Emilio the Wombat and the Fearsome Pez Dispenser
From the archives:
Once upon a time there was a wombat named Emilio. Emilio was a very special wombat because his nose contained a Pez dispenser. He was exceptionally popular with the other young wombats and a few koalas as well, for they all wanted his tasty sugary treats, stored abundantly in his body.
Emilio was aware that normal wombats did not have candy factories in their noses. The deformity was a result of a cruel experiment by Carnivorous Confections, Inc. When he was a young marsupial, he’d been captured by mercenaries and subjected to bizarre and seemingly pointless interrogations and sugar experimentation. Early in his imprisonment, Emilio recognized the deep-set yet subtle insanity of his primary captor, Dr. Winifred. Winifred, a small and peculiar-smelling man (at length Emilio decided the scent was similar to chevre), would stalk about the room where the cages were kept, rattling the cage bars and shrieking, “Admit to the divinity of aspartame! I know you are in contact with It, you foul, furry lump of flesh! Convey my messages at once! Why are my requests not granted? What is preventing their transmission to the Divine Web of Sweetness?” His frantic, menacing eyes would appear at Emilio’s cage as if estimating his animal capacity for deceit. “Yes, yes,” he would mutter. “Yes, I’m sure it’s you …”
At first, during the long, ever-light days of his captivity, Emilio feared Dr. Winifred and his unexpected rampages, yet they soon became a source of amusement for him. The other animals (3 rabbits, seven rats, a hamster, a carpet python, and a pair of surly kangaroos) were greatly relieved to see someone else taking the heat, and Emilio’s good-natured perseverance endeared him to the group. He’d made a list of Winifred’s accusations on his wall in secret wombat script, using a mixture of saliva and the ink he rubbed off of the newspapers he slept on.
“Filthy marsupial of pestilence!”
“Infidel, you deny me nirvana!”
“Despicable, treacherous wombat! Your insolence will not go unpunished!”
“You withhold the sacred pleasures of sugar substitutes, and you shall be made to reveal them!”
“I shall place a Pez dispenser in your nose, fiendish pile of fuzz!”
This last one was a great joke among the lab animals until Dr. Winifred made good on his promise. One day Marlene, Dr. Winifred’s assistant, entered the lab with a gurney and a tranquilizer gun. She began shuffling about the room, spraying disinfectant gleefully and chortling to herself. She stopped in front of Emilio’s cage and sputtered, “You know what that old lunatic is planning, don’t you, Wombat? He sent me down to Wal-Mart to pick up a pack of these—“she displayed the brightly colored Pez dispensers with Tweety Bird heads, “—and measure the dimension of your nose.” She bent her skinny, sloping shoulders down to his cage and hissed, “I hope you like the scent of Pez, Wombat,” and unlocked the cage, clutching the back of his neck and immobilizing him as she deftly measured his nose with one hand.
“Bite her!” squeaked the hamster, and Emilio heard the kangaroos grunt in agreement, but he could not reach Marlene’s hand. He felt the sting of the needle, and barely had time to give thanks for the use of tranquilizers before he sunk into a drugged haze.
He dreamed of narwhales swimming gracefully in a torrential sea.
When he woke, his nose had been replaced by the Tweety. He reached up and felt the hard plastic embedded in his nasal cavity, and heard the gasps of the other animals as he raised his head. The youngest rabbit snarled in a laughable manner.
Still, he shouldered the burden of deformity and instead resolved to focus on whatever new abilities he had. Whatever Winifred and Marlene had done, they’d inserted some sort of genetic code for candy-secreting enzymes into his genetic structure. He realized that if he twitched his tail to the left a few times, a Pez would appear in Tweety’s mouth. It took him a few times to get the hang of it, but soon he was spitting candy at every animal in the room. They murmured their appreciation, all except for the python, who suffered from cavities.
Winifred had been watching from behind the one-way glass and burst in triumphantly. “At last!” he screeched. “I have conquered the marsupial taint! Candy falls from its nose like heavenly fire scorching the mountains! SWEETNESS IS MINE!” He rushed out of the room, shouting, “Marlene, the press releases—get the AMA on the phone!”
Emilio found that he did enjoy the scent of Pez, although he had to conclude that the candy wasn’t the brand name but some cheap knock-off that Winifred had synthesized. Later that evening as they munched on the generic Pez, the lab animals discussed the day’s events.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit odd,” said one of the rats, “that his life’s work is creating a wombat that can produce candy at will? I mean really …”
Emilio sighed in agreement. “Yes, I agree. What satisfaction can he possibly get from having a plastic Loony Toon hanging out my nose? How does this benefit the world? What useful contribution to society is he making?”
“He’s crazy,” the hamster said flatly. “There is no great philanthropic motivation behind these nefarious deeds, Emilio. He’s a genius, sure, but he’s playing without a full deck. In fact I think he’s got a deck that consists solely of the jack of clubs.”
Suddenly the python reared its head and hissed. The male kangaroo rolled his eyes. “Oh Christ,” he grumbled. “Jeff’s ‘channeling’ again.”
Emilio watched the snake warily. “Eh?”
“Oh,” said one of the rabbits, “He’s convinced that his ancestral memories give him a direct conduit into Satan’s mind. He has these fits—” the bunny gestured to the convulsing snake “—and spouts a bunch of threatening BS about apocalypses and annihilating our souls, then comes to and says it was Satan.”
“FOOLISH WOMBAT!” shrieked the snake. “Are you so blind that you cannot see my diabolical plot?”
“Uh …” said Emilio uncertainly.
The snake turned its blazing eyes on the wombat. “It is I, SATAN, who possessed the mortal shell of Winifred, and I, SATAN, who masterminded this evil plan! I wish to bring chaos to the animal kingdom. SUGAR. I desire rotting teeth and injuries caused by sugar highs! Insulin spikes! Malnutrition! I desire addiction, raids of human stores and house, chaos and destruction. You are my pawn. You will distribute the tasty yet non-nutritive confection to each animal you meet upon your release.”
Emilio appraised the snake. The overwhelming scent of brimstone, the chorus of demonic voices speaking as one, the mysterious appearance of the cloud of flies—Jeff’s channeling seemed genuine. “If I agree, you’ll go away and leave me alone?”
“Yes, of course, until it’s time for me to collect your doomed soul.” Satan seemed sincere. “And as an added bonus for your continued cooperation, I’ll remove the Pez dispenser when I’ve created an army of wallabies with Pixie Stix pouches.”
“Ok.”
“Emilio!” cried the hamster. “You aren’t seriously going to do what the Prince of Lies wants?”
“Look,” said Emilio, “I want a normal nose again. If Satan just wants me to play Easter Bunny and traipse about the countryside distributing candy—“ here the rabbits scowled “—then I’m game. It’s a stupid plan anyway and will never work, so what’s the harm?”
“Yes,” smiled the python. “What’s the harm indeed? Good, clever wombat. I shall now summon my minions to free you.”
And that is how Emilio the Wombat became the slave of Satan. He was right, it was certainly a stupid plan and it didn’t work at all because most animals got sick of candy pretty quickly, and the carnivores generally refused to bother with eating it. However, Satan was willing to admit defeat so long as he got to dine on delicious soul of marsupial and drink up the screams of the damned.
THE END
