Slouch and the Skinnys

Slouch and the Skinnys

by Jotham McCauley

Halfway up the hill, looking down on the valley
Lived the Slouch, with a frown, and his pen keeping tally
On the Skinnys. The Skinnys, who lived down below
Who struggled in darkness and seemed not to know
That the light was much brighter as you went up the hill
Where through cracks in the fog some pure sunshine would spill.

The fog blocked the light, that's just what it does
There was no because, that's the way that it was
Yet some thought that life needn't all be this way
That the sky could be filled with more colors than gray
So they packed up an ax and some snacks and they tried
To climb up the hill until back down they'd slide.

Some landed on ledges, some stopped on a shoulder
Some fell off of edges and stopped growing older.
Some slid to the bottom, got bruised and said "Ouch"
Some found a plateau, and stayed there, like the Slouch.
He no longer looked up, he looked down on the Skinnys
Assailing their failings, he branded them ninnys.
They played down their problems and dressed up all snappy.
They laughed at the Slouch and said they were happy.

They seemed not to care they missed out on the light
They stayed busy bustling and sometimes shown bright
Like the dancer Dame Skinny dressed up dignified
Who waltzed in with glamour and cha'cha'd with pride.
Or take Skinny McGee who with true ingenuity
Built a building they say will last into perpetuity.
So Hawkeye the Skinny thought he understood
"See what we accomplish - the darkness is good."
There were games and parades and peach pink lemonades
A brigade unafraid and an unpaid arcade.
Amid disaster and crime, there was fashion and rime
And books, looks and cooks for their free leisure time.

But the darkness concealed a dull, widespread pain
Of what one had seemed perfect they could not regain.
First-hand they'd discovered, exposed to all parts,
The darkness that's deep inside some people's hearts.
So while Penelope Skinny reclined by the mirror
Surrounded with fluffies she watched very clear
As hospitable host turned his mind into toast, while the fun-funding Prince
Skinned a Skinny so young no one's heard from him since.

The Slouch said "I must save their selves from themselves.
They're all shut in a rut and have smut on their shelves.
I'll make a decree, I'll call other Slouches,
And those who will bother to get off their couches
Will come and we'll plan and we'll make a big fuss
We'll teach those poor Skinnys to be more like us!"

"Attention," he said as he called the convention,
Suspending the tension, he unveiled his invention.
"We've all heard the lyrics of songs that they sing,
They play the wrong way and they wear the wrong thing.
They're burnt out on brownies and toasted on toddies
And oh all the things that they do with their bodies.
They don't know any better, the piteous fools,
And so we must show them a big book of rules."
A voice called, "How 'bout you just share them the light?"
"They must be instructed," said the Slouch, "on what's right."

Then he paused in his speech and he reached in his pocket.
He felt his infinite light box, and tried to unlock it.
But it was a teeny bit, tiny bit hard,
And the crowd was so loud and he felt their regard.
And he remembered, what it looked like, from that box, after all.
He'd keep it safe, and contained, and continue his call.
"Without further contention then I'd like to mention
You don't need the cure when you pound the prevention.
If you have no dimension of great apprehension
Then I'm off! To go rescue the Skinnys from incomprehension."

Down in the valley to rally he went.
He'd persuade and then they'd all begin their ascent.
On the street he'd repeat to everybody he'd meet
"Time to go, everyone, up the hill, on your feet!"
He knocked on a door, "Do you know about the hill?
Do you want to hike up it? Just come look, then you will."
When he turned, the door closed, and now no one was there.
"You can freeze then," he shouted, "and just see if I care!"
He showed up next at a fest and he gave them a test.
"Incomplete!" he exclaimed. "You just failed like the rest!"

He proclaimed in the name but still nobody came
So he shamed them the same and said they were to blame.
The Slouch was worn out with no cause to be glad
A tad he was sad, but on the whole he was mad.
"It's just that those Skinnys are so bad bad bad bad!"

Then he saw Skinny kids with half-open eyelids
Playing games grouped in grids doing things he forbids.
And he thought maybe they will obey what I say
Never stray from the way and start hiking today.

So he gathered them round, they sat down on the ground,
"You don't know little ones, you were lost now you're found.
Your parents are awful, your actions unlawful,
Try you might to do right but you can't help but waffle
Because you don't know, that's because you can't see.
You must hike up the hill. You must listen to me!
That's why I made my mission to boost your position
And help you rise up from your hopeless condition."

The young Skinny who led looked at each Skinny head
And he thought of his home where he roamed and he said,
"Yeah but look at our stuff, we have such tough stuff.
When it's rough we just look at our fluff puff tough stuff.
Slough the scruff in the buff off the cuff, muff enough."
"Stop your nonsense!" said the Slouch, and he left in a huff.

With his head hanging low, he went to his plateau
But the going was slow as it started to snow.
He made it back home and he shut the blinds tight
And cracked open his box filled with infinite light.
He was quickly refreshed. "They'd be too," he thought, "But,
Where's the glory for me?" and he snapped it back shut.
He gave it a customized space on his shelf.
"With a grand enough plan, I can save them myself."

So he sawed and he drawed and he glued and he drewed
And he mused and perused and he chomped and he chewed
And when his idea dribbled out on his chin
It was so perfectly perfect he had to begin.
For all he had tried, he was where he begun.
No one dared or had cared, no new hikers, not one.
So he said, "Let's come at it from a new fangled angle.
I'll go with the flow so I don't have to wrangle.

I'll throw a big party that they'll recognize
But I'll decorate it with hiking supplies.
And their music, we'll use it, we certainly will
But we'll change a few words to say, ‘Hike up the hill'.
I won't really worry if they go to the light.
They'll look good, like they could, and they may, or they might."

The Slouch hired McGee and said, "Do yourself proud"
And the fame of the Dame would sure draw in the crowd
So the venue was perfect and so was the show.
They felt the excitement, it started to grow.
It started to pulse and they started to sweat
And they each did a thing or a few they'd regret
Then one threw a punch and one threw a threat
And one Skinny said, "It's the best party yet!"

Then the Slouch on patrol saw that he'd lost control
And he wanted to go and to crawl in a hole.
He had failed at his role and he ached in his soul
And he hadn't come anywhere near to his goal
So he started to plead, "Don't you know what you need?
At the top of the hill there's no hatred or greed".
But the chaos grew louder, the melee was on
He was shoved from above and into it was drawn.

Then the harm reached his arm and had broken that limb
And while wincing, he saw Hawkeye looking at him.
He was snide as he cried, "I don't know why you tried.
We have wants that we want that we want gratified.
I suggest you succumb and I hope you feel dumb.
No more wasting our time trying to get us to come
Up your self-righteous hill. To what, touch the wet dew?
Your ridiculous light stuff is not even true."

He began to go on but his sick face got sicker
When he noticed, like everyone, the fog had grown thicker.
The fires went out and they left not a spark
And a panic set in as it got really dark
And they flipped up the switch but the lamps wouldn't work.
The security backups were going berserk.
The Dame called her fans but they stumbled and scrammed
And McGee watched his building a crumbling sham.
The scene was so mean, so vicious and violent
Till exhaustion set in and the landscape went silent.

It was cold in the snow, in the dark dirty snow
And the last of their drive to survive had let go.
It was over, and hopeless, there was no way to win
And with no way to ever be happy again
They laid down to die in fat frozen fright.

Till a beam, a pure beam, of good golden light
Warmed at once all the Skinnys, an immediate thaw
And finally the true meaning of Christmas they saw.
They were loved. They were LOVED. They WERE LOVED. THEY WERE LOVED!

They were never alone, even when not aware,
When they couldn't see it, the light was still there.
The one who had made them, along with the rest,
Designed and adored them and knew them the best.
With light in their body, they were able to rise
And they passed to each other the light in their eyes.
They lived so much fuller now. Death had been shattered.
There was faith shown by love, and now nothing else mattered.
Not the valley or hill or their will or their strife
All that mattered forever - the light in their life.

The Slouch stood tall and to all he brings peace the way doves do
Telling everyone everywhere, "Hey there, God loves you!"