#pythonesque

yêu (Vietnamese) [ʔiəw˧˧] to love (romantically), as opposed to thương (to care for/love non-romantically).

Director: Sylvia Robyn Gionti Writer: Sylvia Robyn Gionti Running time: 2mins One of my favourite things to talk about in experimental film is how movies in the medium can give us spaces to pause and think. But that does not mean that an effective experimental film has to do that – filmmakers in the space can also dedicate their energies to pointedly subverting our expectations when it comes…

Gary awoke, yawned his 1739 yawn of his lifetime and unshackled himself from the wall. Donning the clothes of the day before, he cracked a few eggs onto the pan and lazily swivelled them, all the while whistling a tune he had heard in a waterpark when he was 12. As per usual, a bit of egg flew across the room to Wilbert, the delightfully bouncy dog, who carefully examined it, before picking it up. He carried it with great care to his growing collection titled ‘Pieces of Egg that vaguely look like US senators’. Today’s contribution could have been interpreted as representing John McCaine, although most would say ‘It looks like an egg, you know, from like, a bird’. Such a thought wouldn’t have been far off as it did, in fact, look just like an egg from, like a bird. But then again, Wilbert had always been a creative individual.

Since Gary had no interest in an exhibition of an eggy nature, he made his way outside to where the true heart of the establishment lay. First in line was the coop, a shabby looking construction, with a fading illustration depicting Tony the Tiger on its side. Upon opening the door, no chicken moved, they stayed on their perches, eyes looking forward and beaks set in an unhappy sort of way. Garry sighed, and felt a pang of sadness for the chicks. It was the fourth consecutive day of their silent, closed-beak protest against the heinous acts committed by the sparrow community. The spurty sparrows had just recently released another self-help DVD, which joined their long list of self-help media named “Flying Towards a Better You”. Yet this addition had a few ‘tasteless’ remarks about chickens, particularly young hens. Because the chickens lacked proper funding, a silent protest was all they could afford at this time. The sparrows had also thrown the Hawks under a bus, in relation to their historically bad foot hygiene. But since the Hawks hadn’t yet unionised, there was little discontent shown for those messages. Since there was nothing poor old Gary could do, he left the seeds by the door and hung his head apologetically while backing out.

Next stop on his route was the garden. Gary had a bit of rainwater left from a few days prior, so he put it to good use by saturating the ground thoroughly with it. The worms, to whom the garden, worm-garden, belonged, wiggled happily. Overcome with joy over the freshly wet dirt, the worms start to perform a snippet of their newest opera: “The Life and Death of the Postman; A Tragedy through a Comedy of the Mundane yet Thrilling Journey of the One that Carries Post from a Place to a Place: an Ode to Machiavelli”. The worms loved Machiavelli, probably because he had a name that was fun to say. The sound of this snippet can not be described through the medium of words, it is otherworldly yet unbearable, a masterpiece and a piece of garbage all at once. Gary, who had never cared for music, nodded appreciatively. He too liked Machiavelli and the postman, but even more- he loved seeing his worms so happy. “Heh,” he muttered, “they wiggle so nicely.” They did wiggle rather nicely.

His third stop was at the stable, where the cattle and the sheeple resided. (Sheeple was the best word Gary could come up with to describe a herd of sheep, but sadly it gives the illusion that Gary keeps human-sheep hybrids in his stable. He does not, he’s not a monster after all. The sheeple reside in a nice cottage just down the road, next to the blind woman called Mildred, who thinks the sheeple just to be coat-wearing neighbours.) Upon opening the stable doors, the rhythmical clacking of a typewriter filled the air. The sheep had yet to finish going over Gary’s tax returns. They had to do this in order to avoid the fiasco of last year, when the cattle had been in charge and Gary was almost charged with tax evasion. If it hadn’t been for his incredible lawyer, the effervescent Jim Noodle, a recently retired cosmonaut, Gary would be behind bars at this very moment. It must be noted, seeing a sheep behind a typewriter, a cigarette in its mouth, hooves expertly striking keys, is a sight to behold. The sheep in charge of the operation, Baa-rker, acknowledged Gary with a curt nod, before going back to typing.

After checking in with the non-human yes-sheep sheeple, Gary refilled the large vat of water, situated to the left of the door. And not a moment later, exactly 8 cows, and one terrified mouse sprinted straight at it. The cattle were heading for the water and the mouse was running for its life to not get crushed under hooves. The cows had evolved from eels and were still instinctively drawn to the water; they could sense it from 469 meters away.  How exactly this evolution occurred, is a mystery no-one seems to be able to solve. And for good reason- it had been a complete accident. An intern at the Institute of Evolution had accidentally connected the wrong wires, thus creating this unlikely chain of evolution. Yes, the intern had been promptly fired, with no severance fee. They too hadn’t unionised, one of many similarities they shared with the Hawks. (The other similarities included possessing a beak and bad foot hygiene)