In Search of The Ultimate Empyrean Cackleberry

By 

Anita Marie Moscoso

If you can’t sing good, sing loud-

Winston Groom

This piece was inspired by those posts where people have written in and said that they don’t feel like their writing would ‘fit’ with the ‘theme’ of the Café Blogs.

Well, I was the original Square Peg here at the Café and I just hung and around and kept doing what I do when lo and behold people got use to me… I guess.

So I took Winston Groom’s advice, I couldn’t ’sing’ so I sang loud.

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In an ocean of emptiness a lone Cackleberry floats passed me and I think to myself “ that’s nice.” It’s pretty boring right now. Plus it doesn’t take much to amuse me. You should see my desk toys. My favorite toy is a pair of  wind-up walking feet.

I’ve painted the toenails pink and drew hair on the toes.

Poor old Cackleberry.

So, it doesn’t look like much from where I am. It doesn’t look like it has much promise at all.  Poor old Cackleberry I think to myself.

I could name it, I guess. I could lift it up and give it a home. But, who’d care? I’ll bet that if you set it next to a bunch of other cackleberries and held a contest it’d be out because it would be too small or look, it has bumps and God, what is that?

It’s even the wrong color!

Oh great, I could lift it up, dry it off, bring it to my friends and say, “ see what I found?”

Then they’d all look at me and smile, but it wouldn’t be a real smile. It’d be that smile that you see Psychiatrists give to someone before they whip the straight jacket out from under their desk.

Let it go, I say to myself…we don’t need that.

It would be best to let it go, I tell myself. I’ll just sit here and wait for the Ultimate Empyrean Cackleberry to just come my way on a tide of pure inspiration.

Sure it’ll happen…all by itself…all I have to do is wait for it.

And then in a flash my true nature appears…it comes out in high definition graphics and surround sound and it screams into my ear, “ Anita, what the hell are you doing? Get off your backside and pull that thing in. What the Hell is the matter with you? There could be ANYTHING in that Cackleberry. Anything! So will you move before it gets away?

I wade in and here I am standing up to my err, hips in goo. I reach down and pluck my imperfect Cackleberry up. In clear view of my TRUE NATURE I wipe the cackleberry off on my shirttail and wade back up to shore with it.

On my way up back up to the shore I name it Fang.

I knew a boy named Fang when I was a kid.

Fang’s adult eyeteeth came in looking like Fangs and his parents wanted him to go to the Dentist and have them filed down and capped.

He refused.

Fang was a great guy, he ran his car into the back of a truck when he was about 20 and died.

I make it back to shore with Fang in the palm of my hand and I’m feeling pleased with the both of us when I slip and fall backwards.

I hear Fang hit the ground and then I hear a crunch.

It takes me awhile but I find as much of Fang as I can and I make it back to shore with what I’ve got and then I do what I do.

 Write.