Dr Fixit (4411 - 4420)

 

4411

with their nefarious plans. I decide to pull out

a million troops who’d beat about

the thickets all around us and continue long

before the kids and custodians leave the throng

in their clans to join us in the ceremony

of welcoming the kids into The Academy

to reinforce their intellect on how best

to make the entire globe in good to invest

and live on a positive and worthy path

where humans, insects and animals wrath

4412

in any form would eschew – that would remain

now and always our core mission and refrain

at no point from its achievement we’d not

as this option alone would take all rot

from the world – I’m about to pass the order

down to the commanders when wings flutter

round the window and landing on the windowsill

is the praying mantis who does deliberately fill

my line of vision, points a finger

and bulges his eyes and then vehemently utters:

 

4413

‘Mr World Changer, I’m here to warn you

for the last time that better stop getting any kid through

from the clans to this wretched place

you call educational grounds as the disgrace

you’d suffer would make you run to hide

your face deep in the woods or commit suicide.

Mendit One and his troops are more formidable

than you think and he’s coming back mettle for mettle

to meet you and erase every shack

standing here as common sense you lack

 

4414

‘to lie low and enjoy what fame and fortune

your folks have stupidly bestowed on you or ruin

them all if you dare insist to expand

this grotty place by bringing on a band

of urchins that should do well playing in the sand

of their folks’ abodes and help run errands

within their compounds, I warn you

for the last time don’t venture further to do

what for life would make all of you blue;

be sober and take a more positive view

4415

‘of your inordinate ambition – not you nor I

nor any other scallywag can successfully try

this God-forsaken world to truly amend

so learn to focus and to your immediate needs attend.

Leave this grandiose mission alone

for it can’t be done by mere muscle and bone.’

I don’t know how I manage to keep quiet

that long without rebuking the one with the mandate

of stunting my ever-growing global stature

and show him and his cohorts they’re immature.

 

4416

‘Would you flit from my sight before I change

my mind?’ I say. ‘What would’ve been strange,’

praying mantis answers, ‘is if differently

you’ve acted.’ ‘Like scientists rigidly

after facts even when the globe at seams

is breaking, if there is no piece of evidence

they would hold in their labs to analyse,

have you come to tell me that  before my eyes

is a mirage, that my fears are without a base?

Wait, nitwit, and this camp would blow on your face!’

 

4417

‘Well, even though I don’t get paid by you

for my free tips on how things you’d rue

you could best avoid, get up to your watchtower

and watch as your rivals – Mendit One and every saucer –

return to annex your territory and in jail

keep all of you numskulls where you’d tell

yourselves again and again you wish you did

seriously consider my warnings your hasty deed

to check and return to the peace of your room

in your ancestral home. Wait to be rattled by the boom

4418

‘that accompanies the drumming of a great tactician;

you think yourself a superstar but a crude artisan

you’d soon be. Just creep and watch a grand spectacle

from your tower and for life this oracle

you’d believe and if ever you’d have the chance

once more to listen to me, you’d glance or dance

whenever I appear to inform you

and know going contrary, everything you’d rue.

Just go look from the tower,’ the praying mantis

says and flies off. At the idiot I hiss.

 

4419

Oracle, my foot! Bloody liar. Can I count

the number of times the podium he’d mount

and preach to me his lies? What was it

I was doing before the arrival of the nitwit?

Yeah, asking Security Unit to shore up

the number of troops that should tour up

the environs of the camp and the highway

from now and well over that crucial day

the new intakes would arrive at the camp

and help us lift higher the new-breed lamp.

 

4420

But there’s a rap on the door and I turn

but don’t tell the person to come in but won’t scorn

the idea plaguing my mind the praying mantis

could, remembering his former antics,

fly around and try to play his pranks on me,

so I tiptoe to peep outside through the hole for key

but then the knock comes on harder

and I’m actually opening the door to peer

at my wife who says the entire troop

is on alert to fish out an enemy troop