RataWriMo

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Doughnutus Illuminatus: The Bavarian Cream Seers


Prologue

A cool fall breeze slowly ambled its way down Sandusky St., occasionally picking up a leaf that caught its interest. The brown and yellow, crimson and orange, any color other than green it seemed, took on a moment of life as it was picked up, discarded or carried along. So occupied was this young zeypher that it didn't notice the small group of nearly adult humans walking down the grassy knoll that separated the street from campus. So occupied were those young humans, that they didn't notice the amazing display of areal flotsam, which by any description of 'art' should have been in the Louvre, rather than a side street of a tiny college town in Ohio.

"But I'm telling you, this stuff works!" he said with an exasperated look on his face.

Of course, I can hear you dear reader. You want to know who 'He' is, don't you? Well, I suppose it's expected since authors seem to have set a tradition of describing their characters. 'He' is a human, male and has existed outside the womb for 19 years, 6 months, 5 days, 23 minutes and 16 seconds. Well, at least he was when I wrote this, descriptions can be tricky like that. Perhaps I should start again and try for something less subjective than age. 'He' is a Neo-Pagan, that is, he follows a belief system that existed before Jesus. Although, that's not exactly true either because complete belief systems didn't really survive the ravages of "Jesus' Love" as implemented by humans. Of course, if you were to ask other neo-pagans, they may say 'He' is a fluffy bunny, mostly because he's a bit sketchy on historical facts about these deities and much more interested in talking about his experiences with whatever given deity he happens to have a crush on at the moment, or at least so it seemed to them. Well, there I go again, still not a very static description... ah! 'He' is named Sam, 'He' has green piercing eyes, short  red hair, freckles and the build of someone that got the short end of the Gaelic genome.

"Sam, there's no way. You can't even provide me a single physical theory on what sort of energy you're talking about." she retorted, looking at Sam like he might suggest handling rattlesnakes in another minute or two. "How is meditation and focus going to create energy or suck it out of the ground with your feet, or, I mean, what the hell does that even mean 'sucking energy out of the earth'... with your feet? You sound like a uneducated redneck!"

'She', dear readers, also has a number of dynamic descriptions. Suffice to say that most people called her 'Lanna', except for her grandmother (who called her 'Alanna, darling'). Oh, and her Dad (who called her 'My Little Lantana'). Ah, also the girls that stayed in her dorm (most names they used are not very complimentary and say more about the psychological impact of putting a bunch of hormonal girls together in a high stress environment) and the guys that happened to see her in class, on campus, walking down the street or at work in the bakery (most names they used are very complimentary but still say more about the psychological impact of putting a bunch of hormonal guys together in a high stress environment than much about Lanna herself).

Sam paused, then bravely pushed the conversation forward. "I don't care what you think Lanna, I know what I experienced. Horus and Hermes came to me while I was meditating and I could feel this transfer of energy. I can still feel it inside me right now."

"I supposed you're gonna show me what you can do with it then, right? Maybe you can make a fireball, or 'magic missile'. Or, maybe you can go get some X-Rays and see if you accidentally swallowed your d20, rather than some energy from Horus and Hermes... I mean, those two gods aren't even from the same mythology!"

"Aguh! You just don't get it do you? It doesn't matter if they're from the same specific mythology. All of the gods are the same, they were just taken from the previous culture and called different things by different people. That's why..." he was interrupted by the third member of this small cluster of [Humans/Americans/College Kids/Elitists/Nerds/Philosophers/Future of Our Planet...] (take your pick, I'm not gonna tell you what to call them).

"That's why all those people on Live Journal call you a Fluffy Bunny. Do you really think that all of these different myths are all about the same gods? So the Egyptians and the Romans and all of them, they all followed the same gods? Maybe the Aztecs too? I don't remember reading about Shamanic Rain Dances in Odysseus." Christopher said in a somewhat patronizing tone. "Believe whatever bullshit you want man, just do some research and quit making shit up."

Christopher was here on a big scholarship, because Christopher was very smart. Christopher even had a paper published in a peer reviewed journal which documented how a bunch of frogs had died due to a toxin in a new fertilizer his father had started using on their huge farm in Idaho. Christopher also got to live in the 'Tree House', a small-living unit on campus. It was still communal housing, but it was a heck of a lot better than a dorm. Everyone who lived in the 'Tree House' were environmentalists. No matter what major they were focused on, their purpose was clear, they were to be the future defenders of our earth, our forests, our wildlife, our habitat. The war was on, the lines were clear and the battle needed a new generation of soldiers. Christopher was very serious when it came to the Environment. The 'Environment' always started with a capital 'E' when he said the word.

Any mention of LJ often upset Sam to an extreme degree. He'd been banned on three forums about serious magick and pagynism and the forums that did like his posts, were full of n00bs that made him want to pull his hair out. His sudden sullen appearance, hunched shoulders and increased speed indicated that this time was, indeed, one of those times.

As he stalked away, Lanna smirked, "They probably picked up one of his sock puppet accounts on "serious_pagans_only" or something stupid like that. Can you believe that shit he was saying about 'energy' inside of him. Useless waste of desk space!"

Well, maybe some of the words other girls used to describe Lanna were pretty accurate.

Christopher shrugged, by that point they had arrived at "Yumee Dounuts", which was their destination and coffee seemed much more interesting than Lanna's self righteous lack of belief. Coffee, a fresh apple fritter and then 4 hours of standing in front of a cash register.


Chapter One: Yumee, Yumee, Yumee, I Got God in My Tummy

'Yumee Dounuts' had spent quite a bit of grant money the year before and was now one of the nations first organic, completely green bakeries. In fact, most of the campus had 'gone green' and the bits that hadn't, were to be converted over the next two years. From Christopher's point of view, that was the reason he was here. The tour had left him practically in tears, even though the Methodist foundations of the University were a bit tough to swallow on occasion. Work, was unfortunately, one of those occasions. 'Kerri With An I' was the assistant manager and 'Kerri With An I' loved 'Jesus With A J', and everyone who met Kerri knew it. Immediately. He remembered watching college movies where a cute girl came up and asked "What's your sign?' (It was 'Cancer', he looked it up before he came to college). Kerri was probably the prettiest girl he'd ever seen so when she approached and sweetly asked "Have you been Saved?" it threw him entirely off. Kerri didn't really dress like a Christian (aren't they supposed to wear hats or something?), and she had great taste in music, but when it came to anything about religion, she was a walking, talking Jesus Freak.

Of course, that's only how other kids saw her. Kerri never thought she was all that pretty and she really didn't consider herself a Jesus Freak. She just couldn't understand why so many people didn't get as excited about the Lord as she did. Everyone back home had loved Jesus for their whole lives and they either went to her church or the Nazarene one, or the well, the Catholics ... but she'd always been a bit suspicious of them. Kerri's parents, on the other hand, thought that she was a gift from God and the delight of their lives. Her decision to attend Wesleyan, over a more secular college made them very proud. Her work in Campus Ministries, since she got to college, just showed them how well their Godly Training had rooted and grown to the praise of His Name.

Obviously, they didn't know about her new clothes.

The campus bakery was the center of student life. Coffee, light music, delicious pastries and wireless Internet made the bakery a great place to write your paper, check your email or furiously type away at a blog entry or yet another lame on-line writing competition. It was decent money for a campus job, especially if you had grants and scholarships and most of the time, the crew of the 'three pm shift' got along just fine. Sam, Lanna, Christopher and Kerri With an I did anyway. Josh, on the other hand, the guy that ran the deep fryer, didn't talk much at all. Josh was older than the rest of them and had apparently just sort of stayed in college rather than graduating. His course list looked like someone had rolled dice to pick out which courses to enroll in. Philosophy, Chemistry, Liberal Arts, Physics, Psychology, Journalism, one class in entomology and nothing that looked anywhere close to actually qualifying him for a degree. Everyone on Campus had heard the rumors; that he had been top of his class and had some ungodly IQ. "What a waste of talent", everyone thought.

"Information Wants To Be Free", "Truth Will Out", "The Light Gets Brighter and Brighter", all of these are correct in some sense. In our story, Information was flying fast and furiously. Knowledge from an college education, plus the different life experiences of each student were coming together to create Information. Inside this tiny donut shop, Information is about to come bursting through the sides, like a overfilled Long John with maple icing.