Chasing Little Dragons

By Michael Farnum

Are inter-dimensional beings real, or just the figment of some very overactive, possibly psychotic imaginations? Is it the Wonder Twins who need protection, or do Mommy and Daddy and the world need protecting from them, and their sometimes-evil sidekick? And who the heck is Mister Daddy Number Two, and his gorgeous wife? Find out all this and more in: Chasing Little Dragons, a Parents’ Guide to Dealing with Uniquely-gifted Children . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359114436

Book preview

Chasing Little Dragons

Chasing Little Dragons

A Parents’ Guide to Dealing with

Uniquely-Gifted Children

in Today’s Totalitarian Society

by

Michael Farnum

Copyright

Chasing Little Dragons

A Parents’ Guide to Dealing with Uniquely-gifted Children

First Edition

Copyright ©2018 Michael Farnum/Flying Monkey Publications

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-359-11443-6

This work is licensed under the Creative

Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

License.   To view a copy of this license, visit:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/

Synopsis

Life gets harder every day, if you don’t have the right attitude, pal.  Marriage, work, desert gardening, UFO-watching, maintaining a spiritual practice while living in a soul-crushing Draconian society.  And raising identical twins, a precocious pair of very special over-achieving lizard chasers, not to mention their inseparable, oft-incorrigible baby pet, precise origins unknown?  Forget about it.  Enjoy the materialist life while it lasts.  No worries, they’re all in your head.  It’s all good.

Death will come easy enough, or whatever comes next.  But beware, the after-life may be no heavenly picnic.  FYI:  There are no free lunches in heaven or hell.  So be a good little consumer, stay in your little safe box.  Keep your head down and don’t fall down any rabbit holes, Citizen.  ‘Cause if you do, They’ll be coming for you. If or when you stop being a sheeple and finally wake up to the so-called Truth of the way things really work on Planet Earth, They are going to take you out, anyway They can, Stan. But first, They’ll probably clone you, disown you, and mentally rezone you.

But who are They?  And what do They want?  Charming, narcissistic and borderline Machiavellian Marques Mortopolis (a/k/a Mister Daddy Number One) had to find out the hard way.  But did They really take him out?  Or will he come back, bigger and stronger than ever, in one form or another?  Is his psychic little friend, soulmate and pet crush (super-cute K.C. from KY) really psychic, or just another quirky yet adorable New Age pretender, causing more hurt than help?  She’s also very married, as is he, by the way. 

Can an unintended out-of-body experience be just as real as your everyday physical consciousness, or become even greater? 

Are inter-dimensional beings real, or just the figment of some very overactive, possibly psychotic imaginations? Is it the Wonder Twins who need protection, or do Mommy and Daddy and the world need protecting from them, and their sometimes-evil sidekick?  And who the heck is Mister Daddy Number Two, and his gorgeous wife?  Find out all this and more in:  Chasing Little Dragons, a Parents’ Guide to Dealing with Uniquely-gifted Children . . .

Disclaimer

The following publication is a work of fiction.

Any similarities to actual persons, living or deceased, places or things,

is purely coincidental.

The following contains graphic language, nudity, and deep philosophical

and mystical wisdom.

It is intended for mature audiences only.

Quotes

"Without going outside, you may know the whole world.

Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.

The further you go, the less you know.

Thus the sage knows without traveling . . ."

--Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

(from Feng and English, Tao Te Ching, 47)

"All that we see or seem,

Is just a dream within a dream . . ."

--Edgar Allen Poe

"Mine is not to question why,

Mine is just to do or die, sir!"

--the good soldier’s mantra

Part One:  Is This the Real World?

One

Although no one much has the hairy cojones to say it anymore these days, the world is a mad bloody place.  Complete lunacy.  Pretty damned atrocious.  But, once upon a point in the eternal space-time continuum, right around the earthly year 2020, roughly, things were good, mostly.  There was hope, joy, love, all that good stuff.  Of course, it wasn’t all freshly palmed seashells, creepy clowns and animal-shaped balloons at the zoo, Sunshine. 

It was just life and death.  One big clueless Planet Kindergarten trying to raise its collective consciousness.  Or not.  Move along, Citizen . . . 

Wonder Twins, reactivate!  Growing up back then, fun-loving wunderkinds, Percelia and Percival, golden-haired, freakishly articulate and near-identical, were virtually inseparable.  Even better from a parent’s perspective, the two were unnaturally well-behaved.  Equally self-disciplined, within the home and out in public, often to the point of inexplicable disbelief on the part of friends and strangers, alike.  Very odd, indeed. Behold the twin ninjas!  And never under-estimate you opponent . . . 

Where had these curious children really come from, one often wondered.  Dreamy Daddy, being the far more existentially inquiring one, more so than rigidly analytic medical professional Mommy.  She had a pretty good idea, having spent tens of thousands of her hard-earned nest egg—untold blood, sweat, tears and other private bodily things—on the risky, beyond-pricey, highly experimental—but ultimately successful--alternative highly-adaptive hybrid DNA replication in-vitro fertilization procedure.  Very complicated stuff.  Bottom line, miracle babies, guaranteed.  Just don’t count on getting your money back anytime soon, sweetheart.  Moot point.  Like they said, absolutely guaranteed, Mommy and Daddy . . .

Marginally hopeful prospective parents, Dr. Chrystalyn and Marques Payne-Mortopolis had spent the better part of two years traveling back and forth between their pricey new Phoenix home and the cutting-edge fertility lab and private hospital out in Vegas.  Why the hell hadn’t they just moved there?    Hoping to bring at least one precious baby into the world, before she hit the reproductive dead-end of fast-approaching menopause, the happy couple ended up with the not-altogether-unexpected bonus of two wunderkinds for the price of one.  Still pretty costly, not that they were complaining.

(Percy did have his occasional OCD moments, like DNA-recipient Daddy, but this was exceedingly rare.  Never mess with the boy’s private collection of ancient civilizations’ golden dragon coins and other priceless collectibles, a bad habit started by materialistic Mommy.  There would be uncountable hell to pay, Murgatroyd.  Oddly standoffish, mostly low-maintenance, dreamy Percelia was just, well, Celia . . .) 

Not that one would be sending them back, selling the kiddos on the highly lucrative hybrid black market anytime soon.  Those two were keepers, for real.

Every nanny in the hood, from barely legal pre-teen to barely breathing geriatric, was viciously undercutting the next, fighting like back alley pit bulls among themselves to babysit those two, let alone set foot inside that gorgeous, eclectic home in the Vista del Oro cul-de-sac.  More specifically, the lady doc’s reportedly insane walk-in closet.  Some said it was bigger than the Litchfield Park Mall Macy’s.  A little messier.  Okay, a lot messier, actually. Even the self-employed personal organizers and so-called feng shui experts were trying to get in on that action.  Sadly, their Mommy, the perfidious, less-than-hospitable, not-very-people-friendly Dr. Payne-Mortopolis, a prominent local family physician, didn’t trust any of them.  She was one tough nut to crack.  Those squirrels were definitely barking up the wrong tree.   Sad lady didn’t seem to trust anyone, really, any farther than she could throw an empty bottle of expired Ritalin across the room.     

Nestled safely in an elite, strictly private, high-gated community in a blossoming, very sheltered suburb of the Valley of the Phoenix, the twins’ coveted West Valley home was a modest Adobe-style palace.  The family’s spacious backyard wonderland, a virtual ultra-modern Shangri-La featuring a dazzling panorama of colorful Mexican sunflowers, Chinese forget-me-nots, Tibetan elderberry and Japanese snapdragons; all Daddy’s favorite desert plants and cherished wind chime collection, acquired mostly from Sedona; an ancient, towering bird’s nest of a Saguaro; and a shady pair of tall, leafy Cali willows.  Nearly identical, how terribly appropriate.

Marques Mortopolis’ locally celebrated garden had been lavishly featured in a recent edition of a popular, longstanding publication freely distributed throughout the Valley.  An ill-advised, ego stroke he instantly regretted.  Trying hard to live off the totalitarian grid, just like his anti-estab Daddy had, Marques silently cursed himself in retrospect.  He rightfully feared that horribly bone-headed, pride-driven move would only draw further unwanted attention from the all-intrusive powers that be, as well as the persnickety HOA.  Critical error.  Epic fail. Never again, Mr. Green Jeans.

Such was his karma.  All in all, life was good. 

Daddy, can you come push us on the swings!  Daddy, can you come see what’s wrong with my Lightning McQueen electric car!  Daddy, can you come see our new flying trapeze trick!  Daddy, can you put some more sunscream on me!   But, God, they could be so energetically demanding.  Absolutely relentless, those two, fearless irrepressible daredevils.  Mommy and Daddy couldn’t imagine life without ‘em.  Who could?

While an ungodly burning heat routinely ravaged the Valley, morning temperatures easily hitting one-hundred-plus degrees weeks before summer solstice, and slowly rising every year, the remarkably adaptive golden twins remained fairly impervious to the ungodly conditions.  Hanging about their intricate, hand-built treehouse complex, the cheeky little monkeys relished showing off their impressive high-climbing, high-diving, trampoline acro-gymnastics, Judo grappling, dramatic arts, high-caliber karaoke and other miscellaneous mini-ninja antics to the mostly inferior neighbor children.  They were just sassy. 

(Precociously curly-locked Celia could cleanly divide a Granny Smith apple, any fruit really, at least as big as your average-sized genetically-modified California grape, off her twin brother’s overgrown surfer boy shocks with a rubber arrow and her old school Apache warrior bow.  From at least fifty yards away.  Blindfolded, both of them, in fact they preferred it.  And vice-versa.  Although young, hawk-eyed Percy did prefer an authentic Medieval Celtic crossbow, also with rubber-tipped arrows.  Come on, their considerably distracted parental units weren’t that lackadaisical.)

The twins also shared, not so much owned, one highly-interactive, talking pet bird.  No matter how fast or how hard one ran, even the most gifted of sprinters, thus far, there was no escaping the twins’ beloved and equally talented, larger-than-life, lightning-esque and quite loquacious wild pet magpie.  Myna bird?  Oversized raven?  Or whatever it was, nobody seemed to know for sure.  And, yes, that bird really talked. 

Enter the Murgatroyd.  By way of the mean streets of East Phoenix, rural Mississippi, somewhere in Africa, the Middle East, maybe, ancient Egypt, and other parts universally unknown.  The bird could not be stopped, only contained in a giant cage, if bribed with sugar treats or a tantalizing sample of its favorite reggae, blues or Afro-pop music, mainly--Bob Marley, Eddy Grant, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Robert Leroy Johnson, just to name a few. The Mortopolis twins’ monster crow happened to be a fortuitous pet rescue project—whom the selectively telepathic Twinkies seemed to be able to control at will, love unconditionally despite its myriad (very human-like) imperfections, and not live without, needless to say.  The intractable two loved nothing better than to teach the highly versatile, music-loving avian new songs and hip-hop dance moves, shout-out to the eternal Lady Gaga! Amun, Ra, Atan, Khepri, Tefnut, Set, Seker, Ptah, et al, la-la-la-la-la!!! . . .

And vice-versa, the esoteric, Rasta-loving bird secretly instructing its young charges in nifty Blues and Reggae riffs on the bass guitar, ancient Sanskrit sutras, transcribed lost Sumerian texts, hypnotic Gregorian and Gnostic chants, Atlantean time travel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, verboten Dark Continent voodoo spirituals, mystical Jinn spells and conjurings, top-secret animal spirit stuff and other more benevolent forbidden Akashic knowledge. Really deep stuff. 

Where did it all come from? Daddy also mused on the notion more often than not, day and night without distraction.  The man supposedly had more time on his hands than Mommy, although not really true, we all had our rightful immutable equivalent.  Twenty-four hours in a day, the same for all of us, Mommy.  She didn’t seem to get it.  Needless to say, Mommy was a low-level Stage One, completely ignorant of the Great Awakening. 

Percelia:  Awesome three-sixty, double-clutch, triple-pump Big Air Sky Hawk Lands on a Rock, Murgatroyd! 

Percival:  "Yeah, totally gnarly, dude!  Really nailed it, that time, Murgy!  And blindfolded, to boot!  Totally bitchin’, Big Bird . . ."

Murgatroyd:  "Aaaawwwkk!  Don’t ever call me that again, Goldilocks! . . ."

Likewise, the unlikely trio reciprocally perfecting insanely gnarly skateboarding and flying tricks; training the dutiful creature to play boomerang-fetch, catch lizards, chase away bloodthirsty mosquitos, dirty pigeons, cat-eating coyotes, other annoying neighborhood pests.  The poor beast of burden compelled to take on more than its share of the basic household chores the little minions (or bad Daddy) should be doing—cleaning and dusting their bedrooms, private bathroom and ginormous playroom/mini-gymnasium; taking out the trash and recycling; skimming leaves out of the pool; seeding, watering, weeding, mowing, mulching, planting, fertilizing, trimming, edging, tidying up the yard and conditioning the outdoor sports courts in general.  And don’t forget the insanely high gutters there, Chief Black Crow . . .

Oh, I been workin’ . . . like the devil himself, Lord . . . low-down, dirty, too-proud plantation slave, Lord . . . since the days of Sumeria, battlin’ hate and malaria . . . since the day I was born, yeah . . . Oh, mama, helps me . . . gets through another day, Lord . . . without killin’ the Man . . . No, I don’t think, don’t think I can . . . Come takes me to the Promised Land, Mister Sand Man . . . 

You’re welcome, by the way, Dr. Mommy.  That shit don’t get done by itself, ya know.  Heavens to Murgatroyd! . . .

Really, could the glorified turkey vulture be more overdramatic?  One thing Daddy had realized, secretly:  the creepy, unnaturally prescient and snarky blackbird rarely spoke those three fateful words, for the most part. (HTM.) But when it did, particularly when the creepy thing was particularly cranky, something strange coincidentally occurred, from mundane domestic dispute to poltergeist activity around the house to presidential state of emergency.  Unpredicted typhoon.  Terrorist attack.   Another tragic beloved celebrity’s death.  For better or worse, Marques kept this to himself.  Probably just his overactive imagination anyways.  Heavens to Murgatroyd!  Bad moon-a-risin’! 

Despite the Uber-intelligent mystery bird’s specious claims to deep, antediluvian Dark Continent origins, Daddy suspected otherwise.  This had to be some very impressive, cutting-edge A.I., possibly of extra-terrestrial creation.  Most likely, strategically planted in their life by the very dark Draconian forces to monitor him and his family, surveil their every move, probably read their minds, as well.

Hardly as harmless, mostly-benevolent and lovable as it seemed, the curious creature had to be a Spybot.  At the very least, he could be a serious pain in the ass.     

Over the years, more and more recently, Mommy and Daddy had received myriad nasty letters from concerned, some outright enraged neighbor parents, and the dreaded HOA Council, regarding the potentially budding young bullies, and their mythic pet dragon.  Maybe one or two letters from the Maricopa County Sheriff, Animal Control, Goodyear or Rural Valley Fire Department. 

"Heavens to Murgatroyd!  Fight the Power!"  They were considering family counseling, and private sessions for the oft-troublesome but likewise indispensable family pet.  Me, I shoo away dee fat mon shire reeve, but I deed no touchez hees skeeny-azz lackey dep-u-tare, swear to Jah, mon.  Sing it wit me now, y’all, alright, yeah! . . .

This was perhaps the proudest moment yet for Mr. and Mrs. Payne-Mortopolis, practically the envy of every less-privileged parent at Dreamy Vista.  At six and a half, perhaps in small part to their dark-feathered secret music tutor, as first grade super babies, no less, the wonder twins had walked away with this year’s school-wide talent show.  The nearly identical angel-faced prodigies had performed an absolutely stirring, heart-wrenching rendition, completely acapella, no less, of Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer.  (If not for Daddy the golden-tonsilled Wunderkinds would have had no idea who Bon Jovi was even, right along with the clueless majority of their slightly elder peers.)  From kindergarten to sixth grade, from Maintenance to Admin, the joint was mesmerized by the transcendent fifth-dimensional display.  Almost mystical, the experience.

The long, tall, handsomely aging Ms. Mojita, long-time Dreamy Vista Elementary music teacher, needless to say, was beside herself in a delirium of prideful tears.  It was frightfully like the first time she’d seen the Beatles or Amadeus, live.  Who knew someday that trite shite would become a global anthem, spurring on the deeply downtrodden little people to rebel against the tyrannical dark powers, their long-held esoteric secrets, free energy suppression, their murderous hybrid super soldiers?  Who knew?  She knew.  Apropos of nothing, really, the ageless, intuitive and stylishly bespectacled ginger-haired Harpy seemed to hold a suspiciously amorous eye on Daddy whenever he came to pick up the twins, special events, what-have-you (most lady teachers and at least one man at Dreamy did.)  Someday, Mr. Twinkies’ Daddy Magic Hands Masseuse, someday . . . Put your hands, put your hands up on me . . . See you at the after-party, Daddy?

Eyes on the prize, Mr. Daddy, eyes on the prize . . .

Now, where was I?  Oh, yeah, taught ‘em everything I know, Daddio! that snarky ebony-feathered know-it-all shamelessly hoarded the credit, insatiable glory-hawk stealing the spotlight at the family’s little after-party at the house.  He did have quite a handsome voice. 

That crazy blackbird (an exotic, selectively verbose hybrid Sumerian mynah, supposedly bred by an African shaman in Morocco, Madagascar, maybe?) would have been the most popular kid at Dreamy, right behind these other two you-know-who’s.       

Thanks a million, Murgatroyd, Marques reluctantly conceded, Daddy  territorially guarding the shiny, new backyard grilling accoutrements.

Who wants more S’mores?!  None for you, Sneaky Beak!

And to think, LOAP hadn’t even been Daddy’s first choice.  (Teenage Wasteland by the Who.)  Poor Percy couldn’t just yet pull off the raw, gravely bass of Roger Daltrey, RIP, bless his heart.  And let’s face it, The Stones’ Paint it Black was just too dark, even in these dire Draconian times.  Wrong place, wrong time, Daddy.  And obviously a medley would be far too much to ask today’s audience to tolerate. 

Raising such extraordinarily gifted children, Daddy’s precious little Red Belt dragons, didn’t come without a price, nothing did.  (Kung Fu classes were so expensive, but that’s not what he was getting at here.  Besides, Mommy had all the money.)  Case in point, artistic savant Percelia’s breathtaking photographic submission of Universal Peace among All Galactic Species in a Unified Theory of Quantum Physics and Spiritual Enlightenment won her last year’s prestigious Governor’s Award for Creative Vision in Arts & Crafts, twelve and under division.  Unfortunately, the original was graffiti spray-painted on the side of their pristine new luxury home.  The generous fifty-dollar prize didn’t nearly cover the cost of extensive repainting, not to mention the hefty punitive HOA fines.  Meanwhile their budding starving artist’s seemingly endless, prolific collection of finger paintings, photography, crayon calligraphy, handmade pottery, Native American jewelry, Play-Doh sculptures and unique candy-wrapper origami, along with a handful of Percy’s Lego creations, were on permanent display at a nifty nearby retail store.  Cilla’s Silly Stuff, misspelling intended, she hated Celia for some reason, all for a hefty monthly rent and a small staff barely making minimum-wage.  If nothing else, they were keeping a select rag-tag band of otherwise unemployable teens and near-homeless retirees off the streets.

Good karma, maybe?

Genius Case Study Number Two:  the infamous Mr. Percy probably the first ever first-grader not only to win the Dreamy Vista Elementary-wide spelling bee, but to become the youngest ever county champion on record.  The hard part was Mommy had to sue the entire state school system, and petition the high and mighty state Supreme Court, itself, to allow the poor boy, not being of the qualified age or whatever, to enter the silly little spelling contest in the first place.  Considering the subsequent astronomical legal fees, in retrospect, maybe overzealous Mommy should have let that one go.

On an interesting side note, the family’s highly anticipated trip to Washington, D.C. for the nationwide finals was unexpectedly derailed.  At the Phoenix airport, Marques’ ID was unceremoniously rejected as somehow, he found himself on the dreaded Federal No-fly List, temporarily.  What was this about?  No doubt the result of some egregious clerical error or a terrible case of mistaken identity.  Admittedly, Mortopolis was no huge fan of the government, who was?  And an unapologetic malcontent in America’s deluded dualistic Draconian sham society in general, just like Daddy and countless generations before.  Supposedly, back in the day his daddy fought the IRS all the way to the Supreme Court, presenting a highly convincing, near flawless case for which there was no possible reasonable defense from the powers that be.  The so-called Star Chamber ordered him removed from the High Court by a platoon of stormtrooper goons, dragged away to the secret underground chambers beneath D.C., tortured and beaten to within inches of his troublesome, meaningless existence.  Somehow his old man escaped, possibly with assistance from his omniscient extra-terrestrial guardians.  Long story short, shortly thereafter joined an extremist Doomsday cult, eventually killed himself or was murdered.        

But that was neither here nor there.  Marques’ intermittently drunk-ass daddy, Stan the Man, rest his godless wayward soul, was always telling stories.  This terrible convenience was simply outrageous. Their family attorney was still working feverishly to untangle that bureaucratic clusterfuck.

Mommy was livid, blaming Bad Daddy for everything, as usual.

So, Daddy had to sit this one out, stay home by his lonesome, take care of the pets, no biggie.  He could watch it on TV.  More interested in seeing the Presidential sights than studying for the Big Show, their boy finished a highly respectable third place in the nation, no shame in that, smarty pants. 

Life goes on.

Frequently left to their own devices, the tireless siblings spent the blissful off-school hours honing their expert synchronized swimming and underwater acrobatics, their relentless martial arts sparring, laser-pinpoint-accurate archery, Olympic training-grade gymnastics and tremendously impressive track and field skills.  Or just chasing around, doing what little dragons did—playing doctor wannabe like Mommy or bloody post-apocalypse