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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

The call of the rutabaga.

Category: Issue 1, Short Story Winners

The call of the rutabaga.

Late at night when I am laying there trying to fall into some semblance of sleep I can hear the rutabagas calling. 

“What do they want”, I wonder out loud. (Being quiet so I do not disturb my sleep-deprived husband.) But no answer comes from that unholy vegetable.

I know that it’s the rutabagas, because the carrots have all died out.

During the War of the Turnips the rutabagas sided with the radishes, and they were known as a fierce and very bloodthirsty lot. The kale still speak of the villages in the Land of Rot where they arrived only to find that the rutabagas had already been through and left such a sight as shall never be seen again.

The kale are still haunted.

The rutabagas still call every night. I wonder what they want of me. Or, perhaps, it is not me that they are calling. But I hear them call.

I went to the grocery store once and saw a rutabaga sitting on the grocer’s shelf looking very innocent. Innocent until it got into that vegetable drawer, I’d bet!  The green beans in my basket shivered at the very thought of sharing a home with the dreaded rutabaga and I had to reassure them that they were safe. The turnips, of course, rolled around in anticipation, but I would never let them have a chance to rise up again. It’s the safest way.

If only humans would eat the rutabagas. I heard a tale once about a family of four in South Dakota who ate rutabagas. “Heroes!” I cried. “Saviors!”

But alas I learned it was untrue, no human has ever successfully eaten any of that evil vegetable. But think about this; they still sell it in the grocery store. It’s a part of the plot, you see.

I still hear the call, and I wonder if they are asking me to join them in their crusade.

The rutabagas have a new leader this year. He has been stirring up the rutabagas with religious fervor. Once they killed for pleasure, now they kill for God.

And I still hear the rutabagas call.

Posted by winona on 09/14 at 12:22 PM | Permalink
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