Deer Avengers: the Vendetta Must Continue...
Back in Lampung, affairs recuperate. Both with and without the days' photosynthesis, much often heals. And within sleep, biology regenerates. Much will surely and hopefully, now that the Tigernator's been defeated, and the local ninmenju avenged. Plus, ninmenjus are accelerated-developers; when and if the next one comes along, they won't take long to start pitching shade for whoever comes along.
Night has fallen. The moon is high. Throughout the jungles, the dholes yip. They're vicious, even if they're not Sardinian dholes... Potentially, though, they're a mercy in contrast to tigers that won't go away...let alone give Éponine's nightmares a berth...
Among the jungle trees, clouds of fog linger. In places, the fog clouds are illuminated by the moonlight. For many who'd be out tonight, it's a mystical experience... Too bad most who live out here are too wise to be out in the jungle on any night. The Tigernator might be dead, but the jungles harbor no shortage of danger...and this'd include real, non-robotic tigers...
Along a jungle trail, the moonrat Luna Hedy, now past her insomnia, takes a long jungle walk. Behind her, John bats his little mongoose eyes while struggling to keep up...
Elsewhere in the jungle, there's a cottage. This is one of a few places where the funeral dhampir, whose name is Ibrahim, calls home.
Inside, a radio plays. It plays a live show, from one of the northern islands of the archipelago, whose name in English is Jungle Home Companion... The show, among other sketches, consists of a mystery-comedy noir sketch that features a big-hatted detective named Tracer Bullet...
On a nearby couch, two men sit. One is Ibrahim. The other is Thomas, John's master. They've bonded, over the past few days. They both trade adventure stories; Ibrahim as a vamp hunter, and Thomas as a tiger hunter.
In and out, Ms. Nirvana comes. She attends to the two men. She leaves them no shortage of finger foods or pots of coffee. She smiles, as she watches the two men bond...and frowns, on and off, at the idea of Little John being out there all alone...or at least potentially. Luna Hedy's allegedly with him; this, Nirvana understands. She just...has a bad feeling, for some reason...
Elsewhere in the jungle, there's a waterfall. It fills a pool. Short cliffs surround it. Jungles grow atop the cliffs. Atop one of the cliffs, concealed within jungle trees, there's a cozy spot. The knoll is covered in tiger grass and tiger nut sedge. A hole within the jungle foliage overlooks the waterfall. It's not a bad place to take a breather.
Here, Luna Hedy leads John. She steps aside and allows John to take up a comfy spot...which becomes even comfier, to him, when he hears how nourishing the waterfall sounds, as it falls. The moonlight, too, makes the experience even more seductive...and sedating. It also seems very likely that, during her trials and tribulations with insomnia, Luna Hedy has, in fact, discovered that this is an ideal sleep-spot...
Soon, John is asleep. Soon, Luna Hedy leaves him be. She doesn't mean to for long; she can tell that her new companion is sleepy, and that letting him rest would be wiser than continuing to be a taskmaster to him as they do the jungle walk. In the meantime, she's got some insects to hunt. It's nighttime, after all; as a nocturnal beast, this is her time of day.
Silence follows... Off the cliff, the waterfall still falls. It's a very serene night; or rather, it is in this part of Lampung. It might not be too bad if it never ended... Then again, the mountains might run out of water to feed the waterfall with... Actual tigers, too, might come and start picking up where the Tigernator left off... And the distraction of Éponine...or her tiger-infested nightmares, even...won't be anywhere around to distract them from everything and everyone they'd prey on otherwise...
As John sleeps, small blue lights begin to glow, from within the fur on his hide... Simultaneously, in the background, a song starts playing: Tim McGraw's "Dancing When the Stars Go Blue..."
Like fireflies, the small blue lights rise from John's rump. They levitate and gather in a nearby clearing. As the song plays, they put on a little show. John sees it...but he thinks he's dreaming...if he's not...
Against a shaded/moonlit backgaround, the ninmenju seeds dance. The levitate, sway, and flaunt their tufted tops... As they do, they occasionally shed parts of themselves... Or rather, they anatomically liberate parts of themselves... They also look more natural doing so than nukekubi or a manananggal would...
Aloft, just as the song suggests, all of the stars begin generating blue light. The blue, it seems, is a shade of despair...and hence the sort of light that inspires blues music...or slow-dance music, even...
Among them, levitating jellyfish appear. Their centers are golden...and glow with matching low-wattage light... They're prettier than their egg-yolk-centered kin swimming in the coral reefs that separate these East Indies, just off the archipelago coasts...
Among the dancing seeds, butterflies appear, and flutter, flaunting their rainbow-like, iridescent wings... They're like monarchs...only boho, and prettier... Akin to a scattered disco ball, they all are...
Among the show, paper lanterns rise, generating light from their centers... One would think this was the Chinese New Year... Then again, maybe they're simply a beloved party trick...
Among the show, levitating diamond pendants, too, join the show... Sparkle, they do... Gradually revolve, too, they do...like nano-disco balls... They're like snowflakes...only non-melting... They'd certainly make ideal ballet dancers in the Nutcracker...
The fourth wall zooms in, and over-surveys each detail of one of the diamond pendants' surfaces... It's like a clean-cut winterine mountain range, all over its surface... And yet, whoever sees it other than the diamond-cutters and the billionaires who'd most likely pay a fortune, both for the cut and a lifetime's investment?
Here and there, gliding squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos join the show, by becoming their own nano-parachutes... They drift here and there, their patagium deployed, and pretend to be descending Chinese New Year lanterns...
In the background, choruses of dholes howl. They howl and provide accompaniment for the musical number. A few, among them, are the yūrei (i.e. ghosts) of Sardinian dholes... They might as well be yūrei; the species has been extinct for over ten millennia.
In the background, hill-like structures present themselves. Atop them, they're soon topped with shadowy apparitions that look like bucks in rut...with many-point antlers and everything... The antlers' shadows, though, soon become flexible, and start putting on a kaleidoscope performance of their own...if kaleidoscopes, that is, used shadow to put on shows more often than lit shapes...
Nearby, a Javanese runaway bride dances. She's in a large white wedding gown...complete with matching shoes. She's abandoned her wedding; this is plain to see...
In circles around her, the ninmenju seeds replicate themselves...and start forming dancing streams all around the bride. Passionately, both symbiotes promote the other's performance. It's a great high point for the musical number...
Into a hole in the ground, the seeds soon dance. Down a tunnel they dance, while still dancing... Here and there, within the tunnel walls, plant roots yield to them. Most of them, alas, wouldn't sacrifice their place in the sun for new neighbors...a ninmenju though they'd breed...
In a cave pool within the tunnels, glowing characin fish swim. They assemble in the shallows, as the ninmenju seeds dance past them... A Malay water dragon, a lizard that swims among them, surfaces, crawls onto the shore, and watches the last of the seeds dance by...
Within the cave many freaks watch, as the dancing seeds dance past. With huge eyes, a loris watches. With bigger eyes, a tarsier watches. From within a shadowy room, a Malay sun bear watches.
From ceilings within hallways, flocks of flying foxes wake, and watch the dance with big eyes... There are just-as-curious popobawas, it seems, among the flying foxes...who, for once, keep their inner poltergeists silent, as the seeds' performance endures...
Just below a bare spot across the tunnels' ceiling, the seeds finish their dance. Down here, there's no one to dance for... But then, they're, more or less, about to meet their destiny...and to abandon the surly bonds of neoteny.
The dance ends. They rise into the soil above their tufted tops...and vanish. They've planted themselves; now it's time to grow... And grow, they will... Their roots, in fact, might soon occupy the very ceiling space they've vanished into...
Dawn comes to pass. The waterfall still falls, of course. The air is fragrant, it seems, with the smell of new flowers...
Across the knoll, John still sleeps. The waterfalls, for a time, still sedate him. He's such a tempting grab, down here; and hence, it's a mystery as to how some sea eagle hasn't come by and flown off with him...
Nearby, a pair of trees have erected themselves. They weren't there nine hours ago. Their tops are very expansive, and there's a flower blossom on almost every branch... These flower blossoms look exactly like the ones a certain ninmenju, who once lived in the area, yielded themselves...
John starts to wake. He rolls over on his side. As he bats his eyes, he sights the dual ninmenjus... He's dazzled, it seems, by the rococo-esque way all of its flowers are arranged all over its branches...
And hence, what killer robotics once destroyed, super-nature, it seems...with some help from a mongoose seed-carrier...has been reborn. They're both even more beautiful than their unofficial predecessor. As siblings, they're a brother-and-lesbian-sister duo.
John has the urge to bask in the ninmenjus' radiance...so he does. Ninmenjus, it seems, have a reputation for having that effect on pedestrians...
In this regard, John is soon rejoined by Luna Hedy the moonrat. She sits next to him...with her rump on the ground and her forelimbs still erect, just as John himself sits, as things are... Together, they have a friendly/semi-amorous moment...as if the jungle walk, from last night, wasn't enough... But then, of course, it kind of wasn't enough; John fell asleep in the middle of it.
Across the pool that the waterfall feeds, the East Asian all-girls pop music group, the same one that performed at the first ninmenju's funeral, attempts to put on another show. Again, they sing softly. It isn't the same song...but it'd make Atomic Kitten proud.
Near the ninmenju, mongoose and moonrat still sit... For both of them, it's a very sacred moment. Neither is entirely sure why... Luna Hedy, though, is simply glad that there's no longer a stump where the ninmenju who once protected her is now dead. She's not sure if she'll ever forgive herself... But at least she can attempt to redeem herself, by doing right with these ninmenjus where she was destined to do wrong with their predecessor.
By and by, alas, John undergoes a spontaneous transformation. In size, he decreases. He sheds a lot of fur...and turns into a white human boy; and is about a thousand times smaller than he'd be if he was a normal one. Like Calvin, he's blond. Also like Calvin, he could be a simple homeboy from some suburban town in Ohio... Or better yet, he could be the junior version of a great Reformation leader from Scotland, who later goes on to found the Presbyterian Church...
Sensing John's newfound vulnerability...and not to mention his nakedness...Luna Hedy does John a service...by cuddling around him and attempting to protect him from scouring eyes. John isn't completely in the nude; he wears a pair of tiger-pattern drawers that don't cover up much of him. Other than that, though, he's as fresh as a newborn teen.
From afar, the new ninmenjus receive a new visitor. It's Ms. Sarong, having been lured here by the ninmenjus' telepathic music. As is often, she's in her low-cut. She's also very happy to see that her Javanese rival from the city isn't here...
She is initially upset, though, to see that the moonrat is here. Hence, she begins to turn around and return to her cottage... But then she hesitates, once she sees that the moonrat, this time, isn't alone...and not to mention how very easy on the eyes her new male companion is...
John rests within Luna Hedy's fur, oblivious to literally everything...except perhaps the music of the waterfall, the ninmenjus, and the farther-away music of the East Asian all-girls group. They're all very blissful and restful...as will soon be what now lies in store for him...now that he's so inadvertently caught nearby amorous eyes...
Ms. Sarong arrives. On her knees, she soon stands. Into her fragrant hands, she collects tiny John, now a white, blond human boy. She holds him where her low-cut opens...and giggles, as she gawks at the ripeness of what lies within her low-cut... He seems to have trouble breathing, all of a sudden...
For a moment, Luna Hedy wakes, and sees what happens near her. At this, alas, she only scoffs. She covers up her eyes with her naked tail, and attempts to be oblivious to what happens near her...
Very content in her new choice of mates...and almost as if the two nearby ninmenjus weren't even there at all...Ms. Sarong slides tiny John in-between her two huge boobs, stands, and wanders back to her cottage, humming serenely. She flaps her hair, and walks flirtatiously, while doing so.
Across the brook, the all-girls group continues to mimic Atomic Kitten...with Javanese characteristics, of course.
The lesbian ninmenju sheds some of her flowers' petals. They're mostly indigo; others are lighter blue or violet. They surround Luna Hedy, as she rests. Soon, the moonrat is fast-asleep. And now we can all be a lot more certain that this time, Luna Hedy's finally gotten past her insomnia...
It's Friday in Bandar Lampung. And for all of the conservatives in town, that means it's mosque day. Hence, their nasheeds can be heard from up and down many a city street.
This is a well-financed mosque. Many who come here pay more than their fair share of zakat (i.e. Islamic tithes/tax money in Islamic theocracies...of which Lampung is neither one nor not one...). It's just as likely that they do this to show off as it is that they just do it to do their sacred duties... Either way, it keeps the gold within the mosque's interior decor made of actual gold...
This is the rectory, within the top of one of the towers. Minarets stand near it, of course... The windows are horseshoe-arched, of course... Here, an imam stays. A maid, alas, could afford to clean under his rugs more often... And also, perhaps, spring-clean his closet space... Some of the bones in there, after all, are as old as the Miocene epoch...back when the very first deer wandered the planet's surface... It's certain enough that they're not Ezekiel's bones...
Atop an end table, a specimen of taxidermy sits. It's a muntjac. It is, indeed, a masterpiece...for those who're into that sort of thing. It'd be less flattering, though, to know that the muntjac was killed with equipment whose presence and use are both illegal in Indonesia. Not only that, but this muntjac was killed out-of-season...
A door opens. The imam returns from the day's Friday morning service. It's been a long process. It often is; Islamic conservatives won't stop going to church...just as the oldest and most stubborn ones won't start dying...let alone moving into assisted living complexes, where many of them actually belong...
In the kitchen space, there's a coffee maker. The imam addresses the proper prelims and puts a pot on. One streaming drip and puffed steam cloud at a time, it brews the majestic fluid; one whose solid form is worth many shiny bucks per pound... Fragrance isn't too cheap, either...
On another table, a phonograph sits. A record case leans against a nearby wall; it's got a portrait of Waylon Jennings's bust across it. (That'd be his head and chest; not...the other thing. Not what he surely once loved Jessie Colter for, anyway...)
The record, it seems, is already on the tocadiscos. Hence, all the imam does is turn the power on, and put the needle on the record. Before long, the song starts playing; "Amanda," one of the greatest love songs ever recorded. (The imam's thoughts; and quite frankly, they're not bad thoughts...even if they are a bit behind the youth's time. But then, imams tend to follow such politics.)
Still in his mosque attire, the imam picks up the stuffed muntjac. He cradles it in his arms, and dances to the love song playing on the phonograph... During most of the slow-dance, he does this... At times, he also caresses the dead muntjac's mouth with his...kissing it, as if the muntjac were the corpse of his late wife... Hmm; someone ought to recommend this poor imam for psychiatric evaluation...if he lives long enough, that is...
This heathen ritual continues throughout the first verse, and throughout the chorus that follows it. A musical break follows... The second verse is about to begin, when...
Gunfire shatters the Zen of the room. The imam gawks and drops the stuffed deer on the floor, as this happens. Many bullet holes, as a result of the spontaneous gunfire, he contracts... He might not make it... Certain gunners, it seems, are counting on that...
Nearby, the phonograph still plays; not for long. Gunfire later, and it explodes, with the record still on it...nevermore to play any records, and never to play that specific record, either... It's just as well; the song can be found on YouTube these days for free...
Full of holes, the imam falls over, atop a Bengali rug, and breathes his last breath...if he hasn't breathed it already. Onto it, he bleeds. It remains unclear, as to whether his soul will go to Jannah or Jahannam...if those places even actually exist...
Once again, the victorious Deer Avengers abandon their camouflage blinds, firearms still smoking, and gather in a circle around the fallen human corpse. Pairs of them high-five one another. Another heartless deer-killer, it seems, has bitten the dust. It couldn't have happened soon enough, without the Deer Avengers...
The pot of coffee is ready. The Deer Avengers take it and subdivide it evenly into a long line of mugs. Once it's poured, they all spike theirs with a little cognac... Then, they drink. To the victors go the spoils, it seems... Or rather, in this case, the spiked spoils...
From the outer wall of the rectory tower, the Deer Avengers sew up a golden metallic net. Into it, and rigged by it, they lay the imam's corpse. His head and neck hang freely, and over a vast height. Far beneath him, a fabric net has been laid out; it's been programmed to catch a package, as it falls from a height...
A loose chain is thrown. It forms a loop and lays itself around the imam's neck. From behind, it's slack is reduced. Back and forth, the chain is soon pulled, while making brutal contact with the imam's neck. One gentle, blood-milking move at a time, the chain saws deep into the flesh of the imam corpse's neck, gradually beheading the poor corpse... Once severed, as one might expect, the head will, in fact, fall into that fabric net, laid out just below...
And so, the Deer Avengers' war with deer-hating, deer-poaching humans (and deer-molesters in general) continues... And those who dare use the Red Crescent as a Trojan horse, it seems, are among the top contenders of their blacklist. The war may never end... One would expect non-revenge wars between humans to be recklessly wrathful enough...
The Deer Avengers will return... But not, perhaps, as they've been...