Preface to Yammy:
I HAVE FAILED YOU. Yammy was going to be illustrated, and perhaps in some later version it shall be, but now it isn't. I made early illustrations, so I know what they look like, and they are intended to be between those gaps in the text, and I would like them to be there, but, alas, I am lazy in that I want not to draw final pretty versions and impatient in wanting to share it to all of you. Ignore, in the title, the "Illustrated", imagine it, more, as a promise of illustration. Or, perhaps, one of you is an artist who would like to illustrate it yourself, hmmmm? And save me from this predicament (be your illustrations beautiful enough, of course), hmmmm? Here, laying in front of you, is Yammy. Please, enjoy. I am demanding you. ENJOY.
Yammy: The Journey of a Yam: An Illustrated Bedtime Story for Young'uns
Your friend, Anonymous (AKA Byron)
When Yammy was young, Yammy lived with his mother. She, a kind and loving mother, raised Yammy to be gracious, sweet, and humble.
Yammy was more sensitive from the other vegetables. His dear mother always protected Yammy from the things he was scared of. When the deadly Crow screamed in the distance, she held Yammy close to her and rocked him. She protected Yammy, telling him to remember, always, that “You are but a yam, Yammy. never forget.”
And Yammy would never forget those words, they would be eternally seared into his mind, for they were the last his mother would ever utter before being wrenched from his life by a cruel pair of five headed beasts.
Yammy knew what he had to do. He could not simply let his dear mother be taken. He had to pursue her, and defeat those two abducting beasts that haunted his nightmares. Yammy was alone.
Yammy began to venture from his home onto the forbidden Featureless Expanse. He came upon a group of carrots playing games. They asked him whether he'd like to join them, but he declined, saying, “My mother was abducted by a pair of five-headed beasts. I venture now to find her, across the forbidden Featureless Expanse and, when all is all, I am but a yam.”
So Yammy left the carrots and journeyed further, until Yammy reached a gigantic forest filled with large flowers and sparkly magical lights floating through the fragrant air. Yammy was so awestruck he nearly forgot his entire purpose of finding his dear mother, until ringing through the air the terrible screech of the terrifying Crow reached his shivering ears, sending pounding through his mind the absence of his mother's soothing voice. Yammy hid from the sharp talons and bloody beak of the crow, rocking slightly and whispered to himself, “I must remember, I am but a yam, I am but a yam.”
When the crow finally flapped away, Yammy rushed to the end of the magical forest, and in front of him were a plethora of hills. Perching upon the horizon, a factory, rumbling, spitting steam and belching a column of smoke into the cloudy sky, glistened. Yammy knew instinctively that his mother had been taken to that factory, but just as he began out into the hilly terrain, a tendril of icy wind slapped him, cutting his young skin, revealing the orange meat underneath. “I cannot do this!” Yammy cried out, “I am but a yam!”
However, Yammy bravely persevered. He struggled through the frosty mounds. The cut on his face stung severely, the snow that was thrown from the sky covering the ground, filling his cut and masking his face so he could barely see his goal, the gleaming, smoke-spewing factory.
Yammy was shivering and badly weathered by the time he finally reached the factory. He was given a small relief from the nearly sideways blowing blizzard in the shadow of the tall building. Yammy found a door ajar just enough for him to creep inside. he shook with fear as he went through the doorway. Once inside, Yammy's vision blurred but for a singular figured picked from the crowd in the factory. It was his dear mother. Their eyes locked and filled with tears as she was precisely and brutally chopped in half, each piece placed neatly into a box containing those before her.
Yammy, struck by shock and sadness, was unable to move. He lay upon the glassy floor, body torn and heart broken, until he was discovered by the two beasts and was limply tossed upon that chopping block his mother had been killed on previously. Just before the silencing slice of that cruel blade, Yammy whispered, to no one in particular, “I am but a yam.”
However, if he had lived to know it, Yammy would be happy Sammy found him yummy.
Eh? Did you enjoy it? Because I made this for YOU.
