Ookie Cookie: Chapter 1 - Section B

We left off last time with the introduction of Linda Purplefork, our heroine in the quirky land of Idunnowat.

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This is hardly important. What really matters is the collection being housed in Linda’s hollowed-out oak. Instead of magical tomes of incalculable power, expensive and sparkly jewels or even an assortment of the best movies in the world, the library was the home of the most insensible collection known to man.

“My cookies!” Linda climbed up the spiral staircase coming out of the centre of the library floor. She wore a bright blue apron and big red rubber gloves. In her hands, she held a bottle of window washing fluid, a soft rag and a special cookie duster that she fashioned out of soft daisy feathers. She began her daily routine of wiping down the hundreds of glass covers in the cylindrical room. Linda enjoyed this rather mundane task, because it gave her a chance to admire her “crumbly darlings”, as she called them. As contented as she was, admiring the first mint chocolate chip cookie ever made or the chocolate chip chocolate cookie with chocolate icing and a dollop of chocolate sauce, she glanced at the one empty compartment in her shelf and sighed.

The Ookie Cookie is the rarest cookie in the world. So rare, in fact, that the only surviving record of its existence is in a book titled The Collection of Silly Superstitions, Mad Myths and Ridiculous Rumours in the Land of Idunnowat by Marianne Shaw-Buckitt, a best-selling historian with beautiful feet who had an unfortunate tendency to make up things, most of which are contained in her book. Just after the entry “The Dastardly Nocturnal Deeds of Fairies” is the entry about the Ookie Cookie:

“The Ookie Cookie is the rarest cookie in the world. So rare, in fact, that the only surviving record of its existence is in this book, written by yours truly. From years of research – mostly conducted in the mango-peach juice bars – this humble author has discovered that the legendary baked good may be traced back to the Temple of Dungivadamme, the centre of the Enlightened Indifference movement.

“It is said that the High Priestess of the ancient cult ordered the High Baker to create a dessert for the Day of Shrugging celebration, which consists of all believers putzing around in their sleeping clothes, unshaven and dirty-haired, contemplating their superior powers of utter apathy. The High Baker, Gaston was his name, sought inspiration in grapefruit juice, the sourness of which makes it a favoured drink of those wishing to reach the state of religious ecstasy. High Baker Gaston drank so much of this fruity liquid that his ecstatic fit caused his limbs to flail about and make a mess of giant proportions, which took High Caretaker John three hours to clean up the next morning. Coming out of his daze, the High Baker clenched his right hand and found that it held some dough. He took it as a sign and popped it into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 degrees Celsius for twenty minutes. The cookie was beautiful to behold and nary a crumb fell when High Baker Gaston lifted it from the pan. Suddenly, he could not bear the thought of anyone eating his perfect creation, and after carefully wrapping it in a piece of wax paper, the deranged cook fled from the temple. When it was discovered that the High Baker was missing along with his divine dessert, the High Priestess ordered her soldiers to search for the traitor. Unfortunately, the Enlightened and Indifferent soldiers soon gave up, realizing that they just did not care about the cookie or in fact, anything at all. (See page 304 for the entry on the downfall of the Enlightened Indifference movement and the Temple of Dungivadamme.)

“Of the High Baker’s tragic fate (for one can only assume in these types of stories that the end was suitably disastrous), nothing can be said for certain. However, the legend of the Ookie Cookie has only grown over the years. Some attribute powers of immortality, telepathy, invisibility, omnipotence, omniscience and ambidextrousness to it, while others suggest that the possession of a saccharine object – especially that born out of religious ecstasy – can have only negative consequences, such as mortality, impotence, obesity, hyperglycemia and other diabetes-related symptoms.”

Every night, Linda pored over this passage before going to sleep, trying to find some meaning in the tangled phrases. And every night, she came to the conclusion that Miss Marianne Shaw-Buckitt was a harebrained loony – a perfect Idunnowat citizen. Then she threw the book at her light switch across the room, and kicked up the blankets in frustration. Her sleep was always plagued by befuddling dreams of a giant winged cookie beckoning to her from beyond a lake of milk shrouded in mist.

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Some notes:

What are "daisy feathers"? Darned if I know. Debbie suggested them to me and I liked the beautiful soft sound of them.

It should perhaps be mentioned that Linda's surname "Purplefork" is a play on Greenspoon, the Westmount math teacher. I think it was Leah, Linda and I who used the name "Purplefork" in a composition we had to do in French class.

I'm big fan of Dickensian names. Long ridiculous names. Shaw-Buckitt is my favourite to use when I can't think of a name right away. I think this one will stick for once. I love its faux-English sound.

The Enlightened Indifference movement was born when I finally realized after years of self-torment that it is best simply to let some things go. There are instances when apathy truly is a great comfort. I had thought of naming it Jindaludyism, which is a cult that Linda and I thought of starting one day to take over the world, but that was a bit on the nose, so I settled for the more understated name. As understated as one can get with a structure called "Temple of Dungivadamme", that is.

If I can one day get this printed, I would probably include all these as footnotes probably for my own amusement more than anything else. ^_^

The Resurrection of..."THE OOKIE COOKIE"!!!

Dear friends,
I haven't been writing for a long long time. As much as I like cooking and boasting about new recipes I've tried in my solitude here in Montreal, it doesn't give me the same boost as writing Crazy E-mails and Foodietales and wacky stories.

Ookie Cookie is a story I've been trying to write for the longest time. The problem is that even though I have all these ideas floating around in my head, it takes me forever to put them down because I'm so focused on writing the most perfect sentences. So, as a way of getting back to writing and also forcing myself to keep doing it, I've decided to write one new paragraph of Ookie Cookie every week. I would love any feedback you have about my writing.

Ookie Cookie was born from a random song Linda was singing to herself one day in my car:
Ookie Cookie
Ookie Cookie
I want a cookie!
(repeat)

The Lord of the Rings movies had just come out and we thought of an idea of a character going on an epic quest for a mythical cookie. We had no real idea of where the story would go from there, but I planned to soak the story with WSS in-jokes and references. At one point, we were actually thinking of "Ookie Cookie: The Musical", so if this works out and I'm not completely rhyme-dead, I will also be writing lyrics to various songs that would feature in such a musical.

Some song ideas right now are:
The Ookie Cookie Song
What Rhymes with Potato?
That Cookie Better Be Vegan!

For now, I'm posting Chapter 1: In which the adventure begins, Section A that I wrote a few years ago.

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Deep in the Land of Idunnowat, fairies in wispy dresses made of mist (dyed with fruit juice, in the case of the vainer of our winged friends) chatter and giggle late into the night, sitting cross-legged in their mulberry tree nests. When bored with the latest gossip about the Fairy of Sunflowers courting the Fairy of Mischief, they creep out from behind the leaves and take to the air, after peeping to make sure no one is around. One of their favourite activities is to fly through the open windows of sleeping humans and tickle the big pink ears or toes with dandelion puffs.

Such is the fluffy nonsense that the inhabitants of Land of Idunnowat believed, for they were very silly. Each and every one of them was an oddball, a nutjob or a weirdo, but it won’t do to call them such names, as they preferred the term “whimsically eccentric”. Good sense was frowned upon; it was a good thing too. When was the last time anyone had a smashing good time after someone had uttered the words, “You know, my good sense tells me…”? Anyone so practical as to say such things was immediately banished from the Land of Idunnowat to a grey and desolate country filled with math teachers, philosophers, astrobiologists and other miscellaneous people who belonged to the category of “No Fun Crankypants”. The population of Idunnowat dwindled somewhat, but the remaining citizens lived quite happily and peacefully, basking – and sometimes even suntanning – in the silliness of each other and the world around them.

One such silly person was Linda Purplefork, who lived in the hollowed-out centre of a giant oak in the north corner of Idunnowat. The idea of living in a tree, as well as being terribly romantic, was also terribly convenient, for the hollowed-out centre of the giant oak formed the ideal cylindrical shape for her library. She ordered special shelves that curved inward to fit the shape of the walls perfectly, as well as a ladder that rolled along the library walls for easy access. That was the main reason for her to build this custom library. In her previous house, the library formed a heptagon, which was most inconvenient for ladders and Linda was forced to huff and puff as she dragged hers from shelf to shelf. The contractor and the real estate agent who suggested that she simply buy custom shelves that fit the heptagonal walls and form a circle with the inner edge – instead of moving to a new house with a cylindrical shape – were both sacked and booted out of Idunnowat. Linda had no patience for sensible types.

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Up until this point, I was on a roll. I knew exactly what words I wanted to use and the tone I wanted to convey. More to come!

In the Morning

The faint rays of sunlight peeked through the folds of her yellow curtains and touched his face. He stared at his fingertips, now eerily glowing in the semi-darkness which was slowly retreating in the light of day. Transfixed by the flaming appendages, he felt as though a small part of him was now invincible. Godlike, even. He turned his attention to the tiny foot poking out from under the soft pink duvet on the bed. It was limp, but it pulsated with life. As he stared, the blood underneath the skin seemed to become even redder in the sunlight. He concentrated and he thought he could see the blood vessels branching out longer and further into the smallest capillaries. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He slowly reached for the foot with his glowing fingers. As he got closer, he felt - or did he just imagine it? - the skin throbbing in a slow rhythm.

He pounced.

"Tickle, tickle, tickle!", he yelled.