Collapse of a Nation: Hours of Fun for the Whole Family

There are those people who do not understand the horrors of war; do not understand how a strong nation, with cannibalistic inhabitants, might cruelly crush another, weaker country. This story should help clarify the concept for the unenlightened.

Our tale is set on a small island by the seaside, called philatopus. (This name has no capital letter, and for good reason; the reason is, in fact, so good that I feel no need at all to explain it.) Philatopus was a beautiful land filled with beautiful mice, geese, and of course, flying purple meese. ¹

When informed that there are only three different animals populating the land, any good scientist will immediately inquire as to the food chain in effect. It was arranged as follows: the mice ate the geese, who in turn ate the meese. For those of us wondering what the meese lived on, worry no more - suffice it to say that they were immortal.

Now, very near the land of philatopus lived the archenemies of these nice people: namely, the PLUTOPIANS. (They chose to use no lowercase letters in their name for good reason; this will probably not be explained at some point in the future). The inhabitants of PLUTOPIA were as follows: a witch, a snitch, and a cow. Despite the fact that they were all, at heart, the essence of evil (especially the snitch) they do warrant some further description.

The witch, as most witches are, was a very uninteresting character. She filled her days, punctuated her sentences, and even buttered her bread (as most witches do) with the words, "Hee hee." When she was not engaged in such a giggle-fit (as she, and most witches, usually are) she also had a terrible stutter.

The snitch was certainly the most evil of the three. No matter what anyone did, he was always inclined to record it in his snitchbook (which can be contrasted from the "logbook" of similar nature in that it is shorter and considerably less rotund, and may or may not be kept by snitches instead of logs). The snitch would read excerpts from his snitchbook at the most inopportune times, which reflected upon, among other things, the fact that he had no watch.

The cow, on the other hand, was a cow. He was by far the easiest target for the snitch, as he wasn't the least bit house trained and was really quite disgusting in general. On the other hand, he wasn't entirely bad: he did have a nice watch, although he couldn't wear it on account of his eating disorder.

Anyway, as our story begins, the witch had captured the head of the flying meese. (You may be thinking to yourself, "THE HEAD OF THE FLYING MEESE?!?" Well, yes, the head of the flying meese! Now, mark my words, I don't mean that all of the flying meese shared a single head, but rather that we are discussing he leader of the meese.)

As I was saying, the witch, as witches often do, had captured the head of the flying meese. (Again you ask, "THE HEAD OF THE FLYING MEESE?!?" No, I do not mean that the leader of the meese walked around decapitated all day! Augh! The witch captured the moose-leader! That's all!)

Now where was I... oh, of course, the captured head of the flying meese. ("THE HEAD OF THE FLYING MEESE?!?" - oh, never mind, false alarm.) In any case, he had been captured, and we join the three villains as they were meeting to discuss what to do with their new treasure. The witch, as usual, spoke first.

    "(Hee hee) He, he (hee hee) He was c-caught --"

    "The cow didn't eat his breakfast this morning!" interjected the snitch.

    "Leave my watch out of this!" cried the cow. "I know you want it, and you know I'll never give it to you! So let's leave it at that!"

    "I didn't say anything about your watch!" the snitch interjected loudly.

He had hit a soft spot with the cow. "Must you bring that up in public?" she whined.

The moose head, thoroughly confused by now (though not because he had been decapitated, as the avid reader will recall), felt it was his turn to speak.

    "I feel it is my turn to speak," said the moose head.

    "Well, it is," the witch agreed, as witches so often do.

    "I saw the cow engaging in the unhealthy practice of self-induced regurgitation!" interjected the snitch.

    "I hate you!" screamed the cow. (Have you ever heard a cow scream? Awful noise.) "Learn to tell time by the sun or something!"

    "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID WATCH!" interjected the snitch. "I wish you'd stop being so touchy about it!"

    "(Hee hee) H-he's tou-chy! (hee hee)" babbled the witch, which is quite common among her kind. Everyone (including the non-decapitated moose head) glared at her in annoyance.

    "Must you laugh at everything?" complained the cow.

    The snitch interjected, "I saw the cow --"

    "I feel it is my turn to speak," interrupted the (completely whole) moose head. "Oh, sorry, go on."

    "Hee hee," giggled the witch as usual.

As if on cue, a gaggle of giggling geese from philatopus burst through the door of the shack.

    "Oh my! It's a gaggle of philanthropist geese!" exclaimed the cow.

    "Not philanthropist, you idiot, philatopist!" interjected the snitch. "By the way, the cow just took a dump on the floor!" (If you don't know how this happened, you probably don't remember, for one of several reasons, that the cow was not potty trained.)

His interjection was lost among the throngs of giggling birds which had, as already mentioned, just burst through the door.

    "Hey, don't geese eat meese?" pointed out the cow.

    "Not 'eat,' but 'meet!' Geese meet meese in the land of philatopus!" giggled a goose.²

    "The geese did not decapitate me, darn you!" roared the moose head, who was quite certain that the geese had not decapitated him.

    "The moose is punning on the word 'meat' again!" interjected the snitch.

    "Leave my mother out of this!" the cow responded. "But I'm wondering... what do geese eat, then?"

At this, the gaggle of geese stopped giggling, stared at the cow ironically for a moment, and promptly ate all three PLUTOPIANS.

    "Gee, that was certainly a surprise ending!" said the moose head, who felt quite thoroughly that this ending was a surprise.

The geese only giggled in response.

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Author's Notes: ¹Yes, I do so mean "meese." Meese are purple and can fly. If you ever see a flying herd of purple moose, just tell me. ²Oh, did I say eat? How silly of me.