They ate Jimmy’s body, sobbing. Why him? Asked one through a slobbering mouthful of their fallen friend. He was just a sweet boy, whimpered his mom, while engorging herself on the remains of her son, her mind half lost to delusions.
The shade of an oak tree protected the gathering on this path, which held Jimmy’s two severed halves. His corpse was turning black by the loss of moisture. It was not the tribe’s first funeral this summer, but it was the most painful.
Jimmy had been their golden boy. He was big and strong, with beautiful, lustrous skin. He traveled faster and further than the other members of the tribe, able to cross entire roads between rainfalls. On top of his physical prowess, he’d had a heart of gold.
Earlier in their youth, Jimmy and his friend, John, were playing along a wall, some kind of racing game they’d invented. Bet you can’t beat me to the other side of the path! John exclaimed in glee. Jimmy let him rush ahead to let him win. However, something caught his eye from his higher vantage point.
The other side of the path held towering giants, running around carelessly, playing their own version of the racing game. Jimmy knew catching up to John would mean risking his own life, but he went for it anyway.
He reached John right before they entered the grounds of the giants, grabbing John’s back forcefully and whispering in panic. John’s skin went ashen from the realization of their predicament. But they lived; and from that day on, they were inseparable.
That is, until Jimmy’s two halves separated from each other, and the tribe consumed his body until nothing remained.
Another time, Jones—a friend of theirs—had stumbled upon a pool of beer. This was huge. The guys loved beer, and drinking a whole pool of it would take, well… a long, long time. Jones was stoked. He’d become so stoked that he forgot to call the crew. This was, to be concise, retarded of Jones, or so the others later told him.
Everyone knew Jones was a junkie. The beer entered his body faster than his system could handle. Luckily for Jones, Jimmy and the others arrived before it was too late. They couldn’t well pull Jones out because of the sheer amount of beer he’d fallen into, so Jimmy devised a plan: everyone present jump in and start drinking, while Jimmy runs to the rest of the tribe to come help.
The whole tribe got totally shit-faced, and Jones was saved, albeit bedridden for a week due to his stupidity.
Jimmy, John, and Jones had one more friend: Plant. Most of the tribe’s bodies were shades of amber, whereas Plant had a greenish hue. He insisted it was normal, his father had come from another tribe, but the boys smelled bullshit and considered him the leper of the group. But Plant, perhaps due to his green condition, was the bravest of them all.
Plant had crossed a field of giants once to get to a strawberry field. Stupid? Yes. Suicidal? Seems like it. But he’d arrived back home as the happiest boy they’d ever seen. But unlike Plant’s strawberry adventure, Jimmy’s last had failed, leading to the saddest feast of John, Jones and Plant’s lives, consisting entirely of their best friend.
They’d adventured constantly. This one time, John had climbed to the top of a tree and then fell from its zenith, plummeting an unimaginably long distance. The lads had found him dazed and confused—and quite bruised—but he was surprisingly alright. Some leaves must have dampened his fall.
Jones, on another occasion, found some cherries fermenting, still attached to the tree. It took them all night to scale it, but they were rewarded with a day-long bender. Some say this bender led to a few new babies in the tribe, but there was no evidence to prove this, except for one greenish-hued new-born; and some ladies, who had not cared for the lads before the bender but were now strangely attracted to them.
Plant had, at one point, decided that there were others with greenish skin and they ventured for a long while in search. After many tribulations, they found the greenish tribe, though by that point they had almost died of exhaustion and thirst. Plant sang them an immigrant song he’d made up on the spot, and brokered a peace with the tribe with the help of Jimmy, John, and Jones.
Thus, they’d lived full lives, already in their young age. And they were loved, albeit as troublemakers, everywhere they went.
It was therefore a shock to all who knew him that Jimmy had died, after having adventured so much and survived so many near-death experiences.
It happened on a lovely, rainy day.
The earth was wet and warm and the birds too troubled to cause trouble. The cats stayed indoors, and dogs and their owners went on brisk walks. The plants were happy and so too were the slugs.
Jones wanted them to see something, so he set them off in some direction, to cross a path. They went in a line. Jimmy was close behind Jones, and John and Plant were playing catch-up.
Then, Jimmy was in separate halves.
Jones was still singing merrily before he called back to them and saw Jimmy, heaving his last breaths. Jones never forgave himself for Jimmy’s death and disappeared shortly after. Without the lads, he probably died Elsewhere.
They’d been crossing a path, like they had so many times before. Plant and John saw through the grass that a giant with circles for legs was zooming toward them. They started to yell, but it was too late.
He who had once been the golden boy now lay in two, his body heaving with strain, not realizing the fatal trauma that had just occurred.
After their initial shock, John and Jones stayed to guard what had been Jimmy, shouting obscenities at the world. Plant left, greener than usual, to call the tribe to the place he’d left his friends. The procession back to the site was long and grim, with rain running down their faces and a gray, cloudy sky, which sucked all joy from the world.
The slugs feasted on their fallen brother. This life is random and we don’t know what each moment brings. Plant and John later rose as leaders of the tribe, leading to broad improvements in slug-life and inter-tribe relations. And for the rest of their lives, a piece of Jimmy lived on in each and every one of them.
END