"squiggle"

by Neil Van Gorder

 

(Facing away from the audience holding a small pad of paper, hysterical laughter that I contort my body too.)

 

Hypothesis. Children can fly.

Experiment. Tenderly, lovingly throw children off roofs.

Results. Children follow a parabolic path in the air until suddenly they are somehow attracted to the ground.

Conclusion. Children can't fly.

That was one of my best investigations. And I have my Uncle Aesop to thank.

My Uncle Aesop always told me that you could never be sure of things until you had given them a thorough investigation.

And to tell you the truth may be that's what lead me to investigate Uncle Aesop.

I swear I thought the man was a werewolf. He had a back that was hairier than an unswept barber shop floor. It looked like someone had stapled Tom Hank's beard from Castaway onto his back. Or it might have been the fact that he stayed out all night and came home looking all sweaty and crazy with the moonlight still shining in his eyes. But needless to say my interest was sparked.

So one night I follow Uncle Aesop out to see just what he's been doing. I had to remain as quiet as I could as I followed him deep into the dark, murky forest. Until finally he stopped. And as he came to a clearing with his lantern in his hand I saw what Uncle Aesop had been up to; him and at least 500 other men that is. They'd been building a gigantic bicycle made of pine logs.

(Now read with urgency.)

Quickly and scared to death I ran and ran through the forest, things finally making sense in my young mind. The way Uncle Aesop would talk to himself and when he'd say "If 2 bicycle makers can make a winged ship fly, then 500 men ought be able to make a giant bicycle fly." The way he talked to his friends. "Well we'll one up those Wright Brothers! We'll fly a gigantic bicycle to the moon!" Now admittedly from all this talk I should have suspected that Uncle Aesop was planning to fly a bicycle to the moon. But that just wouldn't have made any sense. But when I made it home that night, little did I know that I would see a giant wooden bicycle with 500 men dangling on it speedin' across the night sky and headed right in front of that huge full moon. Later in life, it felt like someone had stolen that moment from my life when I saw it plastered across the movie screens of America in that damn movie E.T. with that kid and his little alien flying that bicycle through the night sky.

And seeing that movie what's made me think of Uncle Aesop and got into my head the idea to investigate if children could fly. Because to tell you the truth I always wanted to know if I could have flown when I was a kid. Flown right up to catch Uncle Aesop's bicycle and fly on up to the moon. But I never could have known with out investigation.