Hey you!: February 2011

How the Dragairy Raticorn Got His High Tops.

Once upon a time, long ago (we’re talkin’ before COLOR was invented) there existed in this world the magical Technicolor Forest. Deep within said forest lived a lesser known mythological figure, The Dragairy Raticorn.

Dear Dragairy Raticorn was the red headed step child among his mythical peers. With the body of a rat, unicorn horn, dragon wings, a fairy wand, and a lazy smile, he’s a bit of an absurdity Let’s face it. He is kinda stupid looking.

You may have guessed that something called the Technicolor Forest is full of in-your-face color in the same way the early nineties were. You would be right! It IS obnoxiously, nauseously, colorful; but the Dragairy Raticorn had a unique problem (as if he could have anything BUT unique problems): He was black and white.

Not a single hair, nor glittering shimmer of his wings had any of the slightest iridescence. This, of course, left the Dragairy Raticorn utterly saturnine (which means “gloomy”, for those of you set against dictionaries. Why didn’t I just say “gloomy,” you ask? Cause that’s BORING!)

“Why should I be so cursed to live a lifetime with no color of my own to treasure?” Thought the Dragairy Raticorn sadly, “What would I give for even a smidgen of beautiful color to call my very own!”
Suddenly the Dragairy Raticorn stumbled across a brilliant thought (I say stumbled, because he could not possibly be intelligent enough to simply “come across” brilliance. He flumps klutz-ily over it.) Back to the brilliant thought: He would go ask Martin Van Fairy for a solution to his predicament!

Off he went to find the lair of Martin Van Fairy. He marched over the Mystic Mountains, through the Specter Swamp, (I’m pretty sure he meet a Kraken while on his Journey. He drew me a picture --

See? Isn’t it cute?) and through a bunch of other stuff that I’m not going to describe because you don’t care anyway, until he finally found the Magnanimous, stupendous… trench.

Yep. Trench. Van Fairy lives in a trench. Mostly because he’s a bit of a hermit, and doesn’t like the kids coming around and asking him, “What did you even do while you were the president of the United States?” He WASN’T the president. That was his distant cousin. Martin Van Fairy is a fairy. Not a president. Get it right.

He tries not to get riled up, because when his temper rises, color comes streaming out of his tail. He is one of those dignified types who hates to lose his temper in public, and believes color is sophomoric. He even despises his pretty pink wings. The man (fairy) hates color.

Dragairy Raticorn was so excited that he toppled down the trench. He plopped right down on top of Martin Van Fairy who erupted in brilliant exposions of color! Dragairy Raticorn then blundered around Van Fairy’s home, trying to put together some sort of continental breakfast, in hopes that a soothing cup of tea and toast would calm Martin Van Fairy down enough for the Dragairy Raticorn to petition his request.

“What in blazes do you want with that horrid stuff?” scoffed Van Fairy, “It’s better to stay as you are. The beautiful, monochromatic, simplicity of pure black and white is more than just your color, it’s your character! It’s regal, majestic, sophisticated! Why the greatest movies…” He rambled on in much the same way for several minutes, before the Dragairy Raticorn slumped miserably away. The reverberations of his monologue still vibrated between the ears of the Dragairy Raticorn as he peered at his reflection in a pool of blue water.

“Sophisticated? Majestic? More like mildly retarded,” he thought. Poor thing. He sank down and stared at the pretty, colorful flowers growing beside the pond. Martin Van Fairy had become aware that his audience was missing, and came out to the pond to continue his oration over the infantile nature of color. The way the Dragairy Raticorn’s brain is wired, you can practically hear the connections popping when he mulls too long over any one subject. He thought so long and hard about color that something in his brain snapped!

The Dragairy Raticorn savagely tore the leaves from the flowers. “I’m going to have color, dang it! And I don’t care where it comes from either!”

He threw the red leaves down on his feet, as Martin Van Fairy watched, horrified!

As the leaves hit his feet, they spouted rainbows of glittering sparkles! They spun up around his body faster and faster until they completely hid the Dragairy Raticorn from sight.

Suddenly, the sparkes dissipated and vanished, leaving behind the Dragairy raticron, completely in color! The pretty red leaves had wrapped around his feet and transformed into high tops! Yay! Martin Van Fairy was gob smacked the rest of the month.