Category Archives: Paffooney

Canto Thirty-Two – In the Main Flower Garden of the Bio-Dome

There were three large red-and-yellow blossoms on robust stalks in the center of the garden.  Everything else was either withering and brown or completely dead.  George Jetson felt slightly creeped out by the three giant, healthy plants in the center of so much death and rot.  Still, he didn’t object as Brekka and Menolly danced and sang as they moved towards the bright colors of the three blossoms.

“Georgie?  Why aren’t you dancing with us?” sang Brekka.

“Yeah, why not?” added Menolly.

“I don’t need to dance with goofy girls right now.  I… I’m supposed to guard you and keep bad things from happening.”

The girl tadpoles scoffed and continued to dance towards the blossoms.

George watched the leaves of the flowers, easily the size of dinner plates, begin to twitch and move.  It was almost as if they were trying to detect something either by feel, maybe of vibrations in the air, or possibly by smell.  George knew from his educational programming that leaves had openings called “stoma” that sniffed the air as they breathed carbon dioxide in and oxygen out.  It wasn’t an important fact, was it?

Suddenly there was a large, burly lizard man bursting in through the far door into the flower garden.  He was completely naked, for reasons unknown.  He was also obviously a scabby with the tell-tale white, filmy eyes and desiccated patches on his naked scales.

“George!  Help!” cried Brekka.  She had danced so far towards the three live flowers that the interrupting scabby had her cut off from Menolly and George.  George leaped forward to engage the monster in hand-to-hand combat, but pulled up short when he noticed the huge teeth and long, scimitar-like claws on both hands.

“Brekka!  Run away!  We will catch up to you on the other side!” screamed George.  “Menolly!  Come here to me!”

Brekka broke toward the flowers and ran.  The scabby followed her.  Menolly reached George and threw both of her green arms around his neck, making him unable to either flee or fight.  Both of them watched the pursuit of Brekka with absolute horror.

The largest of the three blossoms moved its huge flower-face closer to the fleeing Brekka.  The four main petals of the blossom formed into two sets of opposing jaws.  As Brekka moved close enough, the blossom engulfed her entire body and lifted her into the air.  Her screams were muffled by the blossom that seemed much more like a gigantic mouth.

“Oh!  No!  Brekka is gone!” cried Menolly, sagging against George Jetson.

“It ate her!”  George was too stunned to move.

The flowers were still in motion.  The two remaining blossoms grabbed the scabby, one seizing its head, and the other grabbing a leg.  The two blossoms pulled in opposite directions, splitting the unfortunate lizard man in two, then settling down to munch contentedly and smack their petal-lips.

Menolly was devastated and sobbing uncontrollably.  George didn’t know an awful lot about the hugging and kissing stuff that Earth humans did on their television shows, but he felt the urge to try.  He held Menolly tightly with both arms and pressed his mouth to hers.

“Mmmph!  What are you doing?” Menolly moaned.

“I’m comforting you, dummy.”

“Well, don’t stop!”

When the blossom that had engulfed Brekka began making retching noises, George was almost too lost in the entire kissing thing to respond.  He felt rather funny in his lower stomach as the two tadpoles pulled apart.

The blossom vomited Brekka onto the walkway.  She was clearly still alive, but covered with sticky-looking goo.

“Ooh,” moaned Brekka, “that was not very fun.”

*****