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 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.
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