Bathroom Monologue: Reaching for the Moon Redux

Since it was time for dinner, the ogre went out hunting squirrels. Squirrels make annoying noises during everything other than while being eaten, so they are the food of choice for ogres.

He walked along until he came to a hill. A grey squirrel stood at the very top, perched on her hind legs, her front ones reaching into the air. There was nothing up on the hill to reach at.

The ogre would have just snatched up and eaten the pest, but she wasn’t making any annoying noises and was rather interesting to look at. He looked for a while before inquiring.

“What are you doing?”

The squirrel strained one more time, then fell onto her tail.

“I’m trying to get that delicious-looking thing,” she said. She pointed to the moon in the night sky.

“Idiot.” The ogre sounded especially condescending since he so rarely got to try it. “That’s the moon. A squirrel can’t reach it.”

“Can an ogre?” the squirrel asked.

The ogre didn’t know. He climbed to the top of the hill, shewed the squirrel aside and stretched out his arms. It didn’t work out. He righted his posture and tried again. He jumped and batted at it, but still couldn’t lay a finger on the moon.

“No luck?” chirped the squirrel.

The ogre scratched his chin. “It’s pretty high up there. Might be stuck.”

“What if I got on your shoulders?”

They tried that. Then they tried the squirrel standing on the ogre’s palm. She squeaked and flailed in futility. When her squeaks became suitably annoying, the ogre tried throwing her at the moon. She missed.

Trying to take his mind off the squirrel’s noises, the ogre took in the scenery. A little ways down the hill was a stately redwood tree, taller than any other in eyesight. The way ogres think, if it’s the biggest it can see, it must be the biggest in the world, and so the ogre wandered down the hill. The squirrel followed, yelping in protest.

The tree rustled in the wind. It asked, “What were you trying to do up there?”

“We’re trying to reach the moon!” chirped the squirrel.

“Oh, I’d like a piece of that,” responded the tree. “I photosynthesize all day, but sunlight gets stale. A little moonlight would go down smooth.”

The tree plucked up the ogre in its highest boughs. The ogre braced himself and extended an arm as high as possible. The squirrel scurried up both tree and ogre, and got to reaching.

“A little further!” demanded the squirrel.

“A little further?” suggested the ogre. He reached up higher, and the tree jostled, trying to help. The squirrel strained, the ogre strained, the tree groaned, and the bough broke. Down the ogre plummeted, striking the ground so hard he caused an earthtremor.

The ogre sat up just in time to see a boulder loosen from the top of the hill. It came rushing down the slope and collided with the tree, causing the squirrel to fall out from it.

After some discombobulation and profuse apologies, the squirrel climbed back onto the ogre. The boulder stared in disbelief and asked what anyone would.

“What’s going on with you two? Shouldn’t you be eating that noisy thing?”

“We’re trying to reach the moon!” chirped the squirrel.

“Oh? I’ve always admired her rounditude. I’d love to meet her.”

The ogre was having no nonsense. “We’re going to eat her.”

“Oh,” said the boulder. “Well could I have a couple of minutes with her first?”

The boulder joined their endeavor. The tree picked up the boulder, and the ogre stood on the boulder. The squirrel scurried up all of them and reached into the sky. Yet even with all that, they could not reach the moon.

They did, however, catch the attention of the local observatory. Closing up following a recent earthtremor, the resident astronomer came down and asked what the four were up to.

“We’re trying to reach the moon!” chirped the squirrel.

“The sky doesn’t actually work that way,” began the astronomer.

The ogre growled. “Don’t take this away from us. I’ll eat you.”

So the astronomer sat on the ogre’s shoulders and they resumed their tower of comradery. The squirrel climbed on top of the astronomer’s head and strained with her entire body. They were so close that the ogre drooled and sap trickled out of the tree.

Even on top of the astronomer’s bushy hair, the squirrel could not reach the moon. Yet she could see more clearly. To her surprise, it saw a rabbit in the moon. And a man. The rabbit stood on the man’s head, who in turn stood on a meteor. They were reaching for the squirrel.

The squirrel raised one paw and waved slowly to the rabbit. The rabbit strained, reaching harder. It licked its snout. The man in the moon salivated.

The squirrel made an annoying noise. “I don’t think I can reach it, guys.”

“Oh, come on!” yelled the ogre. “Get it or I’ll eat you.”

“I told you space didn’t work that way,” reminded the astronomer.

They went their separate ways seconds later. Well, they toppled straight down, but then went their separate ways. The squirrel darted into one of the tree’s knots, only escaping because the ogre’s mouth was full of astronomer. While inside the tree she collected some bark and leaves as a disguise, to hide first from the ogre, and then from the sky.

She was seen scurrying out the next day, though. The boulder saw her, foliage strapped to her head and tail, camouflaging herself against the sky. The squirrel sat on a rocky shore, trying to talk a minnow into helping her reach the bottom of the ocean.