Counting Sheep,
A story about Insomnia and saving the world. An Ode to Sheep,
A poem from an unknown author. The Sheep of the Flock,
A poem from an unknown author. On the Hillside,
Perspectives of a Bethlehem Sheep, by William Loader. The Lamb,
a poem by William Blake. Dora Blaat (Dora Bleat)
a children's picture book about a hesitating sheep.
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This story is dedicated to all of the sorry slobs like me that have a lot of trouble sleeping and do something stupid like this.
Please excuse this crudely written story, as it is pretty much a rough draft. In fact, the only reason I put it here, was because I have nothing better to do with my life.
Counting Sheep"Hello friends, and welcome back to Truly Bizarre People. We've been talking with man who has been the big news for the past few months. Mr. Jacob Poser.", an applause rose from the sign-instructed audience. "Jacob here has found the cure for cancer, aids, solved the nation's deficit problem, and informed us all of what processed cheese-food really is. In fact, any question he's been asked, he's answered by the next day. Tell us, Jake, how do you do it?"
Well, I just go to sleep at night, and the answers come to me in my dreams."
Well I must say, that is pretty bizarre." The very large-toothed, badly-dressed, another hyphenated adjective here, talk-show host commented, "But really useful. Who knows, you may just save the world someday." The applause sign once again flashed on and the audience obeyed. "Well, tat's all the time we have for today. Tomorrow, meet men who spend their nights out getting drunk and throwing ketchup packets at fishermen from bridges." And the cameras shut off, the audience left, and Mr. Poser got up from his seat and went to get his jacket. As he approached the coatrack, he noticed a tall man in a trenchcoat and sunglasses tat had been watching the taping of the show. He walked over to Jake and asked him to accompany him to the parking lot.
"Mr. Poser. I am Mr. Roberto Rabioso. I am a very shifty and secret-looking government agent. We need your help. We have a question. There is a little bit of tension between the heavily nuclear-armed nations of this world and they currently have their warheads armed and pointed at every other nation. Through he magic of "The author said so" and government conspiracy, we've kept it secret as to not cause panic within our already paranoid country. We need to know what to do to stop a nuclear holocaust... that would be bad. I'll meet you here at 2:00P.M. Good luck, the whole world is counting on you."
"No pressure," he thought. It was getting late, so he decided it was time to go home and get a good night's sleep.
10:45P.M.
He climbed into his bed wearing his Speed Racer jammies, fluffed his pillow, and switched off his lamp. He closed his eyes and ......didn't fall asleep. "What is going on?", he said to himself. He decided to turn on his lamp and try reading a Carl Sagan book. That should make him really tired. But he didn't fall asleep.
"I have to fall asleep. I have to answer Rabioso's question." he told himself. He turned off his lamp and began to slip into unconsciousness, but just then his car alarm wen off.
He jumped out of his bed and ran to his window in time to see his next door neighbor steal his Volkswagen (who would steal a Volkswagen?). "You'll be sorry when I save the world! You'll wish you'd been nicer to me!" He went back to bed. He began to fall into dreamland again, but now his phone was ringing. He was getting sleepy now, but he slid out of bed and stumbled to the telephone. It was his girlfriend. He figured that since this might be the last time he ever got a chance to talk to her, he chatted for awhile about the talk show, told her he loved her, hung up the phone, and then went back to bed.
He once again tried to go back to sleep, but he wasn't tired anymore. Now he was just bored. He had to go to sleep, so he decided to count sheep (Hey, it always worked on Sesame Street). He began counting, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7........"
1:00A.M.
"899-900-ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!! This isn't working. I'm not the least bit tired." He thought for a moment and then yelled, "Warm milk!" He ran to the kitchen and heated up a nice mug of milk. He drank it. He forgot, however, that he was lactose intolerant.
2:30A.M.
Jake flushed and put a new roll of toilet paper on the holder and went back to bed. He was exhausted and stressed out, if he didn't get to sleep, he couldn't save the world, and if he didn't save the world thee wouldn't be one anymore. Then he'd never get to go to sleep.
Suddenly, he remembered something a good friend had told him. She said that if you boil lettuce and drink the water, you'll fall asleep because there's opium in lettuce. So he boiled the lettuce and drank the water. And sure enough, he fell right to sleep.
The next day: 1:59P.M.
Jake got off the bus and stood in the parking lot. Mr. Rabioso showed up exactly one minute after him, "What's wrong with you?!"
"What do you mean?", Jake asked, confused.
"You weren't supposed to be early! What if someone saw you and got suspicious?"
"As if a meeting with a shifty-looking guy in a trenchcoat in a T.V. station parking lot isn't suspicious?"
"That's beside the point!" Mr. Rabioso looked around cautiously, "Do you have the answer?"
"Yes, get a book of witchcraft, dress in paisley and perform a ritual to raise a person from the living, then invite everyone to our country to smoke unlit cigarettes.", he commented proudly.
"Ummmmm....are you sure? Have you ever been wrong on any of these?"
"No, not that I know of."
"Okay, I guess I'll have to trust you.", and Mr. Rabioso got into his car and drove away.
So, that's what they did. Now, you might have guessed that opium can effect a person's mind, and their dreams. As a result, the other nations just decided that America was a very silly place. So they all aimed their missiles on the silly country and fired.
And the moral of the story is:
HAH! I'm not
going to tell you!
And do you know why?
Because you didn't even think about it.
Did you?
Now you're just going to have to wonder and ask
yourself over and over, "What was that moral?"
And you won't be able to sleep, so you'll have nothing to do but read this story again, which will
just perpetuate the vicious cycle.
Ha...haha....HAH!
Ummm...sorry.
(source: "Counting Sheep" from Jessi Bencloski Library)
Spring again is in the air,
Lambs are frisking here and there,
All blissfully unaware,
Of how short their lives are to be.
So with you, I'd like to share,
My feelings, which aren't so rare,
(And I think you all will care)'
Of all that sheep mean to me.
As I'm sure you will agree,
What Greater love can there be,
Than love for a sheep roaming free,
On bleak moorlands, so lonely?
Vicars while they sip their tea,
Say that it is sodomy,
But in order to disagree,
I took out my dictionary,
And looked up the word.
"Unnatural connection," it did say,
But what, than in the hay,
With a fleecy sheep to lay,
More natural could there be?
Surely it is crystal clear,
That the sheep and the mountaineer,
Although sheep don't drink much beer,
Are very similar as you'll see.
Both have coats of fleecy hair,
And underneath, both are bare,
(i.e. naked), but to be fair,
Climbers, their coats don't have to wear.
Sheep, often off cliffs so high,
Fall and than horribly die,
'Cos unlike birds, cannot fly,
Even though, they may try.
For climbers on the other hand,
Falling off is never planned,
But happens when they try to stand,
On a non-existent ledge, and,
Their arms suddenly give way.
So at last in summary,
What more normal could there be,
Than to take indecently,
From behind, darling flossy,
Or others so dear to me,
Of her kind so wooly,
And mounted thus in ecstacy,
Copulate eternally?
(source: Castle Climbing Club)
We have the plea for trying to keep
'Twas a sheep, not a lamb, that wandered away
Out in the wilderness, out in the cold,
And why for the sheep should we earnestly long
For the lambs will follow the sheep, you know,
And so with the sheep we earnestly plead
The lambs in the narrow way,
And well we may: But what of the sheep
Shall they be allowed to stray?
In the parable Jesus told.
A grown-up sheep that had gone astray
From the "ninety and nine" in the fold.
'Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd sought,
And back to the flocks with love untold
'Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd brought.
And as earnestly hope and pray?
Because there is the danger, if they go wrong
They will lead the lambs away.
Wherever the sheep may stray.
If the sheep go wrong, it will not be long
'Till the lambs are as wrong as they.
For the sake of the lambs today,
If the lambs are lost, what a terrible cost
Some sheep will have to pay.
Lonely, lying on damp night soil,
cold, not even a fly to irritate and keep me awake,
another night, another long day of seeking and finding,
mowing amid the pebbles and stones
that sweep up and down the slopes of ancient Bethlehem's hills.
And now this interruption. They sat all agog
and suddenly they are off down the valley.
Temperament, I call it.
Never satisfied.
If it's not voices of angels, it's bright lights.
Running to and fro,
why not rest?
Why not curl up and go to sleep?
If you lie close to the earth and listen you'll hear voices.
It's all there, deep down there.
Just lie still and you'll hear it.
Sometimes I hear it groaning
like a mother finding that bursting feeling too much,
expanded beyond expansion and expected to give more.
Last night I heard it, ringing it was,
a crying that shot through the earth,
fair woke me up it did,
like an alarm going off.
The gods, I thought,
the gods are bringing forth.
And then it subsided and all I heard were the distant cries,
the murmurs of the hungry,
the sighs of people fed too little, broken in spirit,
too weak to complain, too tired to rise.
There's no glory in being tired.
You don't win prizes if your coat's shabby.
No good rolling in them bushes.
No one wants bits and things,
and it tangles and if you're not careful
when it gets hot they'll come
and buzz around you and soon the worms
and that's the end of that.
Silly, but I follow with the rest.
Just imagine if I hyped it off down the valley.
I'd prefer to stay here - with them.
With it - with the smell.
Don't ever lose your smell!
That's the trouble with them people,
running off, bright lights, hearing voices.
There's a closeness about smell.
Smell's a way of being close, your smell, my smell,
smell right down to the dirt and smell of the earth.
Warm smell.
Then there's that terrible smell,
when it burns, when it burns you.
It's the hair - a tight smell,
no room for imagining, sharp, penetrating.
Sometimes it wafts down from the temple
along the valley on a wet hangy night
and I think: there it is again, that smell.
And I think of burning and blood.
It's there again tonight, coming up the valley,
like a cloud.
It comes with the crying,
a lullaby of death,
like all the world's passion is poured out
and souls burn amid the haze.
Will they come back?
Are they lost?
Who can find them,
chasing lights and hearing voices?
I shall wait for them to return.
On these hills, in the stillness,
listening to the pain,
in the joy of deep smell
and the challenge of burning,
open to the vastness of heaven,
I shall lie and gaze upon the star.
(source: Bill Loader's Home Page)
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek & he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child & thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
(source: Ian Patrick Sobieski's Favorite Poems)
Back site text:
Soms moet je zelf bedenken wat je wilt.
Als je moet kiezen tussen je gele en rode sokken om aan te trekken.
Of als alle taartjes er even lekker uizien en je mag er maar een.
Soms is het moeilijk om te kiezen.
Dora Blaat vindt het altijd moeilijk.
Zal ze nu eerst de rode bloemen opeten of liever de gele?
Het is voor Dora extra vervelend omdat ze het enige aarzelende
schaap van de kudde is. Maar als ze het konijn ontmoet, en
daarna de hond, verandert er opeens van alles.
Jet Boeke is bekend geworden door Dikkie Dik, de ondeugende rode kater
die zij ontwierp voor 'Sesamstraat'. Dikkie Dik is inmiddels ook de held geworden
van heel wat prentenboeken, grote en kleine, waarin zijn kostelijke avonturen te zien en te lezen zijn.
Met Dora Blaat is Jet Boeke een nieuwe weg ingeslagen. Voor het eerst schreef
de illustratrice zelf een verhaal. Het is haar prima gelukt. En net als de boeken over Dikkie Dik
illustreerde ze dit prentenboek met aquarellen in levendige kleuren.