petits pois

There was a small pea sitting all by himself, his name happened to be Patrice. Patrice wondered what was to become of him since all the other peas had gone away. He sat and an amazing thing began to happen, he started to rock and then he was rolling. he began to roll so fast.

Soon our little Patrice was careening down the hill. He bid farewell to the humble garden atop the hill as he sped downward into the village. All his life he'd known only the peppers that grew next to him, the lettuce that gathered together in the garden's corner, the little spiders that sang him lullabies at dusk.  But now he was in the Real World--or, at least, headed toward it. Should he try to find where his pea brethren ended up? Patrice didn't know where to begin.

...nor did he know how to stop his journey now that he had started. The world around him started to blur as he picked up speed. A flash of a small home here and a fruit cart there told him he had reached the outskirts of the town. As the land began to level, he started to see the town around him and began to wonder at its people. Faces began to appear, and he realized he started seeing the same face, the face of a small, mousy-brown haired boy, staring right back at him. Patrice slowly came to a stop and stared up at the boy, who began to smile.

"Hey... a little green marble..." the boy exclaimed as he bent over for a closer look, "I love marbles!"  From his back pocket he produced a small brown pouch with leather strings. Pinching poor Patrice between his thumb and his index finger, the boy lifted him from the cobblestones and dropped him into the bag. Dropped him into darkness. Patrice could not see, but he felt dozens of peas around him. Most of them were much larger than Patrice, if not the same size, but all of them were hard and cold. The peas were dead. Patrice the pea had been been claimed for dead and was going to be buried alive!

The darkness of the pouch and the cold, hard peas nestling against Patrice were oddly comforting. He no longer felt alone but realized he must survive to avenge his fellow peas. He began to jump toward the opening of the sack, his new resolve and solidarity made him strong and soon the sack began to open bit by bit. Until Patrice could see the light of the world and was jumping right out of the sack. However, it wasn't enough to escape! The boy was swinging the sack along as he strolled down the cobble stone path. Patrice began to plot that he must wait until the boy got home and then strike. So Patrice waited for what seemed like a lifetime rocking to and fro. 
And finally he was set on some hard surface and he carefully rolled to the opening to find a large room filled with peas! Piles and piles of peas! The boy was no where in sight and so Patrice began to look for any survivors. He almost gave up hope but in a small corner he found several peas shaking and whispering nervously. Patrice approached them with such joy and reverence that it almost killed them. He backed off a touch and asked, "how long have you been here? how has this come to happen?" At first they seemed ashamed but one small pea answered, "we all wanted to play and this boy said he had the ultimate game. he said he could transform us. we all had fun at first but when peas started dying we realized it was not the ultimate game for us but for him." Patrice could not believe his ears all these peas had come willingly...

Patrice quickly devised a plan. We will all wait here until the boy falls asleep and then use this bamboo shoot to shovel our compadres into his mouth until there are so many that he cannot breath. He must pay for his deception and greed. He will literally eat what he has done. The other peas seemed nervous but agreed and lifted Patrice up into the air and proclaimed that he was the pea of all peas! 

When the deed was done and the boy was struggling for air, he looked Patrice in the eye as a tiny tear fell from his green body and mumbled what Patrice hoped was "I'm sorry."