The Foul Underdark of Ozark
In the tunnels carved out by rot and decay, a festering nest of malcontents and Marxists meet to overthrow the Owls and Eagles. Yet Baloo's sacred orders from his Holy Father aren't what they seem.
Deep in the heart of the Ozark woods, Baloo, the stuffed Bear with blue fur, had been called to a secret meeting. A great calamity had occurred–the Queen of the Ants, Plucked and Tucked, had lost her control over the Library Board. Baloo’s fur bristled as he approached the meeting place, his paws hesitating with each step forward. He steeled himself and pressed on, knowing there was no alternative.
Queen Plucked and Tucked had hidden away in her nest and refused to leave it. She claimed that the Owls and the Eagles were out to get her, and she needed the protection of Ozark and Nixa police ants and wolves.
Even with his protection against the police, Baloo felt a deep uneasiness in his heart. He was entering into the nest of the conspiracy–this was the genuine seat of power in Christian County. Here, he would find the old Marxists who fed off the nasty Aphid liquor, pontificating on the need to overthrow the churches and bury the old ways. He would find the beating heart of resentment and discontent in this underworld.
He had made a deal here, long ago, to gain power at the throne of the previous Queen. That matriarch demanded a heavy price, and he paid it willingly. He had given up everything to gain the world–gladly. It had been a price every Baloo had paid since coming to Christian County in 1832. Their fur was authentic blue and loyal. The deal was that they preached Christianity, but in the background, they weakened the faith by serving the Queen under the hill–until the day the Queen could live in the open and the light.
As the putrid odor of decaying flesh and musty fur enveloped him, Baloo’s nostrils flared. He inhaled deeply, savoring the scent like a connoisseur sampling a fine wine. His eyes closed in reverence as if breathing in the very essence of holiness.
“Oh ho,” yelled out Harry Nuckles Styrofoam. The large baboon swung over to him across the sizeable cavernous tunnel. “Surprised you showed your blue face here. It’s your fault this has happened. You allowed them to appoint an Eagle to the Library Board. Didn’t I warn you? Didn’t I warn you?” The Baboon chittered meaningless opinions often Baloo knew to ignore.
“Stuff it, you red-nosed baboon. I don’t answer to you aphid-swilling monkey.”
Styrofoam’s fists pounded his chest in a furious rhythm, his red, boiled, and inflamed bottom pulsing an angry crimson as he whirled to present it to Baloo in a grotesque display.
“I’m a chimpanzee. This red-nose is a medical condition brought on by a hereditary condition because of my mother. The Queen said that if anyone called me a Baboon, I could have the Police Ants rip them apart.”
“The only reason your nose is so red is because you’re an alcoholic, you communist puke. The Queen needs you, but she doesn’t like you. No one does. Now get out of my way before I stuff you in a hole.”
Styrofoam tried to block the way, but Baloo’s more considerable bulk pushed past the smaller baboon. He knew he might pay for his disregard later, but he didn’t have time to deal with this moronic ape at this point. Styrofoam liked to bully, claim he could sue everyone, and change the world, but ultimately, he was an incompetent lawyer who only had work because he knew the Queen.
Baloo had served wise Queens under the nest—even cruel queens. He had never served such a foolish queen. This one wasted every opportunity to advance the objectives of the Holy Father. She relinquished hard-won victories so that she could be seen publicly as important. Baloo’s work in the background for years quickly evaporated over the last two years in this library fight.
She was supposed to have used this board position to advance several positions for the Holy Father quietly, surreptitiously, and secretly. Instead, her ego had turned her into a lightning rod. When she could have given in to the enemy’s demands to save the face of the greater and holier goals, she had chosen instead that this was the moment to show every card on the table. The problem is that the cards on the table were still a baboon, a queen, and a pair of wolves.
She had listened to that damn buffoon of a baboon, Styrofoam, and his self-important and self-aggrandizing flapdoodle. The boiled monkey’s bottom had promised the Queen her time had come. Pluck and Tuck wasn’t meant to be a footnote in the Holy Father’s plans.
He had known exactly where he would find Blushy, too, as he turned the corner into the filthy pit. Blushy, her fur matted and eyes darted nervously, crouched in the corner. Her tail tucked between her legs—she whimpered softly, more reminiscent of a cornered rabbit than the fierce wolf she was meant to be.
Previous Queens had always filled their nests with some of the religious sacrifices to the dead gods, but under Queen Plucked and Tuck, the center nest was discordant and disarrayed.
She sat there in the center of her bile, and the sacrifices to the dead gods littered the ground without having been burnt. She was too distraught to call upon the patron saints of Librarians and Non-Profits (Oscar Wilde and Margaret Sanger).
“Baloo? Did I call you? What brings you to my throne?”
“The Holy Father has sent me. He’s unhappy with you.”
“With me,” she trembled. It was a good sign that the madness hadn’t completely overtaken her mind.
“Yes. This wasn’t your mission. You were supposed to help—slowly— convert Christian County to his Holy Father. You weren’t supposed to light a fire that would wake up even the most asleep of the enemy. What have you done, you foolish Queen Ant?”
“I’ve conquered them, Baloo. I have them right where I want them. I will crush them under my six legs and pinch them apart in my mandibles.”
“Too much of your Ozempic has gone to your antennas; you crazed Queen. You don’t deserve to rule anymore.”
Blushy spoke up, surprisingly. “Those Owls and Eagles don’t deserve to rule. I’ve heard Ishtar’s voice in the dark. I’ve heard what she’s said. We can’t let them have the children.”
“What have you two awaken in the dark? The Holy Father is above Ishtar. He silenced her long ago.” Baloo felt his stuffing quiver inside of him.
The Queen sensed his disquiet. “You fear her? Over the Holy Father? Now, who is blasphemous?”
A commotion in the tunnels behind him made him look behind–there was a sound of beating feet and hands slapping the walls and ground. And then the baboon (the ugly red-nosed baboon) jumped out of the darkness, leading a charge. He was screaming some nonsense in his drunken, slurred voice while holding up an aphid to his lips in one hand. "Wurkersh of th' worl' uniiite... You got nuthin' ta loosh but yer chainsh.”
As soon as he said this, he fell over and passed out drunk.
“Here comes your mighty salvation, Queen Pluck and Tuck. You can follow Blushy’s lead, who looks like she’s about to pee all over her own leg, or you can do what the Holy Father has commanded you to do.” Baloo pointed disdainfully at the scene before him of the failed revolutionaries in the tunnel.
“Or what?” The Queen raised up on all six legs, rearing her large mandibles.
“Or I replace you with a Queen smart enough to do the Holy Father’s will. It will not be denied. Not by someone like you.”
The Queen laughed derisively. “You cannot harm me; I am a Queen..”
Baloo’s paw descended swiftly, his thumb and forefinger pinching with a sickening crunch. The Queen’s exoskeleton splintered, her tiny limbs twitching in their final spasms as her once-regal form crumpled into insignificance. He flicked the fidgeting antenna off his finger and thumb.
It wasn’t the first Queen he had squeezed out of existence so casually. Each one had thought they were too big to be replaced. Each one had been a tiny, insignificant insect at the end.
He stared at Blushy. She was a wolf, but a cowardly wolf. She could call an entire army down on his head. Or she could hide in this nest pile, hoping the future Queen Ant wouldn’t sacrifice her as she deserved.
Baloo turned away from the wolf, but not before asking, “Don’t you have even the courage to growl? The soul to howl? The independence to be a wolf? Some people fear the wolf in sheep’s clothing. You’re a sheep in wolf’s clothing—a coward too afraid to do more than blush at every strong word said to you.”
“The furry and feathered denizens of this tale bear a striking resemblance to certain bipedal mammals of the genus Homo sapiens, much like how a child’s teddy bear might resemble a grizzly - superficially similar, yet entirely stuffed with fluff. Any perceived likeness to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and about as substantive as the cotton batting in a well-loved plush toy. Those who feel personally reflected in these animal antics are cordially invited to examine their stuffing and perhaps consider a trip to the dry cleaners for a thorough de-linting of their imagination. Remember, dear readers: in the grand toybox of life, we’re all just waiting for our turn at show-and-tell.”