The irony of it was too great

This was inspired by a trilogy I once read, the concept of the Gars is not exactly unique (hey, doesn't these guys remind you of dwarfs or goblins or whatever?) I decided to write this since there was a general depression going round and everyone is trying to finish off or add to book #54, so, all the characters are here, and you could say this fic took place a while before 47/48. It doesn't matter, just read it. I hope you have plenty of laughs.

As usual, even though I put it under 'humor' its got a serious side too, I mean, the main character is serious. However stupid he is. No, don't think of it as stupid, think about it as mislead and his entire concept of a world is a set of incorrect insights.

I may or may not continue this story to bring out my version of Kelbrid space. But Ax wouldn't be taken and Rachel's not dead.

PS; not all Gars are like Sinline, if a real Gar came across him the resemblance would be a little like you coming across a bunch of cave men/woman. Or a chimpanzee who could read and write.

This fic may be a bit long, but its worth it. Believe me.

GAR

The irony of it was too great. A human scientist –whose name is unknown- found out that the inferior creatures called chickens -which had been clucking and crowing underneath human noses for centuries- were in reality, talking to each other.

Garkind faced the same kind of irony. But this time, the inferior creatures were called Humans. And they didn't cluck and crow. They mooed. And to think that over all these years they were actually speaking. Hmm.

Only, you see, the humans weren't mooing under Gar noses.

Quiet the contrary; they mooed far, far above Gar noses, an average of over five feet to be exact.

And that's irresistible irony.

Sinline.

If you exclude the difference in size, you could almost mistake a human for a Gar. Fortunately, Gars are not humans. They are different. For one thing, they are only four inches long. And secondly, they live faster lives than humans.

Think about this, a year for one human is ten years for a Gar. Eight years for a human is about the lifetime of the oldest Gar ever. And that Gar, would of course be Gremma, short-tempered lady, but fair, got a whole sack-full of common sense in her skull she has.

So maybe you're thinking why a human never seen a Gar, well, as Sinline said, Gars are fast creatures because they live fast lives, the time it takes a human to swivel it's bloated head round and speak using its foghorn language a Gar would be well hidden under any of the many floorboards of The Mall from that human's sight.

It's not really foghorn language; human talk sounds like a foghorn to any Gar, but most Gars refer to human talk as the mooing of a human. Or simply, mooing sounds.

Sinline had always been awestruck by the similarities of cows and humans. They don't look alike –neither does a Gar look one hundred percent like a human so why make the disastrous assumption that they act like each other? They don't at all- the humans are always grouped together in herds –you could see them walking around in The Mall in the day-time mooing as they do so- and they are always copying each other –does a human have a personality? They do have awfully large heads there must be something in there that is useful.

But they do sound like cows, that's for sure, in fact, Sinline never could recall a human talking properly, they never ever move their lips and tongues fast enough, and they speak in this loud blurred sound, like a foghorn. Wait. A human sounds more like a cow than a foghorn so why…

Anyway, Sinline thought, where was I? Oh yes, a Gar is not a human –if you forget the size- Gar have black beady eyes and round huge bellies –if they're well fed- some got beards while others haven't got one, their noses are large and round, their tan coloured skin's a bit leathery in appearance and they wear clothes the colour of rainbows, these would be The Mall Gars and the ones wearing rags (sorry Gremma but as skilled as your knitting is; a two headed pullover with ten holes is a rag, or, possibly, a mutant) the colour of mud are The Outsiders.

Explaining would make things easier, an Outsider, which would be Sinline and ten more of his family members, had always lived in the open, the outside -as opposed to the Mallers who lived inside and never believed in an outside.

In hope of saving his family and the whole of Gar-kind (at that time Sinline thought he and his family were the only Gars alive, so you could imagine his shock when he found out that there were more living –in a Mall) Sinline cleverly hatched a plan that consisted of hitching a ride on one of the many lorries that stopped for ten minutes –or a bit more- near Starbucks. This lorry –red it was- took him and his tribe inside The Mall –at that time he didn't know it was called The Mall. And met a whole civilization of Garkind.

Unfortunately, these Gars didn't understand what Outside is. When Sinline tried to get one of them (Aneeloo, who is now a friend) to come to the Lorry Nest, sorry, the Garage –so many new words to learn- the Gar was scared out of his mind. Completely.

The rest of the Gars cased the Outsiders –Sinline and his tribe- as 'Looney' –it means crazy- because as everyone knows there is no such thing as outside and the only world a Gar knows about, is a world where there are ceilings and walls, they couldn't for their lives imagine what a roofless room would look like. There has to be a wall. A roof. Limits. The world could be seen and it's ends touched. Sinline felt sorry for them, and kept on repeating silently; if only they knew.

But he only sympathized with them because he knew what it was like to be unable to imagine, unable to understand. It was one thing not being able to imagine an open meadow and not understand that the sky is endless. It's a completely different thing trying to imagine space and it's endless volumes. Sinline learnt about space through the Thing -you'll get to know about it later.

The Gars living in The Mall are divided into tribal families depending on where they are situated in the several levels/grounds/floors of The Mall. There is also the tribal head at each department or section of The Mall.

It is dangerous to go around without having a department or level to belong to, so Silnline and his tribe declared themselves as Gars from the 'Ground Level' but Frith, cunning lad, decided to live with Dorsam, the engineer from Radio shack. Radio shack belonged to Dorsam and all of his followers who were clever with the dangerous biting thing called electricity.

Sinline was under one of the many floor boards of The Gap pondering aimlessly and staring at the Thing Trottle gave him, officially, Trottle had been leader of Sinline's tribe, but he is a very old Gar -six human years old, sixty Gar years- and decided to hand over the Thing to Sinline -it is a tradition passed on from tribe's man old to new. Trottle said Sinline was very worthy of such a thing since he proved himself leader through the journey to The Mall.

Thing is something -as Sinline said- that had been handed from Gar to Gar over the generations, no one knows what it is, and Sinline had always wondered about Thing, if it were so important and so wise and helpful why doesn't the black box speak out? (That's what Thing looks likes, a black grey shiny box with flashing lights all over it and whirling sounds inside)

Trottle, in his past days of ruling, had always conferred with Thing, and he was always saying 'Thing told me to do this.' and 'Thing told me to do that.' or 'Thing thinks best that we should... '. But it was only recently that Sinline discovered -actually, Trottle told him- that he never spoke to Thing and Thing never spoke to him, and that his father (previous tribesman) had told him to play along and make people think that Thing is saying things or whatever.

The first time any of them heard the Thing speak was when Sinline went ahead with operation Lorry, (you know, the one were Sinline ended up in The Mall) But these days Thing no longer spoke -it only did so when change is about to occur- so it did nothing more than sit on the ground and grin in a way only a metal box could.

"Humans are odd, they are. " Gremma, a Gar elder from Sinline's tribe was saying to him as he stared at one of the wooden floorboards of The Gap, "They do very peculiar things, gosh, and they even have very peculiar names! "

Well, everyone knows that, Sinline thought, humans are more than odd they're stupid. But when you think of all the things humans do and add them together you get more than your average stupid. You get a stupid, stupid person.

They don't even know the proper use of language, sure, humans are great with signs, they know where to put them, they know how to obey them, but I don't think they understand them fully.

For instance, in the lifts, there is a sign saying; ten people only. And what do you know? Only two go in. Simple human nature; ignorance, it will never change.

Sinline looked over at Gremma, "Huh?"

"I said, 'humans are odd'. They got strange names."

"What is it this time?" Sinline said tolerantly. Sinline was a bit young for tribesman, being two and a half years old an all (twenty five Gar years) but Gremma had said to her husband Trottle (previous Tribesman) that Sinline's a good respected Gar and he deserves being Tribesman.

He also had to be tolerant with Gremma because the creature was eighty Gar years old, (and as Sinline said previously, this is as old as a Gar would ever be) plus, Gremma isn't like all of the other females. She uses her brain for one thing, and secondly, she's into reading and trying to understand things. Trottle gets aggravated by this –he can't read and nor does he understand new things.

"I were reading this book, I was. And it said radioactivity -you know, I figured it was what a radio does; we've seen a radio before haven't we? In the lorry, there was one, and it made these weird noises, humans of course." She paused then said, "Anyway, it said that Radioactivity was discovered by Accident. I've never heard someone called Accident before have you?"

Sinline shook his head, figuring out Gars was hard work, figuring out humans was an overload.

Mostly, Sinline pitied humans, they can't even remember their own names, the ones wearing polyester suits, in the food court, always had their names printed on tags which are pinned on their shirts, they keep it there in case they forgot their names, poor things.

But humans, no matter how dumb they are, do obey The Signs, and you can always predict what's going to happen by reading them, not a lot of Gars can read, the ones that can are mostly from the books department or from the stationery department, and they have secure positions in Gar society.

Mainly, anyone from the STBK dep. (Stationery and Book Department) had been promoted or selected, they are classed as higher Gars, but higher than the STBK was the Gar-Tender. And to know the Gar-Tender you have to know this:

All Gar's believe that when they die, they meet Albertson 1984 (est.) He is the creature that 'founded' The Mall. Meaning that he had made The Mall available for Gar civilization, meaning; he found The Mall.

Now, the Gar-Tender is the leader of Garkind. He is the one that tells all Gars what is expected form them, he makes sure that the people living in The Food Court do their jobs and deliver food to Gars in the Gar food Court where Gars socialize and get to meet new people and so on. As does he sees to it that the departments don't engage in long pointless wars and tries to straighten out misunderstandings before war occurs.

Sinline thought about Albertson 1984 (est.) and didn't believe that such a Gar existed. But he had to admit that someone must have found The Mall, and when he had talked to the Gar-Tender about it he said;

All good Gars will meet Albertson 1984 (est.) after they die, and it had been proved that Albertson 1984 (est.) founded the Mall. It said so in one of the books in the Manager Room.

Manager appeared to be the human that lived temporarily in the Manger Room (he was only there in day-time), that's his name, it says so on the door. M-A-N-A-G-E-R. His name. Sinline thought that all humans, as he had to repeat, find it difficult to remember things, names are one of the things they constantly forget and where they are suppose to go is another. They do have a lot of arrows that point out 'entrance' and 'exit' and they have a map of The Mall in case a human forgot where it was or where it was suppose to be going and how to get there.

Maybe this was an incorrect insight, maybe the humans had maps and arrows and stuff because…because…no it's not…not because they wouldn't remember! Yes! That was it, maybe they couldn't remember. He knew Gremma had problems remembering things she did a few minutes earlier, but she boasts that she could remember what she did when she was a one-year-old.

That's pointless, Sinline thought; I'd rather have known what I was just doing previously. Imagine if I were hunting and I've forgotten that there was a new fox den in the area. Of course I'd remember that I hunted in 'this' meadow when I was a one-year-old but I wouldn't remember that a day ago I discovered that the fox moved in.

Hmm. But that's where signs came in right? And arrows too. I'd have needed two signs. One that said "My Burrow" and another that would say "Danger, Fox den" then I'd have all sorts of colourful arrows pointing the way for me so when I found myself staring at a sign that says "Danger, Fox den" I'd have time to scream at least. Yeah, I'd shout out to the others hunting something like, "Nah! It turns out the blue arrows points to the Fox den. RUN!"

It is a bad thing to be forgetful. Very, very bad. He knew what happens to a Gar when she or he is grabbed by a hungry fox.

"What do you reckon young lad?" Gremma asked.

"What you say?"

"Thing, should you speak to it?"

"But it doesn't speak unless it got electricity near it, we learnt that, besides, Thing said he'd only contact me if it would, or could, help me."

"Sorry, I didn't understand you."

"It's like this." Sinline said, "Thing told me it were a computer, for a ship, it says that it had been forgotten by Garkind, because we lived for long time forgetting about our people from the stars, it says that generations had paced and Gars forgot everything there was about space and all. It says its main mission is to help me get us back."

"Back where?"

Sinline leaned against the ground and looked at the floorboards as if they were something special, "The stars."

"What is a ship?"

"It's like a lorry with wings, it flies like a bird." Sinline frowned, "No, that would be an arrow-plane. I suppose a ship is a sort of arrow-plane but without all the shaft, pointed head, and feather at the butt, hmm, but the arrow-planes are metal, right? It doesn't have feathers in its backside like an arrow, I've seen the planes, they're very small they are, they shine too in the sky. Plus they have wings. Funny. You'd have thought humans called them anything but arrow-planes, maybe silver birds?"

His friend, the Gar-tender's son, Aneeloo had talked to him about the arrow-planes. He stated that in the dictionary an arrow-plane is 'a powered heavier-than-air aircraft that had fixed wings from which it derives most of its lift.'

Sinline did not completely understand.

But then again, Aneeloo never saw a real arrow-plane. Sinline had though. But he couldn't see why it was 'heavier-than-air' the arrow-planes he saw were always small –smaller than sparrows and robins, that's for sure- and they floated. If they could float then they are defiantly lighter than air.

But what was air anyway? It was just something that was there. You couldn't see it. Or touch it. But you noticed it when it is gone, Sinline knew this from experience; lakes did not have air in them.

Although this just brings out something funny and strange, a Gar who jumps in the lake is extremely heavy and would fall to the bottomless bottom. Then, as if by magic, the Gar would pop up and float, becoming lighter than the lake.

But the Gar is dead. Could it possibly be that a dead Gar is lighter than a living one? It didn't make sense. Maybe the 'you' in you is simply too heavy for water.

But then again, when the you in you is gone, and you could float magically, you'd still be heavier than air. It is very confusing.

"What is a star?" Gremma asked she looked at him with confused eyes. It was obvious that she hadn't understood what a ship was and decided to let it go.

"Eh?" Sinline was shaken out of his deep thoughts.

"A star, what is it?"

"A star is a sun."

"Then why didn't you call it sun before, silly boy."

"Because it's another sun."

"You don't make any sense to me, try Quien she's the one with the free mind, I'm getting too old for this."

Sinline nodded, Quien was Gremma's niece, she too could read, and she was a very open minded Gar, ready for change, like Dorsam the engineer who owned radio shack.

"I'll go find her. Do you know where she would be?"

"Ye." Gremma said, "Take Thing with you, she'd be at the dressing room of The Gap." She paused and with her beady eyes stared at Thing, then she crinkled her leathery brown nose and said, "Urgh, hate that melt thing."

"Metal is the word you are looking for." The Thing buzzed back to life. Sinline almost dropped it by surprise.

"You're back."

"Correction; I never left."

"I see." Sinline muttered.

"I was merely on standby mode, there is no point in wasting my energy, electricity is good but primitive for my demands."

"I see."

"No you don't, your eyes are unable to see past my outer casing."

Sinline hurried over to one of The Gap's dressing rooms and indeed he found Quien. With her was Aneeloo. Aneeloo is a Mall Gar and a good friend of Sinline and Quien. With Aneeloo was Bobo. His trained rat.

"Hallo all."

"Hey Sinline." Quien said.

"Hey Sinline." Aneeloo echoed.

"What are you doing?" Sinline wondered.

"Quien was telling me all about the outside." Aneeloo said in hurried excitement, "She was telling me about the air conditioner outside and what it does to all the things, but I don't understand, where is the actual air conditioner that blows the air? And why can't you adjust the setting in your winter season?"

"It's wind." Quien muttered, "Why can't he understand me? Wind isn't controlled by anything, you can't see it, it is there. All by itself."

"Ah, the Gar-Tender's son will need time to understand…only if wants to go outside…" Sinline muttered.

"No, no. Thank you." Aneeloo fell silent remembered the last time he tried to do that.

"Quien. Thing is back."

"I have to repeat again; I have not left at all." Thing's exterior lights flashed red and green and then something whirled; Sinline thought that this was its show of annoyance. But how could a metal box be annoyed?

"That's great. I think it means it's time for a change."

"Yeah-"

Krrrrreeeeeeekk!

A horrible sound came from somewhere above them and a human entered The Gap's dressing room, no two humans to be precise.

"That's odd." Aneeloo whispered as they hid from sight. He was the one with more experience with the humans who entered The Mall "I've never known two humans to enter at once."

The humans stripped off their clothes in their usual very slow manner and dropped them slowly in a bag, they then left the bag on the floor.

A look of concentration flit across their stupid faces, and they started to change.

Aneeloo screamed. The humans were changing form; it was changed in to a monster.