The Norwegian Hitchgathering II (ES 6)
The next morning they woke up to the sound of splashing water. Confused about what had happened to them last night, Lefty opened their little dome on the side facing the lake and was surprised when a giant head with long, wrapped up tentacles and a stubbly face was staring at them from the water. “Brrrubllblub” he exhaled under the surface creating a burst of bubbles and turning Lefty into a rolling ball of laughter. “Hey there you two Jesus bugs. How do you keep afloat? Almost looks like you are hovering on the lake in your little capanna” He said with a stretchy accent. “Why don’t you step out and join me?” He winked at them.
“Haha why not?” Righty shouted and jumped right into the icy Norwegian lake water without spending another thought. Luckily its eyeball constitutes a perfect floating device and after diving in he bounced straight back up. After his eyeball resurfaced it looked confused and struggled to regain its orientation. “Whufff so weird! I feel so light! But it stiiinngs! How can you stand it for so long?”
“My head is filled with nothing but hot air, that’s how!” he responded giddily. But seriously, it gets better with time. Just keep moving, stay close to the surface, and don’t swirl too much or else the cold from beneath will freeze your ball.”
Lefty was not so bold and only poked its foot in, shrieking with bewilderment. “Pfui pfui that hurts!” While Lefty was fighting an internal battle about whether to go in or not, a giant creature snuck up on it from behind. It had yellow curly tentacles hanging down from its head and a soft face with an enormous mouth. As the giant came closer to Lefty the spongy surface began to sink into the water making Lefty aware that something was going on behind it. But it was too late!
The giant embraced Lefty lifting it into the air and jumping into the cold glittering water. Lefty screamed louder than ever before, shocked and panic-stricken by the sudden bath. Nothing before compared with this feeling of sudden tension and disorientation, but also of a total sharpening of the senses. The expression on Lefty’s face forced the other three into a fit of laughter, and after realizing that nothing bad had happened Lefty couldn’t help but join them.
Since the water was indeed cold they quickly hurried out. Lefty and Righty were back on land wiggling the water off, and waiting for the tentacle heads to come out. They were taking an unusually long time, because as they were ascending from the water they just didn’t stop growing taller and taller until finally one stepped out, staring at them from the level of the canopy of the birch tree. The one with the stubbly face joined, creating a mini waterfall that sent Lefty and Righty a couple meters back. “Brrr, what a freezing bath” it said with its soft voice. You can call me Antall, and this is Anusia. Welcome to our little gathering!”
“You arrived last night didn’t you? How was your first night here?”
“Yes yes, we felt so — I think you call it ‘exhausted’- that we just had a short look around and went to contemplate. After that we had the strangest experience! We closed our eyes and instead of contemplating, everything shut down and we were lifeless for the whole night. This morning we came back and felt completely refreshed!” Righty tried to explain their nighttime experience.
“Hahaha, I guess you were sleeping weren’t you? Most creatures do that, more or less, regularly. How did you make it so far without it??” Anusia asked.
So they explained what they knew about their origin and the short time they have spent in their fully independent bodies as well as on planet earth.
Anusia and Antall turned out to be creatures from two different planets in the solar system Dwinklepud. Their planet’s tribes are engaged in a very complex system of relationships. The bright tentacled Lechistanis and the dark Idalystas are for long-forgotten reasons not allowed to reproduce with each other. Some argue it would create some abomination with the potential to destroy the Universe as we (don’t) know it. Some say its racism on both sides. Others state it would simply be visually unpleasing. However they are not keen on finding it out. Still, some of them are determined to not listen to their ancestor’s wisdom and do it anyways. Therefore they are forced to live their love on other planets. (So far the universe didn’t collapse yet, so you might just be unlucky enough to continue your humiliating existence.)
“So how is it to hitchhike as a giant?” Righty asked
“It can be tricky sometimes. We can stick our heads out the windows most of the times but we prefer cars with sun roofs or trucks. But hey, nothing is impossible, right?” Antall responded lightheartedly.
They told them about their hitchhiking experiences in India and their plans to hitchhike sailing boats over the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.
Their engaging conversation got interrupted when someone called out loud “porridge is ready! Come and get some!”
“Hmm Honey’s porridge! You shouldn’t miss it!” Anusia said. “Bring your plates if you have some, but don’t take too long or it will be gone!” Antall added towards Lefty and Righty. The two giants went ahead to fill their sizable stomachs. Lefty and Righty remembered their first encounter with plates at Tinh’s place and decided to take off the rounded top sections of their grubs to use as a bowl — they would regrow them soon enough.
It was a cloudy morning but the rain had stopped for once. A cloud of mist and smoke rose over the camp while creatures were buzzing around. As Lefty and Righty moved towards the main fire they saw some creatures crouching around in the bushes growing all around the lake. They approached two of them that were apparently stroking the small branches to loosen some small blueish-purple pearls that were dangling from them.
“Are you looking for something? We are professionals.” Lefty offered slightly awkwardly.
“Hey you two Sphereheads! We are collecting blueberries. They grow everywhere and they are so yummy! It’s just amazing!” a friendly creature with dark red stains on its hands and with a big smile responded. “Half of them end up on me anyways, hihihi. I am Silily by the way! And that hairy monster over there is Furiry.” She pointed at the other creature that waved at them with a blueberry-smeared hand. “Here try some!” she offered them a hand full “and if you want you can always help with collecting. With all these sweet teeth around they just seem to vanish into thin air.”
“Hmm! They are great! So juicy and sweet!” they visibly enjoyed the unknown taste. And both couldn’t help but attack the bushes for more of these yummy treats — some even ended up in their new bowls.
The two creatures turned out to be a couple of Blaverians from planet Bouldersock in the solar system of Smember at the other end of the Milky Way. A planet that actually supports different species of intelligent life because of its unique geomorphology. While the planet itself is quite small, its weak gravitational pull enabled the development of extremely high mountain ranges. At the same time it can only maintain a very thin atmosphere with reduced uplift. Therefore flight has not been invented until very late into development of its civilizations and different parts of the planet remained isolated from each other. By then, the extinction of other species didn’t seem to have priority anymore –unfortunately the non-human species and non-Eurasian civilizations of Earth had much worse luck…
The two had come to Earth as foreign students — well, without the knowledge of humans of course. Blaverians, as the most advanced species on Bouldersock, developed an inherent interest in studying other lifeforms as it has a long history on their own planet. While Silily still had extended her studies, Furiry decided to dive into the human start-up scene. In other words, to move forward some social technologies that humans had been lacking so far. To his regret this scene exists in a constant state of uncertainty by sucking up and pouring out ideas with the sole purpose of making them monetize-able. “Human society just isn’t ready for some things yet” he concluded. He felt his life becoming consumed by work that wasn’t leading anywhere, and so he decided to quit, go travel and find out about different human ways of living instead. The two had spent a lovely time hitching and hiking around Norway before the gathering and told Lefty and Righty about some places and creatures worth visiting if they wanted to explore the country a little more. After exchanging some more stupidities the Blaverians invited them to their present residence in Munich, Bavaria — Creatures just find comfort in familiarities don’t they?
After picking some more berries they shuffled on to the main camp to discover porridge. A gooey slime that can taste like wet dust or delicious wet dust depending on the recipe. Upon entering the circle of fires, a feeling of shyness overcame them. All the other creatures seemed like they knew where to go and what to do, not paying much attention to them. So far, Lefty and Righty spent most of their time in very personal interactions with their drivers, so being in a group like this challenged their comfort and confidence. One exception caught their eye. Another creature was lingering on the edge of the circle with a lost gaze in its eyes, its flabby arms hanging down besides its lumpy body as if stupefied by all the happenings around it. Their gazes met and they felt an immediate urge to communicate with each other. “Haalloo fuunnny creeaatuurees! Ii uum Knuut Suunshiit!” He said very slowly with a croaky voice and a mouthful of porridge. “Iit’s aal aa wiittle muuch eeveerythiing heeree iisn’t iit? Waant too goo ooveer theeree aand shaaree soome poorriidgee?” “Hihi, hey Knut. That sounds great! I am Rwrevk and that other eye-booger is Lnkroft.”
Righty gave him a little antenna stroke and Knut’s strong scent made him shake.
“Yaaya ok I admit I could use a wash! Especially this old stinky sweater! But it’s not that bad is it? And the water is so cooold.”
“Not as stinky as your name I guess!” Righty responded with a laugh. “Why are you called Sunshit anyways?”
“Ohh, it’s a long story… Before I arrived on earth I got picked up by a guy called doG who lives in a space station that orbits the earth’s sun. He invited me in — such a strange place I tell you… But yeah I basically took a shit on his toilet which dumps it’s sewage on the adjacent star. doG was not amused that I used some pages of his old film-scripts as toilet paper. It’s called the Bable or Konan or something. But hey, it’s not my fault that he ran out of paper! Everybody seems to think that’s sooo funny and since then it stuck to me. Not the shit but the name!”
“It’s funny alright!” Righty responded giddily
“Well you names are not so much better! Most of us have nicknames that humans can process better. You should consider that as well!” He offered them some porridge and after they explained how they got here including their odyssey through the forest, he had the perfect fit.
“I think I will dub you, Lefty and Righty. You look like loose eyeballs that fell out of a giant human skull and well your wayfinding skills are nothing to be proud of. Lefty wants left Righty wants right so you go straight, straight into oblivion? Almost like (human) politics, ha ha ha.” He laughed thinking of the satirical reality of human forms of social organization.
“So, what do you think?”
“If we can call you Knutchen it’s a deal!”
“Alrighty!”
“We will carry these names with pride!” Lefty exclaimed with a trace of vigor deeply looking into Knut’s right eye. Righty joined on the left one but Knut couldn’t handle that. He hushed away and got up “hmmm, sorry I have to go… See you later my new friends.” And with that he vanished between the tents trying to avoid contact with anyone.
Lefty was worried and so sneaked after him to find out why he reacted that way. It found Knut sitting next to the lake scribbling something onto some white sheets of paper.
Righty had been following in Lefty’s tracks, but was startled by a mystical sound that traveled through the air to his antennas. Enchanted by the soft tones, Righty diverted from the path and followed the music through the trees to find a creature sitting on the ground blowing into a wooden pipe with holes. Unknown tools lay scattered next to it along with more of the strange holey pipes — some seemingly not complete yet. Righty didn’t want to disturb the creature in his flow and lowered itself near it to let its senses be entranced by the captivating sound.
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