"What are you doing Simon?"
"I'm playing with the Monsters."
Monsters All.
The gang leader, Yip, was a pink poodle who only stood.
His side-kick was Little Bear, a small, rather insignificant looking, orange eraser bear with lopsided ears.
The main body of the monster crew was made up of rubber dinosaurs of varying vintage.
Brown Brontosaurus, Bronto, was a good deal smaller than two yellow Ankylosaurus who had developed abilities of flight - hence Wings and Little Wings.
Over time, each creature had revealed individual gifts and talents however unlikely.
There is no respect for paleontological accuracy in child's play.
The only concession to probability was the monster who drove the Jeep.
Only Yip could do that.
The dinosaurs wouldn't fit into the driver's seats due to issues of anatomy.
Little Bear was just too goddam little to reach the pedals.
For whatever reasons, these inanimate creatures became heroes to months of incongruous adventure.
Their heterogenity, the very unlikelihood of a pink poodle being friends with:
- Stegosaurus
- Tyrannosaurus Rex
- Horns the Triceratops
Child's play is nothing if not inclusive.
Shock of the scale.
I stood there looking up.
I was dwarfed and not a little disappointed.
The brontosaurus skeleton saured above my head and took up a large part of the Natural History Museum's ground floor gallery.
Scale mattered now.
There was no sign of any Jeep.
There was not a pink poodle to be seen.
I put away childish things.
Natural History had murdered the monsters.
I returned home to play with Action Men.
The monsters were dumped in a box.
None of the Action Men could drive the Jeep due to issues of anatomy.
Monsters All.
"You want a whip?"
"We have a whip."
"You want Marxism?"
"We have Marxism. We do a special offer. You can have Trotskyism for only 30% extra."
"You like dinosaurs?"
"Come to Dinopark."
"Out now! Steven Spielberg's Jurassic World."
"BUY THE TSHIRT!"
Foul Brood.
"Well why the hell can't we have dinosaurs with poodles?"
"NOOO!! The Tyrannosaurus Rex will rip off the bloody poodle's head!"
"You can never trust a carnivorous dinosaur with pets."
After a good deal of soul-searching the monsters decided that they could live happily together.
The Tryannosaurus was simply misunderstood.
He might be a bit clumsy at times but you just had to avoid the slashing tales, the claws, and the vicious teeth.
After much wrangling they decided on a name for their tribe.
They would be the "Foul Breed."
It gave them an outlaw sort of mystique.
It recalled swarms of bees.
Well, a rather sickly swarm of bees.
Even this sickness was turned to something positive.
They were a virus.
Viruses are powerful.
Outlaw viruses spread.
The Foul Brood group took on a heroic importance.
It was quite out of scale with reality.
From another perspective...
They were only toys.
Their arguments, their battles, their icons, their likes, their dislikes, their victories matttered not a jot.
“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ” Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett
No comments:
Post a Comment