It was bound to happen, sometime. Indeed, two-thirds of the way through my sixth decade, with most of it spent near them, it surprises me it didn’t happen sooner.
I’ve now been morel hunting.
On the slight chance you do not already know, morels are small invisible space aliens disguised as pieces of cheap carwash sponge on little stands. When captured, they are cooked and eaten; we risk intergalactic war because they are delicious.
I say they are invisible, but this is not entirely so. Some people can see them. I believe that these persons may be victims of alien abduction, however. Only after you have let the morel take their pleasure with you can you see them. There may be other effects, too, but we won’t know about them until the unhappy day when the morel people arise.
There is already a kind of morel cult. Its initiation rituals vary. One that is consistent is the careful guarding of the secret morel grounds, where the morel people go to gather them and to receive their terrible space instructions. If you are invited to hunt morels, do not be surprised if you are blindfolded and perhaps your cellular telephone — with its GPS tracking — is taken away. Do not be alarmed. If, however, the security measures also involve a gag, binding of hands and feet, and placement in the trunk, there is probably cause for concern.
I was spared these indignities. My guide to the morel grounds — we’ll call her “Robin” — was like a magician who reveals the secrets to all the tricks. We can only speculate as to the terrible fate that might befall her at the hands of the other morel people should her treachery become known. But never mind.
The first thing I learned about morel hunting is that these representatives of the Fungi Kingdom (I did not invent this term — you can look it up) become visible to the rest of us when and only when they have been spotted by a member of the morel cult. We had not been in the woods — that’s where morels congregate — for long when “Robin” was greeted by the local king of the morels (or district manager; I was not made privy to their organizational chart). This was a strapping individual as morels go, tall and proud. He was invited to dinner and after a little convincing he accepted.
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A morel mushroom. (SOURCE: Dennis E. Powell.) |
Within a few minutes, “Robin” had extended the invitation to lesser morels. During this time I had the opportunity to test my theory of morel invisibility. Sure enough, search as I might I could not see them until “Robin” recited the secret incantations, such as “there’s one right in front of you.” Even then, it took my eyes time to adjust before I could see them.
In due course we moved to another location where morels are known to congregate. But they had retreated from this place, perhaps to plan their domination of Earth.
This notion of “morel” being the martian word for “martian” may seem a little over the top unless like me you read The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet when you were in third grade. At that time, the fungus people were benevolent and friendly. But times change.
The initial morel invasion having been controlled, we headed back to where someone — let’s call him “Matt” — put them in a pan with asparagus and applied heat. Asparagus has some unusual properties which have been well documented. Who is to say they do not also block morel transmissions to the mother ship, flying high above and perhaps poised for attack? Also, morels with asparagus are so tasty that they’re worth risking planetary war over. One can easily understand the allure of the morel cult, how people can become devoted to locating them and having them over for a meal even if it risks the Earth becoming dominated by angry fungi.
It could be that this is all fanciful. There is the possibility that morels are nothing more than prized and tasty mushrooms that people who have cultivated a particular skill can find, and that known morel locations are guarded secrets. It might be that “Robin” was being kind and generous (as well as, okay, getting some amusement at my near-total inability to find them, which was in fact pretty funny) in taking me along on a hunt.
Then again, that’s what they’d want you to think, isn’t it?
Dennis E. Powell is crackpot-at-large to Open for Business. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.