New writing workshop project: we're each developing our own characters and writing their stages of life in similar events...later, they will hopefully all be tied together through a narrator who has met each.

Ani's Character: Trace Weeping Willows

The life story of the cannibal homeless tribal chief

Part 1: birth

Have you ever wondered how weird and complicated it gets when a child is born on February 29th? In the case of Trace Weeping Willows, it was even stranger. He was born in a crowded hospital on an Indian Reservation to a dying tribe. His parents, aunt, and uncle were the soul survivors of the dwindling Willow people.

The Willow Tribe used to be a peaceful and well-adored tribe. They were vegetarians that lived off of crops they grew, and were also very fond of trading. After Andrew Jackson's Trail of Tears, the people's water supply ran dry, and being the prideful pride of people they were...refused to move from their land.

The tribe resorted to cannibalism, and eventually everyone was eaten except for the chief and his family.

Unfortunately, the chief's wife was unsupportive and refused to reproduce a child until the madness for meat came to an end.

The chief's wife, Mildred Weeping Willows, became pregnant with Trace, and the family went to the hospital mid-February, and requested the child be born on February 29th- a sacred birth time for the tribe. Being born on February 29th in a leap year supposedly enhanced youth, as if the numbers of technically lived years actually meant something.

The trouble was, the doctor assigned to the Weeping Willows, Dr. Douche Baggery, was appalled at the Weeping Willow history and tradition, and did not assign the family a hospital room.

While at the hospital, the aunt and uncle, uninformed of the family's travel to the hospital, believed the chief and his wife to be dead. In honor of tribal code, they killed themselves in honor of the chief and unborn heir.

Immediately after birth, the husband became angry at his wife, stalling the tribe's ability to produce an heir, and killed, and ate her.

This leads us to a question: What did the cannibal do once he dumped his wife?
He wiped his ass.

And the doctor proceeded to euthanize Chief Weeping Willows.


Part 2: 2nd grade.

Despite Dr. Douche Baggery's resentment of the willow tribe, he raised Trace as his own and put him in public school.

He tried to make Trace a vegetarian at an early age, but even as a 5 year old, the doctor was constantly having to discipline Trace for his obsession with any kind of meat.

He favored chicken. The doctor thought it could be worse, but you know what cannibals say about human meat- it tastes like chicken. So obviously chicken must taste of humans. [credit to eddie izzard here]

School was an interesting time for Trace. He had a bad habit of biting people...gnawing actually. And while sitting in the principles office for biting a chunk of a student's ear off, he apparently got so nervous he started chewing on his own fingers.

It was on this special day in 2nd grade the doctor picked Trace up early from school and told him of his family history. The doctor expected Trace to be mortified, but in fact, Trace just nodded matter-of-factly and replied to his foster father "I knew there was a reason I hated vegetables."

The next day, Trace told his best friend at school the exciting news. Trace was a cannibal.

However, Sammy did not take to the news as well as Trace did. At lunch, Sammy and the rest of the 2nd grade class ganged up against Trace, and a food fight ensued. In the heat of the moment, Trace bit off 4 fingers from 3 students---2 came from Sammy.

The doctor picked Trace up early from school the 2nd time that week. They drove in silence.

They got home and the doctor was irate.

Trace remained calm. When the doctor inquired why Trace bit off 4 fingers. Why Trace had not simply left it at the food fight, he coolly replied:
"To cannibals, every fight is a food fight."




....To be continued...