Muffin Man: Chapter 2
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the romance of flying out on adventure by the seat of our pants, but the muffin’s instructions were awkward at best. At worst we would find ourselves under arrest. Our mission: to slay. Assassins were we of the baked and the crusted, cream-filled and flaky. Our “leader” did little to explain as to why we were snuffing out cake and picking off pie, but at his word, we commenced and sought the demise of every pastry we could see with our eyes. “A black plot horrific in scope and intention,” was all that he ever deemed worthy to mention. “No donut, cookie, or éclair should survive to be eaten tomorrow by anything alive.”
The setting sun gave us cover. Its shadows extended and draped us in black while we silently tended to business. The quarry fell fast to our strike as we crept around town, causing havoc unlike we had ever believed we could ever create. We’d clean out the whole town if we kept up this rate. The muffin was genius in his plan of attack. He pushed us ahead and gave us no slack. Fifteen more minutes, a grand total of nineteen, was all that it took to do damage unseen by police and civilians, for no one had spied our party of vandals despite chaos supplied to each cupcake and cookie in town left unguarded. Their foresight and caution apparently discarded. We first hit the grocery, 5 minutes before closing, and opened the wrappers of cupcakes, exposing them all to the air, and soon, without fail, they’d have to be pitched for becoming too stale. The dating was weird, though - a joke or lampoon – claiming “best sold by” the 25th of last June. The deli was next, known for strudel and pączki, and they were already bricks, so we found ourselves lucky. The owners would throw them away anyway, so we set off again without too much delay. Fortune cookies don’t count, the muffin complained, so even though it was close, we promptly abstained from hitting the Asian restaurant right next door and set off to find more baked goods to abhor. Only one place was left in our dark operation, and I fear you will find it a queer destination, for the home of the best burrito you could try was also the home of the best apple pie. Though Tex-Mex in nature, its chief application was to service all comfort foods loved by the nation. Its pies were nigh peerless. Grandmothers deferred fame and fortune and knew its methods were preferred. We strode in, smug smiles, all pleased with ourselves and asked why the pies were absent from the shelves. We should have come sooner, the lady explained. They were fresh out. We frowned and expertly feigned disappointment although we had done it! We’d won! Our conquest complete! Our mission well done!
“This was fun,” chuckled Lewis, “and I have to say, maybe it’s good for the lazy to do something this crazy. Revolt. Spite the man. Protest our own way so we’ll have stories to give to our children someday.” And with a yawn, he concluded, “well, I hate to roam, but I’m thinking it’s about time we wised up and went home.”
The muffin replied, “You’re mistaken young sir, if you think that we’re finished and you can defer your commitment to duty adopted tonight. You will stand fast and fight until all is made right.”
“Yeah…” replied Lewis, “about that. I’m done. I just followed you out here because it was fun. Remember? The plan? We listen for your sake, with hopes that with time this whole madness would break? I thought you were playing around – just a ruse to do something worthy of making the news. Are you serious, Quinn? I heard spoken word but it was not from that muffin. That would be absurd!”
Before I could answer and cover my rear, the muffin lost patience and began to jeer. “What’s absurd is a pansy like you couldn’t handle as simple a job as becoming a vandal. If you thought that absurd, why, you’ve no hope. You’ve lost it. If you can’t stand the work then you won’t share the profit. Quinn and I have more victory left to achieve, and if you cannot last now then you may as well leave. Those pastries are only the root of the evil, so stick around bucko if you wish the upheaval of a sinister plot to weaken this town. Will you cast neighbors out? Will you let them all down? You may think those pastries are beaten, of course, but victory is lost if we don’t hit the source!”
“The source?” Lewis yelled. “Now you’re really in deep if you keep taking orders from this little creep! What source? What plot? You don’t even know! You’re making each detail up as you go! That muffin is trouble and it’s clear to me that it’s taken over your mind and your thoughts completely. When it was all about fun, I was with you, you know this, but this growing obsession is totally bogus. Follow you? No, Quinn, for I have concluded that you, my old friend, are completely deluded. I shouldn’t have thought this was only a game. I let you, down, Quinn, and I feel ashamed that I didn’t advise you correctly. Let’s eat before these ideas become more concrete.”
I suppose his reaction was somewhat expected. It’s not as if he was the one first selected to carry the torch. He was jealous, perhaps, though to place all importance on that was a lapse in his judgment. The threat looming nigh was the point. We couldn’t let teamwork and trust be disjoint. “I’m glad that you care man,” I calmly replied. “But you wouldn’t have come this far if I had lied. Your ardent frustrations ring hollow despite your well-meaning intentions. Your fears appear trite in the light of the purpose to which we’ve been called. I’m making this up? Sir, I am appalled to hear you speak falsehood with so much devotion. Can you really not separate truth from emotion? The muffin can speak. It’s what’s led us this distance! Why do you offer such bitter resistance? Our job here is true. We’ve good things to do. And your wavering faith will not knock us askew.”
He stood there awhile, looking rather lost, as if he had never considered the cost of this mission. His mind would be called into question if we were found out and beset by oppression. But we’d known that as soon as we’d left, hadn’t we? It hadn’t come up, but I’m sure he’d agree that the source of our orders meant little compared to the lives of the townsfolk about to be spared. But with no more objection and little delay, Lewis turned around. Lewis walked away.
Muffin Man: Chapter 1
“That muffin is trouble,” said Lewis to me. “It’s taken over your mind and your thoughts completely. When it was all about fun, I was with you, you know this, but this growing obsession is totally bogus.”
I suppose I’ll explain, dear readers, before I continue this tail and rudely ignore the gap in your knowledge concerning events that happened before, therefore in the past tense. It began with a mix, as all muffins begin, but I swear this one spoke to me. It did! It said, “Quinn…take me away from this grocery store, buy me, get out, do nothing else. I implore you to take me and leave. There is no time to waste. There is evil afoot and we must stop it post haste!” I purchased the muffin and skedaddled away. No evil was going to get me today. On my watch, with this muffin, I’d conquer it cleanly. Luckily I read Snopes and did pushups routinely. “Onward, ho, Jezebel!” the mix screamed in my ear, as if expecting the legions of Hell to appear. I forgave the remark. Time was tense, as were we. What mattered was baking the muffin to see – why the fuss? Why the angst? Was there really a threat, or was this mix telling lies? If so, then I’d let a mere muffin take hold of my thoughts and my mind. I could be walking into a trap thoroughly blind. I arrived at my home and debated my choice. Do I shut out the voice? Eat the thing and rejoice? Regardless, with milk and some eggs I created the batter, my growing anxiety abated. It gave me some time to ponder matters more clearly. If the thing stopped its talking I’d just eat it sincerely. However, soon after, it started to chuckle, quiet and eerie. My knees started to buckle. “Soon,” ‘s it all it said. “Soon my time will arrive. Through air and through fire I am coming alive.” I freaked out a bit and called my friend Lewis. His wisdom and calmness could carry me through this. I punched in the numbers then gave him the spiel, doubting he’d ever believe it was real, but I held nothing back, sounding silly and stale, and gave him each detail of my weird little tale.
“You’re natterjack, Quinn,” Lewis said over the phone. I’d asked him to come over. I couldn’t do this alone. “You paid nine bucks and a quarter for a ‘gourmet’ confection that makes only one muffin! Is it worth it to mention that your mind is now lost, lid flipped, sanity rejected? Hearing inanimate objects speak isn’t strange. It’s expected! Stay right where you are, don’t you dare leave that place! I’ll be along soon. Google ‘daft’ just in case!”
My computer is crap, so I shouldn’t have tried, but on Lewis’ suggestion, my brain may have lied and I needed to settle the doubts in my head lest the muffin be real and truthful instead. But alas, as I noted, wires fired as if coated in molasses – the ads for its “speed” clearly bloated – and I hadn’t the time or the energy to spare. In a minute or two I may not even care. “Why bother?” I thought. “I’ll just play it by ear. Perhaps a solution will just up and appear.” I knew Lewis would scoff at my lack of a plan, but perhaps it’d be over before it began. Of course, that’s when it found it prudent to speak, making both idea and courage decidedly weak. “Not long now,” it said to my growing chagrin. “A dozen more minutes and we will begin.” “Begin what?” I stammered, losing it quickly, my mind blank, my throat dry, my tongue moving thickly. My wits escaped faster when no reply came. Was I really insane or was this all just a game? The lights above seemed to burn a little bit brighter, my sweater gripped my throat a bit tighter, and as I sucked in a breath doing all I could do to stay standing I wondered if the former was true.
“Ok, Quinn. I’m here. Now let’s put this to bed. I’d much rather be home in my own now instead, but you’re a pal, though you’re nuts, and I will do my best to help you out here and provide you some rest. I thought it all out on my way over here, and the solution, you know, is indeed very clear. We’ll eat it together - remove all evidence - which will in turn quiet any case it presents. Your head doesn’t feel warm, but I fear this hysteria leads a learned man such as me to a far darker area. It could be psychosis. You’ve begun the conception of a parallel world filled with astounding objections to natural order. Inanimate objects can’t talk to you, Quinn, as physics subjects them to logic. They’ve no mouths at all. They can’t speak. Their powers of persuasion are decidedly weak. To wit, you’ve gone mad. A few shades beyond blond. The fish are all dead and you’re draining the pond. Thus, I must help you break free from this inner delusion for the sake of your future, and as I said, the solution is to consume the muffin, but for the sake of your mind, let’s first ‘hear’ it out and respond in like kind.”
Oven mitt in my hand, butter knife at the ready, three steps to the oven and feeling unsteady, I made my approach and took a deep breath. This muffin could be my salvation or death. “Let’s do this,” said Lewis, nonchalant at my side, “we’ll listen awhile and then we’ll decide what to do. Loosen up. Don’t be so uptight. You’ve got this, I’ve your back, and we’ll both be alright.” It’s hard to argue with logic that bold, so I just shut my mouth and did as was told. I popped it right out and stepped back, afraid for a moment that I had been duped and had paid, as Lewis suggested, an exorbitant sum for a muffin that was utterly blind, deaf, and dumb. A minute or two passed in slow, quiet wonder. Would it call out my blunder? Would it tear us asunder? Then Lewis, that rogue, had enough, so it seemed, and began a low chuckle. But that’s when it screamed. “Belay, thou rapscallion! Stand firm at your station. While baking I’ve had the most grand inspiration! Take hold of me lads, and let’s leave this abode for a world full of danger, for the long, winding road!” I glanced back at Lewis ashamed, for I feared that this weirdness I heard was not as it appeared. Yet, I said, “well, you heard it. Don’t stand there bereft of your courage. Methinks it’s about time we left.” And to my surprise, Lewis nodded assent, so we picked up the muffin, and outside we went.
Armistice
“I heard it told once about how two generals of the Civil War, or War Between The States for those of you who lost, laid down their arms and talked peace. Both had lived together in a town right near to where the separation of North and South happened, and though the best of friends, each held different opinions. They both grew to high standing in that terrible war, and though they led men in battle against each other a dozen times, neither claimed to any love lost between them. They were just doing their duty, they said. Well, the time finally came and the calls to peace were carried through the camps and the two finally came together again as they once did long before, not with threats and armies and weapons but as old friends. They talked awhile about home and the memories they shared before doing what must be done, and when the terms of peace were laid on the table, each did their best to accommodate the other even if some things were too great to expect. Now there are few people who know and even fewer who remember which general it was, but as the meeting was winding down, the one said to the other that there was one final point that they wished to discuss, and as the one leaned in to here the request of his friend, the other pulled from his hip a pistol and shot. As the dying general collapsed in pain he could only ask why. The other replied with bitter hate in his eyes that there had been one more bullet in the chamber and he wanted to make sure that it never came between them again. The moral as I was told it is that war can turn even the best of friends to darkness, though I am sure it is something different. It is not war that turns the hearts of friends but pride in being more righteous than the other. Each side always has bullets left unfired and each side must decide how to use them. The moral I see does not lie in the war but after. It lies in a choice between bonds and bullets.”
Whispers
Why are we so afraid of our thoughts and our words that we’re loathe to share the good that we feel? What good is damp wood to sharp steel and flint when flames are necessary to heal? A fire may maim, can kill, will destroy and set scars upon flesh if untamed, but how can a spark - a soft growing flame - bring warmth and light ‘less sustained? We’d rather, instead, scorn the wounded and dead if it means holding on to our peace, but such a cold piece of coal burns away at the souls of everyone that we meet, from the greatest to least. It is indeed a cruel world we’ve created, my brothers, that makes it easier to harm than to heal the others.
How, wretched world, have you wounded us so deeply that we never let down the walls that we’ve built? Our hearts are too guarded - our fervor discarded - to tell another exactly how special they are. Their smile makes us smile, their ideas fuel our thoughts, and yet we play dumb, throw the key out, hold our tongues lest we find out they don’t think of us the same way. You have made us so afraid of rejection - of pain - that we choose to sustain and not heal their own. We’d rather wander through life all alone, picking our scabs and their old memories and rubbing our scars like they’re trophies we’ve won.
What of you, oh my bones, oh my flesh, oh my soul? Have you forgotten what it means to resist? To take strength? Masochistic heart, your eyes as wide as the holes in yours walls, tears of joy flowing thick as the blood from your chambers. When will this pandemic end? How long will it last? Did this sickness not pass long ago? Blame is yours. It is wholly yours. That dagger was taken from your hands, but you reclaim the blade again and again. How can you ever help anyone else when you readily attempt to mutilate yourself?
There is scarlet in the snow, and it is not your own. Do not add to the growing despair. Your banner of red would do better instead to carry those that are wounded - to serve as hope for the hopeless - but you would rather gather all of the meds for yourself. You press the barrel to your own skin so you can ride yet again and not carry that stretcher for those truly injured in battle. That is quite a collection of purple hearts you’ve won, comrade. How many bled out for your false, fleeting honor?
Silence does not suit you, love. You’ve stories to tell and ears that will hear it. The passions of your waking thoughts should not sit dormant. They should not sleep. It builds inside, this growing pressure, and will burst out of your seams, it seems. Your fear of life still binds your voice, and what good can it do in these chains? The crown has slipped from the crest of your head - lost - swept away by the rivers of pain, and every effort to search was found out to be vain, but this slicing of veins you perform in your grief is but vanity, child, that much is plain. You can never place that crown upon your own on your own, though what was lost will be found by another. You would do well, while waiting, to cease this self-mutilating and look around you. You are not alone. Take back what we’ve made of our hearts, conquer all, strike a flame behind eyes that were ice. Set a passion inside, entice these old nerves to feel. Turn these scars into steel and rejoice.
It is not a white cross, little ones, it is marred. It is red, it is chipped and as blood stained as we are, but that is the point, oh my friends, don’t you see? As he has been wounded, we are healed completely. He’s given the same power to you and to me so that all of us - everyone - may know it and be lovers and kinsmen and salve for the bruises, the cuts, the contusions that bind us and make us the most pitiful of animals - too afraid, too afflicted to see hope, to see reason, to reach out a hand and, if only for a season, heal the wounded that walk beside us today. Your heart is troubled, ‘tis true, so are ours. Beneath it all we are the same. It is indeed a dark world we’ve created, my friends, but with His love, we might just make amends.
Fake
They told us a lie when the puberty struck.
Heck, even before then. I guess that’s our luck
‘Cause now it’s so open it’s common, you see.
It’s as if it’s ingrained in our minds completely.
We open a magazine, look at the news -
The internet chat rooms we view and peruse -
All say the same thing. It’s written. That’s that,
‘Cause in the US of A, frequent sex’s where it’s at.
“We’re sexual creatures,” they told us in school.
All the rest say the same, so I guess it’s the rule,
But now we don’t care about intellectual progress
As much as we care about sexual conquests.
Instead of paying attention and working ahead,
Little Jeff lies in silence, prostrate on his bed.
Good grades are no longer among his highest of needs.
Instead, he’s captured by Miss July’s double Ds.
It’s not as if we can really blame the poor child.
Encouragement for work is surprisingly mild,
‘Cause while his parents and teachers endorse school, incidentally,
The culture around him tells him differently.
Who cares if you’re smart and worked hard at your school?
They’ll admit, a good job that earns money is cool,
But none of it matters and you’re left there hangin’
If you, my good sir, are not out there bangin’.
Young May has felt the effects of this, too.
Her poor self esteem doesn’t know what to do,
‘cause her culture tells her that her brains do not flatter.
Her body’s the key. Only looks really matter.
Her passion for learning is held high by her teachers,
but her peers in society put more weight on her features.
Now why would a guy like a woman like May,
With her slight, gawky frame and brassiere size of A?
So despite her bright mind, little May now concludes
That her future means nothing unless the size of her boobs
Can be increased to meet the standards she’s been told.
Her future means nothing if she can’t fit the mold.
These kids aren’t unique in their internal strife.
Almost every young person deals with this in their life.
Conflicting messages bicker inside
To the point where the poor little waif can’t decide
Whether parents and teachers were right when they claimed
That all would work out if good grades were sustained,
Or whether society was right when it said
That success in life only comes with skill in bed.
So don’t let another boy end up like Bill,
Who thinks his whole life is meaningless up until
He becomes a true stud by concocting a list
Of each babe he’s bedded. And if not, why exist?
Don’t let another young girl end up like poor May,
Abused and confused and abandoned someday,
Because she gave up her future to focus on the faces
And search for acceptance in all the wrong places.
The mindset of culture can be rearranged
If this amplification of sexuality is changed.
Think of these children. Don’t make that mistake.
Realize it’s a lie - that the titties are fake.
