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 Chapter L Part 3 – Dirgan Meets Eschi (sort of)

As you can see by the title, this is the third installment of Chapter L from Volition Man (available here.) You can read the first two installments here and here2, or if you’re linkaphobic, I’ll tell you.

Dirgan Voleman, a man with a superpower related to his relative motivational strength is having a dream. Following a series of telling personal images, he has landed on a dreamland dairy farm where he is simultaneously a herd of 25 dairy cows, and a little girl eating something disturbing.

Volition Man Chapter L (Part 3)

“Blecchk!” Dirgan murmured in his sleep.

Was this sanitary? It wasn’t milk he (she) was eating, or cheese, or even yogurt. Dirgan didn’t like yogurt, but at least that was food. This was curds and whey, or as Dirgan had called it back when he (she) was a little boy – chunky milk.

The worst part was that he (she) was enjoying it.

Dirgan, who at that moment was conscious of being the seventh cow from the left, looked up. It wasn’t a natural thing for a cow to do, maybe that’s why the other twenty-four Dirgan cows plus the Dirgan little girl missed it. Dirgan the seventh cow from the left noticed a large spindly creature lowering itself from a nearby tree. The creature had eight legs and the head of an old man. It was coming down right beside Dirgan the little girl. Dirgan the seventh cow from the left said, “Mooo!”

Dirgans one through six and eight through twenty-five looked over at Dirgan the seventh cow from the left and wondered, “What’s his (her) problem?” Dirgan the little girl thought, with an annoying little-girl lisp, “The cowth are rethtleth,” that is, until (he) she saw the huge spider.

That’s when Dirgan the little girl wet him/her self.

Every instinct in Dirgan the little girl demanded that (s)he run away, but Dirgan had been through too many motivational seminars to quail at the sight of a hundred-and-fifty-pound spider.

“You’re not running away,” said the spider.

“I gueththth not,” said Dirgan the little girl with an even more annoying little girl lisp.

“Good,” said the spider, “because I have some things to tell you.”

Dirgan the little girl waited politely, though Dirgan the seventh cow from the left ambled closer, thereby becoming the second cow from the left, though in no way changing it’s (her) (his) consciousness of being Dirgan the seventh cow from the left. Dirgan the formerly and figuratively seventh cow from the left strained to hear what the spider had to say.

“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.”

This sounds like important stuff for Dirgan (the superhero, not the cow or the little girl,) to know for we are already aware the Eschi Evelite is a dangerous and evil man – well evil anyway – or more correctly 93% evil.

Anyway, I hope Dirgan is paying attention (of course I know if he is.) If you’d like to know, come back on Thursday for the concluding post to Chapter L!

For no apparent reason my companion videos to Chapter L have been vids of old Bill Cosby routines. Here’s another one.

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.