Dirk Destroyer Chapter 37 Chapter 19

The Fellowship of the Bring and their target, Dirk Destroyer (whose real last name is McFarland,) are in close proximity.  Between them is Dirk's brother Elmer (who is narrating this story and is also named McFarland,) and Ono, a magical, confusing young woman who makes Elmer's 8000-year-old heart go pitter-patter.

 Chapter 19

Showing Off

In hindsight, mentioning that Dirk was going to meet me was probably not a good idea.

“Ah hah,” said Jonma Claim, now thoroughly possessed by Uriculous.

“The inverted stewpot has shutdown for the day,” Mage-e-not explained. “Now all the pols are out eating rubber chicken and looking for Champagne money,” (or something like that.)

“Too shmuch shmoney in shpoliticsch,” said Jonma Claim who was apparently not thoroughly possessed by Uriculous.

In spite of the occasional blurt, Jonma Claim was not about to let me out to wander freely and meet with Dirk.

“Ish our Schance,” said Jonma Claim in an increasingly bothersome lisp. “Wesh getsh shou botsh togesher.”

“Which we could have done where we were last night,” said Mage-e-not.

“Doeschent schmatter,” sputtered Jonma Claim.

“The other place had better showers,” said Lip Ton Tease.

“And fewer pigs,” said Lustavious, who had mistaken a mound of pig excrement for a mound of dirt to sit on.

“Doeschent schmatter!” repeated Jonma Claim around great gobs of spit that found their way to the few remaining un-besmirched areas on Lustavious’ bandage. “We wash shim, and we getsch boschhh.”

“We wash him?” asked Tease.

“Wash shim!” corrected Jonma Claim. “Wash shim, wash shim, wash shim!” He was pointing to his eyes, until we all got the message.

“I don’t think you lisped this badly when we started out, High Priest,” sang Lustavious.

“Wash shim!” Jonma Claim snapped.

So they washed… watched me – all of them, even Jonma Carry – even Swampy. I started pacing, not because I felt like pacing, but to see what they would do. Every pair of eyes watched me back and forth. I started jumping. Whatever other skills I might lack, I have always been a fine jumper. Every pair of eyes watched me up and down.

I was about to start somersaults, when Tease said, “The sheep.”

“Washaboutem,” said Jonma Claim.

“Wash a bottom?” asked Tease.

“I think he means,” said Lustavious, “what about them.”

“They’re back.”

“Baaaaaaaaaack,” said Mage-e-not.

A phalanx of sheep, rams in front, ewes in back, and little lambs eating ivy on the side, marched lock-step toward our position.

“Not sheep-like,” said Lustavious.

“Schut upsch!” said Jonma Claim.

They formed up twenty paces away, then their phalanx split.

“What are they doing?” asked Mage-e-not.

“Schut upsch!” said Jonma Claim.

“Should have stayed where we were,” muttered Mage-e-not.

Through the opening in the phalanx came eight sheep with branches across their backs forming a crude platform. On the platform was a large ram.

“Completely un-sheep-like,” said Lustavious.

Jonma Claim didn’t say ‘Schut upsch,’ or ‘quietsch,’ or ‘do shnot dischturb,’ or even ‘no moleschte por favor.’ He, like everyone else in our party but Ono and me, were focused on the ram standing on the platform.

“Dirk?” mouthed Ono quietly, and I marveled that she could mouth as difficult a name to mouth as Dirk, as perfectly as she did, with such a subtle question mark inflection.

I clawed out of my marveling enough to grab the scratchwing that Dirk had given me and nodded my head in the affirmative – (except in the land of Pogo on the other side of the planet, where such movement of the head meant a negative, or ‘hey, the water in the loo is moving the wrong way,’ depending on the occasion.)

Apparently Ono was not from Pogo, because she understood my affirmative nod – at least she didn’t go off to watch the water in the loo, which was a good thing, because we were quite distant from the nearest flush toilet which happened to be at the inverted stew pot, where at that very moment, they were flushing the day’s legislation to make certain that no voters ever read it.

I have to be honest. I had no idea if they were flushing the day’s legislation at that very moment.

The ram opened its mouth and did not say Bah. It said instead, “Uriculous Wisehind!” which is something I had rarely if ever, heard a mammal other than human, or politician say.

“Uriculous Wisehind,” repeated the ram with a lovely little goat vibrato through the hind part. I mean to say the vibrato vibrated through the end part of Uriculous’ last name – or “hind.” As far as I could tell the ram’s hind part was unaffected and remained unvibrated – not that I habitually study the hind parts of rams or other male mammals.

“Uriculous Wisehind… answer me!”

“Yesh?” said Jonma Claim.

“Ewe… Ewe… ewe… BUG ME!”

The words bug me were not capitalized in speech, of course, but they were very loud, and on further reflection the ram might have been saying “you” as opposed to “ewe.” Of course, it being a ram, and rams having a fondness for ewes, it was a natural mistake on my part, as I’m sure it might have been for many people – especially those who were accustomed to the preferences of sheep, both sexually and by association to think that the ram was speaking of the female of his species, and not a short, bald, possessed human male.

Though Jonma Claim did not enunciate his reasoning, he chose that moment to leave the area, as did all the party, even Ono, who mouthed a rather lengthy message to me, which though I am certain must have been mouthed perfectly, my inadequacies in lip reading left me with only, “so long.”

“So long,” I said to all of them, including Ono, hoping that it was a sufficient response to her mouthed message.

I walked up to the ram on the platform and said, “You know, I could really use a cigar right now. Do you have any?”

“Eat me,” said the ram. Then he climbed down from his platform, and moments after reaching the ground the phalanx became a much less un-sheep-like flock.

“Come on now Brother,” said Dirk standing up from the back of the flock. “That was some first rate work.”

I had to agree. No one can do simultaneous animal control, telekinesis, and ventriloquism like Dirk. Each was a natural ability, but it takes talent and thousands of years of practice to make them work in concert so well.

“You have the scratchwing,” said Dirk, handing me a cigar and match. “Good, come this way.”

So I went, which is the mirror reflection of come, which would make Dirk the mirror…

I’m not sure what that last sentence meant, but I went with Dirk.

Of course we know that sheep never do stuff like they did in this chapter.

Dirk Destroyer Part 15 Chapter Part 1

This is the 15^th installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, an unpublished novel I had to give up due to the Donald Trump Ubiquity Law or 2015. If you’re just starting in, the hero is Elmer McFarland, or Elmer Destroyer, or Destroyer, or Hey You. There are no villains, though I can’t say I like some of the characters too much. For instance, I sure am glad we don’t have that Jonma Claim guy in our universe.

Chapter…

(I lost track – look it up.)

Nobody got up to relieve me, so I didn’t feel so bad about falling asleep. There were sheep all over the campsite, eating Carry’s beans, Mage-e-not’s shirt, and two of my precious store of matches. I asked Lustavious for a light, but he was in a grumpy mood, probably because Swampy wouldn’t leave Ono alone, and Swampy seemed to be the only being capable of stopping Lustavious from moving on Ono.

“Ono and the bird are inseparable,” Lustavious sang to me in a low – Leonard Cohen-type drone.

“I understand,” I said to Lustavious. “If you want, I can ask to talk to Ono and you can have time alone with Swampy.”

That really wasn’t a way to get a light from the Light Bringer.

“Say,” said Mage-e-not, awake now and looking at the state of his shirt. “You still using that bag?”

I looked into my cigar bag. I had smoked enough that there were only a couple cigars left. I managed to cram them into my fanny pack and handed the bag to Mage-e-not.

“Thanks,” he said. “I wonder how I can use this to patch my shirt without thread.”

I shrugged my shoulders in the universal gesture of, beats me.

“It’s just that I don’t look so good shirtless.”

I had to agree.

Tip Ton Tease was meditating while balanced on a slender branch twenty feet above where Jonma Carry had been sleeping. The tree was missing all its bark close to the ground – probably from sheep grazing.

“Why are you up there, Tease?” asked Lustavious.

“The thirty-fifth idea.”

“Oh… What do you see?”

Tease put his thumb and forefingers to his earlobes before responding, though it was hard to see how he might have gotten water in his ears up in a tree. “Sheep,” he said.

“What else?”

“More sheep.”

“What-do-you-mean, more sheep,” sputtered Jonma Claim. “Light Bringer, lift me up so I can see.”

The awkward little man waddled over to where Lustavious – reluctant, but obedient, lifted him into the air.

“Higher!” barked Jonma Claim.

“Top floor,” grunted Lustavious.

Suddenly the annoying host of Uriculous Wisehind began to rise.

“What kind of…” sputtered Jonma Claim… with a few spasms thrown in. “Destroyer, what are you doing?”

“You squawk for upsey,” said Ono who was clearly working very hard to keep the doughy Jonma Claim airborne.

“It can’t be!” Jonma Claim spitted.

“What?” asked Mage-e-not who had somehow found a way to join the bag to his shirt making an astoundingly ugly garment.

“There are sheep,” said Jonma Claim crossly.

“Isn’t that what Tease said?” I asked.

“But so many!” sputtered Jonma Claim. His body began to sway to the east. “Stop it,” he barked, but his body began moving even faster to the southwest.

“Whoop, swoon, swish,” said Ono.

“As High Priest, I command you!” commanded Jonma Claim... with a sputter.

“I would put him down, Ono,” said Mage-e-not.

“Squeak, sway, thump, thud!” said Ono, clearly distressed.

“Destroyer!” barked Jonma Claim. “Do something!”

“But you’re always telling me not to do things,” I said to him not helpfully. I enjoyed the look on Jonma Claim’s face, but then I glanced at Ono, and saw both panic and betrayal etched across her features.

“Hold on,” I said, and I tried to bring my limited telekinetic powers to bear. If I’d been a better telekinete, or if Jonma Claim had not been a moving target, I might have had more success. Whether it was my effect, or Ono’s magic, Jonma Claim’s swooping went from two dimensions to three, now shooting up near the treetops, then crashing down to within a couple of body lengths from the ground.

“Can’t you let him go when he’s low?” asked Mage-e-not.

Ono, her face set in determination, shook her head no.

“It would probably kill him, anyway,” said Jonma Carry in a tone that showed that wouldn’t bother him overly.

“This is unacceptable!” blustered Jonma Claim. “I will not have this!”

I almost gave up trying right there. Why should I care if the dead man died again?

“To me,” said Tease, still up in his tree.

Adding Tease to the equation, I came up with a plan. Instead of trying to grab Jonma Claim from Ono’s magical grasp, I started to build barriers of compressed air, herding the bouncing Jonma Claim closer to Tease’s location. Tease jumped from branch to branch, many of them too thin to support my fanny pack, much less two men.

“Let go,” called Tease, as he lunged for Jonma Claim. Ono swooned falling to the ground. Lustavious was about to catch her when Swampy hissed at him. Quickly, I brought loam and soft earth up to cushion her as she came to ground. She bounced gently as she might on a good mattress.

Tease landed moments later, Jonma Claim in his arms.

“Just like your brother!” Jonma Claim sputtered. “Thank the really good ideas that the world will soon be rid of you both.”

“I did my best,” I said.

“To get me killed!” he replied reproachfully with both a sputter and a spasm.

What will the Fellowship of the Bring do surrounded so completely by a seemingly endless flock of sheep? Me, I’d just push my way through and watch my step for doo-doo, but on the Planet 2, the thirty-fifth Really Good Idea might not allow that. We’ll find out next Friday… (Actually, I already know. I’m just trying to establish community here.)

For some reason, ELO kept running in my head as I wrote this.

Dirk Destroyer Part 5 Chapter 2 part 1

This is the 5^th installment of an endless serialization of a novel that was never meant for prime time (unless you read this between 8 and 10PM – some say 11.) I’m sure there’s a way to search out the first four parts, but blog navigation has never been my strong suit.

Chapter 2

Politically Incorrect Smoking Protagonist Meets Other Folk

The town of Gyno wasn’t really a town. It was a loose grouping of settlements, scattered across a valley. Each grouping was just two or three buildings, all with small doors so that sheep couldn’t rush in when people came and went. The Ceasarian section of town was in a curved gash between two hills. I walked through the tobacco fields, occasionally running across a ram or ewe experimentally nibbling on a tobacco leaf.

“Sick, sick, sick,” said Swampy. Sheep and tobacco didn’t get along. They might eat a leaf, but they never kept it. Only one thing smells worse than healthy sheep – sick sheep.

Getting through the field, the Ceasaran homestead came into view. It was a pretty little settlement, and I was happy to see it, but getting to the door was going to be a problem.

“Sheep,” said Swampy.

“Yup,” I said. The house, work shed and barn were all surrounded by hundreds of sheep. They were especially packed around the doors.

How do you wade through a huge flock of sheep without bugging any of them?

“Lotta wool,” said Swampy.

A man was sitting on a rock at the edge of the flock. It was a pleasantly warm day, but he was still wearing a one hundred percent cotton overcoat.

“Don’t bug the sheep,” he said predictably.

“How do I get to the door?”

“Don’t care,” said the man, “just don’t bug the sheep.”

“How long have they been here?”

“The sheep?” asked the man. “I’m not sure. Maybe a week.”

“Are the Ceasarans all right?”

“Don’t care,” said the man.

“Well can I call and see if they’re all right?”

“I wouldn’t,” said the man. “It might bug the sheep.”

“Stupid Spy,” said Swampy, and I had to agree. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. “Are you all right in there?”

The man jumped up from his rock. “I better report this!” he said and hurried off. I was just about to shout a second time when what looked to be a second story window opened in the house.

“Is that you, Mister Elmer.”

“Yes Mister Ceasaran,” I said.

You might think we were being formal here, calling each other mister, but we both had our reasons. Ceasaran called me Mister Elmer, because I was the brother of a very important, albeit infamous man. I called Ceasaran, Mister because I’d dealt with so many Ceasarans over the years, that I’d given up trying to remember their first names. He was probably Marko, Mario, or Martin. The Ceasarans almost always named their boys a name that began with M, and those three were the most common. I’d had dealings with a couple of Martins, a handful of Markos, and several Marios. Curiously, I never dealt with Marias, or Martinas. I don’t know if the entire tobacco industry was patriarchal, or just the Ceasarans.

“Are you all right in there?” I asked again.

“We are dying,” Ceasaran replied, “otherwise, we are fine. You’ve come to get cigars?”

“Yes,” I said, “but that doesn’t seem so important now. Maybe I should do something to stop you from dying.”

“That is very kind of you, Mister Elmer. You have always been a kind man, but Maria and I are old now, and there is very little food. We would have to get around to dying eventually, so there’s no reason to put it off.”

“I’d be happy to go buy you some food,” I offered.

“You don’t understand,” said Ceasaran. “I don’t mean that there is very little food in the house. I mean there is very little food at all. Tobacco is not considered important enough, so we don’t get food.”

“Not important?”

“Mister Elmer, most years since my grandfather’s day you have been our only customer. Sometimes a teen asks for a cigar that blows up, or a man with a new baby buys some to give away. We had a politician buy an especially durable one for his mistress, but we didn’t ask if it was for smoking. Most of the time, it’s just you.”

“I didn’t realize that business was so bad.”

“Oh no,” said Ceasaran. “The business is not bad. You are always very generous. We have always been a wealthy family because of you.”

“So why can’t you get food?”

Ceasaran shook his head. “It is not a matter of money; it is a matter of importance. The sheep can’t eat tobacco, and the MOIST people do not smoke cigars. We do not contribute to the thirty-fifth idea.”

“But what about your children?”

“You did not notice, Mister Elmer? Maria and I have no children. We are also very old – not like you are old, but very old.”

I probably should have noticed that. It just seems like you barely notice someone and they grow old and die. The only reason the Ceasaran’s stuck in my mind is that I’d done business with fifty or so of them, and they tended to look alike.

“Hey,” I said, “I have a couple algae bars,” and I zipped open my fanny pack.

“Baaaaaahhhh!” A wall of wool rushed at me.

“No,” I said to the surprised sheep. “You can’t have these. They are for the Ceasaran family.”

“Let them have the algae bars,” said Ceasaran. “As I am dying now, I admit that I am not such a believer in the thirty-fifth idea, but Maria and I have both tasted your algae bars. If we are going to die, I would rather we did so without our mouths tasting like fertilizer.”

“Crappy bars,” said Swampy as I threw the bars to get the sheep to move away from me. This gave me a chance to get much closer to the window. I saw Ceasaran smile at me. He was an old man.

“Wait a moment,” he said. He must have been standing on something, because he lowered himself very carefully from the window height. While he was gone, the sheep wandered back over to me. The sniffed around me and my fanny pack looking for more food, then gave me a look that showed their annoyance when they found nothing. Swampy landed on a ewe and crapped on her.

Finally, Ceasaran’s face reappeared in the window. He held out a bag. It was too far for me to reach, so I used telekinesis to bring it to me, and then did the same with the gold and silver lumps to Ceasaran. A bead of sweat broke out on my brow. Dirk was always better at telekinesis than I was. For some reason it was easier to move stuff in the ground than it was in the air.

The old man took the metal and shook his head. “It is the last sale for Ceasarean tobacco. We were in business over a thousand years.”

“I am very sad to see you go,” I said.

“It has been an honor to know you, Mister Elmer. You have…”

Yes, I’m ending the excerpt here. It could be that Mister Ceasarian (not to be confused with Caesarian,) had nothing left to say. I could also be that I’m an SOB that sadistically ends an excerpt in the middle of a sentence.

Anyone vote for both?

To find out web in (well tune in doesn’t work,) next Friday!

Here’s the vid.

Cute Enough to Make You Choke

Just to show you folk out there that I'm not the curmudgeon some people say I am, I'm doing a post of cute. So get those ohs and awes ready, cause here comes a whole crapload of cute.

This has got to be a top candidate for picture of the year. For you nonfootball fans who don't recognize the impersonation – don't worry about it. Just think, Baby=cute. But enough of the human species. For true footpounds of cute – you gotta go with the animals.

Do elephants like hats? If not, this guy better worry, because this little guy is going to get a lot bigger, and elephants never forget.

I guess this cat is cute, but I'm not thrilled that he has better facial hair than I do.

I'm not surprised the multi-colored looks confused. The gray tabby is clearly cheating.

Mother cats are supposed to be cute, right? I mean that's what I've been told.

Here's a bobcat with a deer. This is my last feline, 'cause even though I know people say how cute they are, I know this cat is just holding onto the deer in case he gets hungry.

Here's another deer with a dog this time. I'm beginning to think that deer are cute because they're not that bright.

Here's a canine that's a little confused. He knows he's supposed to run down prey, but what comes next is still a muddle.

Alright, I have no explanation for this one.

For my money, dogs are the second cutest creatures going. The cutest have to be rabbits. I think this picture sums up my argument.

Yeah, you can't out-cute rabbits.

Our video is full of bunnies and just needlessly cute – so much that I wish I hadn't eaten so much at lunch.