THe woRLd AcCorDINg tO STiTch©

And now...what you've all been waiting for, but secretly been hoping would never happen.

The world according to Stitch

Chapter 1.

A New Dope

The burning sun rose up over a barren hill of damp grass in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere else a damp sun rose up over a burning hill of barren grass and in that order. Just four metres behind that somewhere else is the sleepy village of "Fall's Wind", in east-western Cornstripper County, which is a sleepy village as previously explained. The village was named after its founder, Thaddeus Peabody, for obvious reasons and is generally isolated from the rest of the world because of the dangerous gale force winds that destroy the village every fall and the fact that no-one really cares. In fact the whole village went through a depressing period of no-one really cares during 1968 and still suffers occasionally from bouts of no-one really cares. Every year, after the wind of the fall, the people of the village slowly rebuild and repair the damage that has been caused so that the wind has something to destroy next year. Suggestions that the village should simply be rebuilt somewhere else were soon dismissed by the people when someone pointed out that as stated in the third sentence the village is only four metres behind somewhere else and thus moving it such a small distance would be a waste of time. One of the village's main tourist attractions can be found on the main road in the centre of town. Hours on end can be spent watching Fall's Wind famous lights flash continuously from green to orange to red and then back to green again throughout the day. This supplies the locals with as much entertainment as they can handle and has mysteriously caused a decrease in car accidents since its installation.
If the locals had stopped and looked north towards "Three Tree Hill" that drowsy October afternoon they would have realized that the introduction had finished and the story that would change their lives was about to the begin. Sitting lazily on the top of "Three Tree Hill" was little Timothy Stitch, the village brat, who was blissfully careless of the revelation in the next sentence. "Three Tree Hill" had been named by Thaddeus Peabody's best mate, One-eye Bill. The fact was that there were actually six trees on "Three Tree Hill", but half of them were over-looked thanks to Bill's impairment. Not a lot of stories are told about poor, old Bill; in fact this isn't one of them. Timothy Stitch had been up early stealing from Farmer McKinnon's orchard. The fact that Farmer McKinnon's trees hadn't had any fruit on them for eight years had not stopped young Stitch. He was still up at four o'clock every morning hoping that something may have grown overnight. Unsurprisingly, Stitch was often sorely disappointed. However this morning, Stitch had spotted something bright, round and red at the top of one of McKinnon's dead-looking apple trees. After an hour of enthusiastic jumping without getting any closer (only slightly dizzier), Stitch decided on another approach and began to climb. After another hour Stitch had reached the top and soon realized he had climbed the wrong tree. By the time he had climbed back down again he had forgotten what he had been doing up the tree in the first place. As Stitch turned to leave, alone and apple-less, he suddenly spotted something bright, round and red at the top of one of McKinnon's dead-looking apple trees and not realizing he had already done this sentence, he began another hour of enthusiastic jumping.
At two o'clock in the afternoon and after numerous attempts, scratches, scrapes and much dizziness, Stitch got to the top of the correct tree and soon discovered he had in fact spotted Farmer McKinnon's cricket ball, which had been stuck up the tree since the last regional match. At this point I know it is safe to say no-one in Fall's Wind could waste the day better than Stitch. After accepting that the cricket ball couldn't be eaten and wouldn't fit in his mouth anyway, he pocketed it and made his way to the wrongly named "Three Tree Hill". It was there that he sat lazily, stomach doing earthquake impressions, brain doing brick impressions, wondering whether he could get into the pub again.
The main meeting place in Fall's Wind was the pub and four-bedroom hotel known as the Fall Inn, which was appropriate because with the creek across the road, that was what many intoxicated customers did after leaving. To the local blokes the Fall Inn was the best place to get sloshed with mates and the venue for the Thursday night avocado racing competition, but to Stitch it was an endless supply of salted peanuts and perhaps something else if he stood on his tippy-toes and grew a moustache. He had tried this before, but the barmaid had simply removed the dead mouse he had stuck to his top lip with sticky tape and told him to go stand outside until he was old enough. After standing outside all night Stitch soon realized this was going to take longer than he'd first thought and decided to sit for the next few days so his legs wouldn't fall off from the cold and bring the rest of him down with them.
"Ah, the memories," Stitch thought and rubbed his skinny legs which had never fully recovered "bad memories, yes, but at least he had memories." The terror of not having memories had been realized by young Stitch when his father decided the best way to get the keys he'd locked in the house was to think laterally and use his head. At the hospital, Stitch explained to the doctor that his father had been knocked unconscious after breaking the cottage window in with his cranium because he didn't want to get cuts on his hands and his feet were still recovering from the last time. Percy Stitch, or "Dead foot" Percy as the townsfolk liked to call him, had awoken to find that he'd forgotten everything. Then after a few days he forgot what it was he had forgotten and had to start all over again. Confused by this concept, Percy continued forgetting things at an increasing rate until he had to hire a tutor to teach him things just so he'd have something to forget. At one point he started forgetting things he hadn't even known in the first place. It soon became a competition for young Stitch to see how quickly his father could forget things. One afternoon Stitch carefully informed his father that the hospital room was located on the sixteenth floor and after four minutes and twelve seconds Percy had forgotten this and had tried to escape out the window, fallen fourteen storeys and then plummeted the last two storeys for effect, to the street below. Stitch cheered enthusiastically as that last forgotten memory was a new record, but his father was not as joyful. Miraculously he survived the fall, but a car had to swerve in order to run him over and he was instantly killed in an instant. The doctor explained to Stitch that it had been severe amnesia, but Stitch was pretty sure it had been a Holden Monaro and gave the registration number to the police who thanked him, confirmed that the car was registered and told him to get lost. By this point, the reader may have realized that the members of the Stitch family generally lack a certain knack for realizing the obvious. On close inspection you should notice that none of the Stitchs have a particular knack for anything, except Great Uncle Ted Stitch who was well known for his uncanny ability to predict what people were going to say immediately after they'd said it.
A loud chime from the Fall's Wind clock tower brought young Stitch out of his thoughts. The clock tower stood high above the rest of the village, four storeys up, which is the right direction for clock towers. The very idea of a clock tower that stood four storeys down is absurd and wouldn't benefit anyone. If you spot one of these down clock towers please take a photograph and send it to the nearest big city for testing or the biggest near city for testing, whichever works best for you. Anyone not local to Fall's Wind would be slightly curious about the following image. Young Stitch quickly running along the road all the time rolling beside him two wheel bike wheels and honking a horn at irregular intervals. The fact that the Stitch family was remarkably poor meant he lacked the bicycle frame and handlebars required for conventional bike riding and had to make do with the parts he could afford. Yes, Tim was an enthusiastic lad; there was no denying that. The fact that the other kids in town teased his unique cycling methods had not deterred him from being enthusiastic about life. When they had told him that they had a special kind of marble collection that was edible and had kindly insisted he tasted all of them, he had still grinned and asked for a couple more. After extensive dental work, performed by Stitch at home with a box of firecrackers, in which Stitch successfully blew the chipped teeth clear out of his mouth, (along with his tonsils and a section of his tongue), he returned to a normal carefree life with a smile on the wrong side of his face. Even the continual clinking sound his throat made whenever he swallowed as the marbles collided in his esophagus, did not sadden him.
Despite the absence of pedals, gears, a chain or spokes, Stitch halted a little way along the road after somehow getting a frayed shoelace caught in the wheel of his quarter bike. Bending down, he concentrated carefully on tying his shoelace up, but realized he must have done something wrong as he tried to rise and found he was held back after somehow tying his laces to his belt buckle. The result was that Stitch fell flat on his face and his mind went into a state of hibernation after contemplating the problem. Eyes rolling back into his head in fright, he lay there curled up like a large, dead caterpillar. The fact that a large bike horn was protruding from his mouth, where he had put it for safekeeping while analyzing the shoelaces only worsened the situation. Surely someone would help poor Stitch. Surely someone would pass this road and find him. It turned out many did including an elderly couple who told him not to slouch and moved on and a boy who ran off with his quarter bike. Now without his bike Stitch had no way to get home even if he wasn't tied in a knot, but he'd didn't mind too much about the bike. The tyres were pretty flat anyway.

Will Stitch get out of this knotted mess?
Will he make it home for dinner without his bike?
Does anyone really care?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of THe woRLd AcCorDINg tO STiTch©

The Blue Suicidal Lemming