your memory alive.’
So poor Hasty cried his final tear; it was the last bit of moisture he had been holding on to. And so was found by Man and chopped up for firewood. Now you might think it hard of us but it’s not that hard at all. Eternal sunshine’s not for us; we’re meant to live through fall. And though we seem to lose our leaves and appear quite woe begotten, but if we were to leave with you, we’d soon just end up rotten!” the birds laughed at what the trees said and then flew around flashing their glossy wings, discussing in loud tones, the brightness of the sun in the warm South. The trees smiled at this and sipped the earth in silence as they pondered over how to finally befriend Mankind.

The master of the sheep was bored of his simple village life. None of the other influential villagers found it very interesting either except for the hardworking ones who never had time to think about such things. While everyone else was thinking about the Town and life in the fast lane, whatever that meant, the hard workers were working hard. In the end, the master of the sheep and his friends decided to play a new game: they would all try to make up stories and see who could convince others of his or her story. This was quite a fun game for all the villagers because it allowed the clever to make fun of the dull and so it helped establish a new class system of the Smart and the Simple. By and large, within a few days, all the smarts were to be seen huddled around in corners, coming up with new and more elaborate stories to try on the simples, who were just striving to do their job and get along, in spite of always being the butt of some joke or the other.

As days went by, the boy took the sheep to the hillside, where as they grazed and bleated, he left them to go and explore the surrounding area. With his flute stuck safely in his belt and a straw between his teeth, he marched beside the trees and shrubs and sang a little song he had himself made. From somewhere beyond, he heard a voice. It was a snarling, menacing voice that spoke with much authority and it said: “Winter approaches Julius, and methinks it is time for us to get fat lest we be overcome by frost and become as dead as twigs.” A second voice answered the first: “Thou hast spoken the truth my liege and I hearken -as well as dost thou- the bleating of the silly ones.” This induced a chuckle, which was shared between the two and the former then proceeded to say: “Good my lad, thou hast pleased me indeed…tonight when Man doth sleep and dream, you and I shall count their sheep for them!”
The boy heard all of this and his curiosity was roused as to who were the masters of these conniving voices. He climbed very quietly up into a tree and tried to discern the mysterious strangers. The tree shifted his branch somewhat to allow the boy a better view. The boy thanked the tree with a hurried nod and then discovered to his dismay that he had heard two wolves planning their dinner. Once the wolves walked off deeper into the shadows, the boy climbed down, quickly called all the sheep to him and brought them all safely back to the village. Next, he decided to go and tell the villagers what all he had heard and of the plan the wolves had hatched.
The boy ran into the master’s house and, although short of breath and clutching a stitch in his side, he related in gasps, what he had heard and seen.

The master and his friends all looked at the boy and then at each other and then laughed louder and louder.
“I must admit that the boy almost had me going…!” exclaimed the master.
“These 'simples' are really trying now to get even with us and I have to say I laud their efforts.” said a friend. And similar remarks were made by nearly everyone to whom the boy tried to explain what he had seen and heard. The only people who paid any heed to the boy were the simples and so at night, armed with pitchforks and torches, the simples stood guard.

The wolves were smart and saw the flickering light of the torches from afar. They decided not to attack whilst men were on guard. And so the night passed uneventfully and the simples felt that perhaps the boy had just fooled them all with a nasty lie just like the smarts. His father boxed his ears in public and told him that he had forgotten his roots and those who go against their kind, often end chopped up. The boy tried very hard to explain that he had not fibbed, but all to no avail.

The boy had been shamed and with a broken heart he spent the day watching over the sheep in morbid silence. He knew for sure that the wolves had outwitted him and completely discredited him in the eyes of his fellows. He also knew that the wolves would definitely attack again that night instead but he could not count on help this time. He would have to fend them off alone. Armed with a pitchfork and a solitary torch the boy stood guard over the sheep. The wolves noticed that only one man was present that night so they decided the odds were on their side, they attacked. The boy tried his best to keep them away for he was quick upon his feet and dodged their fangs quite well. His shouts for help, of course, went unanswered because half the village thought he was just going a bit too far with his story: “ah…the zeal of youth!” said the master to his wife. The other half of the village thought that the boy was impertinent: “I’ll take that boy to task in the morning!” said the boy’s father to his wife.

The trees all watched in horror as the boy tried to defend the sheep single-handedly. They whispered amongst each other and remarked on the nature of Man.
“They’re not all the same; the lad could have just gone on with his sleep and let the wolves do as they pleased.” said the old Birch to the Oak who nodded in affirmation.
“Well you know what they say…” said the Oak to the rest.
“What do they say?” they asked.
“If you save one good man…you’ve saved all of humanity.”
“What will you do with saving humanity?” asked a young Palm.
“I will ask Man to remember and be grateful, gratuitous and kind in return.”
The trees all nodded solemnly and then sighed a deep and rumbling sigh. They were moved by the Oak’s unvoiced decision and a few other trees also indicated their eagerness to help. He told them not to be silly and to stand firm. Meanwhile his own roots, who knew his mind very well, relaxed their hold on him.

The wolves were snarling and snapping their vicious teeth at the boy as he tried to hold them back with his pitchfork. “Distract him Julius and I shall sink my teeth in his throat and be done with him.” But Julius was not paying attention anymore; he was staring at something over his comrade’s shoulder, as was the boy, who seemed mesmerized: a great Oak moved towards the fray on what seemed to be massive wooden legs, brandishing his branches menacingly. "My liege...methinks we're not long for this world!"
The next morning all the villagers gathered to see a bleeding boy staring at a hefty oak tree that had, somehow -during the course of the night- fallen into the enclosure, where the sheep were kept. This was rather strange because this tree would have had to fly a hundred yards to be where it was. Beside it lay two dead, squished wolves and there next to the tree sat the boy looking somewhat bewildered and pale.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Tales from Toyland


After playing in the nursery for many years, Alan, who was the lord and master of the place, grew bored, perhaps, as all children do, of toys and nurseries. This fickle nature follows us all to adulthood and causes much trouble, but as far as Alan was concerned, he was not concerned at all. “The toys will look after themselves,” he thought.
Naturally, once the master left Toyland, all its usually inanimate inhabitants began to discuss who ought to rule in Alan’s stead; who indeed would be the new master?
All the toys agreed that it ought to be Teddy the bear. He was the first toy in Toyland, so his wisdom and experience were indispensable and he was, therefore, by right the best candidate for the job.
Teddy’s rule, however, only lasted for a very short time; he was an old and much withered toy. Once upon a time he had been quite a handsome bear but now all the old pomp was gone; his stuffing had become rather depressed and he looked thin and weary, almost grizzly. Though he had really wanted to secure the future of Toyland as a prosperous one, unfortunately his age and illness got the better of him and in some unknown part of his own domain he was picked up by the cleaning lady and that was that.
A short, sad and wounded history of Toyland, after the demise of Teddy, shows that most aspiring leaders were either dishonest to begin with or became corrupt as time went by. The system was flawed; once you have access to excess, it doesn’t take long to long for everything!
Every now and then a good and moral toy did manage to acquire power through popular demand…but got shot at and killed under mysterious circumstances. Nobody could ever figure out who was responsible for these deaths even though it was quite obvious that the only toys who had guns were the toy soldiers.

General Tin became the leader after a series of illogical events that most toys did not care about since he had, in the process of becoming leader, got rid of the Tailless Lion; this lion was a particularly useless one and quite universally ignored, apart from the fact that he was, somehow, the leader. His brother, the Tail was somewhat more capable but was only just a tail; disembodied parts were useful but not quite what the toys wanted in a leader.
General Tin did a good job of getting all the Educational toys -that Alan had always hated- on his side and with the help of this utterly boring lot, managed to impose a couple of odd laws that secured his seat of power for nearly a decade; at the same time he had single handedly got rid of the Justice League action-figures that had been trying to thwart his plans. The tri-cycle who had been an avid supporter of the Tailless Lion, showed his double nature by breaking away from him and forming a significant alliance with the General. Later he showed his true triple nature and joined forces with a Headless Horse.
Barbie’s grandmother was an unusual toy in Alan’s nursery. She had initially been a resident of Alan’s sister’s room but somehow had been left in the nursery a few years ago. In all this time she had learned how to speak like the natives but you could still sense an accent when she spoke. She was entirely useless too but always maintained that her father, the Jack-in-the-box, (another well known leader in the history of Toyland) was a good enough reason for her to be the next leader of Toyland. The Jack-in-the-box’s head had been ripped off by General Tin’s ancestor, General Wood, so the enmity between Barbie’s grandmother and General Tin was apparent and undying. Oddly enough, Barbie’s grandmother’s circular sort of logic for being elected convinced all the toys as well, who didn’t really put much thought into what they did or what they agreed to collectively. The Wise Owl and the stuffed mule were always trying to explain to the toys how they were not making the right choices but they had very little effect.
Meanwhile the Tailless Lion, who was also rallying support against General Tin in order to get back his former office, began using the cause of the Justice League as a motivation for the masses to vote for him. Barbie’s grandmother saw the opportunity and joined forces with the Tailless Lion and tried really hard to get rid of the problematic General as well.
Now, although their joint efforts did culminate in the General being dethroned, in the process, Barbie’s grandmother got shot and killed at a public gathering. While the toys were busy trying to figure out how this might have happened, a strange and unfamiliar toy, known only as the Headless Horse, reared his sinister, headless head and laid claim to the leadership of Toyland on the basis that he was in fact Barbie’s grandfather, or in other words, he was Barbie’s grandmother’s husband. “I am your leader because my wife just died yesterday!” declaimed the Headless Horse and all the toys nodded their approval.
Toys are an emotional group of inanimate objects and so they readily accepted this new development without consideration and hailed the Headless Horse as the new leader. “He has only just lost a loving wife, we must let him rule over us all in order to make amends for a crime we did not commit!” said the toys.
“But he’s headless! How will he care for all the toys? He can’t even see!” said the Wise Owl, but nobody thought along those lines; rational thinking was temporarily unavailable.
“Mister ninety-percent is what he is,” said the toy mule with a bitter chuckle, “unfortunately it’s the ten-percent which he doesn’t have that is really important!”
“For the love of sanity and reason!” exclaimed the Cricket Bat, “Can you not see that you have elected a leader who doesn’t even have a proper head?” but nobody was willing to listen to a piece of wood. “You’re better in the Cricket field than in political affairs, so keep out and stay out!” said the toys in unison.

The Headless Horse did not have a head but everyone could tell he was smiling all the time. He was quite a happy horse, now that he was leader. Since he didn’t have a mouth -which is an inconveniently small opening- he could eat a lot more than a regular toy by simply tipping everything over into his severed neck. No chewing required, no waiting necessary, simply tip everything and anything in and then forget about it. The constantly smiling Headless Horse was well known for eating apple jam. All the toys thought that the poor chap was only trying to put up a brave front for the sake of his people and not to dwell too much on how his wife had died such a violent death. “He’s a capital fellow,” said the toy Truck that didn’t have fuel to run on anymore “he eats jam to drown the memory of his poor old wife…it’s only natural.” Unfortunately his overeating had created a dearth of apple jam in Toyland.
As time went by, the toys slowly began to realize that life in Toyland was getting progressively worse. Food had become really expensive because it was so rare to find; most of it was gobbled up by the leader. Energy supply was down as well. Nobody knew what to do about that either.
“I think society has been divided into the proletariat and the bourgeois…the haves and the have-nots” said the Wise Owl very solemnly. “And I fear that if certain steps towards eliminating class difference aren’t taken, there will be a massive uprising whereby all the poor toys will beat up the rest of us and a bloody revolution will be the result.”

“I don’t see what the problem is…everything is just fine and dandy. I don’t see why these prophets of doom are always trying to paint such a horrid picture.” said the Headless Horse.

“Well obviously he doesn’t ‘see’ what the problem is; he can’t even see anything! He doesn't have a head!” said the Cricket Bat. He was so annoyed with how silly the toys were that he decided to not bother anymore. “Let them reap what they have sown.” he said and left.

At this juncture, the Wise Owl’s prophetic words began to come true. Groups of poor toys were to be seen skulking around in the corners of the nursery, discussing hunger and sadness. All the well-off toys were feeling paranoid and nervous. Everyone seemed to be staring at everyone else’s hands and pockets. Once the Wise Owl died -of old age, stress and grammatical mistakes- all hell broke loose: The toys charged the Presidential Palace where the Headless Horse sat smiling as ever. But before they could really do all that they wanted to do to their chosen leader, the nursery door opened, signaling a new era in the history of Toyland. Alan’s younger brother had been born a few months ago and it was unanimously decided by the powers that be that young Donald would succeed Alan as lord and master of the nursery.

“What wretched looking toys are these?” wondered Donald’s mother, as she settled him in the new room, “How emaciated and savage looking they have become without Alan’s supervision! Well Donald, it’s up to you now to tame these old barbarians all over again and I wish you luck and I hope you get along fine.” She smiled at her child with beaming affection. And then in a feigned voice of authority, she said: “Remember to be firm with them Donald; be firm and authoritative! Don’t let them sense any weakness in you. These funny colored savages aren’t used to civility and can only respect someone who is a blatant superior. So good luck!” said Donald’s mother as she closed the door.
All the toys remained where they were, silently watching their new master, awestruck and beguiled.