The Belgian Carrots

A story by Kyle Miller

For Christmas, 2008, I received a working Underwood typewriter, and this was one of the first things I ended up writing.

It was a long time ago when the alpacan musk wool found his friends in the arctic. That was an adventure if he remembered correctly. The neighboring carrots looked out of their windows and were greatly surprised, for they had never looked out of their windows before, for they had never even realized they had owned windows before, nor that they had the ability to even own windows, nor, for that matter, ever realize they could look through windows. But, they put this behind them for a bit as they were in the act of being greatly surprised by the sight they saw outside.

It was crazy! It was preposterous! It was the exact sort of thing which would make a great headline in the local county newspaper (which never got much, the locals were far too used to the famous talking carrots which didn’t actually talk but instead made funny noises when you poked them, and sometimes forgot they had windows, but we’re getting off-topic here).

Now, you may be thinking, what is with all the hubbub? Surely whatever got these sentient carrots attention couldn’t be that grand. But, there is a mistake in this assumption. These are not just any ordinary carrots. No, that would be far too simple. These are state-of -the-art Belgian carrots. I’m sure you understand what I mean now. Belgian carrots are known for their cunning, their long-distance high jump, their notable grace on the dance floor, and, most importantly (and perhaps most infamously), their ability to make waffles.

This, in fact, is what the carrots were doing in the arctic anyway. The world waffle competition was in full swing, and, sadly, the carrots were notified very, very late compared to the other contestants, perhaps due to a slight scheduling and administrative error, but most likely it was sabotage by their arch-rivals, the alpacan musk wool, who by-and-large made the second-best waffle in all the land. With 48 hours remaining in the competition and only 5 pounds of flour in the competition store room, the carrots have been working as hard as possible to get their most delectable waffle-based entry into the competition. And, with their notable competitive nature, they were playing to win.

When a carrot plays to win, he isn’t just in it for the fame or the money, he is in it for the win, and that was just what these specimens of Belgian carrots had in mind. Nay, the carrots were, as a species, far too elementary for that. The had this in their genes. They simply were just going to win. But I digress.

Outside their window, their newly found window, the window which contained an image, an image they saw, an image which was perceived and understood by their carrot-laden appendages, the carrot-laden appendages which let them see, which they then perceived, and understood to be surprising, and caused a brief flash of emotion within them, an emotion so basic to them, they lacked a name for it, for they were Belgian carrots. They saw the alpacan musk wool. They were not happy. They were not happy one bit. Or, they did not have the opposite of the carrot-specific emotion which we could understand as meaning ‘having cordial relations with arch-rivals to the waffle competition, since having arch-rivals may involve losing said competition, and we are just fine with that, really.’

However, we know for a fact that this was not what they were feeling, as they were highly competitive Belgian carrots, and they had a vengeance. These carrots did not always harbor such waffle-related feelings.

In the great waffle-cooking competition of ’42, Sir Arthur Francis Tallawaggy Nethlebacher Janson Jr. of the great Tallawaggy Enterprises in Londonshire was on his last waffle of the competition. After nine-hundred and thirty-seven perfectly delectable waffles, and a pancake for good measure and good faith, amid the roar of applause from the largest audience the competition had ever seen before, Sir Arthur Francis was about to pour his last bit of batter into the iron to secure himself the win of a lifetime, a win which would have put him into the history books and be remembered with eternal fame as the man who had won the great waffle competition of ’42, a competition like no other, as he fought other waffle chefs in hand-to-hand combat across deserts making desserts and over great lava pits making lemonade. But he had made it this far and he was, as one would say, a single dollop of dough away from success.

But as the final drop of batter was dripping from his bowl onto the gold-plated competition-grade high-quality multi-function waffle iron deluxe, the infamous waffle-cartel swung into the competition floor on a vine, snatching him away, never to be seen again (ever). He achieved his fame, but at the greatest cost. The audience was taken aback as the cartel snatched him away (which conspiracy theorists the world over have theorized to be for the purposes of successfully commercializing waffles, before which were largely unknown outside Belgium, save the occasional contestant in the competition, but those were few and far between, and the snatching coincided neatly with the introduction of Eggo waffles in ’44 during the great World Waffle Exposition, but that in itself is a story best saved for another time).

As he swung through the air with the greatest of ease, he called out to his friends, the carrots, and said with much gravitas, ‘win for me. Win for me.’ And that was that. The end.