Crime and Punishment Toadstyle

Now, when you think of Matt and his ugly mug, you must realise one thing. It isn't an easy life being a toad.
People just assume you are going to be an unpleasant fellow and tend to avoid you. Of course, they are mostly right, but he would like the benefit of the doubt. Just sometimes, you know?
Growing up in Swamp Toad Hill had been hard for Matt. All the happiness and chummy go-getting spiritedness of the place got to him. He had spent a lot of his time doing his utmost best to spread a little of the unhappiness he felt, to share it as it were. A pain shared is a pain halved, after all.
Sadly, the kids and teachers, not to mention their parents, didn't quite see it this way with the result that he was often accused of bullying.
Well, that just went to show you how little the simpletons in this town understood him. If he were indeed to stoop to the act of bullying such unworthy opponents as his brainless, halfwitt classmates whom he could just as easily brush off the playground with one flick of his tongue, do you think he would be where he was now? A man of means?
No indeed. He would be a small time crook, perhaps, with not much of a future. Instead he had early on seen that he must bide his time , in order to get out of this town and better his chances at a rich and hedonistic life style.
Thus we find him now a fat (a measure of succes for Toads, let us not forget this fact) and bloated big time crook. Much better, all in all and furthermore precisely what his mother always said he deserved. And Mother knew best, of course, even after all these years and a hefty dose of senility bought on by one too many dosages of Prozac to keep her from lashing out at the world. She was still 'always right'.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, we find Matt the Muddvark running an establishment of dubious reputation called The Republik, deep inside the heart of the Forest somewhere to the East of his hometown. This place is known as Little Eaves but let not the romantic name fool you. Oh no. Hardly anybody actually lives in this town. That would be altogether unwise due to the large amounts of green slime polluting the river running through it. Rumour has it that this slime is actually a by product of the Chemicals that Humans deposit in it, upstream in their own reality.
Naturally, this is a load of twaddle bought on by anxious, left wing parlementarians trying to get a foothold in the hearts of the citizens by scaring them with doom-laden stories about the imminent Ending of the world as we know it. Nobody actually believes this stuff. But it makes for good media coverage. And Lord knows they need media coverage.
The clear thinking Toads among us, Matt being the best of them all, said that it was definitely impossible that pollution starting in the realm of Humans could ever hit their own safe little reality. The twain harldy ever met so how could one possibly influence the other?
Indeed, thought the gullible citizens to themselves, surely one could not influence the other?
Little did they know....

Now you might wonder what all of this has to do with 'Crime and Punishment Toadstyle'? Well, I shall let you in on a secret.
Matt has his Crime in the running of the Republik on precious forest energy and several other shifty dealings which I shall not bother to go into know. As for his Punishment? Well, he succintly punishes his former classmates for their lack of love and understanding of his person, by bottling the green liquid and selling it as precious absinth.
Thus he contributes to the slow mental disease which is corroding this once so very happy and idyllisitc Land of Fresia.

The Hibernating Mole who mistook weed for toilet paper...

Now, one of the curiosities of living in a place like Amsterdam, as I'm sure you all know, is the amazingly large quantities of hash and weed in circulation. And not just circulation. It is snorted, sniffed, eaten, drunken, smoked, inhaled and even injected by all manner of people.
Most of them being over enthusiastic tourists with more cash than sense. However, on occasion, you do get an inhabitant with no clue as to what the stuff is let alone what it can do for you.

Take for instance Mr Mole.
Mr Mole was a bit of recluse for reasons only known to himself and his pet flea, Markus. His seclusion (except on working days when he was forced to make an appearance at the bank) led him to be rather naive.
He thought, for instance, that putting jelly on pasta made a nice dessert and a welcome change to one's usual diet of pasta with tuna...
Clearly he had several issues going on. One of them being a severe lack of taste. Taste is something you acquire. You may have been told otherwise by various people along the way but don't be fooled. Taste is something you are taught, by society mainly.
After one too many, often painful, mistakes you soon realise the error of your ways and adjust yourself accordingly.
Not so our Mr Mole. (B. Mole actually, but this is not something he liked to broadcast. A name is very Personal).
He was alone from a very young age, his parents being hippies of the sort that thought a child would just grow up by himself, if left along for long enough.
So they hiked off to South East Asia, or thereabouts, where they succumbed to dysentery after several rather debaucherous years.
He was told of the fact some six months after it happened by the local flowerboy who, having stolen their gold teeth, thought he could readjust he Karma by calling the Next of Kin.
He was sadly mistaken; his ashes were found some 10 years later in a Bombay gutter. A very sad story and one I shall not discuss any further here.

Anyhow, you get the picture. He was a loner from the word go and was thus never taught by society the proper way to conduct himself. He did meet a rather lovely young (female) mole at a garden party during his 23rd year but although he fell for her and she for him, he discovered after all of three days together that his need to be alone was greater than his ability to adapt to another person and so it ended before it even started properly.


But to get back to the weed. One of his issues concerning life in general was his lack of knowledge as to what people DO in their Free Time.
Things like drinking, flying kites and island hopping were all quite alien to him seeing as he never set foot outside of his hole when not required to work.
What did he spend his time doing in there, I here you ask....Ahh well, here is a curious thing. He was an avid organ player. We are talking mega enthusiast here.
How so? Well, before his parents discovered the High Road due South they had taken him to all manner of Religious Outlets, to let him choose for himself what he wanted to Believe.
One of them, the most memorable as far as he was concerned, was a Church. In it you see, was an organ (at that moment being played by Toby, before he founded a band and discovered Cool. He was only seven at the time so one must make allowances). Anyhow, young Toby wasn't half bad on the old organ and so it happened that a life long passion was born inside Mr Mole (at that point still known as Bernardus).
So this is what he spent his time doing in his hole. Playing (not to mention polishing) his organ.
Come to think of it, he DID have a certain resemblance to Stevie Wonder...not that he would know who that was, of course.

Anyhow, once again I am becoming distracted. My point just now was this; his cluelessness on life in general extended itself to the fact that he knew nothing whatsoever about the liberal drug laws of the city in which he was living.

(Before we go on, let me just explain something...We ARE speaking of Amsterdam, indeed we are. And yes, we are also still speaking of Fresia, I promise you that. Fresia is a place IN Amsterdam, just on a different dimension, that is all. It is really quite simple. Just like Bombay and anywhere else also exists on a different level (several probably). The world is the world the world over, just with a different cast of Beings and a different atmosphere. I hope this is clear? Then I shall continue...)

This meant that Mr Mole had no idea that the green leaves his neighbour was growing in his bathroom (on account of the amazing levels of humidity in this tiny room...no window and no fan assured one of this. Add a special lamp and you have yourself the perfect conditions for a Dutch tradition).
Mole being Mole did not look to see what he was wiping himself with when he was over one afternoon to help with the placement of a new doorframe. (He was very Duty-bound, to the point of overcoming his lack of sociability. Duty was important, even to one's fellow Beings.)
So he grabbed the nearest thing available to wipe himself with and lo and behold it was a Plant.
This did not dismay him however; being a Bachelor for many years had taught him to use just about anything. A plant was no less odd than last weeks newspaper.
The neighbour however, was rather dismayed upon discovering a year's worth of growth thrown away with one swipe. Such things are very distressing.
In fact, he needed a little smoke to calm down.

This lack of respect for a cultural heritage did not endear him to his fellow citizens. We are all very tolerant but ignorance is something we cannot stand.
The result of this little misdemeanour is that Mole became even more secluded, no longer even having duties to perform for others.
A person needs to be needed however much he thinks this is not the case. Thus we find that Mr Mole had a sad demise, literally shrivelling up until one day he just plain disappeared.

His house became available for purchase soon after and this is how Liverwuss and his Delfinia were able to move back into Town.
They had to break down several walls to allow for light (windows not having been a priority for Mole) but otherwise it was a perfect abode for the two of them.
Delfinia even discovered a liking for the old organ herself.

A Turtle called Dove.

The thing about a turtle is that you never can tell what she is thinking. I mean, she mostly looks pretty glum, on account of her shrivelled features and all. Then you have the fact that she spends most of her time in her shell. This is hardly very conducive to any kind of contact let alone gaining an idea as to how she is doing in there.
If she is in there at all...
For it is a little known secret that turtles go walk-about. On occasion. When the fancy takes them. Usually when they are so bloody miserable that they just have to get away, anywhere will do.
So at least you know (when they aren't home) that things aren't going too well...
If, however (and this is more often the case, for a walk-about turtle is a rare thing) she IS at home and just hiding, then you have yourself a dilemma. Not being able to see her features (shrivelled though they may be, it does help to see some kind of a face) one has to wonder if she is in there on account of poor health, for meditational practises (this is something turtles do quite regularly actually. They like to seclude themselves from the world and ponder the meaning of It All) or possibly even Yoga (yet another little know fact about turtles; they enjoy Yoga. It does get quite cramped in there and a stretch does wonders for the body as well as the soul.)
I guess you could say they have spiritual tendencies. It all comes from the age old question they are sat with, namely the following; why in the name of Lords are we lumbered with this SHELL, tied to Earth like so many sacks of potatoes? When we'd much rather be swimming in the Deep Blue Sea, preferably somewhere near Aruba...
These are difficult questions to have to deal with.
Well, you ask yourself, if they are able to go walk-about, OUTSIDE of their shell, why don't they just stay there, OUTSIDE??
Ahh. If only it were so easy.
You see, a turtle isn't a turtle without her shell. If she were to just up and leave for good, what would she be? Who would know her as a turtle? Her whole sense of self would dissolve and she would be lost, afraid, unable to move on.
Now it is one thing to have one's Self dissolve during meditational practises in the safety of one's livingroom (or shell, as the case may be) and quite another thing altogether to have it dissolve out there in the Mad Mayhem that is Life as we know it.
So this is how she always does return to her little shell in the end, after a breather. Back to being a Turtle.
Do you think this is cowardly?
Her biggest dream is to swim in the warm waters surrounding Aruba (or just anywhere south of Florida will do), naked and free, yet she choses to remains in her shell...sometimes sad and unhappy and more often downright pissed off with Life.
Well, maybe this is cowardly, maybe this isn't. All I know is Turtle's aren't the only ones who do this, so don't go blaming them.
I have reasons to believe that a certain turtle however, called Dove, is rather to be admired for her choices.
She chose to take on a little foundling by the name of Delfinia, an ugly little screaming brat if ever there was one. Despite the fact that this would mean forever giving up any dreams of freedom in the sun, let alone a minor little walk-about round the local bog.
Instead she gave up all of this to look after a kid fairy who happened to be dumped on her doorstep one morning as she was hanging out her laundry. (Not hers, obviously. As a way of making some extra cash she had set up a small dry cleaning business called Orange Float. This was rather popular, there being a number of lazy-assed toads who were quite happy to have someone else do there washing). Anyhow, she did quite well for herself and even enjoyed the work, to a certain extent. At least it kept her busy.
As I was saying though, there she was, pinning up Jaccinta's green garters (Jaccinta being the local trollop of an obscure breed with bad taste to match) when she noticed a mewing sound coming from inside the rhododendron bush to her left. Peering inside cautiously (for fear of a mouse, her worst nightmare) she saw to her utter amazement a very small being with vague humanoid features, pointy ears and a raging tantrum.
Not being one to suffer tantrums gladly, she slapped the kid smartly around the chops until it stopped crying in surprise. After a brief pause, during which turtle and fairy regarded one another with vague distaste and not a little suspicion, the little one started to hiccup.
Figuring she would now have to deal with these as well, Dove sighed and collected the bundle into her arms (like Moses in the rushes Delfinia had been placed there before sunrise, by a mother high on crack and low on hope) and set about gently patting her back until the hiccups subsided.
By which time, Dove was a goner.
Not much given to romantic notions, she nevertheless felt an instant connection to this little slip of a thing, all helpless and smelly.
And that is how Delfinia grew up with a turtle for a mother.
All roads lead to Rome, you must know that by now and so the same goes for me; I too will get there, back where all things started, the come- uppance of a toad named Matt...it will just take me a while is all. By-roads and detours are all part of the pleasure of travelling and any way, what's the rush?

Romance and Tea

So there was this toad called Matt. Actually, he wasn't so much a toad as a Muddvark, which is a kind of creature rarely seen these days anymore. They are rather ancient, but don't like to be reminded of this fact. You would think it would lend them some respect, having wisdom and experience on their side, but they prefer to be thought of as young and cool. Each to his own.
Anyhow, this vark called Matt was a suspiciously ugly specimen. Speculations abound in the village as to whether his mother had actually mated with a turd, but nobody ever dared to take this point up with the Man Himself.
He was, you see, a puffed up little so and so. Liked to think he was a toad, and a young handsome one at that. Possibly this was due to the fact that his mother had fed him on a diet of lies and sweetcake, designed to make him feel loved but actually only increased his already huge ego. Never mind, bygones are bygones after all, what is done is done.
The result of what was done was certainly not very pleasing however, to the eye or to the nostril (varks who think themselves handsome are under the impression that they need not wash...)
He was known as the village bully (the village in question being Maplesville, just south of Swamp Toad Hill. This is where the snooty toads went to live, the ones who liked to think themselves better than other toads.)
Many a young toadlet had he bullied to the point of tears and worse. This was particularly sad on his part considering that he was a full grown vark and should have known better, never mind the fact that it is just pathetic to tease someone smaller and more vulnerable that yourself....
One day however, in the springtime of the year Dot, he got his come-uppance.
It was a warm, humid day, such as they occur quite regularly in this land and morning to boot (mornings are the worst for humidity, you wake up feeling like a wet rag and just wish you could sink back into the cold, blue oblivion you just came from...) and Liverwuss had decided to move back into town.
Liverwuss was a rare kind of toad, being a mix of toad and goblin (more toad than goblin though). He had a pale yellow colour, quite sickly in appearance, hence his name. In fact, one was never quite sure if he was actually there or merely part of the background. That is how he liked it, though. Poor chap, he had had a hard time of it no doubt about that and learned early on in life that it is best to fade into the background to avoid being trampled on/bitten/hit or just plain laughed at. Why people should single him out for such treatment is beyond me, but then this whole bullying thing is not based on any kind of logic I can understand. Something about a toad being ever so slightly different; the rest of the pack can sniff an insecurity a mile off and BAM! They are onto you like a pack of wild turkeys.
I guess this gives a good enough explanation as to why old Wuss left town. We need not go into details as to the exact nature of his torturings. We can all imagine....
The last few years had been kind to him however. He had grown positively lumescent in his happiness. Why go so far as to say he was happy, I hear you ask. Well, the fact is he had fallen in love. Yes, even grown up toads can fall in love. He had met a young lass, Delfinia was her name and she made him just GLOW with satisfaction. His discovery of the joys of sex may have had a part in this, but we can certainly conclude that he was indeed very much in love with his young lady and not just with the sex side of things.
We must make a little detour here to explain what I mean with the word 'lady'. Delfinia was not, strictly speaking a lady. As such. She enjoyed peeing standing up, for instance. And having mud fights (this aspect particularly endeared her to old Wuss). If you think of a lady as someone who drinks milk with her tea while holding polite conversation about the weather, then no, she was not a lady.
She was definitely very female, though. And also quite definitely a Fairy. I see some raised eyebrows at this point, but don't even try to ask me about the mechanics of their affair, that is for them to sort out. It worked, is all I know.
She was part of a gang, called the Candy Floss Tooth Fairies. They liked to stromp around causing merry mayhem wherever they went (usually by swapping teeth under children's pillows with sweets and chocolate and then blaming the dog). They looked a bit rough and ready, if you like punk style. Her hair was pink, dyed bright candy pink and her nails blue.
She met the Wuss one evening while he was out for a stroll (his evening constitutional, he liked to call it to himself, secretly, when nobody was listening). It was dusk, the little orange lanterns were just coming on around the tree stomp houses, music was playing softly in the background (just Toby and his band practising, but they had become quite good, of late. They could hold a tune and if they were far enough away it sounded like music).
So, the stage was set for a romantic moment and did it happen? Well, this isn't a fairy tale for nothing. Of course it happened. Lightening shot through him at the the sight of such pink femininity, suddenly she appeared to him as the Madonna out of the dusk, a vision in pink smelling vaguely of bubblegum. He was gone, riding high on his kite of hormone fuelled happiness when THUNK! they clanked heads together and he was abruptly bought back to Earth, as they fell together in a heap over the root she had stumbled on. (She was known to be clumsy. No longer allowed to do the break-ins into children's windows at night for fear she might do herself an injury. Instead she was Head Hunter, working back at the station, checking the systems for new loose teeth. Tonight she had evening shift and was on her way to work).
Well, after a bit of embarrassed fumbling about which is perfectly normal when a male and a female collide, he discovered to his dismay that her head was bleeding. She wasn't hurt badly, heads have a tendency to bleed a lot, but he was not aware of this fact and was most distraught. Insisted on her coming back to his place for some rejuvenating tea and a plaster.
She was not so worried about her injury but rather nosy as to his living quarters (having been a bachelor for the past 20 years, she expected the worse) and also rather keen to avoid working this evening, for reasons of her own which I may come to in another story.
So off they went to his home, up in the hills just behind them. He lent her a courteous arm which she gratefully took, playing the role of helpless female to the letter.
Here she found a pleasant surprise awaiting her. Not only were his quarters amiable and welcoming, he had even taken the trouble to decorate. The walls were painted a warm orange and lined with bookshelves, as far as the eye could see. While he went off to busy himself with the kettle and generally faff in the kitchen, she snuck a look at his collection. This is when she fell in love. Here she had her a sinking moment (while his moment had been more of the flying kind, hers was a sort of sinking, mostly around the kneecap region plus a warming in the belly until she felt quite faint and had to sit down).
They had exactly the same taste in books, you see and this is what did it for her. Pure and simple, she was a geek and so was he. By looking into his bookshelves she felt she was looking into his soul and she saw the same soul, they were as one. His toad-like appearance suddenly vanished before her eyes and instead she saw an elf on a shining white steed, her Prince Charming.
Thus a romance was born.
Sigh.
You know, I find myself quite taken with this image, so I shall leave it at this for today.
Matt and his come-uppance can wait for another day.

The Land of Fresia.

There is a park in the city of Amsterdam where, if you can catch rays of the sun as well as drops of water, you will be instantly transformed into another world, called Fresia. Most people don't realise this however, they think it is just a pretty park, near the Amstel...
But pretty things have hidden dimensions and this is something we tend to forget, out here in the World of Beings.
It takes a special person to be able to catch the rays of magic flowing so freely there.
Fortunately this is the case though! Imagine if just anybody were able to cross over, it would turn into a veritable mess over there in that delicate land. No, it is just as well that the city people have no idea of what is under their nose (and huge, stomping feet, for that matter). A bit of seclusion never hurt anybody. One must be selective, especially these days...

Magical spaces and places in time. We all know they exist from early on but gradually we let that part of ourselves go, finding life easier to deal with one reality at a time (this, current reality being hard enough as it is...)

This means, however, that the magical places, like Fresia, are disappearing...All living things need juice to grow and flourish and these places especially need juice, creative saps to keep the life force going. Stories are what keep them alive, the telling and re-telling of adventures and mishaps in the Land of Amazing Possibilities.....but have we lost our ability to believe in stories? This would seem to be the case indeed. We no longer believe in our own imagination, which is the key to other worlds.

But if only you could believe you would know that the toads under the trees really do have smiles on their faces... mainly because they are happy to be swelling up in the sun but sometimes also because they have just been to Burt's Pancake House, the best (and only) eatery in Town. This tends to add to their swelling, of course, even if the pancakes are actually mini poffertjes (a Dutch tradition that even the Fairies can't do without). It is enough for them to go there of a morning, have their fill of coffee and glucose mixed with carbs and then gossip... This sets them up for the day, all they need after that is some mud and they are happy to lay about processing all the assimilated stimulae in a haze of contentment. It is a happy life being a toad.

The population of green eyes monsters is such, in fact, that the Town has been renamed Swamp Toad Hill, the former name being Junction XL (for lack of a better name at the time... it was, after all, a rather large intersection serving to distribute the Land of Fresia with Goblins and what not from all manners of places, some of them not even in existence as we know it. But that is another story).

This was by way of introduction, next time we will meet some more of the various and varied weirdo's living side by side near the Amstel (I am not being insulting here, I mean honestly! If you choose to call yourself Droopyguts or Liverwuss then you have a serious problem).