Game 2Game 2 Outline| Game 2 |
Game 2 Outline |
"What makes you think my left hind foot can write?" you ask the squirrel.
"Shush," he says, "It's writing."
And while it's a bit hard to see down back there, sure enough, you can feel your own left hind foot writing on the notepad the squirredl is holding up, with the pen your left hind foot is holding between its big toe and its second toe. How odd to feel your own foot moving of its own accord!
"What's it writing?" you ask the squirrel.
"It's hard to read," the squirrel answers.
"No wonder," you think aloud. "I didn't think I could write with any of my feet, especially my hind feet."
Then you ask the squirrel: "Do you think I'm right-hind-footed?"
"Six," the squirrel says.
You pause, confused. That doesn't make sense. You think the squirrel might not have understood your question, so you ask it again.
"Six," the squirrel says, sounding a little annoyed with you. "It doesn't matter whether you're right-hind-footed or left-hind-footed, because your left hind foot already wrote its message. The message is the number six. You know, 6."
The squirrel brings the pad around so you can see it, to prove what he's saying. Sure enough, it's barely discernible as a 6. It's wildly scrawled, and the top point of the six goes right off the page. It looks like it was drawn with someone's foot. Of course, it was - with your foot. Your left hind foot.
"I bet I'm right-hind-footed," you think to yourself, but you accidentally say it aloud. This earns you another kick in the back of your front shin, appropriately enough, from the right hind foot. The left hind foot still has the pencil stuck between its big toe and second toe. Probably would have hurt more to be kicked by it, or might have hurt the foot to kick you while still holding a pencil, you muse to yourself, trying hard not to speak aloud, for fear of getting kicked again by your own hind feet.
"Don't you get it?" the squirrel asks, looking at you as if you had feet for brains. "It wants you to be six-footed."
"I am over six foot," you say; "I'm six foot five."
You feel the left hind foot drop the pencil and position itself to kick you, but the squirrel says "Wait!" and tries to mediate between you and your hind feet.
"You want him to have six feet, right?" the squirrel asks your hind feet. You feel your right hind foot point its big toe at the squirrel, shaking affirmatively. For extra good measure, your right hind foot touches the calve of your right foot and returns to its standing position, then your left hind foot touches the calve of your left front foot and returns to standing, then the right hind foot and the left hind foot touch each other in turn, then the right hind foot and the left hind foot reach back to touch an imaginary hind foot behind each of them.
"Clear enough?" the squirrel asks you.
"Why do my hind feet want me to have six feet?" you ask the squirrel. It's a logical question, you tell yourself.
"Can't you figure it out?" the squirrel sighs. "Here: imagine you were a pair of hind feet. You never get to be in front. You always bring up the rear. You're back there all by yourself. Obviously, your hind feet aren't happy in the back row. They want another pair of feet behind them, since they can't be the front feet."
"So what if I grow six feet and my hindmost feet don't like being hindmost?" you ask the squirrel. You are amazed to think that you're also asking this of your hind feet. How odd is that?
"Not a problem," the squirrel explains, as if everyone should understand the psychodynamics of multiple feet and their interrelationships.
"Why isn't it a problem?" you ask the squirrel. "I don't mean to ask so many stupid questions, but I had no idea that extra feet would have their own feelings about whether they're front feet, hind feet or hindmost feet."
"You've obviously got a lot to learn," the squirrel says patiently. "The hindmost position is a position that extra feet like. It's like being in the caboose of a train. You don't have that much work to do, since you and all the other feet share the load, which is lighter on the hind feet anyway, so you only have to push about one third as hard. But you get to be just as big and strong, since that's how extra legs are, because they're a perfect match for the front legs. And it's more fun, since there are two sets of hind legs, so they don't get so lonely back there, even if the guy doesn't see them most of the time. Is any of this making sense?"
The squirrel sounds a little irritated, but he's pleased with your answer.
"I can see where it makes sense. Okay. But no more kicking or messing me up. The last thing I need is to have my own feet out of control."
Suddenly, you feel a kind of wave pass throught you and you feel really good all over, especially your legs, and you shiver from head to toe to toe to toe, and let out a big sigh; no one has to tell you because you can feel it; you've got six legs. You look back. They're all just like your originals, handsome devils that they are. All six feet are just standing there. You realize that they're all yours. You wiggle the toes of each one of them; left front, right front, left middle, right middle, left rear, right rear.
You try a lame joke, to see if you'll get kicked: "I'm definitely a six-footer now!"
The squirrel winces.
You invite him to jump on for a ride, and he takes a place on your middle rump, and off you go on your six happy feet.
Written by P Johnson
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