Part 1 (scroll down for Part 2)
Long ago and far away (about last Tuesday in an imaginary world in the middle of the living room), First Aid Kit lived at the edge of the Preposterous Forest with his pet Tyrant-osaurus Rex, Tiddles. While Kit lived in a large burrow, Tiddles preferred to accommodate his substantial bulk in a purpose-built barn. The problem was that the barn was built to accommodate Tiddles at his previous size. Tiddles was a teenaged T-Rex, and he was growing like a mushroom in manure.
One day a little bird told Kit about a disused aircraft hangar on the other side of the forest. It sounded like the perfect abode for Tiddles, so they decided to move house. One morning, they packed up their things, and set off into the forest. Tiddles wore his muzzle, as he always did in public. Although he was well-trained and perfectly harmless, in Kit’s experience the muzzle discouraged passers-by from calling the police, his Mum or their local member of parliament (but not the media or all of their friends).
As they trekked through the trees, they heard a cry for help. At the edge of a deep river, they saw a young woman struggling in the current. As she tried to swim ashore, a large crocodile was taking considerable interest in her presence. First Aid Kit grabbed the first heavy object he saw, and threw it at the crocodile. It was a saucepan from his luggage.
It is a well-known fact that crocodiles will try to eat anything that moves if they are hungry. So, when the crocodile tried to eat the saucepan, Kit and Tiddles threw the rest of their saucepans and cutlery into the river. The crocodile tried to eat it, but all the metal blunted its teeth, so it became completely harmless. The damsel-in-this-dress managed to swim to shore while the crocodile was busy annihilating its dentition.
Kit and Tiddles didn’t mourn the loss of their utensils, nor did the crocodile miss its teeth. Kit and Tiddles were tired of carrying everything; besides, it is never hard to find cutlery at a garage sale. After all, this is where all office cutlery ever purchased ends up eventually! And the crocodile was going to grow some new teeth pretty soon anyway; crocodiles average 50 full sets of teeth in their lifetimes. As they only need to eat every week or so, this crocodile was only going to miss a couple of meals before he had a full new set of pearly off-whites.
The damsel introduced herself as Bahati (which means ‘Lucky’ in Swahili). She explained that she had been hiking when she had become separated from her friends after going off track for a tinkle. Kit blushed. Bahati had been trying to find a safe place to cross the river, when she had slipped in the mud and fallen in. She was so grateful to Kit for saving her life that she got him to write down his new address, so she could send him some replacement saucepans.
Part 2
After consulting her map, GPS unit, and compass Bahati established that, if she was going to get back to her car at the end of the road, she needed to go in a different direction to Kit and Tiddles. So, after promising to track each other down on Facebook as soon as they were back in phone range, they went their separate ways.
It was late in the evening when Kit and Tiddles decided to make camp for the night. Kit found a big tree for Tiddles to shelter under, and then dug himself a shallow burrow into the fallen leaves. They had a broken night’s sleep punctuated by falling leaves screaming, “Wheeee!” and “Ow!”
At first light, Kit went and fought some breakfast. Once he had had his fill of fire ants, they went on their way. (Tiddles had already eaten several small trees he found growing nearby. He was a vegetarian T-Rex; this was possible in the Preposterous Forest due to a preponderance of meat trees, which grew in the area.)
A few hours later, they came to a swamp. As they gingerly waded through, they heard another cry for help. First Aid Kit went into immediate action and located the source of the distress call.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he muttered (having become remarkably grown up for the purposes of the story). The victim was none other than Bahati, having wandered into a patch of quicksand and got stuck. Kit tied a vine to Tiddles ankle and threw the other end to Bahati, who was soon dragged out, missing only one boot and most of her pride.
“My GPS won’t work properly because all the clouds are obscuring the satellites. So I got lost,” she explained.
“Well you don’t need obscure stalactites with First Aid Kit around,” Kit said proudly, “Tiddles here is tall enough to see over most of the trees when he stands on his tippy toes (Tiddles obligingly stood on his tippy toes). “In fact he says your car is just over there,” Kit gestured on behalf of Tiddles, who couldn’t for obvious reasons. Kit insisted on accompanying Bahati to her car, just in case she planned on tripping over and drowning in a puddle.
After leaving Bahati safely in her car, it wasn’t long before Kit and Tiddles came across the aircraft hangar. It stood near a beautiful blue lake surrounded by meat trees. It was perfect. The prevailing winds even blew away from Kit’s burrow site, which is a good thing when you are surrounded by meat trees in the summer sun. They happily unpacked and settled in.
Several weeks later a courier pigeon arrived with a delivery slip from the Forest Post. At his third closest Post outlet, waiting for Kit was a brand new set of shiny saucepans.
