I think it was a sunny day when Arnold decided to head down towards the village. Although it could have just as easily been windy or maybe there was a little hurricane blowing about. I suppose it’s not very important nor interesting. Off he went for himself, trudging through the heavy foliage until at last he came in sight of some small children playing what could only be described as football. Knowing full well that these barefooted creatures had never seen a vegetarian monster before caused Arnold to hesitate. Their fear of him could result in his extermination. What if they were really aggressive creatures. They always seemed quite pleasant from afar but perhaps that was a little shortsighted of him. He decided to risk it, after all his health and skincare were apparently in turmoil. Down he swept and stood among them. They completely ignored him.
“What’s this?” he thought, “Am I just a fictional creature?”
Then it occurred to him that his being so green in colour could mean he was difficult to pinpoint. A red rubber ball bounced off his head.
Only one of the children noticed the odd deflection of the ball in the middle of the game. He approached the green mass. The others continued playing. “Hello.” he said in whatever language they use there. “Do you want to play?”
“Not really.” said Arnold. “Do you want to be my dinner guest?”
“Where’s dinner?” quizzed the boy.
“My tree house ” said Arnold, and off they skipped.
The missionary´s stories were all a bit far fetched but the tribes people loved make believe. What they really loved were the presents so they let him stay and he eventually bothered to learn their language if only to facilitate his teaching of his native language. More and more of his kind came with more presents and more of the jungle was cleared to make way for their bigger houses and social buildings they called churches. Thanks to the newcomers who seemed to know an awful lot the locals began to live more comfortably, but perhaps not as wisely. They began to dismiss their old ways as useless and thus with the death of the elders and many trees and plants, many cures for fatal diseases were lost forever.
But let’s forget about all that for the moment. The fact is that Arnold who is a vegetarian monster who was quite content to fool around in his tree house, listen to the birds and chew leaves, was also influenced by the changes, not religiously but gastronomically.
He came across a woman´s magazine one day. You know the kind - lose weight in a week articles and such. Once he had deciphered the letters and taught himself how to read, he read about nutrition and discovered he may not be getting the right nutrition at all from his green diet. He didn´t know what capsules or supplements were and he most certainly hadn´t ever seen a vitamin of any of the known species, but he did understand that there was a serious lack of meat in his life.
Now he wasn´t too fond of the idea that he had to eat meat, however, survival is survival and like everyone who gets sucked in by these magazines he thought he had to better himself so he decided to only eat what he liked.
Well, he liked children.
“Oh dear” he thought “this could turn out to be a bit grizzly. ” So that night he crept down from his tree house. He stole quietly into the town with the sole intent of kidnapping a small child for dinner tomorrow.
Let’s follow him and see did he have any luck.
The bespectacled one flew down in a white eagle and landed in a manner that tore up the local crops and added to the risk of a hard hungry winter. Then he ripped the side of the flesh of the white eagle open and hopped out. Initially it was agreed almost without having to bother with words that this being was a threat, so the locals organised themselves and headed down happily to behead him. The tribes people had never seen such a pale and sickly creature. Perhaps he was a ancestor of theirs who had visited the underworld. Perhaps the creatures of the underworld had drained the colour from him although it seemed as though they did leave some blood behind as he glowed pink when he struggled to drag his backpack from the now seemingly lifeless eagle.
He drew out from his bag strange and magic presents and potions that altogether changed their original idea to tear him limb from limb. They were so fascinated by the magic machines he displayed that they didn´t even notice his mad ramblings in a language that only he understood. He went on and on about this man who was god who was actually three gods but was really only one god and to glam it all up this god or one of his multipersonalities was born of a girl who was actually a virgin. They believed in some crazy myths too but then again they didn´t really believe that Arnold existed and as we all know well, Arnold the little green monster exists.
Arnold is a little green monster. Don´t be afraid. Arnold is vegetarian.
Arnold lives in one of the many jungles in Indonesia and to tell the truth not many people have seen Arnold but Arnold has seen them.
Oh, and don´t ask me where he got his name, for legal reasons I think he´d prefer if I didn´t say.
The little tribe that live near Arnold´s tree house invent scary stories about him. They don´t mean any harm, they just prefer that their children are afraid to go anywhere without an adult until they can hunt and look after themselves.
In fact everything was quite pleasant in the jungle until the day the missionary landed, wearing spectacles.