Chaos Theory

Periwinkle Chronicles, tales of the citizens of Periwinkle [because all the other colors were already taken] County:


The Rev. Dr. Randall Nathan, (Retard), which is how they pronounce retired in Periwinkle County, or at least that’s what they tell him, was in his usual booth at The Buddy Mutts Café, with three-year-old Clara Wembley at his side, since they won’t let you into Buddy Mutts without a dog, and in the process of borrowing Shingles from the Wembleys, he had somehow acquired Clara, since she still has not forgiven Shingles for stealing her blankie on Christmas eve of 2009, and doesn’t let him out of her sight, for fear that some good thing might happen to him, and also because the presence of Clara and Shingles would keep anyone from sitting with him, since everyone in Periwinkle County knows that where Clara and Shingles are, some good thing is not likely to happen, and if someone sat with him, he would lose points in the Hermudgeon of the Year competition, hermudgeon being a conflation of hermit and curmudgeon, when Ella Phant, the chairwoman of the PC GOP came in with her dog Flipflop, which has one fuchsia eye and one azure eye, and slipped into the booth across from him.

“Big day for you tomorrow,” said Randall, “what with the presidential primary, and all.”

“Yes, and we have to get the Santorum theory proved by tomorrow so everyone will know how to vote,” said Ella Phant. “That’s why Tippi Kanew, and Tyler, too, her son, are here to set up the dominoes.”

Just then Tippi Kanew, and Tyler, too, came in and started setting up a row of dominoes on the floor.

“The Santorum theory says that if you give people more freedom it always leads to something worse,” explained Ella Phant. “For instance, if gay marriage becomes legal, it will lead to legalized marriage with animals, just like one domino falls and hits the next one in line and eventually they all go down.”

“I thought marriage to animals was already legal,” said Gladys Freely, from the next booth, watching her husband, Moose, slurp his coffee.

“But Dean Ray Davis of The College of Arminianism over at Hope’s Promise University in Crimson County says that the domino theory works in the other direction, that if you give people more freedom, better things always happen,” said Randall.

Just then Bessie Bandervilt passed by the window, wearing her fur hat, the one with the taxidermied form of Sampson, her late squirrel companion, on her head. Shingles saw it and bolted for the door, right through the middle of all the dominoes Tippi Kanew, and Tyler, too, had set up on the floor, causing them to start falling in all directions at once.

“I think Shingles just disproved the domino theory, Clara, and proved chaos theory,” said The Rev. Dr. Nathan.

“I thought chaos theory is something in science, not that there’s anything right with that,” said Ella Phant.

“No, it’s about humans,” said Randall. “Give people freedom, or take it away, either way, it leads to chaos. People aren’t any more able to handle freedom than a dead squirrel.”

“We should turn freedom over to the dogs then,” said Clara, looking out the window. “Shingles is handling that dead squirrel pretty well.”
***
The similarity between the activities in Periwinkle County and events in other places is rarely coincidental.

[“Christ in Winter,” Reflections On Faith For People In The Winter Of Their Years, can be found at http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/]

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