This is the story of some grass that was rather illiberal. It took its own sweet time to grow, and it grew anywhere and anyhow. Yup, it was an uncultured mess. Even the city’s pavements were unable to tame it.
The grass wasn’t the same green as all the other grass. Its green was less radiant, less prone to reflecting the sun’s rays in a manner that pleased the eye. It was bushy and undisciplined. Sometimes it waved provocatively in the breeze, but usually it just sat there, stiff and foreboding. It was large of blade, and shameless and unapologetic.
This meant that people were afraid to leave their homes. Children would wail upon seeing it, and hide beneath their nannies’ hems. Elders refused to play cricket in the city park. Even the rain stopped falling there. It’s painful for gentle drops to plash against such proudly rigid grass.
One day, the grass grew out of a punk rocker’s left ear. She didn’t notice this because her mohawk was the same colour, and she hardly ever looked at herself in the bathroom mirror anyway. She wasn’t vain like all those prissy little daddy’s girls that used to tease her at school.
Still, she’d always wanted to be a flame-haired pony, which is why she couldn’t pass up an offer of Barclay’s Miracle Hair Crème when she was at the subway. A shady looking specimen was there doing the selling, and she totally fell for it. He whispered something in conspiratorial tones about this being a once-in-a-lifetime exclusive offer and how she was in luck.
Apparently, this miracle crème had been specifically produced for the ponies at the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace. He’d been shipped the last remaining bottle from a secret factory somewhere in Pakistan. It was a miracle that he was even able to get a sample as it was never intended for public sale.
So, the punk rocker paid $1.50 for this two litre bottle of especial regal goodness, and hurried home. She couldn’t wait to use this miracle crème, to finally feel like one of those majestic ponies at the royal stables. She was going to whicker up a storm. To stamp her hoof something fierce. She would flick her flamey mane with glorious abandon.
The miracle crème smelled like heaven, like fresh unicorn farts on a dewy autumn morning—but with a hint of ambrosia and oats. By god, the punk rocker couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t! She soaped and lathered and rubbed herself, and then washed the foam away. Then again. And again. And again. At some point she laughed in her happy delirium, and that laugh sounded rather like a neigh.
But the punk rocker was oblivious to all of this. She just wanted to get lost in being a pony, so continued to bathe. Then, after ten minutes of this madness, she began to feel a ravenous hunger. But why? She sniffed the air. Oh! Was that enticing smell… grass? And then just like that she began to chew the grass growing out of her left ear.
If grass could scream, then this grass would have done it. The pain was excruciating! It was being eaten alive, and there was noting it could do about that. If only it had grown out of Lady Gaga’s brassiere instead. Then it would have been famous, and idolised by millions across the globe.
But, no. It got eaten. The end.
Oh, hold on. Not the end because then she ate all the grass that has ever existed everywhere ever. And that’s how the entire earth became a barren wasteland.
Okay, now it’s the end.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019
