Scruffrug Ocean

These pages are stories of Scruffrug. Scruffrug was born a rug. One day he up and flew. This story was written on 3/31/1988 and found in 2016.

That rug for some unknown reason did wrong. He just scooped Elizabeth up from her Biology class and zoomed out over the ocean waves where they went skimming along the surface, just off the coast.

Scruff Rug gets spouted from the ocean by a passing whale and Elizabeth gets misted too. Scruff Rug turns fast just in time to avoid the big flukes of the diving whale. "Want to have some fun" says the rug? "Sure," says Elizabeth. Scruff Rug folds himself into a paper airplane shape. Or should I say, carpet airplane? Leaving a nice space for Elizabeth inside. And his weave is so fine, he doesn't leak. However he expands his molecules so she can see out and dives straight down after the whale. Fast swims the whale, not knowing what strange sort of bird or skate is after her. Up past Alaska. Whoosh, past Greenland and the North Pole. Down curling around until she comes up near Copenhagen, Denmark.

Scruff Rug surfaces and breaks the water. Gently unfolds as a brocade flower, with Elizabeth safe inside, now preened by the wind. I forget now, how it was that the gray whale Bethazile and our friends started talking. But she said she would cruise a wide circle so she wouldn't run into anyone, and they could talk. So Scruff Rug carefully lowers himself to her back, lifting his edges in a protective rim, so Elizabeth does not get splashed. And they comfortably ride along to hear the Whale's tale.

Bethazile tells how she had been born here but when she was five years old, her mother had taken a fancy to go to the new world. Bethazile had grown up off the west coast of America. Later, when she was 59, she had a great longing to see where she was born so she swam back here. Now she is 99 and still comes back to visit once in awhile. She loves it. Some great things are here. One is this.

"Look", she says. "See how the water looks kind of light over there?" Scruff Rug and Elizabeth think it does look glowingly green through the leaden surface water. Bethazile says the farther you go in that direction, the lighter it gets, rather than darker, as Ocean water usually gets. She tells about swimming down there. It's almost like a shaft of light. Getting brighter and narrower as she follows it down, until it almost looks like light at the end of a tunnel.

The light actually comes from some strange creatures that live down here. They are plant like, in the sense that they have roots that they wiggle into the sandy bottom at night. And they have trailing leaf-like curls off their bodies. They have taken photosynthesis one more step. Instead of just using light to grow with, like ordinary plants, they can glow and project colored light of their own. As fish, they are like all fish, extraordinarily sensitive to all land creatures' thought. Just suspended in the water all day, with not too much to do, they can focus meditatively and feel with us. They can project light. They add drama and colored visions to peoples' dreams. Later Bethazile found out that these were the Plish. They only live in this bright cleft under Denmark.

Bethazile tells of a story told to her by an ancient crone whale named Blulu who lived here in the untroubled waters near Copenhagen. This whale had dived down and swam though the bright cleft of the Plish. Blulu came out somewhere near Schleswig Holstein in the North Sea. She met a little girl there. They swam together. Blulu would try to keep balance and keep going without bumping her fins into the girl. The girl would swim like mad trying to keep up. She liked to look Blulu in the eye as they swam. They became great friends.

One day the little girl said her family was emigrating to America. Blulu wished to give the girl a present so she would always remember her. She coughed, and a crystal gel bubble was loosened from where it had been forming in her sinus cavity. It came up, out, and trembled in the water. Blulu told the little girl to place her head in the bubble. When she did, it was like opening windows with fresh bright air streaming in. All the visions of the Plish were hers so she could never forget. The bright vivid projections of pure colored light. The sensitivity to the aura feelings of the world. The giving and outpouring of dreams, when people never knew. "Thank you, Blulu" said the little girl.

Elizabeth pounds Scruff Rug. "That explains everything! That's what's wrong with my mother. I bet that was her great grandmother. That's where she gets those crazy visions. It's just a bunch of Plish stories." "Well, if that is so," smiles Bethazile (a large long smile), "How about you?"

Just then they happen to be cruising along near the shore when Elizabeth sees herself and Cloudy standing by the rail, looking out over the water. Elizabeth is beside herself for joy. She knows she has to get herself together. "Me! I've just got to be me!" She jumps up, almost falling off her rug-whale perch. Both Bethazile and Scruff Rug know instinctively that she doesn't mean to hurt their feelings. She is not being rude. She has to do what she has to do. And they have to help. So Bethazile arches her back and springs into the air, while Scruff Rug gives Elizabeth a light toss. Elizabeth sails up and really never knew that there had been any discrepancy. Cloudy goes on talking and explaining something in great detail. Elizabeth is doing her best to understand. As it is getting late in the day, they turn and hurry back down the street.

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