When I was in South Korea teaching English, there was this cute little kid who completely mixed up the New Testament with the movie “Constantine.” It was so cute and surreal that I used it once when I was writing EduTimes fairy tales for this or that surreal little story. So, with that in mind, here’s my effort to explain to a child how fucked up Jeff Sessions’ efforts on the border are. And, as an added bonus, we get to use gennies as a symbolic warning — they’re a poor man’s alarm system as I understand it.
Uncle Shelton’s Tales’ Presents:
Naborat Jeebus & The Gennies
Uncle Shelton took Midnight a farm one day and the moment they got there, there was a horrible noise! Birds were running around everywhere, squawking and causing trouble.
“What are those, Uncle Shelton?” Midnight asked.
“Those are gennies!” Uncle Shelton said. “They make a lot of noise, they warn you when you’re in trouble. One time they saved the land from a horrible orange troll!”
One upon a time, an evil orange troll named Little Hands overthrew the lion as the king of the land. He had become friends with the birds who tweeted his commands down on the animal kingdom. Little Hands had promised so many things to the animal kingdom using the birds’ tweets and for a while there was peace in the land as he grew in power. One day, the Little Hands awoke to a horrible noise! The kingdom was being invaded by gennies! They are a very loud birds and they made it so Little Hands couldn’t sleep. He was very lazy and liked to sleep all day long!
Little Hands decided to use magic to get rid of the gennies. He summoned an evil elf. He told the elf to do whatever it took to get rid of the brown, noisy gennies.
“Yes sir Little Hands!” the evil little elf said. “Right away sir!”
Using his magic powers, he summoned the most powerful magical creature he knew of, Naborat Jeebus! Naborat Jeebus was very old and long ago had left the land to live with his father. The evil little elf told Naborat Jeebus many lies about the gennies, so many lies that Naborat Jeebas cast the gennies into a big pin! He even tore genny familes apart!
The noise of all those gennies being moved into a big pen was ever so loud. Loud enough that Naborat Jeebus took note. He paused for a moment and asked a genny why they were making so much noise.
“We’re just gennies!” one said. “It’s our job in the animal kingdom to make noise, to product people from danger! We meant no harm!”
Naborat Jeebus looked at the evil little elf and got angry.
“How dare you summon me to hurt the innocent!” Naborat Jeebus yelled.
And with that, Naborat Jeebus freed the gennies and turned both the evil little elf and Little Hands into toads and went back to be with his father.
The End.
“See,” Uncle Shelton said. “Sometimes, the good guys win!”
“I know,” Midnight said. “But not always, right?”
“No, Midnight, not always. But if you make enough noise like the gennies, you’re more likely to do so.”
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.
