On the Island of Mespitonia

This was from a long time ago, probably when I was ten.

On an unknown island in an unknown world, where the sun shines brightly and the flowers are larger than dinner plates and more beautiful than you can ever imagine, live peculiar creatures more odd than is possible dream up. One such is the snoz-wozzal. A large, fat, scaly creature with an otter like tail and a short dangling trunk on is face. Or the bunnut: a massive bird-like-mammal with a very long beak. All inhabitants knew their island as Mespitonia and despite their many differences (most were stupid) they generally all got along very well with each other, or at least they liked to think.

One day, a thunderstorm struck the island that was horrifying in its power and size. All the animals fled terrified into the vast, tropical forest. The stampede charged through the Trunkan village scattering many and trampling the unlucky to death.

One curious creature, a killockio, didn’t run in panic. The small, luminous blue amphibian stayed calm; in fact he even appeared to not have noticed the thunderstorm at all. Scavenging around on the forest floor searching for fallen fruit amongst the undergrowth, he couldn’t hear the mighty roar of thunder. The trees muffled the sound and the heavy raindrops couldn’t reach him through the canopy. His name was Emile.

Suddenly he spotted a lovely, juicy juv-juv fruit underneath a tree nearby. As he shifted towards it, a loud rumbling noise and a brown dust cloud came sweeping towards him. A giant herd of snoz-wozzals was bearing down on him and the enormous number of feet were sure to crush him as they carved a flattened roadway though the jungle in their panic.  In a lightening dart, Emile burst headlong at the prized fruit, stretching out to grab it with both toes escaping the stampede within an inch of his tail. But as he grabbed the fruit, a greedy grum-grum bird swooped down from nowhere. Snatched the juv-juv and flew off with it.

The great bird swept up into the sky, high above the canopy and into the rainstorm. Emile though was now dangling from the juv-juv fruit, still held firmly by his sticky toes. Eventually the thunderstorm died down and the grum-grum bird finally landed in its nest. Relieved from a queasy-making flight and glad to have stopped, Emile began feasting on the juv-juv fruit. The ugly bird began pecking on it as well. When the fruit was all gone, the grum-grum noticed Emile for the first time.

“Little killockio,” he grumbled in a low croaky voice, pressing his large red beak right up against Emile’s nose, “you have eaten half my fruit.”

“It was my fruit first,” complained Emile, “Spit out the half you’ve eaten since you snatched it from me!”

“What!” roared the grum-grum, ruffling his grey feathers to show he was really angry, “You disgusting little amphibian, how dare you…?”

But Emile never replied. He’d spotted another, even juicier juv-juv on a branch below and had vanished in a flash of blue.