Bedtime Stories for Weird Kids: Zedula's Acolyte

One day the prophet of the goddess Krabbit brewed a pot of what we shall call tea. He—his name was Zedula—did this every day and so it’s only barely worth mentioning.

However, just after brewing the pot, someone knocked on his door so hard that the pot tipped over and spilled all over the floor.

Zedula said words which were, fortunately, forgotten.

He picked up the pot and poured the last drippings on the mud floor before starting another pot boiling.

Someone knocked again.

“Go away. No new messages from Krabbit today,” he shouted.

“Can I come in?” a voice said.

“Are you Zedula?”

The voice paused. “No.”

“Are you Krabbit?”

“No, most certainly not!”

“Well, then. You may not come in. Go away.”

The voice returned daily to disturb Zedula’s tea. Zedula developed excellent hand eye coordination and eventually saw the knocks as a sort of tea timer.

After a few weeks, Krabbit visited. She is invisible but showed herself to Zedula as an older Ztedot to Zedula to make their visits more pleasant.

“Hello, Krabbit,” he said. “Just in time for tea.”

Just then, Zedula’s tea timer knocked.

Krabbit’s eyes grew wide.

“Please put your eyes back the way they were,” Zedula said. “They’re quite disconcerting that way.”

Krabbit’s eyes returned to normal Ztedot size. “What was that?”

“Someone who keeps knocking on my door and demanding an audience.”

“Can I come in?”

“See? Exactly like that.”

“What do they want?”

“Well, in mostly. After that, I’m not sure.”

“Humor me?”

Zedula poured Krabbit and himself cups of tea and then shouted, “Oh, alright. Come in you gigantic butt rug.”

Krabbit maintained her composure. Mostly.

A youngish Ztedot walked in and promptly abased himself before Zedula. The Ztedot kneeled down and began chanting something which sounded suspiciously like, “Oh wise and powerful prophet of Krabbit.”

“Hey, now. You’ll set us off our tea if you keep that up,” Zedula said.

“I didn’t know you had company, prophet,” the Ztedot said. “I can come back tomorrow.”

“No, no. Please don’t. Besides, the only reason I let you in was because—uh, Karulo asked me to find out what you wanted.”

Krabbit smirked.

“I want to follow in your footsteps. To be your successor one day.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re doing it all wrong,” Zedula said.

“Please teach me. I’ll do anything you want.”

“What I want is for you to go away and stop knocking my tea over. It seems what I want and what you want are at irreconcilable odds.”

“I—I could make your tea!”

“That would take all the fun out of tea.”

Krabbit put a hand on Zedula’s arm.

“What?” he asked her.

“Let him study with you,” she said.

“But why? He’s the exact sort of person… Krabbit put me here to avoid dealing with.”

Krabbit froze the acolyte momentarily.

“It will blow his gasket a little too much to hear this too early. I think you’ll do a better job of teaching me to deal with the Ztedots if you have someone who treats you the same way they treat me,” she said.

“Oh, alright.”

Krabbit unfroze the acolyte.

“Ok, what’s your name?” Zedula asked.

“I’m Merrapput, oh holy one.”

“First lesson: never call me that or any of the other bizarre things you’ve been calling me. Krabbit calls me Zedula. You are no better than she is.”

Merrapput looked shocked. “I—”

Krabbit smiled. “I see you’re too busy today, Zedula. Tell my friends to prepare for a rough winter.”

“Good bye, lady friend of pr—Zedula,” Merrapput said.

“Good bye, Seedling.”

The next day Zedula addressed the Ztedots with Merrapput by his side.

“I have spoken,” Zedula said with sarcastic gravity, “With Krabbit. She says it will be a tough winter.”

Later, Merrapput asked Zedula when he’d spoken to Krabbit.

Zedula rubbed his head. He had the sneaking suspicion Merrapput was a little oblivious.

“You know Krabbit is invisible,” Zedula said. How do you know she’s not occasionally inaudible?”

#97

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Delayed Bedtime Story

Hey, y'all. I'm going to be late on a Bedtime Story this week. I got so caught up in my other projects that I forgot I hadn't yet written the next story in the Zedula series. I may skip this week depending on how the projects go.

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Bedtime Stories for Weird Kids: Zedula's Calling

Krabbit, goddess of the people once known as Seedlings, sent her creatures a warning: I’ll be visiting you all a week from Tuesday. As long as you’re not hurting each other, I don’t really care what you’re doing. However, if you’re going to be embarrassed by something, please don’t be doing it then as I’d rather you didn’t have any new hangups.

Naturally, all the Ztedots*—the Seedlings’ new name—gathered in the place where Krabbit had last been sighted.

* ze’dätz

Krabbit wandered her world for a bit and found the quiet somewhat disquieting. After a few minutes, she figured out where all her creatures had gone.

“Why are you all bunched up like this?” she asked.

“It seemed like a good idea,” one of the Ztedots nearish the edge said.

“And all of you are here?”

“Yes,” the Ztedots answered. “Except Zedula.”

“And why isn’t Zedula here?” Krabbit did not hope for a sensible answer. She sighed silently.

“He said he’d just put a pizza* in the oven,” said one Ztedot. “And it’d be a shame to waste it.”

* The meaning of this word has been lost. It is translated to a popular snack food in the locale of every translation. The translators argued between chicken nuggets and pizza. Pizza won out as it doesn’t necessarily require eating things that can suffer.

“But he had more than a week’s notice!”

Clearly, some of her people were irritated with this Zedula person.

“Alright. You all stay here. I must go speak with Zedula.”

Krabbit meandered through the clouds until she found a house with smoke coming from the chimney.

She entered the house. “Zedula?” she said.

“Who’s there? I don’t see anyone.”

“It’s me, Krabbit.”

“Oh, fancy you visiting my house.”

A bell dinged.

“Just a second,” Zedula said. He opened the oven and eyed the pizza for a moment. He sniffed three times and pulled the pizza onto the counter. “In another five minutes, it’ll be cool enough to eat! Mind if I sit?”

“No, by all means.”

Zedula pulled a chair out and sat in it. “So, what brings you to my house, goddess?”

“All your people said you’d refused to come, Ztedot.”

Zedula laughed. “‘Seedling’ is fine by me.”

“I think I will call you Zedula if you call me Krabbit.”

“Fine by me, Krabbit.”

“So, what brings you to your world today.”

“Your people seemed a little too quiet. I thought I’d check up on them.”

“A sensible precaution.”

“So, why didn’t you come to see me?”

“Well, you didn’t say to, and I couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing then standing around waiting for you to show up so I figured I’d probably make a pizza instead. Then everyone got really upset and I decided I definitely had to make a pizza instead.”

“Hm. Mind if I join you for pizza?”

“No, be my guest,” Zedula said.

Krabbit appeared as a middle-aged Ztedot and took a seat.

“Is that what you really look like?” Zedula asked.

“No, of course not. I look like what I looked like just before I looked like this.”

“Ah. Like nothing. I see.”

“I just figured it’d be less disconcerting to see a Ztedot eating pizza then to see a goddess eating pizza.”

“Possibly.”

---

The goddess Krabbit approached her weary followers. “Attention, Seedlings,” she announced.

The Ztedots grumbled at this.

“From now on, if I have something to say, I’ll say it through my prophet Zedula.”

The crowd was silent for a moment.

“Are you sure?”

“Isn’t there anyone better?”

“Do we ask him if we have any questions about how we should live?”

Krabbit breathed in deeply. “Yes, no, and maybe. Good day.”

Since the crowd couldn’t see Krabbit had gone, the Ztedots continued to plead for half an hour. Then, as they’d already waited four hours for her return from Zedula’s house, they went home.

And quite a few of them made pizza. It’d been on their minds all day.

This is the story of Krabbit’s first prophet, Zedula. He was appointed in the middle half of the third age of the Seedlings.

#78

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Seedlings

The little god of a little world in a place very far (though perhaps not so very far) from here planted seeds.

There was no such thing as male or female in those days. The god would one day be perceived as female, but back then the god was simply Krabbit.

Krabbit was neither wise nor powerful. Nothing new ever is and everything—everything—was new.

When the seeds Krabbit planted began to sprout, Krabbit went to take a nap. It was a short nap so far as gods are concerned, but very long for us or for the creatures that sprung from Krabbit’s seeds.

They learned to feed themselves, play games, and plant more Seedlings—the name they gave themselves—until all of Krabbit’s first world was filled with Seedlings.

After a very long time for Seedlings, the new Seedlings had slightly different appearances and ideas about the way things should be done. Some said Seedlings should only be planted by certain kinds of Seedlings. Others felt it was very wrong to water at particular times of day.

There was talk amongst the Seedlings of war. Those who were most concerned in one side or another went to talk to Krabbit. They yelled very loudly until Krabbit woke up.

“Yes,” the young god said to the seedlings, “What seems to be the problem? Do you need a bigger world or more types of creatures? Is the sky too green?”

“Oh great Krabbit. Nothing you do could ever be less than perfect—”

Krabbit doubted this very much.

“—We have questions.”

“Oh? Feel free to ask. Did you want to know how this world is held in the sky?”

The Seedling’s eyes grew wide. “Krabbit holds it there!” they said with reverence.

Krabbit laughed kindly. “No. That would get boring rather quickly. The concept is easy, but I’ll let you figure it out for yourselves since you’re disinterested at the moment. What is your question?”

“Oh great Krabbit, we need to know who should be allowed to plant Seedlings and when they should be watered and many other important things.”

“I don’t understand,” Krabbit said. “You seem to be making Seedlings quite well and none of you look too dry. What do you need my help for?”

“We need to know who is doing things wrong so we know who to be angry at.”

The sky broke out in great orange clouds and curly lines of light skittered across the clouds. Krabbit had not yet learned patience, but soon calmed and the ominous clouds and lightning subsided.

“You should be angry only at the people who hurt you or hurt others,” Krabbit said.

“And no one else?” the Seedlings asked.

“No one else!” the god boomed.

The Seedlings were very embarrassed. “Ok,” they said. They backed up from Krabbit slowly.

“Anything else?” Krabbit asked.

“No, no. That’s good.”

Krabbit rolled over and took a somewhat longer nap.

#65

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Endangered Species

“It’s the last place in the universe you can find them,” the guide said to the gathered crowd. “This once flourishing species inhabited the far stretches of what we have explored and now has been reduced to a small population in a habitat smaller than many nations.”

“What happened to them?” a serious looking fellow asked.

“It was us. We encroached on their territory and didn’t understand the important part they had to play in ecology.”

The crowd murmured and a woman spoke up. “Surely, that simply means they weren’t fit from an evolutionary perspective.”

Someone else piped up, “Oh please. They’re Krabbit’s creatures!”

“Yeah! Krabbit gave dominion to us.”

Things were getting out of hand. “Surely, Krabbit didn’t intend for us to destroy the creation she left us. Now, let’s continue our tour of the reserve.”

---

Grug saw the strange things from a distance. They were pale and somewhat greenish in color. He wasn’t entirely sure they were real. He SMSed a photo to his contact at The Chicago Tribune just in case.

#54

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