Dirk Destroyer Part 13 Chapter 6 Part 2

So if you’re reading this on the day I post it, I hope you’re Jewish, Kwanzan, Alaskan, or one of those other religions, otherwise you’re reading a blog called Just Plain Stupid on Christmas day. I’d say that’s pathetic, but I’m posting a blog called Just Plain Stupid on Christmas day, so I’m pretty sure that disqualifies me from judging others.

So here’s lucky Part 13 of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. We join our story in the middle of a conversation among the ‘fellowship of the bring’ concerning how to find Dirk Destroyer. Elmer Destroyer is speaking…

“And he likes smoking…”

“Look,” said Mage-e-not, “smoke!”

Though I was about to say smoking cigars, Mage-e-not was right, there was smoke rising beyond a hill to the north.

“So,” said Tease, “it is true. Enlightenment comes from the north.”

“Onward, Comrades,” sang Lustavious with so much gusto, that I found myself rushing towards the smoke as if great glory awaited me there. That didn’t make any sense, but even in my tightly restricted rational mind, I knew I could use a fire to light a cigar and preserve my small supply of matches.

The Jonma Claim’s stubby little legs couldn’t keep up, and the Jonma Carry picked him up, using his long grasshopper-like legs to catch up with the rest of us. Did he do that out of kindness, or was there a compulsion in the name, Carry?

If names influenced or coerced you to do things, were some of Dirk’s pranks really the fault of the ministry for naming him, Destroyer? And what did Elmer mean?

As I crested the hill, I saw a small-bodied man with a huge head sitting in front of fire. He had some meat on a spit. Where had he found a pig, or a cow out in these hills full of sheep? Then I saw the wooly carcass next to the fire.

“Stop!” shrieked the Jonma Claim. “Ith a monster!”

“Monster?” asked Ono. “Looks iddly to be a roar-rip-snap-gulp.”

“Lip Ton Tease,” commanded Jonma Claim. “Go and kill it immediately.”

“I cannot offer it violence without offense,” said the monk.

“Can’t you thee?” lisped Jonma Claim. “Ith a RunPol.”

Though I’d never met a RunPol, I had heard of them. No one was sure how many of them they were, but they always showed up whenever there was an election with heavy favorites, and ran a hopeless campaign against them. There were strange rumors about RunPols. Some said there was only one of them, but didn’t bother to explain why they showed up everywhere. Other’s said that RunPols never wanted to win elections, just to be a fly in ointment. In that sense, Dirk was a bit of a RunPol, so I was interested in meeting one.

And as Ono had said so eloquently, he looked too iddly to be a roar-rip-snap-gulp.

We approached cautiously. The smell of roasting meat was tantalizing. It made me consider giving up being an earthtarian. Mage-e-not was visibly drooling. The RunPol must have heard us approach because he turned around and smiled.

“Hello folks,” he said. “My name is RunPol, and I’m a candidate for High Priest of the ministry of Thirty-seven Really Good Ideas.”

“That’s shnot an elected office,” snarled Jonma Claim.

“Well it otta be,” said RunPol. “Look at the effect it has on everybody.”

“What’s the platform?” shrieked Swampy.

The monster smiled at the rat-bird. “I’m glad you asked me that. I wish our talking beasts could vote, but that’s not in my platform. My platform is to seek out and find the original intent of the Thirty-seven Really Good Ideas, and reform the organization from within.”

“Kill him!” roared Akwar. We all stood frozen until she disappeared again.

“Say,” I said, “you mind if I light my cigar in your fire?”

“Be my guest,” said the monster.

“Tell me, monster,” said Lip Ton Tease, “how many showers each day should a person be allowed to have?”

“Good question,” said RunPol, though it didn’t sound particularly good to me. “As long as that person owns or has legal access to the water, and his use of it does not deleteriously affect others, he should be able to have as many showers as he pleases.”

“And if the government owns the water?” asked Jonma Claim.

“Then we should be asking ourselves if there’s a good reason for the government to own water.”

I had to admit, as monsters went, I wasn’t finding RunPol too monstrous.

Then Jonma Claim saw the sheep carcass.

“Oh,” he cried. “The humanity!”

“No,” said RunPol, “it’s a sheep.”

“But the thirty-fifth idea!”

“I’m eating it, not bugging it.”

“It’s the same thing.”

RunPol leaned his large head over the carcass and paused. “I don’t hear it complaining.”

“Seeing as it’s not really bugging the sheep,” said Mage-e-not. “Do you think it would be all right if…”

“No!” screamed Jonma Claim.

“I don’t mind sharing,” said the monster. “There’s plenty.”

“Strike him down, Lip Ton Tease,” said Jonma Claim.

“He has offered no insult,” said Tease, careful to stay out of the stream of smoke coming from the fire.

“Lustavious,” said Jonma Claim. “Do something!”

“What?” said Lustavious. “He’s not the Destroyer. I can’t cast him into oblivion.”

“Do something,” Jonma Claim shrieked.

Lustavious shrugged his shoulders, held up one hand, and produced a short flame from his index finger.

“That’s pretty,” said the RunPol monster.

“Now we go,” said Jonma Claim.

“Yeah,” said Mage-e-not, still salivating. “I guess we showed him.”

“Come back tomorrow,” the monster called after us, “I’m creating campaign buttons out of parchment.”

That night we camped in a small wood and sat around our own fire discussing whose fault it was that we hadn’t packed any food except Jonma Carry who possessed a single bag of beans that looked beyond their prime. I ate from the earth as usual, and made some algae bars, but only Ono seemed to like them. Swampy must have found something edible because he crapped twice on Lustavious, the second time when the Light Bringer offered to join Ono at the stream for a bath.

“You know,” said Mage-e-not, “I could go back to the RunPol monster and ask…”

“No!” snapped Jonma Claim who never seemed to be happy about anything.

“Would you like to try an algae bar, Mage-e-not?” I offered for the second time.

“Maybe tomorrow,” the partially invisible wizard sighed. “I’m not quite that hungry yet.”

“Destroyer,” said Jonma Claim. “You take first watch.”

“What am I watching for?”

“Just watch!”

“All right.”

Here's a Christmas song I almost forgot.