Chapter 3: Sheep Dreams

Chapter 3

It came swiftly. The end of Larry’s career, that is. Ninja-monkey 202 never got his point across, but his continued visits to Bonnie’s office encouraged her to stop in for a visit during Larry’s business hours. If the accumulation of homework wasn’t enough, than the abysmally small number of dream reports, or rather the complete and utter absence of them, would have been. But it wasn’t either of these two concerns that resulted in Larry’s termination.

Community rules were a priority to everyone in Cloudtown. Bonnie was not the only enforcer, but she was undoubtedly the ultimate enforcer. While all the sheep respected her, it would be difficult for any to admit that they actually liked her. Bonnie had once been a sheepdog, working the very pastures that provided the Grasseaters with their greens. It was well known that she had methods of ensuring compliance that even the most ignorant of the land flock would understand and fear.

Larry had heard the stories before. His parents weren’t above using threats, well, at least not after all attempts at encouraging good behavior had failed. The rogue sheep was perhaps the only one who would dare defy the collie by breaking community rules.

Bonnie was astounded. She was amazed and dismayed. It really wasn’t a question of which rules he had broken, but more that of which rules had NOT been violated. Her punishment was swift and just. Larry was removed from his groovy office in the sky and was sent plummeting to the fields 27000 feet below. If he had had time to think about it at all, I’m sure he would have been terrified of the fall, but Bonnie really did not give him the chance.

Ninja-monkey 202 was caught unaware. He had sneakily been hiding in the wool on Larry’s back, grooming the round creature and eliminating parasitic insects. To some, Ninja-monkey 202 may have appeared to be feasting down, snacking on the job, or taking advantage of Larry’s total absorption in his illegal tunes, but in reality, he was in the act of initiating a devious plan. His plan was – well, it’s not really the time to discuss his plan. But it was indeed devious, and only a ninja-monkey with the stealth of Ninja-monkey 202 could have ever dreamed of pulling it off.

Larry landed with a thud on a rough patch of Blue Gramma grass. When the stars had stopped twinkling in his mind, he shook his head and cautiously stood up. The weather, he noticed immediately, had become somewhat chilly, and there was a breeze. He’d never felt a breeze before. It tickled.

Slightly hurt, physically more so than emotionally, because remember, Larry had never really cared about the Dreamforce anyway, he stretched and glanced around. He found himself in large pasture, full of rolling hills and closely cropped grass, primarily of the aforementioned variety. He was suddenly hungry, and being a food-focused fellow, immediately decided to taste the leafy greens below his hooves.

Nothing could have prepared Larry for the explosion. He had never tasted anything like it before – the grass was bitter, almost toxic tasting, and had the texture of... of, well, the texture was that of plant matter. It repulsed him. He coughed up the cud and noisily spit it out only the ground. He glared at it in disgust.

Ninjamonkey 202 nearly giggled with delight. He had never seen Larry NOT eat something before, and the sight of it was just too much. Though he had been a bit dazed from the fall, Larry’s excessive blubbery padding had provided quite a protective cushion, and he was feeling lucky for some moments after the landing that he had indeed been stuck with Larry the Lush.

Other sheep were dispersed across the field. They did not seem at all bothered by the plop of the fluffy foreigner onto their territory, and, if they noticed at all, they did not show it. The Grasseaters seemed to be a hardy subspecies, Larry concluded. Not only were they much less flighty than his kind, they were also lean and stringy. Besides Larry himself, not a single sheep on earth appeared overweight.

Ninja monkey noticed this as well. Larry was whiter, softer-looking and heavy set compared to this crew. His appearance was almost… majestic. The monkey’s eyes were only just peering above the wool-line of Larry’s back, but he could see for miles around. There was not a snack machine or a cloud in sight. The pesky primate held back another chuckle. How long could his charge possibly survive under these conditions? His plan, a most devious plan that was nearly spoiled by this unexpected adventure, was quickly revised. Ninja monkey’s mind was racing with tiny duct-tape origami figurines acting out his scheme.

The first step was to get Larry to trust him. Well, that might be the second step, he concluded quickly, as the first step would more realistically include an introduction between the two. He decided to begin at once.

“YIPES!” Larry hopped about three feet to the side. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!!”

The other sheep stopped grazing, and expressions of alarm on their furry faces was evident. The looked over to find a darkly dressed figure standing in front of an unidentified member of their own kind. Bleating erupted from the flock, and they began trotting, almost synchronously, over the hill and out of sight. Larry was frozen in place, alone with this… this creature.

“Please don’t hurt me! I’ll give you whatever you want!” His front hooves reached high in the air, stick-em-up style.

Ninja-monkey whipped out a roll of silver duct tape. He began building furiously, paying almost no attention to the fearful wooly creature in front of him.

“HELP ME!!! He’s going to tie me up! Please help me!” Larry panicked, looking around for assistance, but he had been completely and utterly abandoned by his own kind.

202 continued to sculpt. He seemed completely oblivious to his captive, and said nary a word. Well, you and I know that he was a mute, and we woudn’t have expected him to talk, given this information, but we can hardly expect Larry to have known that by now. The sheep found the monkey’s rapid movements terrifying and quite threatening, and the lack of dialogue was driving him mad.

“What do you want from me? Please…..” Larry’s lip trembled, and he looked rather pathetic as he shook before the tiny ninja. The monkey looked up suddenly, placed his gnarled finger in front of his mouth in a shushing motion, and busily got back to work.

As Larry watched the duct tape fly, time passed. It was soon dusk, and Larry began to fear that he would not live to see another sunrise. The other sheep were still nowhere to be seen. Ninja monkey 202 began hopping up and down, and, as near as Larry could tell, the little fellow had completely lost his mind. He could not take his eyes of the wide bandit’s black bellaclava, which had slightly twisted due the recent activity to reveal a wide, menacing grin.

All of a sudden, Larry realized what was happening. The monkey was pointing at an incredibly complex arrangement of origami figurines. It looked like a complete miniaturization of the Dreamforce office. But along with the hundreds of sheep that worked in the skyscraper, their were hundreds of other creatures. As he peered more closely into the little structure, Larry strained his already weary eyes to discover that these were not a random assortment of creatures, but an entire conglomerate of little ninja monkeys, each identical to but proportionately smaller than the one standing in the darkness before him. There were several monkeys in Bonnie’s office, and unlike the sheep figurines, who were all pointing away from the monkeys or staring vaguely into space, the Collie was obviously in the midst of some sort of mysterious discussion with the primates.

“You’re a spy!!” Larry ventured. “You work for Bonnie, and you are a SPY!”

Ninja-monkey began hopping up and down madly, his arms waving wildly in the air and his tiny head bobbing, just visibly in the growing darkness.

“So…. You ratted me out? Is that what all this is about?” The bewildered sheep glanced at the scene again.

202 nodded again, his pointy-teethed grin glowing in the moonlight.

“Okay, you tattled because I was a lousy worker and I broke the community rules. But why did you follow me all the way here?”

As soon as it was said, Larry realized his mistake. The furry artist wiped out the office scene, and began frantically crafting something new.

“No, no, no….it’s too dark, I can’t see anything. Why don’t we take a snooze, and you can, erm, show me all about it in the morning?” He wasn’t sure why he was being friendly with the creature who had obviously done him in, but he felt like it had something to do with the fact that he was otherwise all alone in a very dark, very scary new world.

Ninja-monkey stopped his moulding. He ran circles around Larry for a good two or three minutes, then suddenly stopped. He snapped his fingers, and as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.