DWARF
  by Jeroen van Drie 

  I take walking in the forest much the same as walking in a museum; 
both are usually beautiful places, and you get from them what you want. 
It is a consumer attitude. You buy it. How wrong I was. A museum is a 
human place; an animal would deficate in it just like it would a forest, 
and now, I tend to agree with the animal. That, in fact, must be why they 
keep animals out of museums. Not because of my convictions but because of 
what they'd do there.

  People tend to be rather single-minded about things. Animals would 
shit and piss all over the place; dogs actually prefer that line of 
proceedings to mark their territory. We human beings specialize in 
time and place. We create just the place to relieve ourselves. We have 
other such means of marking territory.

  But, I was walking through the forest admiring the scenery much 
like one would admire it's counterpart on canvas, when I heard a snarl 
and a wry comment.

  "Gahnaah," the snarl sounded. "As if this is a place just to 
watch. You're a crazy idiot."

  I turned around and watched, flabbergastedly, at a very small 
thick droll fellow staring at me from under bushy eyebrows. He was 
two feet tall, had a lumpy nose, two red apple-cheeks, and had a beard 
of twines. I thought he was a midget, but he had pointed ears without 
lobes, and, well -- he was not human. When I regained my composure and 
closed my mouth, I opened it again; I had also regained somewhat of my 
belligerent stance in life.

  "You may be nonexistent and a so-called figment of my imagination, 
or from my collective unconscious, or of whatever -- but that doesn't 
give you an excuse to call me a crazy idiot." 

  "I didn't call you anything. I was just stating the facts. Stating 
an elementary truth," he replied.

  "Listen," I said. "For such a creature of my own imaginative 
projection, you have a big mouth."

  "I'd rather have it the other way around," he said. "You're the 
projection here. A long time ago one of my people had sex with a giant 
tree monkey and your kind came from it," he explained, gesturing and 
grinning. "If anyone is a creature of imagination, it is you -- of the 
frustrated-sexual-depravative-preferential creativity of that ancestor," 
he had the nerve to add.

  "Say, you're smaller than I am, no doubt I have more virulence than 
you, so why do you so insist to insult me?" I taunted.

  He tipped his head back arrogantly and said, "You cannot touch me." 

  So I stalked towards him and before I knew anything, I flew through 
the air and landed some ten feet back. I was not hurled by a force, I 
simply glided back to where I had stood.

  "This isn't happening," I concluded.

  "That's why you're such a crazy idiot. Obviously something's happening 
to you, and still you say `this isn't happening'; If it isn't happening, 
then why is it happening?"

  "You have a point there," I said.

  "I'm not convinced you're not a crazy idiot, I can say that eight and 
four are thirteen . . ."

  "Eight and four is twelve!"

  "Thirteen, and you would agree; it's not that simply agreeing with me 
makes you smart. For example, would you tell anyone you have met me?"

  "No, they would think I was a crazy idiot, you fo. . ."

  "Exactly! I'm here, so you're a crazy idiot."

  "Well, now," but I couldn't make sense of it. Then I heard a voice 
call out.

  "Yeebra!"

  "Oh," the small figure said while turning around. "Dinner time, 
well, I've amused myself with you, but I'll be off then." He turned 
around and disappeared.

  "Yes, have a nic. . ." I tried to say but he had already gone. Well, 
ever since then, they not only remove animals from museums, they kind 
of anticipate what I'd do there as well. As I said, we human beings 
specialize in time and place; we create just the place to relieve 
ourselves. Just the place to put people like me. Sure, all of us here 
have talked to this little fellow, but then, all of us here are CRAZY 
IDIOTS.

                              #  #  #

Copyright 1994 Jeroen van Drie
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Jeroen resides in the Netherlands and is eager to stimulate interest in
E-Magazines in Europe. He and others are working on Project EEMAG (see
WhatNots). He can be reached at FIDO 2:283/613 (++31-85613185). Give him 
a call and help support Project EEMAG; he'll appreciate your interest.
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