Life in Eden--a work of fiction

Eden was a 41-year-old woman, who stopped growing at the age of 10, and therefore, depending on who was doing the looking, looked no older. This would come in handy when she wanted to get into Disneyland, or a movie perhaps, passing as a child to save money.

She was as wide as she was tall,  looking a bit like a ball, or one of the oompa loompas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka). 

Nevertheless, cute as a bug. Honest.

When she was born, the doctor said, "What's with those creased toes!"

It's true, Eden had (and still has) creases where her toe-knuckles should be, one of her many endearing anomalies.  In response to the doctor, her mom said, "No worries.  It's just the Hobbit in her.  Her father's a Hobbit you know".

Her real father may have been a Hobbit, but Eden was raised by a substitute father (SF), who agreed to take on the challenge, provided that Eden go to Harvard, get straight A's, and never marry.

Rebel that she was, Eden did marry at age 27 (she looked like an 8-year-old at the time). She didn't go to Harvard, and she most certainly didn't get straight A's. Still SF remained loyal.

The man Eden married, a giant named Bruce, liked to go by the nicknames Thor, or Darth Vader.

With Bruce/Thor/Darth Vader being tall, and Eden..well..not being tall..people would sometimes joke that Bruce and Eden liked to "play Gulliver", a reference to Gulliver's Travels, when in truth, they liked to pretend they were Rocky and Bullwinkle, with Eden as the plucky squirrel, and Bruce, as the moose:

moose: Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of hat!

squirrel:  Again! That trick never works!

Had they had a biological child, the mind boggles as to what Bruce and Eden could have produced, a baby with antlers and a bushy tail perhaps. Instead, they adopted a baby from the planet Austin.  The planet Austin has two moons and five rings. Everyone on the planet mews like a cat, and wears their underwear backwards.  It costs $12,000 to visit the planet, and once there, you may or may not get to leave.

Bruce and Eden did get to leave with a male Austinling, who answered to several names including:  Bubs, Foofer, and The Bird.  Interestingly, The Bird's first teeth were his canines, but hey, his toes weren't creased.

Before becoming a mom, Eden worked in radio and television for seven years, booking guests and writing scripts. Bruce/Thor/Darth Vader managed software developers that he called "clones." When The Bird came into their lives, it was time for a change.  Eden took a job with family friendly hours. Meantime, The Bird was placed in a learning center called "Lord of the Flies".

The Bird protested, and eventually Eden decided to become a full-time Mama Bird. Little did she know that she would soon need a lobotomy.

Every once in awhile, Eden's body would jerk like Doctor Strangelove.  After much deliberation, doctor's declared that Eden's brain was another endearing anomaly--so endearing in fact--that they wanted it for medical experiments, so a right-frontal lobotomy was performed. Surprisingly, this changed Eden for the better, as afterwards she was able to actually understand the book Gravity's Rainbow. However, she couldn't find her nose without Map Quest.

Eden's story inspired many others to get lobotomies, to see if they too, can come out on the other side as super-intelligent creatures. Unfortunately, only doctors in New York will perform the procedure for that purpose.

this post inspired by my cousin