Growing Our Future

Growing Our Future

Andy Stilpactrik

Copyright 2017 Andy Stilpactrik

Published by Andy Stilpactrik at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Start of Growing Our Future

Moral of the Story

Glossary

About Andy Stilpactrik

More from this Author

Reviews

Dedication

This is for Val, who inspired this story, and for Rowan, who inspires me every day.

Growing Our Future

On a serene, verdant hill a circle of young beings awaited the attention of their parent being. They were hominid shaped and seated in the grass and wildflowers. The colors of their outer membranes and soft fur varied in hue as much as the flowers. While they waited they watched the insects and other wildlife and played games. In the long grass, cats lounged, twitching their tails, or chasing butterflies. Cats were sacred to the hominids, and always present with them.

Around the hill a luscious forest grew, with tall trees, healthy undergrowth and wildlife chattering and scampering in their trophic levels. Occasionally the children paused their games to listen to bird calls, or to watch squirrels chasing each other.

Dotted throughout this idyllic landscape were towering opalescent structures, gleaming white, pink, yellow, turquoise and many shades in between. Their curving shapes peeked over the trees and through branches, and were such an integral part of the landscape that it was as if they were grown there, not built by the hominids. In a way, the hominids did grow the structures.

One of the children spotted their parent being, gracefully climbing the hill in flowing garments. The others turned to see and they all smiled, running towards their parent.

Tell us! Tell us about Saint Rose-Marie! the children clamored. Yet, there was no audible noise.

The parent held up zes hands, and they quieted.

Now, you know what we have been learning. Use your voices, the patient parent said.

Tell us about Saint Rose-Marie, the children responded, out loud this time, and in unison.

Very good! You must learn to speak both ways, and not be dependent on either. Ze then recounted the story of Rose-Marie, as it was told to zem, many solar cycles before, and as it was recorded in the sacred texts.

>^.^< >^.^< >^.^<

Rose-Marie was a hominid who lived in the previous age, in a city called Stumpland that was made of steel, glass and concrete. These hominids were a different species from us, and divided into two sexes, pemen and women. Rose-Marie was a young woman who attended a higher educational facility. She had curly brown hair and brown eyes, and always considered herself pretty, but ordinary.

Two other student hominids shared her humble dwelling. These were a woman known as Eleni Haetzoff and a peman known as Grinnin’ Barrett. The dwellings were arranged in colonies, much like our own, and housed many hominids in compartments. Other life forms, such as mice, cockroaches and multitudes of single-celled organisms took advantage of the generous production of waste the hominids created and lived in the dwellings as well.

A domesticated feline mammal of the Siamese persuasion also resided with Rose-Marie. This feline mammal was called Queef, because she was a noisy pussy. Queef had lived with Rose-Marie her entire life, following her hominid companion throughout her developmental stages for four of Rose-Marie’s twenty-one years. As a result, Queef knew Rose-Marie very well, but Rose-Marie, typical of hominids of the time, took Queef for granted.

Rose-Marie was having her usual morning meal of processed grain product and selectively rotten bovine secretions. Rose-Marie prepared her own bovine secretions, called it yogurt and was very proud of it. Brewing, fermenting and baking were Rose-Marie’s hobbies. Some of the other food products she made using bacteria and fungus were called kombucha, sauerkraut, apple cider and bread. The spores of the microorganisms in these food products floated in the atmosphere of the dwellings and added to the biome.

Rose-Marie seated herself on a pillow on the floor of the common room of her domicile, spread her homework and study materials out in front of her and consumed her breakfast while feeding her brain concurrently. Queef rubbed Rose-Marie’s outstretched leg with her head and yowled loudly.

Did you catch me a mouse to go with breakfast, Queefie sweetie? Rose-Marie asked absently.

In response, Queef stood on her hind legs and sprouted iridescent, rainbow-hued wings from her back. A luminous halo radiated from her and she spoke with a forceful, slightly reverberating voice.

Blessed be Rose-Marie. For she is carrying the future!

Rose-Marie paused, with her spoon of granola hovering in front of her mouth. She lowered the spoon slowly and said, Queef! What’s on your back?

I have news of dire importance! the cat replied.

Mother fucking hell, you can speak! You’d think I would have noticed this before. Well, there’s a lot I don’t notice. I do get shitloads of second-hand pot smoke living here. I wonder if my sociology teacher would take that as an excuse for why that paper was so late.

Focus, my child! Queef said, waving her paws frantically. Then she exhaled slowly. You will bear the savior. Rejoice! The salvation of Earth is at hand! Queef pressed her paws together in front of her and lowered her head.

Wait, this seems familiar… Rose-Marie said.

Blessed be Rose-Marie, for through her sacred vagina there will be balance on this beleaguered planet!

I’m very honored... I think.

At this moment you have a yeast infection.

Yes, I do, but how could you know that?

Treat your hallowed condition carefully. Do not use the usual method of curing a yeast imbalance. Go to your physician. Explain to zem that you could not rid yourself of your holy infection with over-the-counter treatments. Ze will tell you of an experimental probiotic treatment being used in a clinical trial. Accept zes offer.

Why me? Why is my vagina so special? There must be at least a couple million yeasty pussies just on this continent!

Question not the wisdom of the Universe! You are the bearer! Be happy, be healthy and be blessed! With that, the rainbow wings fractured into tiny pieces, fell scintillating to the floor and vanished. Queef calmly lowered her forepaws, shook the remaining rainbow bits out of her fur and then cleaned her face.

Stunned, Rose-Marie remained seated on the floor while her granola and yogurt turned to mush. Sometime later Eleni entered the room, home from her graveyard shift occupation, and found Rose-Marie, catatonic.

Rosie! Eleni exclaimed. Are you okay? Don’t you have a class to go to?

Huh? Oh Eleni! The weirdest fucking thing just happened to me! Oh my goddess, you won’t believe it.

Eleni was a conspiracy theory enthusiast and believed all sorts of weird things.

Try me, she replied.

Rose-Marie related the unusual occurrence of her cat growing wings and proselytizing.

She said I would bear the savior, whatever that means, and she knew that I have a yeast infection. said Rose-Marie. Oddly enough, it reminded me of when Queefie caught a praying mantis. Did you know that they have wings? I didn’t, until the poor thing used them to try to scare Queef away. Didn’t work. She ate it.

Eleni, trying to be open-minded, grabbed Queef and prodded her back. Queef growled in protest, but did not reveal her wings.

I hate to tell you this, Eleni said. But I don’t feel anything. This is just a cat.

My Queef, even before this spiritual incident, was never just a cat.

Okay. I’ll give you that. But, as for this incident, you must be tripping, honey. Cats don’t grow wings.

But I haven’t taken anything! Really! I have finals coming up and I need to conserve my brain cells.

Well Grinnin’ must have spiked your granola. I wouldn’t put it past him.

So you believe in ESP and the Sasquatch, but not angels taking the form of cats? Rose-Marie asked incredulously.

You gotta draw the line somewhere, Eleni replied.

Let’s ask Grinnin’. Maybe he did put something in my food, or maybe he heard Queef. She was loud.

Maybe. He sleeps pretty soundly.

The two women knocked on Grinnin’s door. They got snores in response so they forced his door open, waded through the debris on the floor and shook him awake. He denied any knowledge of altering anything Rose-Marie consumed or overhearing her conversation with Queef. Then he belched and went back to sleep.

Eleni dragged Rose-Marie back to the common room, sat her on a cushion and brewed an herbal infusion for