From My Mind's Eye

So here's a little entry about how I see things, including not just a few tidbits of sight from an unnaverage mind:
1) I had a dream the other night in which I found myself in the backroom of a house. It was a warehouse of a room...one that the house's inhabitants had somehow never discovered. Into it I ventured with my friends, finding, in essence, some sort of world therein. It held all sorts of props from unseen shows, plants of unknown life, and its black walls extended high to meet a metal, stage-like ceiling. As we explored its mysteries, my friends suddenly vanished. I looked around, but they were no more. I knew that I could not leave the room if I wanted to save them. There, next to the exit, was a much smaller door hidden by the room's objects. It was much too small--similar to the size of the door in Alice and Wonderland, except that it did not talk. It was green, and I could not fit through it, but I knew that my friends were on the other side in the void that made itself known by enstilling that apprehension and that fear so commonly kin to the unknown. Suddenly, a small, white dog with caramel-colored spots went into the door. I tried to stop him, for fear that he would perish. But soon after, he emerged unharmed. I began my search around the room looking for something to shrink me, knowing now by the dog's ambition that I could make it there and back again.
2) As I was walking by a tree the other day, I heard a buzzing sound. I glanced over, and on the bark there was one of those large, red hornets with the yellow and black stripes on its abdomen. Strangely enough, however, it was attacking a cicada! I watched as the cicada and the hornet struggled on the side of the tree (both insects of which were slightly smaller than a human thumb). And then, suddenly and seemingly without effort, the hornet grabbed the cicada, picked it up, and flew off with it! Those hornets, it seems, have carnivorous tendencies.
3) Yesterday, during one of the many meetings I had, my mind was distracted by a swift and sudden black shadow that flitted across the floor by the wall. I knew what it was as that small blur skittered behind some boxes--a small rat of sorts had joined the meeting. Needless to say, I was distracted. Whereas it is "only a mouse," I personally have a certain fear of rodents. Call it an overactive imagination, but a little less than a year ago rodents for me became a ill and ominous sign. Of what, exactly, I cannot say for sure--perhaps it was just that: Uncertainty. Whatever the case, dreams of attacking rodents and not just a few sightings made me view them as foreboding lifeforms. If I believed in bad omens, that is what they would be. But then, that is silly. Books and movies have symbolism. Life does not. Right...?
4) Last week sometime, I visited an old, long since retired hospital close to where I attend school. With the construction of the newer hospital of several years ago, the Old Hospital was left to the care of a local service organization. In assisting someone move some things into this place, I received a firsthand tour of the ghost of a building. Inside, a few hospital artifacts remained: beds that were falling apart and mechanisms that no longer examined human conditions. Hospital curtains hung limply and loosely, partially dangling from their broken rods. I saw the entrance to the operation ward. I did not go in. There were broken ceiling tiles, flickering florescent bulbs, and not just a few corridors which would have seemed much more horrific had it been night. But for the moment, it was merely fascinating--another place where hidden stories long to reveal their mysteries.
5) Yet another dream last night made for a rather interesting thought. If I remember correctly, I was in that Old Hospital. While it only has one story, I remember distinctly climbing a white stairwell. As I rounded the corner of the steps, I found myself face to face with a spindley-legged spider, its body the size of a newborn child. It lurched at me, and dragged me over to the edge of the stairs, its bite eminent and soon. As it pulled me, I thought of smashing it through the head with my fist to save myself. But the dream shifted scenes before I could.
So that is five things from the perspective of a mind not your own. You have just had the privelege to images you could not have seen without me.

Rupert

I decided that, while I have a plethera of characters on this thing already, it'd be fun to have you meet one other character I designed awhile ago. His name is Rupert. He's a happy, chubby fella, and I think he might have a dog or something. Oh, and he's been to Colorado, which is something I have yet to do. It's so odd how my characters do so much more than me...I'm living my life through them, I suppose. *Sigh* So this is Rupert. What's that, Rupert? Oh, he wants to type:

Hello, yous guys! My name is Rupert. Yeah. Rupert...and I have a pet dump truck in my backyard. It has three wheels. It did have four, but the other one decided to take off on its own. I don't think the other three liked that too much. Yeah. Oh, hey, have any of you seen that new movie? You know, the one about the guys in the...oh what is it? Oh! No, nevermind. I'm thinkin' of somethin' else. Haha! I just spilled mustard on myself. Okay, gotta go and clean my shirt up. I'll talk to all you guys sometime when I'm not so messy! Oh, and remember to always turn off your faucet when it is not in use. Yes. That's important. Otherwise the fishies will revolt. Okay, bye bye!

Yep. That's Rupert. He likes to ramble about random things. Maybe I'll let him on again sometime soon. Anyways, that's the end.

The Failed Sonnet

A dragon snarls in the flower bed,
As snaps the cold and docile day;
An eskimo kiss says words unsaid,
And frost alights on those who stay.
Unruly conquest of worlds unknown,
All because fear is too hard to bear,
And yet we long to see mysteries shown,
Just to wonder what more lies "out there."
The stained glass colors the True Light's descent,
But more lies above those panes of taint;
An eagle bursts into majestic ascent,
As unhindered light undoes brightness faint.
A broken pencil rests deceased,
In shaded dirt of afternoon;
A butterfly's wings transform into feasts,
For ants that are greedy too soon.
Do we yet know what next may come
As moments change in eternity's race?
That thing called time, we mistake for life,
And make too quick our endless pace.
There comes a time to any sum,
Of those who would see good days,
That losses weighed and counted strife,
Be outdone by the kindred soul's praise.
So be adventure in the hearts of the wild,
And beauty in the depths of the deep;
The collective We is more than when severed,
And those we love are those we should keep.
Let free the frown, unloose the smile,
Let wings unfurl in ascending Light,
Be not afraid of a dragon's snarl,
But hand-in-hand, we shall take on the night.

Ponder these things, if you so desire,

The meaning is yours on which to conspire.

And Then...

When we last left our natural friends (the stick and the leaf), they were stuck on a rock in the middle of a stream.

Yes, that is exactly how we left them.

And then, a few hours later...

...they were still there.

Then Xylem (the stick) said to Phloem (the leaf), "Hey! You wanna get off this rock?"
Phloem kept staring at absolutely nothing (as he is so prone to do), but said, "Sure."
A few minutes passed by, and they remained.
Finally, Phloem said, "how do we get off?"
"We swim, I suppose."
Phloem, staring at nothing, said, "Oh." There was a 5-minute pause. "But I can't swim."
"Well, how'd you get on this rock?" asked Xylem.
"I floated," replied Phloem.
"Well that's what I meant," said Xylem."
" OK. Let's go."

So they went.

And they floated downstream.

As for Mr. Burton and Ezz, they got so lost that they wandered onto a completely wrong page.

Somedays, that happens.

(Put a comment on the August 15th post to contribute to an upcoming story!)

In The Meantime...

So while Norman, Jessie, Marcus, and the others were frozen in time waiting for their futures to be written, Mr. Burton and Ezz (the purple alien) decided they'd go on a leisure hike in the mountains. Mr. Burton knew of a quiant little trail that Ezz had never seen before (since this was Ezz's first time on Dot...EVER). So that is what they did.
When they arrived at the trailhead, Ezz suddenly let out a gasp in surprise.
"Wow! Everything is so much clearer and more vivid than the other places on the planet! Why is that!?"
Mr. Burton chuckled, "Oh, that's why I love this trail so much. Instead of the usual bitmap trail, this one is (bum bum bum) a digitally-enhanced trail! It's really quite lovely." (And yes, he did actually say "bum bum bum". It's Mr. Burton we're talking about here, don't forget).
Ezz watched as his red-hatted friend began to rummage through the undergrowth.
"What are you doing, Burt-Man?" (Burt-Man was what Ezz called Mr. Burton)
"I'm getting a stick!"
"What use does a stick have for a stick man?"
"You don't know much about hiking, do you Zoloportico Falagon?" (Zoloportico Falagon was Mr. Burton's nickname for Ezz. Don't ask.)
"No, Burt-Man, I am afraid I do not. You see, on the asteroid I am from, we do not have what you call trails. But we do have perbullas."
"Oh! I've always wanted to see a perbulla!" (I have no idea what a perbulla is, either) "Anyway, this isn't just any stick. It's a walking stick! Most people use it to walk with, to keep balance and ward off scary lions or tigers or mammoths!"
Ezz grabbed Mr. Burton's walking stick. "Then let us both use it!"
"Nope. Using someone else's walking stick is forbidden. C'mon, be original, Zoloportico Falagon!"
Ezz looked around, then grabbed a big leaf from a nearby tree. "I shall then use a walking leaf!"
Mr. Burton guffawed and fell to the ground in hysterical laughter. Ezz did not know what was funny, but he did the same. Then the two made their way down the trail.
They soon found themselves on a bridge, and Mr. Burton said, "See, Zoloportico Falagon, one of the most bestest-fun things to do with a walking stick is to throw it into a creek! Like this!" And he threw the stick over the side and it splashed into the water below. Ezz leaned forward and tossed his leaf over as well. But it didn't splash. It floated.
They watched as their walking...items...raced on downstream with the current. Then Mr. Burton spotted a butterfly. "OOH! Let's go get its license plate number!" And off they went.
Now, ordinarily, I would have followed the galavantings of Mr. Burton and Ezz as they walked on down the trail. But, seeing as how there's nothing very ordinary about those two, I will instead follow that stick and that leaf down the river. Down they went, until they came to rest on a rock. And the stick opened its eyes (yes, it has eyes), and saw the leaf. And the leaf opened its eyes and saw the stick.
"Hello, my name is Xylem," said the stick.
"Hi! I'm Phloem," said the leaf.
And the two new friends remained stranded on the rock.
As for Mr. Burton and Ezz, I think they got lost somewhere in the woods when the butterfly went down the middle of a fork in the trail (Mr. Burton seemed to think it was up to him to write it a ticket).
Well, that is all.

Creative Suggestions Wanted

Hello, readers. I have been contemplating writing a "sequel" to The Furbus Pretzel (the six-part Norman Bufort adventure where he and his friends went through all that confusing time-travel biz). However, I decided I'd make it a bit..."interactive," so to speak. I've got some of the plot details in mind already, but I want some ideas. If you have any random, creative, outlandish ideas you would like to see in this next (G-rated) story, just post a comment with your idea, and I'll see what I can do about integrating them. Though please do so promptly. Norman and the others are very anxious to get on with their lives, and some of them are getting quite cranky with me for delaying their futures.

Newness

This summer had a theme for me. "Let go of the past," said my experiences, "and..."
But I never heard the rest. I always stopped with letting go, because loss seemed to me to be quite enough to deal with. There was more, though, and a recent e-mail opened my eyes to it: In letting go of the old, we must take up something new. The other half of letting go of the past is taking hold of the future.
I think an illustration is best. In high school, I once took an outdoors trip to a high-ropes course. One of the obstacles of that course was to walk along a rope tied some 30 feet up in the air between two tree platforms (naturally, we had a safety line to prevent us from falling to our deaths, but it was still quite thrilling). Hanging from a higher rope (above the one we were to walk) were vertical ropes spaced out about a yard-or-so from each other. We were to use these vertical ropes to work our way across, in a semi-Spider-man "web-to-web" fashion. I went from the first to the second and the second to the third, but when I reached the third, I realized that the fourth rope was positioned a bit further than the others. I reached for it, but my arm fell short. As long as I clung to that rope behind me, I could not grasp the rope before me. So I risked the void: I let go of the third rope and went for the fourth. For a brief moment, I wasn't holding on to anything. But it would have been quite foolish to remain so. If I had not grasped that fourth rope, I would have fallen. Instead, I reached, I grasped, and I made it to the opposite platform.
So here I am at the end of my summer. My computer has, in a sense, been the symbol of loss for the summer. Well, I have just received it (and its memory) back in full. But some of the files remain corrupted and lost.
I am fine with that. They are gone, and that is that. But there is so much more ahead. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle proposes in the opening chapters of The Lost World, "There are heroisms all around us, waiting to be done." And that is true. My fears, my failures, and my losses of the summer are behind me. My confidence, my courage, and my future lie ahead. It is time to go out and grab the fourth rope, and I know I can because I am not alone. My strength resides in one stronger than I, for as things are, Man needs God, and God is available (so that is quite fortunate for Man). "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Phil 4:13). The strength is His, and Newness is His work. So yes, tomorrow I may meet those same fears of yesterday. But this has never stopped me before.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"
--God (Isaiah 43:18-19)

Solari

In our search for extra-terrestrial life, we have always looked to other planets, thinking life can only be sustained on such a rock as our own. One place we have always failed to look (partly because nothing could possibly live there, and partly because it's just too bright) is the Sun. On such a day as today, however, in the near future, a solar flare ignites and stretches out into space. Out of it flies a particle of burning matter that amazingly travels that long distance from the burning ball to the planet for which that same ball rises and sets each day. That tiny particle of the sun crashlands in a field of solar-panels at an isolated observatory. This night, the observatory is manned alone by a lonely astronomer who, in the midst of watching the sky, hears the explosive contact of Earth and Sun. Such contact is sure to change his life and, soon enough, the lives of everyone else as well. He ventures out to explore, and up from the burning crater rises a glowing figure. At first too hot and bright for the scientist to effectively observe, the Sun-being lowers its light and temperature for a more acceptable encounter. The creature cannot talk, nor does it have any eyes (at least none visible). But who says an alien can't have a soul?
The scientist allows the Star-man to dwell with him, and the two develop some form of a friendship (as much as a human can have with a thinking piece of Sun). The man names the alien Solari (roughly pronounced SOUL-er-eye) and gives him a set of heat-containing robes for him to wear.

Solari comes for a reason, naturally. He comes to warn us. It just so happens he is the only one of his kind that is of the friendly sort. In a matter of months, The Phantom Star will be the only one who can save us from his brothers and their onslaught of fire and light.

If I were not what I am, I would be...

I was asked on my birthday, "If you didn't know your age, how old would you say you were?" In other words, how old do I feel? I answered: 11. No joke. If I didn't know how old I really was, and I had to tell my age based on who I am inside, I'm an 11-year-old boy.
What if I were not human? If I were an alien? No, alien is not what I mean (though if I were an alien, I'd be a shape-shifter, condensing my molecules so I could be as small as an ant, or expanding them to the size of a dinosaur...). If I were any animal, what would I be? It's a close tie between being a dolphin, a rhino, and an orange-toed tree frog.
And if I could define who I am, I would not be timid. In three words, I would be the confident comical hero.
I've heard it said that sometimes, pretending makes real. So why not pretend?

Tunnel to Nowhere

A few weekends ago, I found myself walking through a long, dark tunnel. Phantoms were hiding in the corners* somewhere, I am sure of it. But they let us pass through, probably as interested in the variety of visitors as I was in their possible existence. On the walls, written in red and white graffiti, were the following words:
"Nowhere, somewhere..."
And further down the way, "The story always ends..."
Then finally, "the end is near."
And I emerged into light, gripping the staff of some other traveller that had never found the end of the Tunnel of Styx. A road not taken lay before me. But instead of walking down it, I turned and made my way back through the Phantom Cavern to that unfinished road on the other side.
If you're looking for some deeper meaning, perhaps you'll find it. But this is actually a place--a tunnel constructed at the end of the Road to Nowhere near Bryson City, NC.

* "But tunnels don't have corners," says you. "That is why I couldn't find them, for that is most certainly where they were hiding," says I.

Pluot

I ran across an interesting fruit today. It's a criss-cross: a mix of apricot and plum. Its name makes me giggle: Pluot.
Now sold at your nearest "Crojere" museum (The curator's name is actually spelled with a K and a G.)

Restoration--The Reversal of Loss

We spent the morning doing some (belated) spring cleaning in our church. A majority of things were taken to the dump, and I let many things be thrown away that I could have kept with the greediness of the pack-rat I've always been. In the end, I saved two pictures of sailing ships and two small trinket-like toys--one of Tigger, and one of a gnome-boy. I tossed a 50's fan (it would have made a cool movie prop) and saw (after rescuing the two toys) a third toy--a miniature Flounder--fall into the garbage crusher. Not all things can be rescued.
But not all things are lost, either. What started this blog was the loss of my computer's memory. I submitted my computer to a friend so that he could repair what could be repaired, and I was quite happy to get it back today: The majority of everything I thought I'd lost has been recovered. Many of the files are somewhat incomplete, but I've received back many works that I thought I would never see again. Loss is never the final word, it seems.

Love is Selfless.

It is The Truth To Ever Know of The Greatest Sort.
It is the substance of the stories that strike the deepest chord in the heart--those of hardest sacrifice and Good's Triumph at a cost.
It is what music itself tries to get us to hear, and what light wants us to see, for music is love heard, and light, its visible form.
It is this:
Love is selfless.
Be in Love; Selfless, be.

A Pleasant Day of Museums

It may come as quite a shock to some to realize the overlooked fact that the most common of places are actually museums. I had quite an enjoyable time, accompanying my brother and father for a day of museum perusing.
It all started after a visit to the barber (for one must look one's best when going to such a societal place as a museum). We parked in the museum parking lot, and I made for the large stone building as my brother and father went off to the smaller "Exopod Gallery" owned by a fella named something like "Shusho" (though that wasn't exactly how he spelled it). I was to meet them in the Gallery of Audio-Visual Stimulants in one of our country's most amazing museums made: The Museum of American Culture and Entertainment. The MACE (as some might call it) has the curator's name printed quite boldly on its exterior--it seems to be some European fellow by the name of (as I'm sure it's pronounced) VALMAR. The MACE's symbol is stamped right in the middle of his name--a white, five-pointed star, the shining brightness of sociological enlightenment.
I entered the MACE through the greenhouse--a fantastic collection of many different species of plants. My particular favorite was a plant called something like "Spiralus Actus," which looked like grass, but in long, skinny curls of different shades of green. The flowers were beautiful as well--pinks and yellows, and not just a few lilies (I quite enjoyed those).
Perusing the museum, I also visited the smaller collection of figurines which (as I've heard) is a favorite among younger persons--they seem to have the idea that these small imitations of dressed dolls is merely for their entertainment. But then, entertainment is half of what the museum is devoted to.
I saw quite a few other artifacts throughout, including some mugs and glasses that had liquid encased in their sides (making it appear as though they always have liquid in them). The literature section was quite fascinating, but most of it was too common for my taste.
After meeting my companions in the Gallery of A/V Stimulants, we made our way to another museum favorite: The Museum of American Consumption and Health, also known as MACh (the "h" is lowercase since, as one could see by simply viewing the variety of its visitors, there's more emphasis on the "consumption" part of the museum than the "health" part.). This museum, once again, had the curator's name out front--supposedly French, pronounced something like "Crojere..."
The MACh isn't quite as fascinating as the MACE, but it still held my interest. Its displays were somewhat odd, though--the section on garden delicacies wasn't much of a garden--all the displayed species were already in baskets and such. And there was supposedly a sea-life section, but it wasn't the aquarium I was expecting--all the fish had, instead, already been cut-up for what I can only assume was study. I much prefer a swimming fish to a dissected one, though. They even stuffed King Crabs into cardboard boxes and placed them in freezers! How are you supposed to enjoy them that way?! No, the MACh was quite disappointing.
One interesting thing about both museums, however: Everything had a price on it. Apparently it is common policy in these museums that anyone can purchase these artifacts of culture and consumption for their own household. And it seems, also, that they constantly restock these artifacts...fascinating, really! I was quite pleased to approach these places from such a perspective--most people just call it "going to the store", but museums are much more interesting.

What I've Been Trying to Say (and Learn)

Sometimes, the ideas we are trying to convey are best put by someone else. Indeed, often the truths we run across have already been said in the best way before we ever run across them:

"The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose."

--C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity

Mr. Melsterhoyle

Picture Mr. Melsterhoyle sitting timidly,
On the bench in Mervin Park by the gentle Whisper Sea.
He’s milking dry the moment of a dawn that dons a smile,
But the bench is all his own, all alone beneath the tree.

He’s waiting for the baiting of the line of Mr. Kyle,
Who walks the shores each morn, whistling briskly all the while,
And Mr. Melsterhoyle, whose secrets keep him there,
Just watches from a distance keeping low on his profile.

He wears a tilted bowler cap which messes up his hair,
And as Mr. Kyle makes his way, he sits and sulks and stares,
“I wish that I could fish,” says the man upon the bench,
But instead he just remains and whispers low, “It isn’t fair.”

Poor old Mr. Melsterhoyle, unmoving as a wrench,
Doesn’t seem to realize his nightmare needs a pinch:
A touch of get-up-go just to lift him to his feet,
But he’s settled for the metal of a rusting musty bench.

Mr. Kyle whistles as the thistles bob the beat,
And he has secrets too, but he doesn’t see defeat,
Instead he fishes with his friends and wishes them quite well,
But poor ol' Mr. Melsterhoyle's missing life himself.

The Furbus Pretzel: Conclusions

"Where are we now?" asked Norman.
Mr. Burton-the-sequel replied: "We're back in the present--about 24 hours after you saw Mr. Furbus disappear."
"How do you know that?" asked Marcus.
"I know things," he replied.
"That means I know things, too!" replied the original Mr. Burton. And the two Mr. Burtons proceeded to mimic one another. "Copycat!" yelled the first. "Nu-uh! You're the copy-cat!" yelled the other.
"We've got to go get Dr. Pea back," said Marcus, "It seems there's enough Xenon in the time machine for one more trip...hm...I'd better go get some more Xenon for getting back to the present." Marcus ran off.
At that moment, the UFO that Norman had seen carrying Herb away came hovering through the sky, halting a few yards away in the air. Two beams of light shot to the ground, and down them descended A purple alien, a green alien in a pink cape, a young girl (who was the same species as Herb, apparently), and...HERB HIMSELF!!!
"It's Herb!" yelled Norman in delight.
"I knew this was going to happen." said Mr. Burton 2.
Norman eyed him suspiciously, "How did you--"
"I'm quite beside myself!" shouted Mr. Burton 1.
Norman ignored him and turned back to his elderly friend. "Herb, where have you been!?" he asked.
"Heh?" replied the recently returned Herb, "Oh, you mean the OOF-OH?"
"The what? Oh, the U-F-O...uh, yeah!?"
At that moment, the alien in the pink cape jumped forward and said, "Greetings, people of Dot. I am Captain Myghxz [pronounced MIKES], and this is my first mate, Ezz," he motioned to the fascinated looking purple alien, "we apologize for borrowing your friend so suddenly, but it just so happens that he was a part of one of our experiments."
"Experiments!" Norman said, "so you guys are the ones who brought him as a baby!"
"Yes," replied the purple alien, "we wanted to see how he'd do on your planet, but we forgot to give him a mate back then. So we returned to Earth and had Herb pick one out." He pointed to the young girl next to Captain Myghxz. Norman moved to Herb and said, "Isn't she a bit too young for you?"
Herb took Norman by the arm and brought him over to the girl. "Well, she is only 19, but...Norman, I'd like to introduce you to my future wife, Mary Lee!" Norman looked puzzled, "Future wife...?"
Jessie spoke up, "Mary Lee!?" She walked over to her. "I know you have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'd like to thank you for saving my life." Mary looked at her a bit confused, but still smiled. Suddenly, Mr. Burton 2 yelled, "I'm on it, Herb," ran forward, grabbed Mary Lee, jumped into the time machine, and the two of them vanished into a time portal. The original Mr. Burton giggled.
"Herb put his arm around Norman, and said, "See, on my 19th birthday, I met Dr. Pea. Now, you may ask what Dr. Pea was doing in the year 1933, but he told me the whole story about his travels. Seems he was stuck in the past and, in trying to get back to the time he was from, he only made it forward in time 19 years. Well, I was especially lonely that day--everyone in the world was different than me. So I decided who better to confide in than a scientist from the future? I told him that if a human girl my age showed up at that instant, I'd probably marry her. He chuckled and said if that did happen, he could marry us--he'd been ordained a minister in his younger years. Well, if memory serves correctly..."
At that moment, a flash occurred. Norman watched as an elderly version of Mary Lee appeared next to Herb. He finished his sentence, "...that's exactly what happened." ("Oh, so that's how the other me knew all that," said Mr. Burton, thinking...)
Suddenly, another time portal opened, and out came Mr. Burton 2 and Dr. Pea. Dr. Pea was holding a metal canister of Xenon and a piece of paper. "I've got it right here!" he yelled happily, "The marriage certificate!"
"We've been waiting 58 years to get that thing back," said Mrs. Mary Lee Furbus. Herb turned to his wife and kissed her on the cheek. And to everyone else, they remembered Mrs. Mary Lee like she'd always been there because, in fact, she had always been there.
Ezz (who had been trying to make snow angels with Mr. Burton and Mr. Burton, despite the lack of snow) suddenly let out a startled "Oh my!" and ran over to Captain Myghxz. "Captain, I forgot to mention--as we were traveling through the worm hole from Earth to here, the space worm to whom the hole belonged apparently materialized on our ship. I think he's still on board--"
The ship burst apart as a gigantic, sharp-toothed, monster-of-a-worm broke through the hull. "Our spaceship!" yelled Captain Myghxz. Everyone watched as it happened--the original Mr. Burton yelled at the space worm, grabbed the canister out of Dr. Pea's hands, and hopped in the time machine. "There I go to save the day!" yelled Mr. Burton 2 as the original Mr. Burton vanished into July 5, 2009 with the worm close behind him. And all was silent. "Well, it was fun having a time clone while it lasted," said Mr. Burton 2, who was, in fact, Mr. Burton himself. "Time pretzels are so much fun!"
Marcus walked up at this moment. "Norman, your lawn gnome has..." but he trailed off, seeing the time machine gone, the other Mr. Burton absent, and the alien spacecraft lying wrecked on the ground. "What just happened?"
"Well," said Dr. Myghxz looking at his wrecked ship with a sigh, "I suppose we could just remain here and study these Dot-people." He began eyeing Dr. Pea.
"I have a new alien buddy!!" said Mr. Burton and Ezz in unison. Norman turned to Jessie and smiled. Jessie took his hand.
And with that, Mr. and Mrs. Furbus kissed under the half-moon, their friends of variety looking on.
Some might see an elderly kiss as a somewhat gross thing.
I say it's love.