”Grandpa, tell us about Grator again!”

The old carrot looked at their little fleshy faces. The baby carrots clearly enjoyed being frightened by his tales of kitchen terror, and Grandpa obviously liked scaring them with his morbid stories of insane vegetable graters, told in the most horrifying Grandpa way.

Grandpa carrot looked like he’d been dug up, chewed on, then crammed back into the soil a few times.

Climbing and squealing around on his battered head, the baby carrots didn’t seem to notice these old scars, and Grandpa realized that they were still too young to hear the real stories about Grator, the deadly kitchen appliance that had made the countertop so dangerous in the past.

”Shring, shring, shring!” Grandpa finally burst out, and the baby carrots screamed and tumbled in delight at the sound.

Giving his voice a raspy, metallic ring, Grandpa continued; “I’m Grator, and I’m looking for little baby carrots to eat!”

As he played with the bouncy little carrots, one of Grandpa’s ears was trained onto the TV blaring from above, one of his eyes occasionally darting towards the flickering screen.

The little ones rolled and giggled, but Grandpa’s eye was captured by the TV again; a haunting roar was suddenly pouring down from the sleek appliance, and now there appeared a near-ripe banana reporting live from a horrific scene, weeping a late-breaking story straight into the cameras with all of his heart.

Feeling a ghastly hush from the basket of potatoes next to him, Grandpa knew that all eyes were now on the TV, as a tragedy seemed to be unfolding before them. He focused on the screen above.

The baby carrots and the insane vegetable grater seemed far away now, and Grandpa watched as the banana reporter sniffled between words, yelling out over the grinding roar which still laced the air;

“I don’t know if you are measured in ounces or grams, gallons or liters, but none of that matters anymore, this tragedy is going to affect us all... nobody will be excluded.”

The world was becoming insane. Gone were the days when the darkness of the refrigerator protected the fresh carrots from the certainty of the countertop, and looking at the innocent baby carrots gathered around him, Grandpa Carrot knew that their world was going to be much different than his had been.

What had happened? Grandpa wrinkled at the thought; there had been rumors. Tales of a glass bowl full of living knives had been reported from nearby kitchens, and it was said the this technological monster could devour dozens of carrots at once in a sharp metal whirlpool of color.

The baby carrots bounced at Grandpa’s head, oblivious to the world around them. His old reality of the cold metallic grater would become ancient history now that electricity was powering these dark forces in the kitchens of the world. But what stories these baby carrots were going to have to tell to their grandkids, if they even survive through lunch!

Grandpa listened to the fear in the banana’s voice on the television, and indeed, the quickly yellowing banana seemed unwilling to say the name, as if reality would disappear if not spoken into the world on live TV, but Grandpa knew the horrible name, and as he looked away from the TV, away from the bouncing baby carrots, he whispered the name out loud to himself with a tremble: Blendor.

---

artwork above, 'Grator' by me, colored pencil and ball point pen on watercolor paper. For more variety, art and stories, click below these birds:

click @therealpaul for more