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. ^_^