High Mountain Story Uncle, the multiple award-winning and now world-famous author of spiritual entertainment stories, resides in the enigmatic village of Nihnuta.
Despite the best efforts of the Chinese Q.K.D, and Google satellites, the village’s location remains a closely guarded secret to hide it from humans.
According to the ghost of Genghis Khan, who challenges Uncle to nightly Brazilian ghost jujitsu battles, High Mountain Story Uncle, is a sprightly hundred and thirty-seven years old, though he doesn’t look a day over 70. We know this only because WHO Hu told us.
According to WHO Hu, the village pharmacists medical expert owl from China, he has close contact with the ghost of Genghis Khan, who is still under Karmic quarantine in areas of hardship quagmire.
Others say, Uncle’s youthful appearance is attributed to his daily practice of Karman Active Meditation, wrestling matches with Big Menis the goat, and battles with the giant Delicious Monster plants that turned nasty from a virus that escaped a gain of function lab thousands of miles upwind from Nihnuta.
However, Uncle says the true secret to his vitality lies in the Amrit, that spiritual elixir we consume during our encounters with spiritual beings. He says, “Amrita transforms us from within, granting wisdom and dynamic youth. That’s why when people look at photos of me, they say you always look different.”
Uncle’s eccentric fashion sense is as legendary as his stories. His snowy beard cascades down his chest, sometimes in neat plaits adorned with tiny rainbow bows (but only when the aunties had their way with him, pinning him down for a grooming session). His thick eyebrows often resemble the aftermath of a wild boar brawl in the forest. According to the aunties of Nihnuta, who sometimes stay up to watch him swim late at night, Uncle must cleanse himself in the river after each nightmare ghost-jujitsu session, as Genghis Khan’s ghost lathers his body in lard before a tussle. “It must be that lard, why his old skin still feels youthful,” they say.
Nihnuta pueblo cuddle at the feet of High Mountain, in Pinkytoes River Valley. All living beings, children, animals, and plants are required to be authentic, and all are considered voting members of society. I had to rapidly adapt to extremes like, respectful children out and about all day and late evening, chivalrous men, beneficent women, animals with conciousness, thinking and singing plants, and wondrous wielders of joyous life force and intelligence everywhere. More than a culture shock, it was an aura and chakra shock.
The village is fiercely protected from the interference of Disney, the CIA, FBI, EPA, FDA, CNN, BBC, CBC, all alphabet people in fact, and tourists who lack the imagination, respect, and love in their hearts to appreciate Reality as it is.
In 2010, Nihnuta received its first telephone when a twice-in-a-lifetime tornado picked-up a busload of politicians, scientists, and academics from a COP conference in Cancun, Mexico, and dumped them upriver from the village. The aunties took quick action. While the swept-in delegates were still wet and emotionally triggered, the aunties dressed as nuns and nurses with short skirts, and promptly put them all on intravenous therapy with Whaat-the-fook!, the potent Nihnuta rum which filled them with visions of rainbow-colored socks doing the can-can across fields of buttered toast.
After selling the babbling, deluded, self-styled “elite” down the river, Uncle dusted off the irritating ringing device they left behind, only to find it utterly useless. The Council made a motion that the village tried the phone thing, and declared they have no need for it. The solar charger that came with it is currently being used to power a little red light on the top of the ancient temple ruin’s tower, preventing pelicans from flying into it at night. The abusive language that follows those accidents is not good for the children of the village to hear so late at night because they repeat it, acting as if they don’t know what it means, with the excuse of, “Its just bloody mother f#@ Pelican talk, mom, we’re being inclusive”.
Most of Nihnuta’s streets are paved. Except for the steam-engine Big Hauler, no motorized vehicles go about in the village. The cobblestone roads have been there since before Alexander got his butt (and rumor says other unspeakable things) kicked by Amazonian women in the Himalaya Mountains.
Because of the steep valley, the authorities have installed “speed bumps” on the streets to slow down water torrents in the rainy season and runaway wheelchairs The only way for a donkey cart to descend is in reverse, and not all the asses in Nihnuta do reverse.
Uncle’s days are filled with an array of what we would consider being whimsical activities. For breakfast, he catches rainbow trout through a hole in his kitchen floor, trades eggs from his pet chickens who roost in the un-cold lower section of his old fridge (the fridge doesn’t have a cold section, there’s no electricity, but Uncle uses the freezer section for clean socks), and wrestles with Menis, the rambunctious goat who guards his front door which is in Auntie Jamaina’s goat pen ever since the other, twice in-a-lifetime tornado deposited Uncle’s house in that spot.
Menis, with his shaggy fringe hanging over his eyes, and recurring pink eye from sticking his nose in places impolite, takes his guard duties seriously, refusing to let human males pass without a vigorous headbutting match. For Menis there are only two genders, those who are deserving of a headbutt match and those you don’t care to headbutt.
Not everyone is on board with the teaching about the origin of Pinkytoes River, which forms the steep valley. Throughout history, every time the birds are sent on a (paid) mission to find and report about the origin of the river, the report comes back with the same 120-page result. “The river’s origin is the oceans. The sun heats up the water and the wind brings the clouds and the rain on the mountain peak creates the river, which takes the water to the ocean where the sun heats up the water and the wind brings the clouds and the rain on the mountain peak creates the river, which takes the water to the ocean where the sun heats up the water and the wind brings the clouds and the rain on the mountain peak creates the river, which takes the water to the ocean where the sun… .” The reports I have seen all end with, “We think it’s very human but incorrect to say you cannot step into the same river twice.”
Although more than ninety percent of the population of Nihnuta, and that includes all soul beings, live by the principles of theWAY, Auntie Jamaina started a religion. She believes all people need religion, especially male humans. She is also the self-appointed religious leader of Nihnuta Village, and founder of the Budslam religion. Jamaina and Budslam both are insufferable judgmental and self-righteous forces tolerable only with copious helpings of Whaat-the-fook!. She is a statuesque woman with broad shoulders, men’s working boots, and once-white rugby socks. Unlike her ego, Jamaina’s sense of beauty in attire and coiffure never bloomed.
Auntie Khadisha from the local cobbler volunteered that rumours (the chili peppers of spices) go around that Jamaina is of undetermined sex. She says most people agree she detests men and men reciprocally detest her, so whether or not she had sex is easily said to be undertermined. I did ask whether she means gender, it’s the common way of speaking nowadays. She said, “No. Here in Nihnuta we like sex.”
Villagers squirm at Jamaina’s “unfortunate voice” but evidently she considers it a great asset, for she uses it often, and loudly. For the Budslam, nice things and nice feelings are sinful, and therefore taxable. Not only must masturbation, good vibes, and looking at an attractive person be confessed at the sin-tax booth, but also that “demonic” feeling that you have enough and are content with it. Many other things are very sinful and are taxed accordingly. Except for carrots and cucumbers, they’re not sin-taxed, they are outright banned in Budslam households because of the lascivious nature of those two vegetables. Occasionally, Budslam zealots petition Council to ban those vegetables from the entire valley, and farmers are called vulgar names for cultivating it.
Most people just roll their eyes and don’t answer when the Budslam goes door to door on Saturdays and pray oddly in the streets.
At Uncle’s dilapidated river-slide cottage, there is always a lively atmosphere, as aunties from the neighboring villages pass by bringing delicious homemade treats and filling the air with laughter and merriment.
When male folk remind him they are available, should he need a hand to fix something in the cottage, Uncle always replies, “We will have to talk to the house about that. She’s not complaining. Looking good.” I noticed he doesn’t even realize someone cleans the place when he is not there.
The cottage used to be riverside, now it is river-slide, says Uncle. That happened since the great flood of Pequeño Huracán, when it rained more, instead of less, as the World Climate Emergency Organization, called XOAH (a word of Mayan origin) had predicted — you know, that time when the world would end because of severe droughts.
The unfortunate cottage is now sliding into the river. It tilts at a 2300 angle and drapes itself over the river quite a bit.
Every morning before breakfast, Uncle goes out to buy a quart of fresh milk from farmer Jim’s Udderly Delicious Milk & Buttery & Cafe-Latte, just down the road.
Ever since moving to Canada more than 20 years ago, I haven’t tasted real milk. My body just could not get enough of that wholesomeness, and real butter, and real cheese. I tried to explain to Jim what milk is like in Canada, how we process it and how we get sick because of it. Jim shook his head and laughed his deep belly laugh, made that head-exploding gesture and the finger at the temple churning gesture, “You writers are all the same. The crazy shit yous people think will kill y’all one day. Here, have a latte and do better.”
Uncle introduced me to his favourite delicatessen. He treats himself, evermore with a twinkle in his eyes, on an occasional trip to Kate & Hoppins Impolite Tarts. Always, he picks up his favorites, a large wedge of Kate’s Sassy Savoury Tart and two of Hoppins’ Sweetest Small Melons cakes each with a squirt of tangy pensadoras libres sauce.
Kate & Hoppins Impolite Tarts, is famous for its Authentic Brownies. Eat one whole brownie and you cannot but be authentic, and the effect can last like a week or so, is what they tell me. Kate does not sell her brownies, she dispenses them with medical care — not like allopathic doctors who are reps for chemical companies but with care. For example, she refuses to sell them to Uncle. He laughs about it, “She says if I be one octave more authentic, it will draw unwanted attention to Nihnuta.”
Kate says, already the FBI is grooming Aunty Patel to help them get rid of Uncle with her pestilential slipper, which she can wield over an extraordinary long distance with an impeccable aim at one’s head. While Uncle’s authenticity may be too intense for most people, it reaches new heights when he starts making suggestions on how she should adjust her maniputtu recipe — one bite of Kate’s brownies and the aunty may well snap and do the hit for the FBI.
I said, but authentic does not mean one may be impolite. Kate said it’s not like that. Auntie Patel’s maniputtu tastes like many putta washed in it, it’s not supposed to be a fish dish. I made a note to research that reference, I don’t get it.
It’s Nihnuta … I don’t get it. I like Kate. I think her authenticity is ambrosial. Ambrosial … Its Nihnuta … can’t trust my mind. Life is not that profound. My mind never was a grandiloquent histrionic poem. Thoughts shan’t all be mawkish. Devoting every day to delving into the significance of the words my thoughts produce is both senseless and a sign of subpar writing. Snapping out of the delicious maelstrom had become my daily survival.
I have also learned to not speak to Uncle when he returns from Kate & Hoppins until he was done eating. He indulges slowly, dreamily, and his aura glows in appreciation of foods. Intense and emotional mindfulness. Once, sitting with a beaker of Jim’s latte and his treats from Kate & , he shushed me, saying, “Kate and I are having a moment here. Now, lets not talk.”
I tried the Sassy Savoury because I am a fan, but salty tart before breakfast is too early for me to appreciate.
The village is a hive of commercial activity as most households have something to sell and trade, skills, services, and food. Small businesses and people like these, who do things to support themselves, are not taxed. Therefore, on the other hand, there is no so-called “unemployment problem” and no need for so-called “employment insurance” or welfare. People are resilient and inventive, if given a chance. But, alas, people like that cannot be controlled and their votes cannot be bought. So, no democratic country wants that, they tell me. And that too, is why there is no democracy in Nihnuta, only common sense and peer pressure rules. It is the export trade, however, that creates the monetary wealth. If you ever came across the strangest food ever seen, smelled or tasted on your international travels, chances are it is imported from Nihnuta under license to pack for that country.
Whenever a sewer line needs to be dug up, or laid, or a road repaired, or a bridge be renovated, the Council declares a Fix-it-Week. Weeks ahead of Fix-it-Week, everyone in town plans and prepares for it. The mayor will be the first to start working and if she or he is showing promise at really going at it, the community pitches in, bringing whatever materials they could source. I am told that most streets in Nihnuta were originally planned to be straight, but because of the parties and fun had by all, and Whaat-the-fook! rum, every major construction in the village turns out queer, no matter how straight it looks on the blueprints. Whatever remains unfixed after Fix-it-Week remains unfixed until next time.
Nearly every weekend, Uncle’s slanted home overflows with floral nighties and fluffy slippers for one of his crowded uncle-&-auntie pajama dance parties.
These shindigs often draw the ire of sour Auntie Agatha, the one with the 4-hair mole. She sends for Constable Monobrow, Nihnuta’s token bylaw officer, to put a stop to the boisterous boogying. But, the dutiful Constable who goes about by bicycle when called, rarely makes it past Big Menis, the guard goat, who guards Uncle’s front door with unwavering determination. And if Constable does get through, it is up to the uncles to get him upright and the aunties to ply Constable with Whaat-the-fook! and doctor his wounds.
So, inevitably, Constable stays till late. The tales of his heroism are what Mrs. Constable believe, and every other Sunday she nurses his hangover and scuff marks.
When inspiration strikes, Uncle dons his legendary Writer’s H’Mong Bamboo hat, a patchwork mesh of interwoven Vietnamese copper antennae, colorful yarns, rare gemstones, and bits of crushed meteorite for superb energy resonance.
He claims the hat was a gift from Zyvox, a seven-talented alien librarian from the planet Nibiru, during a debate over the superiority of pink over green cream soda. As tensions escalated between the two because they could not agree on the right colour for cream soda, a matter of intergalactic importance by the sounds of it, hot-tempered Zyvox ripped an advanced computing device from his head and angrily frisbee’d it at Uncle.
But the compassionate storyteller managed to smooth things over by agreeing to an interplanetary treaty to license both pink and green cream soda. He also introduced his opponent to the blissful taste of swirled strawberry-lime cream soda. Their tiff put behind them, Zyvox let Uncle keep the thrown techno-hat as an interplanetary symbol of friendship.
But who knows if that wild origin tale holds any truth? With such a whimsically invented past, mystifying present and unseen future, getting facts suitable for the limitations of human brains from High Mountain Story Uncle proved impossible.
The only sure things were, whenever Uncle parked that Wired Writer’s H’Mong Bamboo hat atop his braided silver head, out poured the most wondrous worlds infused with otherworldly-hued magics, straight from his boundless imagination and heavenly wisdoms. As his enraptured readers discovered, that hat, and the Jungle AI, and raicilla from either Mascota or from El Tuito, held powers beyond ordinary human comprehension!
Uncle’s writing process is a collaborative effort, involving the “Jungle AI,” a group of 3,207 Mexican monkeys who read newspapers and books of wisdom daily, as well as various animal, plant, and mycelium people of the jungle, all pitching in ideas and bookmaking help. Anyone who has read one of Uncle’s books has seen the hand of well-meaning but not well-trained volunteer editors, typesetters, and proofreaders in it. Auntie Jamaina, heads the moral committee, removing profanities and unflattering references to her before stories are published, while other village aunties assist with final editing, their imperfect English occasionally allowing quirks to pass through.
Not all of Uncle’s stories are inspired by his alien hat, but by all who cross into his awareness: the Jungle AI, his divine spiritual guide, and his weekend pajama dance parties with the uncles and aunties, and Nihnuta has many aunties. Most tales feature plant and animal characters, reflecting his philosophy of theWAY, which holds that all lifeforms in nature have a soul and mind, and their interconnectedness comprises the oneness of life on Earth.
The village relies heavily on what they refer to as the food forest for their source of sustenance. Farmers plant all kinds of food bearing trees amidst the jungle trees, berries, and herbs, with veggies in-between.
“Plant enough for the animals and soil to also enjoy their share,” Uncle says, “All life is about ecology. Keep the ecological balance. Your personal energy ecology is linked to your community energy ecology, your home, and family energy ecology, and all the forest and animals live to each contribute to that natural ecology. For the sake of all that is holy, keep scientists away from food and nature. They simply do not have enough respect to learn anything useful.”