In a message dated 6/2/04 5:02:09 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Nomad Slasher. An everyday story of Ambrosia.
(Please add to the story wherever you see fit, add your name at the
front and post it.)
"Man Bites Dog" 42-page book made of fur, teeth, skin and bones
Kathy Forer, Roger Stevens, Michael Leigh, Alan fffo, badgergirl,
Carol Starr, Suse, Allan R.,Madawg
The Story So Far.
Fourteen wolverines and one lap dog chase a badger. But the badger is
too fast and burrows beneath a paintbrush stuck in a stone. In the
burrow are mushrooms and grain. The badger makes a broth ambrosia of
the green grain and mushrooms and is soon asleep.
The badger is dreaming... In the dream there are no wolverines or lap
dogs because the badger was really awakened by the artist removing the
paintbrush from the stone to begin painting for the morning. Little
does the artist realize that the badger is in the burrow. Once the
badger (a strange name for a badger some would say) is reassured as to
its safety and breakfast is under way in the burrow; ambrosia of green
grain and mushrooms with the added delight of mini marshmallows!
The day is going well, but what was that strange sound? Thunder and a
police siren suddenly mix with satisfied snoring. The badger jumps
from his spot thinking his borough has imploded. When he hears the
rain on the stone above, he realizes electricity is still working,
washes his face and soon falls back deep asleep.
He dreams of sitting on a five bar gate in Shinaniki Da. It's 1932
and Tom Thumb, the Topsy Turvy talking automaton has just opened the
Cough Drop Shop in the village which badger can see from where he
sits. The Baked Potato Man wanders by trying to sell his wares. "Piping
hot King Edwards!" he shouts as he wafts the steam from his portable
oven perched precariously on one-legged wheel-barrow. "Juicy Jerseys
covered in ketchup!" Badger asks the Baked Potato Man if he has any
crispy potato peelings in batter. "No, but I have these fine Cheshire
New potatoes in gravy." He smiles, proffering the steamy morsel which
suddenly grows two eyes and leering mouth and cackles most horribly!
Hours later, Once the badger, is awakened by the noise of wood
against stone. It is night and the lap dog is yapping. The wolverines
have surrounded the stone and are chanting an incantation. The badger
doesn't breathe, not a whisker moves. Neither up nor down, although
suspense is acrostic. After a paws of several minutes the badger
quickly whips out his cross-stitched magic asbestos underpants and
pulls them on ferociously. Once flings open the serving hatch and
grabs the vial of sacred weasel water and makes a dot for the burrow
entrance and confronts the seething mass of writhing wolverines
squirming around the stone which is now glowing with a strange
phosphorescent throb!
1
It was a dense night. Stumble patterns and brave yapping set apart the
party of owl elves and gnome mimics writhed and chased and spurned
the undergrowth around the latest beige badger silting. In the brave
distance behoves the strange and incandescent foreshadows of
wolverines and greenish melon lights upon the substantial forest fare.
Young Zonograph, the tallest owl elf snuffed his warps harp and muttered
- I can hear a badger. The badger is in trouble. I scents wolverines.
Hurry there is no stone unready ton roll upturned in this
lackadaisical pre-momentary of the word fandango.
Meanwhile, or to be more precisereiouseless, high on hill stood a
lonely man with a goathead, his fixedinterestrate stare
directeddyboyhoodlesservilely at the burning black belching
smokestacks of the town beyond the wolverine woods. The sound of a
suddenly snuffeforadicalcified warps harp, brought memories back for
Ludwig Hat, erstwhile butler and badger baiterribleedinglendervish of
Vincent and Cara Van Hire.
Ludwig stood immobile, imshelle and intexacoe, for Ludwig had been
brained by falling groceries, dropped from almost a mile overhead and
one mile and eight inches over shoulder, a result of the splitting of
a cheap carrier pigeon on its way home. Forcing his gaze downward
Ludwig was horrified, not only had his part of the story not managed
to settle on a definite form, not only did it lack content but now to
his disgust he found that he had been rendereducededicateddyboyfriended
by a tangerine!!! He couldn't even get that right.
Ludwig crossed his eyes and dotted his teeth, relaxed and floated up,
through the roof of his own mouth. Long and complicated wordadditions,
he thought, canwearyoudownifyournot careful, and so he resolved to be
more carefulinfuture.
Win Cent the Magnificent and Cara, however, were seriously considering
calling Sister Meg and entering into the fray. Sister Meg O'Lomania
was after all acrostic champion Frigidaire and good at getting badgers
up and down and out of trees (and wolverines out of toasters for that
matter.) Lap dogs she had no time for as their batteries always seemed
to run out in the middle of a sent bottle of enormous pulchritude.
His eyes dilated and shuffled in the moonlight, his breathe came in
short pants, his coughs in a skirt and his trousers rolled up like
Venetian blinds caught in a mighty Wurlitzer.
Mrs. Shufflefang caught sight of herself in a nearby polished knob of
a Milkman's portable pelmet crusher and she winced inwardly, tossing
back a mane of flaxen hair that was tied in a bun and covered in
currants. The badgers, for now there were five, all grabbed the reins
of the milkman's horse and whipped it into a gallop and then into a
small tea shop where it scattered several old ladies and a troupe of
dwarves on an outing.
Suddenly, Pequot Marmaduck threw a crumpet at Sister Meg. It caught
her with a ping in the Frigidaire and she fainted straight away,
smashing the paw of the lap dog who was dreaming of heaven-sent
chumlaka. Cara sprinkled Sister Meg and the lap dog each with half a
gram of lemon juice. Meg cried out, "Get me a toasted pineapple!" The
dog sniffed the crumpet.
Ludwig had fallen onto the milk cart and the badgers were busy
cleaning the splashes from each other when seven wolverines slunk by
and whistled an old tune from the dark days when weasels were weasels
and fourpence was worth three and a half cents. The badgers had been
mistaken for minks! Finally, they could answer Young Zonograph's call
and they set out toward the southern phosphorescence, towing Mrs.
Shufflegang who had the fixedinterestrate card for gas and carrots for
the hybrid horse and roasted beast for themselves.
2
"What's all this, then?" Uncle Walt awoke with a tart. "Once?" he
yelled. "Where is that pesky badger?" Carefully smearing the remains
of his last bottle of bright orange nail varnish into his hair, he
feebly crawled out of the hole. Lulu, meanwhile, disappeared into a
cravat.
"There's wild weasels in there, I tells ya. I don't want to go to the
steak house no more!" Several of the badgers loitering around the
enormous bonfire giggled loudly. Once kept his head down. Uncle Walt
in this mood... best keep out of his way. A wolverine, hiding in a
nearby double-decker laundry basket chuckled quietly to himself. He
had a variety of chuckles but preferred the quietly one. Wait till I
tell the others, he thought to himself.
3
Later that same day, 3,000 red-headed women converged on the small
appliance department at St Macy's, home to the partridge of man's
desire and woman's loathing. There was a sale, you see. Yousee left
the apartment in a shambles. Tucking it under her badger, she moved
the entire affair slightly to the south of Turkey. "What's all this
then?!" shouted Blarney the turkey buzzard. "This doesn't look like a
chestnut to me, it looks more like a shrunken head from the
Ooompungokoonoo Indians of Skull Island!"
"It's the one I've been looking for," screamed the turkey buzzard as
if pole-axed, "For nearly 300 years our family have searched the seven
seas and thirteen ponds of Umpklah to find the sacred shrunken head of
Saatchi the Flame God - I can't believe you had it under your badger
all this time!"
"Neither can I," said Blarney with a withering smile. He had other
smiles but the withering one was his favourite.
As they sat contemplating this new find a strange and eerie noise
assailed their ears, Blarney decided to look within his badger for
Turkey basting apparatus. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Blarney, the
Ooompungokoonoo Indians of Skull Island were busy making plans of
their own. Lulu crawled out of the cravat and prepared breakfast for
Uncle Walt. All of this activity occurring elsewhere soon caused poor
Blarney to tire. He decided to take a nap...
A strange dream percolated through his brainbox, flickering like one
of Logi Bairds firsts contraptions and fizzed horribly. Pop! A
balloonish elf in purple jodhpurs and cravat exploded overhead and a
rain of tiny elf clones came giggling down. The wardrobe was moving
mysteriously and shape shiftingly. It threw open its flappy doors
like the jowls of a huge dog. Dribble flew out like moldy tapioca and
caught Blarney full in the mush. On cue, from within the fleshy wardrobe
- troupes of badgers, weasels, stoats and wolverines came marching out
all with guns over their shoulders and wearing smart uniforms and
regalia usually worn by the Grenadiers and Irish Fusiliers. Trumpets and
bugles blared the Smurfs Marching Song and a fairy orchestra on a
revolving dinner plate came whirring about Blarneys astonished head like
a tiny Frisbee. With all the din he hadn't realised his lower half was
sinking slowly into some custard-like stuff that oozed from the ground
about his knees. "Cripes!" he yelped, as the custard rose higher and his
knees sank lower...
4
"What's all this, then?" Uncle Walt awoke with a tart. "Once?" he
yelled. "Where is that pesky badger?" Carefully smearing the remains
of his last bottle of bright orange nail varnish into his hair, he
feebly crawled out of the hole. Lulu, the tart, looked at him
disparagingly. She had other looks but disparaging was her favourite.
"You've been re-living the past again, as though it was happening all
over again," she said.
"Damn," Uncle Walt drawled. Where's that badger, Once?"
"I'm here," Once answered through the TemporalTimeGate (tm)
"If I've told you once, Once," Walt said, "I've told you..."
There was an almighty noise, a screech, a smidgeon, a thumpyclumpybumpy
existential, serious and yet soft-stockinet kind of stony
paintbrush-beset-by-wolverines kind of noise. Uncle Walt pulled his
voluminous cravat tighter and pulled his i-TimeDisplacer (tm) from the
folds of his thigh-fur. He punched in Zonograph, the owl-elf's number.
>From deep within Lulu giggled.
5
Ludwig, the erstwhile butler and badger baiterribleedinglendervish of
Vincent and Cara Van Hire, still wearing his magic asbestos
underpants, awoke with three tarts and asked himself:
"What is the nature of the information that I am gaining? Is my
construction of history becoming detrimental?"
Whereupon he spontenantaliasly blurterupterucusurburped the following
ditty:
"Let Badger be and Wolverine
Escape to one of many oceans
In waterwheels of aquamarine
Let them play in scattered notions
Let them see and let them pray
And drink in corresponding potions
While moon and stars circulate"
"Tea and crumpets anyone," Once said.
6
Uncle Walt drawled, "There's wild weasels in there, I tells ya. I
don't want to go to the steak house no more!" For nearly 300 years our
family have searched the seven seas and the tallest owl elf snuffed
his warps harp. The badgers, for now there were five, all grabbed the
reins of the milkman's horse, Monarch.
Blarney decided to look within her badger for Turkey basting
apparatus. She had other looks but disparaging was her favourite.
There was a sale, you see. Tucking it under her badger, she moved the
entire affair slightly to the south. Ludwig had fallen onto the milk
cart. Monarch looked back with resignation. This was not the first time
that Ludwig had done this and Uncle Walt suspected that it would also
not be the last. Blarney, oblivious to these goings on, looked ever
deeper within his badger. He was having trouble deciding upon his
gender. Such inconsistencies, he often thought, gave historians a bad
name. Meanwhile, back at the farm Sir Monte Garghoul was bathing his pet
kebab, Stanley, in the butler's sink and whistling an old Hungarian
folk ditty through his cracked and yellow stained teeth. Taking the
loofer in his gnarled old aristocratic hands he splashed the milky suds
over the draining board and half the kitchen shouting, "Avast me
hearties! Away the scussocks! Ahahahhh!" Whilst the scullery maid Gladys
cowered beneath the pile of broken plates and old rhubarb stalks under
the butler's Vespa that was half dismantled on the roughly hewn kitchen
table.
Yep, there were weasels in them thar hills, no dyspepsia about that.
They musta weaseled their baptuschkas while the rain was not cooking.
And now all mighty and small had to deal with Uncle Walt's carnivorous
laments, his curmudgenlyrumblings, his fittin' and his fartin'. He
warblelywailed ; "Lulu! Can't we have peace for Once?" But Lulu didn't
answer. "Lulu!" he yelled again. No reply. He shook the cravat crazily.
No Lulu appeared. Where was she? She had never deserted a cravat before,
he knew.
7
At the watering hole, Meg and Later, the lap dog, now fast friends, were
busy sipping distilled nepenthe and making ambrosia in anticipation of
Once's upending arrival: green grain, mushrooms, flour, tangerine, mini
marshmallows, lemon juice, ketchup, melon, milk, chestnuts, toasted
pineapple and rhubarb. Served on heaping mended platters of tarts,
crumpets, crispy potato peelings, carrots and refried custard.
"I'll just pop to the deli," Later woofed. "I think the mixture needs a
tad more marrow jelly.
With Later gone, Meg found her mind drifting back to pleasanter days. A
voice jarred her from her wistful meanderings.
"Who are you?" she stuttered and took a step backward from the demonic
figure clutching the potato masher.
"You may call me Lulu," the figure said. But history will know me by a
different name. She raised the masher menacingly.
"No. no. no."
Lulu chuckled. "I know what you are thinking," she said. "There's never
a wolverine around when you want one.
Just then a bizaare looking creature appeared. Some strange mixture of badger and wolverine; menacing,yet a cuddly creature. It was holding the masher and staggering-the sickeningly sweet smell of ambrosia on its breath. Lulu (who's real name is Granita) screamed,"Put it down put it down you wadger or bolverine, whatever you are!"
