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As I stood on the stage with members of the press starring up at me, I was sure that they would think I was mad. My boast was a bold one, a source of power to replace fossil fuels, but I had the evidence to back it, I’d driven there in my special car using it.
Questions rained down on me before I had a chance to start the presentation, a mess of mixed voices, an incomprehensible babble.
“If we can hold the questions until the end please” I said, holding my hands in the air, reminding myself of a helpless headmaster trying to quieten down a bunch of kids. The noise levelled of to a murmur, and I hit the button to start the show.
My home-movie was a crude piece of work, and I could hear laughs in the audience, as they watched me driving my car around a car park. The laughing stopped as I got out of the car, and reached to open the bonnet, until I pressed the pause button to a roar of disapproval.
“What you are about to see, you will not believe, but I guarantee, it is one-hundred percent genuine. That very car you see on the screen is, indirectly, powered by these” I said as I pulled my hand from my pocket. I held it out to the audience and slowly opened it, revealing a handful of sesame seeds.
“I think we’re all aware of cars powered by engine oil, Einstein” said a smarmy journalist from the front row, looking around for approval from the rest of the audience, who gave a chuckle before throwing more questions at me.
I ignored them all and pressed play. As the bonnet opened the laughter stopped, and the amazed gasps begun - on the screen was a hamster cage and a series of cogs.
I spent the next hour or so on stage talking through the system of hamster power – how they generated vats amounts of energy with their daily routine, and how it could be stored easily and reused to power anything, from a car to any household appliance. How their faeces could be burned to create a secondary power source. How with a decent supply of sesame seeds and plenty of love a household pet could change the world.
The tone of the whole event changed, not longer was I there to be ridiculed, but to be respected. The line of questioned changed form mocking to curious – apart from a fool from one of the tabloids who asked whether this would put the hamsters in a position where they had us over a barrel, they could stop producing power and hold us to ransom until they were elevated to the position of the planets superior species.
What I didn’t tell them though, is how I came to learn this secret and develop it from theory to working model.
A pounding at the door late one night woke me from a troubled sleep.
“Oi, Andy, open up!” I heard a shout from out the front. As I threw on my tatty dressing-gown I managed to place it as Frankie’s voice, a mate of mine that had been visiting frequently since he left the army. This may have been deemed acceptable behaviour in barracks (though I doubted it) but I was going to reassure him that popping over at midnight wasn’t on at Chez Andy.
I pulled open the door, but before I had a chance to speak Frankie barged past me. He was soaking wet and reeked of alcohol “where is he?” he slurred.
“Who?” I asked, confused.
“That bloody rat of yours, that’s who!”
“Buddy?” I asked. I was even more bewildered, and could only think of my little hamster.
“Yeah, that’s the one. I’m gonna pull ‘im inside out.”
“Hey now, what’s brought this on? What’s Buddy ever done to you?”
“Horse in Boots my eye, I had a bloody fortune on that nag!”
“You what?” I asked, wondering if this was part of some bizarre dream.
“I put everything on it, every last penny!” he said as the rage seemed to pass, and he drifted into that weepy faze that drunks so often go through.
“How about I make you a coffee, mate, and we can get to the bottom of this. “ I said, desperately feeling the need for one myself.
After making a couple of drinks I sat at the table beside Frankie, before pulling it back to sit across the room from his after my nostrils got a whiff of him.
“So what’s Buddy got to do with it then?” I asked, looking across to the cage at him asleep under a pile of shredded newspaper.
“Hah, you haven’t noticed, have you?” laughed Frankie, seemingly passing through another faze.
“Noticed what?”
“All that pulling on the bars and nibbling the tube - he’s been trying to talk to you” he said as he took a swig of his coffee.
“You what?”
“Morse-code my friend. I noticed it first time I came here, the bars for the dots, the tube for the dashes.”
“Hey?” I said as I scratched my head and approached the cage.
“He told me he needed fresh water.”
“Oh yeah, I thought it was odd when you said that, big army bloke like yourself coming over all sensitive and caring.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Frankie, and for a moment I was worried he’d return to the angry faze again.
“Never mind, I still don’t see what this has to do with horse racing?”
“Well, as a thank you for getting his water changed, he gave me a tip. I put a few quid on it, and the little beauty came in.”
“Yes” I said as I peered into the cage at Buddy “but how would this little guy know who was going to win.”
“The form guide in the newspaper - he reads his bedding to help get to sleep.”
“Right” I said in disbelief, thinking that too many orders barked in his ear by some crazy sergeant had driven him crazy. That said, I did have to look out for Buddy’s interests, this may have been nutty-talk, but I didn’t want it to end up with the separation of the inside from the outside of poor Buddy.
“Even the best of tipsters get it wrong sometimes mate. Gambling’s a mug’s game; you’ve said it before yourself.” I said as I placed a friendly hand on Frankie’s back.
“Yeah mate, you’re right. You’re a good mate, you know” he said, briefly stopping at the over-friendly station on his way to passing out with a thud as his head hit the table.
I thought it was best to leave him there for the night – but I wasn’t leaving Buddy alone with him, and carried the cage into my room, sealing the door with a wardrobe to assure our safety.
I tried to get back to sleep, but the constant rattling and gnawing put paid to that idea. There did seem to be a certain rhythm to it though, and I was starting to believe what Frankie had told me.
When morning came I waited for Frankie to stumble out. No doubt he would have woken and not known exactly where he was so made his way out to try to find his own bed.
I made my way straight to the library and tried to take out a book on Morse-code. Of course, my library card had expired, and I’d need to provide form of ID before I could get a new one. I decided the bookshop would be a better idea, and even though funds were short, I did manage to find something in my budget.
I dashed back home, and sat with Buddy in his cage on the table, waiting for something to happen. He ran around his cage a bit, hopped in his wheel, span it round a bit, and went for a drink. He took a couple of sips, then came to the cage for a nibble. He was turning from the cage to one of the tubes regularly, and I noted down the sequence. I looked at the book, and after a good half and hour or so there it was “FRESH WATER PLEASE”. I shot up and unscrewed the bottle, the last of the water inside trickling down my arm. He was right – it felt warm and did need freshening up. I replaced it right away, and waited for something else. He took a sip and returned to the front of the cage to gnaw away again. Later I translated it “GOT ANY EVIAN”.
“Sorry Buddy” I said as he looked up at me “Money’s a bit tight for bottled water at the moment. Anything else I can do for you?”
Buddy seemed to think about it for a while, going off to eat some food, and playing around in his bedding before he returned for a lengthy gnawing session. I returned to my book and deciphered the message as “BETTER PAPER WOULD BE NICE NEWS PRINT RUBS OFF ON ME”
I looked around the flat for something suitable. I couldn’t use my notepad, as I needed somewhere to write the messages, but I did find something – an electricity bill. It’s not like I was able to pay it on the first request anyway. It turns out it was the best thing I could have found.
A few hours after putting the paper in Buddy had a message for me, and a long one too. I found I was getting to know some of the main letters but it was still a lengthy process. “DON’T PAY FOR ELECTRIC. BUY ME EVIAN ILL TELL MORE.”
I guess it had been a bad idea to put a newspaper in the cage with so many adverts in, but I was intrigued by what Buddy could tell me, so I went ahead and bought some.
Over the next couple of days his plan was revealed to me. I could attach his wheel to a dynamo and build my own generator. He helped me to finance it with a few tips on the races. I know I said it was a mugs game, but we were careful, never betting more than we could afford to lose. Luckily for us, he was more often right than wrong, and within just a few months the house was being powered entirely by Buddy. He was happy too, as I’d been able to upgrade to a deluxe cage with penthouse and maze. Not only that he only ate the finest food and drank the purest water.
This whole thing with the car was his idea. He said it would be give hamsters a chance to see a bit of the world. Not only that, he’d seen a pamphlet that I’d been given by some girl on the streets about the evils of the big oil producing companies. He was always so easily influenced by what he read – especially if it was in an impressive font. In fact, he turned quite the Eco-warrior for a while, always telling me to recycle.
Anyway, we got the car built over a couple of months, but during that time I knew something was wrong. Buddy was losing weight, and was generating less power. I often asked him what was up, but he always encouraged me to push on with the project, to get it finished.
In the last days Buddy barely moved at all, but he was a stubborn sod, and refused to let me take him to the vets. He insisted that he was saving energy for the maiden voyage. When the time came to put him in the car cage he was a legend, running in the wheel as fast as I’d ever seen them, getting the power into the cells in record time. He gnawed away to tell me start, and squealed with delight as we set off into the country. The car ran smoothly, and even after an hour the cells were still high. We returned home to celebrate the success of our invention, and as I placed Buddy inside his cage he gnawed on the bars and the plastic for a final time. As I was translating the message he passed away, his final words “THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN ME REPLACE ME CONTINUE MY WORK.
So that, little Hammy, is the reason I’m telling you all of this. Will you work with me?
Questions rained down on me before I had a chance to start the presentation, a mess of mixed voices, an incomprehensible babble.
“If we can hold the questions until the end please” I said, holding my hands in the air, reminding myself of a helpless headmaster trying to quieten down a bunch of kids. The noise levelled of to a murmur, and I hit the button to start the show.
My home-movie was a crude piece of work, and I could hear laughs in the audience, as they watched me driving my car around a car park. The laughing stopped as I got out of the car, and reached to open the bonnet, until I pressed the pause button to a roar of disapproval.
“What you are about to see, you will not believe, but I guarantee, it is one-hundred percent genuine. That very car you see on the screen is, indirectly, powered by these” I said as I pulled my hand from my pocket. I held it out to the audience and slowly opened it, revealing a handful of sesame seeds.
“I think we’re all aware of cars powered by engine oil, Einstein” said a smarmy journalist from the front row, looking around for approval from the rest of the audience, who gave a chuckle before throwing more questions at me.
I ignored them all and pressed play. As the bonnet opened the laughter stopped, and the amazed gasps begun - on the screen was a hamster cage and a series of cogs.
I spent the next hour or so on stage talking through the system of hamster power – how they generated vats amounts of energy with their daily routine, and how it could be stored easily and reused to power anything, from a car to any household appliance. How their faeces could be burned to create a secondary power source. How with a decent supply of sesame seeds and plenty of love a household pet could change the world.
The tone of the whole event changed, not longer was I there to be ridiculed, but to be respected. The line of questioned changed form mocking to curious – apart from a fool from one of the tabloids who asked whether this would put the hamsters in a position where they had us over a barrel, they could stop producing power and hold us to ransom until they were elevated to the position of the planets superior species.
What I didn’t tell them though, is how I came to learn this secret and develop it from theory to working model.
A pounding at the door late one night woke me from a troubled sleep.
“Oi, Andy, open up!” I heard a shout from out the front. As I threw on my tatty dressing-gown I managed to place it as Frankie’s voice, a mate of mine that had been visiting frequently since he left the army. This may have been deemed acceptable behaviour in barracks (though I doubted it) but I was going to reassure him that popping over at midnight wasn’t on at Chez Andy.
I pulled open the door, but before I had a chance to speak Frankie barged past me. He was soaking wet and reeked of alcohol “where is he?” he slurred.
“Who?” I asked, confused.
“That bloody rat of yours, that’s who!”
“Buddy?” I asked. I was even more bewildered, and could only think of my little hamster.
“Yeah, that’s the one. I’m gonna pull ‘im inside out.”
“Hey now, what’s brought this on? What’s Buddy ever done to you?”
“Horse in Boots my eye, I had a bloody fortune on that nag!”
“You what?” I asked, wondering if this was part of some bizarre dream.
“I put everything on it, every last penny!” he said as the rage seemed to pass, and he drifted into that weepy faze that drunks so often go through.
“How about I make you a coffee, mate, and we can get to the bottom of this. “ I said, desperately feeling the need for one myself.
After making a couple of drinks I sat at the table beside Frankie, before pulling it back to sit across the room from his after my nostrils got a whiff of him.
“So what’s Buddy got to do with it then?” I asked, looking across to the cage at him asleep under a pile of shredded newspaper.
“Hah, you haven’t noticed, have you?” laughed Frankie, seemingly passing through another faze.
“Noticed what?”
“All that pulling on the bars and nibbling the tube - he’s been trying to talk to you” he said as he took a swig of his coffee.
“You what?”
“Morse-code my friend. I noticed it first time I came here, the bars for the dots, the tube for the dashes.”
“Hey?” I said as I scratched my head and approached the cage.
“He told me he needed fresh water.”
“Oh yeah, I thought it was odd when you said that, big army bloke like yourself coming over all sensitive and caring.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Frankie, and for a moment I was worried he’d return to the angry faze again.
“Never mind, I still don’t see what this has to do with horse racing?”
“Well, as a thank you for getting his water changed, he gave me a tip. I put a few quid on it, and the little beauty came in.”
“Yes” I said as I peered into the cage at Buddy “but how would this little guy know who was going to win.”
“The form guide in the newspaper - he reads his bedding to help get to sleep.”
“Right” I said in disbelief, thinking that too many orders barked in his ear by some crazy sergeant had driven him crazy. That said, I did have to look out for Buddy’s interests, this may have been nutty-talk, but I didn’t want it to end up with the separation of the inside from the outside of poor Buddy.
“Even the best of tipsters get it wrong sometimes mate. Gambling’s a mug’s game; you’ve said it before yourself.” I said as I placed a friendly hand on Frankie’s back.
“Yeah mate, you’re right. You’re a good mate, you know” he said, briefly stopping at the over-friendly station on his way to passing out with a thud as his head hit the table.
I thought it was best to leave him there for the night – but I wasn’t leaving Buddy alone with him, and carried the cage into my room, sealing the door with a wardrobe to assure our safety.
I tried to get back to sleep, but the constant rattling and gnawing put paid to that idea. There did seem to be a certain rhythm to it though, and I was starting to believe what Frankie had told me.
When morning came I waited for Frankie to stumble out. No doubt he would have woken and not known exactly where he was so made his way out to try to find his own bed.
I made my way straight to the library and tried to take out a book on Morse-code. Of course, my library card had expired, and I’d need to provide form of ID before I could get a new one. I decided the bookshop would be a better idea, and even though funds were short, I did manage to find something in my budget.
I dashed back home, and sat with Buddy in his cage on the table, waiting for something to happen. He ran around his cage a bit, hopped in his wheel, span it round a bit, and went for a drink. He took a couple of sips, then came to the cage for a nibble. He was turning from the cage to one of the tubes regularly, and I noted down the sequence. I looked at the book, and after a good half and hour or so there it was “FRESH WATER PLEASE”. I shot up and unscrewed the bottle, the last of the water inside trickling down my arm. He was right – it felt warm and did need freshening up. I replaced it right away, and waited for something else. He took a sip and returned to the front of the cage to gnaw away again. Later I translated it “GOT ANY EVIAN”.
“Sorry Buddy” I said as he looked up at me “Money’s a bit tight for bottled water at the moment. Anything else I can do for you?”
Buddy seemed to think about it for a while, going off to eat some food, and playing around in his bedding before he returned for a lengthy gnawing session. I returned to my book and deciphered the message as “BETTER PAPER WOULD BE NICE NEWS PRINT RUBS OFF ON ME”
I looked around the flat for something suitable. I couldn’t use my notepad, as I needed somewhere to write the messages, but I did find something – an electricity bill. It’s not like I was able to pay it on the first request anyway. It turns out it was the best thing I could have found.
A few hours after putting the paper in Buddy had a message for me, and a long one too. I found I was getting to know some of the main letters but it was still a lengthy process. “DON’T PAY FOR ELECTRIC. BUY ME EVIAN ILL TELL MORE.”
I guess it had been a bad idea to put a newspaper in the cage with so many adverts in, but I was intrigued by what Buddy could tell me, so I went ahead and bought some.
Over the next couple of days his plan was revealed to me. I could attach his wheel to a dynamo and build my own generator. He helped me to finance it with a few tips on the races. I know I said it was a mugs game, but we were careful, never betting more than we could afford to lose. Luckily for us, he was more often right than wrong, and within just a few months the house was being powered entirely by Buddy. He was happy too, as I’d been able to upgrade to a deluxe cage with penthouse and maze. Not only that he only ate the finest food and drank the purest water.
This whole thing with the car was his idea. He said it would be give hamsters a chance to see a bit of the world. Not only that, he’d seen a pamphlet that I’d been given by some girl on the streets about the evils of the big oil producing companies. He was always so easily influenced by what he read – especially if it was in an impressive font. In fact, he turned quite the Eco-warrior for a while, always telling me to recycle.
Anyway, we got the car built over a couple of months, but during that time I knew something was wrong. Buddy was losing weight, and was generating less power. I often asked him what was up, but he always encouraged me to push on with the project, to get it finished.
In the last days Buddy barely moved at all, but he was a stubborn sod, and refused to let me take him to the vets. He insisted that he was saving energy for the maiden voyage. When the time came to put him in the car cage he was a legend, running in the wheel as fast as I’d ever seen them, getting the power into the cells in record time. He gnawed away to tell me start, and squealed with delight as we set off into the country. The car ran smoothly, and even after an hour the cells were still high. We returned home to celebrate the success of our invention, and as I placed Buddy inside his cage he gnawed on the bars and the plastic for a final time. As I was translating the message he passed away, his final words “THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN ME REPLACE ME CONTINUE MY WORK.
So that, little Hammy, is the reason I’m telling you all of this. Will you work with me?
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I just read it again. It's nice to have something that is so original for a change and overall genius.
Absolutely awesome.
I read this while listening to Clair De Lune by Debussy, which just made it all so more pleasureable. And at LAST someone uses their imagination! Thank you Meka.
Winnar!
I read this while listening to Clair De Lune by Debussy, which just made it all so more pleasureable. And at LAST someone uses their imagination! Thank you Meka.
Winnar!
I skim read this and well, what can I say. Genius. Can't say anything more :) Great stuff.
UW.
UW.
Thanks for enjoying it. I think the car would need a glass front to see out of - I'll add that.
Sorry about the typos, I'll tackle those in a min...
Sorry about the typos, I'll tackle those in a min...
Aww, cute but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the hamster that is stuck under the bonnet of a car. Can't see much of the world from there.
Fabulous imagination, well written (tuts at spelling mistakes:)) and a pleasure, as always, to read.
Fabulous imagination, well written (tuts at spelling mistakes:)) and a pleasure, as always, to read.
I really did enjoy it though, it was "fanciful" (man I love that word).
You have a beautiful mind, much like Roald Dahl - who incidentally has a beautiful daughter too.
You have a beautiful mind, much like Roald Dahl - who incidentally has a beautiful daughter too.
Thanks for the comments. Noticed a few minor details could do with being tidied up, which I may tackle later.
Thanks for pointing out the typo's Paradox. Really should have printed it out to have a look pre-posting. I'll look at the start with the conference again, I was hoping to keep that bit short, wrap it up there, and go on to tell the back-story.
Thanks for pointing out the typo's Paradox. Really should have printed it out to have a look pre-posting. I'll look at the start with the conference again, I was hoping to keep that bit short, wrap it up there, and go on to tell the back-story.
I liked the story muchly, the childlike tale of humans and animals communicating was very welcomed, and the piece blended together beautifully down to the smallest details like the army guy being able to understand morse code, yada yada yada.
You never returned to the conference thing at the start, as I thought you would - which sort of felt a little incomplete - though the ending was great.
You'll win the contest this time I'm rather sure.
You never returned to the conference thing at the start, as I thought you would - which sort of felt a little incomplete - though the ending was great.
You'll win the contest this time I'm rather sure.
Meka Dragon wrote:
>how they generated vats amounts of energy with their daily routine
Vast, not vats
> He said it would be give hamsters a chance
be give, huh?
>how they generated vats amounts of energy with their daily routine
Vast, not vats
> He said it would be give hamsters a chance
be give, huh?
Make it a movie!!!!
But NO crap game-version!!!!
But NO crap game-version!!!!
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