The Midnight Mushroom Pâté... From Space!
Humans are creatures of habit. Unfortunately, that habit tends to involve killing each other in particularly inventive ways. Humans create hokey religions, kooky politics, rather tenuous claims of ownership, and simply new and interesting ways of carrying out their addiction, all as an excuse to remove as many of each other from this plane of existence. Unfortunately for the humans, the other planes of existence bare absolutely no resemblance to anything those hokey religions keep going on about, and, indeed, if the humans only knew this then maybe they would check into a reform clinic in a desperate attempt to kick their rather terminal habit and learn to live in peace and harmony with one another.
It is not that these other planes of existence are particularly (for the sake of brevity) hellish, because they are so utterly incomprehensible to the human mind it beggars belief, but they are certainly a far cry from (again, for want of economy) heaven. A concept that is about as far from anything on these planes of existence as cannot be possibly imagined without going just a little bit stark raving bonkers in the process.
A somewhat more minor obsession, in truth, is that of love. Humans seem to believe it is far more important than it actually is in a way that some might call denial or, perhaps more accurately, displacement. However minor a role it plays on the larger scale of things, humans still appear intent on letting it take up such an important part of their lives. They do an awful lot of writing about it and make quite a fuss over the whole business of finding more aesthetically pleasing ways to burden the world with more bodies for them to find an excuse to subsequently kill. Of course, they don’t really see it that way, which is a shame since the world would make a lot more sense if they did. And then they wouldn’t have to make up kooky religions and hokey politics in order to explain it all, which would in turn promote love to a somewhat more major obsession and thereby go some way to demystifying the whole affair.
However, while most of the rest of the human race was busy obsessing about sex and death in quite possibly a most Freudian manner, Nimrod's mind was otherwise focussed somewhat intently on something a little less substantial, something a little less solid, something somewhat reassembling pâté because, in fact, it was pâté. Mushroom pâté.
It was as though the idea had simply entered his mind like an unwanted guest who'd somehow gotten a hold of his own set of keys and had since taken up residence on the furniture as though it had always been there but, in truth, nobody knew where the hell it came from. It was strange that Nimrod should suddenly desire to make mushroom pâté as not only had he never before made a mushroom pâté but he'd never before really contemplated making a pâté of any kind. Quite independent of any research he'd already conceived of how to make the pâté which was also remarkable in and of itself for the fact that while Nimrod was not necessarily a bad cook he did tend to have a somewhat limited range of dishes which did not generally include things like pâté. Yet here he was at ten minutes past one on a Tuesday night, or, rather, a Wednesday morning putting mushrooms through a blender. Despite his seemingly divine inspiration from the lesser known god of pâté, Nimrod had done a little scrounging around for recipes to check that he had the concept correct; recipes he later dismissed in favour of his own having found his culinary instincts to be somewhat disturbingly precise. So, when most sane people would have been thinking of going to bed, Nimrod was cooking - and not something that would be particularly quick; he had a lot of mushrooms that desperately needed using. Little did Nimrod suspect the origin of the idea that had come almost Chinese Whispers style across the ether which had struck him to mincing mushrooms.
Astronomers have speculated on planets they have not yet spotted in the skies, planets which orbit in such a manner as to usually miss being seen by us. On one of these such planets intelligent life had, in fact, evolved from fungi. Over billions of years these super-intelligent fungi, known as the Armillarites worked towards unity, peace and all of those things that humans, being the creatures of habit as they are, seemed somewhat less inclined to seriously explore. So, while the humans were still throwing sticks at each other the Armillarites had already begun their own space program. While the humans were still beating rocks and wondering how big a rock you could carry in order to crack open a human skull and thus win the affections of a mate, the Armillarite scientists made a bold expedition to this strange blue planet. And when those crazy human animals were discovering that their murder of other non-human animals went rather nicely with some fried mushrooms, some tomatoes, red wine and a rather excellent olive bread the Armillarite scientists in horror and disgust retreated back to their home planet to report the news.
The very concept of such barbarity shocked the very foundations of their society and many refused to believe that such a heinous act could even be possible, but with the introduction of evil into an otherwise innocent society up sprang fads and radicals and for the next several thousand thousand years or so the Armillarites were plummeted into anarchy, confusion and eventually, yes, eventually civil war - something which had been entirely alien to their thinking before visiting a certain distant blue planet. With stability finally returning to their world the fungal ashes settled to find the ruling government controlled by a particularly anti-human government determined to wage war against the murdering humans and liberate their Terran cousins.
Using their new space rays they've been making interplanetary communications imperceptible to any human detection equipment, mistaken for random static, signals intended for the most humongous fungus of all the world, the honey mushroom so that it might rise from the earth and kill the humans, uniting all of mushroom-kind!
Little did Nimrod realise that his exceedingly long hair acting as cosmic antennae picking up and translating random space static so when he received the signals from the Armillarites to the mushrooms of Earth, Nimrod's innate sense of self-preservation and the survival of mankind kicked in and translated itself as an immediate desire to kill all the mushrooms in his fridge by putting them into a blender and making them into pâté. And so, full circle we have come, for very much does Nimrod love eating mushrooms and in doing so he finds new and inventive ways to destroy this extraterrestrial fungi threat. Nimrod's own obsessions with love and death are manifest towards mushroom kind and so Nimrod, along with every other person who enjoys eating mushrooms, is doing his part to save mankind. He is truly a hero.
And so can every man, woman and child both do their part and be heroes. Don't make room for the mushrooms. Eat them. All of them. (Or you won't get your dessert.)
Nimrod crawled to bed at around four in the morning and ten hours later he took one of his many pots of chilled pâté from the fridge and spread a generous helping on some dry toast. He bit into it and it was good. His only regret was that he did not think to put some spinach in there as he had a whole load of that, too, which desperately needed to be used.
But that's another story...
(c) 2007. Nimrod Jones. Based on a true story.
It is not that these other planes of existence are particularly (for the sake of brevity) hellish, because they are so utterly incomprehensible to the human mind it beggars belief, but they are certainly a far cry from (again, for want of economy) heaven. A concept that is about as far from anything on these planes of existence as cannot be possibly imagined without going just a little bit stark raving bonkers in the process.
A somewhat more minor obsession, in truth, is that of love. Humans seem to believe it is far more important than it actually is in a way that some might call denial or, perhaps more accurately, displacement. However minor a role it plays on the larger scale of things, humans still appear intent on letting it take up such an important part of their lives. They do an awful lot of writing about it and make quite a fuss over the whole business of finding more aesthetically pleasing ways to burden the world with more bodies for them to find an excuse to subsequently kill. Of course, they don’t really see it that way, which is a shame since the world would make a lot more sense if they did. And then they wouldn’t have to make up kooky religions and hokey politics in order to explain it all, which would in turn promote love to a somewhat more major obsession and thereby go some way to demystifying the whole affair.
However, while most of the rest of the human race was busy obsessing about sex and death in quite possibly a most Freudian manner, Nimrod's mind was otherwise focussed somewhat intently on something a little less substantial, something a little less solid, something somewhat reassembling pâté because, in fact, it was pâté. Mushroom pâté.
It was as though the idea had simply entered his mind like an unwanted guest who'd somehow gotten a hold of his own set of keys and had since taken up residence on the furniture as though it had always been there but, in truth, nobody knew where the hell it came from. It was strange that Nimrod should suddenly desire to make mushroom pâté as not only had he never before made a mushroom pâté but he'd never before really contemplated making a pâté of any kind. Quite independent of any research he'd already conceived of how to make the pâté which was also remarkable in and of itself for the fact that while Nimrod was not necessarily a bad cook he did tend to have a somewhat limited range of dishes which did not generally include things like pâté. Yet here he was at ten minutes past one on a Tuesday night, or, rather, a Wednesday morning putting mushrooms through a blender. Despite his seemingly divine inspiration from the lesser known god of pâté, Nimrod had done a little scrounging around for recipes to check that he had the concept correct; recipes he later dismissed in favour of his own having found his culinary instincts to be somewhat disturbingly precise. So, when most sane people would have been thinking of going to bed, Nimrod was cooking - and not something that would be particularly quick; he had a lot of mushrooms that desperately needed using. Little did Nimrod suspect the origin of the idea that had come almost Chinese Whispers style across the ether which had struck him to mincing mushrooms.
Astronomers have speculated on planets they have not yet spotted in the skies, planets which orbit in such a manner as to usually miss being seen by us. On one of these such planets intelligent life had, in fact, evolved from fungi. Over billions of years these super-intelligent fungi, known as the Armillarites worked towards unity, peace and all of those things that humans, being the creatures of habit as they are, seemed somewhat less inclined to seriously explore. So, while the humans were still throwing sticks at each other the Armillarites had already begun their own space program. While the humans were still beating rocks and wondering how big a rock you could carry in order to crack open a human skull and thus win the affections of a mate, the Armillarite scientists made a bold expedition to this strange blue planet. And when those crazy human animals were discovering that their murder of other non-human animals went rather nicely with some fried mushrooms, some tomatoes, red wine and a rather excellent olive bread the Armillarite scientists in horror and disgust retreated back to their home planet to report the news.
The very concept of such barbarity shocked the very foundations of their society and many refused to believe that such a heinous act could even be possible, but with the introduction of evil into an otherwise innocent society up sprang fads and radicals and for the next several thousand thousand years or so the Armillarites were plummeted into anarchy, confusion and eventually, yes, eventually civil war - something which had been entirely alien to their thinking before visiting a certain distant blue planet. With stability finally returning to their world the fungal ashes settled to find the ruling government controlled by a particularly anti-human government determined to wage war against the murdering humans and liberate their Terran cousins.
Using their new space rays they've been making interplanetary communications imperceptible to any human detection equipment, mistaken for random static, signals intended for the most humongous fungus of all the world, the honey mushroom so that it might rise from the earth and kill the humans, uniting all of mushroom-kind!
Little did Nimrod realise that his exceedingly long hair acting as cosmic antennae picking up and translating random space static so when he received the signals from the Armillarites to the mushrooms of Earth, Nimrod's innate sense of self-preservation and the survival of mankind kicked in and translated itself as an immediate desire to kill all the mushrooms in his fridge by putting them into a blender and making them into pâté. And so, full circle we have come, for very much does Nimrod love eating mushrooms and in doing so he finds new and inventive ways to destroy this extraterrestrial fungi threat. Nimrod's own obsessions with love and death are manifest towards mushroom kind and so Nimrod, along with every other person who enjoys eating mushrooms, is doing his part to save mankind. He is truly a hero.
And so can every man, woman and child both do their part and be heroes. Don't make room for the mushrooms. Eat them. All of them. (Or you won't get your dessert.)
Nimrod crawled to bed at around four in the morning and ten hours later he took one of his many pots of chilled pâté from the fridge and spread a generous helping on some dry toast. He bit into it and it was good. His only regret was that he did not think to put some spinach in there as he had a whole load of that, too, which desperately needed to be used.
But that's another story...
(c) 2007. Nimrod Jones. Based on a true story.