The Northern Bee Literary Journal
And now, by popular demand, perhaps for a limited run, The Northern Bee presents the infamous story "The Pet Goat" aka "My Pet Goat" which was being read by President George W. Bush to a group of young children in Florida when he was told about the first Tower being struck by a passenger jet on 9/11/2001.
The Pet Goat, aka, My Pet Goat
A girl got a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her pet goat in her house. She played with her pet goat in her yard.
But the goat did some things tht made the girl's dad mad. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate canes. He ate pans and he ate panes. He even ate capes and caps.
One day her dad said, "That goat must go. He eats too many things."
The girl said, "Dad, if you let the goat stay with us, I will see that he stops eating all those things."
Her dad said, "We will try it."
So the goat stayed and the girl made him stop eating cans and canes and caps and capes.
But one day a car robber came to the girl's house. He saw a big red car near the house and said, "I will steal that car."
He ran to the car and started to open the door.
The girl and the goat were playing in the back yard. They did not see the car robber.
The Goat Stops The Robber
A girl had a pet goat. He dad had a red car.
A car robber was going to steal her dad's car. The girl and her goat were playing in the back yard.
Just then the goat stopped playing. He saw the robber. He bent his head down and started to run for the robber. The robber was bending over the seat of the car. The goat hit him with his sharp horns. The car robber went flying.
The girl's dad ran out of the house. He grabbed the robber. "You were trying to steal my car," he yelled.
The girl said, "But my goat stopped him."
"Yes," her dad said. "That goat saved my car."
The car robber said, "Something hit me when I was trying to steal that car."
The girl said, "My goat hit you."
The girl hugged the goat. Her dad said, "That goat can stay with us. And he can eat all the cans and canes and cap and capes he wants."
The girl smiled. Her goat smiled. Her dad smiled. But the robber did not smile. He said, "I am sore."
---------------------by Siegfried Engelmann & Elaine Bruner, Copyright © Science Research Associates, Inc. 1988, 1983, 1975, 1969. All rights reserved.
So Be Good For Goodness' Sake!
It was the off-season for Santa Claus. It was a cold, summer day. Cold only because Santa lives at The North Pole with all his reindeer. Santa was just kind of hanging out. Hoping that all the boys and girls would be better than last year so that he could amply reward them come Christmas Eve. But, alas, some of the boys and girls were especially bad that year.
Santa knew right away, too, because he saw the missiles going overhead in both directions. He quickly summoned his reindeer to block the paths of the nuclear projectiles.
Donner flew up with divine swiftness and intercepted the firstly-launched missile bound for either Chicago or Kiev. Blitzen followed suit and intercepted the first one going the other way, bound for either Los Angeles or Taskkent. Vixen and Dancer, and Dasher and Prancer also did their share. The bombs exploded so high up that no immediate Earthly damage was apparent. But it was kind of hard to see the other missiles that Santa knew were clouding the heavens. So he had his helpers quickly load up the sleigh and he turned to Rudolph and said: "Rudolph, with your nose go bright, won't you reguide those missiles, tonight?" So Rudolph and Comet and Cupid carried Santa off to the mushroom cloud to save the world from cockroach paradise.
Santa threw a bag of toys originally intended for a little boy in Toledo, Ohio at a missile bound for New York City. Then an elf threw a stocking full of jelly beans at a missile bound for Moscow. Then, all of a sudden, by the light of Rudolph's red nose, Santa saw a cluster of seventy-five missiles going both ways. Comet and Cupid and Rudolph pulled the sleigh right between the missiles and just before all seventy-five rammed into Santa Claus and Company to explode in an ozone-blasting bang, Santa was heard to say: "What will the children do for Christmas this year?"
--------- Story & Art by Mike Wrathell (thank you, Starbuck! for playing Rudolph!)
The Story of Bizarro the Clown
One day Bizarro decided to really go for it instead of merely daydreaming of being a clown. He moved from Detroit to Chicago and set up shop.
Because clowns don't need to talk much, he cut out his tongue, soaked it in gasoline, lit it, put it out with peanut butter (Jif Creamy), and ate it before an appreciative downtown lunch crowd.
After that performance, the crowd was bigger for his second day. Bizarro re-enacted "Oedipus the King" for the crowd, impaling his left eye with an ice pick. It was a good thing that was a Friday, because he kind of needed a few day's rest. He stayed at Union Station, and slept on a bench. The police didn't harass him, after all, this is the 90's, and beatings are the exception, not the rule.
On Monday, a medium crowd awaited Bizarro's antics. He wrapped up his right foot with gauze, but not before stuffing his sock with firecrackers he bought in Chinatown. The explosion went off at 12:41, just in time for people to walk back to work.
Bizarro was starting to have fun at his new job. He made plenty of money, too. He got a room at a boarding house, and was eating good, cheap food. Chicago was his kind of town.
On Tuesday, the crowd was super big. It was a good thing he had a good show thought up for them. At the forefront was a young woman with very serious eyes that looked right into Bizarro's soul through his good eye. He knew he would never hurt his only eye now. His gaze was transfixed on her. His soul was inflamed, as if the mosquito of love had bitten his aorta. Yes, Bizarro fell in love at first sight.
Bizarro slowed down a little; he was a little self-conscious now. He knew she was looking at him, but he had to do his job. He set up the gallows pole, put the noose around his cock and balls, and hung himself by pulling the lever.
Perhaps love has caused him weakness, because for the first time since he cut out his tongue, he tried to communicate by his voice. He tried to scream. The whole crowd was laughing as Bizarro swayed to and fro on the gallows pole, but his mouth was contorted wide open in a sterling silent scream. His eye looked out in terror, looking for her.
He was helpless to free himself, and the pain was greater than he expected, plus he wanted to get down because the show was over for today.
Only the girl knew this, besides him. She summoned a policeman to get him down. Officer Casey did the only thing a man with compassion would do, he got Bizarro down as fast as possible by shooting the rope. It took five bullets, not one like in the movies. The bullets went into an office building, but because of the lunch hour, only a few lawyers were hit. One was struck where the brain normally dwells; he continued writing his brief for The United States Supreme Court.
Bizarro was rushed to St. Jason's Hospital. The girl rode in the back of the ambulance with him. He smiled at her, and was happy, looking into the only eyes and face who understood him; if he was going to die, at least he knew he had found a part of his destiny.
The hospital had him up in two hours, as opposed to no time; they only charged him for the gas used by the ambulance, on condition he not need their services for any newly-self-inflicted injuries for the next month. Bizarro nodded gratefully, with a newly-serious expression.
The girl held his left hand. Bizarro stopped to write her a note.
"Would you like to have lunch?"
"Sure, let's go!" she said.
They went to Burger King in The Sears Tower. When they sat down with their food, Bizarro wrote this, "What's your name?"
"Becky," she said with happy, smiling eyes.
Then he wrote this, "I love you."
Becky said this, "I love you, too."
--------- Story by Mike Wrathell; Bizarro The Clown cool ink tat on my right hand by Rachel Highfield; "Blake 44" by me (thank you, Robert Blake!).
Flyboy On The Wing
Flyboy was a fly. He hatched on a dungheap in New Delhi. With so many flies on the Earth that if you stacked them high, we'd all be up to our armpits; Flyboy was the inevitable re-combination that wouldn't wear out. That is, Flyboy was the first fly who wouldn't age. Oh, he could get squashed alright, but he was free from the rogue cell juice that would fatique the fly body after a summer or so. With this also went great recuperative powers, enabling Flyboy to buzz over oceans and land on dry shit, shaken, but ultimately unfazed.
Flyboy landed on a kitchen screen in Beeman, Arkansas. "Mmmmm...that shit looks good!" he thought, and rubbed his forelegs together in the way that flies do. When he was comfortably full, Flyboy reflected, "It's a fine land I've landed upon. Mounds of fresh garbage, more than New Delhi, and lots of new flies to fly all around with. I think I'll explore this new land of plenty." With that he went off to sleep in the normal, upside-down position of a fly snoozing on a ceiling.
When he woke up, Flyboy began his North American tour: Mobile, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Fayetteville, Gainesville, Orlando, New Orleans, San Antonio, El Paso, Lubbock, Galveston, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Denver, Wichita Falls, Charleston, Greenville, Spartanburg, Ashville, Knoxville, Roanoke, Richmond, Norfolk, Charlotte, Augusta, and Savannah. Along the way, he learned tricks from the local flies: how to avoid landing on television screens and blue electric bug-zapper lights, and how to spot spider-webs while on the wing. He already knew where to go to find food--just find a group of people and you'll leave too full to fly.
Flyboy woke up near a half-eaten corndog on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds in Omaha. He was sad and had the blues. The other flies were okay, but they didn't care much beyond a fresh turd and making more flies. "There must be more than this," Flyboy thought.
Then he fell in love. It was in a pit-toilet in Harrisonberg, Mississippi with a she-fly named Flyina. Flyina must also be a genetic mutation, Flyboy thought, for she buzzed so beautifully, and didn't care for general flydom. Their conversations were filled with sun and song, and when they flew, they soared above the circles of shit-hungry hoverflies. Flyboy felt free, as if he had no wings, no multi-planar eye units, no legs, and no thorax. When he and Flyina finally coupled, they were as one pure consciousness. He told her, "Even if the rest of my life is but elbowing in a carcass with the many other flies, I shall always remember this moment and be grateful for it."
The next day, before she had a chance to lay her eggs, Flyina was killed by a chemical fog sprayed by the pit-toilet owner, in a fit of sheer fly genocide. Flyboy returned to the pit in time to witness her death-writhings. "Go away," she said, "or you may die, too." Flyboy could but cry and stroke her wing until she finally lay still.
As he flew away, Flyboy felt rarefied, as if he had lost his mind. "Why?" he thought. "Why must we all die? And why are flies so stupid? And men and women are worse, for they feed and house us and then wonder why we're around. Am I so different? Must it always be this way? Oh, Flyina, I loved you, and I would have loved our maggots. I would have taught them to think, and...to soar!" Flyboy hovered in the sunshine and in the heat rising up from U. S. 43 that winds its way through Mississippi, Georgia, and down along the Gulf Coast. He broke the long-standing fly law: "Stay away from the highway," and when he heard the grumble and roar, he flung himself into the windshield-vortex of an oncoming semi. Flyboy was now fly-paste, his consciousness released from the splat he left behind on the windshield of the truck, labled "ROADWAY", that rumbled on by.
--------a story by Roy Zornow
Himalayan Love Story
Ran Pan Ban was in nirvana on Mount Everest's sister mountain in the Tibetan Himalayas, Mount Simi Solo. Ran had been atop Simi Solo for fifty-seven years. He was once in love with a woman, Sola Sivi, but it was unhappy and he became a monk. Sola Sivi had made his melancholy temperament feed itself to the point of self-destruction. Now his introspection was safe because he was at one with God. Although, sometimes he would dream of Sola Sivi and when he woke up he would think of her until he remembered God.
Ran Pan Ban knew he had not much more to live on this earth. He was ninety-three years old. Sola Sivi was eighty-seven now. Ran Pan Ban knew that Sola Sivi was living in Katmandu and that it would be nice to see her once more before the end. His dreams of her started to include God, and Ran started wondering if it would be alright to leave Simi Solo. Ran Pan Ban went into a deep trance and remained absolutely motionless for 41 days. He woke up without hunger but with a strange feeling. He knew he loved her with the power of God. He would trek to Katmandu and see her after his morning prayers.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him, he remained in prayer for he was still a monk. It was the Chinese Army who had just invaded Tibet. So Pong Dong, a captain, said to Ran Pan Ban, "We've no room for you, God-dog!" So Dong pulled out his halberd-sword and pretended that Ran's neck was a baseball. Needless to say, Ran Pan Ban's head rolled all the way down Mount Simi Solo and became the core of a gargantuan snowball as it went down. When his head finally stopped rolling it was at the base of Mount Everest. As for Sola Sivi, she said, "Thank God I left Tibet before those Chinese dogs took it over!"
---------by Mike Wrathell
Soon to come will be a story about Mudma the Robot King, who would be a
great American hero/robot. He could swat hijaked airliners out of
the sky like so many Oregon hover flies being sprayed with Windex.
He would go to Afghanistan and take great fire, but capture Osama bin
Laden, and even his mom, who needs counseling.....Mudma would also
drag the New Carissa underwater to a safe distance from the sacred
Oregon Coast, a different kind of beauty than Venice Beach, but anyone
who disses Cannon Beach is probably a member of al Qaeda.
