#280: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer

      'Tis the day after the day after the day after Christmas. More streaks of belly-roll-induced ware trace the crannies of your chimney, and the author myself is left with a truth to carry into the new year. Jolly ol' Santa Clause and six-out-of-seven reindeer are now more believable than my ability to meet a deadline. However, in spite of a buckling fender bender of my scheduling bafoonery and countless reasons for the season hacking my seasonal art slate down a couple thirds, I'm not in the business of surrendering. Thus, before that pesky landlord Father Time tugs the plug on 2017, here commences a proper finale. I present Manning King, the Thing Bringer! Scuffed are the pinheaded heels of the alien insect race the Aruchee, scattering over the static sands of their planet Pragga Prime like hairpins poured down a slope. As spry and old, winged and dune-bound conjoin in packed reverie, the busied bug crowds fling and flitter, joyously hugging their pillars of worship: a pair of chunky rubber soles, and just north, those oh-so-familiar buckles of velcro. For the merry Aruchee have once again united under the kindly eye-in-their-sun-roasted-sky, the doughy deity they call their very own Little St. Nick: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer. Not one living Aruchee can say they witnessed the first visit of the Thing-Bringer--or the last, for that matter-- but whenever he returns, they're never in the mood to care. His lumbering charity has overseen more than a dozen generations of Aruchee, being met with open arms and misty arthropod eyes on their riotous holiday of sacred reunion: Saturday. Squeezing through a pit-black square portal dubbed the "Gateway of Micubbie" in the holy scripture, Manning King has enlightened provinces with Viewmasters and marbles, and fed frail villages with tapioca pudding. Eon after eon, weekend after weekend, the Thing-Bringer never fails to leave a ridged, glossy footprint on the legend of the Aruchee people, one as giant as it is lasting. That is, in between lofty naps and kid-kwon-do classes at the strip mall.

(Pictured: the Bringer of Things in mythic action, thumping his fascinating foreign wears with kindly tenation across Pragga's humble planes. Bat property of Sammy Swatt's Little League for Big Tots, all rights reserved.)