Join the new world

Thinking that the travellers needed a break from the never-ending saga of "Just how evil are Serbians, rilly? ...Or not?" that had swept all of New Zealand up into a mad frenzy over the past few days... and deadly afraid that he was going to start babbling about Bogdanov again at any moment, Grandmother Boob asked PQ to tell the story of his arrival in the New World.

He never told the story the same way twice, so it was always fun to see where he'd go with it...


Portrait of the Citizen as a Young Ostrich

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was an emu coming down along the path in the bush and this emu that was coming down along the path met a nicens little ostrich chick named baby Phoenix:



As he grew older, the little ostrich began to realize that he was not like the other young struthioniformes who spent all of their time running around the bush playing two-toe ball with silly zebras, and eating bugs. Instead he devoured the classics like: 'To Kill an Elephant Bird', 'You Can't Go Back Into the Egg Again' and 'Ostrich Run' and pined for a life far away from the heat and dullness of Africa... someplace where an ostrich could achieve his full potential.

One fine day his brother Edenim had smelled a lion so naturally the whole family were keeping their heads to the ground and pretending to be mounds of dirt. Unfortunately this did not fool the evil creature who moved in closer and closer. Just as Phoenix and Edenim were about to leap up and deliver some righteous ostrich-ninja kicks to the beastie a horrible loud crack sounded and the lion crumbled into a heap.

Phoenix looked up and saw what appeared to be a group of pale hairless apes, covered in the thin skins of some kind of creature. Also they were wearing bowls on their heads. The goober-looking apes were carrying long sticks. They laughed and jumped up and down the way that chimps do when they are excited.

Later on Phoenix learned that these bizarre creatures were called "men" or "who-men". He was simply amazed at how the little gang of monkeys had managed to stop a lion without even having to kick it. So he waddled over to give them a good sniff and see if maybe he could get a couple of bananas off of them. The next thing he knew, Phoenix had been transported to a New World!

Dazed and confused, the young ostrich awakened inside an electronic enclosure. It just seemed like witchcraft to him. An ethereal hairless ape kept trying to squawk at him, but Phoenix didn't understand the wizard's monkey-like gibberish, so he ignored him.

Everything was shiny and new, if a bit two-dimensional. It all smelled rather antiseptic compared to the glorious open veldt back home. Nevertheless, Phoenix set about exploring his new environment. Soon he came across two buttons, one marked "Work" and the other one marked "Train". Thinking maybe these would produce some delicious grass or tasty bugs, he pressed them both. Afterwards he didn't feel very well. But at least the machine rewarded him with a few tasteless pellets of something that smelled sort of like food.



Things went on like that for several days. A few real-life humans stopped by the enclosure from time to time. Eventually he began to understand some of their strange language. But whenever he'd give a pleasant loud squawk in the beautiful Ostrich language to greet to them, they would start chanting "Reedy foroom" or "Doody! Eye Are See!", which didn't make any sense to poor, confused Phoenix.

One fine day a pleasant young fellow spent some extra time with Phoenix, slowly enunciating some of the human words and explaining how it is that humans can fight and never die, yet they could starve to death. His name was Dr. Quinn. Phoenix was so pleased he'd finally made a friend. So he decided to call himself Phoenix Quinn.

Weeks passed and young Phoenix began to master the human language. The humans taught him how to dress properly so that he could almost pass as one of them. After a great deal of back-and-forth, they even convinced him that he could survive on the junk that humans called food. His captors finally released him from the lab. Eventually he came to realize that the place he had been taken was called "Atlantis" and followed the leadership of somebody they all called "You, the Knighted State-zum-Emerick-gah", or something like that.

At first young Phoenix thought that all of the humans lived in this one place. They didn't seem to migrate from place to place in order to find greener grass and tastier bugs like his family did back home.

When they weren't lining up to proclaim obedience to a "god", who was named Max...

...they mostly just hung around squabbling with each other, calling each other names and engaging in some kind of sport they referred to as "penguin bowling". Phoenix had never met a penguin. But he'd heard of them. And he personally he didn't think it was very nice to be using them as bowling pins, but he kept his opinions to himself.

Evidently the Great Max took care of all the humans' needs. It was said that he often travelled to strange and wonderful places. For this reason, they referred to him as "the Grand Visa-er". The Great and Terrible Max was also said to have a very fine sense of humour. Due to his wonderful joking, they also sometimes referred to him as "the Master Card".

It was pleasant enough existence. Phoenix appreciated how nice it was having a deity who actually walked amongst you and gave you lots of real goodies. But wee Phoenix wanted to contribute to society, not just live off the charity of others, so he started looking around for something productive to do.

While hanging around reading a copy of "Newz for Noobz", he struck up a friendship with a scruffy but welcoming gang of malcontents who told him that he could come work with them at something called "the carwash". They told him the pay was peanuts but he'd get free food. Phoenix was confused. "Peanuts!", he thought, "I love peanuts! Peanuts are just about the most delicious thing in the world!" And then he wondered why his new friends said he'd get paid in peanuts and in food. Hunh? He thought maybe they'd been drinking some of that stupid-water that the humans seemed to like so much.



Anyway, he got a job working at the carwash. The scruffy gang did indeed provide him with all the food the needed, as well as a little spending money. But Phoenix was kinda disappoint when he found out that there weren't going to be any peanuts for him to eat after all.

Phoenix enjoyed the company of his new friends. For example, there was a crazy, hyperactive cat named Mr. Phoenician who was always giving speeches about honor and integrity and junk like that. Phoenix thought it would be kinda funny if he'd chosen that name, 'cause then he'd be Phoenix Phoenician. Ha-ha.

As he listened and learned, Phoenix discovered that "Atlantis" was actually only one part of the New World. That seemed cool. Eventually a few new lads joined up with his team who claimed to be from places "over there", with magical names like Oz and Hella and Slavalakadonia. He also started to hear about a place called the Land of Peas, which sounded intriguing, because Phoenix liked peas almost as much as he liked peanuts.

But then one day there were a bunch of rumours...

...and suddenly!! a bunch of bad stuff happened.

Some other humans, who spoke even stranger languages than the one he'd learned, and were from that Land of Peas, invaded his new home and took over almost everything. It was quite a mess. Luckily, some of Phoenix's new friends were pretty smart beans. They convinced him to move half-way 'round the world to a mysterious place called Rooster, which lay beyond even Slavalakadonia, deep inside the Land of Peas. There they went. With some help from a few like-minded frees spirits, they were able to set up a camp, build another carwash, and soon started taking in ironing, which allowed them to make weapons to help the folks back home.

Or something like that. Phoenix wasn't real clear on the economics of it all.

But it was all very exciting. The war raged on and on. Phoenix learned how to fight. He even shared a little bit of his ostrich-ninja skills with his friends. Once he even won a medal, which he proudly wore around the camp. He told everybody that Max had given it to him personally. That was a lie, of course, and Phoenix hid it away after the leader of their gang, Ozymandius, told him to cut the crap. That confused Phoenix even more, but let's not go there.

One fine day, Phoenix was lost in thoughts of his real home, wondering what had ever happened to his brother. As he trudged back to camp after a long day of ironing, singing a song he'd learned, called "The Human Tornado", about the Legendary Pugachev, he saw a person walking off in the distance. This person had such a very distinctive waddle that Phoenix stopped still in his tracks. There was only one person in the New World who he knew walked like that: Phoenix himself.

In a flash, he knew it could only be his long lost brother Edenim!





To be continued... or maybe not.