Dirk Destroyer Part 25 Chapter 11 Annex Part 2

If you’re just joining, this is a serialization of the satire novella Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. Dirk Destroyer is the third book in the Genre Series, the first two being Trouble in Taos,

and Volition Man.

And you’re also joining in the middle of a chapter. Elmer, (Dirk’s less destructive brother,) while trapped in a cave guarded by sheep has blown it with the delightful though confusing Ono. In searching for a solution to his dilemma in the school of amazing stuff, he has encountered a spigot spewing small sausages.

A considerable number of presumably non-excrement flavored little smoky sausages had by this time poured from the spigot, without a single one landing in the bucket directly below.

Could this be the answer to my problem? I imagined myself approaching Ono.

“Hi Ono, I still haven’t figured out how we can get out of this mess, but would you like a sausage? It doesn’t appear to be at all excrement flavored.”

I was reasonably confident that this was not the answer to my problem. It was however, something edible and edible would be appreciated by the non-dirt-sucking members of my traveling party. I opened my fanny pack and saw that it was almost completely full of cigars. Ordinarily, that would be a good thing, but in the present situation, I required a conveyance other than my hands. I pulled out a handful of cigars and put them on a nearby shelf, then stuffed my fanny pack with as many sausages as would fit.

I reversed the knob, and the sausages ceased to flow from the spigot, the last one finally falling in the bucket.

Realizing that the bucket would make a more convenient conveyance, I tried filling it with sausages, but in spite of my efforts and the spaciousness of the bucket, only the one remained inside. I decided I would use the bucket as a scoop, but I couldn’t budge it.

“Are these the actions of a desperately insecure man?” I asked myself. “No, they are not.” I forgot about the bucket, and the cigars left on the shelf, closed my eyes and blundered forward.

After marking a number of counters, tables, and lunch trays with my blood and other seeping bio-fluids, I blundered out of the cafeteria and ran blindly into unknown zones of fewer obstacles. My progress was stopped by a shin-high obstacle that was less painful than the many others I had encountered. My momentum projected me downwards onto an unexpectedly soft surface.

I opened my eyes. I was face-down on a cot. There was a second cot across the room, and a scalpel along with a plentiful supply of cotton balls on a wheeled table. I was either in the school’s nurse’s office, or its taxidermy lab.

There were several dials, knobs and levers about, but none of them seemed to be labeled. One dial caught my eye. It was more elevated than the others and it was encased in glass and metal.

“That will be impossible to open,” I said to myself. I braced my feet against the wall, grabbed the case, and pulled for all I was worth.

“I guess not,” I said as the case opened easily and my momentum crashed me headfirst onto the floor.

Like all the other dials in the room, the encased one was unlabeled, but the case, said to me – in a voice that sounded like my old next door neighbor growing up, ‘don’t turn this dial. This sucker is really dangerous. Just stay away.’

Or maybe I hallucinated that.

Above the dial was a cartoon drawn with the skill and precision usually found among middle-schoolers suffering from illness and bored out of their minds. The cartoon depicted a person, or a person-shaped cloud. Inside the chest of the person, or the stuff of the cloud, was a heart shape, broken in two.

Was that me? Was I a heartbroken cloud? Who could tell, but I was desperately insecure, so I turned the dial.

I was back in the entryway. This was unexpected. What just happened? What did the dial do? What were the implications of me turning it? How many questions in a row could I ask of an empty entryway?

Four, apparently.

I now perceived the second great flaw of my earlier close-my-eyes-and-run-into-everything-search-technique.

I had no idea where I had been. But couldn’t I just follow the trail of blood I’d left behind as I stumbled through the school? I inspected my body

I was unmarked. My clothes were not torn either.

I could see the cafeteria from where I was, so I entered and looked for my trail of blood on counters and tables.

No blood, mucus, or personal slime. I went into the kitchen. There was no pile of smoky, non-excrement flavored sausages on the floor, though there was still one in the bucket. My cigars, however, were on the shelf.

Had the custodian cleaned the kitchen already? If so, he was one efficient custodian. What did I expect in the school of amazing stuff? I reached into the bucket for the remaining sausage. It was a more painful experience than I anticipated from a nearly empty bucket. In spite of my hand visibly grasping the sausage, the sausage didn’t move as I pulled it out.

In my hand was a fish stick. Maybe it was chicken; I didn’t check. I threw it at a corner of the kitchen, but it disappeared in mid-air.

This was just too complicated for me to figure out, so I tried to think of the explanation that suited my purposes the best.

Then I gave up – no explanation that suited me best came to mind.

I stumbled with my eyes open, but still bouncing off counters, tables, walls and doorways until I found myself back in the nurse’s office. I looked at the dial and the broken heart cartoon. What does the guy with the broken heart want the most?

A second chance. If this was the dial of second chances, it could take me back in time. I could say something else to Ono – something more optimistic with maybe the cadence of a calypso beat.

Well, maybe not the calypso beat, but I could definitely handle the situation better if I had a second chance.

I decided to test my theory. I turned the dial about half as far as I had the first time.

My eyes were closed and I was falling. Thankfully, it was onto the nurse’s cot.

I stood up and planted my feet shoulder length apart. I raised my hands into the air and shouted out into the ether. “Do you see this all you desperately insecure guys who’ve blown it with the women they desire? Do you see this dial? Here it is: the dial of second chances and it’s not in the custodian closet like we all figured it to be, but right here – where people go for healing. Your second chance is right here in the nurse’s office!!”

I shouted the last couple lines so loud that I could see the exclamation points hanging in the air.

Then I just felt kind of stupid. Who did I think I was talking to?

I turned the dial in what I hoped was the right amount, and as luck would have it, I found myself at the beginning of the increasingly interminable chapter 11.

I feel like I should make an exclamation like, “what an unexpected turn of events!” As I wrote this story, that seems a bit ingenuous. Instead I’ll say – please buy Trouble in Taos and Volition Man, and visit this page next week to see what becomes of Elmer’s redux.

And now, for no particular reason, this is a sampling of the finest comedy available a hundred years ago.

 Dirk Destroyer Part 11 Chapter 5 Part 2

This is the middle of a chapter that is about a quarter of the way through a novel that became obsolete before it could be published because Donald Trump is not mentioned.

For those of you still reading - my apologies.

“You’ve heard of Jonma.” said Akwar, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Necromancy,” I said. “You find a Same, and the Same channels the thoughts of a dead person. But the Same retains his or her personality and thoughts; you’re never really sure when a Same is telling the truth. Even if you’ve dug up old Uriculous from his hellish vapors, that’s a pretty unreliable way of running your ministry. That’s why people don’t use Jonma much anymore.”

“That would be true,” said Akwar, who was suddenly no longer behind me, but standing in front of a door at the end of the hall, “if we used a Same.” She opened the door into a laboratory. Wires, tubes, and busy photons festooned the lab-like furnishings. Facing the door was a round-faced little man with a blank expression. Three clear tubes sprang out of his largely bald head. Each tube had a different color liquid running through it, blue and red liquids flowed in, brown sludgy liquid flowed out.

Suddenly, the face animated. The unfamiliar features took on a familiar expression. I shook my head in unbelief. “You found a Claim?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said Akwar. “Meet our Jonma Claim, but you may call him Director of MOIST, High Priest of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas, Uriculous the Great!”

“Hello Elmer,” said Jonma Claim with just a hint of a lisp. “I’m happy you’ll be here for the end.”

“The end of what?” I asked, stupidly.

“The end,” said the Jonma, but before he could complete his sentence his face spasmed. A second expression, you might see on a frequently angry person of low intellect momentarily took over the visage.

“Too shmuch money in shpoliticsch!” he sputtered, throwing a gob of spittle onto Lustavious’ bandage. “No sHouse or Shenate member can do sche right shing with sho musch temptaschion!”

“One moment,” said Akwar, adjusting tubes. “Even a Claim sometimes fights back.”

Claims were people of sub-human intelligence. I wasn’t surprised that the Claim said something political; that’s where they were most often found.

Uriculous’ expression reclaimed Jonma Claim, though his eyes looked a little wild, like he’d just been thrown from horse he’d been told was safe and now found himself back in the saddle.

“Don’t think my little… interruptions are going to save you and your Brother, Elmer,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of time to realize my mistake. Now I have a chance to remove the Destroyer curse forever, and in Light Bringer Lustavious Brachenhun, I have just the tool to do it.”

Brachenhun smiled his wide smile. Some people enjoy being called a tool.

“The problem all along,” said Jonma Claim, “was you.”

“Me? I don’t make any trouble.”

“You bring your brother back,” Uriculous’ host sputtered, reliably finding Lustavious’ bandage once again.

“I don’t do a thing!” I protested. “I have no idea how Light Bringers send Dirk into oblivion, or how he comes back. Most of the time I don’t even know he’s back until I run into another Light Bringer.”

“That’s true,” said Jonma Claim. “You are stupid…” Again the Jonma Claim’s face sputtered and spasmed. “Schtupid, I say! I hardly knew Charles Keeting! We shared an elevator once – that’sch it! I didn’t take any money! I didn’t fall into temptation!” This was followed by a screeching caterwaul punctuated by intermittent hisses. It sounded like two cats were fighting inside the Jonma Claim. Akwar was busy working tubes. Lustavious was trying to remove spittle from his bandage using glass cleaner and a rag.

Jonma Claims are, by definition, among the stupidest humanoids that walk upright. There was only one reason that Uriculous’ ghost was having trouble controlling his Jonma Claim – it was that he wasn’t too bright either.

This came as no shock to me. I knew Uriculous Wisehind. Dirk used to torment the man mercilessly, and Uriculous’ only response was the use of governmental power. When people are too stupid to think for themselves, they gravitate to large punitive collectives like government to make them feel smart and relevant. Maybe Akwar and Lustavious were those kind of people as well, because I was the only person in that room that seemed to be comfortable with the empirical evidence that Uriculous the Great was actually Uriculous the Dim.

Who else would retranslate a whimsical “don’t bugger the sheep,” into a planet ruining, “don’t bug the sheep?”

“The transplant is incomplete,” said the restored Uriculous as if he knew what I was thinking. “Millennia of death spread my consciousness across the planet. Soon, I will be complete, and in complete control of this body. Then I will go with you and the Light Bringer’s party myself and make certain that this time – not only will Dirk Destroyer be cast into oblivion for all time… but you will be as well!”

Maybe I was as dim as Uriculous, but I hadn’t seen it coming. All this time doing everything I could to stay out of trouble and now I was to be cursed with eternal oblivion?

And what about Dirk? If I was the reason he was able to return from his torment, was it fair to take that away? Dirk wasn’t a bad guy. He was kind of fun. Sure, he didn’t have a lot of respect for Uriculous and others who abused power, but that didn’t seem to be a crime worthy of eternal oblivion.

Oh no, trouble for our protagonist! ‘Oh no,’ said my publisher, ‘it took you this long to create trouble for your protagonist!’ So much of life is perspective. What’s that? You don’t see it that way?

Now that we’ve introduced our first true character-caricature of an active politician, they’ll start coming faster. If you’re having trouble identifying these ne’er-do-wells, you can email me at gfreads@yahoo.com, or you can start a group to read the excerpts together and discuss it among yourselves.

Then your friends can buy Trouble in Taos link and Volition Man link.

What? You thought I didn’t like money?

And now, a political spot from Mr. Bean.

Poopie Political Poopieheads!

It has come to this...

You see, I wrote a political satire novella for my genre series. I wrote it in 2013, and polished it up nicely last year, ready for a launch for the holidays - I even listed it as published in a collection of short stories I wrote.

The nabobs at Go Figure Reads dragged their heels (drugged the heels? drugs that heal? eels on drugs?)

and now, close to a year later, it's still not anywhere near publication.

The thing about political satire is that it's a lot like guacamole; it doesn't get better when it sits around. The politicians have been doing their utmost to satirize themselves over the last year, and a few of my key figures have become less relevant.

I blame congress.

(That's always a safe bet.)

The upshot is that the earning prospect for stale satire is no longer worth the eleven dollars and twenty-three cents that Go Figure Reads spends prepping a story for e-book.

Poop!

I've come to two conclusions.

One: I'm staying out of politics. They not only rot, but their stories rot, and that just... rots!

Two: I'm far too lazy to let all the work I put in this story languish on the Island of misfit novellas, so... I'm going to bore you with it. This should effectively cut my loyal readership down to Uncle Humbolt, who has nothing else to do with his time for the remainder of his sentence in the home for the criminally tedious.

But, in an effort to inconvenience one or two other readers, I will alternate between the serialization of my irrelevant novella, and my ordinary irrelevancies.

What does that mean?

I'm not sure, but I think it means you'll find excerpts from the satire on Fridays and on Tuesdays you'll see stuff about penguins wearing party hats and crap like that.

So, starting on Friday and for several tedious Fridays to come, look for a complete unproofed (but not unpoopie) serialization of... Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother, Book Three in Cataclismically Unprofitable Genre Series - The Political Satire!

Oh, and sorry in advance.

As a matter of fact, I feel so bad about it, that I'll make the first two books in the series Trouble in Taos Trouble inTaos, and Volition man Volition Man free for e-book download on Amazon September 30th and October 1rst.

What do you mean that makes it worse?

And now for a completely unrelated video.

To Russia with Love

Kac va pazhivaiitya?

That’s the only Russian phrase I know, and I’m betting that if a true Russian speaker heard me saying it – he’d say I really don’t know that phrase either.

What’s it mean?

What? I have to know what I’m saying? I usually don’t what I’m saying when I’m speaking English; why should Russian be any different?

The reason for this display of Eurasian erudition (You like that phrase? I got it from Stanley McFarland.) is that for some reason nobody here can figure out, Just Plain Stupid has become (at least temporarily,) popular in Russia. It’s almost enough to make me move. Do they make a borscht Pop Tart?

So at the risk of losing audience (which I do with just about every post,) I thought I might explore possible reasons this blog is getting attention from the land of Czars, Commissars, and Vodka bars.

1) The winters are long. I know it’s not a reason that makes any sense, but any time I hear anything about Russia, I hear that the winters are long.

Why did the Russians beat Napoleon? The winters are long. Why do the Russians wear fur hats? The winters are long. Why do the Russians like potato products? The winters are long. Why did the Russians elect Boris Yeltzin? The winters are long. I figure Just Plain Stupid must fit in with the whole long winter thing.

2) It takes people’s minds off of… best not to go there. Let’s face it, I don’t know a thing about what people in Russia want to get their minds off of . I don’t even know what I’m trying to get my mind off of. I used to know, but I forget what it was, so that must mean this blog is good for that – or that I have a poor attention span.

What number are we up to? Oh yeah -

3) Kremlin domes. (The domes have a point – so there’s no reason I need one.)

4) The ghost of Feodor Dostoyevsky endorsed the reading of Just Plain Stupid as a way of sharing the suffering of that guy in Crime and Punishment who killed his landlady.

5) I have never ONCE made fun of people dancing while sitting down… until now.

6) The sound of my blog being read aloud makes potatoes grow .0032% faster (though with more eyes for some reason.)

7) I faithfully (and uselessly) leave two spaces at the end of each sentence! Of course Blogger auto-corrects most of them, and I don’t even know if Russians like that – but I thought I’d mention it.

8) Word got out that people in France were reading it.

9) The Orthodox church has not yet condemned this blog. (Or heard of it.)

10) The people of Russia miss the comic stylings of… what’s his face – you know that Russian comedian guy that used to say, “what a country!” all the time. Just Plain Stupid makes as little sense as that guy used to.

So – to the people of Russia, here’s a BIG THANK YOU for wasting your time reading my blog posts.

Now go waste your money buying my books,Trouble in Taos and Volition Man

Here's an old routine of Whats-his-face.

Worst Poem Ever

Not for the first time, I got to Wednesday night without a finished bit for my Thursday morning blog post.

I bought a Power Ball ticket.

No dice.

I thought about faking my death, but my unlicensed legal adviser told me that if I did and sold even one extra copy of Trouble in Taos

 or Volition Man

that I could be sued for fraud unless I was willing to actually…die.

“But how would anyone know if I sold one extra copy?”

My ULA (unlicensed legal adviser) gave me one of those looks lawyers (licensed or not) give you. “In your case,” she said, “that would be one copy… period.”

“Nope – not worth it,” I said.

“Too bad,” said my unlicensed legal adviser.

ULA’s can be mean.

Not surprisingly, other writers offered to come to my rescue offering stuff they would never get accepted by a legitimate publisher – figuring the only way it’ll ever see the light of day is on this blog. For the xx^th time, Stanley McFarland offered me his poem, Garumplefink.

“Haven’t I already posted this?” I asked.

“No, but you've turned it down several times.”

“Why do you think I've turned it down?” I asked Stan. (He hates it when I call him Stan instead of Stanley. Actually, I think he secretly hopes people will think he’s Stan Lee and give him credit for his favorite superhero Thor, whom he resembles…

 in no way what-so-ever.)

Stanley looked puzzled for a moment, and then said – “Because it’s too funny?”

“Right,”

After giving Stanley the mistaken impression I was considering posting his ‘too funny’ poem, Garumplefink, I started looking through a folder of unpublished poems he left with me, and found… The Worst Poem EVER!

I don’t think Stanley thinks it’s funny, but I do. I’ll skip the boring parts along with the title and get to the good stuff.

Every person is a sculpture

We begin roughly formed, and raw

We are shaped by sharp edges and blows

And pain

There’s a knee-slapper – at least it will have to serve as one because, as I said, it’s late Wednesday night and other than Stanley’s Garumplefink – I’ve got nothing.

At least I can assure you that I won’t even consider subjecting you to Garumplefink…

Until the next Wednesday night I’ve got nothing…

And Power Ball craps out…

And my ULA nixes everything else I think up.

And now - the news

Volition Man Chapter L the Conclusion

So this is the last installment of the dream sequence of Volition Man (available HERE.) If you want to see the first three installments you will find them here, here2 and here3.

Our hero, Dirgan Voleman has been dreaming. Inexplicably, (because I can’t stand explicing myself,) he is dreaming from the perspective of a Little Miss Muffet-type girl, and 25 dairy cows. Also inexplicably (for continuities sake,) he encounters his geriatric arch enemy, Eschi Evelite.

Volition Man Chapter L Part 4

(or IV if you’re classy... or a Super Bowl fan)

“You see,” said the spider, “my name is Eschi Evelite. We haven’t met formally, and I thought you should know that I am the cause of much of the trouble that is going on in Pollyville.”

Dirgan the little girl offered Eschi the spider some curds and whey.

“Thank you, no,” said the spider.

Dirgan the little girl didn't blame the spider, but still couldn't keep him-her-self from eating the chunky milk.

“I destroyed Detroit,” said Eschi the spider, “and I’m here to do the same to Pollyville. My accomplices are Whynter Yearghn, the Kool-Aid Guy who likes to be called Cyclothunderer, and Really Bad Guy, who just got cut from the Oakland Raiders practice squad and will be returning to Pollyville shortly.”

Dirgan the little girl nodded politely. Dirgan the… (well, let’s just say Dirgan seven) was disgusted with how insipidly stupid Dirgan the little girl seemed to be. It (she-he) decided to scratch a note to warn it themhimherself(selves) in the dirt with it’s/her/his hoof.

But cows can’t write. Dirgan seven mooed again, which caused Dirgan the first cow from the left, who was now, though not formerly, adjacent to Dirgan seven to kick it/her(him). Dirgan the formerly second but now third cow from the left (similarly repositioned relative to Dirgan seven) plopped a cow patty on (its)his/her hoof.

Dirgan seven didn't enjoy the kick, but found the cow patty warm and pleasant.

“Maybe,” said the spider, apparently ignoring the bovine interplay, “I could just kill you now in this stupid dream and not have to bother with you when some of us wake up.”

Dirgan the little girl knew this sounded very naughty. Dirgan seven tried to maneuver around so that (she)it(he) could kick the spider and save Dirgan the little girl. Unfortunately there were twenty-four other bovine Dirgans in her(its)his way, and they all appeared to be too stupid to understand what was going on.

Fortunately Dirgan the little girl didn't need Dirgan seven to save HhEiRm. A marionette with a cricket on its shoulder came down beside the spider. The marionette had the face of Granyard “Toast” Putter. The spider ate the head off the cricket and ambled off.

“I thure am glad,” said Dirgan the little girl with her annoying little girl lisp, “that you thaved me from the naughty thpider.”

Only Dirgan theven – er, seven – looked up the strings of the marionette to see a laughing ghost pulling those strings.

“This is really important,” said Dirgan seven to it, him, her self. “I have to remember this dream!” Dirgan seven concentrated with all the intellect afforded to dream cows to bring the details of the dream to the awakened Dirgan when he woke.

A few hours later, Dirgan awoke. For some reason that he couldn't explain, he started mooing urgently. He did this for several seconds.

And then he stopped.

“That’s odd,” said Dirgan to nobody in particular.

And that leads us to Chapter M which you will need to download Volition Man to see, cause… I guess you don’t need to download Volition Man – but I need the money, so that’s almost as important.

As I've done with the first three installments – here’s a (considerably older,) Bill Cosby telling a story.

Volition Man Chap L Part Two – Dirgan’s Dream

Volition Man (available here) is the second book in my Genre Series. I’ve been told by a friend and fellow writer that it doesn’t completely suck.

Well – what more do you need to know?

This is the second installment of Chapter L. If you want to start from the beginning, the first installment is here.

Chapter L Part Two

Dirgan fell asleep.

There wasn’t much happening for a while after that. Then Dirgan’s eyeballs started moving rapidly. Inside Dirgan’s brain, synapses fired and the similitude of music formed in his head. The music sounded something like Turkey in the Straw. Dirgan’s mouth grimaced; he didn’t like that tune. The music changed to the theme song from All in the Family. That was better. Images began forming in Dirgan’s unconscious mind. Spon Ghi, dressed in tuxedo and clown shoes, appeared on an old vaudeville-type stage.

“Welcome to Dirgan Voleman’s dream,” said Spon Ghi in a voice Dirgan had never heard him use before. It was an enthusiastic voice, like you might imagine a game show host would use… in Calcutta. “Our dream tonight is brought to you by Pepsi, the cola you have to buy if you don’t like Coke.”

“Pepsi,” murmured Dirgan’s sleeping lips.

“Also by,” said Spon Ghi, “Jack’s Magical Beans! Don’t have a cow, Man, get Jack’s Magical Beans.”

“The magical fruit,” murmured Dirgan’s lips.

Dagmar appeared on the stage with a giant cartoon hammer with which she flattened Spon Ghi in one great, fluid-filled splat. As she pulled the hammer up, Spon Ghi unfolded like an accordion, soaking up his bodily fluids as his figure rose. Dagmar and Spon Ghi repeated the process half a dozen times to raucous laughter from an audience that appeared suddenly around Dirgan. There was also a bag of popcorn in Dirgan’s hand.

“Popcorn,” murmured Dirgan.

A giant hook appeared from off-stage pulling Spon Ghi and Dagmar off stage. Apparently it pulled Dirgan, too, because suddenly he was in a space ship. He was flying near a Swiss cheese moon. A dish and a spoon were seated behind him.

“Step on it, Man,” said the spoon. “They’re gaining on us.”

The dish next to him just blushed. In the rearview mirror, a cat and a laughing dog were in a sleigh pulled by assorted dishes and cutlery. The cat was whipping on the utensils with a violin bow.

Dirgan looked around for the cow. There had to be a cow in a scene like this.

Suddenly there were lots of cows, and Dirgan seemed to be one of them. No, he was all of them. Dirgan felt the grass through a hundred cloven hooves, the digestive juices of twenty-five, four-compartmented, stomachs, and the yearning of twenty-five udders, with four teats each, needing to be milked.

But there was something else, and it made Dirgan a little dizzy. Not only was he twenty-five cows, but he was also a little girl sitting on a soft bag of wool and straw and spooning curdled milk into his (her) mouth.

“Blecchk!” Dirgan murmured in his sleep.

Sorry about leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth. Who knows what indignities await our hero? Come back Monday for part 3!

Last time I gave you a completely unrelated video by Bill Cosby. I might as well make it a trend.

Volition Man Chapter L Dirgan Falls Asleep

“So, Headley, you lazy leech, what are you doing other than munching on Pop Tarts you didn’t even buy?”

I love all the heartening responses I get to this blog – especially when I have a guest blogger. For the last two weeks (and for weeks to come,) Walter Bego and I have been pouring over the rough draft of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother – Book Three in the Genre Series (the Satire)(due 2015.)

How’s it going? you ask (at least if you’re polite.) Walter said about the manuscript, and I quote, “it’s more exciting than C-Span, more attractive than Henry Waxman,

and almost as comfortable as a roll-away bed.”

From Walter, that’s high praise.

So while we work on Dirk, I’ll serialize one of my favorite chapters from Volition Man, Willful Protector of Pollyville and Surrounding Towns – Book Two in the Genre Series (The Superhero Story) (available HERE!)

Chapter L

Mooooo!

“Good night,” said Dirgan, giving Dagmar her obligatory peck on the cheek.

“Good night,” said Dagmar. “Sweet dreams.”

The gray-primer-colored ’87 Plymouth Reliant sat in Dagmar’s driveway. Slime Monster emerged from a storm drain while Dirgan parked it. Dirgan explained that the car wasn’t his; it belonged to Plowboy, and Plowboy wouldn’t like to have his car eaten. Slime Monster made a noise that sounded like wipers scraping on a dry windshield. Dirgan didn’t know if that meant yes, no, or “what a tasty car,” but three hours of indigestible food and an unsatisfying board game later, Plowboy’s vehicle was still there.

Dirgan babied the dying clutch of the Reliant back to his home. He parked next to the pile of birdseed.

Dirgan’s house was small and drab, though it had an exceptionally clean rug thanks to the Bezo that stood triumphantly in the corner of his kitchen. Dirgan stared at the plastic, all-purpose, home-cleaning machine and saw it as if for the first time. It really was just a Hoover with a different label on it.

Dirgan got undressed and into bed, thinking about how his life was changing. Plowboy was a nice guy, but did Dirgan really want to mow lawns for a living? Frank Svengoldsenson was a lying cheat, but where else in Pollyville would Dirgan find such a motivational jump-start?

Then there was Dagmar, the thing in his life that didn’t change, even though he wanted it to. Was she really happy with him as a boyfriend? She didn’t look happy. She’d spent much of the evening telling him how much she hated mimes; what was that all about? Maybe it had to do with the mask. Dagmar told him that she found a mask a lot like his. This one had some glitter on it and part of a sticker that looked like a horse’s rear end.

It was a nice thought for her to find it for him. She was a nice enough girlfriend. Too bad that Dirgan didn’t like her very much. Did you really have to like your girlfriend?

What was it she wished him, sweet dreams? Well, that was something Dirgan didn’t have to worry about. He never dreamed. Dirgan once heard a psychologist say that everybody dreams; some people just don’t remember them. Dirgan couldn’t even remember forgetting a dream.

No, he wasn’t a dreamer.

Dirgan rolled over onto his side and stared at the wall. Sleep would come in any minute, any second now…

He rolled over on his other side. Was this the side he slept on? Maybe it was on his back. Dirgan rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. There was a crack up there. Every night around this time he reminded himself that he needed to fix that crack. Maybe he should get up and fix it now.

No, that was stupid. It was time to sleep. Dirgan crossed his arms. He was pretty sure that was what put him to sleep.

He just lay there with his arms crossed.

Then he uncrossed them.

He crossed them with his hands on his elbows.

He crossed them with his hands tucked tight against his chest.

One hand tucked, one hand out.

He just lay there.

Or was that laid there?

“I’m not looking at the crack,” said Dirgan to no one.

“I’m just lying here… just about to sleep…

“This is stupid! I’m not about to fall asleep. I might as well get up and fix that crack!”

Dirgan fell asleep.

They tell me that writers should never have their characters fall asleep because… 

oh, am I disturbing you? I’ll try to be quiet.  On Thursday I'll post Dirgan’s dream (at least the first part of it.)

Here’s a completely unrelated but old favorite routine from a young Bill Cosby.