Mash n' Tater

        "... In other news, the spectacular meteor shower predicted between 11: pm and 2: am central time tonight will unfortunately be unviewable due to the sudden and unexpected storm front which is coming down from the eastern seaboard ...",
         says the clean and charismatic voice of the local news reporter on the worn out and buzzing old Television set before the picture and sound cuts out into digital noise due to storm interference.

         "Dang blast this new fangled digital television service.  Can't watch a gosh darn thing these days since they switched it over.  As if I need the weatherman to tell me that a storm's a comin' anyway ...",
         a grizzled old farmer grumbles to himself as he looks out the window of his battered old farmhouse towards the ominous black stormclouds sweeping in from the east, just as the red evening sun was setting in the west.  As he turned to face the half shuttered window pane, a shadowy shape in the frame quickly pulled up out of sight before his failing eyes were able to focus and take notice.

         "MARTHA!", the old man shouted up aimlessly at the ceiling, "... did you put the chickens back in the hen house yet.  A storms a brewin' right quick",
         he finishes, and begins to fumble about for his coat and hat.

         "Phillip you old goat ... we haven't had chickens since you sold them off to your nephew a few years back.  Don't you go getting senile on me now.  You asked me about the animals a few hours ago and you already took care of it.  Don't you remember? The pony's in the barn, the cows haven't come home in over a week, and I'm pretty sure that blasted rabbit of yours is probably out of his cage and into the feed barn again by now.  I still don't know why you don't put us both out of a bit of misery and be rid of it already. He's gotten so fat on our best wheat he must taste like a loaf of bread by now...",
         the old mans wife screeches back with mixed irritation and amusement in her voice.

         "Yeah, yeah ... I remember now.  I told you Pumpkin ... there's just something not quite right about that rabbit.  You know I just can't turn away any critter in need.  Remember how we found him?  That little fuzzball is about as about as suicidal as it is clever.  So long as it keeps coming back, you know I'll keep caring for it",
         the old man grumbles stubbornly as he hangs his coat back up on the rack and shuffles back to his comfy old creaky reclining chair in front of the television and lets himself fall back into it with his hat still on, which slides down over his face when he leans back into the seat.  He tilts it up to see the screen, but when all he sees is the words "No Signal" on his barely functional and noisy box, he just lets it fall over his eyes again and mumbles as he relaxes into a quick nap just as the first rumble of thunder echoes from the distant horizon.

         The old woman just stares down at her husband of many years from the top of the stairway, pushes her narrow bifocals up her nose and sighs with a subtle smile.

         "You old softy ... no matter how old we get, you still have never really changed, have you? ...",
         Martha, the old farmers wife whispers to herself as she inwardly recalls how her curiosity about the mans selfless love for injured animals had been responsible for drawing the two together in the first place all those many years ago.


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         "Hello Mash ... are you causing trouble for those poor old humans again?  What are you doing way up there anyway?",
         a white goose honks up at the funny little gray and brown rabbit hanging upside down by his feet over the window, peering inside with his furry little  forelimbs crossed.

         "... I am NOT fat.  I'm just getting fluffier cuz my winter coat's growing in.  Nagging old bag ... what does she know?"
         the rabbit grumbles aloud to himself as he continues to hang upside down like a wingless bat with the claws of his feet gripping the paint-peeling wooden window frame, completely ignoring the honked greeting from below.

         "Oh ... I wouldn't take it so personally Mash.  Most animals gain a little weight before the winter.  It helps us all get through the cold season ... and besides ... I think you look really cute with a little pudgy bunny belly ...",
         the snowy white goose responds in an incredibly sweet and friendly tone for a goose, even though she knew he was not talking to her.

         "...what? ... Oh HI Margie.  I didn't see you there.  ... wait ... who are you calling pudgy?  It's not fat, it's fluff.  I'm almost all muscle from here dow ... WHOAH ...",
         the rabbit begins to protest, patting his rounded midsection with his forepaws, but as he does his foot claws break loose of the window frame and he tumbles feet over ears down, landing head first into the pile of dry leaves drifted up against the side of the old farmhouse, with splinters of old wood and paint chips raining down along with him.

         The rounded little bunny rolls right out the bottom of the pile with bits of dried leaves all over his fur and comes to a stop right in front of the goose, holding his long ears down with his paws and winces as he nurses what was clearly a nasty bump on his little fuzzy head.

         "Oh Mash ... are you alright?  That was a nasty fall.  Do you need to lay down?  There is a nice soft patch of hay in the corner of the barn where I know you could ...",
         the kindly goose honks in concern and reaches out her good wing to comfort the dazed bunny, but he just bats her wing away with his paw defiantly.  Looking slightly hurt, she folds her wing back at her side and wiggles her opposite wing in mild irritation.  

         Though she kept her good wing in pristine condition, with not a feather un-preened or out of place, her other wing was a mangled mess with many of it's feathers fallen out along a nasty scar than ran her whole side, and the tip long missing from a years old crippling injury which stole her ability to fly.  In spite of the grizzliness of her scar, she made no attempt to hide her ugly side.

         "I'm fine ... I'm ... OW! ... fine ...",
         the prideful lapine dismisses his injury and looks up at the comparatively tall female goose through a wince with only one eye open.  

         "What do you want anyway?",
         he squeaks in his small voice.

         "I just saw you looking through the window into the farmers house again and thought I should warn you about the storm coming.  I know how you can get so caught up in whatever it is you see in there sometimes that you forget what is going on.  Are you watching that 'Gee Vee' creature again?",
         the crippled goose Margie asks with curious amusement.

         "Yeah, I know ... I heard about it on the weather report.  I really wanted to see that meteor shower too.  Darn it.  ... and it's called a T.V., not Gee Vee.  It's a box that shows moving pictures on it that come from far away, not a creature.  You really should try to see it sometime.  It's kind of hard to explain.",
         Mash the rabbit explains enthusiastically, as he loved talking about the things he has seen on the television.

         "I still don't understand what is so interesting about this box that you can stare at it all day long ... but you should really come in out of the rain before you get soaked",
         Margie pleads with her floppy eared friend, looking nervously over her shoulder, craning her long neck around.

         "What are you talking about?  It's not raining yet.  The meteorologist said it's not supposed to start raining for another ...",
         Mash began to dismiss the friendly fowl, but just at that moment a strong, warm, humid breeze blew by, making his long ears flop back behind his head like streamers in the wind.  

         He looks up towards the direction of the wind and his expression goes pale as a very large and frightening looking storm cloud now hung almost directly overhead, flashing with lighting deep within it's dark mass which made it glow and lit up the sky.  A curtain of hard rain swept across the dry and flat, harvested farm fields at such speed that before the bunny could squeak another word, the both of them found themselves being drenched under a harsh downpour.

         His ears already weighed down and plastered to the sides of his face by the soaking rain, the little rabbit ignored his pride for the moment as his feathered friend extended her wing over him as an umbrella and stayed under it as the pair ran side by side through the quickly deepening mud puddles towards the gap in the barn door across the yard for shelter, ducking under the broken down old tractor and overturned, wheel-less wood cart along the way before dashing inside together.


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         "... I know ... I KNOW! ...",
         the archeologist researcher scout shouted at the control panels of her starcraft as lights and klaxons flashed and screamed at her, warning her of the intense electrical storm that had sprung up suddenly into the upper atmosphere where she had been flying over and using it as cover.

         It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.  Use the meteor shower to disguise her entry into the planets atmosphere and then glide over the top of the looming storm-cloud to mask her landing.  The primitive local inhabitants, even with their low level radar detection technology would never even notice her.  However, not even the advanced sensors built into her interplanetary scout craft had predicted just how quickly the storm would grow in strength.  All weather models had told her that the storm would not grow to be even half as big as it did.  Before she had time to react and change course, the thunderhead had risen into the upper atmosphere and engulfed her craft while she was going over local topographical maps for the best place to land.  

         Lightning flashed all around her as she stared at her navigation screen, fretting over what action she should take.  If she dove below the clouds she would risk being spotted by creatures on the ground. However, if she flew higher and away from the storm clouds, she would be deviating from the path of the meteor shower she was following for her descent, which she knew the local species was watching carefully and would take notice of her deviation in course immediately, possibly causing an interplanetary incident if she were to be followed and tracked.  She wished very much now that she had invested in the expensive cloaking upgrade after all as she realized that no matter what she did now, she was going to get into trouble for it later.

         Her decision was quickly made for her however as suddenly the craft was struck by multiple lightning strikes in rapid succession.  Though the craft was built to withstand such strikes, the storm had so much energy, and one of the strikes landed such an impossibly unlikely bulls-eye on one of her propulsion modules that it shorted out her anti-gravity stabilizer and she quickly found herself nose diving though the clouds towards the ground at alarming speed.  As she began to pound on her touch panel control screen to manually reset the anti-gravity system, the panel suddenly went black as she pounded it with her furry fist so hard that she broke it.

         The shiny and tight, form fitting uniform clad visitor of short stature just clenches her eyes and teeth, grabs hold of both her long, fuzzy ears in her paws, pressing them against the sides of her almost metallic silver furred cheeks and curses to herself out loud the nastiest curse word she knew in her native tongue.

         "... Por-taie-tcho! ..."



                End Part One