Bianca Gerald Calamine, after getting a double Ph.D. in Neonanophysics and Old English, had three nervous breakdowns and gently retired to a woodsy cabin somewhat eastnortheast of Minneapolis. There she gave birth to herself and wrote four very short stories: Quaff Quail, Sisters of Wonderland, Fred and the Lost Penis, and The Mantis, the Bedbug, and the Spider.
The Secular Sadoo is pleased to present these four little jewels of innocence during Proper of Saints interludes, in whatever installments please it. We begin with Quaff Quail in its entirety.
Quaff Quail
One day Quaff Quail, unexpectedly, was made god of the turnips. Quaff immediately went out and began doing the sorts of things she thought gods were supposed to do—she went to Mexico and drank lime margaritas and married a Mexican mojito. But the turnips did not want a god like this and said so—
Quaff, they said, We like you. You’re one of the better gods we’ve had. But you’re not behaving the way you’re supposed to.
So Quaff crossed the Atlantic and went to India. There she met with fennies and drank largish mugs of neera hadia and married a Chuak Chhaang or two. But the turnips were displeased and said to Quaff— We like you. You’re a decent sort of god. But you’re not behaving the way we expect you to behave.
So Quaff parted the monsoons and headed southeast to Thailand in a haberdasher’s cart. She sat underneath a Sang Som tree and bathed in satho juice and married three Mekhong whiskeys, who dumped her for a bowl of curried cat. But the turnips hummed and hawed and said to Quaff— We like you. You’re kind of all right, for a god. But we’re not satisfied and you have work to do.
So Quaff said to herself, Quails are strange and gods are stranger but turnips are the strangest of them all. So she headed through heat and insects to the dark cloudy passages of the north and found herself in Hotel Gulden Draak in Antwerp, where five beautiful Westvleterens passed her by while she swam in the Rochefort Sea and ducks were snow shovels and flowers were a song.
But the turnips waved their little pointy bottoms and said to Quaff— We still like you. We don’t know why. When we consider all the jots and tittles of all the gods in all of time and not, you’re not unwelcome. But you don’t quite get it and you need to get it.
So Quaff took the long watery road to Columbia and spoke with whales and did the chichi. She slept on aguardiente beds and married twelve cañelazos, only one of whom sort of kind of liked her. But the turnips read in strange turnipy voices from the ancient books and did not refrain from riddles and said to Quaff— The way was not what is and blue is green and twelve are sometimes one but gods are puzzled dark.
So Quaff rented a bicycle and, after many disasters and hullabaloos, arrived in The Republic of Newfoundland, where it was cold. She screeched and she screeched and she screeched, night after stormy night, day after windy day, night after stormy night, day after windy day, and she married an old fisherman who smelled of cod and curses and something like the beginning of the world. They moved into a shack together and things could have been worse. But the turnips twirled around like dervishes and said to Quaff— We like you, maybe even a lot. We’ve told you time and time again that you belong where you belong. But what has to happen isn’t happening and that means something.
So Quaff shrugged her weird shoulders, breathed a very deep breath, left the fisherman and went across and through and down until she eventually passed signs that read—
Welcome (maybe) to Atlantis
and
Where did you “come” from?
And “Why”?
Immediately, a forced mistletoe tried to eat her and some willow night chained her mightily for almost forever and she fell in love with a magenta speckled fuzzypuss. She might have stayed there for a long long time, but the turnips gathered all the force of their turnipness and said to Quaff— This is it. We love you. We’ve told you over and over that you’re a good god, maybe even a great one, but you’re not doing things right. You have to change and you have to change now and the time to change is now.
But Quaff said, Look you turnips. You turnips, you. I’ve tried to be the best god I can be and you don’t like it. I can’t go back to just being a quail again. What do I do?
Well, said the turnips, you can become a turnip.
So Quaff became a turnip and that was that.
