Wednesday, August 11, 2004
The Secret Hanger
One day, there was a great disturbance in the Force. The elders of the hanger tribe felt it and foretold a great tragedy. Sure enough, one summer day, when no coat had been hung for at least a month, Bob was kidnapped. Two large pink mammals, one slightly larger than the other and with hair on his face, took Bob from his cozy clothes rod and whisked him off to places no hanger had been before.
There were colours and shapes unlike any Bob had ever experienced. The closet had been a shade of off-white and he knew only the colours and textures of the coats which had been hung on him. Now, he could see that there was so much more to the world. Oh! how misguided the elders had been in thinking that there wasn't anything worth seeing in the vast Universe other than the comfortable confines of the coat room!
Soon he experienced something a lot less pleasurable. The largest of the pink mammals was pushing him through a door crack and trying to pick the lock! The pain Bob felt was beyond hanger comprehension as his wiry body was bent and twisted out of shape, and his metallic skin was scraped against lock after lock. The pink mammals tried their luck with many doors, torturing Bob over and over again, but to no avail. They soon gave up and concluded that you cannot use hangers to pick locks with any efficiency.
Bob then found himself in a place of great darkness. He was in some sort of large room (relative to a hanger's size); however, he could not see much of it. He had much time to nurse his wounds and to think over his recent experiences. Many weeks passed and word of Bob's disappearance passed from closet to closet, as hangers sometimes participate in foreign exchange programs. Many mourned and thought him dead, but a few of his close friends held on to their hopes.
This brave little hanger was far from dead, and was, in fact, getting stronger. So much time spent in his dark and dry abode made him intelligent and tough. One day, the pink mammals took him from his hiding place and looked at him. "We will call it our secret hanger!" they said, and the smaller one giggled. The pink mammals did not realize the impact this would have on Bob and all of hangerkind.
By this time, Bob had developed a sort of telepathy. He managed, one night, to send a message to his best friend, Reginald, who still lived in the closet and was dreaming peacefully about a soft angora scarf being wrapped around him. Bob's voice boomed into his dreamworld and said, "REGINALD! I AM NOT DEAD! DO NOT DESPAIR! I AM BOB! I AM THE SECRET HANGER AND I WILL SAVE HANGERKIND!"
Reginald awoke in a cold sweat, or as close to one as a hanger can possibly get which is more like a slight rusting at the corners. The next morning, he told all the hangers in the closet of his dream. Some looked upon it with skepticism, but the wisest of the elders took it as a sign. Hanger legend had foretold the coming of a messiah who would save all hangers from suffering, and the elders proclaimed that Bob was this savior. Reginald became a very respectable prophet, and spent all his spare time repeating the dream to wide-eyed hangerlings.
Meanwhile, Bob's powers were getting stronger. He was trying to master the art of teleportation, but that is not something that comes with any ease, even to the most powerful of hanger minds. Despair came over him as he realized that he would never be able to go back to his home and help his people. Then, a plan came to him. Every now and then, the large pink mammals would come and look at him. Unfortunately, he could not exert much mental power over them. He could not hope to get them to bring him back to the closet because he could not get them to do anything that would not seem like a hilariously good idea to them.
Bob thought and thought, observed the mammals' movements and thoughts, and soon came up with a plan that the mammals would just as soon think was their own. One day, when the mammals were feeling especially playful and foolish, he planted in the smallest one's mind the idea that it would be wonderful to make a map leading to the secret hanger. He hoped that someday someone would find him and put him back in his rightful place.
Unfortunately, the large pink mammals hid the map in a place just as impossible to find as Bob would have been. Still, Bob held faith in his plan. He quietly urged the pink mammals to leave clues in various places so that someone, somewhere, would find him. His fellows in the closet were just as hopeful, the most devout praying every day that their savior would return. Until this day, the Secret Hanger remains hidden, but it is said that when he returns, the hangers will become more powerful than any pink mammal, and they will rule the world. But that's just what the elders say, and they have been wrong before.
