Children’s Stories from the Viewpoint of a Slug Read online

Children’s Stories from the Viewpoint of a Slug

  Gerrard Wilson

  Copyright 2014 by Gerrard Wilson

  Children’s Stories from the Viewpoint of a Slug

  Oh, To Have Legs...

  A Funny Thing Happened

  That’s Joe

  A Funny Old World

  A Snail

  Slug Jokes

  I am so Forlorn

  Myles Gets His Comeuppance

  I am a Poor Slug...

  Mrs Slark’s Dahlias

  That’s Love, Isn’t It?

  More Slug Jokes

  Sunday Morning Coming Down

  Some More Slug Jokes

  Myles

  Horrible Horace Spots a Slug

  Yet MORE Slug Jokes

  Love is Fleeting, Forsooth

  True Blue

  The Slug Song

  Old Fat Slugs

  Oh, To Have Legs...

  Oh to have legs like insects and things,

  To walk on all fours is something I dream,

  Or even just two, like HU-MAN THEINGS.

  Would make me so happy, would realise my dreams

  I dream of the day, I grow legs and see,

  What it feels like to walk, not slime so lowly,

  You see, I am a poor slug with no legs at all,

  A garbled old thing, just slime and slow drawl.

  Now don’t get me wrong it’s not all bad, I confess,

  There are some perks living in a damp mess,

  But I cannot help wonder about legs, I admit,

  Oh lord give me legs, be it two, four or six.

  A Funny Thing Happened

  I saw this sleek snail in the green grass one day,

  A flyboy, he was, I do have to say,

  For he whisked himself past as fast could be,

  In a shell of many colours, a flyboy was he.

  *

  I had hardly perceived that he had even arrived,

  Before he disappeared into the sunset – I tell you no lie!

  That snail of many colours, as bold as could be,

  Was a flyboy for sure, so flashy was he!

  *

  He made me so sad, as sad as could be,

  For I am a slug, not flashy, that’s me,

  No shell to impress with colours and bling,

  Just a poor, boring slug and it’s a terrible thing.

  *

  But I do have this plan, a means to an end,

  That could make so cool, like snails and their friends,

  All that I need are paint and a brush,

  A golf ball and glue – not really so much!

  *

  With these said items, I will make myself grand,

  Painting the ball, gluing it on my back is my plan,

  Then I’ll parade myself round as proud as can be,

  Like a snail of many colours and just as flashy, hee hee.

  That’s Joe

  There once was a slug called Joe

  Who wished he were fast, not slow

  Until one day, while alone

  He saw a snail struggling, carrying its home

  Now he slimes about happy, that’s Joe.

  A Funny Old World

  One two buckle my shoe

  Three four knock at the door

  Five six pickup sticks

  Seven eight open the gate

  Nine ten start all over again

  Nah that would be silly,

  I would much rather go looking for slugs to kill.

  (It’s funny old world, isn’t it?)

  A Snail

  One day, while I was contentedly slipping and sliming my way down the garden path, I came face to face with a snail! ‘A snail?’ I can hear you asking, ‘What’s so strange about that?’ Read on, my friend; read on and find out...

  It was no ordinary snail, not by a long chalk. The snail in front of me, barring my way along the garden path, was big, enormous, a veritable GIANT among slugs!

  ‘Yeh, yeh,’ I can now hear you saying, ‘Who does he think he is, snails could never be considered large by any stretch of the imagination.’ Normally I would have to agree with you, that snails, like slugs, are small, quite nondescript creatures, but this one really and truly was a GIANT! This snail, standing there, proud and erect, in his huge shell with yellow and brown markings, stripes, running along it, made me look like a dwarf, a midget in comparison.

  Smiling, low and syrupy, he began speaking, he said, “Hello there, my slimy friend, and what a grand day it is for anyone fortunate enough to still have his wife.”

  Thrown off my guard by such a peculiar introductory piece of gesticulated vocabulary, I struggled to find words sufficient for a reply.

  Suffering from no such affliction, the huge snail began speaking again, he said, “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Myles; Smiles Myles is how my dear wife used to address me...that is, until yesterday...” With that, he began sobbing, slow, laborious, gelatinous and slimy blubbering.

  Peeved, feeling for the hurt, the pain that this mountain of a snail was so obviously enduring, I said, “What do you mean...until yesterday?”

  A smile; for a split second I thought I saw a smile on his slippery face, then sobbing even louder, he continued with his story, “My poor wife in gone,” he howled, “taken by the  HU-MAN THEINGS, to be sold in their market, boiled in the pot and then eaten.”

  “Why, that’s terrible!” I said, on hearing of this aberration from their accepted way of behaviour.”How did it happen?” I asked, genuinely feeling an affinity for the snail giant before me.

  Holding back his sobs, he said, “They were there...in the park, early yesterday morning...”

  “How did it happen?” I asked, totally drawn into his sorry story.

  “I had forgotten that it was Friday, market day,” he blubbered, “but why should I have remembered,” he continued, “for they had never hunted us, before!”

  “Hunted?”

  “Yes, hunted,” he said loudly, enforcing his point. “Like, like ...animals!”

  “But we are animals, albeit small ones, no insult indented, Myles, to your own great size,” I replied.

  “None taken,” he answered blankly “They were there...inside the gates of the park...lying in wait for us, me and the missus. We were going into the park for our breakfast; there are some fine dahlias in there, very fine dahlias indeed.” For a moment, he cheered up, remembering the flowers.

  “And then what happened?” I asked, yet fearing his reply.

  “They got us,” he replied morosely. “There were so many of them milling out, running after us snails, picking us up like so many loose potatoes – and not just us, but also our friends, we never stood a chance, not any of us. It was horrible, I tell you, real horrible.” Then he stopped talking and stared at me. I wondered why he was doing it. Then he continued with his story, saying, “They got us all, every last one...”

  “If they got you all,” I asked quizzically, seeing a whole in his story, “how come you are here, talking to me, and not in the stew pot?”

  “I, I, I – was dropped, that’s it,” he said, quick-wittedly. “One of the HU-MAN THEINGS – a woman – dropped me, slime you know,” he said with a mischievous wink.

  Knowing that some HU-MAN THEINGS, particularly women, have an aversion to slime, I found myself all too easily believing Myles slippery, slimy words.

  Without allowing me time to respond, Myles said, “It was horrible, I tell you, falling from so great a height. Look at that,” he said, lifting his head. “See that scar?” he asked, “I got it from the fall, so I did!”

/>   I spied a small mark under his chin.

  His slippery words, having done their job wonderfully, bamboozling my brain into believing all that he was saying, Myles went in for the kill. “And now my poor children are orphans.” Having said that, he began wiling like there was no tomorrow.

  “That’s awful,” I replied, forgetting the fact that in order to orphaned BOTH parents had to be gone, no father or mother.” Myles nodded. “And how many are there?” I asked.

  “Fifty-three, at the last count,” he replied, his chest puffed and proud.

  “So many mouths to feed...”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “How many boys and how many girls?” I asked, continuing with the topic.

  “Males and females? What do you mean how many males and females?” Myles asked me suspiciously, thinking the conversation had moved on to another topic.

  “Your children,” I said, “how many boys and girls do you have?

  “Twenty-three boys and thirty-nine girls,” he replied.

  “That’s sixty-three,” I said, confused.

  Myles, having none of it, bursting into slippery, slimy sobs so loud they might have resurrected the dead, never told me the true number. “At this very moment,” he roared, “my poor wife is most certainly stewing in a pot, and if she is not there she has most certainly already been eaten!”

  Feeling like a cad, I mumbled, “Is there anything I can do?”

  Seizing the moment, his opportunity, Myles said, “You can give me some money...to buy my orphaned children some food...”

  With absolutely no hesitation, I bent down and stuck my head into my pocket, searching for my wallet. “Ah!” I said triumphantly, through my clenched teeth, “I’ve found it!” My wallet, however, dangling precariously from my mouth, was soon gone, for Myles, the giant brute of a snail slithering towards me at breakneck speed had swiped it. “What are you doing?” I asked the snail with my money.

  “But they are so hungry...” he said surgery and slimy. “I will need all of this money just to keep the wolf from the door... Surely you can see this?” I believed him; I totally believed what he was telling me. Then he dropped it, the giant, African land snail dropped my wallet...

  Leaning down, stooping his head, to  reclaim it (and my money) within his razor-sharp teeth, I saw it, I saw his own wallet, his big, bulging wallet, fall out of his pocket and onto the ground. Even though he also had seen it fall to ground, Myles ignored it.

  I thought you said that you had no money?” I asked the giant, brute of a snail.

  “That’s right,” he replied, brazening it out, “I haven’t got a penny.”

  My eyes having finally opened to his lies, I said, “What’s that, then, scotch mist?”

  Being in a corner, the rat of a snail made a desperate lunge for the two wallets, trying to scoop them up from the ground with his razor sharp teeth. I, however, was having none of it. My goat being up, I rushed on a slime trail par excellence, faster than I had ever moved in my life, headlong into the affray, snatching the two wallets from under his startled nose.

  “What, what are you doing?” he asked, eyeing the two wallets with some considerable concern, “You have got my wallet!”

  Shaking the wallets, I replied, “And you had mine, if you care to remember!”

  “But, but...” he sobbed (this time they were for real).

  “But, smut,” I scolded, my heart now closed to his utterings.

  Decency; my own decency getting the better of the urge I had, wanting  to punch Myles in the face (assuming I had hands to punch him with, that is), I threw his bulging wallet back at him, saying, “Heaven knows where you got all that money...away with you before I change my mind!”

  The snail, grabbing hold of his wallet in his ever so sharp teeth, made an ignominious and speedy escape.

  The moral of my story is this:

  If you blindly and unquestioning believe everything that you are told, you deserve everything that befalls you.

  Slug Jokes

  “What is the difference between a slug and a bag of salt?”  Bert asked his friend Fred.

  “Go on, tell me,” Fred answered.

  “Salt makes your food taste better; slugs, however, shrivel and up and die if they come into contact with it.

  “That’s terrible!” Fred protested. “That’s not a joke!”

  “You think it’s terrible?” Bert replied, flapping his arms about wildly. “Imagine how the slugs feel?”

  *

  "What do you call a thin slug?” Bert asked Fred.

  “I don’t know,” Fred replied, yawning and stretching his arms, bored with weird jokes.

  “A nail!” Bert told him, as he set off, with hammer in hand, searching for nails.