The Underground Übermensch: The Good, the Bad, and the Nietzsche

Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground is a portrait of a man in constant friction with his own will. The frustrated, febrile protagonist quickly reveals to his readers an inner world characterized by desire and failure. Each chapter of the underground man’s life begins with an acute desire for a particular event to transpire—an event which he believes will bring him fulfillment in the form of identity. Sometimes this event is marked by honorable happenings and sometimes by debauchery. Regardless, each chapter ends with his inevitable failure to cause the desired event to occur and, as a consequence, the underground man falls into a deeper sense of obscurity and insignificance. To avoid a life of isolation, the underground man believes he must commit his will to a traditional definition of either good or evil. However, Friedrich Nietzsche, the eloquent and misotheistic German philosopher, might present the underground man with a third option—adherence to a new definition of good and evil.  

  The second chapter of Notes provides clear examples of the protagonist’s moral indecision and documents his path to dereliction. He writes, “I did not associate with anyone, even avoided speaking, and shrank more and more into my corner” (42). The underground man’s focus turns wholly inward and his exterior world reflects his circumscription. The protagonist includes numerous examples of his interior conflict and, throughout this second chapter, embarks on several “little debauches” (48) in search of his identity. These “debauches” also serve to distract himself from his interior conflict, as he writes, “I wished to stifle with external sensations all that was ceaselessly boiling up inside me” (48). In one instance of debauchery, he comes upon a man being thrown out a window at a bar and, wishing to receive the same treatment, enters the bar. Shortly upon entering, he encounters an officer who wants to pass by. The officer simply takes hold of the underground man by the shoulders and moves him to the side. The underground man becomes infuriated by this turn of events and writes, “Devil knows what I’d have given then for a real, more regular quarrel, more decent, more, so to speak, literary!” (49) He longs simply to be treated as an equal, however, he declines to fight and leaves the bar “confused and agitated.” The underground man constantly vacillates between his desire for a good and evil identity and writes that he is “morally obliged to become primarily characterless being” (5). To find fulfillment, he believes, he must decide whether to embrace or cast away his humanity and finds himself incapable of either choice. If the underground man had lived just a century later, he might have found a capable mentor in Friedrich Nietzsche. 

The underground man might have found the answer to his conundrum if he had encountered the writings of Nietzsche. In The Anti-Christ, Nietzsche proposes a new definition of good, and, consequently, of evil and happiness. He writes, “What is good?—all that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man” (1). This new definition overthrows the status quo and opens up a new path for the underground man. Once Nietzche put God and all His precepts to death in his Gay Science, he cleared the stage for his maxims. Nietzsche, after dismantling the old law, must establish new rules: a new world order. Goodness is no longer a list of “thou shalt not’s” but a single, superlative axiom: the will to power. The age of morality is over and the world is finally ready for the accession of the Übermensch. As Nietzsche writes in Thus Spake Zarathustra, “Dead are all the gods: now do we desire the overman to live” (Part I, Section XXII,3). All other moral constructs hinge on the new good.  Evil remains the opposite of good: “What is bad?—all that proceeds from weakness.” Happiness remains a result of doing good, as Nietzsche writes, “What is happiness?—the feeling that power increases—that a resistance is overcome.” The definitions of both evil and happiness rest on the definition of good. In redefining good, Nietzsche disposes of the underground man’s interior moral dilemma and replaces it with a simple solution: the enlightened path to happiness through the will to power. 

The underground man might be initially resistant to Nietzsche’s postulation of a new good because he believes in the “beautiful and lofty” (7), or, that which he sees as fully good and, therefore, unattainable to one who can only achieve partial goodness. After his encounter with the six-foot officer, he begins to fixate on this man and decides to write him a letter. He writes that the “letter was composed in such a way that if the officer had the slightest notion of ‘the beautiful and lofty’ he could not fail to come running to me and throw himself on my neck and offer me his friendship” (51). It is not the friendship precisely that the underground man wants, but the equality that he believes can be found in friendship. He sees the officer as his superior and simply wants to “be on equal footing with him.” (52) Herein lies the problem, the very reason why his aspirations to the “beautiful and lofty” can never come to fruition. Nietzsche explains that equality and everything that the underground man desires, cannot be obtained through friendship but through power. Therefore, a new ideal must be set and Nietzsche proclaims this subsequent good. In Nietzsche’s new world, the underground man can finally realize his dreams. The “beautiful and lofty” is lowered to simple, crude power, and all the underground man must do to attain it is cast aside any desire for kindness, sacrifice, or friendship.  

The underground man writes, “I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect” (5).  He believes that this anonymity is the cause of his depressing, frustrating state. He must either become fully human or a beast, but he remains at a standstill, irresolute to choose either. There is, however, a third choice the underground man may have never considered. The choice of Friedrich Nietzsche would result in the fulfillment of his desire for identity and provide a path out of the underground. However, at the heart of every human being lies a tension between the desire to do good and the desire to do evil. If the underground man destroys this tension to commit fully to evil as his supreme good, he does it at the cost of his humanity.

How to Form a Great Disagreement

According to Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great Books movement, there are three steps to posing a respectful disagreement in a Great Books conversation. The first step is for one to acknowledge their emotions, reflecting on how the passage or work makes them feel. If this step is neglected, an individuals momentary or habitual emotional state may have a great effect on the way that they interpret the work. Some readers may take this step to the extreme, thinking that great works should be read without emotion. However, if emotion is removed from the act of reading, any possibility of learning or enjoyment is also removed. Readers simply need to acknowledge the emotions that inevitably arise while reading and discussing these works and realize how their feelings, if unchecked, could lead them astray from the truth. Second the reader must address their assumptions about the work or passage. Where might they be making unfounded conclusions? While the reader would be wise to look at the material in many different ways, this could also result in the reader interpreting meaning where the author did not intend. A reader should clearly state such assumptions, to make explicit to their fellow students, the particular way in which they are receiving the author’s message. Lastly, a reader should attempt to look at the work or passage with impartiality. The reader should strive to have as clear a lens as possible with which to view the material. The way to achieve this clear lens is to momentarily forget any preconceptions or views the reader may maintain that helped to form their disagreement. After these steps are completed, the reader should have full confidence that their disagreement is well founded and ready for group analysis.

There's 'no-place' Like Home: Utopia's Dysfunctional Family

In Utopia, Thomas More paints a picture of a society which we are led to believe, while admittedly imperfect, has achieved the highest level of order, legality, and productivity humanly possible. The island of Utopia is intricately designed, with a complex social system that seems to provide recourse for nearly every human failing, mistake, and crime. A Utopian has very little to worry about from birth to old-age, as every choice is guided and provided for by the Utopian government, leaving every Utopian happily employed in the trade of his or her choice until their death. Did More believe that such a place could, or should, exist? I believe that More meant Utopia to be a socio-political satire due to the many clues he placed in the text. For example, Utopia is Greek for “no-place,” the name he gives to the mayors of Utopia is “no-people”, and his narrator Raphael Nonsenso, who enthusiastically proclaims the virtues of Utopia, is named in the original text “Hythlodaeus” which translates to “dispenser of nonsense.” I think that More wrote Utopia not only to point out some of the failings of his own government and other governments at the time, but also to show how such a place as Utopia could never—and perhaps should never—exist. I believe that one of the dangers that More was trying to warn us against in Utopia is the disintegration of the family that is inevitable in, and necessary to, a communist society.

On the island of Utopia there are several laws regarding the families that make up each town. Among them is a law that “no household shall contain less than ten…adults” (60). The Utopian government reasons that if a family unit of a mother, father, and children are left to themselves, they could make foolish decisions and perhaps raise unproductive or delinquent children. However, if they receive the guidance and assistance of the other eight adults in the household, they are more likely to make wise and informed decisions and raise productive citizens for the Utopian state. Not only are mothers and fathers not allowed their own home, they sometimes are not allowed to keep their own children. Utopian law states that “if a child fancies some other trade, he’s adopted into a family that practises it” (56). For example, if a child wishes to practice leather-working while his parents are bricklayers, the state will simply find him a new, more suitable set of parents. Utopian families are also discouraged from eating together as a household since, they reason, “it seems silly to go to all the trouble of preparing an inferior meal, when there’s an absolutely delicious one waiting for you at the dining-hall just down the street” (62) and instead “thirty households…have their meals.” (61) together in a large dining-hall. Utopian law seems to want as little private interaction between family members as possible, always striving to keep each citizen’s mind focused on the community.

In fact, being at home seems to be so disagreeable to Utopians that More’s character Raphael Nonsenso goes so far as to say that “practically everyone would rather be ill in hospital than at home” (62). New mothers in Utopia are not allowed to spend time at home, instead they spend their maternal leave in “a room reserved for nursing mothers and their babies” (62). However, there seems to be little respect for motherhood, since if a mother is unable to nurse her baby, he or she will be given to a wet-nurse who then adopts the child, and as More’s narrator Nonsenso states, “the child itself will always regard her [the wet-nurse] as its real mother” (63). This Utopian policy reveals how the bonds of parents to their children are of little relevance to the state and are consistently minimized for the benefit of the larger community. In George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, Orwell’s communist leader Napoleon believed that the best way to control his citizens was to remove their familial bonds. Orwell writes of a litter of puppies, “as soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education” (Ch 3). The founder of Utopia, Utopos, would most likely agree with Orwell’s suidaen antagonist on this point.

Another thinker who would agree with this idea is Marxist revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai who wrote, “The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children.” (Communism and the Family). She believed, like Napoleon and Utopos, that the natural bond between a mother and her children merely impeded the proper functioning of a communist society. Kollontai goes on to say that the communist woman should not only forsake bonds with her children but also with her husband. She writes that “a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.” Dissolving or minimizing the importance or presence of family bonds is a consistent theme throughout communist thought. Kollontai equated family to slavery, saying, “Cast off your chains! Do not be slaves to religion, to marriage, to children. Break these old ties, the state is your home, the world is your country!” (Mirrors of Moscow. Louise Bryant 1923). The Utopians equated marriage to purchasing an item or commodity, saying of foreigners, “when you’re choosing a wife…you don’t even bother to take it out of its wrappings” (84). The Utopians looked at marriage simply as a means to have intercourse since, in Utopia, “very few people would want to get married…if they weren’t carefully prevented from having any sexual intercourse otherwise” (83-84). This Utopian view of marriage directly contradicts the doctrine of the Bible which teaches that marriage is a holy union which mirrors both the union of Persons in the Trinity and Christ’s union with His Church. For example, the Apostle Paul writes, “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25 NIV). This model of marriage is vastly contrary to the Utopian model. More, as a devout Christian, surely must have held a very different view of marriage and the family than his Utopian citizens.

Did Thomas More believe in his Utopia? Was he trying to illustrate how an ideal society might be created and governed? Or was he trying to show us the inevitable failings of a communist society, a society in which the welfare of the individual is sacrificed for the perceived benefit of the community. An ideal communist society requires completely unbiased, unselfish, and benevolent leaders in order to function as its designers envision, but this is impossible. As the once leader of Communist Russia Joseph Stalin said, “A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.” In other words, a sincere diplomat cannot exist. If this is true, then a society like Utopia cannot exist either. Therefore, I believe that Utopia is mainly satirical and expresses a belief contrary to former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claim, that it “takes a village” to raise a child. Rather, it takes a mother and a father to raise a child.

Dante on Lust: The Least of Transgressions?

Dante’s Divine Comedy is arguably one of the most thorough and elaborate fictional illustrations of the nature of the universe and God’s plan for our salvation. However, Dante’s cosmology, though beautiful and articulate, is an entirely human creation and therefore cannot be without error. If Dante were a secular author, then we shouldn't be concerned if he were to make an error concerning biblical doctrine. However, since Dante is a Christian author writing a Christian allegory, it would be advisable to examine Dante’s commentary on biblical teachings, such as the gravity of different sins, with more scrutiny. I believe that  one of the ways in which Dante might have erred is in his treatment of the sin of lust. Dante, throughout his Divine Comedy, consistently minimizes the severity of lust, depicting it as the least offensive sin a person can commit. Dante professes that some of the lustful were led to their sin by “sweet and tender thoughts” (Inferno, Canto 5.113). The only souls more innocent than the lustful in Dante’s hell are the virtuous pagans, those who lived lives which were pleasing to God yet who were denied knowledge of God while on earth simply because of the time or place in which they lived. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the souls of the lustful receive a punishment that is both lesser than and intrinsically different from other punishments. Not only are the tortures of the lustful in both Inferno and Purgatory rather lenient, but Dante also adds little bonuses for these souls to further lessen their pain.

Inside the “broad and easy gate” (Inferno, Canto 5.20) of the lustful, the souls are spun about in a “hellish cyclone that can never rest” (Inferno, Canto 5.31). Yet some lucky shades seem to be allowed to travel through this whirlwind together, such as Paolo and Francesca, who “fly as one and seem so lightly carried on the wind” (Inferno, Canto 5.74-75). Details such as this make the torture of the lustful pale in comparison to that of other sinners in hell. Just one circle down, the gluttonous are forced to lie in a freezing “polluted mix of soul and slush” (Inferno, Canto 6.100-101). One more circle deeper into hell, we find the avaricious souls “howling … popping their chests to roll enormous weights” (Inferno, Canto 7.26-27) with “half the hair ripped from their scalps” (Inferno, Canto 7.57). Dante’s light treatment of the lustful is continued in his Purgatory, as those souls in the highest level of purgatory “greet others with a kiss” (Purgatory, Canto 26.32) and even enjoy “brief festivities” (Purgatory, Canto 26.33), their only punishment being to stand in a ring of purifying fire, which Dante likens to a “friendly gathering” (Purgatory, Canto 26.37). Meanwhile, just one ring down, the gluttonous march “famished...down to the dreary scales” (Purgatory, Canto 23.39), “so wasted dry with hunger” (Purgatory, Canto 26.27) that they gnaw their own limbs. A little farther down the mountain of Purgatory, we come across the envious, with their eyelids “all sutured through and sewn shut with an iron wire” (Purgatory, Canto 13.70-71). The lustful seem to fare the best out of all souls whether they are condemned to eternal separation from God in Hell or on their way to Heaven in Purgatory.

The punishment of the lustful in Hell and Purgatory is not only somewhat laid-back and complete with compensation prizes but is also fundamentally different from the tortures that souls receive for every other kind of sin. In every circle in Hell and ring in Purgatory, souls have their bodies mutilated or violated in some way, whether it be the emaciated, autophagous gluttons in Purgatory or the chest-popped, hair-ripped avaricious in Hell. Every shade in Dante’s afterlife suffers, among the other punishments they receive, the greatest torment men can ever know, the mutilation of their bodies. In contrast, in both Purgatory and Hell, the lustful seem to enjoy complete and healthy bodies throughout eternity. This narrative seems to run directly contrary to the teachings of the Bible. The Apostle Paul writes, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18, NIV). The Apostle Paul tells us not only that lust defiles our bodies, but also in a way that every other sin does not. This scripture teaches in opposition to the way things seem to work in Dante’s cosmology, where every sin except lust is punished by mutilation of the body.

Is lust as trivial a sin as Dante portrays it in his Divine Comedy? Jesus said, “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28, NIV). Proverbs 6:32 says, “A man who commits adultery… destroys himself” (NIV). The Bible makes it clear that lust is a grave matter, and there are no verses to support Dante’s belief that lust is the least consequential of all sins. If Dante was a devout Christian, why would he seemingly deny Jesus’ and the Apostle Paul’s teaching and make so much effort to underplay the severity of this particular sin in his works? We might be able to get an idea of Dante’s reasons by looking at his love poem, La Vita Nuova. In La Vita Nuova, Dante reveals that his fictional representation of divine revelation, Beatrice, is, in fact, a real person with whom Dante was infatuated. According to S. A. Chimenz’ biography, Alighieri, Dante, Dante was promised in marriage to, and eventually married, Gemma di Manetto Donati. If Dante was in love with Beatrice while being married to another woman, then perhaps his light treatment of the lustful is really a light treatment of himself. Maybe while Dante was writing the Divine Comedy, he knew exactly where he would go when he died and was hoping for as gentle an eternity as possible.

Consolation of Solitude

It’s hard to be alone,

But it’s even harder to try to find a home.

Home is wherever my friend is.

Never finding a friend, I don’t care when the end is.

Or how.

Creator? If you’ve never listened before, will you listen to me now?

It’s easier to be alone.

‘Cause every time I think I’ve found a friend. A special, wonderful, heaven sent God-send.

It ends.

Every one I’ve ever known.

I’d rather wander forever, never find a home.

It’s easier to be alone.

I’ve made some rules for my heart.

It’s been broken again and still tearing apart. But it’s there for me.

So I’ll follow the rules and pretend that you might still care for me.

Never say “Hi,” never call someone’s phone.

Keep to yourself, don’t wave, just leave them alone.

Never let anyone do anything for you,

You already owe them.

You’re just giving them a chance to ignore you—don’t act like you know them.

You don’t.

You think you’re better off in torture than ignored?

Well the reason they hate you is that you torturously bored them.

I give up.

Every time I might have chosen not to be lonely, I flinched.

My shaking speech was pain enough to slow me, they lynched

Me.

I’ve already carved, marked the heading on my gravestone,

“I wanted to be happy, but it was easier to be alone.”

4:32 A.M. I picked up my alarm clock and stared at it. The light, although dim, hurt my eyes. I wished that I could drift back to sleep and forget, just for a few hours, the words that were pounding in my head. Alone. Lonely. Rejected.

I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I didn’t want to see anyone, but my visitor came in anyway. He looked like a child, about seven years old, but his eyes were not a child’s. His eyes were swollen, wrinkled and tired. I knew who he was. Solitude. I wondered why he was here. “Was it to suffer with me?” (7).

“H-h-h-i…” he stammered.

“Hi,” I said. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I cry a lot,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Be sorry for yourself. I cry for you.”

“Why do you cry for me?”

“Because you don’t like me.”

I got out of my bed and knelt down to try to comfort him, but he ran into a corner of my room.

I wanted to say that I did like him, but I knew it wasn’t true. I hated him.

“You always ignore me. You’re always talking to someone. Why don’t you want to spend time with me?”

“I did spend time with you. All the time, when I was little. When I folded paper to make animals, drew pictures, and made little stick-men fight in animations. I spent almost all of my time with you. Then I grew afraid of you. Because you changed. You started to show me things I didn’t want to see. So I tried to escape you.”

“You hate me now!” He started to cry.

“Please don’t cry! I don’t hate you!” I looked around for a tissue to offer him.

“You can’t lie to me,” he sobbed. “I’m as old as man himself.” He looked away for a moment. “Adam.” He sighed. “‘How happy were men long ago, when they were content with nature’” (47).

“I’m sorry. I’m just afraid of you. I see what happens to other people when they welcome you. They stay in their houses and take care of many cats.”

He started to laugh a little. “Among other things, I guess,” he agreed.

I tried to hand him a tissue but he refused.

“Do you ever consider the fact that maybe these people you talk to when you’re escaping me don’t want to talk to you?”

“See what I mean?!” I lamented. “‘Do you need to ask such questions?’” (10).

He continued anyway. “Maybe they really want to spend time with me, and you’re keeping them from me.”

“Please stop!” I knew he was right. “This is why I hate you: you always tell me things I don’t want to hear!”

“Don’t you remember the fun we had together?” He stepped out of his corner of the room towards me. “We would fold paper for hours and hours, then build computers, then guitars. No one could stop us.”

“I wanted them to.” I felt horrible saying these words to him. “I really did. I didn’t want to be alone with you. I wanted someone to come and fold paper with me.”

“Why?” He started to cry again. “Why can’t you see how much we can do together?”

“Like what? What would I ever want to do with you instead of with someone else?”

“What about when we’re watching a sunset? Nobody ever wants to look at it for more than a second with you.” He wiped his eyes. “But I do. Some days we’d watch the evening sun together from when it first turns red to when it tucks itself snugly below the horizon, and the first stars come out. We used to walk through the woods together. You’d always look for animals.” He laughed again. “You always wished you could talk to them. Don’t you remember these times?”

“I do.” I wiped a tear from my own eye. “I loved those times.”

“Do you remember when we would wake up long before everyone else on camping trips and watch the mist drifting over the waters? Then we’d get a campfire started so that your friends would have warmth when they woke up.”

“You’re right. I’ve always liked doing those things with you.”

“You can’t do those things with anyone else.”

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry.” I held out my arms. “Can I have a hug?”

“Sadly, no. I can’t touch anything.” He dropped his head down. “Can we hang out sometimes, though?”

“That would be great.”

“Like we used to?”

“Yeah, just like we used to.”

The Diary of Hannah Plato Mouse

It was warm, golden autumn when he came to my island. A young mouse named Munifred Spiritus. His two friends who were with him called him “Munchy” because he dearly loved to eat. When he first arrived he and his friends were in an awful state, coughing up seawater and sand. Munchy’s first question when he became conscious was to ask if I had any food. "Enough," I remember saying. I didn't know then that nothing was ever enough for Munchy.

Since no one ever visits my island, I was pleasantly surprised at the arrival of these three strangers. As much as it will pain me to recall, I’ll try to tell you his story just the way he told me, while the silent wound lives on. (The Aeneid 4.85) It all started when Munchy heard of a cheese—Munchy loved cheese more than anything—that would forever cure his craving for the tempting curdled milk. The “Cheese of cheese,” he called it. He knew he would need the help of his two friends, Rostafar Ratio Rabbit and Daqwiri Orexis Duck (I still hate that wretched creature) to help him find the legendary cheese. Daqwiri Duck was easy to convince, that fool didn't care where he was as long as he could do what he liked. Rostafar had always been the sensible one, and Munchy recalled begging him for hours before he agreed to go.

“No time for delay!” He shouted to his two friends as they boarded his disheveled longboat, “at once we swing our sails to the wind!” (The Aeneid 3.640-642).

Munchy and his friends sailed calmly for three days until suddenly a monstrous wave rose over them. At the time they spotted the wave, Munchy was much more concerned about the loss of their rations than the loss of their craft, and did everything he could to secure their food, frantically tying down their rations. Rostafar Rabbit tried his best to keep their vessel afloat, lowering the sails, bailing water, and manning the tiller. Daqwiri Duck was not concerned at all; he could swim just fine. The wave crashed down and Munchy and Rostafar were tossed about in the sea, clinging to bits of wreckage while Daqwiri swam gaily about, finding a small crab here, a bit of seaweed there. I’m sure Rostafar would have beaten that duck silly if he had possessed the strength after his trial in the sea. They finally came to my shore after floundering about in the waters for what must have been days. That was the tale of the wreck that was told to me by Munchy; everything else that follows in this story, I have seen with my own eyes.

It took me several hours to drag Munchy and Rostafar to my home, while that wretched duck stood by, picking seaweed out of his feathers. I wrapped Munchy and Rostafar in blankets and lay them to rest by the fireplace. Munchy awoke in a few hours, his eyes were wide with fright. I asked him what was wrong and he simply closed his eyes and fell back asleep. They slept for three days and I think they would have slept longer if Munchy had not awoke again, this time with a scream. He yelled something about cheese and then froze in embarrassment as he realized where he was. He apologized for his behavior. I said it was quite all right and sat down beside him.

“Is something bothering you?”

He sat up slowly, his muscles were still exhausted. “No, everything is fine. Thanks to you.” I could just make out his pained expression by the firelight.

“You were screaming.”

“…I don’t remember that.”

“You may as well tell her, Munchy.” Rostafar Rabbit groaned from his spot by the fire. Daqwiri Duck was snoring soundly.

“I had a nightmare, that’s all.” Munchy said and then lay back down, turned away from me. He drifted back to sleep murmuring about cheese.

Rostafar started to say something to me, but his voice trailed off as he collapsed into unconsciousness.

I awoke the next morning to rustling noises coming from my cupboard. I went to investigate and received a swat from Daqwiri’s tail feathers as he dug around in my pantry. I asked him what on earth he was doing.

“Foraging.” He said.

“I see.”

“You wouldn't happen to have The Amazing World of Gumball in here, would you?”

I decided to pretend I didn't hear him. I thought that perhaps Daqwiri could tell me more about Munchy’s nightmares. It sounded absurd to me at the time, but curiosity got the best of me.

“Daqwiri?” He turned around for a moment, to take a brief respite from his “foraging.”

“Do you know why Munchy has nightmares?”

“Yes.”

I gestured for him to continue.

“Munchy’s scared of an eagle.”

“Daqwiri, all mice are scared of eagles. He said something about cheese.”

“Ah…yes… the ‘cheese of cheese.’”

“Cheese of cheese?”

“Munchy wants to eat cheese, eagle wants to eat Munchy.” He returned to scuffing about in my pantry. “And Daqwiri wants to forage.”

Ugh! If only Rostafar would wake up he could tell me! I heard a groan from the fireplace room. Munchy!

“Munchy! Are you all right?”

“Morning, I’m fine, just hungry.”

“Daqwiri says an eagle wants you eat you!”

“Eagle? What eagle?” He sat up. “In speaking of eating…” He raised his hands in supplication. I had forgotten all about making breakfast. I rushed into the kitchen pantry and was met by a bare cupboard and a guilt ridden duck.

“Daqwiri! What did you do with the cheese!?!” Daqwiri Duck let out a chuckle and pointed to his stomach. I heard a sigh issue from the other room. I guessed this wasn't the first time he had eaten the groups food.

“I’ll get more food!” Daqwiri shouted as he raced out the front door. He came back a few minutes later with a small trout in his bill.

“Fish?!? We need cheese, Daqwiri!” Munchy complained with as much strength as he had.

“Correction, my friend. You need cheese. I’m good.” Daqwiri pointed smugly to his stomach.

Rostafar squirmed uncomfortably in his blanket and sat up. Either Munchy’s yelling or the odor of dead fish must have woke him. I couldn't contain my worry any longer and rushed over to question the exhausted rabbit.

“Hannah, we have to go—“ Munchy started to say.

“Rostafar! Daqwiri says there is an eagle after Munchy!” I grabbed

Munchy ran over to intervene. “Don’t bother him!” Munchy took my paws in his and his forehead creased in thought. “Yes! There is an eagle! It’s after us. We have to leave!”

I didn't want Munchy to leave. “But you’re safe from eagles here!”

“There’s no food!”

“We’ll find more!”

“I can’t put you in danger, the eagle will eat you too.”

I pleaded on for as long as I could but Munchy was determined to leave. I thought then that he was only thinking of my safety. As I gave my sorrowful goodbyes to the three travelers, I asked Rostafar Rabbit one last question.

“Rostafar…what’s the ‘cheese of cheese’?” Rostafar looked at my dripping eyes for a second, as if he knew just how much his honest words would hurt me.

“Dearest Mouse, the ‘cheese of cheese’ is what Munchy is searching for. It’s a special cheese that will satisfy his longing for all other cheese.”

“Why does an eagle want to eat him?”

“Munchy dreams about an eagle named Euripides Anxietatem Eagle who is always chasing after him. In the dreams, Euripides always eats Munchy just before he can reach the ‘cheese of cheese.’”

“So Munchy isn't afraid of an eagle?”

“He’s afraid something will stop him from finding the cheese.”

I heard Munchy’s voice calling Rostafar. “I’m sorry Hannah, I have to go now.” Rostafar gave my paw a squeeze and ran off to join Munchy and Daqwiri.

“Will you come back to visit?”

My question was never answered and the last thing I saw that day was Munchy boldly leading the way to the island’s shore shouting “The cheese! The cheese!” with Rostafar running close behind, and then Daqwiri following in little spurts as he took breaks to look at the sky or a grub.