Animals aren't just window dressing. We don't like them because they are pretty or interesting. We like them because they have personality. Sometimes that personality is dangerous.
Hmmm, the main course holding the appetizer.
A good run builds the appetite.
Run him over this way, bear.
We believe in eating with the little folk.
Though sometimes the little ones bite back.
And sometimes they don't know they're little
Dangerous? What's dangerous about lil ol' me?
And sometimes their personalities are fearless.
You wanna come out and play?
We could romp in the garden.
Or splash in the pool.
If I can cross this scary road and get past all the cars, there's a butcher shop across the street.
Crossing the road? I cross the just to get to the other side. THIS is the real scary place.
But we love them best when their personalities are just weird.
What do you mean duck-billed? Fedoras have straight brims, silly.
The Fellowship
of the Bring has come close to its prey. Dirk McFarland, more
commonly known as Dirk Destroyer has been spotted, shared a smoke,
and played a duet with two members of the fellowship.
It’s not that
tight a fellowship, really.
Chapter 16
Never Compliment Your Girlfriend’s Nasal Passages
Things must have deteriorated between Mage-e-not and Jonma Claim
while we were gone.
“Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!” Jonma Claim was
standing over Mage-e-not sputtering vociferously. I looked for signs
of foam, and wondered if that might indicate the sickness you kill
wolves for – at least when the planet Two still had wolves.
Mage-e-not had no ability to stand up to Lustavious, or Akwar, but he
didn’t seem to have the same problem with Jonma Claim. I knew that
would drive old Uriculous crazy.
“Elmer,” said Mage-e-not, “you settle this. I say…”
“We saw my brother,” I said.
That got everyone’s attention. Even the frozen face of Jonma Carry
turned in my direction.
“He gave me this scratchwing,” I told them. “We talked, we
played some music, and he left.”
“And YOU,” sputtered Jonma Claim, pointing at Ono, “you didn’t
cast them both into oblivion when you had the chance?”
“How?” said Ono.
Jonma Claim fumed; Lustavious leered, but neither answered Ono’s
question.
“May I see the instrument?” asked Lip Ton Tease.
I handed it over.
“Be careful,” sputtered Jonma Claim. “You don’t know what
evil is found within it.”
Tease meditated upon the instrument, then lifted it to playing
position and began to play glorious and dizzying runs from the
scratchwing. I’d never heard such powerful playing since the days
of Yeccky Pearlguy.
“Wow,” said Mage-e-not. “So what’s the verdict? Is it a
normal scratchthingy?”
“I don’t know,” said Tease. “I’ve never seen a scratchwing
before.”
“It’s possessed!” shouted Jonma Claim.
Lustavious started laughing. “That’s the Showr Rinn for you.
You should hear the music a freshly-showered master can make with an
acorn and two pine needles.”
Tease took what might have been a serene bow and handed the
instrument back to me. I had thought I might play some folk tunes
for the group. It’s a sobering experience to go from the only –
and therefore, the best scratchwing player on the planet, to a
second-rate player in the matter of minutes. I looked down on the
instrument as if it had betrayed me. It made no response.
“But I was right!” said Mage-e-not loudly enough to almost be a
shout. We are here. There’s no reason to travel around. This is
where the Destroyer is.
“This is where the Destroyer was,” corrected Jonma Claim. “Sleep
now. We have a long way to travel tomorrow.”
“But that makes no…”
“Sleep,” said Lustavious.
“All right,” muttered Mage-e-not. Jonma Claim shot out a look of
disdain and mouthed something that was obviously foul, and it looked
like it was aimed more at Lustavious than at Mage-e-not.
It was only a couple hours till daylight. I settled down on the
ground, and Ono, with Swampy back on her shoulder settled near me,
but not with her head on my stomach. I guess the nostril cavity
thing was still bothering her.
Dirk was also bothering her. He was bothering all of us in different
ways, but tomorrow I’d get some answers from my famous younger
brother. Tomorrow night I might finally understand what was going
on.
Of course I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was Swampy talking in his
sleep, “Stay with Elmer; stay with Elmer.” I couldn’t tell if
he was repeating something he heard, or if he was talking to Ono.
But would she stay with me? Did I want her to stay?
Of course I wanted her to stay. I wanted to protect her from
Lustavious. I wanted to make a home for her, provide her with algae
bars, tomato paste, smoked sausage and cigars for the rest of our
lives. I wanted her to live thousands of years like I did, or for me
to start aging and live a handful of decades more like everyone else.
Either was preferable to being without Ono.
This time the second chance wouldn’t give me any options even if I
could get past the custodian to use it. Could I go back five
thousand years and keep Uriculous from changing everything? Could I
go back a couple of days and instead of coming with Akwar to the
ministry, just grab Ono’s hand and run off somewhere… anywhere?
No, nothing would work – nothing I could think of, anyway.
Thinking was never one of my strengths. Enduring was my strength. I
had endured a long time – maybe just waiting for my life to make
sense.
It made sense now. I finally knew what I wanted, and now I had to
endure one more day for my ancient baby brother to appear and tell me
if that was possible.
There was something wrong about that – something unfair. Maybe if
I was the smartest guy on Two instead of the oldest, I might have
been able to figure it out. Instead, I had to endure – find my
opportunity, and take action.
I just hoped it wouldn’t take me another eight thousand years.
Yes, I admit that Argus Filch, the glorious custodian is my favorite Harry Potter character. But at least Ben Folds Five seems to agree with me.
“Putrid Peeps!” cursed Skittles, as she dropped
Mopsy’s ears. She knew she could have gotten more speed out of the
rabbit if she’d applied the hard thistle on the heel of her
slipper, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. It didn’t
matter anyway. Mopsy was a quick little bunny, but she could never
hope to match Sneaky Pete, Dancer’s mount.
The two fairies were at Spriteful Intent
2016. It was quasi-military training convention set up by the
Imperial Military Protectorate, or IMP, for short. Dancer and
Skittles had spent all their frequent flitter miles to travel to the
event in the brush lands of York. With all the feral cats patrolling
the American east coast, they felt their lives might depend on such
training.
“Soldier!” shouted Puff’n’Pout, their drill
gnome, “that thistle isn’t on your foot for a little late
snacking!”
Gnomes were uncommonly fond of thistle though Skittles
couldn’t imagine eating the hard wood-like fibers. Gnomes were a
hard folk – so hard that they were frequently mistaken for ceramic
statues.
“It didn’t matter,” said Skittles. “Even if I
hurt her, Mopsy couldn’t beat Sneaky Pete.”
“Didn’t matter?!” shouted
Puff’n’Pout. “Didn’t matter? Maybe it wouldn’t matter if
tabbies were eviscerating you and your mount right now! Then your
squad would have to decide if they want to put their wings on the
line to pull your tushy out of food dish!”
Skittle blushed at the word, tushy. Drill gnomes used
such salty language!
“I don’t see why we train on rabbits anyway,”
Skittles complained later in the fairy barracks, “foxes are
faster.”
Dancer laughed. “You want to trust your life to a
fox?”
“Or maybe a badger,” said Skittles, ignoring Dancer.
“They aren’t fast, but at least they’re strong and hard to
kill.”
“Fairies don’t survive by armor,” said Dancer as
she cleaned his thistle of fur. “It just slows us down. Rabbits
are fast, and they do what they’re told. There are no better
beasts for fairies to ride.”
“What about swans?”
Dancer tested the point of her thistle
on Skittle’s hiney. “Airborne tactics are next week. Face it;
you’re not going to find a ground beast better than your little
Mopsy.”
“I bet I can,” said Skittles.
“What do you want to bet?”
“How about a whole package of
SweeTarts?”
“You’re on!”
The next day at training it looked more like Skittles
was riding a flowering bush than a rabbit. Her mount was encased in
a weave of branches so thick with flowers that the only thing visible
was the twitching bunny nose.
“What’s this then?” barked Puff’n’Pout.
“I decided my mount needed some armor.”
“Waste of flowers,” said
Puff’n’Pout, who as the son of a garden gnome was very sensitive
to wasting flowers, “all it will do is slow you down.”
“Why don’t you start us and see?” said Skittles.
Puff’n’Pout lined up Dancer and
Skittles on the large oval path and struck the wind chimes –
tinkle-tinkle, and they were off.
At first, Skittles ran zig-zagged and
Dancer pulled ahead on her very fast Sneaky Pete.
“C’mon, Jack,” said Skittles. “I’ll let you
eat your armor if you win.”
Zoooom! Skittles and her mount took off, just barely
catching Dancer and Sneaky Pete at the line.
“I win!” shouted Skittles.
“I don’t believe it!” shouted Puff’n’Pout.
“I don’t believe it, either,” said
Dancer, “but I still owe you a package of SweeTarts. That’s no
regular bunny under all that shrubbery, is it?”
Skittle’s mount leapt into the air and twisted so that
the weave of branches broke. As he came to earth on his long back
legs, and dipped his head with long ears, he began to eat his armor.
“That’s right,” Skittles admitted. “Sneaky Pete is fast, but I beat you by a hare.”
So last Friday Dirk showed up. If that doesn't mean anything to
you, I don't think I can summarize what's happened so far without
asphyxiating. What? You take more than one breath when you
summarize? (Wheeze!)
“All right,” said Dirk. “I’ll talk now.”
“Oh,” said Ono, “I blab Mister McFarland that I gaggle with the
Light Bringer party. We slither and sniff you, then pop, squish, and
swoosh you into oblivion.
Dirk just nodded his head. “I can see what you see in her,” he
said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’re in love, Big Brother,” said Dirk.
“How can you tell?”
“I know you, ‘Mer,” said Dirk. “Anytime you start admiring a
woman’s nostril cavities, you’re in love.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Ono covered her nose with her
non-cigar-wielding hand and I felt like I was a lascivious voyeur.
“So Mister McFarland,” said Ono with a bit of a nasal quality as
she was hiding her nostril cavities, “The Light Bringer and
Uriculous the Great don’t rattle, quake, or jangle you?”
“Nope.”
“You boing, block, and boomerang magic to plink, zoom, and whish
you and Elmer from doom?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Dirk. “I just said I wasn’t
worried.” He stepped back into the bushes and returned with two
instruments, a scratchwing and a bellow. He handed me the
scratchwing.
“I already tuned it,” he said. “Do you remember Fassentinker’s
third?”
“Of course.”
Ono’s pretty features were still covered with… no, obscured by…
that’s not it, somethinged with concern, but she sat on a rock as
Dirk and I played a tune we’d been playing since before the
beginning of either income tax, or fanny packs, and that’s a long
time. Thankfully, neither the scratchwing, nor the bellows required
the player’s mouth, so we smoked as we played, and if I say so
myself, Fassentinker never sounded better.
Whatever the somethinged was that was somethingizing Ono’s face
with concern, unsomethinged, and she began to relax, and even hum
along. It was old, old music, but it was new to her.
For this one moment, the world was perfect. I had everything I
wanted. I wanted to be smoking a cigar, playing good music with my
brother, and have Ono there with me, enjoying the moment.
It didn’t last. I guess that’s why they call them moments –
but I’m not sure, because I don’t know much about the origin of
the word, moment. I could have meditated on that, but I didn’t
want to spoil the moment – but it was too late; the moment was
over.
“I have to go,” said Dirk after the waves of Fassentinker had
finished washing over us. “I’ll look for you tomorrow night,
‘Mer. We need to speak confidentially.”
“That means alone?”
Dirk made that face he so frequently makes to let me know I’ve said
something stupid.
“It’s all right,” said Ono, who must have found the music very
relaxing because she wasn’t using her sound words. “I mean,
you’re brothers, and you have a lot to catch up on since you last
got together… a hundred and eighty years before I was born.
“And there’s the whole… I’m part of the enemy thing too.”
“Oh Ono,” I said. “We don’t think of you that way.”
“My brother’s right,” said Dirk. “You seem like an okay sort
to me, but you’re right. I have some things I need to discuss with
‘Mer.”
I handed the scratchwing out to Dirk, but he held up his hand. “No,”
he said. “You need to hold onto that. I’ll explain it all
later, but it’s important.”
“Oh,” I said. “All right, so I should just wander off tomorrow
night and you’ll find me?”
“That’ll work,” said Dirk.
Ono and I headed back to camp. I was sorry the moment had been
broken. I felt there was a divide between Ono and me, even though it
made perfect sense that Dirk would need to talk to me alone.
“He likes you,” I told her. “I can tell.”
“He’s very nice,” she said noncommittally. “He said I was
okay sort. What’s an okay sort?”
“Must be a phrase he picked up in oblivion. I’m sure it’s a
good thing.”
Ono took my arm and leaned in. We walked in unison, we were even
inhaling together. Then Ono stopped and pulled away.
“Do you really like my nostril cavities?”
“They’re very pretty.”
She scrunched up her face, then shrugged and grabbed my arm again,
and we continued on to camp. I looked down at the scratchwing in my
hand. It was a fine looking instrument, and it had made some good
music.
Why did it feel so ominous?
No, I don't know what a scratchwing sounds like. Anyway, here's my favorite percussionist, Lionel Hampton leaving his signature vibes to show us what a drum solo should really be.
Yes, I know I'm 2 days late, but they tell me I was born three weeks late, so from my perspective, I'm catching up, but I will never catch up with the sweet, gentle, and wise icon of our society - the mother.
Not all mothers have children
Some Mommas aren't even women
But they're all wise
Okay, the wisdom is not always obvious
I'm pretty sure those are Dad hands.
Wise Mothers are always ready to give advice in different categories such as...
helpful
Conflicted
mortifying
Useful
religious
Wisdom that can follow you even after she's gone.
Here's a song from BB King I first heard on Mother's Day this year.
So here we are,
more than half-way through the story, and the guy whose name is in
the title finally shows up. (I’m not sure if he’s the title
character or Elmer is.)
For those just
joining us, Elmer, Dirk’s brother, is traveling with the Fellowship
of the Bring, a group dedicated to hunting down Dirk in order to cast
him, along with Elmer into oblivion. In the process, Elmer has
fallen in love with Ono, a magical if somewhat clumsy member of the
fellowship of the bring, and though he probably wouldn’t like to
admit it, Elmer has also befriended another member, Mage-e-not, an
only slightly magical and largely pathetic guy who can disappear from
the neck up.
Chapter 15
Dirk
We were free of the sheep. We had food, and Lip Ton Tease had stayed
so long in the shower that he was serenely pruned. We were all very
tired, but Uriculous, now back in command of Jonma Claim insisted
that as we had daylight we push on.
He got tired after a couple of miles, curled up under a tree, and so
did the rest of us. Ono slept with her head on my stomach. As I
looked down, I thought how delightfully delicate and pretty her
nostril cavities were.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. No, I can’t tell you what was
so pretty about them. Well, they were small, which is a good quality
for nostril cavities in general – unless you need to take in a lot
of oxygen all at once. But she was sleeping peacefully, with only a
hint of snoring, so I think her oxygen supply was not only sufficient
but probably delighted to be inhaled by such delicate and attractive
nasal apertures.
There’s not much more I can tell you about her nostril cavities –
at least at this present moment. If I think of something else later
on in the story, I’ll let you know.
So we slept through the late afternoon and through the evening, and
that’s how it came to be that all of our party was wide awake in
the middle of the night, watching for sheep armies, and without
anything much to do.
“Anybody know any jokes?” asked Mage-e-not.
Silence.
“How about songs?”
Silence.
“Ghost stories?”
“No!” sputtered Jonma Claim. “Try to sleep. We need to go
farther tomorrow.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” asked Mage-e-not.
Jonma Claim turned away as if he hadn’t heard.
“If you don’t know where we’re going, maybe we’re already
there.”
“I know where we’re going,” snapped Jonma Claim.
“Where?”
“Farther than we went today.”
“That’s just a trick answer.”
“Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Find a way to amuse yourself.”
“Know any jokes?”
Ono and I decided to go for a walk. Ono kept her pretty nostril
cavities fashionably pointed downwards while she walked. It
significantly reduced her chances of drowning in a rain storm. It
was just one of the wonderfully clever things I was discovering about
her at the time.
Strangely, Swampy left us alone this time.
“Do you have any more cigars?” asked Ono speaking again without
her sound words as we were alone.
“I have two,” I said, “but I don’t have any matches.”
“Maybe we should ask Lustavious.”
“But you’re afraid of him,” I said.
“Not so much with you.”
Here it was - the first evidence I’d ever come across to indicate
that infatuation diminishes not only the thinking ability of men, but
of women as well. Without Swampy around, I was about as much
protection from Lustavious as Mage-e-not’s torn and tomato pasted
shirt. Thankfully, in this matter at least, my thinking was not so
muddled.
“Maybe they’ll make a campfire tomorrow, and we can light them
then.”
“Need a match?” A light flared a few paces away, illuminating a
very familiar face.
“Dirk!” I said, too loud as there was a Light Bringer not very
far away.
“So ‘Mer,” said Dirk. “You going to light those cigars, or
let me burn my thumb.”
“Sorry,” I said, and pulled out my last two cigars, which I lit
simultaneously by putting both in my mouth. That Ono didn’t
complain was testament to how perfect a young woman she was.
I handed one toward her.
“Oh, no,” said Ono. “Dirk should puff and wheeze.”
“Brought my own, Little Lady,” said Dirk, and Ono clapped her
hands together, actually excited that she got to have a cigar that
only moments before had been in my mouth. Instead of taking the
cigar, she concentrated on it and it lifted from my hand. At first I
thought it would fly directly to her mouth, but then it started
flying erratically, nearly burning Dirk’s whiskers at one point.
“Telekinesis!” said Dirk – impressed in spite of the danger to
his facial hair.
“Magic,” said Ono and I at the same time.
“You’re talking in unison?” Dirk remarked.
The cigar found its way to Ono’s dainty lips where she drew on it
with relish.
What a woman.
“Dirk,” I said. “There’s a Light Bringer’s party over that
way.”
“Yup,” said Dirk, just managing to light his cigar before the
match burned down.
“You know about it?”
“Yup,” he said again. Dirk wasn’t very talkative once he’d
lit a new cigar.
While Dirk isn’t saying much, it might be customary for me to give
a description of my brother. Well, you know about his whiskers –
let’s see, what else? The problem is that Dirk has been around as
long as I can remember, and for all but the first couple of decades
of our lives, he really hasn’t changed much. What’s changed has
been my description of the people I meet. I might have described
someone as tall, before I met the Alcinder Jabbar people of the Laker
region.
I might have described someone as tan until I met the
smiling theatrical people of Hamilton Gorge.
But Dirk was always Dirk, and he appeared to me just about as
Dirk-like as it gets. I’ve met a number of people who have similar
features, or attitudes to my brother, but not a single one was as
Dirkish as Dirk.
Here are two guys that, like Dirk, were more themselves than any others I've ever seen.
Remember, the name of the blog is Just Plain Stupid. I say this to
lower your expectations because if there are two subjects nearly
every non-brain-dead adult knows more about than me, those two things
are, physical fitness and Pop music.
I was raised in the 60s and 70s. All the way through High School,
radios, record players, and garage bands were playing the greatest
selection of popular tunes in history.
And when that incredible music came on my boxy clock radio (boxy
because back then clock radios had moving clock arms… LED lights
weren’t around yet,) I rolled my eyes and turned my radio dial in
search of Larry Glick.
A few years later, the shock of musical meadow muffin that was disco
had little effect on me. I was listening to Celtics play-by-play
with Johnny Most.
But even I could tell that disco was crap. How many freaking songs
can you do with the same drum beat?
Fast-forward forty years, and I’m on a treadmill at the gym, and
feeling about as steady as John Travolta riding the mechanical bull
on Urban Cowboy. I’m wearing ear-plugs because none of the TVs
suspended from the ceiling have reruns of The Tick. I’m promising
myself that if I can just stay on the treadmill one more mile; I can
ignore exercise for the rest of the month.
I’m also cursing the makers of Dollar Tree ear plugs because in
spite of jamming orange polypropylene down into my cochlea, the Pop
music is just as loud as it was before.
“What is this crap we’re hearing?” I ask the wobbly runner next
to me.
“That’s Taylor Swift,” she answers.
Though I’ve heard the name before, the blonde on the flat screen
was unfamiliar, except as yet another Scarlett Johansson wanna-be.
“So they’re playing a collection of music they made for gyms?”
I ask.
She looks at me to see if I’m serious. “That’s the number one
Pop song right now.”
“Really? It has the same beat as the last six songs.”
“They all sound like that now – if you want something different
you have to go to rap, country, or hip-hop.”
“So all Pop music has the same beat?”
“Pretty much.”
“So how’s this different than disco?”
“This is cardio!” she said looking at me like I’d asked her if
Barry Manilow was white.
But what is cardio but a beat – now a ubiquitous beat much like
disco was in 1979. Disco shamed us for decades and now we’re doing
the same stupid thing again? Are we condemned to pass this corkscrew
point repeatedly as Pop music descends into hell.
Descends into hell, you ask? Isn’t that a bit over the top? Well,
it’s certainly not ascending.
Aside from an occasional tune from Elvis Costello, Phil Collins,
Whitney Houston, or Disney’s Little Mermaid, (Le Poisson rocked!)
the landscape of Pop music has been bleak for the last 40 years. Do
we need to do this again? Are we trying to reopen Studio 54, but
this time in workout clothes? Should I expect Justin Bieber to
remake Richard Simmon’s Sweating to the Oldies?
Why can’t we just leave our past inanities in the past?
And can someone get me off this freaking treadmill?
I might be in better shape if they had Weird Al vids at the gym.
