Supergreen

A Writer’s Cramp Prompt:

In your story or poem, you have to mention and make bold for the judge to see:

Supergreen
marrow
hound dog
apple pie
nose.

Supergreen

Supergreen, the alien substance given to us by those weird-looking aliens, the ones not from Mars or Venus or anywhere else I’ve ever heard of, but from some place clear out of our solar system -- that Supergreen stuff is great.

I don’t know how we got along without it before the MuskyMucks, or whatever they’re called, brought it to us. The aliens, who look slightly like cats, except for their lack of teeth and the fact that they’re green, were surprised that we didn’t have any of our own Supergreen. That’s why they made some up real fast in that space ship of theirs which hovers over our planet, making it seem like we’ve suddenly got a brand new moon – except this one’s green just like MuskyMucks.

Green is a big deal for these aliens. It’s like the most important color in their world. That’s why they’re here, they told us, so they could honor our tree leaves, our grass, and the other foliage so prevalent on Earth – not to mention all the mosses, molds and lichens we have.

I’m not much excited about aliens dropping out of the sky and crawling down their spider web-hanging ladders. It’s kind of spooky, if you ask me. But, although we were all really scared of them at first, seems the only trouble we’ve had so far has been when some fool dumped chlorine into his duck pond. I mean, it’s not like the man had any ducks in the pond. He wouldn’t have done that if he had live quackers kicking around his pool of slime. No fish either, at least that’s what he said. Except, the aliens saw the pond after he chlorinated it, and they got really upset. You see, the man killed all the green algae.

I mean, you and me would consider that a good thing. Imagine the stench of that mucky water turning greener and greener -- not only an eye-sore, but a place for mosquitoes and other unwelcome critters.

Anyway, the incident caused a big blowup, and it took a heap of soothing to smooth things over, and I'm talking serious mudslinging on the part of those aliens -- at least that’s what it looked like they were doing, those alien cat whiskers wiggling back and forth and crinkling up like someone had taken a curling iron to them.

Aliens vs. humans. The first inter-galactic almost war.

Luckily, some artist came up with the idea of painting a picture for the aliens. He did it with water colors, and I guess it wasn’t too bad for a non-professional. Not that I’m any kind of expert or anything. Far as I could tell it was what we’d call a nice picture. Not much happening in it, but there were lots of ferns, bushes, and trees.

In other words, the artist was smart enough to paint a whole mass of greens, and when the aliens understood that the canvas the artist presented to them was a gift, why they broke out humming and toe-tapping, and everything including their eyebrows started vibrating up and down, which is apparently their way of saying how happy they were. Let me tell you, that artist saved humanity’s carcass.

But that wasn’t the only good thing that came out of it. Why, those MuskyMucks were so excited by their watercolor picture that they gave us free samples of Supergreen, enough Supergreen to give each and every person a whole fistful of it.

Supergreen is something so incredible, it’s like microwave ovens. Once you have it, you can’t remember how you used to cook any other way. Not that you can cook with Supergreen. The stuff isn’t like that.

But -- Supergreen is buoyant in water, flexible even when it’s frozen, peels apart like the skins of an onion, and no matter how much you use it, the ball in your hand remains the same exact size.

Break a vase – Supergreen it. Need to hold something still? Supergreen it. Why, when my old hound dog came into the house with a nose swollen from a porcupine’s quills, what did I do? Right, I Supergreened it, and when I yanked the stuff off the hound’s nose, every quill came with it.

You can use the stuff for almost everything, except you can’t eat it, so when my apple pie crust exhibited cave-ins, I almost went into withdrawal because I couldn't use my Supergreen.

Why, there’s just something about Supergreen that settles down in the marrow of the soul -- like it’s the eternal answer for everything.

But maybe us humans aren’t supposed to have panaceas. Lately I’ve been noticing that people have been acting real funny. They're so busy playing with their Supergreen, no one shakes hands anymore or digs into their pockets for a pack of gum or gets out their wallet when they want to buy something.

And that’s not all. Green eye shadow is back. Running shoes only come in jade or khaki, newspapers in lime or avocado, and half the population has dyed their hair a putrid shade of emerald. Why you’d think it was St. Patrick’s Day to see the outfits folks are wearing.

If I wasn’t so thankful about having this lump of Supergreen cushioned on the pillow next to mine, why I’d start protesting that those aliens are taking over our whole society.

In fact, that's just what I'll do -- right after I go down to Macy’s tomorrow. You see, they’re having a sale on green sheets and . . .

~~~ ~~~~~~~~~

925 words