Trapper Jim scratched his beard and frowned. He had a problem– the local waterfall that he loved had become a hotspot for mooners. You know mooning?– people dropping their trousers and showing their bums to an aloof and indifferent world.
Jim knew the spot well. Local lads would go up to the top of Moon Falls of an evening, drunk and silly, stand atop a slippery rock in the blue-black crystalline night, and moon the whole town. And sometimes these young men, in their impetuosity, would stumble on the slippery rocks and tumble to their bare-bottomed end. These loonie moonlight mooners, falling to their deaths like exploding stars.
Jim wanted to stop these mooners. He didn’t care that their activities contravened local Health and Safety regulations; it seemed like a lot of nonsense to him. Heck, his animal traps contravened every local law he knew of– especially the little stick on a spring that would repeatedly poke the little critters as they slowly carked it. "Insult to injury? Who cares?!" thought Jim. Anyway, the reason Jim wanted to save the mooners from their watery splash-deaths was because he felt for these wayward youths, and understood them. He’d once been a young tyke too.
Jim sighed, put on his tatty trapper’s hat. It was wearing thin around the ears. Then he opened the door of his log cabin, and strolled through the woods, towards the waterfall. “Taste my brains,” he thought to himself. “Cream of tomato soup”. He was a bit crazy from all this time alone in the woods– only venturing into town to sell the furs of the animals he had caught, buy some beans in watermelon sugar and then return. He loved these outdoor walks amidst the bracken– Jim could see nature opening up around him. Now it was the Fall, and the leaves were as if on fire, with rich reds and golds flickering in the sunshine breeze. Fat flies spun in lazy circles, like badly-hit swingballs. A small baboon mooned him from high up on a branch, then lost his footing and fell, making a squawking noise as he tumbled down.
And suddenly Jim realised-
It was MOONAGEDDON!
Everywhere you looked there were people mooning. It was the END of the mooning WORLD! The famous man mooned the red cup. Tourists lined up on Tower Bridge to moon the River Thames. Barack Obama mooned Gordon Brown– Gordon Brown got upset, and mooned his cabinet. Even Morrissey was quoted as saying he’d like to drop his trousers to the Queen. And a clown had just paid 37 million dollars to go up in a space rocket and MOON the WORLD! “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are mooning in SPACE!” It was the fall of mankind– reduced to base displays of bare-faced cheeks. Jim suddenly knew what he must do– find the Cave of Clod and slay the Bum-dragon. Only then would its terrible grip on the world be broken, with the destruction of the radio-transmitter in its head. The signal of the transmitter caused strange behaviours– nuns to show buns, Aunts to drop pants, students to display butt-impudence– by breaking it, Jim could restore the moral fibre of the globe, save it from the horror of the flashed twin-globes. The Bum-dragon’s evil plan was no less than the complete debasement of humanity– at which point he would put on a golden crown and declare himself King.
First the monkeys learned dissent, thought Jim– then they learned to hate, and then they discovered war, and tools for war. Their buttocks grew larger, as a display signal to warn the males of other tribes– to show dominance. Sexual dominance, aggressive dominance.
This had become more and more complex over the millennia, as the apes evolved into humans, until now there was no connection between the pre-frontal cortex and the ass. Mental Mind Man was alienated from his dirty bottom. The rational reasoning that could build bombs, and skyscrapers into the clouds, was completely at odds with the lower brain that just wanted to strut, fight and fuck. The monkey had gone crazy– the baboon was ever evolving a bigger and smellier ass. Now it was a nuclear arse-nal. One flash of the arse-nal, and whole nations could be cowed into submission. The monkey was insane, drunk with power.
*
The Headmaster closed the exercise book, and eyed Peter queerly, a bit like Nick Hewer from The Apprentice. “So this is your entry for the college fiction competition?”“…Sir”, Peter nodded. He scratched his nose, and adjusted his spectacles.
“What on earth…?” The headmaster shook his head. “It’s puerile, weird and ridiculous!” He licked his lips– thirsty. The thirsty man took a sip from the red cup. “And also an altogether avoidable abounding of alliteration, an affectation that is actual arse. Plus inter-rhymes that are annoying and cloying.”
“It’s satire, Sir– it’s about the perceived breakdown of societal mores already– linking it all back to mankind’s inability to tame his primitive simian desires no matter how far he develops his rationality. In a conflict between the ancient limbic system of the brain, and the neo-cortex, which is a relatively recent evolutionary development, the Primal desires will always win. It all becomes clear when Jim meets the Bum-dragon”. Peter was certainly a wordy fellow, and no mistake.
“I’m sorry Peter”, said the Headmaster, “but I’m not impressed.” He stood up, loosened his belt, stood up on the desk and mooned him.
*
Jim pulled his wits about him. Could this be a trap to trap the trapper, in his crappy trappers hat? He took one deep breath, exhaled, and then strode purposefully into the cave, on the way accidentally stepping on the Bum-dragon who was sleeping by the entrance, killing it instantly. The Bum-dragon made a noise like a child’s squeaky toy as it perished, and then it lay still, stone dead, its fat pink bum displayed to the world; irreverent in death as in life.
The transmitter in its head beeped one last time, and then was quiet. The signal that had caused the world a powerful urge to reveal cheeky buns was gone. Thousands of Gelada Baboons suddenly felt the urge to put on trousers. Bulky-buttocked builders set off to buy big belts. And gay cowboy stereotypes, wearing naught but leather chaps, suddenly felt ashamed. It was like Adam and Eve redux– they all saw that their bums were naked, and they were ashamed. Would you Adam and Eve it?!
Jim looked at the Bum-dragon’s squashed form. Something somewhere had shifted, but he wasn’t sure what. He vowed to stop trapping animals in his unnecessarily cruel snares for their profitable pelts– instead he would make his living from collecting organic monkey eggs and selling them to the townspeople. This world could never be a Utopia he mused, but maybe, just maybe, it could become… a little kinder. And a little eggier. Like a kinder egg. He turned and ambled towards home, enjoying the fresh breeze, and whistling the theme from Night-Rider.
An utterly irrelevant and gratuitous sex scene
While walking, Jim thought back to that time in Antigua, with Lucy-Anne. Kissing her passionately, as he forcefully pushed her buttocks up against the wall; her fine fingers frantically fumbling at the belt on his jeans, grasping his ass. His mind was consumed with passion; thoughts of drinking from the furry clam. Penetrating her quivering quim with his trifle-rifle. Processing her though the Penal System.
*
The Headmaster closed the exercise book once again and shook his head. He held up a small sign with a :rolleyes: smiley drawn on it in magic marker. He googled an image of a Captain Picard facepalm on his laptop, and spun the screen round to show to Peter. There was a pause.
“It still makes no sense,” he said at last, “the philosophical musings are weird and simplistic, and as for that filth at the end…” The thirsty man took another sip from the red cup. “And what’s an organic monkey egg, by the way? Monkeys don’t even live in America, and they certainly don’t lay eggs. ”
Peter examined his fingernails.
“This story better be leading up to some kind of clever ending that ties all the loose strands together, is all I can say,” said the Headmaster, before going on to say more. “Is the ‘mooning’ a reference to the spread of anti-social behaviour? What then does this say about the function of Law in our Western civilisation? Does the moon-transmitter represent the power of television to influence society in increasingly vulgar and depraved ways? You could then portray the trapper, Jim, as some kind of neo-Luddite, and talk about new technology informing a breakdown in moral values for a bit already. What do you think?”
“BUM-DRAGON!” sniggered Peter, as he stood and undid his pants…
Fin
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