i-mash in nations

Your war cum.

Pier 1 Imports. It is soccer. It is soccer.
I have a sweet tooth
Marbelized walrus army on Laugh-In coffin knows a rainy tumor joggers delight,with wight grueling muses pooting farmboys

Lumber gagging bunny rapture's answering machine-like interstate endoscopy-or a cliffnote grinder maggot nipple

Grover's trope,a meme mote so bloated purple and funny, co-lost on me- genius hair tire's acerbic vomitorium
Bottlebee Marmutt raked grey hambuns in ragged glass-like convolescent urges, per fermented stinty clean yeast infected wasp lost marble...
Soubrette us soup rise, Per Hawiian voodoo state route Sandal would, ballast robot water . On.top. Of . Stone.mountain...now to walk back down
Ohmn

My bosses grandaddy wuz a forklift annie dipped,too.

Bolton Rd graf: for every jesus there must be a judas.Shurug

Chraughick Tryelle:smiles to-get-her ,Assumes someone: a niece's subtle seance sends nonchalant nuances- in Therift Stores

failure is the goal of conceptual writing about an hour ago
recolombine- 4ent PENTAGRAM supple mustard between flowers for cannons
Ben I'm conceptual at whitney so kiss my unicorn dick


Bugeye freon tea!!! Ownly buy yourcelf

S t a r b o a r d w o m e n f I n g e r s

Ours is a prolonged pinnacle,a sum of All,registering nothing, totally waiting to become the past,important chaos lacking contrast, root .

Afrozen Scittori

Dunot De'Liver Delicut Stough

Trancemission airies ministriseries


Questeon


Partnear

Tandy man you fact chore poor chemtrailed bacchus the bigfoot

Chew bach the cross tops a poppy coffin

Sonar parthenon tomboy source or sour soar,the sonorous add annoyed smells.
Partition ripples/b'tween deep.Feel the Crackin'.
Languid language. I'll listen malign,allies incognito.
The sponge wishes, the church staples, drain wet tape.
Change gold eyes.
Dutiful spoon fed,blue sky i think, topiary rote the snooze button,on pink clouds.

buttercup flouride quotidian punisher resists. Passable phalanx can it stir blow up buttercup?

Sanguine arsenals float four words, laughable chamber, chatterful manimal, ripped of his arm through the cage.
Linky stink the pooble answered candid paulif for christ's sake. Chew the noose

Possibly aqueous oxymorons toggle wallets and goggles. In warehouse hotbox cardboard rotten thoughts,that is.


Selective and personable,adjunct totalities tremble in a rather galiant resemblance to metnarrative-like epitaphs.

The cyclic chambered alphabet, enslaved to the numeric agency,has unencumbered a testimony of roman numerals as poetry.

Drunkin anarchic bugs bunny bullshit delight. To go,please.
Will Cotton's paintings are pretty darn...yummy.

Charitable & Pucker,and Tantamount At-At at the Bananas. Wall-eyed and Panzer Fastidious Lips,Carmelized the Panama Canal Zone. Wah she choo.

realizing Christian Bok might be my hero
Shirts are a commitment

I've been closing the gap, life,making art, disguised as an idiot- as a performance - now I can't recall when I started.


Du mogelst

After 500 yards,stay on the left lane.Turn right. Turn right.

Got a washing my sheen

There are suspicious people following me.

I drive market values down
Fine. I quit.
Massive acts by trembling men have historical tentacles.

Tear uh Tear duck Firma pay per Icon do it do we I Flew over and thru. Know you can from web. Medicated Heavysun.wrap without eyelids:dreA.M
Moon soaked cellophane drips documenta ellipses in the poppy rotten birth

Tony Hawk has never had an orgasm.



The subterfuge of antiquity bathes the rage of a lost portal's ambivalence

I think the sky is blue today

Dryer wives than Isis reclined in pantomimes,portmanteaus,viruses and red meat.


Poetry is never to be discovered recordings of silent film stars normal speaking voices

Sipping minutes on par's succinct laps of coffee paced thoughts.Lined up.
I done seen a dead armadillo on 78 where it goes an turns into memorial drive. it's true. Running sunny sink water and fingernails thru the day's purpose. Thru the hairy mediocre love that thins in Atlanta.

My new idea of a traditional poem

Come towards the sinister color of space,
wrapped in a teenage dark candled blanket.
Reflexitivity wrinkles the springs of a summer day
What you knew then.

Music and impetuous clever brain wrecks.
The energy of the day amplified by night.
Edible dreams burned off with laughter
and it felt to cry,too.

Understanding what to not agree upon.

Soda Pop Washing Machine on Chlorophyll Peninsula

THIS IS A POEM.

I was looking for something to drape words on
Knowing that Attention Deficit can create similar effects.

To say something like this so removed. This is good.
Old fans may be more amenable to searching for a new late-night habit during the transition period.


To talk about or on the internet,I say this:
Why do I care about art? Or maybe it is a willful ignorance
(to what is real)
He jokes about all politicians but it's becoming clearer where his sympathies lie.

Reading over on or through this window
over here anyways. Maybe you're an elephant?

I don't know where you came from.

Zombie Robots from the Future

(a man in a suit benignly watches us & his watch tick tock)

Steve's dream interpolated: Zombie Robots: From the Future.
(a) hTe future folk art exhibit shifted on the walls of the animated building.Swim Suits strangled the performers into a sort of unconsciousness. Having a dream, a rubble base filled with unanimated humans,the concert was going to begin in about 30 days prior to the present one. "Take a pancake", said the facelift. It shaved hair into his milk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcdgLclFWOU&feature=related
And so it was sickly,the sun rolled up over and behind the Eyedrum building and the musicians sat down. A row of chanting phases and conversations looped back on themselves. An awful smell bubbled in anticipation of the improvisational notes. "Did you bring anything to party with?" Electrical wires swung in the air,touching in random bunches,still transfering signals. Their sparkling shadows lit up most of the night sky. Pink skin in the grit. Most of them were young,like ticks.
-Kiki Blood rocked the house naked and shimmied within her skin,dead as a philosophy book to the world,she repeated the sound that included all sounds.Punk rock cowboy hats and a hose filled with engineers. A yellow and blue barber shop hung zebras on the walls. Far way and to the back of the Eyedrum gallery: Oblivious and happy the walls of the gallery moved again,shifting the muddy ground and moving the performance into the space that would not occupy Wonder Root in 178 years.
(1) A finger was lead out of the earth,fingering itself it became as if sentient, and felt for an anticipation of experience. A skill saw or a guitar string,it cried a sound. Muddy in the yard,women climbed telephone poles and street signs and spoke Finnish or Spanish. Don't write or talk about me,nerd. I despise you.
On they marched some getting further,most closer."What is topography?",thought the crowd of gears rusting and clicking heels. The zombie robots spewed fire and flowers,telling stories from their naked bodies as they travelled,giving birth to wriggling infants as they circled the earth. The sky was blue with big billowing white clouds now. Answering machines and beepers reigned the land like cherry blossoms.it was their season,shared with radar detectors.
"Do you know what time it is?" A zombie robot asked a ghost reading a book.it ignored him.
Outside all of this looking in with careful crawling legs,a tick climbed across time and settled on the shell of an egg covered in text. It sat outside of the shell giggling and expanding from zombie blood. Her naked body did vaguely please the Zombie Robots philosophy of television and capitalism.
"Do butterflies fart? They do eat dead things,you know?" asked the lead singer to the crowd in reverb. The paintings muddy and gooey ran colrs into one another,creating a theme of all things and no-thing. It meant a great bog something.
"We dont have to touch that now" said a voice.
Baby children in swim suits charged the gallery,thinking it was City Hall. The police turned back from inside, outting themselves in some snoopy dress-up doll way. An old photograph gained color and ,as if in reverse, flew backwards into the hand of a robot that had dropped it. The robot liked the paintings.
A grey scale of din,plastic bathing suits with lawyers and yellow and blue Ikea hoses, listed on the side of the air,floating across a name of a band and ectastic were the fan bases. They stood at a comfortable distance,the paintings shifted again and one of them let out a last sigh and fell from the wall. Steve still had his dream about the police,but they became bigger. Giant police having to arrest their own intestines dove within themselves and disappeared.
The rock music carried on at Eyedrum. Etiolated Williams smothered the paintings and gathered its death burning rubble up in her arms,whispering creative things into it as they became one,transparent and walked away through the nearest wall of the gallery.
The distance of the sound shifted again and as you read this, the text is now written in an understandable manner. The link posted goes to a blog about the art festival,the machine that brings this to you, and Etiolated Williams, has applied a tourniquet to truth.
"That's an outright LIE!" screamed the painting as it became one with Etiolated. They hid in the wall between the mainstream and the avant-guard. An older woman looking for the substance to her fast food order, barked questions at people close to her,as if mechanized and stuck on repeat.
The truth lies in a place beyond where this story came from. The art on the walls told the story better and the music from the band seemed.
"It was endless and it was al a lie." Etiolated screamed this from within the walls. Ghosts of robots she had designed for her great grandfather shambled by. They were members of the band. They played a Christmas song that Jeff Dahlgren whistled in his twenties.
From the ground where the sun had gone down, they rose again. Zombie Robots called in a phalanx strand of saliva unit,it strafed the sea,hesitating levitating on a recipe and carrying remote controls.Swimsuits jumped on people and began beating them.
"This is all a LIE" said Etiolated Williams,hearing nothing she knew that meant the Zombie Robots were not. far. Stockholm Syndrome Zombies marched past City hall,singing songs from the concert and waving naked pictures of Kiki Blood,covered in mud.It had a flavor but nobody would ever know.
Far above a glass ceiling and then further beyond that ,it stared from within its own eyes- at a generality of the happenings. The music was not specific and the destruction it had created was beautiful. Cash symbols burned in its glowing side,the animated Zombies stomped to the beat of its breathing. They handed out pamphlets on the movement called "Itism",attempting to recruit new Itists. Sleepy calibrations caused feedback,making it where the crowd couldnt hear themselves-only the music.They thought they screamed about the lies.

(#)The band, Female Blood Blowout, took the stage and started throwing copies of their album "In a short skirt" at the Zombie's ghosts before they showed up. The paintings rolled over each other chanting a nice thing. Gears grinding and leaflets flying, peace,systematickle a chandelier the size sampler peach fancy
the wrangler asian fantasied reliefs on wall sized doberman intergers.
Television screams told the truth under the truth of the fact that this is inspired by Artnews listserves sitting in their underwater waiting for a baby to grow up.

Etiolated Williams locked the door to Eyedrum and walked over to her car.She put a cigarette out under her foot and then couldnt bring herself to leave it onthe ground. She threw it inthe trash to her left. Tthe last to leave that night,Etiolated knew the place was a wreck.A silent promise ot herself to come in tomorrow inthe morning. Maybe somebody(or somebodie) were sleeping on a couch in there somewhere,but she doubted it.The crunch of gravel under her feet tothe car echoed,as if some quick memorty of the vibrations from all night were back. But the night was clear and quiet. Everything was closed. Did the entire city now sleep? I t wa so still.
Then in the distance,a sound of a siren.Somebody's night was hurried and possibly in danger she thought,almost able to see the ambulance driver's face and the people in the back. As she rolled up to the gate it opened. She rolled out and down to the exit and saw Steve Seaberg standing there naked.

Gather Atlanta

Held on June 7th 2009. The first annual Gather Atlanta event.
Organized by local organizations Mint, Burnaway.org, Wonder Root,& Thoughtmarker.



"In trying to give, you see that you have nothing....."



-The goal of this event was to bring organizations and individuals who consider themselves part of Atlanta's art community together,so that they may realize that they are in fact together. So that they may generate dialogue.
-The reason this seemed to be in need was because,although we will all agree that the word "community" does in fact exist,creating an environment where organizations and individuals can meet under a context that seeks to consciously see the word community,and by the very act of considering what one is,define it.
-A driving reason that seemed to emerge for this being needed was a sense that the "art community" is failing to reach an audience. A significant aspect of this event was a panelled discussion- primarily about the use electronic media in an age and locale where print media is losing its presence. --The discussion revolved around the use of internet platforms to help the "art community" becoming more tuned to itself and its audience. Cinque Hicks posed great questions to start the discussion. The questions asked audience members about how long they had been in atlanta,if they considered themselves primarily an artist,if they felt part of a community....great questions to soak on. While the questions seemed benign and simple,their fundamental nature is something very worthy of allowing to sink it,be considered in terms of why they were asked...i feel ultimately the entire discussion found itself covering predictable fundamental observations. This is not to say it didnt serve a great purpose,i simply feel for that purpose to be made worthy,the types of meetings need to happen more than once a year. That way of appraoching it would eventually comfort real conversation. LOTS of conversations about conversations need to take place in order to get partial conversations taking,moments of worth to occur-within the loving gesture of it.

-Even as I write these words,I realize the loop that this self-aware act is involved in.
-These words are going to find those that are interested.
Those that are interested,for the operative part,have already become aware of each other. They may behave as if independant of each other,side by side in a manner of speaking,but they still continue to focus primarily on their own interests,which in turn directs that energy back into the feeling that they are attempting to reach people who are unaware. Many feel they are attempting to generate an audience,to reach "them".

-------------------------Those that are interested will find the art.

There are those interested in art.
-Then there are those interested in art-in Atlanta.
-After this layer,many have naturally developed relationships or opinions of the various arts organizations that they relate to or do not. Each has their own process and can always discover more,true,but their actions are in process. Their process orginates from within them and that is what we work with. It is all you can work with. This process highly individuates into genres,intents of the manifestations that the word art means to others.

-Which by the way,makes me beam a little for Eyedrum, in that it was the obvious choice,the obvious available common ground to host such an event-thank you again Eyedrum! I don't recall any acknowledgment of the use of the space,it was somewhat a given that this was the place for this to happen. This could be interpreted as "taking it for granted"-but anyways...Since i feel Eyedrum has always been about "others",about the "community"-im sure it is okay with simply helping the community. Kind of like a soup line that gives to those in need and patiently waits for them to realize they are there to help them help themselves. Maybe I take that and run with it,pardon me-i know everyone there appreciates Eyedrum. Right?

Where were "we"? Pardon me internet art people. I mean pardon me Internet art people that not only like art,but like art in Atlanta,and then within that,care for what I,writing here as Eggtooth,am saying. I support your right to not be interested.

Here is an idea. I think it is a capital one. I support the right of Gather Atlanta to host quarterly events. But I dont think even that's often enough. Atlanta's art group therapy sessions need to start off hitting meetings weekly. This is not an exaggeration. This will carve it down to a core group. Those honestly concerned for an idea of "others",the others that form us will be there.

-The goal is to faciltate dialogue amongst ourselves,to accept that that is where the focus of the conversation should go.That it is a path,not a goal-if you will. It is very easy and always will be very easy to focus on discussing what you do and what you have done to try and reach "them",when in reality-you are often already saying these words to "them". The sooner this truth is accepted and constructively approached-the sooner a newer bigger expanding perception of "them" will emerge. Dance like nobody is watching..right? Well,for us this should be easy!

-Look at the event that took place yesterday. The crowded room of tables,some of them displaying their products,many of them (us?)simply interested in getting the word out there that they ..we?exist. Focused on... themselves? I am not slighting people for perceiving themselves as part of a community to try and participate in and operating from that principle forward. It is natural and means well. I know we all truly do mean well and try hard.


-----This is why ultimately my interest cycles back to the writers and critics of art. I find myself excited by the level playing field that is the internet. I love that it was called as in its "wild west" days yesterday. I think this analogy implies that the future will reveal constructs that define it with rules,but i dont want to go there. The truth is,none of us wants that. Not really.

-Critics also have to attempt to establish a perceived position of,...respect.

-The process reveals itself if it directs the thoughts towards a truer sense of self. (aka: in search of shrodinger's phoenix)

-Critics and arts writers and anyone inclined to type,be that typo on top of typo, expressing themselves about art- Their DUTY in this whole picture is to give feedback to....who? Ourselves. And who is ourselves?? Well,we've no choice but to realize that for the most part,we have met each other. Or at the very least,have met enough of each other that it is a place to start. A place to start considering what the other does and if there are commonalities there. If there are,foster them by joining forces and curating shows together. Even if there are not commonalities,it is a place to openly debate.
I
ndividual artists should embrace anothers work they like. Perhaps this means to not attempt to idolize them or make yourself seem positioned as something or somebody removed or inaccessible because of various conceived earned 'statures" or needs for being careful with networking your art.

yes-Discretion takes place tactfully(or not!!! )around the tastes and focuses of what you choose to include and what not to include. Inother words,if you find someones opinion so unagreeable-say something. put yourself in relevance to them just long enough . Much of what is taking place has ot do with if we are telling people what to want or giving them what they want,and involve din that is everyones responsibility to try to be open to things we would not normally be open to-even tho i support peoples rights to not care...its a funny cycle.

All of this is a local concern. Specific to the needs of Atlanta. The goal should be to react to one another's art.

By means of verbally critqueing in order to learn or teach,or to simply foster ideas.
-The highest form of reaction in my mind is not the purchase. In ways the purchase is the most selfish.

The creation of your own work- that carries forward the work and influence of another-is the highest and most constructive ackowledgment.
-On ideas: The best to me would be ideas being generated that are about Atlanta and NOW IN aTLANTA.

-The art critics stand in a fascinating position to all of this.
First,I don't feel this city really has any "art critics". It has people who report on what they see,assuming the rest of the context has already been constructed for the art to be valued within. It is about applying perspective not only to the art,but to the context it is shown in. They are creating this by the voice they establish. The art writers cannot try to be impartial reporters. It is not some generalized duty of benevolent informers, they are not some impartial mirror or a cold eye of the camera.

-Yes,the doing it for the love of it aspect is appreciated, I do not down-play this. But. They report about art and have an obligation to fully throwing their perspective into what they do. The artists they are reporting on,in theory, do as well. Give them that respect,and if you feel they have not given it to you,tell them.

-As it stands now,it truly seems there is a mirroring taking place of expectations. The fully thrown in sense of self bubbles to a perceived surface and ultimately finds everything falling flat. Its an evident cycle that always wants to assume that the advertising and maketing is to blame.

-Great art becomes mixed in with the complacent gestural reviews that take place. Nobody wants to stand up and say that somebody's hard work,in their educated and indiviuduated opinion- failed.Especially if that person is perceived to be part of some big chain of pre-existing relations. Chances are,if they are,they need to have their playing field leveled. ( i ultimately feel there is not choice but to blame the art itself-on critical terms.)

The whole process and observing it. It says more about one's perception of themselves in ways. I realize this as I type this. It is somewhat self-fulfilling. The simplified place to begin the change is in realizing that criticism is constructive. To observe the entire context the art exists in,to create "a lie that tells the truth" about this would even be okay! That lie being-a truth-(ahem)that....Things are changing!


-It becomes difficult because many artists would rather say what they have to say with their art. Not many artists are comfortable discussing why they create what they create in "real time". Or online for that matter. This is why I find the role of the critic crucial. They do this for us when we cannot,and if the critic does a disagreable job-as long as it is passionate!-,it at least stages a beginning. The old axiom about any PR is good PR is true. Especially if the opinions expressed are emotionally driven and provoke emotion.
Regardless of agreed perspectives. Often ,it is vehemently disagreeable opinions that provoke dialogue-not the routine gestures of clippable print praises that go on your Aunt Bobby's refrigerator! Those are nice and fun,but....we all know where we are. Together. Alone. With each other. And that's plenty to start with!

-It's okay to take the idea of community truly to a level that is only about community.The conceptual or valued varieties of context still reside within.
-Community- also considers an idea of getting together and,symbolically speaking,helping plant trees and clean up trash for an afternoon. Not being concerned with any perceived earnings or commandings of respect or even 'safety" for your idea of yourself and the supposed image you have created. How many would be willing to take chances of being honest, tho? Are you willing to make that investment,to possibly sacrifice the gesture on top of gesture that has perhaps "earned" some of you something? (of course, in some cases those earnings manifest as ...money. Grants,etc..). So that you can sit at panelled discussion tables and show by your own words how truly unaware you actually are?
To show- How you have been dedicated to a complacent expectation of yourself and a perceived goal that is a selfish illusion that you perpetuate to what is ultimately your own end.Our repeated end, So that you may reap some vampiric gestural benefit right now.

The wall to throw art against needs to be built by rippin down the fake existing one and fertilizing the rubble with honesty.good old fashioned titlliating scary puttin' yrself out there- honesty. It starts with critical discussion of the art itself.


Burroughs wrote about the concept of a naked lunch. Seeing what is on the end of your fork for what it really is. I find this illusion of a community to be a caring one. It truly cares and is trying. I simply find that it is often in denial or confusing complacency with compassion.


(individuals i was photographing above were Evan Levy, Robert Cheatham & -in the middle distance- Jon Ciliberto. To me, these are three important members of our "community". Maybe some of the other individuals caught in the frame mean something to you. Who are important local art figures to you?)

CONGLOMERATE of not wanting to call this poetry

THIS IS A POEM bored doorway for the mourning curry sitting in my room,not my house today in stone mountain
salivates. Challey saxxon tander sam-ples a wall-eyed beep beep,for choos-ed the lion calibrated family pants -izzard's Lay lay penny cans to staple fabricated barstard sturgeon germinal
wheel. A cokey lopse sided aftermath cannon berry parson simple marinates bubbles in summer cum bunny perculiarly. Weary from push-ups and climbing stone mountain,im tired of baked chicken
Is in Calhoun in an attic,is in a cubicle in a Blue Building.



barmaid window the kitsch laughter asp-i found two roaches in the dark of my kitchen
but,the lovely spitter spat tonal alex-water by the gallon,i distrust the tap but drink it
and her challenge for wigwams answering my sore throat in the mornings,before delivering sign supplies to athens,ga
eliminate apathy the alligator amber ax-tucker tacoma truck my buddy,ryan is moving to austin-THIS WILL BE A NIGHT TO REMEBER...said a dyslexic
misting mono foe tropes balloons to doo-comfy shoes with too white socks for nerd's comfort
dufus marry oh sister sister hopper blue
wraps around my pumping dreaming reason


gallant gar rockard dot path the stupid
south pouts a panhandle flourish ju ju zoe
sour zombie pachinko xerox caustic adhesive
relevant ignorance yearns through the internet-kernel of corn not eaten i dont eat fried food much anymore

THE Tired Monster by eggtooth

Twice down and off by spaces,a crazed mathematician named Zeroy built a maze out of sheets of coroplast. The thick white stuff. He spent several months burrowing out the pre-designed grid in a large field. Grooves 6 inches deep and 10mm wide,just right for the plastic stuff to slide into place. He did this by night with dead catfish hanging over his shoulders,so as to keep the Hairy Sneakers at bay. By day, he studied the sun. His special glasses had perfect scratches-scratches that echoed the pattern of his maze. The mathmetician was going to finish the maze tonight and then tomorrow he would be able to let his Pink Fuzzies free to romp in the maze.
The sun was beginnning to appear as he worked late to finish,so he picked up the pace. Excitement coursed through his veins as he made his way over to his company paid for F-150,retrieving the last 4x8 sheet of coroplast. It locked into place and he sighed and planted his fists on his hips. A smile covered his face and he swatted his hands together.
"Answer me" screamed a memory of his wife in a sheet of light. It came over the tree line in the distance with the peeking sun. He fumbled for his glasses and found them on the bridge of his nose soon enough. His wife's voice beckoned again,a guilty nag from a not so distant past. He sat down in the driver's seat of his truck and looked at the Queen Pink Fuzzy he had on a leash in the passenger's seat.It looked back at him and burped.
"I need some more of those chalices for the equinox, Zeroy" said the Queen Pink Fuzzy. She had grown to about twice the size of a basketball,not including the 8 inches of fuzz that covered her entire globular body. She turned and stared ahead,now waiting for him to turn over the engine and go. "Can I have some air conditioning,please? I wasn't really expecting to be here when the sun came up."
Zeroy fumbled for the keys and slumped forward into turning the truck over. He took a long look over his shoulder at the maze and then pulled his door shut.
"I'm going to let your children go in the maze tomorrow,you know?
She was quiet for about a twenty seconds. "Yep. I kinda figured that was what was about time for." The Queen Pink Fuzzy scratched herself with a greenish sponge-like paw.
As they drove,the truck kicked up dust on the dirt road. This was South Georgia and quiet only got even more quiet out here. Maybe a bird would holler to another at this hour,but it was doubtful. Most were in their labs studying Spanish and Italian for the Kaber Toss Festival. Generations ago they were designed to emulate the birds in Disney's Cinderella,long since having evolved from those habits to larger responsibilities. Zeroy heard the work force at Lockheed Martin was now 80% bird. It didn't surprise him.
"I'm gonna need you to break the news to them for me,if you don't mind" Said Zeroy quietly,not turning his head from the road. The Queen only grunted to acknowledge she had heard him. She had a can of Crisco she was licking from. Zeroy grunted back in the exact same manner,only adding an upward lilt to it to turn it into a reiteration of his request,a question that pushed the acknowledgment.
"Im gonna,I'm gonna" She answered with impatience.
Zeroy sat in silence for a moment. "This aint gonna be a problem with Little Zee,is it?" Little Zee had been put in a pen with the pigs for 6 months because of insubordination.A heavy sentence for anyoneor any living creature. That had been many moons ago,and he'd since been tested by other changes and arduous requests.But this one was going to be a doozy. Many of the Pink Fuzzies would probably die several times over adjusting to their new home in the maze. Not that dying was permanent for them,they reginerated. But evidently it was still painful. Each time one came back,it seemed to come back a bit dimmer and great deal more hostile. Curiously,the Queen herself had not yet died and Zeroy feared the day she did. She was a moody Pink Fuzzy as she was. Zeroy feared she might go Evil in one turn. He knew a death turn of hers had to be due. She'd been around a suspiciously long time. He thought maybe she was into magic,but had seen no signs. Usually their hair became coarse and white from use of spells.
The Queen looked up from her Crisco. "You don't have to worry about Little Zee. I have him under wraps. I got him obsessed on Art History and he's medicated so that's all he can think about.other than his main duties,of course."
Zeroy tried to hide that his being suddenly lit up."Was that his copy of the Eggtooth's "Squirrel" I saw out in the barn?" He swelled with pride a bit as he asked the question. Little Zee may have developed a bad side now,but he was still blood. Zeroy had seen the painting and had even stopped and studied it for accuracy. The image was a classic. He had written papers on it back in college. He recalled the copy was coming along well.
"That's just stuff he does to keep himself busy. You should see his own work. He hides it. He works on it when you are out here building the maze."
They pulled into the ranch and turned a sharp perfect right into the parking space. Zeroy adjusted his shades to a darker tint and looked towards the barn. He never paid enough attention to anything concerning attachments,to caring for others. Zeroy told himself from experiences long ago to be mindful of taking others for granted,but he knew he had not changed. Even now the sun beckoned him. Its light carried Her voice and he wanted nothing more than to go to its haven. He glanced into the barn and saw Little Zee himself,his shadow was distinctive. Zee was reading a book and sitting on a large pile of ice. The Queen shuffled off towards the barn and the others,not looking back,knowing that Zeroy would go the other direction.
When she entered the barn,Zee looked up and hissed at her. It was his way of simply indicating a general mood. It was directed towards nobody in particular.
"Did you get me some more hair color today?" The Queen asked. Little Zee cut his eyes to the wooden dresser that two other Pink Fuzzies were sleeping on. They were tiny,the size of softballs. Between them was the aerosol can she needed and she immediately began to coat herself pink.
"Queen..." Said a voice behind her. "I have some strange news."
It was Reporter Fuzzy. He had the black stripe of the Journalistic Division running down his middle. Reporter looked between Queen & Little Zee to make sure he did not interrupt.
"Go ahead." She sighed.
"There have been reports of a Tired Monster in Albany. It was sighted today eating trees by the Tastee Freeze "
The Queen stopped still at the words. Little Zee had heard earlier and watched her reaction over the top of his book. She went back to spraying herself. "Thank you,Reporter." She set down the can and walked over to Little Zee.
"You and I need to talk." She marched towards the exit to the barn,kicking ice cubes a she went.
Little Zee felt his heart jump. It was about time he was given a mission. This was his chance for redemption. Leading a crew,taking long range recon,and perhaps even executing maneuvers. Giving orders. This could reinstate him.
He followed her out into the morning sun,practically jumping up and down. They had no choice but to go after this Tired Monster and he knew it. The tree eater was the one that had killed the Queen's lover last season. Little Zee knew this was what he was,even though it was supposed to be a secret. He knew The Queen would not be able to resist letting him pass through. This Monster was as good as dead. He shuddered and pink hairs shot from his body,his little purple paws stuck nubby spikes out from within his dense hair.
The Queen Pink Fuzzy looked at Little Zee with a flat cold stare.
"Zeroy has finished the Maze,Zee" She simply said it to him,no frills and no emotion.
They stared at each other in silence.