26 Absurdities of Tragic Proportions

by Matthew C Woodruff

  “Mom! How many days till we leave now,” she would demand to be told daily since the trip was announced.

  “Eight, dear,” her mother replied, or six or four or whatever the case happened to be.

  Until one day, “tomorrow, dear,” was the answer. Prue whooped and hollered and ran through the house scaring the poor cat half to death, fluttering the World of Fun brochure behind her like a banner.

  Early the next morning, with her father out in the driveway stowing luggage in the way back of the big Pontiac wagon, and her mother giving the neighbor boy last minute directions on caring for the cat, and watering the house plants, Prue was surreptitiously trying to stow her favorite doll, Gertrude, into her little backpack, even though her mother told her Gertrude couldn’t come. Gertrude would go with them, Prue thought. She couldn’t leave Gertrude alone for so long and she doubted the older boy from next door would look after her and sing to her and give her tea, like Prue did. Her mother need not know.

  Finally, Prue successfully stuffed Gertrude down into the bottom of the little backpack only having to remove the yucky absorbent underpants her mother sometimes made her wear to make enough room and hid them under her mattress. Only little, little kids wear those Prue thought, and Prue vowed to be extra careful.

  Soon they were all loaded into the car and on the way.

  The trip to Kansas City was uneventful. They stopped along the highway to eat and to pee. They played the license plate game. Prue colored some, though if she did it for too long in the car, she felt icky.

  They spent the first night in some motel, which didn’t sit well with Prue.

  “Are we there? Is this it? I don’t see it! You said we’d be there today,” Prue accused with a quivering bottom lip, as they unloaded the car in the parking lot, clutching her little pack loath to let it out of her sight.

  “Honey, I said we’d leave today, which we did. We will be there tomorrow.” Her mother replied, giving her a quick hug and a little push toward the room.

  “Ugh,” Prue replied, feeling annoyed and a little disappointed, but she brightened when she remembered she had Gertrude in the bottom of her backpack.

  They ate the dinner her father had gone out and got while sitting on the bed in front of the TV. Then a moment of truth came.

  “Prue, honey, do you think you should wear your special underpants to bed? We don’t want to mess up the nice cot they brought for you,” her mother asked. “Here go get your pack for me, and I will get them out.”

  “Um.” Was all Prue could think to say, standing half in and half out of the little bathroom, with one thumb in her mouth.

  “Take your thumb out of your mouth dear,” her mother said. “You’re too old for that.”

  “I’m too old for those baby underwears,” Prue answered, suddenly feeling inspired.

  “Well, if you think so,” her mother said with only a little doubt in her voice.

  After having an early breakfast in the motel lobby with some of the other overnight guests, to each and every one of whom Prue told she was on her way to World of Fun, their reactions entirely dependent on whether or not they succeeded in having their first cup of coffee, the little family resumed their trip.

  “How long now?” Prue asked, fearing the answer, for she was anxious to get there.

  “We will be there by lunchtime dear,” her mother said to Prue’s renewed whoops.

  The big Pontiac wagon pulled into the World of Fun parking lot just a little before noon, navigating to a spot among all the other wagons and family sedans that seemed to fill the lot in every direction.

  The first day at World of Fun was wonderful to Prue. There were fun musical shows, rides that were fast or scary or high up, characters all dressed up roaming the park, and there was soda and balloons and funnel cakes. There was even (shudder) a haunted house! It was everything Prue hoped it would be. Plus, best of all, Prue gets to come back tomorrow and do even more!

  Later that day when they pulled in front of the big hotel in downtown Kansas City, Prue was still busy looking at the World of Fun park map, making her plans for tomorrow’s adventure. Her mind so occupied, she totally left her pack and Gertrude in the back seat of the wagon. After her parents commented on the unusual and unexpected heat to seemingly everyone they encountered and made their plans to go down to the restaurant for dinner, they went up and settled into their room.

  Now well after supper, when everyone was in bed and asleep, Prue woke, remembering she had left poor Gertrude down in the car in the bottom of that stuffy pack. Knowing Gertrude must be scared (Prue would be), she was determined to go down and rescue her. After all, she knows what the car looks like and it was parked right in front of the big doors. (Prue knew nothing of valet parking.)

  As quiet as a mouse, she slipped on her flip-flops, could just reach up to undo the door chain and slipped quietly out of the room into the bright, quiet hallway. She had no room keys, no car keys, no identification, just a small girl in her night dress and short robe and flip-flops.

  Finding the elevators gave Prue a small challenge, but eventually she came across them, punched the button with the arrow pointing down and patiently waited until the whirring stopped and the doors slid open. Stepping in, she was momentarily flummoxed as to which button to push and guessing between the M, L, B1 and B2, selected the correct one.

  The doors opened into a deserted lobby, the night manager being in the back office doing the night audit. Prue could see the front doors from the elevator, so she scurried across the carpeted lobby, past the fountain and front desk and out and into the night. It was very warm outside, still being in the mid 90s with very high humidity. As Prue scampered down the steps to find Gertrude and the car, she realized two things, the car was nowhere to be seen, and she really, really had to pee.

  Now about this time, the game between the Kansas City Royals and their arch-nemesis the Minnesota Twins was just ending after going 12 innings. The argument in the nearby Steers Head Saloon and Bar (and many other bars around town, I’m sure) was about a questionable ‘out’ call by the home plate umpire on an attempted steal by the Royals, causing Kansas City to lose. Between the unbearable heat and humidity of the last few days, the unfair and prejudicial game call and the flowing Anheuser on tap, tempers were exploding, and punches were about to be thrown.

  Prue would have turned around to go back into the hotel lobby, if not just at that moment, the nighttime doorman returned from his own call of nature, taking his station outside the hotel door once again. Becoming desperate to pee, and not wanting to reveal her lack of control to her mother who would insist Prue put on the special undies, Prue ran around the corner in search of a restroom and maybe be lucky enough to find the car. Spying what appeared to be an open restaurant across the street (restaurants always had restrooms), Prue carefully looked for traffic both ways and ran across and reached up to open the door.

  In the Steers Head Saloon and Bar, which Prue had mistaken for a restaurant, not only were punches thrown, but a full-fledged brawl was currently ongoing and was even then preparing to roll out onto the sidewalk.

  Prue was just one of many victims to the heat wave that summer in Kansas City, though her demise was significantly more painful than most. Gertrude hadn’t suffered at all.

  The End.

  Quentin

  As unusual as it may sound, young Quentin spent his whole life in and around mires. Quentin’s father is geography chair at Cambridge University in England and has been the world’s foremost researcher into the effect bog lands and mires have on global warming (quite a bit, it seems). Some of the world’s largest mires are in Russia and what is now Estonia. Matsalu National Park in Estonia with its huge mires is the most important stopover and feeding site for migratory birds on their journey between the Arctic and western Europe. Vast amounts of peat are exported from Estonia, harvested from the mires, where the peat layer can be as deep as 17 meters.

  Mires also have a dark and mysterious history, espec
ially in Estonian folklore. Stand out on the mire some early morning as the spectral mist slowly rises, and the keening of the eastern winds call out to you, you will see why. Many a person has been lost in the mires, seemingly solid ground giving way unexpectedly to a foul, watery death. Do these unfortunate souls rise again each morning, calling out to others to join them or to release them? Some believe so and it is said, you will be ensorcelled by them into going out into the mire if you are not on your guard.

  Quentin and his Father believed none of these things. They were after all, scientists. At least Quentin’s father was, and he taught Quentin to look at all things with an analytical mindset, not a superstitious one.

  At first, when accompanying his father on summer research trips, Quentin didn’t like the bog lands. He thought they smelled awful (it’s the methane) and were ugly places. What Quentin did like to do was to collect butterflies. We’ve all seen a butterfly collection, the poor beautiful creatures staked out onto a board and displayed behind glass like some sort of evil scientist was practicing torture techniques on the tiny, helpless things.

  English boys like Quentin, particularly like to collect butterflies and display them so. I blame the weather, and the food.

  Once Quentin realized the mires were a bountiful buffet of insects, including butterflies, he began to look forward to his summer trips with his father and his father’s research team. He began to build a particularly grand and grotesque collection of splayed butterflies, the envy of all his little equally sadistic classmates.

  After catching the harmless creatures, Quentin used to suffocate the butterflies in a jar, but that took several days before he could add them to his collection. Instead he started piercing their little heads with pins, to speed along the process. This being marginally better than pinning them to his boards alive, and waiting for them to die en place with their little wings weakly fluttering. His mother forbade him to do that.

  When Quentin learned that his father’s team was planning a trip to the Matsalu National Park in Estonia, he knew he had to go. The mires in Estonia being one of the only places in the world Quentin could now hope to find the Clouded Apollo butterfly, which he desperately wanted to add to his collection, since a classmate at school had done so. (His had been sent by an uncle, but Quentin vowed to only include butterflies he personally tracked and caught in his own collection.)

  Plans were made, grants were filed, visas acquired. The trip would be for twelve days for Quentin, his father and the three members of the research team. Sad that not one soul among them would make it back alive, but mires can be unforgiving places.

  Quentin was as good as anyone in safely traversing a mire. He was able to spot the minute color variations that foretold either a patch of thick, safe peat, or just a thin layer that would give way as soon as a foot touched down. His father didn’t worry about Quentin coming to harm and succumbing to a watery death.

  Quentin’s father, his team and Quentin arrived at the edge of the Matsalu National Park in United Nations provided Land Rovers. But that is as far as they could go in the Rovers for from there they must backpack into the Park and onto the mire, where they would set up their camp and equipment. Their UN drivers helped them unload.

  Just as the team was getting ready to hike in, resembling so many two-legged mules with packs and water bottles and equipment hanging every which way, an older local woman approached them. She had the Slavic features of the native born of this area, and was old, as shown by the grey hair and wrinkled visage. She was strangely tattooed about the face and hands.

  She walked right up to Quentin and pointing one gnarled finger at him kept repeating the words, “Ettevaatust, Maa jumalad Tahad Sa. Ettevaatust! Ettevaatust!” in her scratchy Estonian.

  Needless to say, it was kind of freaking poor Quentin out who, like all boys his age had no use for strange old women and like the rest of his father’s team, had no idea what she was saying. One of the UN drivers, who by his visage was also a native, seemed quite upset by the encounter and started to say something to the old lady in rapid Estonian.

  Quentin’s Father stepped up, and pulling Quentin behind him, also started speaking, not to the old woman but to the UN driver who seemed most upset.

  “What is she saying,” he demanded of the driver.

  The driver turned from the old woman to Quentin’s father and replied, “This is a Preestrinna, how you say, seer or priestess, she is very old.” He shot off a few more queries at the old woman, who seemed to respond with just one or two words. “She serves the old gods. She is on a palverännak, on a… you say… search…, no pilgrimage. She says she was called to come here.”

  “Rubbish.” Quentin’s father said, while the rest of his team watched the exchange with fascination, surreptitiously trying to take some photos and videos of the old woman. “What does she want with Quentin? Speak up man!” He demanded when it was obvious the driver was hesitant to say.

  “She said, ‘Beware, the god wants you,’” the driver finished.

  “Rubbish, I say.” And to his team, with his arm on Quentin’s shoulders, “Come on, let’s head in.” And so, Quentin, his father and the team headed into the National Park to traverse the mire, all the while the old woman’s scratchy voice calling out behind them, “Ettevaatust, Ettevaatust!”

  If this strange, otherworldly encounter upset Quentin, it didn’t last for long for boys his age are resilient. And though it was strange by all accounts, no one on the team or Quentin’s father supposed it was anything but the ravings of a mad old woman and was pushed to the back of the mind while more mundane matters took precedence.

  The first few days were spent selecting a spot for setting up camp. As well as mapping the mire in the general vicinity of the newly formed temporary camp and setting up air and weather testing equipment. All the while Quentin was free to pursue his butterfly hunt, as long as he was back in camp by nightfall.

  Quentin was having no luck in his search for the apparently elusive Clouded Apollo, though he had encountered many other varieties of species already in his collection, some of which he captured, many of which he ignored. With nearly 500 square kilometers of park and much of it wetlands, the plan was to move the camp at least twice to sample different areas. Quentin knew he’d have much opportunity to explore the park for his butterfly, so he was not feeling too discouraged.

  After the first move deeper onto the mire, a strange feeling took hold of the researchers, one of premonition perhaps, like something was going to happen. Not one of them correlated this feeling with the old woman’s dire warning or spoke of it to another.

  As the end of the first day in the new location approached, Quentin thought he spotted the Clouded Apollo and set to chase it with his net held out in front of him. It always seemed to stay just at the edge of his forward vision, always fluttering away just as he might reach it. Several times he felt the peat start to give way under his weight and had to move away quickly to avoid getting wet, or worse. He made it back to the camp just as the sun set below the horizon, determined to snatch his prey on the morrow.

  That night a strange and unusual mist settled in and around the camp, which greeted Quentin and the team upon their rising the next morning.

  “This is as thick as a London pea soup,” Quentin’s father commented. “Better stay close in to camp today,” he told everyone. “We don’t want to lose anyone,” he finished with a laugh. Though disappointed, Quentin did as bid, and didn’t leave the vicinity of the camp that day, instead watching videos stored on his iPad.

  That night, Quentin was woken when he thought he heard his name being called out. His Father was still asleep on the other side of the tent, lightly snoring, so he dismissed it as a dream and went back to sleep. The others weren’t so fortunate. Perhaps they also heard their names being called out, for in the morning, the whole research team was nowhere to be found.

  The fog was still thick and heavy around the camp. After calling out in loud voices for the missing te
am, and searching the mire in proximity to the camp, Quentin’s father felt it best if he went out to look for them. First, he notified the UN offices in Tallinn via satellite phone that his team had wandered off. He bade Quentin to stay in the tent until he returned, saying he shan’t be too long, and probably would find his team with some discovery or other. Dinosaur bones or something, most likely, he said.

  Several hours passed and Quentin’s father did not return. After much internal debate, an increasingly worried Quentin decided to call the UN offices himself and report this latest development. However, when Quentin tried to use the satellite phone he discovered the batteries were all but spent. His father must have left it on by accident. With no other means of electronic communication with the outside world, Quentin now had three choices as he saw it. One, he could hunker down and wait, someone might return. Two, he could attempt to hike out of the mire and find help. Three, he could go in search of his father.

  As he stood staring out into the fog enshrouded mire, trying to decide the best course of action, the winds began to blow and the fog began to lift and dissipate. Soon the mire was clear all around him in every direction. This being the case, Quentin decided to go in search of his Father, and headed off in the direction his father had gone earlier that day.