The Big and the Beautiful
The Big and the Beautiful
Rocket and Reality
November 28, 2020
The Mischief
Tonya Sridevi wants to make mischief.
She has driven all day from the city, mask on the entire time, to the Paul Reynolds Reindeer Ranch near the Iowa border with something devilish in mind, a plan which will not capitulate to her better angels.
She parks her yellow Tesla and pays her fee and admires the Reindeer frolicking about. They are graceful and powerful with no ulterior motives. They only want to prance and eat and make more reindeer and this is what Tonya Sridevi wants to ensure. She knows the reindeer do not want to pull Santa’s sleigh, be mobbed at petting zoos or get gawked at at the Paul Reynolds Reindeer Ranch. She knows they want to be free.
Reindeer are noble and egalitarian as well. Tonya has read that reindeer are the only creatures of their kind in which the both the females and the males grow antlers. All are crowned in the reindeer kingdom.
Tonya smiles at the other reindeer watchers—mostly families with children—and joins in when they throw pieces of apple or other treats to the reindeer, some of whom eat right out of a person’s hand. One such reindeer, Tonya immediately believes his name to be “Rocket,” approaches her slowly before nibbling at the apple chunks and lichen she offers and Tonya’s hand is tickled by the mighty tongue of this four-hundred pound creature of nature, survivor of winter.
The November sun begins to set and the reindeer are herded back toward the barn and the families wish them farewell and, as the moonlight assumes its rightful role, the cars drive away. But Tonya stays behind. She hides behind a tree and then when all the employees appear to have gone she sneaks her way into the barn. There must be fifty of them and the smell overtakes her briefly but she likes the smell of the beasts, the attraction of the wild.
Tonya Sridevi pets the reindeer on their noses and gives them names; Percival, Penny, Andreas, Mary May, Capricorn, Pepsi Free. The best names for the most perfect of Christmas characters.
Then she finds her old pal Rocket. She strokes his long, powerful neck.
“Do you want to go?” She asks. “Is it time to return?” She asks and Rocket snorts and blinks his eyes which look like black ornaments or billiard balls.
She opens the door to the barn and Rocket walks out with her, followed by Ruth Bader, Indira, Jack London, and all the other reindeer. They flow back out into the field, nibbling at the grass and Tonya walks amongst them and then makes her way toward the fence at the far end of the field and takes out the bolt cutters.
“They should be free,” she says. “They should be free.”
A light turns on inside the barn and someone yells.
The reindeer know what to do. Tonya doesn’t. --TK
Saturday, November 28, 2020