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Portrait of a Citizen as a Young Ostrich, Part Two



Recap: In Part One, PQ (Phoenix Quinn) revealed to Grandmother Boob and the other travellers that he is actually an ostrich who was kidnapped and brought to the New World by hairless apes. After being taught to speak Humanish and to dress and walk and eat like an e-human, his new friends -- a motley crew of lads from around the world -- got him a job at a carwash. When the United States of Max was invaded by forces from the Land of Peas, he moved to the Rooster Federation, where he took in ironing to help support the resistance fighters back home. While walking back to the camp one day, singing a breezy tune called "The Human Tornado", about the Legendary Pugachev, he saw his long-lost brother Edenim waddling in the distance. He stopped in his tracks and his heart filled with joy.


The story continues...


Still in shock at recognizing his brother's distinctive waddle, Phoenix let out a huge joyful squawk in the ancient Ostrich language. He called out Edenim's name over and over, "Eeeeeeeee-de-nim! Eeeeeeeee-de-nim!". The sound ricocheted across the plains, through the hills and valleys. It sped along the ice of a mighty river that was frozen in silence.

The rivers of Rooster are always frozen. It is a land of ice and cold, full of soulful sorrows, much like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or parts of Saskatchewan.

The vibrations of his mighty ostrich yell caused a ripple in the matrix, which startled Phoenix. But not as much as you might think. Through the gash in e-space-time, he saw a chain-smoking Romanian programmer hunched over a Mac II, typing away furiously in Pascal: s := 'Phoenix: The call could be heard as far away as the mouth of the river.';

The call echoed as far away as where the mouth of the river met the steel blue sea. Phoenix listened to the sound reverberate as he pondered the fading porthole between worlds. He felt like he was in his own private Idaho. Since he'd never been to Idaho, that was a strange sensation. However, he did like potato chips quite a bit. And he'd heard that the best ones come from Idaho. But that is neither here nor there.

As the the fabric of the e-universe repaired itself, Phoenix saw that Edenim had stopped walking and was looking back at him. Full of cheer and wonder, they ran towards each other across the frozen tundra. As they each reached their side of the iced-over river, they sped forward out over the ice. Quickly upended, they slid helter-skelter across the ice. Twisting and turning and spinning around on their backsides, the two birds collided in the middle of the river, amid much joyful squawking.

It was as if joyful music was playing.




"Edenim! Is it really you?", Phoenix enthused.
"Phoenix? Phoenix!! Yes, yes, it's me!"

The brothers walked together back towards Phoenix's camp, both bubbling over with observations about their lives in this strange New World.

It turned out that Edenim had also been captured by the hairless apes and transported to this two-dimensional world. But instead of taking him to Atlantis, they had taken him to the Land of Peas.

When Edenim began to talk in what he called Humanish, Phoenix was taken aback. "Whoa," he thought to himself, "that's the language of the Rooster people."

He shared a few words in the Humanish tongue that he'd been taught. Then it was Edenim's turn to freak out a little bit.
"Что такое?", Edenim said, staring at Phoenix like he was some kind of weird alien creature from another world.

They both thought...



They resumed their talk in Ostrichish, and were somewhat more subdued as they approach the camp.

Upon arriving at the campsite, Phoenix waved at his gaggle of co-workers and co-conspirators. He whispered to Edenim, "These are my friends. I made them myself."

Over numerous cups of high quality No. 5 tea, the two brothers shared their stories with the motley crew.

The fellas were happy for Phoenix that he'd found his long-lost brother. A few were a bit suspicious of Edenim. Once they realized that Edenim spoke Roosterish and didn't understand much of their language, some of 'em were even a little taken aback. One of the gang, a crusty old dude named Bud, who may have been mixing some extra-special local herbs into his tea, got in Edenim's face:

"You know what, dude? Credit is a sacred trust, dude. It's what our free society was founded on! Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Rooster? I said do you think they give a damn about their bills in Rooster!?" he shouted at Edenim, who stared back at Bud unafraid, but not understanding a word.

Another member of group chimed in. Trying to take Edenim's side against Bud's rant, Miller said matter-of-factly, "They don't pay bills in Rooster. It's all free."

This annoyed Bud. "What are you, a freakin' Commie?"

Miller: "No, I aint no Commie!"

Before Miller could explain that he was actually an anarcho-primativst, not a Commie, Bud wrapped up that discussion with: "Alright. Good. I don't want no Commies in my camp!" And after he paused, he added, "And no Dioists, either!"

There was a good bit of laughter at this point because several of them were in fact Commies, including their Commander, FallBackPants, who was quite a well-respected Commie from the Land of Oz.

Phoenix whispered to Edenim: "Ignore them."

Edenim whispered back: "No worries. I like this road. I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. The roads never end. They go all around the world."





After some time had passed, the gang decided it was time to move back to their homeland. The Great War was shifting in their country's favor and they wanted to return home.

Sadly for Phoenix, Edenim decided to stay in the Rooster Federation.

Although he'd enjoyed meeting most of Phoenix's friends -- particularly the Commies and the anarchists -- in general he found the group of them as a whole to be a bit loud and obnoxious for his taste. And some of them were rather shallow. Although he didn't mention it to Phoenix, he was also nervous about how a Rooster-speaking humanized ostrich would be treated in the land of Atlantis.

As Phoenix packed up his meagre belongings and prepared to hop on the Magic Bus that would whisk his team off to their next adventure, he and Edenim exchanged a series of traditional Ostrich good-byes:

"We only part to meet again," Phoenix began.
"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard," replied Edenim.
"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch," Phoenix continued.
"Promise me you'll never forget me. Because if I thought you would, I'd never let you go," said Edenim.
"Fare thee well, brother! And if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well," Phoenix replied, following the ancient Ostrich formula.
"Farewell, brother! A word that must be, and has been said. A sound which makes us linger. And yet - farewell!", cried Edenim.
"You and I will meet again," Phoenix recited.
"When we're least expecting it, one day in some far off place, I will recognize your face," Edenim responded.
"So I won't say goodbye, my friend. For you and I will meet again," Phoenix concluded.

And with that, he got on the bus.




The situation back home in Atlantis -- and in the world -- changed rapidly. All of which was quite befuddling for Phoenix, who missed his brother more every day.

First of all, the Land of Atlantis rather startlingly changed its name to, of all things, EDENIM! To make matters even more topsy-turvy, not to mention somewhat bizarre, the Land of Peas also changed its name, quite unbelievably, to PHOENIX.

Poor Phoenix almost began to lose his marbles. He began to feel like he was just a character in some freakish and kooky story.

Next, the Great God Max went stark raving mad and started turning everything upside-down at home. First he made all the main political parties swap names, so nobody could tell the difference between them. Then he sponsored an insurgent group named SPLEEN, or something like that, to take over the country. The SPLEEN harassed everybody who didn't hop up and down six times and shout "Boy! Boy! Boy!" every half-hour. Although Phoenix was an expert hopper, he thought this was pretty stupid and refused to do it.

Since the SPLEENoveras took credit for saving the country from the Roosterish invasion, many people went along with their silliness. Every half-hour, all over the country, people would start hopping up and down and shouting "Boy! Boy! Boy!". At first it was kind of amusing, but it got to be tedious after a while.

Push came to shove when the new leaders announced that they were rejecting all of the anti-imperialist slogans of the previous wartime regime and instead planned to take over the world. They especially wanted to destroy the Rooster Federation.

Having spent some time there -- not to mention the fact that his brother was still living there -- Phoenix became concerned.

He knew that Rooster was a tough place to live. A group not unlike the SPLEEN had taken it over. It was they who had promoted the invasion of Atlantis. When his fellow country-men started raving on and on about "evil Commie Roosters", poor confused Phoenix tried explaining to them that it was the Rooster Commies who opposed the bad men in their country and wanted to get them out of the Peasish Alliance.

He even tried adopting a persona that would be more appealing to his countrymen. Since it is a well-known fact that everybody loves squirrels and that squirrels are inherently funny, Phoenix had a make-over and presented himself to the public as a fast-talking Commie Squirrel:


He kept trying to point out that the Commies were the good guys in Rooster. Although he made a number of great new friends that way, most people were not at all interested in listening to what he had to say.

As they say in Ostrichish, "They had bugs in their ears."

And so Phoenix let his beard grow out and he became a wanderer.





First he hooked up with a gypsy caravan that travelled from town to town telling stories and singing songs. He met some fine folks from places like Indy Land, Air Land, Chosen Land, Jah Pan Land, and many other interesting and faraway places. Some were from PHOENIX countries (which always made him laugh a little bit every time he heard them say it), while others came from the lands of EDENIM (which always caused a twinge of apprehension), and still others hailed from nonaligned places.

It wasn't easy, though, to keep such a group together for long. They left one by one. Some, as the last of their karma burned, would simply vanish from the New World. Others stopped travelling when they reached various places where they chose to try to have some influence on the local scene, through politics, writing or warring.

Eventually Phoenix found himself in the Checkered Republic, a place in Slavalakadonia not too far from Rooster Land.

He had some good ol' Commie friends there and decided to settle down for a while. Rest. Relax. Maybe do work on his epic biography of the Mighty, Mighty Bogdanov. He also hoped maybe he'd be able to reconnect with Edenim.

And then all hell broke loose.

Again.

The Commies in Rooster were finally purged once and for all by the bad men there. The Checkered Commies splintered into warring factions of their own, bitterly denouncing each other. The President's henchmen ran off with the national treasury. It was bad all over.

And he hadn't heard a word from Edenim.

By this time, many moons had passed in the New World. Phoenix was no longer a young bird. He'd seen a good deal of the New World and learned many things.

Although large parts of this world -- through some bizarre coincidence -- had named themselves after himself and his long-lost and found, and then lost-again brother, few seemed to have taken on the Spirit of Ostrichkind that he knew was embodied in those two names.

At peace, feeling that he had done all he could in this world, he prepared for the end. Sitting near the river Phoenix pulled his last little chunk of karma from his karma-pocket. He lit a match and prepared to burn it.


Just then a scrap of paper blew down towards the river from the Kosarkovo Nabr and landed on his face. He pulled it away and stared at it.

"Come to New Zealand!", it said, "Where all the citizens are free and the sheep are good-looking."

He laughed.

Why not?