I woke up in a cell the size of a bathroom next to a hunchback, wedge footed monster. The room smelled of a musty, rotting sock, fermenting slowly in the heat of the summer. The cardboard cutout of a guard outside kept us from leaving the prison. I love being an upstanding citizen of the Freejeezy society.
The Freejeezy race is a perfect race, a zenith, a consummation of a world without judgment, oppression, or any other form of badness. A society that exiled me and threw me into a prison because I didn’t look normal, didn’t look styley enough for them. Yes, looks do matter a lot in our society. Our form is undeniably beautiful- we look like a group of teacups walking down the street. Our left hand is glued to our side, about where our hip lies, and our tiny hand lies hidden within our thick arms, as if our hand is enveloped within our arm. Our right hand and arm is always at our side, of course, unless we need to use it. The police always catch me trying to use my right hand more than 100.35 times a day, but I will explain more about our society’s rules later. We have stretched torsos, so long that we have no thighs at all. Our knees are just below our torso, which stretches a few feet outside of our legs. Scientists proved through many experiments and data that our race is perfect for almost anything we want to do, except running, walking, sports, arts, humanities, science, mathematics, or philosophy. But everything else we can do without flaw. We walk by shuffling our feet for we cannot lift our legs off the ground. For such a demanding activity, we need to change our shoes at least three times a day in order to maintain traction. If we walk too fast, our legs start to melt down into our feet, causing our inner organs to show. It takes a few hours for our legs to then creep back to connect with our torso. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable. We have evolved so well that even our skull does not protect our brain; our skull is very thick, except it is only thick in parts for which we never need protection. Our skull is thin in the back of our head, where nobody ever falls; it actually juts out of our forehead. Our eyes are very intriguing, and also very normal. They take up about ½ of our face and some of our nasal passage area, and even more interestingly, nobody can see into another’s eyes because of their mirror like characteristics. Different people have different glazes on their eyes, with the most important people in society having a mix of different color mirrors. It takes at least 10 seconds for any of us to recognize each other. Our nose is not a nose persay, for I have seen noses and we do not have them. Our nose is mostly closed, so we can only breathe through our mouths. But it makes sense because we look much better than those horrid, ugly people with noses, those un-freejeezyish freeback people. They don’t even look good. Ever. They can move their hands freely and, ugh I can’t believe I am saying this, but they pick up their feet when they travel! What a waste of energy, picking up your feet. They don’t change their shoes at all. I am sorry, I don’t mean to jive or berate them, it’s just that I feel that they are imperfect, abominable, individually revolting creatures. I’m just being truthful is all.
Our society has few rules, but each rule is necessary for maintaining the Freejeezy cultural integrity. The mantra of our society, stated above each household and every institution, reads “If it doesn’t look good, then why do it?”. Because of our mantra, if any Freejeezy person is seen doing anything that looks abnormal, ugly, or unsmooth, he is immediately thrown in jail for the rest of his life, and not given rights to free trial. Any birth defective newborns known as Goobers are also thrown in jail for looking hideous, no justification needed. Their backs are hunched at about a 60 degree angle, and their hands, instead of being at their side and attached at the hip, are glued to their mid torso area with these angled, protruding things called “elbows” sticking our above the plane of their back. Worst of all, their feet and legs are pointed at a 45 degree angle inwards, making them shift their whole body side to side in order to walk. Yes, they can walk and pick up their feet. They are outcasts, the untouchables of our society. There are also certain rules regarding social interactions. In order to speak plainly, I shall try to condense the rules into a short sentence. First, when a Freejeezy notices another fellow Freejeezy walking approximately 89 degrees toward him, he must not look at the other’s eyes until he is at least 15 feet from the other Freejeezy’s pinky toe. Should a Freejeezy break the rule they are curtly, generously fined 500 bodes. Also, nobody can say hello to anyone they don’t know for fear of being rude and stooping down to strangers. A Freejeezy can only talk to someone within their own sphere of activity, and is limited to talking about weather, family, or sports, because talking about anything personal is too superficial for such a deep, rich community. After an hour of talking time, a pair of acquaintances can then delve into more personal topics such as how the weather might change in the next week and what would happen if a trade occurred on a sports team, maybe even schooling, if the acquaintances feel ambitious. The higher classes work too much and have too much self esteem and self respect to talk to the lower classes. When shuffling somewhere, one must look down at least 50 percent of the time, in order to see whether the ground moves while you are walking, or if a blade of grass suddenly pops up out of the sidewalk. One can also look side to side or up, occasionally, but never straight ahead until 15 feet from another Freejeezy. If when looking ahead Freejezies’ eyes meet, they may not make contact for more than 10 seconds or each is considered ugly, then perfectly and flawlessly dropped in a prison cell.
My life used to be normal. I used to be normal. I was born into the Freejeezy society in the middle class, a class where our backs lie at a 75 degree angle, about 15 degrees away from our ruler’s straight, flawless, 90 degree spine. I went through school receiving average grades, ranging from somewhat good-looking to styley, sometimes a flawless, once in a while. I always sat with the somewhat good looking kids at school, but never ventured to the flawless table. They were at the top of the school, the top of the community practically. Their parents were flawless too, models of perfection for all of us somewhats. They had trillion bode houses which proved so large that they needed maps to navigate from the bedroom to the front door every morning. Us somewhat loved in smaller lots, about the size of an apartment building, while the uglies lived out of their cars most of the time. I graduated school a somewhat, average in our society, and then moved on to work in a store called “The Bangin’ Hat Place Yo”, where we sold hats to all Freejeezies. This is where my story begins.
As I sat behind my workplace in The Hat Place with my headphones on blaring flawless music, even though I was a somewhat. One of the other Freejeezies complemented me on my somewhat good looking hat, striped in rastafari colors even though I know nothing about the rastafari lifestyle. I felt terrible that morning.
“HI WELCOME TO THE BANGIN’ HAT PLACE YO, WHERE WE PLACE HATS ON THE HEADS OF FREEJEEZIES WITH A SMILE!”, we all yelled, enthusiastically and monotonously. We all hated our jobs, but we needed to be happy in order to act like good store workers.
“Uh, yeah, I am looking for a flawless hat, perfect colors with a consummated brim, maybe a zenith of a pom pom?”
“Yeah, right this way past the aisle for the uglies”, I stammered. Walking past the aisle for the uglies made me gag.
As I walked down the aisle toward the flawless rack, I smelled a strange odor, a similar odor to a sock left in front of a heater. I turned the corner and there, in the darkness before I turned on the light sat a Goober. I had never seen such a disgusting sight in my life. His back was hunched at 0 degrees, arms poking out from his thin torso, and worst of all, his legs were not even straight, but rather formed the shape of a pizza as he scrambled to his feet, hiding behind one of the racks.
Silence rushed over us like a storm. My customer bolted out of the room in horror, screaming a blood curdling yell as he rushed out of the store. Yet I stood there, and remained there staring, gaping at this creature in utter bewilderment.
“GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW BEFORE I CALL THE PATROL YOU HEARTLESS GOOBER!!” I yelled, but he didn’t budge.
I didn’t know what to do with wretch. I couldn’t talk to him in a respectable way for that was against the law. I had no choice but to pull on his arm and shove him out of the store onto the street. I had no choice; I had to keep my reputation of a somewhat good looking in society.
The next day I walked into the store like a somewhat good looking boss should walk into a store. I made my way over to the somewhat awesome looking hats and stood at my post as I normally do. My heart stops as I see a mega ultra perfectly flawless Freejeezy shuffle over to me. His spine stands almost perfectly erect, hands glued to his sides, and has a torso that shifts ever so slightly with each shuffled maneuver. My mouth starts to gape, but I then remember that I am somewhat good looking, and am closer to his status than most other Freejeezies.
“Yes, hello and welcome to “The Bangin’ Hat Place Yo”! I am-“
“Save your breath you somewhat good looking hopeless Freejeezy kid. I am no ordinary customer; can’t you see that I am model of consummation in this society? I am the styleiest person you will ever see in your lifetime, so get me to the other section. I don’t deserve your subpar looking attention; just seeing your inclined spine makes me want to gag.”
“Uhhh, yes oh perfect, flawless one, right away-“
“What are you listening to!?”
“Oh these are my somewhat good looking headphones playing somewhat good sounding gangsta music”
“No it’s not! That is definitely perfect music, I know it is!” He rips the headphones off my head and in a swoop of his hand crushes it against his head. In doing so, his head immediately starts to swell and bleed.
“Are you looking me in the eyes!? Lower your gaze you filthy somewhat! I have had enough of your banter somewhat good looking! I am more gangsta and styley than you will ever become, and I hope you know that you ugly goober! I shuffle over somewhat punks like you every day; stop posing as a perfect! You’ll never become as perfect as I or as modest as I! I don’t boast my status like some obnoxious Freejeezy kid! Now get me some perfect, flawless service or I will contact the manager of this goober store!”
I had never heard so many curses in one rant. Ugly, goober, what next? I had no choice but to escort him over to the flawless section of the store where our perfect representative easily shuffled over to meet him flawlessly and stylishly. I tried not to stare him right in the eyes as I walked back to my post silently.
My next customer was someone I did not expect to see again in my life. As soon as turn towards the somewhat good looking rack I see the goober staring straight into my eyes. Straight into my eyes- what nerve does he have? I counted the seconds…1…2…3…4…his eyes were the ugliest brown…8…9…10…11….12 Why wasn’t he looking away? I didn’t understand, but what was even stranger was that I wasn’t looking away. Why wasn’t I looking away? I was disgusted and wanted to let my eyes drift away but I couldn’t.
“BANG BANG BANG!”
It was the Freejeezy patrol. I shoved the goober into a nearby closet as soon as I heard the door of the store get knocked down by the patrolman’s sled. All patrolmen had a slightly intensified version of our mantra on the left arm of their uniforms: “If it doesn’t look good, then we’ll rip your arms off your sides and make you live an ugly life with the goobers”. They are not forgiving people.
“ALRIGHT EVERYBODY GET ON THE FLOOR NOW! I AM LOOKING FOR A GOOBER WHO HAS ESCAPED THE PRISON, HIS FEET ARE AT 45 DEGREES AND HAS AN ALMOST 90 DEGREE SPINE. I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION NOW! I SAW HIM WADDLE INTO THIS STORE, SO I NEED A PERFECT OR FLAWLESS TO START TALKING NOW!”
Our perfect manager and flawless representative shuffled over to meet the patrolman and ever so perfectly explained to him that there was no such goober in the store.
“I would’ve smelled his ugliness from about half a store away mister patrolman. Why those goobers are so un-gangsta and un-styley my head would’ve probably popped if he came within 15 feet of me.”
The patrolman, being a somewhat good looking, had to leave the store under the authority of the perfect and flawless.
I sat next to the goober gawking at his ugliness for at least a few minutes as the patrolmen noisily shuffled out of the store in a jolly mood; it was probably the first perfect conversation he had ever spoke. Throughout the day the goober stayed in that closet, and as I shut the store I realized that the ugly goober had really stayed in that closet all day, and that I hadn’t kicked him out yet. There was something about him, something about his ugly, disgusting eyes that affected me somehow. It sounds very strange, but deep down below my somewhat good looking feelings I felt a strange tingling, a weird sensation I had never felt before. It was almost like I wanted to help the goober. No, it couldn’t be. I was helping a goober? I hated them so much, yet I wanted to help this ugly thing? Before I knew what I was doing I found myself shuffling the goober into my apartment. It is a somewhat good looking complex, tri color compared to the perfect’s monocolor kingdoms. The uglies live in rainbow colored bathrooms with maybe ten or more colors, so I felt pretty good looking about my tri color apartment. Why am I here with a goober! He doesn’t belong here at all; his ugly, grimy hands are going to mark up all my somewhat styley objects that emulate flawless status! Yet I let him do it.
“I’ll lay my ugly body here on the floor”
My heart froze. The goober could talk! And worse than that is that he is talking to me! A somewhat good looking, not to mention, we do not share the same sphere of activity! And he skipped the three first steps of social law!
“Uhhhhh….uhhhh” I stammer, but he is still looking at me, expecting an answer, an acknowledgement, something from me to appease his ugly mind.
“Yeah okay” I gagged, tearing my eyes from his brown mirrored gaze. I shuffled to my bed so fast that my legs started to melt into my feet.
Sunlight streams in from my tri color shades as I finally stir from my somewhat good looking, somewhat restful, somewhat peaceful slumber.
“What is your name.”
“Oh sweet Todd Walnuts” escaped barely audibly from my mouth.
Never did I speak the deity’s name in vain until that morning. I frightfully look into his brown eyes and see myself, my blue eyes and slightly hunched spine and cringe. I always look at myself in the mirror every morning, yet this morning I don’t feel good about my somewhat good looking figure. Something feels awry.
“Um my name is more gangsta and styley than yours. It’s Somewhat G. Hood.”
“So you are a somewhat good looking. My name is Ugly B. False.”
“You don’t talk according to social law. Why don’t you want to look good and elevate your ugly status?”
“I don’t concern myself with my status; my ugly status is only in my name and appearance. They cannot deem me ugly because I define myself.”
“I don’t understand; you should be thankful for them- they deemed you ugly and threw you in prison for your own protection. You should be grateful.”
“Soon you shall see the Freejeezy society in another light, Somewhat.”
And he left, just vanished from sight, waddled to the door so quickly I could barely see s legs move. He didn’t even thank me for taking him in. The strangest thing was that his ugly stumps for legs didn’t melt when he rushed out.
“Just another strange, ugly Freejeezy. I shouldn’t uh took him in. Not gangsta or styley at all.” I muttered somewhat smoothly under my breath.
He didn’t return for some time that next week, but at precisely the same time he came into my shop earlier, I turned around to see his hunched figure standing among the racks at “The Bangin’ Hat Place Yo”. He looked strangely straighter in the spine today, and for some reason his arms weren’t as stuck. I dismissed the observation as part of his ugly appearance clouding my somewhat good looking vision.
I adjusted my rastafari hat and new bangin awesome looking headphones and turned away as soon as I saw, but did not meet, his ugly, brown glazed eyes.
“Your ugly non gangsta hunch back shouldn’t be here today” I quickly shot.
“Oh don’t worry about my ugly back, Somewhat, it is yours that you should be worried about. I would leave soon if I were you.”
“What? I don’t understand- get your ugly back out of this store now and keep your disfigured advice to yourself! GET OUT NOW!”
And as quickly as I saw him, he quickly disappeared from the store. Then I heard another familiar, spine wrenching noise. My legs felt as if they were melting into my shoes.
“BANG BANG BANG!” Another door fell down in the store as the noise of shuffling penetrated our good looking store. Except there were more this time. More patrolmen than one. I sneaked a glance at the origin of the noise and saw five patrolmen armed with ugly cannons, cannons that shot rays of ugliness onto any Freejeezy, momentarily paralyzing them and causing their image to temporarily become ugly. The patrolmen would then produce a mirror and point it directly at the Freejeezy, causing him to knock himself out rather than stare at his ugly, revoltimg image.
The barreled down the racks, shuffling in their heavy boots and mono-color uniforms with that mantra blazing red, their emblem of Todd Walnuts on the right sleeve looking graciously out towards those whose fates were sealed. I froze then remembered that I had housed that ugly. My doom was sealed. I saw a flash, my ugly image in the mirror and instinctively I hit myself in the back of the head as ugly dark darkness enveloped me.
I woke up in a cell the size of a bathroom next to a hunchback, wedge footed monster. The room smelled of a musty, rotting sock, fermenting slowly in the heat of the summer. The cardboard cutout of a guard outside kept us from leaving the prison. I love being an upstanding citizen of the Freejeezy society.
I quickly recognized that hunchback to be the same ugly I took into my somewhat good looking tri-color apartment that disgustingly revolting day after work. Except he was again different. His back seemed straighter and his feet had started to unwedge themselves; he almost looked like a somewhat ugly now. I looked briefly in his eyes and saw that they had lost some of their mirror quality. I didn’t understand- no Freejeezy had unmirrored eyes. That is how everyone’s eyes are!
“I don’t expect you to understand my situation. I had to do it. I had to free somebody.”
His words snapped me back to my ugly reality. I was stuck in a cell with an ugly.
“GET ME OUTTA HERE! I don’t want to be in an ugly cell right now! Get me out you ugly goober! Get me out now!”
Seeing the perfect guard standing outside I immediately stopped and felt honored to be in his presence. I shutup immediately.
“I am sorry, but I cannot help you escape from this cell, for you need to realize that the Freejeezy world is not the only way of life on this miserable planet called ---------.”
“No, that is the basest form of ugly treason in the Freejeezy society. No, there is no more perfect way of life than the Freejeezy way. Todd Walnuts seeks to eliminate all imperfection from the society and kindly lets us live free of judgment, hierarchy, or discrimination. I am happy to live in this world, just not right now in this cell.”
Then something very strange happened. Almost instantly the hunchback I saw transformed into something revolting yet somehow magnificent. His hunchback straightened and became flexible so that he could bend down and become like a hunchback, but then return to straight spine. His head changed and his protruding skull receded. His nose became larger, almost the size of a finger, and his eyes lost their mirror. I could see into his eyes. They were brown, but I could see a strange black dot now, surrounded by a clear white color. His arms became at his sides, but his left hand was not attached to his hip like other Freejeezy’s hand. He could move both arms equally, and they weren’t rigid! Strangest of all his torso shrank so that his legs became almost twice as long as before, so he now had this strange space above his legs, but underneath his torso. And his torso was now as wide as his legs. I couldn’t believe my somewhat good looking eyes. He looked like an alien, a character of legendary tales passed on by radical Freejeezies known as Believers, a strange group trying to gain attention that Freejeezies were not the only inhabitants of our planet.
“I…what…happened?” I stammered.
“This is my true form. I am not a Freejeezy or an ugly as you may think. I am what is known as a freeback, a mountainous people living away from the Freejeezy prison in a world where there are no uglies, no somewhat good lookings, no perfects, no deity. We solely live for ourselves, without any difference between any of the people.”
“So you are saying that there are no uglies, no somewhat, no perfects? How does your society run? Our system is flawless because everyone has security in their own division, security and order because everyone feels at home in their own looking class.”
“Yes, but our society does not have restrictions for someone’s character. A Freeback is born in no class and as he lives his life, he determines what he wants to become rather than have them decide for him. No deity decides where a Freeback lives or does, no power decides what he is to look like. A Freeback lives by his own standards.”
“But it isn’t possible, it isn’t possible. No, I don’t believe your ugly advice. I don’t.”
“I wasn’t born this way. I was adopted by Freejeezies who took me to a Freejeezy community that, disgusted by me strange form, mutated me to look like an ugly and threw me into prison so the Freejeezy people know nothing of my occurrence and my origins away from the Freejeezy place. My parents were swiftly and perfectly killed so as to bury the evidence of my origins. I stayed in jail for my entire life until I finally escaped and came to your store. I needed to tell someone about my origins, free someone from the Freejeezy prison.”
“No….NO…THERE IS NO OTHER SOCIETY! I can’t believe you, I can’t.”
“Then I’ll show you.”
“He took out a strange looking device that had a strange looking square of color on it with a small eye on its front. He opened up the device and touched a hump on the object as the square immediately sprang to life, with its perfect and flawless colors changing so rapidly I could not comprehend their meaning. After watching for a minute or so, I started to see that it was a scene in a Freejeezy birth area, where the Freejeezies marked the newborns into a class and threw them into the designated bin, sent to parents of that division. I watched as an alien came into the room. The Freejeezies screamed, many left their posts they felt so ugly looking. Todd Walnuts calmly and effortlessly shuffled over to the alien and grasped it by its circular head. He quickly mutilated the baby and transformed it into an ugly, an outcast and untouchable of society, then proceeded to throw it into a chute leading straight to a prison.
“That alien is me. Walnuts transformed me out of fear that I would break the bonds of his perfect society. He knew of the Freebacks, and knew that their existence could endanger the Freejeezy existence. I was a threat to his security.”
“But….how….why?”
“I do not know how I was a Freeback, but I know that I am one of them. I escaped from prison and find my way to their society and pleaded that I was indeed a Freeback. They believed me and I saw that their society was far more liberated than that of the Freejeezies. They could pick up their feet, move their arms nimbly and with flexibility and even bend their spines. They were free to move and think and do anything they pleased, free of division or restriction or ridiculous laws of social behavior.”
“Well now we are stuck, so it doesn’t really matter what you are saying” I muttered under my somewhat good smelling, good looking breath.
Then I heard a rumbling, a crashing of walls as I looked up to see the eyes of a huge machine known as a Rumbling Cat with huge rotating, sharp, grippy good looking tire like things on each of its stocky legs. The crane attachment on the machine picked us both up and within a few short, bumpy good looking hours the machine dumped us at this beautiful white gate adorned in the golden name “Freeback territory: Welcome!”
As soon as I laid my mirror eyes on those words I became a Believer. I looked at myself and saw my own physical absurdity of my features. I realized my limitations and superficiality, looking at my life and those around me as divisions of looks, rather than seeing them for who they really were. What was the word…character, that’s it. Ugly B. Name, or Glen P. Lake (his Freeback name) became my Freeback teacher and stripped me of all my Freejeezy corruption, and soon I became a genuine good looking Freeback citizen, only in appearance of course. But that’s another long story for another long day.
My name was Somewhat G. Hood, but my real name is
