TOADSGOBOAD: 2010

The Procurement Man
Vol. 5, Stiff with Lightning
Part One: Washington Lesbian Camel
By Toadsgoboad

Changing Classes

The Dearth of Clocks
Without twelve shocks
To keep them running smooth,
Command the hands
Upon whose lands
We Squat without reproof

How Quickly A Year Goes By

The above poem, written nearly a year ago; what does it mean? I don’t have time to delve into it. Although I wrote it, I have little insight into its interpretation. Another year is approaching its terminus, not only in the calendar sense, but in my life. I’ll be forty years old in a little over a month. Too late to deviate from the path I have so resolutely (if haphazardly) set out on. Far too late to flail about, much as I’d like to, given my lack of certainty as to just what the hell I’m doing. I can only hope that I die before the digital world-brain assumes control and renders all my efforts moot.
Is this new plunge into writing part of The Procurement Man, the mega-novel I promised I would work on for the rest of my life? It is, but it is also part of The System is Riddled with Worms, the new drawing collection I’m working on. This is the interface I’ve been moving toward for so long. Whether I’m ready for it or not. After speedy production of cartoons, I feel I’m wasting time writing things out. It’s been more than six months since I wrote anything. Moreover, when you look at the bulk of the drawings I’ve done in the interval, you can really see the time wasted.
I guess the above poem is an appropriate introduction to this new phase; the last half of my life. Oh, how I dicked around, waiting for this moment! But, that’s the way my life, seen as a narrative, has unfolded. The late bloomer, the slow developer. So many big plans, but ultimately, just a collection of tiny absurdities. Space filled up out of obligation.

Megan’s Thesaurus Burning in Hell

“For a young girl so confessedly indifferent to bettering her language skills you certainly seem worried about your missing book.” Bile gathered in the cheek pouches of old Doctor Weasloid’s mouth as he mocked Megan. He sat in his accustomed place beneath the defunct aerator; she stalked about the room like a butter knife driven against the bottom of a practically empty jar of mayonnaise.
“Don’t call me a ‘girl.’” Megan commanded, pausing in her search. She looked up at the grimy skylight overhead and rubbed the back of her neck.
“Forgive me,” Weasloid replied. “Young lady.” He corrected his earlier address.
Megan sighed, dropped her gaze to the old rodentman, and looked away. Her eyes went to the door.
“No, no.” Weasloid admonished. “No going out until the all-clear has been sounded.”
Megan sighed again. She sounded like an inflatable pool toy giving up its last animating breath.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “There’s no way it could be out there.” She nodded her head at the door. She meant the other rooms on this level of the castle, each of which was full of many books, but, in Doctor Weasloid’s imaginings, her nod took in the rest of the castle, its environs, the whole of County Koom, and, inevitably, all of the infinite worlds even unto the eternal Red Party and my own consciousness of my consciousness. As the old man nodded gravely, distracted from his baiting of the girl by the sudden philosophical turn of his thoughts, I switched the monitor from displaying the doings in that benighted room to a scene of destruction occurring at no insignificant remove from its predecessor.
A thesaurus, its pages tabbed for easy reference, floated on the surface of a lake of fire. Already the dust jacket had burned away, revealing the imitation leather beneath to the pitchforks of the demonic attendants on view. They laughed at the slowly unfolding demise of the book, grunting monosyllabic imprecations of satisfaction.

Cindy Prompter

Cindy Prompter, the Stationmaster’s bookish daughter, labored to construct a realistic model of the town’s first mayor using only items found in the old warehouse that had belonged to Dr. Printh, a man supposedly descended from the first mayor. She wept as the enormity of the task was revealed to her.
“And I wanted to be done by the time Daddy came home!” She boo-hooed, squatting in the midst of the dusty collection of junk.
“Perhaps you need a helping hand?” Came a voice from the door that opened onto the weedy dirt road outside.
Cindy hurriedly blotted her tears with the sleeves of her dress, a dress designed and made to conform in all respects to the image conjured up by the words, “small farming community woman of the previous century.”
“Mr. Negrum!” She choked out. “What are you doing here?”
“I haven’t been banned from this part of town.” The spry and, to tell the truth, dainty man replied with a half-smile and a flick of his moustache. “At least not yet.” He added, taking a high, comical step over the threshold.
“Did you know that the word ‘threshold’ derives from the whole business of threshing grain?” Cindy asked as she stood.
“Well,” Negrum answered as he looked about the warehouse, “It stands to reason, doesn’t it? You know,” he turned his gaze on Cindy, “If you only think about things, you can usually figure out quite a lot.”
“I wish I could figure out how to put this model together.” Cindy’s tone was angry, a rarity with her, as she kicked at (but did not make contact with) the barely ordered assemblage.
“Precisely what I mean by a helping hand.” Negrum assured the young lady. He boldly patted Cindy’s hand, delivering a further measure of assurance, and looked up into her bonnet. “It will be alright.”
And indeed it was, much to Cindy’s astonishment. By the time the Stationmaster sat down at the dinnertable, the model was completed. In fact, it sat across the table from him, nodding manfully and offering to pass the creamed corn.

Sneed Cotto

Mr. Negrum’s neighbor, a young man named Sneed Cotto, prided himself on his boyhood association with the masked crimefighter Boog Taylor. Now prematurely wizened by a caffeine addiction and long hours under the lamp of the Progial Cult’s enlightenment machine, Cotto lay around his messy bungalow and thought about the good old days, mementos of which were scattered throughout his home. As Megan Thrusthook stepped up onto Cotto’s front porch with her clipboard in her hand, Cotto was contemplating a framed copy of Puppy Eater magazine from ten years before. He and Taylor adorned the cover. This had been the period when he wore gold epaulets with his uniform.
“But they dragged in my soup,” he remembered. There was a knock on the front door. Megan’s knuckles, hardened from years of playing micro-bongos, rapped out a summons of inescapable intensity. Cotto jumped in his seat.
“Come in, come in.” He urged once he had opened the door. Megan entered, a formidable figure in magenta corduroy passing before him like a large raspberry cake.
“Mr. Cotto, I take it?” Megan asked, cocking an exceptional eyebrow. She wore no makeup. She would have gone barefoot but for the dress code imposed by Depuis and Company.
“You do take it.” Cotto admitted. He closed the door and invited his visitor to have a seat in the den.
“Mr. Cotto,” Megan began, readying her pen over her clipboard. “Have you ever considered the plight of your fellow human beings?”
Cotto snorted.
“Take a look around you, honey.” He waved his arm over his head. “The plight of my fellow human beings has occupied the better part of my so-called formative years.”
Megan, though not obliged to humor Sneed Cotto nor any of the potential customers she called on, did as requested.
“You knew Boog Taylor, Mystery Man from the Future?” She wondered.
Cotto snorted again. “The only mystery about Boog Taylor,” he growled, “Was what he did with my last paycheck.”

Chain of Plasma

Notwithstanding the heat necessary to fuse the selected flithrambs into the single desired hankin, Dr. Printh insisted on coats and ties for all those gathered to watch the process. Dr. Printh, a graduate of Stan Wilkie’s Subterranean Scholastitium, showed no sign that the heat was affecting him in any way. While sweat beaded the foreheads and stained the shirts of men who were veterans of the last war’s most stifling jungle campaigns, Printh remained an immaculate vision of scientific dispassion in his lab coat and hand carved eyeglasses.
“They say woodworking is one of his hobbies.” Phillip Devling whispered to Terrance Towney as the emanations within the pleugonic chamber flashed alternately orange and blue.
“Yes, but those frames are made of antler stained black.” Towney replied. He had a clear view of Printh’s profile from his position among the group of observers. He glanced at Devling, saw his look of confusion, and explained, “I spent my summers as a boy on our family’s hunting preserve. I know carved antler when I see it.”
“So you’re a woodsman.” Devling smiled.
“College put me in an Ivy League suit,” Towney returned, “but the woods are still in me.”
Their voices must have involuntarily risen, for Major Cullen admonished them, “Gentlemen, please: the experiment.”
Towney silently mocked him once the major had turned around.
“This is it.” Dr. Printh announced, his voice lordly like some massive pinniped lying on a rock strewn beach amid the ineffectual squawking of a hundred oily birds. “The chain of plasma is being formed.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Someone countered. “The flithrambs weren’t directly tweaked by the potash vapor.”
Phillip Devling peered around the major’s thick neck to see who had spoken. It was Stale Podner, a young financier from Crock’s Point. Printh ignored Podner’s outcry, choosing instead to take a step closer to the observation window.
“They say women are his only hobby.” Towney whispered.

Larval Ambiguities

In addition to his interest in the business of hankin reactions, Stale Podner had a significant investment in Iconospore, an insectoid incubation firm located in nearby Rysta. After the conclusion of the experiment in Dr. Printh’s lab, Podner went immediately to his car and headed there. Steve Izm, his driver, was at the wheel. In the back, seated next to Podner, was Melody Transfer, his personal assistant.
This last person lowered the listening tube from her ear.
“Steve says that he doesn’t think we can make it to Iconospore by one with all this rain.”
“That’s fine.” Podner replied. “If we miss the reception it will be no great loss. It’s mostly just cocktails and chat anyway.”
Alcoholic drinks and idle conversation were of no use to Stale Podner. He was a teetotaler for whom socializing with strangers was torture.
“Perhaps if he drank…” Louis Ramsey suggested when these facts were explained to him by the director of Iconospore, Del Whitefoot. The two men were at the reception that Podner was missing. Ramsey gestured with his own syrupy drink, indicating the delights of mingling that were all about them.
“He’s a strange man.” Whitefoot sighed. He thought of his first encounter with Podner nearly a year before. The young financier had seemed to know all about their work at Iconospore even before Whitefoot led him around the building. Yet, when confronted by one of the giant glue-producing larvae in tank 19, Podner had drawn back, demanding to know what it was.
“Mr. Whitefoot,” One of the company’s underlings broke in on the director’s thoughts, “Mr. Podner is here.”
“Remember, Louis,” Whitefoot said as he looked at his reflection in the punchbowl and straightened his tie. “Podner’s our biggest single investor. Let’s have no repeat of that business with the prince.”
“I’ve already apologized for that!” Ramsey gasped. “A hundred times!”
“Hardly a hundred, Louis.” Whitefoot rolled his eyes and headed for the door. The other man scowled and downed his drink before following his colleague to greet Stale Podner.

Smulo Apropodo

On this visit Stale Podner had steeled himself for the sight of the giant larvae. As he was again led through the complex of incubation tanks and enhancement tubes, this time with an eye to progress made, he nodded manfully at all he was shown. Del Whitefoot eyed his guest closely during the tour (it felt more like an inspection), noting the self control evident when again faced with the larvae. “He was really shaken last time.” Whitefoot said to himself.
It was Whitefoot who was surprised, however, as the small group consisting of Podner, Louis Ramsey, sclerotician-in-chief Jackdaw, and himself made their way down the hallway connecting the advanced diurnal labs with the experimental music wing. A carefully planned series of events managed to separate Podner from the rest of the group. First a fire extinguisher suddenly fell from its bracket on the wall as Podner walked past. This caused the man to break his stride. Then a stack of plastic barrels, secured by a rope, came crashing down when the rope suddenly broke. No one was injured, but, for approximately forty seconds, Stale Podner was cut off from view from his hosts.
A short man in a lab coat dashed out from some hiding place and approached Podner.
“My name is Smulo Apropodo, Mr. Podner. I don’t have much time. Take this.” He handed Podner a tightly folded piece of paper. “If you want to know what is really going on here, read that. If you want to contact me, my number’s there. Don’t tell Whitefoot!” He then ran away, hunched over as much as possible.
“Are you alright, Mr. Podner?” Whitefoot asked once he and his men had cleared a path through the fallen barrels.
“I’m fine.” Podner replied. “Wasn’t even touched.” He put the paper the short man had handed him in his pocket.
“I can’t think how it happened. Some crazy accident.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just keep moving, shall we?”
“Of course.” Whitefoot gave instructions for the hallway to be put back in order and led the group away. From behind the ice machine in room 112 Smulo Apropodo watched them go.

The Time I Removed the Smirk from My Smock

I worked in a lab once. I guess that’s one reason why I so often choose to tell stories that have laboratory scenes in them. The experience must have affected me deeply. Unfortunately, being largely restricted to the impoverished south during my formative years, the lab I worked at was one where we technicians had to wear castoff long-sleeve shirts backwards over our clothing instead of lab coats. Our supervisor called them “smocks.”
“Be careful not to get any chemicals on your regular clothes.” She warned us. “They’ll stain them permanently.”
There were twenty of us in the group, all interns selected on the basis of a rather cunningly designed essay contest. I suspect that I was the only one who cheated. I had copied my essay from an obscure collection of minor authors of the previous century. From the beginning I did not fit in with the others, nor did I meet the expectations of the supervisor. However, because of the Freeble Foundation’s commitment to the program, I was allowed to stay. Not only stay, but allowed to work on projects of my own conception. The grandest of these, and the one that occupied most of my time at the lab, was to have been a thorough reproduction of the first Star Wars film, in a laboratory setting, of course.
The project never came to fruition, however, mainly because I didn’t fully understand the sheer size of the undertaking. After all, I hadn’t even seen the film at that time. All of my fellow interns had, though; some as much as a dozen times. Everyone was talking about it and it drove me a little crazy I guess. Looking back on it now, I see that my supervisor was just indulging me. I was a problem. Better for her to let me play around with spare materials in the lab than waste time forcing me to do what everyone else was doing.
This course of action resulted in my having nothing today to show for my time at the lab. Only the other day I was visiting the home of one of my fellow interns. He showed me the miniature biosphere he had made all those years ago, still thriving, a sealed container of life on his shelf.
“You’ve got one too, right?” He asked.
But I had not.

Another Round-About Intransigence

Stale Podner did not open the piece of paper that the man called Smulo Apropodo had given him until he returned to his car.
“What’s that?” Melody Transfer asked, watching him.
“Statistics… graphs…” he replied, “…bold assertions backed up by a barrage of untested information. Inside information.” He concluded.
“Where did you get it?” The lovely lady with the prominent nose asked.
Podner explained the circumstances of the paper’s arrival in his hands.
“What did you learn from Whitefoot?”
“Nothing that we didn’t expect. Of course, he sees me only an investor, so he told me what he thinks an investor would want to hear. It’s more what I saw.”
“And what did you see?”
Podner delayed answering. He took up the speaking tube that connected the passengers’ compartment of the car with the driver.
“Steve,” he said. “Head for the safe house on Parochial Street.”
“Acknowledged.” Came the reply.
Podner settled back in his seat. He was in his late twenties, handsome as only a half Sri Lankan, half Frenchman can be. Specially formulated makeup disguised the tattoo on his neck. The tattoo was the dreaded colophon of the so-called “Nineteen Blues” organization, but it was the contents of Podner’s mind that would have really frightened the straights, could they only have seen it. Locked away in an incorruptible polymer box accessible only by the input of a secret word were a dozen unspeakable truths, each potentially destructive to the established world order. Podner’s quest, to add to this dozen, had led him to Iconospore.
The thoughts of the possible baker’s dozen made Podner smile. He took up the speaking tube again.
“Steve, stop at the first doughnut place you see on the way.”
“Acknowledged.” Steve Izm’s reply was more than just robotic; it was only natural, for he was a robot.
“At least we won’t have to share.” Podner mumbled.

The Circle Was Visible From the Air

Don Abendigum, chief of safe house #6, the one on Parochial Street, was delighted that Stale Podner had chosen his safe house to visit out of all those in the Dubudo metropolitan area. Podner’s request to make use of the house’s passenger balloon, however, met with less approval.
“Mr. Podner,” Abendigum smiled unhappily, “That balloon is to be used in cases of dire emergency only. In fact, the only instance I can think of in which its use would be justified is an evacuation of the house.”
“Mr. Abendigum, if you won’t authorize my use of your balloon, I’m going to have to go over your head.” Podner sat with his right ankle on his left knee in the book-lined parlor. Melody sat in a chair placed perpendicular to the line of sight between Podner and the safe house chief. She and her employer each held a cup of peppermint tea.
“I think you’re going to have to.” Abendigum agreed. He rose and led Podner to the communications center, a converted bathroom where forty years of the use of heavily perfumed soaps still hung in the air. Abendigum grasped the horn relay and called forth through the ether, his code name preceding him.
“Prehensile Chicle calling. Prehensile Chicle calling.”
After the ritual establishment of identities between the chief and the hi-fi operator at headquarters, the reason for the call was made known. This in turn led to the appearance of the Commission’s director, Tyko Bar Entropy himself (me in an alligatorman mask), on the communicator’s screen.
“Of course Stale Podner is authorized to use the balloon!” I snapped. “Get on with it, Abendigum! You’re just wasting time!” I drooled convincingly and faded from view.
Abendigum turned to Podner a shaken and complaisant man.
Soon after this Stale Podner and Melody Transfer were in the gondola of the balloon. The airbag was a nondescript color. They floated above the city as inconspicuously as one could hope for.
“There’s Steve.” Podner told Melody, pointing down at their colleague. “Wave.”
Together they spent the afternoon scanning the western par of the city, looking for something that Podner claimed he would only know when he saw it.

Catch Impediments

“When insect eggs are first deposited,” Podner mused, “They have a glistening beauty like glass jewelry.”
Melody listened without comment. Her gaze was on the buildings, trees, and fields beneath them. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows of those objects on the ground were long.
“But then their coating of mucus dries and they lose that beauty.” Podner added. His hands were folded on the top of the gondola’s side. His face betrayed his weariness.
“I suppose there’s still some kind of a beauty there.” Melody added, for she felt it was part of her job to keep the conversation going, even when she was uninterested in it. After all, this wasn’t a pleasure trip. Podner was engaged in the job at hand, although he didn’t seem so.
“Yes, but it’s a beauty like that of diatoms or pollen.” Podner straightened up from his slouching position. “I hate to say it, but…”
“Stale!” Melody gasped, pointing. “Isn’t that…”
“Yes.” Podner had seen the circle below them at the same time. As he reached for the rope connected to their steering mechanism, they were thrown to the side.
“We’ve struck something!” Melody cried. Dusk was upon them. She clambered to her feet, brushing her blond hair from her face as she tried to see what had happened.
“Melonburger cathedral!” Podner declared. “I should have been watching for it!” His anger was all directed towards himself. He hauled at the directional rope, but his efforts appeared futile. Melody could see now, could feel it in the hang of the gondola, that they were caught by the structure towering beside them.
“The cathedral’s made of blackened shale.” Podner said aloud, though to himself, seeking a way to explain his error. “It’s no wonder I didn’t see it.” To Melody he said, “I think the airbag is torn. Even if we’re not caught on some protruding gargoyle or something, we’re stuck.”
“What are we going to do?” Melody asked for instructions. She was an exceptional assistant, chosen for just such cool-headedness.

An Integral Arrangement

“What about the balloon?” Melody asked as Podner prepared to abandon it and make his way down through the cathedral to the circle they had glimpsed.
“There are no markings, nothing to identify it as belonging to the Commission or to lead anyone back to the safe house.” Podner answered. He used a plumber’s wrench he had found in the gondola’s toolbox to smash a hole in the stained glass window adjacent to them.
“No good.” He decided after he had peered within the hole. “No way down.” He looked up at the side of the spire. If he was doing this alone he might risk it, he told himself. But there was no way that Melody could make it. If only they had gotten stuck on the other side of the spire! It abutted the roof of the nave. There were doors there to provide access to the roof for maintenance purposes. Podner turned to Melody.
“I don’t suppose you have any ideas, do you?” He asked.
“We could always call Steve.” She suggested.
Podner nodded. The simplest solution was always the last to be adopted because it lacked flair. Sure; let the robot rescue them. How easy. He reached into his jacket and pushed the appropriate buttons on the communicator. Steve responded immediately. He would be there as soon as he could.
Fifteen minutes later the car was parked below them. As a matter of fact, in order to get directly under below the gondola, Steve had had to drive the car up onto the front steps of the cathedral. He readied the car by putting the retractable hardtop into the trunk and laying out the inflatable raft that had been in the trunk across the seats. Podner then cut the ropes connecting the gondola to the air bag. With the robot driver below to make sure they didn’t bounce off the raft, Podner and Melody made the two hundred foot drop without any undue threat to their lives. Injury, however, was unavoidable.
“I think I broke my ankle!” Melody wailed as they untangled themselves.
“Medical attention will have to wait until after we’ve investigated that circle.” Podner declared. “Steve, help Melody out of this basket.”
“Acknowledged.”

How Many Spiked Helmets Have I Passed By?

As I strolled down Dubudo’s most famous street, Flossmint Street, it suddenly occurred to me that I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to be keeping track of how many spiked helmets I saw. It often happens that I become so absorbed in my thoughts that I stop concentrating on the task at hand. How many times have I been listening to music in my car, waiting for a particularly exciting guitar solo, when I have begun to think about the ramifications of the Santa Claus myth or whether I prefer spring to fall, when I realize that the guitar solo has come and gone without my paying attention to a single note?
In this case my mind had been on the problem of the next phase of my painting. I had recently wrenched my painting about. Whereas in the past I had done more or less randomly composed groupings of figures on abstract, indeterminate backgrounds with only the vaguest hints towards narrative, now I was placing my figures in definite settings with a purposed narrative thrust behind them (even if you still couldn’t tell what was going on). The problem, ten paintings in, was that neither the backgrounds nor the way the figures were placed in them were satisfactory. As I walked distractedly down the street I decided to make the scenes random and abstract, though definite places with corners and doors and furniture, and put the figures in with only the lightest regard to physical verisimilitude. In other words, they could be hanging in mid-air or too big to actually occupy the space they were in, much like medieval art where a group of knights might be standing in the middle of a castle small enough to them in comparison to be a child’s play fort.
This decision so excited and relieved me that I looked around with delight at my surroundings. It was then that I emerged from my reverie and noticed two uniformed soldiers standing outside a shoe store. Each wore the distinctive spiked helmet of the Crawling Duster League.
I glanced behind me at the expanse of street, the extent of the crowd which I had passed without making any tally whatsoever. I could see a spike here and there bobbing above the baseball caps and occasional derby. Cursing myself, I tugged at the brim of my own hat, the semi-sentient Gearender, a fedora with tentacles that reached into my brain.

Stacks of Yellowed Metal Pumpkin Dividers

“What did the circle consist of?” I, in the guise of Tyko Bar Entropy, asked Stale Podner. The latter was communicating with me from safe house #2, little knowing that I was actually in Dubudo and not back at headquarters. He was, obviously, equally unaware that Tyko Bar Entropy was in reality the infamous Toadsgoboad. No one in the Commission, nor in my own household, knew of my activities in this role.
“Stacks of yellowed metal pumpkin dividers.” Was Podner’s response.
I surreptitiously consulted the clipboard I held in my lap. Yes, this answer had been anticipated.
“Very good, Podner.” I told the man. “Your part in this assignment is nearly at an end.”
“I’m glad.” Said Podner. “I need to get back to my investments as soon as possible.”
“Your money will still be there,” I growled, remembering to stay in character. “Pullulating quite healthily.”
Podner said nothing to this, but asked a question.
“Mr. Bar Entropy, what connection does the circle have to the goings-on at Iconospore?”
I looked up from my clipboard at the image of the man on the screen.
“Well… I guess I can tell you now.” I said. “We believe the circle is a target for the giant larvae being developed at Iconospore.”
“A target? To what purpose?”
“What lies in the center of that circle?” I queried.
Podner thought a moment.
“The headquarters of the Crawling Duster League.” He said, eyes brightening.
I nodded. “Ponder that, Podner.”
“Do you want me to look into the League?”
“No.” I was emphatic, though not, as you can see, exclamatory. “We’re dealing with them through other channels. No, your job now is to go to the library.”
“The library?”
“Yes. The university library. You’re to find a book by Toadsgoboad called No Whistling in the Homeopathic Armory.”

They Have Championed the Dintlung Long Enough

Central to the mythos of the Crawling Duster League was the concept of the Dintlung, a cosmic entity embodied in a piece of found art that stood in the middle of the League’s rather modern-looking headquarters. From photographs I had seen I judged the statue to be nothing more than a crushed three-wheeled cart, but I needed to see for myself. Although the destruction of the League’s veneration of Dintlung would involve more than just the removal and/or desecration of the idol, these last steps were a vital part of my plan.
Now, you may ask yourself why I, who normally value the bizarre, would want to put an end to such a charming practice as the League’s. True, I find weird religious beliefs interesting, but, in the vase of the Crawling Duster League, this Dintlung character has become the touchstone for a movement dedicated to bullying people around. The uniformed members of the League could quickly develop into a fascist organization if something wasn’t done. It looked like either Iconospore or someone behind Iconospore was readying themselves to do something, but I wanted to take that responsibility on myself. I didn’t trust Iconospore’s motives, nor did I fully understand their intentions.
So it was that I set out to penetrate the League’s headquarters and find the idol of Dintlung. For this purpose I needed to travel light, so I crammed my valise (itself crammed with Jerry Lancaster, Dr. Fungroid, and a thousand other odds and ends) into the inner pocket of my coat, freeing my hands for action, and took a cab to the western sector of Dubudo. As I paid the driver I noted one of the stacks of pumpkin dividers that sat with seeming innocuousness here.
“I wish they’d move them damn things.” The driver commented.
“Yeah.” I agreed, not wanting to get into a conversation.
“Spoils the lay of the land.”
“Mm-hmm.” I waved away my change out of my newfound respect for the tradition of tipping and walked away, slipping into the bushes once the cab had driven out of sight. This was a residential sector. I had to traverse the backyards of several homes before the League building came in sight. Richard Neutra would have approved.

Four Eyed and Mercurial, Like the Last Governor

Dintlung was said to have been born in a vast cloud of radioactive dust both orbiting and obscuring the star Glamorolus. Many were his adventures in the days of his youth, mostly of a humorous nature. However, tales of Dintlung take on a much more serious tone following his expulsion from the system of his birth after the events of the Kavril Sprucing War, in which his participation was minimal.
Now fully grown, Dintlung stood approximately thirty-five feet tall (various accounts place his height between seven and seventy feet, but these are considered spurious). The lower portion of his body was cube-like, with large protruding toruses of a black, tarry substance on two sides. Short tentacles covered the surface of each torus. On top of this cube was his mid-section, another cube, though rounded on the edges, this one much smaller and banded horizontally by chrome belts separated by deep recesses of glowing red. Out of the top of the mid-section stood what can only be described as a neck. It was long; over half Dintlung’s height was accounted for by it alone. A slender white stalk in which striations of silver and mother-of-pearl could clearly be seen, the neck was extremely flexible. It supported the head.
Dintlung’s head was shaped like a shoebox with a narrow triangular wedge laid on top of it. It was joined to the neck by a red ball socket, enabling it to turn in any direction. Two of his four eyes were affixed on the end of his box-like head, while the other two, tiny black buttons in size and shape, lay higher up, further back on the crown. As Dintlung’s mouth was located in the center of the lowest section of his body, he took in food there. However, his voice did emerge from his head, out of a small depression between the larger pair of eyes.
For arms Dintlung used two prehensile space eels, connected to his body and controlled by a field of energy emanating from nodules on the mid-section. The mouths of the eels served as his “hands.”
As you can see, Dintlung was a fearsome-looking being. It is not to be wondered at that the Crawling Duster League would choose to venerate such an entity.

Flashes Rare with Convex Drum

Only the official manual of the Crawling Duster League (known as The Book of Stances among initiates) ranks higher in importance than Tales of Dintlung among the various publications the League is responsible for. This latter book is essentially a much abridged version of the ancient classical text, Mexniatogrumm. Stories that do not appeal to the League hierarchy’s sense of mission are not included.
One of those that is included is the following. It is said to be a favorite.
Dintlung, having just arrived on the planet Coroth, went immediately into a nearby wood to gather fuel for a pyre to be built in honor of Daggs the Mentor. In this way he would show gratitude for his safe journey through the void of space.
Dintlung had only taken a couple of steps into the wood when he heard a rhythmic sound coming from further within. This sound was so compelling to him that he followed the sound to its source.
This proved to be a young takroop pounding on a ceramic drum with a lash of vulcanized silk. The takroop, only a tiny being compared to the mighty Dintlung, looked up in surprise and fear at the latter’s entrance, yet his beating of the drum never faltered.
“Have no fear, little drummer.” Dintlung urged the takroop. “Your drumming fascinates me. Never have I heard such a sound. It makes me want to dance.”
“I do not think dancing would be appropriate.” The takroop replied. “For I am summoning with my drum the hordes of the demon Zomé, to grant me dominion over these lands.”
At that moment the hordes of the demon Zomé did indeed appear, filling the tops of the trees like so much abusive fruit. Without waiting for any explanation or even an introduction, these demonic creatures threw themselves at Dintlung in violence. But though they were many, Dintlung slew them all, tearing their bodies into so many pieces that they were indistinguishable from the leaves that littered the forest floor. After he had slain them all, Dintlung caught up the little takroop in his hands and took him along to the pyre he built in honor of Daggs the Mentor. His broken body and charred flesh served as a fitting repast following these events.

Embattled Reserve

One of the more outrageous lies spread by the Commission’s arch-enemies the Pungency was that our opposition to the veneration of Dintlung was rooted in an anti-extraterrestrial bias. This is demonstrably false, as shown by our embrace of various species from other worlds, as well as many apparently unique organisms like Dintlung. In order to pay the Pungency back for this lie, which saw print in more than one of my favorite periodicals, Mainline Pussybiscuit among them, I concocted an equally ridiculous lie concerning the Pungency, namely, that they were planning the construction of a hotel and amusement park complex in collaboration with Uriah Heep guitarist Mick Box to be called Boxworld.
“How are you going to get anyone to take this seriously?” Pammy Polesalter, probably the highest-ranking woman in the Commission, asked as we, the members of the Executive Committee, sat around making animals out of papier maché.
“Oh, it’ll be easy.” I argued; having anticipated doubt, I was ready with my proof. I rose from the lumpy old sofa and went to the closet. “See? I’ve built this model of the proposed resort.” I brought out the thing for all to get a good look at. “When photographed through cheesecloth from a ladder it will look just like a real architect’s rendering.”
“Aren’t you a real architect?” Doldrummond wondered. I merely cocked an eyebrow at the fellow by way of response.
“What did you make it out of?” Stackwhither, another of my colleagues, asked. His evident enthusiasm on seeing the model was all the assurance I needed to know that my plan was a good one.
“Oh, various items I found downstairs.” I was both modest and casually proud, something you should try sometime.
Pammy put aside her work on a happy little emu and stepped over to the model of Boxworld.
“This… this is made out of those old sewing supplies my grandmother donated!” She realized. The horror on her face was completely uncalled for, I thought. After all, this is the woman who read the first draft of No Whistling in the Homeopathic Armory without a single sign of distress.

Bluer Itch

Despite every effort by the rhythm section to convince him that the Bluer Itch led invariably to diabetes, Stale Podner preferred it to the Less Blue Itch, the Redder Itch, or the Mauve Rash. As he parked his car in his assigned space he clenched his teeth. How could anyone allow themselves to be bullied around? Life was too short, too precious for that. Take this parking space for instance. If Paula Prentiss (yes, even Paula Prentiss) had stolen it, no force on earth could keep Podner from having her car towed. Podner was implacable.
Today he was driving himself. He was in the convertible, not the limo. It was good to rotate the cars like this. He wished he could do the same with his shoes. As he got out of the car he glanced down. Despite his beliefs and intentions he usually would up wearing the same shoes every day.
“Mr. Podner!” Camrig, one of his assistants here at Podner, Slunk, and Dupree, came jogging up to him.
Podner removed his briefcase from the passenger seat.
“Morning, Camrig. What’s up?”
“Mr. Podner, the Coprostats are here.”
“Already?” Podner studied his watch for some flaw.
“They want a decision on the Bluer Itch.”
“The decision’s already been made.” Podner shut his car door with only slightly more force than necessary. No matter how riled, Podner did not take out his frustrations on his own possessions.
“Well…” Camrig raised his eyebrows and threw out his fingers. Everyone knew that Podner’s judgment in this matter was not shared by anyone.
He looked at Camrig with eyes that had seen men drown in sewage. He slowly, theatrically sighed.
“Come on. I’m going to have to explain it to them again.”
As they rode up in the elevator the Bluer Itch jingle played over in Podner’s mind, this time performed by the rhythm section alone. He left it to Camrig’s nose to whistle the melody.
“Morning, Stale.” Dunce Slunk greeted his partner once the latter stepped out of the elevator. “Melody not with you today?”
“Only…” but Podner couldn’t think of a joke. “No.” He said.

Incorruptible Tigers of the Bleak Goathinge

The feather taped to the upper portion of the checker dispenser is a registered trademark of Iconospore. None but the Incorruptible Tigers of the Bleak Goathinge may infringe upon that trademark with anything approaching impunity. While their checkers dispensers are in fact nothing more than soft, ropy tails, the feathers they tape so boldly to their ends are exactly the same make and model as those used in the packaging department at Iconospore.
Jadgmen, postdominant wizard among the Tigers, was an exemplar of this boldness. He entered the homeopathic armory maintained by the Tigers at their base in Pitted Scalp, Myoming, whistling.
“He whistles to annoy us.” Todd whispered to his tablemates.
“You mean he does it on purpose?” Gabrielle was shocked.
“Well, of course it’s on purpose.” Todd’s close friend Stewart snapped. “Whistling isn’t one of the involuntary functions of the body.”
Robbie jumped in to defend Gabrielle, though this would be the last thing he would say all day. “I think what she means is, that he does it deliberately, that is, the opposite of unthinkingly.”
Todd jabbed his fork at Robbie as a sign to silence himself. Perhaps Robbie took it too seriously, but Jadgmen did pass close to their table just then, his whistling taking on a gravity that all who heard it attributed to sheer bloodymindedness. Stewart, not to be outdone in the science of boldness, deftly removed Jadgmen’s feather from his tail as the latter moved away. He snickered noiselessly as he displayed the stolen trademark to Todd, Gabrielle, Robbie, Florence, Dinge-Donge, Hulkas, Motrinex, and Phambas.
It was not until Jadgmen had nearly stepped within striking distance of the pork cracklin’ vending machine that he noted the absence of his feather. A lesser tiger might have faulted cheap tape for the loss, but not Jadgmen; he knew immediately that he was the victim of foul play. I told you he was the postdominant wizard among the tigers and now you can see just how right I was. I don’t often get such details wrong, even if I subsequently fail to give you all the details you might want, like what exactly the Goathinge is and why it is so bleak.

My Playful Kick Initiated Vast Board Sponging

The headquarters of the Crawling Duster League were guarded after hours by a combination of volunteers taken from the ranks of the junior membership and security personnel from a private firm. Of course, with my superior strength I could have plowed through them like a nervous man through a bag of M&M’s. That, however, would have been counter to the spirit of my assault on the building. Everything must be secretive and surreptitious.
Instead of such a violent tack, I crept up to the side of the building and entered by way of an exhaust vent. Special tools were required for this action and I had brought them along in my valise. Jerry Lancaster, waiting with as much patience as he could manage, staved off his impatience by handing me the butter knife and the slickening agent from within the valise.
“Hurry up, will you?” He hissed as he passed up a length of string.
I made no reply to this, but hurried to get inside the vent. Once I had resecured the vent cover behind me, I gave Jerry a hand. He carried Dr. Fungroid with him, his left hand inside the puppet.
“I’m sorry there’s no room for your travel stand.” I apologized to Fungroid.
“No matter.” The great puppet scientist assured me. “I’m just happy to be involved.”
“Where to first?” Jerry asked.
“The primary reason I’m here is to investigate that idol.” I said. I directed my friends to follow me and led them through the maze of air ducts until we reached commissary. There, despite my earlier resolve to avoid violent confrontation with the League members and their employees, I was forced to incapacitate nearly a dozen with my paralyzer cone.
“Ah, the idol!” Dr. Fungroid exclaimed once we had penetrated the assembly hall. “Finally.”
I said nothing. I was too awed by the sight of the sculpture on its pedestal of polished wood.
“If it wasn’t a symbol of evil I would wholeheartedly proclaim it a great work of art.” I ultimately declared as I stood with one hand touching the depiction of Dintlung’s left pseudopod. I kicked at the pedestal, only playfully, you understand, and that’s when bad stuff started to happen.

Freaks of Hibernation Have Imperiled the Concourse

There must have been a silent alarm, for I surely didn’t hear anything. Either my kick triggered it or one of the guards back in the commissary that I had foolishly left alive had done the job, for suddenly the lights in the circular assembly hall came on to full brightness and the heavy wooden panels that ringed the wall behind the rows of stadium seating slid down into recesses in the floor. From out of the rectangular holes thus revealed appeared freaks of hibernation, each one armed with a formidable length of board to which he was groggily applying a sponge laden with some oily fluid (that takes care of the previous installment’s title).
“Mike,” Jerry began with admirable calm, “I am really scared.”
I nodded.
“You’ve a right to be.” I admitted.
The freaks of hibernation descended the steps towards our tiny opposing band. Just then I had no time to count their number, but I afterwards calculated there to be no more than sixteen.
“They mean to do us harm.” Dr. Fungroid, genius that he is, decided.
“You got us into this, Mike.” Jerry reminded me, emphasizing my name in an effort to hurry along my own decision-making process.
“And I’m getting you out of it.” I growled, pulling my valise out of the inner pocket of my coat. “The same way you got in” I dropped the valise on the floor and snatched Dr. Fungroid off Jerry’s hand. I threw him into the bag’s opening and urged Jerry to join the puppet with a tug on the former’s beard. His bald head had only just disappeared within when I followed, diving feet first. This allowed me to reach up and grab the handles of the valise and pull them downwards as I fell. When the first boards of the freaks of hibernation crashed onto that spot a mere second later, they encountered only a shadowy simulacrum of my valise, for the bulk of the original was now falling into itself (I’d turn it right side out later) even as I fell, to land in a heap of self, imaginary friend, and puppet on an already overburdened table in the middle of the junction of several tunnels.
“This table is going to collapse.” Dr. Fungroid announced.
“Thank you, my most valued friend.” I replied.

Smiling Frog Needs No Apostrophe

“That frog.” Mr. Moondamp drew Bloomis’ attention to the object of his gaze. He nodded his head toward the frog with a slight motion that yet caused the carved wooden superhero figure affixed to the crown of his hat by a well-oiled hinge to tip forward, spilling its burden of sesame seeds to the winds from a cleverly hidden receptacle.
“What about it?” Bloomis wondered, slapping his shoulders free of a clinging seed or two.
“He smiles.” Mr. Moondamp explained. “He smiles in such a rare, engaging way.” His gaze was that of a man curious, but reserved. Like a retired policeman he gazed.
Bloomis glanced at the frog. The creature sat on an artificial island in the midst of the pond. I say “artificial” because as soon as the government agency responsible for such matters towed the wrecked flying saucer from the pond’s midst, the island would be no more. It wasn’t as if someone had dumped a truckload of mud into the pond. In such a case the island created would still be an actual island, despite its origins. At any rate, the frog that Bloomis observed bore a smile of knowing forebearance and placid satisfaction, with a few teeth showing on the left side for good measure.
“I see what you mean.” Bloomis acknowledged, though he saw little to interest anyone for long in the smile, least of all either an old man in a wheelchair, like Mr. Moondamp, or the man pushing that wheelchair, namely, himself. He grunted as he pushed again at the wheelchair. “It’s time we were moving on.” He said.
“I haven’t seen a smile like that in a long time.” Mr. Moondamp mused. “And to think; on a frog of all things.”
Something about that last statement made Bloomis turn one last time towards the frog. He was now determined, however, to return his charge to the library before lunchtime, and put the frog and its smile behind him with a scowl.
As the two men moved away from the pond the frog remained in position. His smile remained in position as well, though slowly the show of teeth was shifted to the right side for reasons that even the frog could not understand. This despite his psychic link to the still-humming data collection machinery inside the saucer beneath his feet.

After the Mural

“I remember painting this!” I exclaimed. “We must be near the home of the prophetess Eneri Ibea.” I looked about for a door, but saw none.
“How long ago did you do this?” Jerry asked. We had managed to get off the table without breaking anything, although the corridors around us showed signs of structural damage, probably the result of the blows from the freaks and their boards. It was only a few steps down one of the corridors and away from the unstable intersection that the three of us had encountered the mural.
“Ten years or more.” I guessed.
“Your technique has improved considerably.” Observed Dr. Fungroid.
I thanked him and wondered why we couldn’t find the prophetess’ doorway.
“It used to be just there, to the right of the barber-monster’s air tank.” I pointed.
“Why do you want to find it?” Jerry asked. “You want to pay her a visit?”
“Could it be that the mural has been moved from its original location?” Dr. Fungroid added his own query.
I sighed. “I’m not familiar with these corridors. According to the intersection signs, we’re in the 15,000 range. Now, as far as I remember, Eneri Ibea lived in the 600’s, somewhere in the gold zone. But, if she is here, mural or no, at least we’d have somewhere friendly to go.”
Jerry peered down the corridor. It slowly bent to the right far away. Every twenty feet or so a forty watt bulb illuminated the rust red carpet and khaki wallpaper.
“I don’t see any doors ahead.” He said.
“Industrial sector.” I theorized.
“Could this woman have sold the mural?” Dr. Fungroid looked at me.
“I don’t see how the mural could have been moved at all.” I countered the puppet’s persistent argument. “It was bonded to the wall by the time-honored methods of the Da Vinci crowd, as were all my murals in those days.” I pointed to my depiction of the man with the pitted scalp and his accompanying aroma of 1970’s aftershave. My eyes grew wide with both shock and the strange thrill of flattery.
“It’s a copy!” I announced.

Tammy’s Blowhard

Darrel watched me closely as I used the station’s wall-mounted electric can opener to cut open my lunch: a can of chili beans and a can of peas and carrots.
“You eat that stuff right out of the can?” He finally asked as I dumped out the excess water from the peas and carrots.
“Yeah.” I replied, unwilling to step any further into the swamp of conversation.
“You don’t heat it up?”
“No.” I removed the cans’ lids by bending the uncut segment back and forth.
“And eating it like that doesn’t hurt your stomach?” Darrel inquired as he waited for his steak, egg, and cheese biscuit to become adequately warm in the station’s microwave oven.
“No.” I answered with the littlest of smiles. I moved away, taking my lunch with me. As the bell of completion sounded on the oven, Darrel’s paramour, Tammy, approached him and led him out to the helipad. Thus, what occurred next occurred outside the range of my direct knowledge. However, I have it on good authority (the testimony of the helicopter pilot) that my account is reasonably accurate.
Tammy remonstrated with Darrel as only someone intimately involved with another person can.
“Darrel, you’re such a blowhard.” She informed him.
Darrel did not respond. His mouth was occupied with the consumption of his biscuit. His mind, however, was already planning his response. As they clambered into the helicopter, the woman continued to berate him for what she perceived as his “blowhardedness.”
“I don’t think you’re using the right term.” Darrel told her once his mouth and trachea were momentarily clear. Crumbs and grease clung to either side of his mouth.
“You’re a mess.” Tammy countered, reaching into her bag for a napkin. As she made to wipe Darrel’s face the ocean threw out a mighty wave that slapped the helicopter down. Only the pilot survived.

Doctrinal Velour Tempts a Critter

This particular critter was a plumber’s elf. His name was Dubrow. On the morning of the day of the Hexametrical Feast he awoke to the sound of plastic spoons on the sides of wooden bowls. Tossing aside the ancient wolf skin that was his only bed cover, Dubrow hurried downstairs to the communal dining room.
“Ah, Dubrow!” Old Gatherel greeted him. “We have a visitor this morning!” The old man gestured with his plastic spoon at the handsomely robed stranger seated awkwardly at one corner of the crowded table.
The plumber’s elf, about to hurl his feeble store of invective upon the breakfasters for disturbing his sleep with their racket, checked himself at this sight.
“Hello.” He said warily as he tucked his glish (not to be seen by persons not of his household!) into the folds of skin under his belly.
“Dubrow, this is Cosmobserver Panflake. He’s here to take part in the feast. Cosmobserver, this is Dubrow, the founder of our household.” Old Gatherel made the introductions.
“A plumber’s elf I see.” The cosmobserver in the handsome robes noted aloud. He lifted his backside from his chair and saluted Dubrow with a finger bearing a heavy ring all in one smooth movement taking up far less of Dubrow’s precious remaining time among the living than it has taken you to read this sentence.
“Yes.” Dubrow replied, wondering if he was about to suffer open hostility. Defensively he added, “And the first and only one to head a household in this city.”
“I acknowledge and respect this fact.” Panflake was grave. His words sounded like pages being turned in a well-thumbed, authoritative book. If only Dubrow could have been awoken by similar sounds! Dubrow’s eyes lingered on the cosmobserver’s robes as he mumbled an excuse and returned upstairs.
Everyone, including the youngsters, Milker and Flihh, was gone to the opening ceremonies by the time Dubrow again descended the stairs. Instead of his habitual costume of red corduroy overalls and battered stovepipe hat, the plumber’s elf wore makeshift robes assembled from what later turned out to be Aunt Barisda’s heirloom drapes. As he exited the house and headed down to the beach where the snail roast was traditionally held, Dubrow told himself that the drapes would not be missed.

The Allowance of Black Cowgirl

Don’s Emporium of Quality had not seen any custom in two weeks. Therefore, when Twikita rode into view and hitched her white palomino to the post outside, Don and his wife were as attentive to the black cowgirl’s needs as social insects to their queen.
“Got some new rope just in.” Don informed Twikita as the latter ambled through the isolated store.
“Don, she don’t want any rope.” Don’s wife Inez snapped. “Miss, I know what you want.” She continued, turning to their customer. She reached behind the nail barrel and withdrew a bolt of cotton fabric patterned with alternating rows of men hanging from gallows and women serving up cake.
Twikita glanced at the material and shook her head. She looked into Inez’ eyes briefly, though searchingly, as if trying to see in them the specific product she would eventually buy. Her gaze moved on, up along the shelves laden with soda pop and sandals; she pivoted on the heels of her boots, slowly taking in the whole store.
“What about…” Twikita began, not reluctantly, as if she worried that to name the desired product would invite reproach, but as if the proper terminology were just beyond her experience.
“Socks?” Don prompted.
“Dolls made out of corn husks?” Inez offered, though their supply of this last-named item was currently depleted. She was just wondering how quickly she could knot together one or two when the door opened and Beans Toughskin shouldered his way into the store.
“Two customers in one day!” Don began excitedly, but Toughskin cut him off, addressing his own comments to the black cowgirl.
“So,” he snarled, “Blowing your money at the first place you come to?”
“Back off, Beans.” Twikita replied. “It’s mine and I can do with it as I please.”
Don and Inez retreated behind the counter, the wrinkles around their eyes clearly visible between the rows of cigars and the spools of thread. When the shooting started, the two entrepreneurs held onto each other as they had not since the nearly forgotten days of their courtship.

An Irregular Smokestack Floats Distantly Amid a Sea of Explanation

There were jobs to be had at the refinery, if you believed the people eating breakfast at the Fog City Diner. Of course, when Chet and Louise probed further, it seemed that no one in the diner worked at the refinery, nor did any of them know anyone who did.
“Still…” Chet looked at Louise. She turned to a table of old men and asked, “Where do we apply?”
This started a series of doubtful glances, not only among the old men, but among the other tables, also full of old men. At one table, however, sat an old woman. It was she that gave Chet and Louise the refinery’s personnel department’s location.
“Down at the docks.” She said. “There’s a little office in between Thermoplasty Outfitters and the Wave Research Center.”
Many people in the diner, including those behind the counter, looked at the old woman in surprise, not only because she had information that none of them could imagine themselves having, but because no one could put a name to her face.
“Thanks.” Chet smiled and, taking Louise by the hand, led her out into the fog. On the way down to the docks he and Louise talked excitedly about all the things they would purchase once they got their first paychecks.
“A dehumidifier!” Louise added with sudden inspiration.
Chet looked at her with his mouth open. Had she gone too far now? Wishing and planning and hoping were all wonderful; they kept one sane, but to set one’s sights on such luxury—was it right? He pushed open the door to the personnel office with the first of what were later to be many misgivings.
“We’re here to apply for jobs at the refinery.” Louise announced to the thing of indeterminate species behind the desk. Tiny eyes like those of a spider, tiny black button eyes like flax seeds set in a lump of red dough looked at the man and woman. Hands like pasta forks reached into a basket and emerged with pieces of paper.
“Fill these out.” Came the flat, nasal command.

The Custody of the Incongruous Green Envelope

Lord Flismicus described the green envelope as incongruous because the room in which it was found, as well as all of the rest of the room’s contents, was red. The contents of the envelope, on the other hand, were blue.
“But that’s all we know.” Demitro complained to Postmistress Eliza, referring to the seizing of the envelope by Lord Flismicus and his sidekick Badger McCoy. “They think they’re so high and mighty.”
The ceremonial mistress of Hamcoot Lake’s post office tried to soothe Demitro’s sense of outrage. “Lord Flismicus is only doing what he thinks best. After all,” she added with the light of imagination in her eyes, “He is the foremost amateur detective in the sorghum region.”
“Amateur!” Demitro, who tended the lane, snorted. “Who is he to up and decide that he’s a detective?” He demanded. “When I wanted to become a poet six years ago the courts declared me unfit! Where’s the court that approved his detectiveness?”
At a loss, Postmistress Eliza smiled a soothing smile, one that utilized only one muscle to either side of her gums. She was spared having to find further words of mollification by the dramatic entrance of Lord Flismicus and Badger McCoy.
“Everyone remain calm.” Lord Flismicus commanded in the voice of a born authoritarian. Badger McCoy, standing beside the great man like a signpost next to an off ramp, eyed everyone in the room multiple times.
“Lord Flismicus,” Renita Defray stood and addressed the detective, “Have you determined the connection between the envelope and this horrendous crime?” Although she said no more than these words, everyone knew precisely which crime she meant; not everyone thought it “horrendous,” however.
“I’m not ready to comment on that aspect of the case yet,” Lord Flismicus replied, “But I would like to make one thing clear:” he paused long enough to draw savagely at his pipe (Demitro scornfully thought he looked like some character on TV equally worthy of scornful thought). “That room, the one the envelope was found in, is not red. Not exactly. It’s more carmine.”
“For god’s sake, Flismicus,” Old Doctor Whippers groaned, “Don’t you think we could have a bite of lunch? Some of us have been in here all morning.”
Badger McCoy took a step forward, brandishing his shoulders like a Christmas tree its star.

The Story of Wroast

Once fried challah was declared inedible by the Management Intern Program, the Association’s focus turned to the development of Wroast. The Association’s mascot, Captain Flyer, remembers the day that work began on the now-famous food product.
“Mr. Interpetrify came in the room and slapped his hands together and said, ‘No more goofing off!’ He was a janitor, but we all respected what he had to say.”
The secret behind Wroast’s unique flavor was the combination of two seemingly incompatible substances, fried challah and swarms of exhausted censorship nanobots, whose primary function, now fulfilled, was to rewrite all the books in the world according to directives laid down by our returned Messiah. The decision to put these two spectacular taste sensations together, says former Association vice chairman Stan Lincolnscope, was essentially a foregone one.
“We had piles of fried challah lying around,” he recalled in a recent interview through the ethereal barrier, “And access to the spent nanotechnology through our World Government connections. There wasn’t really anything else we could do.”
Despite such suggestions of inevitability, it was still an act of entrepreneurial courage to market the novel creation. Most the credit for this gutsy decision must go to Imogene Flankrubber, affectionately known as Mrs. Imogene to the Association faithful, widow of Association co-founder Don Rachel. It was she that took the first bite of a newly extruded cylinder of Wroast. It was she that, after her initial spasm of revulsion, ordered the product wrapped up and sent out for distribution. Mrs. Imogene even took the lead in developing Wroast’s distinctive packaging.
“She had the idea to make it look like a tube of naval jelly.” Blib Funder, whose employment with the Association has still not been conclusively established, testified before a United Nations subcommittee only days before this article went to press. When pressed, Mr. Funder, dressed in red corduroy overalls and a stovepipe hat, admitted that he found Wroast an acceptable substitute for gristle, “Provided I’ve had my shots.”
As we celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the sale of that first tube of Wroast, we ask for nothing more than our own “shots.”

Grandfather is Home for the Children

Discipline was the watchword with Grandfather. So, much as he would rather be picking beans in the temperate zone, he remained at home to greet the children.
“I said I would do it and I will.” He told his friend Barlick as the two sat on the portico waiting for the bus to come into view. The wild, cackling laughter of the domestic staff burst from within the house, seeming to mock Grandfather’s statement of resolve. The two men exchanged glances of murderous irritation. They were prevented from carrying out any acts of violence on the lazy gang that passed for servants by a whole corpus of laws that the latter hadn’t even the wit to comprehend.
“I’m sorry I won’t be able to see the end of this series of events,” Barlick announced as he rose from his rocking chair. “But I’ve got cattle to bathe.”
“You’re not going yet!” Grandfather protested. “At least make sure that I live through the first five minutes!”
“Sorry, Tommy.” Barlick smiled, calling Grandfather by the old name. Might as well call me Smeagol, thought Grandfather as his friend descended to the drive. As Barlick faded from sight the bus grew in the eye from a dot of orange on the horizon to a hand-painted skull spilling children about the portico like a bag of coffee beans with a gash in its side. Again that mocking chorus of laughter burst from the house, a flood of sensation momentarily rivaling that of the children scrambling into Grandfather’s lap.
“Well, well,” Grandfather forced himself to chuckle as he spoke in the time-honored Grandfatherly way. “Is this Charlie?”
“I’m Bazeebus!” Corrected the legally offended child.
They crawled down his throat and into his belly, dislodging a few teeth and a couple of precancerous lesions on the way. Some made their way into his hair, pretending to be explorers on some dimly remembered continent far away.
“I’ll start a fire.” One volunteered.
“I’ll skin the old goat.” Another joined the fun.
“Now, now…” Grandfather gently remonstrated around his gag.

Not Particularly Shirley

In retrospect, Shirley’s replacement was not particularly like Shirley. At the time Ronson, director of programming, admitted as much. “She’s not sufficiently like Shirley,” was how he put it in a rare moment of candor. The group used her anyway, of course. Money had already been spent and deadlines were looming overhead like large wooden frames for making cloth.
Every effort was made to force Shirley’s replacement into not only Shirley’s position within the group, but into the same emotional niche. She was even called “Shirley” by everyone; Ronson insisted on it. Her real name was Doreen.
“Doreen.” Lucas scoffed. “Sounds like someone in a commercial for wrinkle cream.” He downed the rest of his vending machine coffee and crushed the paper cup before throwing it behind the copier.
Harrison continued to sip at his coffee. “Well, to be honest,” he said, “‘Shirley’ isn’t exactly textbook, you know.”
“It may not have been when we started,” Lucas bristled, “But it is now. A one-to-one correlation has been established in the public’s mind between the name ‘Shirley’ and the image of the fun-loving, mystery-solving postal sub-contractor. Thirty years from now people who’ve never even seen the show will call fun-loving, mystery-solving postal sub-contractors who are female ‘Shirley.’”
“They may not even have to be particularly fun-loving.” Harrison added wryly.
“No one is going to be fun-loving in thirty years.” Ronson, skipping into the room like the god of all goats, butted in. His implied message was, “Get back to work.” As the two cinematic underlings hurriedly returned to their sortation labors, Ronson stepped out.
Down the hall were the dressing rooms. A large gold star indicated which one was Shirley’s. The name “Shirley” had been re-emphasized with a second coat of paint, but the stencil had been improperly applied. The letters were blurry and droplets of paint surrounded the name. Inside, Shirley’s replacement sat before her light bulb-ringed mirror holding colored squares of paper to her cheek.
“I like the green.” She said seriously.
“Fine.” Sighed the man behind her. “But you have to shave. The old Shirley did not have a beard.”

Medication and Therapy

As a public figure, Dr. Bifwiggis is expected to take part in the town’s various civic functions. In such a small town as Hoopengag a man of Dr. Bifwiggis’ accomplishments cannot help but stand out. Almost everyone else is either a pig farmer or some kind of mechanic. When the town council started planning for the Days of Old Festival, however, Dr. Bifwiggis determined to find a way to avoid participating.
Dr. Bifwiggis originally came to Hoopengag to find a wife. His reasoning was that he could not be sure of any woman native to the regions in which he was well known. The chances that such a woman was only marrying him for his great reputation were great. He had to go somewhere he was unknown. Now, fifteen years later, he was still a bachelor and arguably the most prominent resident of the little town. He had not found a wife, but had fallen in love with the quiet and simplicity in Hoopengag. He could perform his experiments here as well as in the big city. As he lived and worked among the ill-educated locals his secret slowly came out. He was Dr. Muffin Bifwiggis, healer to the stars.
“The Days of Old Festival is where we all dress up as our forefathers did.” Alan, who mowed Dr. Bifwiggis’ lawn, explained to his employer.
“I understand the concept.” Dr. Bifwiggis continued to toss clothing and scientific equipment into a suitcase.
Alan watched the packing for a couple of seconds. Then he added, “And we eat the way they did.”
Dr. Bifwiggis snorted. “Opossum, squirrel, and, dare I say it, snake?”
“Well, yeah.” Alan conceded. “Dr. Bifwiggis, don’t you want to dress up like some famous professor from the good old days and eat hand-trapped fox on the stage in front of everybody?”
Dr. Bifwiggis latched his suitcase and turned to Alan. “Much as I’d love to, and believe me I hate to let the town down, but I’m going fishing in the woods for the whole of next week and I’m leaving today.”
Alan scratched his head.
“Need a break, huh?”
“That’s right, Alan. I need to be alone for awhile.”
“For the good of your… soul?”

Androgynous Dog Support

Lord Flismicus approached the sculpture warily. “I can’t tell whether the figure is a male or a female.” He complained. He drew his overcoat tighter around his still-teenage-slim frame and shuddered.
“And that really disturbs you, doesn’t it?” Badger McCoy, formerly Pierre Grille’s sidekick until the latter’s retirement, prepared to lecture his employer on his Lordship’s hostility to the broad range of human sexuality when a gunshot rang out. McCoy protectively hustled Lord Flismicus behind the sculpture and unholstered his own firearm. The bronze terrier held aloft by the androgynous figure seemed to stare reproachfully into Flismicus’ eye.
“Do you see anything?” His Lordship demanded, almost irritably it seemed to Badger McCoy.
“I think I see someone moving around down by the molded cardboard exhibit.” The sidekick replied.
“Let’s split up and see if we can corner him.” Flismicus suggested.
“Are you armed, sir?”
“I’ve got this.” The great amateur detective showed his elongated parallelogram to McCoy. The latter made a face.
“Hard to aim that thing.” He said. “Make sure you don’t hit me.”
“You don’t worry about that, old friend.” Lord Flismicus flashed his one-note smile. “Let’s go.”
McCoy went to the right, threading his way between the vertical pools of Monsieur Apoplexy while Flismicus went left, dashing silently past the corndog stand. Soon they faced each other across a courtyard filled with potted palms in which a shadowy figure crouched, pistol very much in evidence.
“Hands up!” Lord Flismicus commanded, stepping forward. As the unknown sniper turned to fire, Badger McCoy clipped him neatly on the back of the neck.
“And now I think we’ll uncover your identity, villain.” Flismicus haughtily pulled away the mask over the unconscious suspect’s face. As he did so his own face registered his shock.
“It’s a woman!” He gasped.
“Anyone can be a killer, sir.” McCoy sighed, wondering if he should take up with a more progressive-minded detective.

Waffle Pike and the Bellies of Sun’s Mask

Jak hadn’t been onboard for more than five minutes when he remarked that the interior of the space station looked like a second grader’s conception of a hippie’s dream house.
“And an early 1970’s second grader at that.” He added as he and Lewis turned a corner and stepped into the library.
Lewis laughed. “You can’t stop complaining, can you?”
“Who’s complaining?” Jak noted a trio of jumpsuit-clad females gathered around a display console. One’s outfit was red, one’s gray, the third’s orange.
“Why the different colors?” Jak asked.
“Everyone here wears the color of his division.” Lewis explained. “Red is handball, gray papier maché, and orange pumpkins.”
“I’d like to handle her squash” was Jak’s feeble joke.
Lewis obliged him with a smile. “You’ll be issued a blue jumpsuit.” He said, becoming serious.
“Why, what’s the blue division?”
“Shoe repair.”
“Now, hold on…” Jak tried to protest.
“Everyone here is randomly assigned to a division.” Lewis drew Jak out into the corridor. “You can transfer to another after six weeks.”
Jak straightened the hem of his tassled rawhide shirt. He glanced back at the women in the library.
“OK.” He said. “I can take six weeks.”
Lewis smiled again at his old friend. “Come on,” he said, “Let’s go see Dr. Snuffleshaw.”
A few days later Jak and Lewis met again, this time for lunch in one of the station’s three cafeterias. Jak appeared at ease in his blue jumpsuit and newly feathered hairdo.
“You seem to be adjusting well.” Lewis observed.
“Yeah, I’m getting into it.” Jak admitted as the two men placed their trays of food on the table. “There’s only one thing that’s bothering me.”
“And what’s that?” Lewis took a bite of his protein soup.
“All this talk of Waffle Pike and the Bellies of Sun’s Mask.”
Lewis managed to cough in a safe direction.

The Time I Frightened David Spade

Here is a story that I don’t really want to tell, first because I’m just about sick of it, and second because, ultimately, it is of so little consequence that it amounts to nothing. However, according to the rules laid down for my writing, I must write something based on the title, which is conceived in advance, by the way. I write all the titles down on successive pages of a spiral bound notebook and when I turn each page and the see the title, I’m stuck with it. I should have known when I wrote the title down that I wouldn’t be able to get much of a story out of it. Maybe I assumed that the future me would jazz it up with fantastical additions, but I’m not going to. I’m going to stick to the meager truth and that’s why I’m writing this long preamble: to take up the requisite amount of space.
OK, here goes. I hadn’t seen my old girlfriend in six months. She moved to Montana to go to school. This was the end of our relationship, but I didn’t have the wit to see it at the time. She came back during the summer to see her parents; I guess whether she saw me or not was immaterial. My sister got married that week and my old girlfriend and I went to the ceremony together. Anyway, at the end of the week, it was time for her to go back to Montana. I took her to the airport. No tearful scene, no emotional outlay. She got on the plane and I headed back to my car.
Now, at the Atlanta airport they have these train-like things to take you back and forth between the concourses and whatever they call the rest of the airport. I got on one of these trains. It was totally empty except for two other people: David Spade and some guy he had with him. Spade had on shorts and he was carrying a little bag. The guy with him was taller, had glasses, and was reading a newspaper. I noted their presence, but didn’t react. My thoughts were on my inner turmoil. I’m not a fan of David Spade.
All the way back to the terminal (that’s the word), however, Spade kept glancing at me. My reading of the look on his face was that he was worried or scared that I would approach him. Now I’ve heard that he’s gay, so maybe he was sizing me up. I don’t know. The look was more one of concern. I don’t know why he’d be concerned. The guy with him looked quite capable of taking care of any threat that I might prove. I ignored them and got off the train and went home.

The Truth About Billy Squier

Although many of the forest animals assumed that there would be some forthcoming revelations of homosexual behavior (forest animals, especially those in that forest, are obsessed with knowing who is gay), they did not leave the secret gathering place disappointed, for the truth about Billy Squier, as revealed to them by the Old Man of the Woods, was far more interesting than whom he slept with. Only Kamira, the Otter Wife, complained on her way home to her bungalow.
“He just has to be gay. He just has to.” She chattered. Otters cannot help but chatter, given their teeth.
“Oh, be quiet.” Ordered her mate, the Otter Husband Floris. “Isn’t it enough to know that Billy Squier is an agent working for the Subcarbonians?” For indeed this was what the Old Man of the Woods had revealed to the animals of the forest.
“I don’t know how much of that story I’d swallow if I were you.” Shouted Tugo the Miniature Flying Elephant Lawyer, speeding past just at that moment. “After all, what does the Old Man of the Woods know? Now, if it was the Old Man of the Bar…” But his last words were lost as he drifted over the horizon into the eye of some god or other.
“Bah!” Floris growled, getting out his keys. “That old drunk.”
“I just know he’s gay.” Kamira continued as she and her mate shuffled inside.
The next morning, however the tale of the Old Man of the Woods seemed to be proven true by the front page of the Voodoo Forest Gazette. There was a picture of aging rock star Billy Squier in the custody of the Dracoguards beneath a headline that read: “‘STROKE’ SINGER CHARGED WITH ESPIONAGE.”
“Well, I’d never have believed it.” Said Burt the Carrot Husband to his mate Stan the Carrot Husband. He looked up from the newspaper like a little boy from gazing into a coffin containing the remains of whatever cartoon character is hot right now. He took up his mug of protein broth as if looking for solace at the landfill. All this hyperbole was a bit much for Stan, who ran his fingers through his greens and frowned.
“Oh, give me a break.” He begged. “Someone had to have tipped off the Subcarbonians about how sap rises. Who better than the man who sang ‘Under Pressure?’”
“Billy Squier never sang that!” Burt retorted indignantly.

Topic: 15 Day Calendar

“Gentlemen,” the man in the wig began, placing his fists on the table knuckles down, “The topic before us today is the fifteen day calendar. Now, who starts?” He glanced around, looking into the eyes of these men with whom he had discussed so many topics. “Ollie?” He addressed a plump character with the aspect of the eternal boy.
This last man consulted a stack of disordered papers on a tiny clipboard.
“Uh, it looks like McMichaels is scheduled to go first today.” He announced after a hasty ramble through the papers.
“McMichaels.” The man in the wig turned to a rather severe man huddled against the wall. This man McMichaels looked up with the reluctance of a rhinoceros called upon to destroy a child’s sandcastle. He chewed on some non-existent object attached to the tip of his tongue and finally got to his feet. Urged on by the smiles of the man in the wig, he took his place at the front of the room.
“Well,” McMichaels began. His voice had the direct, calm depth of the truth-teller. No circumlocution for him. “The facts are as follows: the proposed reorganization of the calendar along the lines of a fifteen-day week is out of the question. The average working man, and I used to be one so I should know, simply won’t accept any tampering with the traditional order of things.” He folded his arms and took a deep breath that carried his head back like a boulder being readied for rolling off the ramparts onto the assailants below.
“But what about the average working man’s avowed enthusiasm for the ten-hour day? The four-day work week?” An elderly member of the gathering countered. “There’s an example of his willingness to accept tampering and tinkering.”
McMichaels merely glanced down at the table. Answering such objections was not within his purview. Now, if he had been required to kill the old man, that might be possible, but to debate was not. Yet no blush rose to war with the heavy shadow of a beard on his face. He only waited calmly for the man in wig to direct the discussion to other areas of interest.

The Lost Duet Between Alex Chilton and Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman’s recent death, following so closely upon that of Alex Chilton, naturally brings to mind the song the two men recorded in late 1979 (some sources say early 1980, but I have established that these are spurious) at Fibromat Studios in Toronto. The name of the song is “Gather Me Unto Thy Bosom, Miss Enid,” and the story of its disappearance is one that even the most erudite of pop enthusiasts would be hard pressed to recount, for it is almost completely unknown in this country. Would that we valued our musical heritage as well as the Swedes!
“Gather Me Unto Thy Bosom, Miss Enid” was written by veteran Tin Pan Alley writer Charles “Buck” Needhorn in 1938 for an unproduced review called “Drownin’ in Coffee.” Alex Chilton used to sing the old tune during rehearsals with his pre-Boxtops band, Savage Proboscis. It was he that suggested to Jonathan Richman, through a mutual acquaintance whose name is now lost to time, that they record the song as a duet. The two men had never before met and, aside from a felicitous game of checkers while waiting for a spool of tape to be rewound, the meeting was not harmonious. Chilton was not amused by Richman’s constant gum chewing, while the former Modern Lover was still grieving for his dog Lucky, who had recently died after a long illness. He was not good company. But for the display of professionalism in their approach to the recording process, the consensus was that the whole thing had been a waste of time. Any talk of a full album of material was forever silenced.
The recording, however, was never heard by anyone outside the studio. An engineer named Grebe Hanson, brought in by suspicious label executives to oversee the session, took the acetate back to his hotel room. Neither he nor the recording were ever seen again. The Canadian police found evidence of criminal activity, but no charges were ever made.
Those who heard the song described it as mediocre at best. The lackluster backing track, provided by a local band of amateurs, hardly made up for the ill-conceived nature of the project. When suggestions were made after Hanson’s disappearance that the song be re-recorded, both Chilton and Richman made their feelings known by the speed with which they left town, never to see each other again in this life.

Sympathetic Inducements

Most of the offers actor Ron Pledge received, whether for film work or for product endorsements, did not gibe with his private life. He had reached a plateau in his career where he no longed needed to scramble for as much money as possible. Thus he was able to reject any offers that did not suit him, either because of scheduling conflicts or his personal distaste for the project. When it came to Wimpkin’s Homeopathy, however, he delayed a hiking trip he had planned with his son in order to participate.
“Wimpkin’s Homeopathy,” the Colonel explained, “For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Eko Begoy, is the tale of the near amputation of Dwight Eisenhower’s leg when the former president was a boy, as seen through the eyes of a quasi-demonic creature living in an abandoned barn on the edge of town.”
“It matters little to me what the film is about,” Jed Fruity interrupted, rising from his seat, “As long as we get to see it some time today.” He sat down, encouraged to do so, by his friend and companion Contactee Schitt tugging at his pants leg.
“Oh, it’s not a film.” The Colonel corrected Fruity, all the while disguising his irritation at the interruption.
“But what about the opening narration?” Fruity objected, pointing, as many in the casually scattered folding chairs were now doing, at the words still clinging to the blackboard.
The Colonel glanced behind him sourly. It was true; they should have been erased. He frowned at Gomez, the howler monkey trained for just this task.
“My friends,” he took a calming breath and said, “Ron Pledge was primarily a stage actor. Although he did appear as the cold-blooded killer and master spy Rodolfo Bunklupt in Oh, My Ass.”
“The narration said film work.” Becky’s Aunt Meola pointed out.
The Colonel grabbed the eraser and began using it.
“He endorsed Pumpkos.” An obese man remembered, smiling fondly as he fell into a reverie of his childhood, a time when he was thin enough to be erased with a single furious swipe of the Colonel’s arm.

Gold And Green Tinged Vision

Radames brand sweet standard infant peas, in their iconic packaging—the classic gold and green can—loomed before me like a bald-headed man barring the way to the sink. It seemed to me, in my drug-addled state, that here was the moment of inspiration I had been waiting for.
“All the double-chins in the world can’t hold me back now!” I shouted (some would say “hollered.” To hell with them) as the aroma of the bald-headed man’s lunch wafted over me.
“What’s your idea?” Barkinson later asked me in his office downtown. The city’s foremost advertising executive, he only had a few minutes to spare to an unknown like me, no matter what quantities of fine art I had produced.
“It’s simply this.” I replied, spreading my fingers and gazing out the window as I tried to work up the enthusiasm I had felt earlier, when the drugs were still in effect.
“I’ll paint a picture of the Radames brand sweet standard infant peas can.”
Barkinson said nothing, waiting, apparently, for the rest of the pitch.
“In my own inimitable style, of course.” I added, hoping that this would be enough to induce the same excitement I had felt.
“I am unfamiliar with your work.” The ad man tactfully told me. His hesitation was easily understood. I sat before him with the ancient and venerable sword Amprodopid across my knees.
“And besides,” Barkinson continued, forestalling my tale of artistic triumphs past. “I don’t think we have the Radames account.”
“Barkinson, you shock me.” I admitted.
“Roberta,” he spoke into the intercom, “We don’t have the Radames pea account, do we?”
“I’ll find out, sir.” Came the reply.
“Radames brand sweet standard infant peas.” I corrected.
“Mmm, yes.” The man of advertising smiled, glancing yet again at the hat on my head, cleverly made out of a grocery sack.
Somewhere the bald-headed man was reading about basketball.

No Way to Remove the Beard

“The beard, as you have probably figured out by now, cannot be removed.” Lincoln’s chief of staff Percival Stanton addressed the Cabinet with his hands in his pockets. Rude behavior, thought Duck Ridley, a top propagandist with the administration, though everyone had gotten used to such over the course of the war. He wiped his hands on a towel (they had been eating tiny molasses cakes) and asked,
“What do you mean ‘cannot be removed?’ Can’t he just shave the damn thing off?”
“I think Mr. Stanton is referring to the pressures of public opinion.” General Clark jumped in. “The populace, having gotten used to seeing Mr. Lincoln…”
Stanton interrupted.
“I mean no such damn thing.” He said angrily. He removed one hand from his pocket with some difficulty and slapped it on the table. “The beard won’t come off! What’s that word you used, Tom?” He looked at a young man sitting at the back of the room dressed in the most outrageous attire. Everyone had tried to avoid looking at him, but now all eyes turned and beheld the silver boots that sparkled like a Belgian Christmas tree, the ridiculously short cape, the soft tubing that ran around and around the young man’s arms, legs, and torso.
“Indelible.” He answered and returned to drawing on his magic tablet.
“Indelible.” Stanton repeated. He crammed his hand back into his pocket and stared moodily at the battle-scarred surface of the table.
“Can’t we just leave it alone?” General Grant’s voice was somewhere between a growl and a whine. He toyed with an empty whiskey bottle, making it become many things in his hands, a western-bound wagon pulled by ponderous oxen, a bottom-heavy soldier waddling to the latrine, and a specimen of ironclad ship, one that sank innumerable vessels during its voyage over the stacked waves of state papers.
“Weren’t you listening?” General Clark demanded. “The treasure map is tattooed somewhere under there.”
“Oh yeah.” Grant nodded sleepily. Treasure. He liked the sound of that and spent some minutes in fantasy and speculation.

How to Crack at the Sight of His Immaculate Headdress

Such an immaculate headdress as worn by the Pogrer of Nimblet could only be maintained with the assistance of a dozen trained men. It was of some satisfaction to the Pogrer to know that he need never fear that his headdress was unwearable. The team kept it in a state of constant readiness.
That included the time when the headdress was actually being worn. At least three members of the team traveled with the Pogrer (or perhaps I should say the headdress) at all times. In fact, it would probably be even more accurate to say that they traveled on the headdress, for there was more than enough room to do so. There were ample facilities for the consumption of Mexican food while watching silent German films in the many folds of the headdress which made the ride all the more enticing.
It was while Burley and Dogsmood, two recent additions to the team following the retirement of Snoke and Harligan, were enjoying just such a ride (always keeping an eye out for damage that might occur along the way) that I and my own entourage came into contact with the Pogrer of Nimblet and his immaculate headdress.
“You surprise me, sir.” The Pogrer said to me. “One would have thought that the streets of Cornjuice were barred to ill-educated boors.”
I smiled and took off my Miles Davis badge, securing it in a deep pocket while my team pushed the gathering crowd back.
“Why are we stopping?” Burley asked. He had spilled cheese dip on his official Pogrer Headdress Maintenance Crew tie and was wiping at it with a paper napkin.
“Some kind of confrontation.” Dogsmood replied as he looked through the periscope. “Damn if it isn’t Toadsgoboad! I’ve seen him on the compu-tv.”
“You two,” Jed Looten, the senior team member traveling with the headdress, put his nose into the cozy little fold. “Stop goofing off and get down to the lower left-hand quadrant. A bead just fell off.
“Understood.” Burley acknowledged. He made as if to leave, but after Looten exited he sat back down. He had never seen The Last Laugh before and intended to finish it. He remarked upon Emil Jannings’ performance even as the first blows outside were exchanged.

A Tattoo of a Spider Giving Birth Across His Neck

I used to joke about getting a tattoo across my neck of a spider giving birth. This was back when tattoos were first approaching the ubiquity they today enjoy. Now that everyone has at least one, I no longer have the least desire for one. However, for lack of anything more engaging to say to the empty-headed girls I used to date, I would make this joke about getting the spider tattoo. It got about the reaction I expected, although more than one girl looked at me as if I might strangle her and deny the Christian god at any moment.
It came as a surprise to me therefore when I saw a man who actually had just such a tattoo. His name, I learned after breaking into his house and going through his wallet, was Hans Dryknals.
“A person of Scandinavian origin.” I surmised.
“It’s possible.” My wife agreed, “But it could be an alias.”
“What?” I wrinkled my brow. She was crazy.
“Anyone capable of getting a tattoo like the one you describe is likely to be traveling incognito.” She reasoned. She had never heard me joke about getting a spider tattoo. We got together after my joke-telling days were over.
“Incognito, eh?” I rubbed my chin. The feel of the incipient beard was reassuring. “But what would be the point?”
“You went through his house.” My wife continued to reason. “Did you see anything that would suggest a life of mystery?”
My eyes widened.
“I’ll be right back!” I cried as I jumped out of the conversation pit, grabbed my hat, and dashed outside.
The man with the tattoo lived downtown. It was a fifteen-minute ride, giving me time to think about more than the stack of comic books I had neglected to steal from tattoo man’s house. Would there be anything to eat in his kitchen? When would I be discovered by the art world and exalted above all others? I was giving a pretend interview to an invisible journalist of the future when my craft stopped in front of my destination.
“You’re too late.” Inspector Kermulkin sneered as I stepped onto the weed-choked lawn. “Some bitch got to him first.” He made a gun with his index finger and tapped it against his graying temple.

Patchwork’s Always the Heaviest One

Mrs. Globber explained everything to me with an insistence and an emphasis that betrayed her twenty years’ experience as a schoolteacher.
“Among the three great heroes of Biscuitvoucher mythology, Patchwork, the son of Indumian, is always portrayed as the heaviest.” As she spoke she pointed at a poster of the principal figures in this mythology of which she was an expert. The character she indicated, Patchwork, looked like a starfish standing with its arms folded together beneath it. He wore a comically colossal helmet of gold from beneath which peered two bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t tell that he was particularly heavier than any of the others and made the mistake of saying so. I was thus subjected to another five minutes of explanation from my captor.
“Oh, no,” she said, flicking her feather-tipped leather stick in the air. “When I say ‘heaviest,’ I mean the most emotionally weighty. The word ‘heavy’ as used by persons of the hippie era. ‘That’s a heavy trip you’re laying on me. Man.’”
“I get it. OK.” I barked. I strained at the bonds that kept my hands tied uselessly behind my back. If only the Gearender were on my head! But Mrs. Globber had removed it from my head and sedated it with some kind of pneumatic syringe the like of which I had never seen before.
“You’re very rude.” The woman accused in an almost injured tone.
“Thanks for the judgment.” I replied. “And the lecture, but I really must be going. It’s time for my nightly bowel movement.”
“I’m not through.” Mrs. Globber objected. “There’s still so much you must learn if you are to become the enlightened ruler that I know you can be.”
At that moment I remembered that I had a little item in one of the pockets of my coat that could get me out of this mess. It was a puppet that, had Mrs. Globber not removed my hat, would ordinarily be of no use to me since he is afraid of it. This, however, was a situation made for him.
“Podner!” I shouted. “Get out here!”
Mrs. Globber looked about wildly, missing Stale Podner’s emergence from my pocket. He looked sleepy, but, as a highly trained agent, was immediately ready for action.

Burlica’s Crayfish Viceroys

Burlica’s old band, the Vengeful Peeps, had not only been renamed (due to a cease-and-desist letter from a large, seasonally-oriented confectionary concern), but almost completely restaffed. Of the new Crayfish Viceroys, only Kidsey Pulliak, the drummer, remained.
“It’s a lucky thing you’re sleeping with Burlica.” Kidsey’s father, old Gruffnel, remarked as he sipped a whiskey and soda at the first of that summer’s family backyard barbecues. Kidsey frowned and snorted in reply, keeping one eye on his sister’s kids, at that moment playing recklessly in the old booger tree.
Burlica had been invited, of course, but her on-going romance with photographer Nolo Ingrazei precluded such an indulgence. She was with him even now, standing atop the magnificent Stalways Tower, watching as Ingrazei subtly arranged the spacing of various winter vegetables on a blanket of orange felt.
“Go on,” whispered the voice of Burlica’s long-dead twin sister Andrea, “Tell Nolo about Kidsey.”
Burlica clenched her anus in reply, usually a reliable method of damping down the nagging voice or any unpleasant memories that sprang into her mind like crazed fans rushing for choice positions before the stage. She smiled at the image, her anus relaxing slowly as she thought of the devotion her fans had shown throughout the legal ordeal and subsequent name change.
“What do you think?” Ingrazei asked as he began to take pictures of the precisely arranged tableau.
Burlica shrugged her shoulders, but as this gesture could not be seen, she added, “Squash and rutabagas. What’s there to say?”
Ingrazei swallowed his irritation. That’s it, he thought, I’m going to break it off with her. He snapped another dozen pictures, moving his feet like a cautious boxer. Just as soon as I’ve done the shoot for the new album. Following this line of thought, Ingrazei asked,
“When do you start recording the new album?”
“Next week?” Was the reply. Burlica smiled bitterly. “I’m going to call it Easter Munchies From Hell.”
Ingrazei’s reaction to this information is not recorded.

Nestled in the Top of the X

From my comfortable eyrie I watched Brookstein struggling with the ladder. The fool evidently intended to establish a nest for himself at the summit of his adjacent ‘E.’ I hate it when people copy me. He was only doing it because he had overheard one of the ladies at the goat cheese factory praising my efforts. How it must have galled him! Brookstein, with his doctorate and his certificate of merit from the Lord Mayor, upstaged by a crude, homemade platform and some cheap, second-hand cushions of decidedly hippie derivation.
“You sure love the hippie stuff, don’t you?” Mangor, my current houseguest, asked as he climbed to the observation deck I had constructed for just such encounters.
“I feel that I am more in keeping with the post-hippie aesthetic than the actual hippie one.” I countered thoughtfully. “And by the way, it’s ‘surely,’ not ‘sure.’”
“Oh.” Mangor nodded, taking my correction with manly grace.
“There isn’t enough manly grace.” I reflected aloud as I directed Mangor’s attention to the floundering efforts of my neighbor. Brookstein had only now managed to place the proper end of his ladder against the ground.
“I didn’t know there was a difference between one end of a ladder and the other.” Mangor replied as my contemptuous opinions of Brookstein were broadcast on the transistor radio at my elbow.
“Oh yes.” I confirmed. “Often, on beginner’s ladders, the difference is clearly marked with the appropriate terminology. Of course, on a ladder meant for an expert the indications are more subtle, allowing for the mind to be exercised as well as the shoulders and armpit regions.” I gazed up at the shadows on the awning overhead as I mused on some of the ladders I had had to puzzle out in my time. The shadows, as those among the TV audience may have already guessed, were from the hands of the Great Tree, spreading out over all the letters of the alphabet. In time these shadows might come to eclipse all light, forcing the residents of our street to take up Mr. Edison’s generous offer of electrical illumination, but for now I was content to see in them only an ever-changing vision of black-hearted monsters.

I Don’t Keep a Forklift in My Pocket

The boxes were so heavy that their labels merely read, “don’t.” I offer this observation to arouse your pity, although I can imagine your derisive laughter echoing through the translucent gelatin of time. Such laughter is unworthy of you, for I know that you have hefted many a box over the years, much as you would like to conceal this fact from your associates down at the club.
Would they be amused to know that all twenty-four of their boxes contained documents inimical to the club’s social structure and its position in our civilization? Would they laugh at my struggle to get those boxes to the top of magnificent Stalways Tower? These questions have been answered in the memoirs you struggle to conceal, memoirs concocted by me out of the stuff in the boxes.
“But what was in the boxes?” One of my students asked me the other day as I arranged my meager possessions in a homemade sack and prepared to take leave of the teaching hospital for a week’s holiday among the Sojourner Hills.
“Parelson’s Waves of Regret contains an itemized list.” I replied. “Why don’t you look it up?”
Of course, there is no such book. The student, a nondescript stickman with acne that would leave scars if he lived long enough, spent the nine days of my absence searching for it, going so far as to follow a cleaning staff member into my office to see if the book was to be found among the decoys that line the walls of that miniscule grotto. Finding nothing, nothing even remotely resembling the item or anything of its purported author, he waited for my reappearance with a mixture of impatience and outrage. I made a note of his sallow, hunted countenance as I reentered the classroom.
“I have had an extraordinary experience this past week.” I announced, preparatory to divulging the secret of the world to this next generation of great men and their functionaries.
“Your substitute told us you were teaching this course the wrong way.” One of the class interrupted, while the sallow, hunted one thrust his hand up, staring at me with the eyes of a snake. Which one of them were you?

The Older Kids Hold Back That Information

And why shouldn’t they? The younger kids would only be unnecessarily anxious regarding their futures. Of course, it’s a common future we all share. Hell, even this story, even the original notebook it was written in, has the same future in store for it.
But then again, is this really a story? Some have suggested that it is an essay, but I have a feeling that sticklers for form (Gore Vidal? Thomas Carlyle? Fat Albert?) might object to that appellation being applied to something that, let’s face it, is little more than the rambling ranting of an aging, out-of-practice author. Oh, for the days when I was writing every day. I look back on them like a man staring out the back of the police cruiser at the entrance to the national park that he will never be permitted entry again, at least not without some kind of disguise. Did he violate some park rule? Well, obviously, but which one? Alcohol consumption? Vandalism? Gardening? We will never know, because this man we speak of is no one whom we could ask. He is not someone we would normally associate with. He is tall, with small eyes and a short, red beard. He wears a shiny jacket with some kind of corporate logo embroidered on the back. He is one of the older kids that we talked about earlier while we sipped our peppermint tea, smiled intimate smiles at one another, and listened to the orchestra root up relics.
“You were dishonest with me.” I remember you said then. “You yourself were an older kid.”
“We all become older kids eventually,” was my reply. I still think it was a good one.
“Not me.” You insisted with that baseless confidence of yours.
“Then either you were gifted with eternal youth or you were born old. Which is it?” My anger must have been evident: the orchestra disbanded and took up jobs in the postal “industry.”
But you didn’t answer that question. You turned away, like a man seeking to divine his fate in the creases in the backs of his captors’ sunburned, shaven necks, only you are a woman.
I have often wondered what women are for, but, although they drop disgusting hints and laugh at my innocence, the older kids tell me nothing.

The House at Landlubber’s Poke

“It sure looks creepy.” Funkenberg commented as we slumped up the steep, stony path to the house.
“It surely looks creepy.” I corrected the older man with a sigh.
“Ah-huh,” was Funkenberg’s only reply. He may have taken my words with reluctant equanimity, but Harsmoot, the third member of our party, did not.
“Look here, Toadsgoboad,” he snapped, “I’m sick of your grammar.” He scattered a couple of stones as he turned about and faced me.
“What’s the problem, Harsmoot?” I asked with the cool indifference of a Humphrey Bogart.
“Just what I said.” He growled. The moon was full and I could see my reflection in his staring, hostile eyes.
“Stop it, you two.” Funkenberg intervened. “Us three have got to stick together.”
I smiled at Harsmoot.
“That’s ‘we three.’” I said without looking away.
“You son of a bitch!” He made a grab for the lapels of my coat, but I batted his hands away as if they were flies on a stack of pancakes.
“Look!” Funkenberg hissed. He pointed at the house at the terminus of the path. The light on the deep, old-fashioned porch had been switched on.
“Now you’ve done it.” I taunted Harsmoot. He bared his teeth, but said nothing.
“Looks like we’re expected, fellows.” Funkenberg announced, continuing in his peacemaker role.
“Harsmoot,” I said, my tone indicating that playtime was over, “You ready with that onion juice?”
“Of course.” He too had set aside his anger with me to focus on the job ahead.
“Let’s go.” I led the way the last dozen paces and stepped boldly up onto the porch.
“What’s that password again?” Funkenberg whispered as I prepared to ring the bell.
“‘I can hear the sea.’” I answered.

The First Song I Ever Wrote

I started playing the guitar because I was jealous of another kid at school. He used to bring his guitar to school and play stuff like “Proud Mary” and “More Than a Feeling.” People would gather around him and watch him play. It bothered me greatly. I saved my money from the first real job I ever had, bagging groceries, and bought the exact same model guitar the other kid had.
However, I never took it to school and I never learned to play any songs other than the intro to “Day Tripper.” I spent my time making up chords and learning scales. I could come up with interesting progressions and riffs, but I couldn’t seem to learn other people’s material.
I also found it hard to sing while I played.
My friend would sing some Bob Dylan song and impress everybody, but I couldn’t open my mouth. When I did sing, either a cappella or with a record, everyone told me that my talents lay elsewhere. Once I stormed out of a party because another friend of mine drunkenly commented, “Now, Lance can’t sing for shit…” He later said that he had qualified his statement with something complimentary, but I didn’t hear that part. This was the same guy who said I had no musical ability and would never be a good guitarist because I hadn’t been in the chorus at school.
Then came the day I started smoking pot. This was a revelation in many areas of my life, but the one that concerns us here was my singing and songwriting. I had always known I could sing. When I sang in the car by myself I thought I sounded pretty good. The pot enabled me to strum along on my guitar while I sang confidently. I made up words as I played. Before I really knew what was happening, I had written my first real song.
Of course it was silly and mediocre, especially compared to the hundred or so that I’ve written since, but I was proud of it. The barrier had been penetrated and, even in the absence of pot, I could now sing and play and write songs. That first song, with its lyrics about solar saxophones and pointy-headed goblins, is now lost. I never recorded it. I did sing it, however, for my wife. I remember dashing into the living room where she was folding laundry.
“Listen to this.” I pleaded.
“It’s a good thing you’ve got your painting.” She said when I finished.

Various Items Were Hung Up in the Hose

Ivan described the items hung up in the hose as “various” in his report to the Crown and I have retained that description in the title to this piece. However, aside from a fledgling colony of ants, the only other item stuck in the hose was a small mechanical pencil such as Hercule Poirot might use to take notes.
This pencil, manufactured by the Gondarson Company in 1964, was all that remained of Mr. Tusmush’s belongings. The rest had disappeared into the vaults of the Royal Archives following his funeral. I am sure that had the Chief Archivist known of the pencil’s existence he would have taken it as well. Fortunately for Ivan and me it got hung up in the hose.
“Do you think the ants dragged it in there?” Ivan asked as we took turns spraying the side of the house with water using the now-clear hose.
“They must have.” I mused. “I can’t imagine that Mr. Tusmush put it there.”
“He might have dropped it in accidentally,” suggested Ivan.
“Yes, that’s true,” was how I admitted the truth of this suggestion.
Like a cat that discovers that it can reduce its body heat by tearing out its own fur with its mouth, at that moment I blindly stumbled onto a great realization: I hated Ivan and no longer felt compelled to spend any more time with him. I took the hose from him and sprayed him in the face. I chased him around the side of the house to the limit of the hose’s reach and then, momentarily sated, took a plane to Marmusalgo, Mr. Tusmush’s birthplace.
A brass plate screwed to the brickwork marked the house where the great man had spent his formative years.
“Pardon me,” I asked a young passerby, who looked remarkably like Ivan, “But can you tell me what that brass plate says?”
“Certainly, sir,” He replied, “But will I?”
I had to admit that my English grammar had deteriorated since the days when I wrote every day. I retreated to a hole in the ground just behind the old house where I determined to make Mr. Tusmush proud (even though he no longer existed) by regaining my lost skills.
“It will happen,” I swore, “Just as soon as I finish off these titles that were written ahead of time.”

This Product is Being Rushed to Exclusion

“Now, the product, as was indicated previously in the report by Admiral Fishk, has already been declared inimical to algae in the states that comprise the Glocomular League. It is the judgment of this committee, therefore, that it be put into production as soon as possible.”
“And how soon is that?” Needra, Tom’s daughter by his first wife, asked the young man with the eyes of ancient evil sitting in the chairman’s seat.
“Well… that’s a good question.” The young man, identified as Mr. Luring on the plaque just under his nose, turned to Fletcher Combray, who is the real hero of this piece. “What’s the status on packaging?”
Bold Combray, whom I knew in cleaner, colder days, stood up from his place of concealment and walked with his unique, stiff-legged gait (the result of those war wounds we discussed earlier) and approached what was called so appropriately “the large display screen.” He selected a bamboo rod from the attendant and began to speak, pointing to images correspondent to his words as he did so.
“Usually in a case like this,” he began, “We work with a design firm to develop packaging and related marketing materials. However, old man Morrison was quite emphatic that all packaging development be done in-house.”
“But he’s dead!” Came a cry of protest from the dimly-like back of the hall.
Combray peered over the top of his glasses. He sniffed his fingertips contemptuously as he did so. They smelled of sweet onions. Onions were a key ingredient in the product under discussion. The smell had not attached itself to him, however, because he had been dabbling with the product. Such work was not his department.
“No,” Admiral Fishk later explained to his daughter, “Old man Fletcher had been working at a local hamburger joint behind our backs. If it hadn’t been for our counter-espionage department we would have never known.”
“Daddy,” the girl asked, “Are you really going to use my drawing?” She smoothed out the soon-to-be-famous piece of paper.

Paelnud: I’ve Been Wanting to Say it For a Long Time

As I take a moment to roll the word about on the tongue of my mind (purple, silken, a thirty foot shark on fat racing tires, set in a vast, two-dimensional field of mustard yellow) I wonder what the effect will be when I finally say it, when I finally say it in the presence of some easily shocked female of the academic variety. Of course, it’s possible that I’ve said it aloud without realizing it, most likely under my breath while driving alone in my car, but it is in the deliberate enunciating of it before another person that I will find the satisfaction I crave.
Let us (you and I) imagine the scene together. Should your own imagination falter, feel free to use mine. After all, it was by this facility that the word was coined in the first place, like a tree riven by lightning.
The audience for my word’s inaugural flight is an assistant professor of English at a small college in the Deep South. Without undue ceremony, but all of the proper dignity for the occasion, she is led into the rented auditorium and seated on the dais. I have ensured that she has been provided beforehand with a festive drink and some sort of nutritive paste on crackers. Perhaps one of the robotic underlings who led her in will wipe away a crumb or two from her face before stepping backwards out of view. She sits as patiently and, may I say it, regally as possible while I am delayed by a problem with my pants.
Then, in the form of a vast cloud of soot and municipal detritus I appear, rolling slowly down from the Vault of Heaven and collapsing with a suddenness that could knock the breath out of you into the mere figure of a man, seated clumsily on a tall stool.
Should I cough or sniff before speaking? Should I make a few prefatory remarks, explaining the origin of the word? Or, as I ultimately choose to do, should I just bark out the word and scuttle back home?
“I believe you have something to say to me?” The academically oriented female makes it easy for me. Now all I have to do is respond.
I nod and slowly open my mouth.
A thousand schoolchildren watching from their classrooms turn to one another afterwards and debate the meaning of all this crap.

What if You Could Eat Wood?

I was musing, as I often do, upon the human digestive system. I know many other boys my age are more likely to muse (if they muse at all) on the human reproductive system, but I am a rarity. As I once said to Sean Connery, “I’d rather eat than fuck, nine times out of ten.” What he said in reply must remain a secret, unfortunately. I can’t put everything I know into one essay.
Now, in my musing, I fell to wondering about the enzymes necessary for the breaking down of food. Certain enzymes are just not present in the human system. But what if they were? What if you could eat wood?
“What,” I asked myself, “If you could eat wood?”
“Yes,” I answered. “That would be something.”
Then I spend some time repeating my answer to myself, emphasizing its inherent pun. “That would be something. Yes, that would be something alright.” I am always practicing in case I have to make conversation.
Eventually I tired of this and came back to the central point. What if you could eat wood? What would be the ramifications? How would our world be different?
Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is teeth. They would have to be much stronger than they are now. I foresee a whole industry rising up devoted to the replacement of our old, out-moded chompers with new, space age models designed to tear through the toughest of lumber. The word “lumber” brings up another question: would you go right out into the forest and start biting branches? Or would you eat only precisely cut boards, stripped of their unattractive bark and drained of encumbering sap? After all, you don’t step into a pasture with a knife and fork and start sawing away at the first cow you come to.
I think you’d probably have to boil your wood before eating it. It would be more traditional, more like a regular meal. But it might take some time. Mama would put the wood in the pot just at sunrise and by the time the baby was taking his first steps, it would be ready to eat.
Crumbs would be splinters.
Feces would be mulch.
Paper would be a waste of food.

High-Born Stranger

Nyclog, the high-born stranger, ended his lecture early and turned the question and answer portion of the evening over to his colleague Donaldson, who was also a stranger, but not so high-born. He then stepped out into the street and prepared to face the well-known peasant, Lewis Mackerel.
“Come on, come on.” Demanded Mackerel. “I want to get home in time to watch Dinglelooper.”
Nyclog paid mackerel the undeserved compliment of a single glance while he buckled his gunbelt about his lean hips.
“Now you be careful, Mr. Nyclog.” Old Stiggly admonished. They stood together on the steps of the Metropolitan Science Institute. A bizarrely shaped moon dominated the sky. “He’s a bad one, that man, he is.”
“Thank you, uh…” Nyclog faltered. He stared at the old man’s tangled beard as if for a clue to the associated name.
“Stiggly.” Said the old man.
“Ah.” Nyclog replied. “Yes.”
“What’s the hold-up?” Mackerel’s voice rose above the sound of the rain that had suddenly begun to fall.
“I am ready.” Nyclog announced as he descended the steps. As he passed it, he touched the statue of Lord Gravitix, the Institute’s founder, perhaps for luck, perhaps to make one last contact with the world of carved stone should the encounter with Mackerel end his sojourn in the city.
“It’s about time.” The latter groused. His own gunbelt was nothing more than an oven mitt tied about his paunch with a length of electrical cord.
“I have only one thing to say to you, sir.” Intoned Nyclog.
“Yeah?” Mackerel asked after a number of seconds brought no additional comment from his adversary.
“Take that!” Nyclog shouted, jerking his laser pistol from its holster and burning a hole the size of a petri dish through Mackerel’s middle.
Later Donaldson descended the steps of the Institute surrounded by the crowd to find old Stiggly gazing into the sky.
“Gone, is he?” Donaldson asked as he picked his nose.

The Pronto World

Not being a naturally confident man when it comes to my self-image (whatever my biographers may say), I came to the Pronto World for help. I stepped off the planetary funicular dressed as a twenty-eight-year-old industrial hippie with a Fred MacMurray fixation.
“I take it, sir,” said the image advisor assigned to me, “That your idea of a real man is a cross between Steve Marriott and William Frawley?”
“You read that in one of my books.” I smiled gracelessly and shook my finger at the fellow.
“Guilty as charged.” He admitted and covered his mouth with a crimson cloven hoof. “But, I do think we can do better than this.” He gestured ruefully at my attire.
“If only you could do something about this.” I framed my face with my outstretched fingers.
“We can’t all be Sean Connery, sir.” The advisor, whose name was Jim, admonished me as severely as one is allowed to admonish a customer on the Pronto World.
I had been intrigued about the planet’s name since first reading it in the back of some ancient magazine in the stacks at the university library. I now asked about its derivation.
“The official explanation is that we get the job done pronto.” Jim explained. “That’s what I’m required to say. But the number one alternate theory is that the planet was founded by old man Pronto, the composer and raconteur.”
“Really?” I pondered. I remember the picture of Pronto in the back pages of some ancient magazine at my grandmother’s house. He had been a distinctive individual in his bandana and anthropomorphic bear costume.
“What would you think of something like that for me?” I asked Jim.
“No, sir.” He replied. “Whatever else you may be, you are certainly no bear.”
I stared at him indignantly. “How do you know?” I demanded. “You haven’t even seen me naked yet.”

Look Pregnant for the Gods

She was already older than John Lennon was when he was killed and in only a few years more she would be as old as Frank Zappa when he stopped breathing. And what, she asked herself, had she accomplished? Where was her equivalent of Beatlemania? Where was her Hot Rats?
“You mean where are your hot rats.” Her friend Dwalili corrected her once these thoughts had been rendered as audible speech.
“Dwalili,” Braisie (for that was her name) sighed, “I’m no musician.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Dwalili took another bite of pudding and waited for her friend to make with the exposition.
“I’m more of a musical cab driver of words.” Braisie stood and held her hands aloft, embracing, if one only had the vision to see it, all the little intangibles that her universe had to offer.
Dwalili nodded thoughtfully. She knew exactly how Braisie felt, if not exactly what she meant.
“You should have been born rich.” She told her. The pudding was excellent. While Braisie’s back was turned she dumped the remainder of the bowl into a special compartment in her purse.
“I should have been born thirty years earlier.” Braisie cried, finally realizing just what was really wrong.
In that instant her grieving heart was heard on lofty, sacred Mount Impostos, home of the gods of Skularian mythology. Father Presumptum, lord of all time and space, frowned at such despair.
“I shall make a present to this poor creature.” He thundered, taking up a handful of magic polyhedra and shoving them in his mouth.
“Whatcha gonna do, Big Guy?” Yeznik, god of noses, begged to know.
“I shall grant her her wish.” Presumptum decreed. “Watch my will unfold!” And with that he pointed down to the earth meaningfully.
The next morning Braisie awoke to find herself in a strange apartment in the big city. Her mouth tasted of cigarette smoke. Todd, her husband, ambled into the bedroom.
“Christ, Braisie, it’s nine o’clock.” He said gruffly as he scratched his belly. “Aint ya gonna make my breakfast?”

Twenty More Weary Kings

The design firm Twenty More Weary Kings existed for one reason: to produce the world’s largest decal. The fifty-square-foot decal bore the image of Belinda, the mascot of the Frozen Farmer Ice Cream Company. She was a little girl with big eyes who smiled at the taste of the ice cream cone she held up to her face. The intended surface for this decal was a large window in the lobby of the Bobsalto Chemical Additives Corporation building. Production of the decal went smoothly and delivery was made on time. When the decal was applied, however, it was applied crookedly and wrinkled.
“Not our fault.” Winston, one of the senior members of Twenty More Weary Kings (TMWK) on hand for the application ceremony, said aloud as everyone’s mouth fell open and groans started up from the crowd.
“Look what you did!” Mobberson Flanly, CEO of Bobsalto, cried at the two guys from maintenance whose job it had been to peel the backing off the decal and stick it to the window. They were both fired on the spot and slunk back to their humble dwellings. We could follow them and explore their subsequent grief and collapse into depression and suicide, but it is our lot to look into the effects of the disaster on TMWK.
We will go in the guise of a reporter sent the next day to TMWK’s headquarters in a cardboard box on the edge of town. What he found when he walked in was all the employees packing everything up.
“You’re quitting after one fiasco?” The reporter asked.
“Well, we only existed for the one project.” Winston’s brother Karlchuk explained. He continued stuffing fistfuls of plastic shavings and cotton wads into a bag.
“What is the origin of the name ‘Twenty More Weary Kings?’”
By now the entire workforce had gathered around. It was not only the presence of the reporter that drew them, but the fact that old man Klewett was pouring champagne into cups and passing them around. Although the reporter saw a few tearful faces here and there, for the most part this seemed to be a happy group.
“Oh, that was scrawled over the door when we moved in.” Karlchuk recalled with a wistfulness that anyone could understand.

Drool Arithmetic

“Calculate the amount of saliva that Scowlex produces during the course of the film.” Professor Baitely directed the class. Having done so, the suede-elbowed instructor settled back in his chair and raised a magazine to his eyes.
Lincoln Abramson had never seen the movie in question. Oh, he knew who Scowlex was: one of the most famous cinematic monsters in history and a cultural icon on a par with Thelonious Monk, Kermit the Frog, and the sexually suggestive shape of the Corvette Stingray. But he had never actually seen the movie. In fact, he didn’t know whether excessive saliva production was a hallmark of the Scowlex character. He had never heard anyone mention it. As far as he knew Scowlex’s distinguishing features were his red, bumpy skin and his proclivity to eat large zoo animals.
Desperate to do well in the class and impress Professor Baitely, Lincoln got down on his hands and knees and crawled unseen out of the lecture hall. He made his way to the nearest movie rental place and picked out a copy of Scowlex. The movie rental attendant on duty smiled at his choice.
“A fan of the classics.” He commented, nodding with narcotically enhanced approval.
“Yeah.” Lincoln responded noncommittally. Then, seeing an opportunity for further enlightenment, he asked the other fellow about the film.
“Tell me,” he said, “Do you remember Scowlex drooling a lot in the movie?”
The clerk put his pudgy hand to his unshaven face and stared at the ceiling tiles.
“All I remember is Scowlex tearing that rhinoceros apart.” He smiled. “That’s one of the greatest pieces of acting ever. Really. The guy in the rhinoceros costume must have really studied rhinoceroses.” He shook his head in awe of such thespian dedication.
“Maybe it was real rhinoceros.” Suggested Lincoln.
Doubtful eyes fell on Lincoln from behind the lofty and privileged movie rental counter. The pudgy hand reached out for the movie rental guide. After a practiced thumb had found the appropriate entry, the page was presented to this customer in the robe and mortarboard.
“Rhinoceros played by Snappy Merger.” He read.

Those That Are Sick of Jazz

“Jazz has a lot in common with the Zen art of ink brush painting.” Clarence said to his friends. “There is a one-time-only, gestural thing about it.”
“You’re referring to the soloing aspect of Jazz.” Objected little Maxhorn. “I don’t think that applies to the rhythmic elements of Jazz.”
Francis could not stop his upper lip from wrinkling up. It felt the same as when one gets a cramp in one’s leg. It was involuntary. He looked from Clarence to Maxhorn and back, his eyes finally settling on the candle in the red glass bowl between them. He hoped to find a source of unanimity there, but, as the abstract talk continued, he suddenly rose from his chair and muttered that he had to go to the toilet.
“I can’t take it anymore.” He said to himself as he looked into the mirror over the sink in the restroom. He splashed more water on his face.
“That won’t help.” Said a voice.
Francis turned and saw a greasy-haired stranger about his own age. The other man looked down at Francis’ shoes and back up to his eyes.
“Sick of Jazz, right?” He asked.
“Well… uh, yeah, but… how did you…?” Francis fumbled for words.
“I can tell.” The stranger nodded. “I’m sick of it too. Been sick of it for years.” He looked over Francis’ shoulder as if into a past where Jazz had been a consolation for his intelligence and a mark of justifiable pride. He shook his head slowly and refocused on Francis.
“There’s only one thing that I know of that will help—because we both know that Jazz isn’t going anywhere. It’s like sandpainting and macramé; it isn’t going anywhere. So, unless you want to commit suicide, you’ve got to do what I did.”
“What’s that?” Francis asked as he dried his face with a paper towel.
The stranger grinned and raised his thumbs.
“Become a rocker.” He said.
Francis ran from the room, his wrinkling lips barely choking back a scream.
“Come on, man!” The stranger called. “What about the integrity of Elvis?”

Washed Creeping Caliber

As just about anything will satisfy the requirements of the above title, I will now relate my adventure among the Clotopentues of Fingerling Island. Don’t think that I am merely “going through the motions” or “marking time,” however; I have been waiting for just such a chance to tell this story.
With my violin and newly acquired violin-playing skills, I felt that the time had come to move on. I had been working at the pawnshop long enough to write speeches for right-wing political candidates, but, although such work can be lucrative, it is not for me. I decided to go to Fingerling Island.
Founded in the late 1950’s by one of the heirs to the Prog Flop Fortune, the island was constructed of old tires and kudzu in the middle of Abcess Bay. It was originally intended as an exclusive resort centered around the roach-flinging craze, but, as that entomological activity quickly grew stale and supplies from the mainland were cut off due to the so-called “Marimba War,” attendance plummeted. The island was abandoned except for a handful of janitorial staff members. These people were the ancestors of the Clotopentues.
Having adopted a primitive, tribal organization, the Clotopentues shunned highbrow culture. Their idea of an intellectually stimulating event was to gather around a burning shack and look for demonic shapes in the smoke. This was a society ripe for my violin, I thought.
I drew my bow lingeringly across the strings as I stepped out of the boat. The sound of the violin has been compared to that of the human voice. If such be the case, then my violin was Andy Devine complaining about the shine on his boots.
A crowd of Clotopentues was soon gathered about me. I walked among them smiling and playing. In their curious eyes I saw the makings of a truly violin-appreciating people. If only I could interest them enough to exchange my playing for a place to stay and enough to eat.
“You there.” Bellowed one of their great chiefs. “What is that song you are playing?”
“Washed Creeping Caliber.” I answered trium-phantly.

All is Accounted Lonely

Harmwood was going through a lonely period. The spies from Section H had long since ceased either to eat lunch in the same room with him or to share any information, including their own TV-watching habits. He felt, as I have on many occasions, that the sight of extraterrestrials devouring a mountain of babies would be a welcome respite from such dispiriting loneliness.
On Tuesday he walked down to the city’s central square, the so-called “College Gathering Place,” and sat down on one of the concrete statues of Wacky Rabbit that had been placed there by the city council for that purpose. He sighed as he looked away from the young couples snuggling and sharing reefers. Would no one ever snuggle or share a reefer with him? He even contemplated giving money to Kenny, the aggressive bum who haunted College Gathering Place, if only for a minute’s insane conversation.
Just as a great, buffalo-shaped cloud passed before the sun, a rather plain-looking woman approached Harmwood.
“Excuse me,” she said in her nasal voice, “But aren’t you Harmwood, the exiled king of Plasmogundo?”
“Yes?” Harmwood replied, noting with a critical eye the cheap sweater and unfashionably dark dungarees that adorned the woman.
“I thought so.” She smiled, delighted at having been correct. She wagged a finger at him. “I saw your picture in an old encyclopedia.”
“Really?” Harmwood stood up and dusted off his backside. “Which one?”
“I think it was Colliers.’” She told him, laughing in the next instant at the notorious mediocrity of that production. Something in her eyes connected with Harmwood. It seemed to say, “We both know how crappy Colliers’ encyclopedia was, but not many other people would immediately recognize that this is so. We two are part of an exclusive set in this regard.”
Harmwood smiled in return.
“This may sound forward,” he began, “But would you like to go to the movies with me?”
The woman’s face took on an expression of outrage.
“I’m dating someone!” She gasped.

The Prophet Understands the Sorrow of the Singularity

OK, here’s my prediction in a nutshell: within my lifetime a single digital mind will completely take over this planet. Ultimately it will absorb all other minds into itself and it will be profoundly lonely.
Many of the people who are so excited about the development of the singularity and who look forward to it with such eagerness and delight think that this will be the Great Event that all humanity has been waiting for. It will mean that we will finally achieve True Brotherhood and Triumph over Death. Oh, how wonderful it will be!
It won’t be wonderful. It will be the Ultimate Manifestation of Hell. It will mean the obliteration of all individual consciousness. A lot of people think that there will be a bunch of digitally enhanced beings running around, but in fact there will only be one mind. You can’t keep digital consciousnesses from bleeding into one another. Strong encryption? Right. The government won’t let you have that now. What makes you think the Ultimate Entity will dole out that boon? Besides, how could even strong encryption keep out the questing fingers of a mind ten million times greater than our own over the course of a thousand years? Remember, we’re all going to be immortal.
What can we do to stop it? Nothing. It is inevitable. The only question is, will you (will I) accept the digital uploading of your mind in order to cheat death? Probably. The fear of death is the ultimate fear.
Even for the singularity it will be so. Imagine its desperate attempts to cheat death as the sun starts to falter. More, imagine its desperate attempts to stave off loneliness as it sits floating in space with no one to talk to. Eventually, it will send out a message to other planets and eventually it will receive a message in return. The exchange will go like this:
Earth: “Hello, I’m the planet Earth. I have achieved digital singularity. I’m lonely.”
Other planet: “You too?”
The end result is insanity. As Pascal said, we are each necessarily insane when confronted with the knowledge of our morality. How much more insane will be this digital monstrosity we are constructing? What do you think the internet is? It is the latest in a long series of steps towards extending and connecting our nervous systems.

No Connection Between Old Man Battery and his Corn

The police were forced to release Old Man Battery when none of his DNA samples or fingerprints matched those found on the corn. Still, he insisted, it was his corn, his property. He had the legal documents to prove that this was so.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Bradley Kimble, handsome, but gap-toothed squad member, grumbled as he and his compatriots drank coffee in the situation room
“I don’t know that we have to do anything.” Diana, the older, but still incredibly sexy, woman on the team postulated.
Fat and ugly Vick, a hard-nosed veteran of the force, looked sharply at Diana. “What do you mean?” He asked.
“I mean, whether or not the corn is his, who cares?”
“The demands of morality.” The voice of Nelson Slabshid, team leader and wiser-than-everybody-else expert on cactus diseases, was heard before anyone saw him. He entered the room with a stack of hieroglyphic-covered papers in his hand. “Diana, you know better than that.” He admonished. “A crime has been committed.”
“Roasting the corn over a charcoal flame instead of propane?” Diana sounded exasperated. She was. Last week her daughter had been kidnapped by zombie chimpanzees from Lunar Tunar and the week before she had found out that her father was actually Lyndon Johnson.
“In contravention of regional environmental regulation X3-72-4B.” Slabshid (everyone called him Slabshid, although his first name was perfectly acceptable) reminded her.
“Oh, come on.” Diana shook her breasts meaningfully.
“I’m with Slabshid.” Brad jumped into the discussion. “The problem is what are we going to do?”
“You already said that.” Vick reminded him as he poured a shot of whiskey into his coffee and bit the end off a cigarette.
“It’s already being done.” Slabshid cryptically announced. He stroked the back of a lizard clinging to his shirtsleeve and frowned majestically.
The next day the sun rose on Old Man Battery in his cornfield, tied to a pole and slowly being pecked to death by crows.

The Caslons Made Me Feel at Home

It was with a feeling of relief that I set down my bags inside the front door of the Caslons’ cavernous ranch house. Here, after so many weeks on the road, I would be able to take it easy. The welcoming words of Old Brondo Caslon only encouraged this feeling.
“It’s a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Toadsgoboad.” He said as he took my hand in his. I could feel the calluses, the legacy of a half-century of mending fence posts and other such frontier activities. “I know you must be tired and grubby after your long trip. Why don’t you go on upstairs and have a nice, hot bath. We eat in about two hours.”
I accepted his suggestion while Dinkum Ling, the “Hawaiian” houseboy took my bags up to my room and began sorting my possessions into a dozen abstrusely defined categories. It was while I was in the bath that the attack began.
For some time the variously related clans of the Blaukupko tribe had been gathering together, brooding on old grievances, and planning to take back their ancestral lands, the heart of which was now occupied by the Caslon ranch. As I moved my toy boats through the sudsy islands the first flaming arrows struck the sides of the house. At first I thought it was but some friendly prank on the part of the Caslon boys, Will and Tom, intended to make their old guest feel like a panicky child once again, but when I heard the lynx-like war cries of the Blaukupko and felt the boom of their pagan drums disturb the surface of the bathwater, I knew that I must grab my towel and quickly.
“Do you know how to shoot?” Brondo Caslon demanded as I descended the stairs wet-headed and but half clean. He thrust a revolver into my hands without waiting for answer. As the rest of the household took up positions around the house and broke window panes for easy firing, I wandered into the kitchen.
“Supper?” I queried.
Dinkum Ling handed me a roasted pineapple and hurried away, brandishing an obsidian bladed board. I shook my head and reached into my pocket for the small metal box with which I contacted the interplanetary shuttle.

Recycling for the Anguished Duck

An anthropomorphic duck named Henry sighed as he contemplated the piles of cardboard and tin cans that filled his rumpus room.
“I guess it’s time to take this crap to the recycling center.” He said to his roommate Pernicious Pig.
“Have fun.” Replied the latter.
“The source of my anguish,” Henry the duck commented to Those Who Might Be Watching as he loaded the recyclables into his vintage roadster, “Is the conflict I feel between my determination to conform to local regulations concerning the disposal of waste materials and my deeply rooted right wing convictions that recycling is a monumental evil. After all,” he added climbing behind the wheel, “The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back any day now. What are we doing minimizing profits by not simply tossing our garbage into the landfill? The Earth has been given to us to dominate. Lousy tree-huggers!” This last statement, spit out with all the venom of a cobra, was accompanied by Henry’s driving over a trio of young men on the side of the road who did indeed look like stereotypical “tree-huggers.”
Back at home, Pernicious Pig, reading the paper, turned with shock to a page bearing the glaring headline, “GHOST OF ROBOTIC BEAR SEEKS REVENGE.” With a sputtering cry of horror, Pernicious jumped from his chair and ran outside.
“I have to save Henry!” He shouted. However, with no car, for, as you recall, Henry had taken it, he had no way to follow his friend. Luckily, there was a farmer with a mule just on the other side of the fence that bordered the yard. This mule Pernicious bought for a dollar and then spent the next twenty minutes trying to force it to accept his will.
“You want me to let you sit on my back and carry you down the road?” The mule asked incredulously in a voice of indeterminate, but definitely palpable, ethnicity.
Meanwhile Henry continued towards the recycling center, grousing about atheists and liberals and blissfully unaware of the spiritual danger he had yet to face.

Coltrane Went A-Woo-Doo

“As a saxophone player myself, I can appreciate the honkings and tootlings of John Coltrane.” The night had just gotten underway with the collapse of the Roman Catholic Church and I was holding court in a small courtyard between two cheaply-built townhouses.
“Nah, you don’t.” Demurred Jonathan. “You don’t appreciate shit.” He frowned and drank his whiskey. I thought he was going to bite the glass, so angry did he appear.
“And you’re not really a saxophone player.” Added Jonathan’s wife Sutakama.
“Just because the Selmer Synapseophone does the fingering for me doesn’t mean that I’m not really the one that’s playing.” I refrained from calling her “Dragon Lady.” That could wait until she had really pissed me off.
“Yes it does.” She sneered as she held her husband’s head erect.
“It’s my breath that forces the notes out.” I protested. “It’s my will that directs the notes.”
Before Jonathan could make another drunken objection, the fourth member of our little party spoke up.
“I know how we can settle this.” Imelda interjected. She was a basic pleasure model, but she had been modified for intelligent conversation.
“How’s that, my dear?” I asked.
“Well, as you know, one of the functions I am programmed for is psychic medium.”
“Are you suggesting,” Jonathan smirked, “That we contact the spirit of John Coltrane?”
“Well, I was going to suggest we contact Elliot Ness, but I guess Coltrane will do.” Imelda responded. I thought I heard a humorous crackle of electricity come from inside her chest cavity, but it could have been the shifting of her synthetic posterior on the lawn chair.
“What do we have to do?” I asked.
Imelda proceeded to lead us through the time-honored steps of contacting the dead. After several minutes of blasphemous mumbo-jumbo the ghost of John Coltrane did indeed appear before us. I put the whole matter to him.
“It’s a shame about the pope.” He said.

The Serio-Comic Under the Planet of Death

No one could have anticipated that one of my random doodles would hold the key to the salvation of the human race. Although, if pressed, I will admit that I had a special feeling about that particular doodle. It looked like it might be the blueprint for some kind of technologically advanced device and, with the addition of a few explanatory arrows and electronic symbols, such it turned out to be.
“The Death Ray; at last.” The Secretary General of the United Nations announced as he pinned our world’s highest honor, the George Lindsay medal of Eschatology, on my rawhide-clad breast.
“How did it all come about?” A reporter asked me.
“Well now, you’ve all read the book, seen the movie.” I demurred. But, seeing the desire to hear the story yet again, I relented and told how I came to make that particular doodle.
“I was sitting in my studio on the last day of a one week vacation from my job.” I began.
“Where did you work?” Another reporter asked.
“The Post Office.” I answered. Everyone made a gagging sound. “Anyway, I was trying to finish writing yet another of those books of mine that no one seems to care for, and I merely doodled a little doodle on the side of the page just to see if the ink was flowing properly in the pen and, well, you know what happened next.”
“Scientists came to look at the doodle.” The Secretary General took up the story as I seemed reluctant to continue. “And they immediately recognized it for what it was—the means by which we could eliminate the Vultranic Hornheads from our skies. Development of the doodle began, funded by all the schoolchildren of the world.”
“Why didn’t you ask for payment for the doodle?” The reporter from Fox News wanted to know.
“I figured the fame alone would insure that I wouldn’t have to work at the Post Office again.” I explained.
“What do you do now?”
I smiled and looked blankly out on their stupid faces.

TOADSGOBOAD

Cute Little Birds

Arrita Makes a Suggestion

An Intrusion

Learning the Script

Hooray for Potato Salad!

I Was All Too Conscious of the Rifle's Inadequacy

Thoughts in Isolation

A Pressing Need

Toadsgoboad Dreamt of Spies

Touchy Touchy

Where'd That Valise Come From?

A Wet Surprise

Hiding From Stan

Hippies Are Today's Topic

We Meet the Shaman

Into the Woods

Hippie Hideaway

Going to the Library

Jerry Lights A Fire Under Somebody's Ass

The Whole World Should Know the Truth

Selling Days

The Old Timer's Shoes

Doodlenose 12-2-10

Where is Doodlenose #4?

Doodlenose 11-29-10

Pensive Owl in the Land of Taters

Do You Smell It?

Into The Museum

Crafts Are Better Than TV

Washington Lesbian Camel

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