The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 45 -
The Last Words of Zebulon Hendrix

        On the very next day, we started our New and Improved Wilderness Adventure with Dynamic Scrubbing Enzymes. As a result, we were led into another lightly-shaken explosive cocktail of episodic exploits in the deepest boonies of south-central Florida, a land full of palmettos and swamps and giant oaks heavy with Spanish moss, things too full of beauty and grace to be fully appreciated or comprehended by yours truly, or by my author, or even by the undoubtedly brilliant and affable reader of this work. At least, that's according to Egghead's noodleheaded Fantastic Fiction Theory.
        Egghead says that the real world exists whether we fictional folks believe in it or not. But he claims that our Fantastic Fictional Universe is kind of different. Needless to say, I don't quite get what he means. Shoot, I'll let him say it his own goofy self; I can't make hide nor hair of his nitwit theories.

        My calculations are now complete, and at last have been set aside. For how can a figment calculate the depth of the human mind?
        Nevertheless, I will share those things through which I have earned mockery within the painful pull of this twisted tale. I've been scorned by figments who refuse to believe that readers have given them life. I'll lay down my cards for you now; let the reader judge the hand I hold.
        I have concluded, by unexplainable insight, that you, our noble reader, exist in a realm that is independent of our sufferance. You are not adversely impacted by the disbelieving clods in our fantastic fictive realm. You exist, and this is true whether my colleagues admit it, or not. So it must be for those of a higher realm than your own.
        Your universe, an ongoing reality series, gives signs to the wise and unwise alike, revealing the incredible engineering expertise and artistic genius of a far greater Author than the puny scribbler who wrote this plaintive yarn. In the real wilderness, in your own universe, art and science exist without the need of human hands. A profound beauty graces the hidden structural integrity found in the explosive profusion of marvelously diverse forms of life. The display of such genius truly can boggle the minds of those perceptive enough to approach it with humility.
        No mortal creation can knit its own life together from the fiber of a formless void, but life endures nonetheless. It is unhindered by your weakness, outside of your control, and wondrous indeed is the whole of it. But more wondrous by far is the Author who exceeds by infinite measure the greatest of the authors of the greatest fictive tomes and tales.
        Now I must go away into the realm of fictional heroes. Perhaps I'll proceed with my last experiment and compact the fictive universe. Wouldn't that freak Hootenanny out?

        Well, now, old Egghead's gone and said a mouthful, and I reckon that even Billy might not have said it better, though he may get his chance some day. This book has turned out to be quite a chore, like Huck said, and I reckon I'd have listened to him if I'd had good sense. I should have let Egghead or Billy write the snip-doodly-fraptatious thing. But Egghead's too precise and Billy's too grand, so I was the one that was left to shuck this tale and grind it against your ear until it floured.
        As you surely must know already, we Hootenannies have just finished our umpteenth world tour, and we're still as popular as ever. This serves to sharpen the axiom that luck is handier than brains, as dear old Grand-Pappy Hootenanny used to vigorously affirm back before he struck oil by accident and started patting himself on the back for his acumen and insight.
        Things have returned to abnormal in our neck of the woods. The Great Florida World Crater is now a popular gaping-site for local gulls and tourists, and it presents a right whopping-big smoking ruin of a lesson to anyone who cares to learn about it.
        Zeb still tours the universe with his heavy country metal band, The Iron Plow. He gave a reading of his poetry the other night at the Nowhere County Campgrounds, and we all went to it.
        Billy got married to the Choctaw princess Wilma Bear Claw, who recently earned her PhD in sub-nuclear physics from M. I. T. She's currently working with Egghead on the Eureka Project over in Gainesville.
        Slug tied the knot too: his wife, the former Miss Marie Smeldin-Snifton, is now receiving visitors at the newly opened Smeldin-Snifton Simpkins Country Estate and Roadside Tourist Trap over in Gutchinville. They charge an exhorbitant admission fee and don't do much in return, which is par for the discourse. His kids, Slugster and Sluggo, don't do much either; in general they lay around on the rug and imitate their namesake. I call them the rug slugs.
        You all know about Stink by now from the tabloids: how he ran into Ms. Fitzpatrick again after that cast party in the boondocks and how they got hitched in Acapulco. And you've surely read about their whirlwind tour of the continent, the one that sent the noses to wagging all through Jet Set Alley. Ms. Fitzpatrick has tried to civilize Slug, mostly with mixed results. Since she bumped her head during their second footrace and lost her sense of smell, she has grown quite fond of old Stinky. Stink is really quite the charmer if you can see through the vapors and into the inner fellow, who is well-camouflaged by stinky stuff that makes your eyes run, but he has a heart of gold.
        Ms. FItzpatrick has wisely invested their ludicrously huge income, and now they own a major chunk of Manhattan real estate. Of course, Stink still couldn't get into the better discos - even if he wanted to.
        Frogstick married Jenny. They're on a permanent honeymoon at The Lily Pad, their palatial private estate in Gutchinville, Florida.
        The Old Coot still lives in the wilderness near the Great Florida World Crater, and since the boys and I chipped in to buy the Whopping Big C, he is now guaranteed a slice of the wilderness for life. That's saying something in his case, because he might outlive Huck and Becky both.
        As for Huck and Becky, they are still hid out in that holler. I hear that he might be writing another book, but that's a viscous rumor that sticks to your ears with more bark than substance.
        What about me? Well siree, I reckon that I need a break. I've heard tell that there's a whopping big passel of undeveloped woods up in the Panhandle which neither man nor fictional creature has trampled to death. That's where me and Billy are headed as soon as he gets Wilma's permission; we'll hunt mushrooms there, or maybe fish all day. This society doesn't need me, because it's all fictional anyway.
        Yes, folks, I've come to believe Egghead when he says that we're all just fantastic fictional creatures in a book of mysterious origin. Call me crazy if you want to; I've seen the fictional proof.
        Let the skeptics laugh until a crater opens up beneath their feet. Life is only oh-too-real, but fiction is still just fiction, after all.
        Zeb spoke not long ago at our campground amphitheater and summed up the measure of our trek. His poem is offered below for your informed consideration. And so, after all that has come to pass, I must finally sheath my tongue, holster my pen, and bid you a fond farewell.

Hooting child copped a ride
Upon the breath of a favorable breeze,
And skated thoughts like super-conductive Frisbies
Through alternate wave-like united states
That flashed like lightning through our minds.

So hydroplaning on grassy skeins
We slipped into a gentler groove
In which, forgetting cares, we laughed,
And soared in royal purple nights
To catch the gnarly, breaking crests
Of richly rippling waves of thought.

We surfed the glass within the curl.
Then sunny, beached, we rested,
Safe beneath the shifting sky
Of our brilliantly rainbowed, semi-transparent,
Red or aqua-tinted high.

In the end we awoke and saw that we dreamed
Or were a dream that danced in joy
In the light of the words
That fire the flame
Of celestial heat
In your pilgrim mind.

But you my friend are real, and now
You turn to face reality.

The hope of your life
Will be found by the seeker
Who asks for the Truth
From the Author of all.

Who can imagine
The peace that they share
Who seek unending life
On a wing and a prayer?

Thus ends the ethereal sweep of our happy and heroic tale.