by Weatherfish
dedicated to Cindy, who refuses to read it
Chapter : None
Soggy Whidepope & Chichoe's Entropy
There were none present in the dim cottage, beyond the mile-long thicket. Save two, who were not really there, but for the sake of irony, must be present. After a hasty departure, they crossed the threshold of the broad oaken door. Cautiously, they entered and approached a bubbling pot of strange smelling stuff. Manservant Widget snorted "It's witches brew!" The gallant knight gently moved the cauldron lid aside as he chanted Verse Four of the Naysayer's Anthem;
"Whither the night shall fall, before the dawn has come
O’er the barren heath a crow will sound the rise of the moon
A shopping mall shall arise in the ashes of human folly
On Interstate 82, somewhere near Fargo, North Dakota"
With a sudden urge to stifle a grin, The gallant knight, who was called Soggy Whidepope, then set the cauldron lid upon Widget's forehead. Suddenly, a sudden noise arose from the nearby copse and all was still. They ran out upon the turf and heard the sound on one hundred lambs coughing in the nearby dwelling.
The dwelling in question made of gopher wood, thatch and polished chrome. This cheery abode was the home of the merry woodcutter and his entropic daughter, Chichoe.
A faltering step upon the sun deck was too much strain for the woodcutter's daughter. She burst into laughter and called to the scalded Widget from across the glen. Soggy held Widget back with a quick blow to his eyebrows catching him in his nasty verruca, and so sallied forth to speak to the maid. The maid then pinched a pinch of lavender powder in her pocket. Soggy strode forth, with every sign of tedious virility in his stride. With a quick motion, Chichoe threw the strange, yet somehow prosaic, powder into the Soggy's eyes. Soggy fell to the ground in a fit of sneezing with an occasional, yet unquotable curse directed at the entropic maid. She giggled in a manner that a Barbie doll would have, had it not been made of plastic. The entropic wench then chided "It is not yet autumn, good sire, so thee should not expose nature so quickly. It is said the swallows fly south for winter, but only if rhubarb is cheap. This is the secret vale of the elven prince, Wronkpipple The Unexpected, and it would not do well for thee to tempt his foul nature."
Widget wobbled up to his master and said "Would ye like a tea biscuit, sire?" Soggy shook his head, "Nay, good Widget, it is not yet tea time and it would violate the code of honor to accept a tea biscuit at this hour." With a trammel of delight, the entropic maid, grasped a ceramic vessel and poured fresh cranberry juice on Soggy's head. Widget laughed aloud "He is soggy, indeed!" Soggy sneered "Best ye watch yourself, young lass, ere I play my drumkit 'til your ears are white!"
Later that night, Chichoe was serving breakfast for two travelers. The table was set with a leg of yak, sweat potato salad, Swazie black bread and several gallons of nitric acid. Desert would be Chichoe's favourite recipe: Sedimentary Pie, made with apples, pomegranates, plums and granitic basalt. As they ate their meal Choichoe told a story. She began in a serious, low tone and by the end of the tale she spoke in a harsh, high-pitched warble;
"There once was a farmboy named Urk. Urk was the smartest lad for many a mile. One day Urk decided to go into the small towne with a few pennies and purchase a goat. At that time, back in pre-Cambrian times, goats were scarce and did not like to read poetry, so Urk had a hard time finding such a beast. At midday he sat under a tree and ate a sour cheese sandwich with a rather stale cookie for afters. He then took a swig of blue ale and decided to walk to the next village, under the pretext that they had a goat for sale there. His peregrination has hardly begun when he was run over by a London lorry, which only served to show that you can’t have every cake you want to eat still and chew both ends a once."
They all sighed knowingly, as Chichoe's prevaricatory tale came to an end. Widget stifled a belch, and broke into song:
"If I had me forty pounds of fruit
I'd wile the day away
If I had me forty pounds of fruit
I'd eat one."
After 8 or 9 choruses of that jolly tune, Chichoe decided to add some extra entropy as the story was getting far to tedious at this point. She blew out the candles with a gust of air from the industrial blower in the garage. Then, as if by magic, but actually by entropy, the seagulls began piping like flowers on a faraway beach. The distant ocean began to sing old snatches of forgotten psalms, just like it once did so many years before. With the twist of her wrist, Chichoe beckoned to the trees to sway like dolphins underwater, and encourage the rafters to moan in low tones. Then the dishes started marching to the sea, like Sherman would one day do. All of the bricks in the hearth were pounding out a catchy rhythm in 9/8 time. They all smiled and sang! It soon looked like the midday show at Knott's Berry Farm! Then, as quickly as it had started, it had end-
THIS IS TEX T!
Margin's solar-powered enchilada
"Are these peas yours?" Pearl chimed as she poked her head through the spiked windowpane. "My stars and daughters, if the weatherglass rises any more I think I'll go pole-vaulting!" A sudden breeze chilled the frosted glass just as no one began to notice. The floorboards creaked with a creaking sound as a dusty pair of regulation army boots sauntered across the room. Attached to those boots, in dramatic, but stunted, silhouette, stood Margin Hypedrain. At his presence the corn and wheat fields began swaying in a way that most people would find ironic, but Margin took it in stride. The azure blue of the grain-belt sky was somehow deeper when the waves of grain were breaking over the reef-like fences. The same fences which had tamed thegreat Midwest, a once open, unrestricted land when the cowboy roamed free, untamed by weather, worry and sigma/delta oversampling. Margin dashed such romantic thoughts from his thinker, he had a great task to do. It was time.
At his sudden emotional shift, Pearl decided that this was not the best time to discuss the ownership of a basket of peas, or for that matter the live iguana she found in her kitchen, Margin seemed in a contemplative mood and she knew that soon there would be no point in trying to pry any syllables from Margin's oral cavity.
Margin did not notice Pearl's exit as he completed his last cartwheel. He sat at the table and poured half a cup of maple syrup into his boots, just to make the day different. He sighed with quiet relief as the viscous fluid covered his feet. With a sloshing step he left his lean-to and strode purposefully toward the ramshackle shed across the irrigation canal. The shed was the type that would not make one wish to burst into some Broadway melody, buy Margin could often be heard humming "Blood On The Saddle" as from the confines of his shed.
The shed was a magical place to Margin for within it's secret confines was the pride of his existence; the solar-powered enchilada! He stared at the glowing cylinder, with it's bumpy tortilla texture. It had taken him many years and many ears to make an tortilla big enough to handle his special devices. A device that would cause a paradigm shift to the current paradigm shift; The Solar-Powered Enchilada! Margin smiled at the utter pointlessness of this grande achievement. Someday the world would recognize him for the genius he wasn't! Someday people would not make his name a household word! Someday he wouldn't be able to sell the film rights to some major studio and see his name in lights - "Margin's Solar-Powered Enchilada", yes, that's what would never be seen at neighborhood cinemas, or couldn't be found in movie-tie-in racks at the local bookstore. It would be the greatest non-attainment of greatness the would had ever known. It was time to take his trip into obscurity.
With sweat pouring down his forehead he pulled the first lever. His grip slipped on the shiny handle. The humming from the SPE (Solar-Powered Enchilada) had increased. Then it began vibrating just like a carrot in a Busby Berkley musical. His mind was filled with images of flapper chorus-girls singing "Monkey Doodle-Do" and the heat rose to over 100 degrees in the shed. Suddenly the syrup in his boots was boiling hot and he struggled to keep his grip on the lever. With a last desperate lunge he thrust the lever to maximum. There was the sound of a backwards thunderclap and suddenly his ears were filled with music that sounded like "Clare d'Lune" played on Taiko drums. His body writhed and he suddenly realized that the basket of peas did belong to him and wished that he had taken them from Pearl when he had the chance. He noticed that his body was now floating in a prismatic sphere and he quelled the urge to play the saxophone when he felt as if he were falling, falling, falling...
Margin awoke just in time to have his syrup clogged boot stepped on my a man on a horse. He looked around him and noticed he was in a woodland setting and staring up at a strange man with who only stared back at him. After a pause, which was filled with the sound of birds and the bubble of a nearby stream, the mounted man said "What are you doing down in the mud, Widget? I've been looking all over for you!" Margin could only stare in astonishment.Had he traveled back in time or to another world or to a theme park? Margin finally stammered "Where am I and who are you?" The man on the horse frowned and said in a testy voice "I am your master, you idiot, Soggy Whidepope, and you are on the ground and seem to have poured syrup into your boots! Come now, Widget, I think I see a cottage over there with a pretty maid in the distance..."
THIS IS (still) TEXT.
IS THIS YOUR CAMEL?
1.) With the spastic grind ratio fulfilled, syllogism peaking downward at scheduled intervals. Adjusting low tank release valves, underwall module and bi-valve bolt assembly they were restored to constant levels.
2.) Livestock updated manually, pole data now in series, error factors are not tallied at this phase juncture. Effective launch date was reiterated on grid scale 156. All relevant peak stats have been assimilated as of yesterday.
3.) Density of raman noodles at five year maximum, marginal scale withholding the melted butter. Bolshevik tolerance medium is descending at a nominal rate, growth rate tolerable in dandruff-scalp-dryness range limits. Beyond reference scales, like smelly fishfood, all information is secured.
4.) Little Georgy loved to play in the sun. His best friend was Poodoo, an imaginary kangaroo rat with bionic implants. Today there was a county fair across the field and Little Georgy was excited about attending. So he went there and came home later.
5.) Meter cosine flux is now in the delta range, issuing appropriate cotillion countermeasures. Out-Of-Phase violations exceed standard tolerance profiles, Boolean shapes are extracting at a magnitude of 8 in most gamma dung-piles.
6.) Sine-wave modulation remains layered in a cheese sandwich. High level piping is accelerating reactor coolant cycles by one full peak. Below Nottingham, the rugged band of sage luminaries and other tedious morphologists pranced across the river Sticks, in hope of attaining sobriety. With a faltering, yet jaunty step, they padded into the darkest part of the wooded-shire. As they walked and sang the micro-converters remain is standard range, save for an excessive venting in the long-wave radiation coupling on the horse trough. After slaking their thirst, the horses lay upon the soft, grassy glen for a well earned pension scheme.
8.) Oversubscription of the venture capital overlays had split the wide ranging portfolio and divested the capital gains until the butterfly was freed from his earthly confines and fluttered into a sunset so real, that it could have been rented from an offshore banking conglomerate.
1001001
"But could a single night in Cancun solve the mystery?', mused the quality puppet. An overdraft was one thing, but sliding into a tidal pool could be simply wonderful. The quality puppet was reminded of a strange tale from his future childhood;
Once long ago, which is the most predictable aspect of most tales, is that they occurred long ago, there was totem pole called Homer. Homer was obsessed with the mustard stain on his toes. So he rubbed some blue cobalt onto his shins and headed toward the water's edge. He had no sooner moistened his feet when he heard the voice of his mother 'Homer, came back, your feet are getting wet!". Homer exclaimed 'I know, but I've got to get the accursed mustard stains off of my feet!' To which his mother said 'Oh, OK.'
Stifling a laugh, the quality puppet could only muster enough energy to vault across the portcullis that barred his path. Gazing into the imposing stone edifice that faced him, he could read the runic script chiseled in stone relief;
"You are the last person in the world I would accuse of musical ignorance. Well, maybe the second or third to the last. Let me think for a minute. There are approximately 5 billion people in the world... Anyway, Mahalia Jackson, penultimate gospel/soul singer, is who I meant. If Paul is still holding out, you might want to consider Mahalia. Or Mahalia's great-granddaughter."
So, the final clue had been found. The quality puppet would have lapsed into Shelock Holmes-like laughter, but it might crack his wooden mouth, so he refrained. With great strength of character the quality puppet ran over the evidence that lead him to solving the mystery;
*Charles Hungadunga had tried to bilk himself out of his own fortune.
*His wife, Hildagard, was asleep on the night she had insomnia.
*The family wolf-hound was abroad touring the fjords of Panama.
*They all had perfect alibis and were allergic to alfalfa sprouts.
*After the 1901 earthquack, Charles and Hildagard purchased a real estate interest in a tract on rural Triton.
*Then the body of Mahalia was discovered by 5 billion people and so Paul was still holding out.
And the secret that the family wolf-hound had concealed was that she was musically ignorant and therefore guilty of the crime of barratry.
In a moment, the conclusion of the tale...
1001001
1011101
1100101
Charles Hungadunga was convicted of gurgling over the county line and sentenced to two weeks rest in Antibes.
Hildagard Hungadunga was found not-guilty of molesting a comb and spent her declining years on Saturn.
The family wolf-hound was sentenced to 3 days in the city dog pound, but was paroled after 2 nights.
Mahalia was condemed to covering Debbie Boone tunes and disappeared into aire thin.
Paul wondered why she was included in this mess, and vowed to brush her teeth more often.
Thend
This has been a quality puppet mystery.
The Lighthouse At The Top Of The World
*t began with a secretion from a secret gland. Once combined with the essence of a non-existent genus of an Australian Pepper-Lilly to formula would be complete. A pair of withered hands reached out to grasp the flask, which slipped due to a heavy layer of dense condensation. The strange aroma that filled the air was not what the typical observer would have expected, but never the less, time still passed...
Chapter One : A Windmill In Supplication
The rain which usually fell at this time of day was falling on the drenched figure of Artemus Palethork as she clutched her macintosh tightly to her chest. With a non-machine like spattering sound the downpour continued to pour down upon the country lane, which was now brimming with water. As she ran, Artemus noticed that the rainbarrel was gushing water onto the spring grass, fed by the torrent from the corner downspout. At last she reached the edge of the cottage's overhang and was rewarded with a double dose of dripping water, which had the magical ability to slip into the folds of her overcoat and make it's merry way down her back. A sharp intake of breathaccompanied the chilly rill of water that ran along her spine and she let go a mild curse.
A creaking slam of the cottage door was a blessed sound to her as she flung her sodden coats aside. Her feet squished across the oaken floor, or would have had she worn tennis shoes instead of pumps. With a sigh she collapsed with a sense of inner relief into the folds of the wicker armchair by the fireplace. Time passed...
Chapter Two : The Encourager of Redundancies
There was a queer kind of zephyr that would howl down the ancient rift valley and over the long rocky outcrop at the island's northernmost tip. Beyond the long spit of glacial till stood a monolithic structure, roughly hewn, it's 200 foot high adding to it's ominous presence. Even intrepid sea birds would change their flight path to avoid the sculpture and no verdigris or moss ever accumulated around it's base. For hundreds of years this object had remained relatively undiscovered, except by those who were too bored to notice it. Yet it's dark strength was growing ever greater with the passing of each eon...
*uddenly, on a day one would not have expected a figure to be standing at the base of the great monolith, there stood a curious figure at the base of the monolith. After a fumbling motion the figure bent over and said "Blast!, me sodding canteen has a bloody leak!" With excessive fuss the figure tried to drink the leaking water, but only succeeded in wetting his safari coat and pith helmet. He shook his fist in the air in deep dudgeon and hissed "Where is my packet of rice pudding mix? Dammit, this is no way to mount an expedition! Prunella! Prunella, where are you?" With a waddle similar to an affronted penguin, Prunella ascended over the crest of the hill and said "What is it Neville? Do you need the hedgecutter?" Bearing an expression similar to that of a llama swallowing a bee, Neville squawked "Curse it woman, you've forgotten to pack the scones again! What are we going to have for tea?" Pressing her fists against here hips Prunella shook her head in wonderment and said "For goodness sake, you simpering sod, you can have sandwich spread on the swiss rolls I packed!" With a snort that would have sent shivers down Teddy Roosevelt's back, had he been there, Neville snorted "Stupid woman! I meant for afters! There's no jam, no honey and you even forgot to pack the drinking chocolate I told you we needed!" Prunella withheld the urge to heave a large tractor tire at Neville's face, for the simple reason that one wasn't available, and instead spat "Stuff your bleeding choco drinks, you moronic son of fishmonger! Let's just get on with the silly expedition of yours so we can be home in time for the buffet in Shepherds Bush!" Neville turned a rather fetching shade of crimson and hissed "Now you listen too me you stupid b..."
Without warning the ground began trembling. For a full New York minute the earth shook with an steady motion, like that of lemon meringue pie on a Congo train. Neville and Prunella stopped just long enough to start arguing again. "If you had packed the flipping peanut butter as I insisted you to, we would not be in this mess!" Neville continued. Prunella slapped Neville's right cheek, since he would be expecting her to slap his left one and retorted "If you had one once of sense in that lump of pudding between your ears you know full well that I couldn't pack the peanut butter as the man at the corner shop was fresh out and you know how it impairs my digestion." Neville screamed "That's not the point! Just because you think peanut butter gives you the windies is no reason not to pack the jar that was in the larder!" "Damn you Neville, you are without a doubt the stupidest pond scum on the..."
With redoubled vigor, the earth began to shake with a motion that could easily be mistaken for a table full of blancmanges on a tramp steamer. Still, Neville continued "You batty wench, did you at least remember to pack the butter?" "Of course not, that was your job, I was supposed to pack the peanut butter-" Neville cut in "Which you FORGOT - you imbecile!" Prunella continued "That's not the point here, your crotchety fart of a simpleton, you were supposed to pack the butter and..." By this time they were shouting at the same time and one could only hear an occasional "Butter knife", "Who forgot the jelly", "Sod the jam spoon" and "Smelly stockings". All the while the shaking continued to increase in magnitude.
As their argument reached a fever pitch the dark monolith began to sway and finally to falter. With a ghastly creaking sound the great, dark slab of stone fell full upon the arguing explorers, Neville and Prunella. Silencing them for all time, and fulfilling its' purpose.
rom that point on that strange point of land was a happier place, where the birds would come every summer to feast upon the food left by that intrepid couple and lived in a place quieter and sillier than ever before...
Chapter 0
The Photo-Voltaic Lunchbox
With the kind of rocking that most infants would despise, the tramp steamer (refered to in the previous chapter) trundled onward into the gloom. If you were in a sinking dhow a short distance from the steamer, you would have been able to see the excessive amount of jollity aboard the curious vessel. You wouldn notice how the bow of the ship was painted a shade of orange that would have made Mother Theresa strangle leper children. But this would not match your soggy surprise at seeing the disgustingly wrought iron banisters on the porter deck. And you would have wailed that the dreadful teak on the hand-rails was a crime against humanity. However the clinking of many martini glasses would not have been be heard by you since you would have drowned by now and the distant revelry would hold little fascination for you. Yet on the off chance you preferred the intake frigid saltwater over oxygen, you would have seen a skirmish break out between some of the unusually tall passengers...
"Intonation?" cried the chap with an aquiline nose, quite agog (the chap, not the nose). "This is not your century, you pusillanimous, war mongering window dresser! Can't you accept the fact that the conflict on Triton is at an end? The baked goods are quite vanquished, so don't try and soft pedal your crockery here, my good charlatan, there are young saplings about."
As the steamship began floundering like a flea in a bowl of bread pudding, the sailor forswore that he'd never abandon his potatoes again. "Listen, you, undersized manatee, I have fought in over 16 World Wars and untold domestic conflicts, so don't come to me with your high-handed gestures of salesmanship! Do you realize the amount of engine oil it takes to keep the blowpipe from excessive frothing? Put that in your enchilada and wipe your feet on it!"
A rather fetching lass in a strapless burlap shift sauntered up to the fraying gentlemen and said in a low voice that could have been heard in Kansas City with the proper monitoring equipment "Do you know that the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln?"
They both turned to her and said "Where the duce is Nebraska?"
She laughed in a way the Lauren Becall could never match "You silly men, you're standing on it right now!"
They scurried over to starboard and looked down at the surging sea. The woman with the non-Bacall-equse laugh laughed aloud and moved away from the flummoxed gents. After a long pause the sailor said "Do realize what a ridiculous nose your have?"
Chapter 5642
The Majesty Of Teeth
Someone of a different temperament would have found the vegetation encrusting the wet stones along the pathway rather pungent. Yet the figure dressed in sack-like material thought different. With a furtive look, Khegal Oneg bent down to smell a curiously coloured blossom by the rocky path. She was captivated by the unusual fragrence of the amber bloom until a chill breeze forced her to rise again and face the darkening sky westward. As she stared into the gray towers under the gloom she fingered the crystal in her hand and chanted the...
Wait a minute, this is going nowhere! It reads like a Stevie Nicks song. We need more excitement;
The shrill squealing of stressed rubber tires accompanied the violent spinout of the flame-red Corvette Stingray. A hail of bullets shattered the windowpane as the car broke hard. Fiona laughed her wicked chortol as she banked the car into a rack of garbage cans. A quick glance into the rear-view mirror showed her that the gaggle of patrol cars were in hot persuit as she entered to the roundabout in the center of the village square. As she skidded past the statue of Thomas Jefferson the car was drenched by a vat of custard from the...
Aw, man, I had a good one going there and had to ruin with that custard bit. Lemmie try again;
Suddenly the turtles began pole-vaulting accros the waterbed...
Where the heck did THAT come from? Can't I complete a simple narrative? One more and I'm goin' home;
As the Reverend Morris sauntered along the country lane he was convinced that the bright-green hedgerow was following him...
I give up, but not before one more vain re-write;
The Story Not So Far
Someone of a different temperament, like Stevie Nicks squealing, shattered Fiona as she showed the patrol cars the center of the square, as Thomas Jefferson began pole-vaulting across the bright green hedgerow. Soon the chlorine would take effect and saturate the trailing edge of the tea-wagon's windsock. Fiona was troubled by this, but no more than a landslide would be as the subject of a trite Stevie Nicks song. A dervish-like fountain pen stood amid her oaken foot pedals and bleeped with an irritating consistency. Only a harbinger of such dramatic proportions could have failed to capture her attention. Speaking a language that only someone from Lapland could ignore, Fiona tucked the folds of her silken backpack into the boot. With a slight gesture she could not help but smell the crumbs that had accumulated on her combination Dolby cassette-deck & respirator. "Whumpf". She turned with the expression of one who was about to speak French just in time to hear another "Whumpf".
Many miles away, somewhere over the hills and far away in the great bakya beyond a small, but insignificant, fish began its day. Leaping like a stallion in Oxford, the wholesome fish wondered why it had been included in this narrative. Surely it was far to inconsequential to merit an entire paragraph in this wasteful tale. But since it had already been mentioned, it felt that it must somehow justify its participation or the reader might simply stop reading. Or perhaps the reader had already given up! That would have filled the fish with a sense of relief, but since it was already filled with pond water, there was no room, so instead, it fell back asleep and dreamed of the army tank in the village square in the town of New Milford, Connecticut, thereby succeeding in removing itself from the storyline. "Whumpf". This was getting absurd, Fiona thought, only Thomas Jefferson would make such a sound as that. If only this accursed "Whumpf"ing would stop she could finish cutting the final facets on the gemstone. Suppressing the urge to suppers the urge, Fiona slid out of the moving car onto a London bus, thinking this was the best time to napalm the botanical gardens. Sadly Fiona had forgotten that she was in Beijing, not London, and there was not a botanical garden for at least 3 parsecs.
Speaking of parsecs, once upon a time on a planet that only existed on alternate Wednesdays, there lived a cube of aluminum called Nurk. Nurk was a management consultant in the marketing department of Squink, Noggle & Vook. One day, while completing a dossier on the life of abysmal plankton in the trenches of the Plorpitac Ocean, Nurk noticed that someone had dimmed the light in his cubicle. With a blip of irritation Nurk floated toward the light fixture only to slip into a wormhole and fall for many microseconds in the wierdness of worm space.
"Oh, not again!" Nurk sighed. Suddenly he appeared on a strange and curious world. He looked around and smiled. Nurk had never seen such amazing landscapes in his life and looked forward to exploring this strange and wonderous land. Without warning, his body was grabbed by an alien hand which carried it off to the large structure in the distance. And soon thereafter, Nurk was transformed into a long sheet of foil and sold to a housewife in Nashville.
The Moral : Don't let sleeping dead horses lie.
Predicably, Fiona heard another "Whumpf". This was almost areirksome as the last paragraph. To think that someone is bored enough to keep reading this silly thing. So with a grand sense of bathos, Fiona died, the world exploded and nothing was left but a few scattered fragements of the once interesting story...
Fitzberg & The Cantankerous Catapult
Once upon a Thursday, a small quagmire meandered along the sky. Reaching into the hotel's granary, Fitzberg chortled through the black volume of Portuguese verse long after the 11:37 bell chimed across the market square. Bedeviled by the constant ruptures within the gem's facets, the quagmire slid across the gleaming fissure. A too-light breath paled in the misty bog that fringed the chandelier, but this was not the time to quote any kind of apocryphal snowfall. Instead, a steady galloping could not be heard in the direction of a copse aflame. Fitzberg shivered, despite the febrile recommendations of his gardener, a stunned wicket could not be lost in this weather. Tempted by the lunar light scattered between the yearlings, a somewhat irritated catapult remained vexed by the quality of the furnishings. But Fitzberg blessed the fruit-tray, as the noise was getting far to synchronized for her tastes. "Best sleep through it" the catapult mused, stifling a frontier chant, and decided that a summer's holiday by the inquisition was more preferable than a Dutchman's armory.
Hamlet's Wake
An Exceptionally brief play By Joyce Shakespearer
CASTE:
Thamel : A court jester with delusions of kinghood
Pheolia : A Scottish nun with an addiction to potatoes
Dingdong : An invisible parrot which sings the same sea-shanty over and over again
Finnegan : A drunken gravedigger who dreams of being a vaulting-pole
Mr. Figgis : A character which does not appear in the play, but is never alluded to occasionally
Bog : A woodcutter
Nog : The woodcutter's wife
ACT IV Scene II
A Grotty Danish Castle On A Thoroughly Miserable Irish Potato Farm Near Cork, except on the thursday morning proceeding easter sunday.
Enter an armored pig or three
Armored Pig : "Can you please cash a cheque for me?"
Another Armored Pig : "Not until we reach Dover!"
Still Yet Another Armored Pig : "But soft, there is a light over by the bog."
Enter Thamel
Thamel "Ahoy, yonder knaves, is there any breakfast left?"
Armored Pig "Yes, but you need identification!"
Thamel "I am Thamel, prince of Thebes, or so I have been ordained."
Enter Pheolia
Thamel "Come to my side, fairest Pheolia, an offer me your most irritating sonnet!"
In the distance, a strange song is heard
Dingdong "What shall we do with the drunken sailor, early in the morning?"
Thamel "I remember that tune from archery school."
Pheolia "Your are daydreaming again, my love. Ye must rest a time and let my breath woo you to sleep."
Enter Bog (the character, not the location) & Nog
Bog "What idleness is this? Have I not warned you against such things in times past?"
Nog "Shall I make tea for everyone?"
They all answer "Yes!"
THE END (of the play)
-----Original Message-----
-----Original Message
The bruised peach lay upon the subterranean flagstone path.
As the alchemist began pacing, his brow furrowed before the postulations of such a recondite matter overwhelmed his thoughts and caused him to cough.
An assessment of the hidden dangers within the matrix were a monumental task, but a slow sense of the glamorous world of hi-fashion design filled Gretta's head with a delight she had not known since her childhood. A dream sublime realized as she gazed out of the penthouse window of a great glass tower overlooking the mid-town Manhattan cityscape. She came back to herself and gave her latest creation a final appraisal and slipped the sketch into her folio and walked to the edge of the ocean. The sudden warmth of the saltwater shorebreak caressing the adventurers ankles was more inviting than expected. Without ceremony he removed his pith helmet and poured the tepid fluid over his forearms.
Soon the gentle swaying of the date palms gave way to a more ominous zephyr that accompanied the gathering darkness. He gazed at the approaching squall line and noticed the rain of confetti which fell down from the upper level of the auditorium. The applause was almost deafening as the band returned to the platform for one more encore.
Furiously, the drummer began a paradiddle-esque beat as the strobe lights kicked in. With an attitude of an ego which could never be slaked, the lead singer leaped from the pile of amplifier cabinets into the crowd screaming like a banshee wailed across the moors.
The spirits of the dark arose in the black mists as the gibbous moon rose low over the horizon. The mire seemed to groan in time with the strange piping of the whippoorwills. Suddenly as the horrid chorus of damned spirits rose to a crescendo a great crack in the ground appeared, into which a rather bruised peach fell onto a subterranean path of flagstones.
Are you smelling of cheap port in an alleyway,
In the most disreputable port in ol' Bombay?
Does your smock appear sheared,
And excessively smeared,
From your berth on a steamer from Mandalay?
Yes the Mandalay steamer smells badly,
And my smock is in need of some soap,
And the alleys of Bombay sway madly,
When the last of the port soothes my throat.
second stanza ©Cindy Herbes
"Hey," he cried, then hearing a slow, but steady overtone of the injection
feed to the overhead crankshaft. Since Wendell could only guess at his
belt-buckle's purpose, there were few options open at the end of the
corridor. Avoiding the whale's blowhole was only the first requirement for
the commission, now there was the gauntlet of the cruciform pathway
reflected in his sunglasses. Little time passed. The skewed obelisk that
blocked his path suddenly spoke.
"Have I not heard from you since the quality puppet production?” burbled
the obelisk in a tone that sounded very much like the voice a stockbroker
would use on a summer holiday in Maine. Wendell found himself blanching in a way that made his hair hum. He shook himself out and found the words
"Educational Service District 101" carved into the living stone at the
obelisk's base. Moving furtively, he slid around the strange stone
formation, noticing that he was duplicating the steps from a forgotten Busby Berkley musical. Doubting his own teeth, he sauntered into the rabbit's warren with a blatant disregard for differential calculus. Though he tried to suppress the urge, he found himself paraphrasing the lyrics to "Ave Maria";
Ave Maria
Do your ears point towards the sun
Are you made of polychron compound
Can you dance on an abandoned anthill
And pollute the local playground
Ave Maria
Why does your bicycle hide
Behind your neon laundry hamper
Will you blow-dry your kneecaps
As you eat another piano string-damper
Ave Maria
Is that gefilte fish in your hair
While you swim in the fishtank of memory
And should you insult your potted plants
While you rewrite your own obituary
Repeat & Fade
CHEDDAR CHEESE???
yet, this is somehow, text
Once upon a time--and it was much farther back than you might imagine, although it doesn't much matter, seeing as how this is a fairy tale and fairy tales are make-believe, meaning they didn't really happen at all in the first place, so what possible difference could it make what year it was that we pretend they happened, as if things were ever that much different even in the remote past, like unicorns ever actually roamed around in forest glens inhabited by wise old wizards and women wearing diaphanous gowns and nothing else and the quality of moonlight was just right for turning crystals into prisms for cheap poster prints, and you'll notice that all the people are either 20 years old or 70 years old, never 41 or 56 or even 12, because those are not romantic ages and we must have romance in our cheap poster prints, and of course in our fairy tales in which everyone lives happily ever after. The End.
The Walrus & the Carpenter.
INFORMATION
The Walrus & Carpenter.
IN FORMATION
Walrus & Carpenter.
INFORM AT ION
Walrus Carpenter.
IN FORMAT ION
Carpenter.
IN FOR MAT I ON
IN FORM AT I ON
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE CARTOON PERIL
Part One : A Dark Alleyway Off Of Memory Lane
"Look at that, there's a singular thing." said Montigue, as the tranductional mode in the matter curve caused the release of an excessive number of virtual particles to escape from the event horizon. As the unconventionally constructed spacecraft began to wobble Lissan said "I think Mr. Hawking is doing the driving now so let's have a spot of tea!"
Part Two : Tepid Waters Run Steep (Except At Night)
After the tea was consumed, Montigue quipped "I say, old tapir, what's this thing on my jam spoon? Looks like a gravy stain." Lissan replied "Never, it must be that custard from last night." Montigue frowned "I suppose you're right. Nice weather this, at the edge of the black hole, you know!" Lissan nodded suspiciously and could only say "Yes, dear, it's just like our summer holiday at Eden Rock. Lovely."
Part Three : A Thin Slice Of Air
"Strange things, black holes, you know, rather, you know, attractive." Montigue observed as their craft began its inperceptible elongation into infinity. "You know, dear, I was wondering, now that we're in this black hole thingy, perhaps we could talk about artificial intelligence." After a long pause, Lissan said "What's that dear, some sort of game?" "No, no, it's a computer that can think for itself, you know." "Oh," Lissan said "would you like another biscuit?" Montigue said "No, dear, six is my limit during tea."
Part Five : Orange Oranges
After cosuming the last biscuit Lissan said "Why are you so interested in artificial intellegence, dear?" "I don't know, thought it would liven up our tea. You're always going on about blasted Eden Rock, so I though as we are in a black hole, we could change the subject." Lissan said "You mean you didn't like our holidays at Eden Ro-" Montigue cut in "Course I did, but would you stop going on about it! So let's talk a bit about AI." "What's that dear, the motorway to Serbiton?" "No, damn it, artificial intelligence - AI!"
Part Four : If Wishes Were Wishes, Fishes Would Wish They Were On Bicycles
"Oh all right, let's talk about bleeding AI if we must!" Lissan spat "Just get it overwith!" Montigue expanded "Well, what you must understand why AI is so important. By algorithmic methods we could synthesize the patterns of induction in the synapses in a human cranium resulting in a model of sentient awareness and rationalistic cognative processes. This would culminate in a technology of such immense portent that we could change the world and mankind would be the creator of artificial life and be the true master of our existance!" After a long pause Lissan said "I think next summer we should go back to Eden Rock, this black hole's no fun any more..."
A Brief History Of Optical Fibre
In 1957, Niles Fortamer was pouring a mixture of beet sugar and buckwheat flour into a zinc lined container. His cat, Morph, jumped on the table and placed one of it's paws into the mixture. Niles then heard his phone ring--WE INTERRUPT THIS SOPORIFIC NONSENSE AND TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO LUTON AIRPORT WHERE THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND HAS JUST ARRIVED ---
"Hello, and welcome to Luton Airport. The Queen is now disembarking from her personal jet, the Lear Corgi II, and is about to speak..."
"Greetings to all of my royal subjects."
"Wow, what a speech! We now return you to the studio."
NOW BACK TO THE STORY: And that's how Niles Fortamer discovered optical fibre and saved England from the ravages of the Common Market...
The dark cipher, mislaid in Arkham, Massachusetts, stirred the pot of political confusion until the gerrymandering became so severe that the party was utterly defocused. With a grunt of indifference and keen sense of fealty, I turned with a heavy sigh and began to ascend the stairs, only to realize, that I had no stairs...
I stopped to ponder. This redistribution of wealth was trickier than I had at first surmised. And without any stairs that I could ascend (or descend, for that matter), I chose to write the following note, to someone who swears that she never knew me;
TO BE DISCONTINUED...
P.S. : nothing rhymes with “gulf”