In the photo above one of Nibbling’s oldest civic groups,
The Freaks of Nibbling, puts on their popular Human Freaks Show
at the Annual Spring Grenade Festival in Nibbling.
If our story begins and ends in nothingness
We’re all freaks in the narrative
Freaks of Nibbling
You’re already a member of our tribe
even if you don’t realize it
Hi. I’m Hector Klumpp. My wife Rosetta (who once persuaded me to slay a dragon) talked me into explaining to you the Freaks of Nibbling, one of Nibbling’s oldest civic groups.
Each year in the Sticker Tape Parade, I ride atop their float, which rests on the roof of my best friend Clifford’s Strange Uncharted Mountains tour bus. It’s a brilliant creation that wins awards every year the judges have their hats on straight.
The Freaks of Nibbling put it together a few years back and invited me to “ride” it. I’ve been aboard ever since.
The parade float explains the core of who the Freaks of Nibbling are. So, since you may not make it to our Sticker Tape Parade this year, to help you understand, I made a little script of how Clifford explained it to me that first year. Pretend you are reading an amateur movie script:
Setting:
Hector Klumpp and his best friend Clifford Bean are standing at the back of Clifford’s Strange Uncharted Mountains (SUM) tour bus just before the start of the Annual Sticker Tape Parade in Nibbling, MN.
Hector:
Now show me this mysterious freaky float on the top of your bus that I’m supposed to be a part of.
Clifford:
(Nodding and scurrying up the ladder to the top of his bus with Hector right behind him.)
As president of the Nibbling Society for the Exploration of the Uncharted Mountains, I loaned the NLA (Nihilist Lites of America) and the Freaks of Nibbling my bus.
Hector:
(Atop the bus, there is an old dental chair secured to a track that runs across the narrow width of the bus.)
I see. So, what’s with the Nibbling Dental Chair Rental? (Pointing to the stenciled lettering on the back of a dentist’s chair.) You don’t expect me to sit in it, do you? I have some bad childhood memories, Cliff.
Clifford:
Yah, well, you are going to sit in it, Hector. The chair represents your life. It is mounted to this track running east/west across the top of my bus.
(Clifford tapped the track with his toe, and gestured side to side.)
It spans the distance from one side of the float to the other.
Hector:
(Sliding the chair back and forth with his hand.)
I see.
But what are these giant banners for?
(Hector points to two five-foot-wide banners, extending out on both sides of the bus. They are black and white, protruding well into the street, and hung all the way to the ground.)
Clifford:
Aren’t they beautiful? I think it makes my bus look like a strange bulky, toy airbus.
The banners bookend the track and are black and white representing our acceptance of the plain nothingness of reality.
Hector:
That is black and white. Welcome to my world! Nihilism and nothingness. Intertwined concepts.
(Pointing)
Okay, I see that the dental chair comes out of a giant cradle, on the east.
Clifford:
The sunrise of your life.
Hector:
(extending his arm)
And on the west, the track ends in a giant coffin.
Clifford:
The sunset of your life, my friend. We mounted the coffin at a 45% angle to be sure it could be identified from a street level view for what it is.
Hector:
(Laughing)
For what it is. Right!
(Gesturing to the banner on the right)
So, I begin from nothing, just as we all agree.
And then suddenly, there’s me.
(Pointing to the cradle.)
Then the chair slides along the track…
Clifford:
…sliding right through your life to the end. The coffin. And then…
(Gesturing at the banner on the far side of the coffin.)
Hector:
Black and white on the west,
it all ends in nothingness.
Clifford:
(Nodding)
You know Hector, how the Freaks of Nibbling are always making the point of what a freaky thing life is. When you’re in the chair, so to speak, you have all these crazy experiences that seem to have such deep meaning.
Hector:
(Putting his arm around his old friend.)
Deep meaning, there’s no denying it. There’s Rosetta, and my job, and all the wonderful folks here in Nibbling. There’s value in that.
Clifford:
Well, to demonstrate, we contrived this little cord…
(He pulls the cord at the dental chair’s arm, causing sticky notes to begin floating down all around them.)
…to dispense these random notes. They will float down on you in your dental chair of life during the parade, sticking here and there.
Hector:
(grabbing one.)
‘Hope’, it says.
Clifford:
You see? You have hope! It’s right here in your hand.”
Hector:
(Laughing)
I get it.
(Gesturing to the black and white banner on the right.)
Nothing.
(Gesturing to the cradle and dental chair.)
Then, suddenly I’m here. I’m something. Not nothing.
And I can’t explain it, but I have hope. As you said, it’s right there in my hand! Then…
(Gesturing to the coffin and the banner on the left.)
Nothing again.
Clifford:
Isn’t that freaky?
Thus we show the whole point of the Freaks of Nibbling.
Hector:
As they greet
at every meet:
‘We must understand this imperative:
we’re all just freaks in this grand narrative’.
(Sticky notes continue floating down. Hector grabbed one off his shoulder and read it.)
Gratitude. It’s a puzzling thing…, a feeling of thankfulness… to whom? … for what? … if it’s all random?
So freaky.
I hope that little script exercise helped you make sense of the Freaks of Nibbling Society. If it didn’t, don’t tell Rosetta. Unless you want to see me with egg on my face (when Rosetta gives me a face plant in my omelet tonight.)
Welcome to Nibbling 