Canto 9 – Sinbadh the Fuzzy
The wolfman was thoroughly restrained before Ham applied the wake-up spray. Ged held the laser rifle on him, aimed right between the eyes. It was easy to see the kill setting that Ged had it set on.
“Well, hello, puppy!” said Ham.
“Erm! Hah? How did ye cave-boys get out here?”
“Cave-boys?” asked Ged.
The wolf smiled slyly. “You came from the Imperium, didn’t ye?”
“We’ll ask the questions here,” said Ged, emphasizing the point with the barrel of his gun.
“Erm, yes. I sees. Ye’ve invaded me home.”
“Don’t give us that slop,” warned Ged. “You’re a carnivore and a predator. You don’t live in this vegetarian’s paradise.”
“Oh, I has for the last five of yer Earth years. I loves fruits and vegetatables. That’s why those scurvy Stardogs left me here to rot. Huh! I fooled ‘em, though. They stranded their head cook in the one place he most wishted to be!”
“What’s your name, puppy?” asked Ham.
“I yam Khforz Sinbadh. Ye can call me Sinbadh. I be the scurviest corsair what ever stewed up carrots with peas. Them Stardogs hated me for it.”
“Okay, we have a vegetarian Stardog on board our Grange station. What will we do with you?” asked Ged.
“Turn me loose. Let me cook for ye. In fact, whatever adventure ye are on, take me along! I longs to sails through them stars again. I have space between me ears.”
“Oh, good,” laughed Ham. “Now we have two of them like that.”
“Erm, I mean, I loves space. I didna mean I be stupid.”
“We’re not stupid either,” said Ged. “Why should we trust you?”
“I know,” said the dog-headed man, “ye’re thinkin’ a bloke like me will call his scurvy friends the moment he has a chance and scuttles ye like a total swab. But I gots no reason to love them scurvy Stardogs. Marooned I was, like old Ben Gunn. I’d sooner betray a Stardog than a man, I would.”
“Why do you talk like that?” asked Ham.
“I’ve seen the holo-story of Treasure Island seven times, I have. Ther one what stars Robert Newton as Long John Silvers. It be me favorite.”
Ham reached to release the bindings that secured Sinbadh to a rack of hydroponic string beans.
“Wait, Ham!” said Ged. “We don’t need another one of your loonies and lost causes along on this quest. For once, let’s not take on the crazy alien just because he reminds you of our collie dog when Mom was raising us back on the sun-side of Questor.”
“You heard him. He’s a vegetarian wolfman from outer space who loves an old Earth novel enough to learn to talk like it. That’s the kind of thinking that makes us who we are. We’ve gotta hire him for our team.”
Ham was like a big kid begging his favorite parent for a new puppy. The irony was not lost on Ged. That little-boy charm of Ham’s had always kept the two of them together. It was the real reason Ged so dearly loved his brother.
“Oh! Alright then! YOU have to feed and water him. YOU have to walk him every day.”
Ham grinned. He was very handsome whenever he grinned.
And, of course, I have hoarding disorder so bad that I can’t resist starting new collections of dolls when toy-makers are putting out the new stuff at Christmas, even though the Princess has thoroughly outgrown dolls. And I am not alone in having hoarding disorder. While we were cleaning bedrooms, my daughter found a fluffy rug that would be perfect for the bathroom. But no. My wife is saving it. It has to stay folded and put away where it won’t get dirty. We have closets stuffed full of clothing and other stuff that is rarely or never used. And I do not dare throw any of it out or move it to anyplace else. I can move my stuff, not hers.
‘There are dolls everywhere in my room, so any attempt to clean starts with picking them up off the floor and putting them somewhere safer. These four are now living behind the TV. I just wish they would stay put for a while and quit leaping off shelves when they come alive after midnight every night.
It seems I am rather good at it, too. Who knew that a life spent as a teacher would make you into the sort of Jeopardy genius that could earn a million dollars on a show that you will never ever have a chance to get on, and if, by some miracle, you did, you would get a first round question about the atomic weight of molybdenum and you’d say, “What is 42?” because that is the element’s atomic number (and the answer to life, the universe, and everything) instead of 95.94, the correct answer, which you knew, but you got nervous and went for the jokier answer.
Of course, there is the opposite problem too. Some writers are not hard to understand at all. They only use simple sentences. They only use ideas that lots of other people have used before. You don’t have to think about what they write. You only need to react. They are the reasons that words like “trite”, “hackneyed”, “boring”, and “cliche” exist in English. But simple, boring writing isn’t written by stupid people. Hemingway is like that. Pared down to the basics. No frills. Yet able to yield complex thoughts, insights, and relationships.
Catch a Falling Star 
Naked Innocence
To be clear, I will have to write a post called Naked Experience to go with this post. It is a William Blake style of thing. You know, that English Romantic Poet guy who was into drawing naked people even more than me? The writer of Songs of Innocence and Experience? You know, this stuff;
Well, maybe you don’t know. But Blake gave the world the metaphor of the innocent lamb and the tyger of experience (tyger is his spelling, not mine, and it didn’t blow up the spell checker, even though it made the thing unhappy with me again). There is a certain something I have learned about nakedness that I mean to innocently convey. I learned it from anatomy drawing class and spending time with nudists. Naked is not evil. Naked is not pornography. Nakedness, itself, is a very good thing.
At this point the avid clothing-wearers among you are probably saying to yourself, “This guy is nuts! If God had wanted us to be nude, then we wouldn’t have been born with clothes on.” And I must admit, I cannot argue with logic like that.
But on a more serious note, I believe nudity is a fundamentally essential part of the nature of art. After all, pictures of naked people are a central part of what people have been drawing since they first started etching them with charcoal on cavern walls. And all art, including this blog, is about the human experience. What it means to be human. What it feels like to be alive on this Earth and able to feel.
And there is nothing sinister and immoral in drawing nudes to portray that fact. I am trying to show metaphorically the music of existence, the pace, the symmetry, the musical score… It isn’t focused on the private bits, what some call the naughty parts, even when those things are present in the picture. “How dare that naughty Mickey show the naked back end of that butterfly! It ought to have pants on at least!” Yes, I am making a mockery of that outrage itself. I am not a pornographer. These pictures were not created to engender any prurient interests. These pictures are part of Blake’s lamb. They will not bite you. Though blue-nosed people who wish to control what others think may very well bite me for daring to say so.
I have posted a lot of writing and artwork on this blog that I held for the longest time to be completely private and personal. I hardly ever showed any of it to anybody before I posted it here. But I am old. I no longer have secrets. I am capable of telling you everything even though I have never met most of you in real life. And I have no shame. I have become comfortable with emotional and intellectual nudity. And when I am dead, the body I have kept hidden from the world for so long will be no more. It’s just a thought. It’s a naked thought. And it is completely innocent.
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