"What is dishonorably got, is dishonorably squandered."~Cicero
A bead of sweat blazed a trail somewhat haphazardly down Peanuts leg, along the smooth glistening surface of sweat clogged pores in search of uncharted territory beneath his mussed and soiled sock. Peanut eyed the bead as it swept downward, and thoughtfully peeled the elastic away from his skin as to let the bead pass into the unknown unhindered. Having done little work himself, the sweat puzzled and frustrated him. And there was no contentment in a hard days work, no one to go home to and strut about with a soaked shirt as a trophy of a diligent, "nose-to-the-grindstone" mindset. Hard work had never appealed to him, neither did the admiration of it. Gritty, back-breaking, mind-numbing drudgery was for those who weren't clever enough to manipulate the weak minded, and Peanut had honed his manipulation muscle, which flexed and bulged beneath his accommodatingly massive ego.
With thoughts of himself sowing and nurturing egotistical seedling thoughts in the fertile ground of his brain, Peanut laid back in the 3 inch grass blades. They nestled his bare arms and legs and assured him that he would not tumble to the center of the earth, or fall to China, or nose-dive to Beelzebub's "Welcome Home" place mat. The grass of Soldier Beetle Field felt secretly more secure to Peanut than the mowed, corralled blades of his house and the surrounding neighborhood, standing in neat rows awaiting daily inspections. These 3 inch grass blades stood at ease, and so did he. This time of contemplation made him withdraw his comb from his front breast pocket, which he absentmindedly began running through his already meticulously set hair. There was always a greater clarity of thought when he had his comb in hand. His mom always said idle hands were the devils plaything, but Peanut saw plenty of criminals that just couldn't sit still. Light from the zenith sun was reflecting off a jar into his eyes, like an arrow right through the iris, right into the part of his brain where he held himself in the greatest regard. The sun wouldn't let up, just kept moving with a blatant disregard, a menacing inching through the sky, pulling the moon in its wake. Uncompromising nature, it sickened him.
Peanut sat up stiffly, uncoiled and coiled his back muscles with lackadaisical ease and leaned forward to thoughtfully stroke his hair with his comb in the presence of himself, reflected in the curvature of a forgotten jar. That oaf had forgotten one of the jars. Sighing, Peanut stuffed the comb cleanly back in its cotton holder and snatched the jar with one hand out of the wagon in a seemingly effortless movement, even though he winced at the sudden movement of his arms. The unforgiving sun had dulled and weakened his resolve, and his reflexes.
Leaving his grass imprint, a grass imp, he stood up on shaky legs and practiced walking with all the unsureness of a child on undefined stubs of fat. Peanut stood on the edge of the dandelion field and knelt down to pluck one. It easily relented to his tug, and popped free of the ground, leaving its life source behind. Peanut glared at the dust of pollen falling down out of the golden locks. Without thinking, and barely moving, he beheaded the flower before all of its peers, and tossed the limp stem back into the dandelion field. Flowers, what are they anyway. Just eye candy. So brittle, so frail, and so easily mastered and if need be broken. He let the surge of dominance push him to kneel and select another flower, but a bee hummed over with an air of urgency and landed directly on the flower he was eyeing. The bee rubbed its legs together, perhaps with the same vane, absentmindedness that Peanut had just combed his hair. He humphed the bee and did an about face; he had completely forgotten Will's incompetence. That would have been a shame.
**
Will was sitting outside of Soldier Beetle Field, bitterly removing bee stingers and thirsty ticks, which were greedily glued to his socks and jean legs. The fact that only 4 lanterns crawled listlessly around the bottom of his 1 jar, occasionally lighting up out of habit, made thoughts of desertion lurch forward in his mind. Will was painfully aware, having learned out of experience, or "the hard way" as taller people referred to it, that Peanut did not respond well to failure, and no amount of excuses, no matter how plausible and altogether truthful they may be would assuage Peanut's outlook on a job half-finished. So Will had spent no time piecing together a story of absolution and had focused every fiber on searching for lanterns amidst the cob-webbed ruins of Soldier Beetle Field. The 4 lanterns he had found he had treated with the utmost care and discretion because a lightning bug in the day was a valuable and rare commodity. He had been forced to root around the dusty roots of the Goldenrod plants, in the evasive weeds where the lanterns had been contentedly enjoying their nocturnal lives. Will had shoved his diurnal fingers into their world and forced their compliance. Their sad posture in the glass coffin vaulted directly into Will's malleable heart, and started poking the tender spots he kept hidden from Peanut. But Will was to worn and numbed with dreadful anticipation of the impending tongue lashing that he shed no outward sympathy for the captives; his sweat tears would have to substitute as his penitence for now.
Peanut approached with a new found briskness, propelled by a drive to finish what he started, or what he had coerced Will into starting. He observed by Will's fidgeting with a blade of grass between his fingers, grinding it into a botanical ball and mashing a green dye onto his fingers, that Will new something was amiss and was already in an apologetic stance.
"You left a jar in the wagon, and I thought I would bring it over to you," Peanut announced with only a tint of nettled humility. Will glanced up at the jar and swallowed the entire supply of earths gravity, which crammed and suppressed his insides into a malfunctioning mess that he imagined resembled the innards of the petrified frog they had dissected in Biology. His oxygen wouldn't make carbon dioxide spell out the words, "I only needed ONE jar." Peanut sat, a statue of judement, pointing an unwavering stare in Will's direction. Boring a hole in one part of his head, like the Mona Lisa does on the opposite wall of the Musée du Louvre. Will knew that he could not outlast Peanut's stare. Peanut could have laid siege to Rome with his stare and forced them into a famine surrender. This penetrating gaze usually rendered Will useless, babbling incoherent nonsense and nervously awaiting the chastisement at the end of his incongruous and useless explanation; however, Will's spine took control and sent shocks rippling through his brain that commanded his eyes to look anywhere but the submissive ground. He glanced, at snail and slug pace at the backdrop behind Peanut. So calm, even serene. The relics of Goldenrod bending slightly in the breeze, bowing and praying to Anemoi to not break their beetle laden backs. Peanut's judgmental stance seemed superimposed on a tranquil canvas, painted by a biased individual who was partial to simplistic beauty. A Monarch lit on a perimeter Goldenrod and let its wings inch apart and unfold, like a woman letting down her hair, unveiling a new world of color. Will's lips crept into a secretive smile at one corner of his mouth, which adversely sent Peanut's lips into a downward spiral. "I think we are done for today, at least I am finished with you. Perhaps we should talk about devotion, and the importance of listening." Will's smile surprisingly stayed chiseled and he arched his eyebrows and asked in a brazen tone, "Why do you always talk like that. You sound like a book on tape. I'd like you a whole lot better if you talked like normal."
Peanut humphed and did another about face.
