After a weird two months of blog silence, I’m back with a bang, or at least a funny story.
But it’s not of the ‘three men walk into a bar, one got concussion and the other two were slightly injured’ variety. It’s my entry to this month’s Furious Fiction competition. The challenge was to write a <500 word story which contained humour, a sandwich, and the words dizzy, exotic, lumpy, tiny and twisted.
You only have to hear the words “know any good jokes?” and every humorous tale or comedic routine you know evaporates from your mind. So too with the command that you should “write something funny.” Still, that’s the whole point of writing challenges – trying to scoop soggy words out of your head with a slotted spoon.
But, one of my favourite ‘funny things I have heard’ stories happened this month, thirteen years ago, when I happened to be on a boat in the Brunei River, with my then five-year-old, looking for proboscis monkeys. Yes, it was fabulous, thanks for asking.
We’d just passed a water village, where children and dogs were splashing in the water, when my son said, with relish, “That is a saltwater crocodile.”
And yeah, it was.
Not a small one, either.
Anyway, the guide confirmed the creature’s identity and the only other person on the tour with us – an elderly English lady – said, “Oh dear, what do they eat? There are children in the water just back there.”
And the guide said… Well, if you want to know what the guide answered, you’ll have to read my story.
THE MADAWOMP
“M-m-madawomp,” the local guide stuttered.
“Nonsense,” Uncle Melchior murmured, gaze fixed on the tiny creature crawling across the expanse of a white-ribbed leaf. “It’s a Glim beetle, which is just what we want. Killing jar, Vida.”
His niece ignored the demand, and the exotic insect, and followed the line of the guide’s trembling finger. A deeper shadow drew its bulk from among the dark roots of a nearby fig tree. It looked like a cross between a tapir and a crocodile, with a long, crenelated neck and a huge beak, which it clacked at them.
“Madawomp,” the guide repeated, swallowing hard.
“What do they eat?” Vida asked, with some urgency.
The guide tugged at the neck of his shirt and swallowed again, setting his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Er… fruit,” he said.
“Well, that’s nothing to worry about then,” Uncle Melchior huffed.
“Before noon,” the guide went on without looking away from the beast. Its lumpy neck ridges rippled as it swung its head from side to side. “Meat in the afternoons. Fresh meat, by preference.”
“Oh.” Vida’s uncle shook his pocket watch, but it hadn’t worked for weeks and they were too deep in the jungle to be able to tell if the sun was still obligingly ante-meridian. Vida suspected not.
“Pass me the killing jar, niece,” he demanded.
Vida wondered if he still meant to catch the Glim, or what use he thought an eight-ounce jar would be against an eight-foot creature. Her hands, freed of their glass burden, began to check the contents of her belt pouches. Her gaze stayed on the madawomp.
“On Wednesdays,” their guide went on, swaying with the beast’s undulations, “they devour only crustaceans, but –” He overrode Uncle Melchior’s cry of relief. “– only in the months when Saturn is visible in the night sky.” He shook his head. “If they feast on the roots of the paljum, it will rain in three days and –”
“You are remarkably well-informed about the dietary habits of these monsters.” Uncle Melchior complained as he twisted the lid off the killing jar and thrust it at Vida’s face. “My dear, I don’t want you to suffer.”
“No,” Vida cried, startling a shriek from the madawomp. She reeled back, dizzy from the chloroform, and began to empty her belt pouches. “We have to try something. Here!”
She thrust a spanner at their guide and a compass at her uncle. Her fingers closed over an apple she’d packed for the trek back to camp and she pitched it at the beast, which gave a derisive squawk as the fruit flew past its head.
“After noon,” the guide despaired.
“Chocolate, nuts, butter menthol…” Vida flung foodstuff from her pouches. “Aha!”
Uncle Melchior seized her crushed sandwich and waved it at the madawomp.
“Ham!” he cried, triumphant.
The beast froze, then frills of red skin unfurled from between the lumps on its neck. It lowered its head and burbled.
“Unfortunately,” their guide whispered, “sliced bread makes them amorous.”
***
Our poor tour guide really did tell the old lady that the massive saltwater crocodile cruising the river only ate fruit… and fish. My son, ever helpful, opened his mouth to protest this polite fiction, and I clapped my hand over it and assured him, quietly, that we’d discuss the dietary habits of crocodiles later. The look of relief on the guide’s face at not having to deal with the truth was priceless.
I’m not sure how saltwater crocodiles feel about ham sandwiches, but I suspect they’d eat them too.
Banner image of a beetle cropped from a photo by jggrz from Pixabay.
Brunei images are my own.