Death in...
VOLUME 1Are you sure you've counted that right, sire? A bon mot of Nutty Slack, from Chapter 13 of the current volume |
King Keesh of Lorraine sat upon the vast jet, alabaster and marble throne. A slight breeze gently rippled the Armenian tapestry that depicted the great Lorraine army, several jackbooted girls and a bowl of fruit (bananas mainly).
The king was deep in thought, his dark black eyes gazed into the infinite nothingness as he wrestled with the Lorrainian defence budget. As the great Lorraine army consisted entirely of several jackbooted girls and a bowl of fruit (bananas mainly), an equipment upgrade was clearly long overdue. "Perhaps a recruiting drive in the local village could round up some more girls," mused Keesh. "A few more oranges in the bowl might bolster the combat readiness of the Lorraine Fruit Force, and if we contacted an unscrupulous arms dealer we might manage to acquire a macramé capability." Satisfied with a hard morning's conceptualising, King Keesh shuffled off his throne with a grunt and wandered unhurriedly towards the Imperial Lavatory Suite, there to spend a couple of hours fishing for salmon in the diverted stream that ran through the 85-room Suite. The stream fed the vast network of several thousand pink marble cisterns, bidets, jacuzzis and other paraphernalia that made anatomical functions such an unreserved pleasure in an otherwise vomit-smeared principality of dubious significance in postpostmodern central European politics. Only one thought bothered the King as he nestled his blue-blooded buttocks onto the solid platinum and lapis lazuli lavatory seat (he chose blue and silver today as it matched his scrotum mascara) and that was how he was going to push such a ludicrous increase in defence spending past the tight-fisted and undoubtedly red infested Lorraine parliament.
He looked around his splendid Suite as he tried a few exploratory sphincter contractions ("Hmm, the piles don't seem so bad today," he mused) and remembered the long battle he had fought against the Parliament to keep the Imperial Lavatory Suite open. How Parliament had railed at the enormous amount of water used by this room, especially as he paid no water rates. The King,, his mood black, had threatened the guillotine. Parliament had threatened insurrection and the armed overthrow of a monarchy which was in any instance virtually powerless. Keesh had rejoined with the divine right of Kings and then stomped off in a huff.
And now he had to return to Parliament again and ask for funds for the Fruit Force. Old wounds would be reopened. No doubt the Lavatory Suite would again be brought to the fore. How could those vandals threaten such an opulent baroque edifice? He felt his nerves beginning to fray. He would have to see Fooloosha later, and let her soothe him as only she knew how. He suddenly felt much better. And Fooloosha this afternoon. Damn Parliament. Damn the Fruit Force. He could concentrate on those later. Fooloosha and the toilets. What more did he need? (Toilet paper! That's what he needed, and he began to look about him frantically.)
Towards dawn he took her again.
Only then did she realise what he had done; he'd seen her looking at him the evening she had gone to see him.
"See you," she said, "this bus is an ounce too late. 'Go on Desiderata, be grey."
Only then did she realise what he had done.
Tie me to a post for thinking this, you, dear reader, will think it when you have to answer me. So go on, no filth you're thinking, no filth.
So here goes.
When I was only four years old I was walking through some woods near to my house.
The sun shined.
A rabbit screamed.
There are no clues.
Only then did she realise what she had done.
But I'm better now. I don't feel pain, and it doesn't hurt if you do it properly.
I've given up on the scrotum mascara anyway. So what is there left? Something seminal I suppose.
I suppose she'll eat some ham. If I ask.
There was summer and smoke. Charlie knows the first three. But what about the ham? Or is it really bacon?
Light. White light. And all the birds scream. Eyes open. Shut.
Open. Dawn. On the bed, sheets rose and fell, anticline and syncline, dry valleys and plains. The bed was vast enough for five (as had often been the case) and the valleys and plains stretched into the far distance. King Keesh felt blankly the country around him and across his legs, and then sat up and rubbed his hands across his face. Ah, Fooloosha. He had damned the council, damned the Fruit Force, and spent the afternoon and evening with his beloved Fooloosha. Then a frown furrowed his face, a blanket in miniature. Yesterday morning he had arranged a meeting with Parliament. He would have to face them this afternoon. The Fruit Force. The great and glorious Fruit Force, envy of all postpostmodern Europe, had to be maintained. Yet Parliament resisted all moves to build up the Fruit Force, which is why King Keesh suspected the Red Hand in the work of Parliament. The door opened, and with a swish of silk, his wife walked in.
"Good morning, Queen Queen," Keesh said. He used the formal morning address that was always given by heads of the monarchy. Must always be given. To preserve the monarchy, rigour and discipline must apply. However, a Queen with the name Queen offended his aesthetics, and made him suspect echoes, when he spoke, where none could be. For the Architecture of Lorraine was incomparable. It seemed that Lorraine had somehow sucked in all that was postpostmodern, sucked it in and spewed it up, spewed up great beautiful obscenities such as the castle of King Keesh.
In a sudden, unprecedented jump of breathtaking beauty - a masterpiece of cinematography - Keesh found himself sitting in the mouth of a whale.
"Far out," mused Keesh, "I must recommend these mushrooms to Nutty Slack."
(Editor's note: Nutty Slack is the postpostmodernist court jester. An unemployed artist, taken on as part of the red influenced AIDS (artists in Distressed Sircumstances) scheme, he bore a remarkable resemblance to Vincent van Gogh in the ear department.)
Enter man, stage left, pursued by a whaling fleet.
"Strewth," said Nutty Slack (for it was he), "these stage directions get worse each year." With these words, he nimbly sidestepped a flying harpoon.
"Indeed," indeeded Keesh, "but notice how the fleet remains tantalisingly out of sight. Instead, we infer it by harpoons, and cries of 'Thar she blows'."
Voice off: "Thar she blows!"
Keesh: "Thank you. In this way we stay within budget, and can blow it all on the big production number at the end, and on booze for the cast party.
BEFORE HE CAN REPLY, Nutty Slack is struck most monstrously from the rear by a harpoon (thrown from stage left). Fortunately, the harpoon is rubber and falls to the stage with a rubbery thunk.
"This is ridiculous," bemoans Nutty. "Can we finish this scene before they start using real harpoons?"
"Certainly," certainlied Keesh. "Besides, this scene was getting nowhere anyway (albeit in a postpostmodernist sort of way)."
"FRED, CHARLIE, next scene please."
Enter two men in brown overalls, who proceed to dismantle the set.
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K: Come, Nutty, tarry awhile at the front of the stage, and have a cuppa that has been strategically placed there Harpoon flies onto the stage and hits Nutty Slack square in the eye. N: You bastards, we've finished that scene now. Enter William the Conquerer WC: Pardon, Nuttie, Force of 'abit. |
F: Blow this for a game of toy Fruit Force. Do you realise I used to be a post modern poet? Course soon as postpostmodernism hit Lorraine that was it - dole queue or bit part in some mushroom induced play. I mean, what's a man to do? C: Couldn't agree more squire. I mean how postpostmodernist is William the Conquerer? Positively antediluvian. |
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MIND WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH THOSE TONSILS! |
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All regard F and C |
F and C look puzzled, examine roof of mouth, whale cavities, etc. |
"Willie, mon brave," recommenced Keesh, "vous êtes cinq minutes early. Les hommes are still changeant le set. "
"C'est la vie," dit Willie, regardant les scene shifteurs, "I'll just have to attender. Avez vous de booze around ici, I could meurtre un pint."
"Sorry, pal," says Keesh, "only thé.
"Bolleaux," says Willie, sitting on a whale tooth (lower right S, buckle).
And in time honoured tradition, we fade out with the three drinking tea - Keesh and Nutty Slack making small talk, William the Conquerer making petit talk …
"More fruit? You demand yet more fruit?" exclaimed Fuller, leader of Parliament. "Why? Hasn't enough fruit been injected into the force this year? Enough to keep it modern and a viable threat to those on our borders. The force is still our pride and joy. We are the envy of all Europe."
King Keesh sighed, a huge deep sigh that sussurated around the Parliament chamber, making even the thick stone walls seem light and bright by comparison.
Finally, Keesh lifted his heavy, great jawed head and said, "Yes, yes. But in real terms, the amount of fruit available to the Fruit Force has been decreased. We are barely holding ourselves above water. If the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, still looks up to us, it is because of the amount we spent on bananas and apples and conventional fruit bowls in the fiscal year two years previously."
Again King Keesh sighed. It was only through the monarchy that the long tradition of courage, morality and discipline that still rightly belonged to the Fruit Force was remembered and even revered. It seemed that only the monarchy held fresh in their minds that Lorraine had once been almost overrun by marauding hordes from darkest Magnolia. In those dark and frightening days it had been the cold and ruthless efficiency of the Fruit Force that had saved Lorraine from being crushed beneath the jackboots of the mad Magnolians. That Lorraine remained free and post post modernist was a tribute to the frightening efficiency and terrible cold discipline of the Fruit Force.
Alone and unloved (except by Fooloosha) King Keesh stalked the battlements of the palace, pissing occasionally to clean the pigeon shit from the solid gold cisterns which ornamented it. Above him, the sky, livid as a rabid dog, thrashed the landscape with lightning and ominous omens. A soot-begrimed raven fell from the North Tower, squawking "Beware the Ides of M..." before it fell into the massive heap of rotting fruit (that part of the Fruit Force which had become too noxious for the armoury) which rendered most of Lorraine virtually uninhabitable. Suddenly…
With a ghastly rattle, the ghost of Nutty Slack staggered onto the battlements, leaving a trail of phantasmal harpoons and cardboard whale tonsils behind him. "Your Majesty," croaked the spectre in a voice that sounded hauntingly familiar, "Come quick, it's happened at last."
"What", cried the King. "Has the toilet paper arrived?" "No, no it's terrible"
"The red hordes have risen in rebellion and seized the Lavatory Wing?"
"Far worse, Lorraine has been invaded by an army of fruit bats who have routed your jackbooted maidens and even now are bearing the lovely Fooloosha away to their evil eyrie in the Lurid Mountains.
"Come, King Keesh, in the name of the Force you must take your banana and this old electric torch (left by your father, who was one of the famous Everredi Knights) and go to your inescapable doom."
With a cry like mating squirrels struck by lightning, the eldritch spirit of Nutty Slack tripped over a harpoon and fell off the battlements. King Keesh stared down in surprise. Such things just didn't happen in well-run post post modernist countries like Lorraine. Then he saw the red hordes ravaging the Lavatory Wing and carrying away the priceless pots to install them in their own rude hovels. If things didn't start looking up held have to cut back on the mascara.
'Why? Why?" cried King Keesh as he looked over his scarred domain. Indeed, why? (For an introduction to this problem, see Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.)
In a flash of fire, brimstone, and over-the-top disco lighting acquired from a little club just down the road that had been doing very nicely thank you until the business fell off, so they had to sell off all the stuff and become a job centre, Nutty Slack' s ghost appeared.
"Ah!", said Nutty Slack's ghost.
"Look " , said Keesh "I don't want to split hairs, but you've been a ghost since Chapter 7, yet in Chapter 5 you were alive and kicking. And Chapter 6 didn't mention you at all. What's the crack?"
"You should know better than most, Kingypoos, this is post post modernist country - alive one minute, dead the next without a word of explanation, then two chapters later you're resurrected as the manager of a little bistro set anachronistically amidst the Magnolian hordes."
"I see" said Keesh, unconvinced.
"And now the song. A splendid ditty entitled: King Keesh loses everything and gets his head cut off in the process ...'
At this point, Prometheus runs across the battlements. "Sorry fellas, can't stop". He disappears down a convenient set of steps. Seconds later, two men like something from a Marlboro commercial appear, panting. "Anybody seen a man pass by?"
"Thataway" - Keesh and ghost in unison
"Thanks. Say, either of you got a light?" Men brandish suddenly-appeared cigarettes.
"No"
"Okay, sorry to bother you"
(To the tune of 'Greensleeves')
And so King Keesh did venture forth
With his banana-laden fighting force
And Peach Melba was the name of his horse
But that's the way they were in those days
The Fruit Force entered into the fray
Though underfruited and underpaid
And eventually they did win the day
Bizarre as it seems that's the script
Then the fruit bat army did reappear
To attack our Keesh's Fruit Force drear
And in the melée he lost an ear
So now he looks just like our Nutty
(Anon, 8th Century, PPMT)
"That's the song is it?" mused King Keesh.
"Indeed" came Nutty's voice, a quiet echo from a previous chapter.
"But you told me that the song involved me losing my head. I merely lost an ear" Keesh tentatively touched the sides of his head to check that he still had a full complement of ears.
"Ear today, gone tomorrow," says Nutty and shrieks, then stands on his hands on the battlement parapet. "Not to expect the unexpected," he continues in inverted fashion, "is the common failing of he who plans."
Wisdom flashes in the king's eyes. A gust of wind catches Nutty and wrenches him from the parapet. For a moment he becomes as a kite, bedecked in red, green and yellow (traditional colours of both kites and Lorrainian court jesters) before, in best Wily E Coyote fashion, he blinks, claps his hand to his forehead and plunges into the stinking piles of offal and excreta below. A slowly diminishing scream marks Nutty's descent, then a soft ploosh. A few seconds later, excreta and offal, shaped as a mushroom, slowly rise up in front of Keesh's eyes, pause and descend. Ploosh. offal and excreta return home.
King Keesh sighs and looks across his land. It is dark, and he can see nothing. The sky is wild, the clouds rend and tear, but of this, Keesh can see nothing. He can see with his eyes the abstraction that is Lorraine, and the abstraction of sovereign power that he embodies, and feels, somehow, sad. He turns and makes his way to the staircase that leads to the great hall of the palace, and remembers Nutty's song. Would Nutty now return, Keesh wondered, as the ghost of a ghost? Or was he ever a ghost at all?
An ornamental pisspot |
Keesh paused for a couple of minutes at the top of the stairs to urinate into one of the ornamented piss-pots that dotted the palace. This one was particularly attractive, being in the shape of a reclining lion with open and upturned mouth. The lion's mouth metamorphosed into carved rainclouds, which distributed the royal stream over delicately moulded flower sculptures before leading it away via the guttering that ran down the side of the staircase. "At least those bastard fruit bats left me some pleasures in life," mused Keesh, as he momentarily diverted his aim to dislodge an upstart member of the invading army from a perch under the balustrade.
After his fly-zipping lackey (who followed Keesh everywhere) had restored the erstwhile monarch's modesty, the next port of call was the palace's Supernatural Room, at the bottom of the stairs. Here Keesh hoped to contact the spirit of Nutty Slack to find out if Nutty was really dead. After a regal procession down the stairs (lasting approximately three-quarters of an hour) Keesh sat at the console in the Supernatural Room. The centrepiece of the Supernatural Room was the Ouija Word Processor, the means for communicating with dead souls. Keesh switched on the system, and typed in the 'supernatural model command:
CMND SN ACTN
The screen display changed to a menu of dead souls. Keesh selected option D for Nutty Slack, and waited. Eventually, a blank typing screen appeared. Keesh typed: 'Where the fuck are you?" and pressed ENDJOB, fully expecting the usual "Dead soul is corrupt" error message to appear. Instead the printer made a 'STUNK' noise and the message "Awaiting Print Go" appeared. Keesh pressed the relevant key, and the printer chattered as it typed out the message that rocked Keesh to the depths of his very bladder and bowels, a message that spelled doom to all that Lorraine held dear, a message with more impact than a 125-megaton fruitbat doomblaster strike:
I'm not dead, I've just gone postpostpost modernist, you dozy old bugger!
Documented in the annals of Lorrainian history as the Time of the Little Wiping, the post-paper society had, perhaps, created more problems than it had solved. No doubt the totally on-screen office was seen as a boon by some. The accountants and civil servants loved it. No more messy crossings out and ink blots. No more delays in the post. Paper just wasn't cool.
But for those who worked in the paper industry, times became harder and harder, until, one by one, all the factories and mills closed down and then paper was a thing of the past. Trouble was, nobody had invented the electronic bog roll.
The populace became desperate for something to wipe their bums on. Wouldn't you? They even turned to ripping wads out of any old postpostmodernist book that happened to be lying on the lavvy bookshelf. I mean, it's not as if anyone actually read that rubbish anyway. In fact, tearing the odd chapter or seven out of a post post modernist novel usually improved the storyline. And it certainly made you feel more secure as far as your personal hygiene went.
Meanwhile, King Keesh had survived the evil assassination attempt described in detail in the previous seven chapters. Just as Lord Filthmonger's black arrow sped through the air towards the King's heart, Keesh bent down to tie his royal shoelaces and the dart struck the ghost of Nutty Slack square in the eye, killing him instantly. Needless to say, this was a loss to no-one save Nutty's mother, Mrs Fanny Slack. For the first time in her life, the poor woman couldn't take it in.
Filthmonger, spying that his target had been missed, hissed and spat and cursed and ordered his personal fruit-bat bodyguard to fly him back to his eerie eyrie among the treetops. His day would come …
King Keesh knelt over the prostrate figure of his faithful court jester.
"Alas poor Nutty. I knew him, Horatio."
"Sod Horatio," whispered the not-quite-dead and hamming-it-up-for-all-hels-worth court jester, "Kiss me sweetie."
"Molested by a gay ghost," mused Keesh, standing up gingerly. "Remove this dead body," he said to his Chief Dead Body Remover (essential to any forward-thinking ruler) who followed him continually, "lt smells like an open sewer. Which reminds me, I must visit Queen Queen this afternoon, or I'm in for a right royal rollicking."
The Chief Dead Body Remover knelt down and tried to roll the corpse of Nutty Slack onto the stretcher. However, the Chief Dead Body Remover's hands touched nothing but air and earth. Sorely vexed, the Chief Dead Body Remover looked at the Sub Chief Dead Body Remover, and then at King Keesh. "Tell me 0 Illustrious One, how am I to move a ghost, as ghosts do not have, shall we say, corporeality within this time space continuum?" "Ah.." said Keesh. "Uuuum," said the great Royal One. "I haven't got a fucking clue," the King finally announced after a great deal of deliberation. "We'll leave him here. That'll teach the little fool to keep dying. Let the field be known as 'Nutty's Field'. May his soul wander for eternity here in peace."
King Keesh walked sadly back to his great Castle through the merdes and ordure so distinctive of his lands, pursued by his royal retinue of attentive attendants. It was so sad to see Nutty go (again). He had always amused the King with his banter and philosophy. There were not many who could amuse old King Keesh. There was Fooloosha, of course, but first she had to be rescued by the Fruit Force, and the Fruit Force had first to be brought back to strength again after their recent rout. But for a man-to-ghost tete-a-tete, to whom now could he turn?
"Me," came a disembodied voice of dear old Nutty. "You!" exclaimed King Keesh. And with the disembodied voice of Nutty reverberating in his ear, King Keesh, much to the Consternation of his retinue, skipped merrily off to see Queen Queen. One of the protocols of Lorrainian regality required that the retinue move in a similar fashion to the King. So King and retinue skipped merrily across the shit encrusted landscape of Lorraine. "Queen Queen now," thought King Keesh, "Fooloosha later."
Meanwhile (well, a bit before really, time in postpostmodernism not being all it could be), the semi-spiritous Nutty was sunk deep in the muck-laden middens of Lorraine. Somewhere here, if only he could find them, were the legendary seven chapters missing from the narrative. Perhaps, if he found them, he would discover just why he was a ghost and King Keesh wasn't and just what had happened earlier. How had his plan failed? How had Keesh escaped the trap that would have freed Nutty's beloved? Why was his love still bound to the loathsome Keesh? Surely he could find the missing pages somewhere in the ocean of ordure that was Lorraine? Mind you, though, being a disembodied voice couldn't be all bad. Perhaps he could get his own back on Keesh for once. He laughed.
Far above, a slime-encrusted peasant saw bubbles appearing on the surface of the shit and cackled to himself. Not far away, next to one of the royal chamber pots (stolen in Chapter 8), the missing pages hung upon a nail. Soon he would have stolen the whole novel. Then he could substitute his own postpostmodernist epic with himself* as the hero.
The small, undistinguished man entered the expansive drawing room, and stopped self-effacingly in front of the chair bearing the all-but-undistinguished occupant.
"Holmes, there's a man at the door wishing to see you" said the undistinguished one.
"Probably William the Conqueror, Watson, about the seven missing chapters" opined Holmes through piped teeth.
"Good God, Holmes, how did you know that?!"
"All part of the mystique, Watson, show him in."
Exit Watson to reappear shortly after, ushering in William the Conqueror.
"Ah Holmes," said the big WC, "it's about those missing seven chapters."
"I surmised as much" responded The Great Man with characteristic modesty.
"Yes, they must be found" continued WC, unflushed, "for they contain my finest hour (or chapter) in this otherwise-unremittingly-unWC'ed novel. And you're the only man for the job".
"I'll see what I can do," said Holmes, lighting his pipe. "Fancy a toke of some of this?"
"Don't mind if I do, squire" replied WC, taking a massive hit from the proffered pipe, "Do my bit for the Morrocan economy."
With a howl akin to a loud howling thing, the ravening Magnolian hordes descended on the unsuspecting Chez Maurice bistro.
"Maria," called Maurice "table for 150,000, and make it snappy".
"Good afternoon, Queen Queen," said King Keesh.
It was dark.
Very dark.
Somewhere in the vast royal bed of Lorraine, King Keesh awoke. What a night it had been! He vaguely recalled that they had discovered Nutty Slack's stash of magic mushrooms hidden in a distant area of the bed. He must have had a wonderful time because he couldn't remember a thing. Ah, Fooloosha, Fooloosha! Oh, those throbbing thighs! That is, if it was Fooloosha. He suddenly realised that the last thing he remembered from Chapter 24 was greeting Queen Queen. Surely he couldn't have succumbed to her soggy charms? Hesitantly, he fumbled around for an identifying piece of anatomy. He grasped an ankle and sighed with relief when he realised that it could not possibly be one of Queen Queen's massive feet. "Fooloosha, Fooloosha, my post post modernist beauty," he murmured as he ran his hands over the head on the adjoining pillow. But wait! Surely Fooloosha had two ears?
"Hello, ducky," grinned Nutty Slack, lasciviously.
Meanwhile, back at the Chez Maurice bistro, several of the rowdier members of the ravening Magnolian hordes had started to express their displeasure at the sluggish service by throwing wine corks at each other, flicking Garlic Dip off the ends of their cruditds, indulging in base 4th-form humour about flatulence (in loud voices), impaling waitresses to the kitchen door with broadswords, dismembering them with blunt rusty pissed-on battleaxes and rubbing parmesan cheese into the wounds, that sort of thing. The sort of thing that, for example, any public school rugby team could get up to and be admonished for with a warning about youthful high spirits. This sort of behaviour from the equivalent of 10,000 rugby teams, all wearing furry hats, riding ponies and carrying a rather worrying selection of lethal weapons could not be ignored so easily.
A mad Magnolian |
These thoughts churned greasily through Maurice's head as he peered nervously round the door of the Ladies at the scenes of carnage before him. "Should have taken on those extra two YOPS," he mused, as he watched one of the commis chefs, his eyes gouged out, having his head wedged under the expresso machine, all the better to dribble the scalding liquid into the gory sockets.
"Fascinating" thought Maurice."That'll teach the little swine to skimp on the Thousand Island Dressing."
Maurice liked mutilation and torture as much as the next Parisian expatriate, but as even the more placid elements of the Magnolian hordes were starting to get restless (he could tell by the way they were riding their horses through the Habitat wine racks) he decided to do something.
"Er... I know! I'll call the Fruit Force Careers Information Office and get them all signed up! 150,000 aubergine-wielding maniacs on horseback will make those fruit bats think twice about expansionism in future!"
Maurice emerged gingerly from the Ladies, hastily adjusting his makeshift disguise (a wig made from roughly 0.5kg of soaked spaghetti) and headed for the payphone by the Russell Flint repro...
Then King Keesh woke up. He rubbed his eyes. It was dark. Very dark. He remembered some sort of strange nightmare in which he had indulged in some nocturnal niceties with Nutty. He smiled and reached out a hand toward his beloved Fooloosha. His hand was absorbed in a mass of fat. "Queen Queen!" King Keesh sat bolt upright, wide eyed, in his bed.
Then King Keesh woke up. He rubbed his eyes. It was dark. Very dark. He remembered a dream in which he had a dream he had spent a furious night of buggery with Nutty Slack, only to awaken to find Queen Queen beside him. His body ached with the remembered delights of Fooloosha. He reached out a hand toward the soft thigh of Fooloosha. He shrieked as a fruit bat bit his index finger, piercing the nail with its teeth of iron.
King Keesh awoke screaming to find himself not in the dark at all, but in a very brightly-lit bedroom, surrounded by mirrors. And in all the mirrors was Fooloosha. King Keesh struggled from beneath the yards of continental quilt (tog number 9.1), crawled across the vast rolling landscape of the bed toward a mirror, and stretched out his arms, bidding Fooloosha to come to him. He shouted her name but the image just smiled at him. He turned to another mirror to see Fooloosha, her arms embracing nobody, naked on his bed, thrusting her hips upward to the rhythm of her invisible partner, a slight flush burning the paleness of her cheeks. King Keesh roared his disapproval and picking up an ornamental piss pot (shaped as a fruitbat) flung it at the offending image. The mirror cracked and fell away leaving a few jagged teeth of silver glass around the entrance to a black tunnel that pulsed faintly with salmon pink light.*
King Keesh awoke with dawn streaming through the curtains and a hint of spring hanging on the air.
Enter Queen Queen.
KK: Bonjour, Queen Queen.
QQ tuts, and taps her watch.
QQ: Bon apres midi, King Keesh.
KK: Apres midi? J'avez slept beaucoup heures!
He rubs his eyes.
QQ: Oui. William le Conqueror est ici.
KK: Bon. To WtC. Qu'elle heure vous arrivé ?
WC: Je ne sais quoi. J'arrive, je departe. J'avez un semblance de la winds, non ?
KK: Tres Zen, mon brave.
QQ: But why are you here, Willie ?
WC: Ah, j'avez des nouvelles* des missing sept chapteurs.
KK: Indeed, and what nouvelles do you avez ?
WC: That they were stolen by none other than ...
pause for dramatic effect...
... which continues for even more dramatic effect ...
... into a pause of jaw-dropping emptiness, that wrings the very neck of the hiatus in this situation
QQ and KK in unison: Yes, yes ...
WC falls to the floor, the iron teeth of a member of the third kamikaze fruitbat squadron impaled in his neck.
KK: Dead !!
QQ: Oh! Faints, pursued by a bear.
KK: Retainers ! Remove the body to the royal dead visitor's suite. And get that bloody bear out of here.
Retainers: Yes, milud.
Exeunt.
Enter the ghost of the ghost of Nutty Slack, dressed as a postpostmodernist spook.
NS: And now, dear reader, the shit will really hit the fan.
Darkness. Curtain falls.
Sing!!
Oh, the Fruit Force are a frightening bunch
And really take their enemies to lunch
(On apples and dates and that sort of thing)
We really like to give a neck a wring.
With an apple, a pear, and a new fruit bowl
We can really make our enemies howl
(We know the last line doesn't really rhyme
But it probably did about Middle English time)
"Squad, halt !" shouted the majorette of the Fruit Force. "Surround the bistro !" she ordered. At that moment, Maurice himself was on the phone trying to contact the very same majorette and tell her about the strength, power, derring-do and sheer obnoxiousness of the Magnolian hordes. Unfortunately, Simon and Tabitha, a cohabiting couple of vegetarian social workers had already called in the Fruit Force in an attempt to save their favourite bistro from destruction.
Fooloosha.
FOOLOOSHA!
Ah, Fooloosha.
"Nutty! Nutty? Where are you Nutty?" King Keesh began to sob hysterically. He missed Nutty.
To be frank, Nutty missed him, indeed he missed the whole of Lorraine. Being dead is not all it's cracked up to be, particularly when you were an aspiring court jester in a well-paid postpostmodernist novel prior to your demise.
"Nuts," nutted Nutty. He examined his environment - well ,there wasn't a whole lot to examine actually, since it was dark... "Never imagined the astral plane would smell like this," thought Nutty, as the stench of ordure assailed his nostrils. "Screw this, I'm getting back to postpostmodernist reality." And with a flash, he was (back that is). Hastily, he covered up his private parts, reflecting on how useful it was at times to be a postpostmodernist, where reality bends at the flick of a pen.
Nutty examines his |
Nutty examined his surroundings.
Before him, amid the awful offal, stood a royal chamber pot and next to it a nail (suspended by disbelief). On the nail hung a single sheet of paper.
"What is this?" thought Nutty, and grabbed the single sheet. Upon it were the words:
the Holy Roman Penis. Aghast, Keesh sent his final Fruit Force fighters against the fearsome foe. The Imperial Guard advanced singing into battle against the fruit bat centre.
Filthmonger cackled. Just as he had planned. Keesh was now unguarded. In a supple movement of epic tragedy proportions, he notched the black arrow to his bow, and sent it speeding towards the king's heart ...
Nutty reeled back. This was for two reasons:
Muckwright
Sludgebottom contemplates the missing chapters
Nutty turned spadewards. There stood Muckwright Sludgebottom, spade in one hand, and a veritable ream of papers in the other.
"So Nutty, you've found the only remaining evidence - not that it'll do you much good," cackled Sludgebottom.
"Who are you?" asked Nutty, in traditional Shakespearean fashion.
"Have you not guessed?" asked Sludgebottom, laughing. "Perhaps this will stir your memory." With that, he ripped away his disguise, revealing who he really was.
"My expletive deleted," whispered Nutty. "I'd never have guessed it was you
"Sorry, old bean, but I can't let you live now you know that." And with that, he invented the revolver and shot Nutty through the heart.
The last thing Nutty thought was: "Oh no, not dead again."
"There is a bear in the garden," opined Queen Queen.
"Aha, Watson," muttered the great detective into his steaming mug of methadone extract. "I see at last a vital clue in this mystery."
"By Jove, Holmes! But how can you see anything in this rubbish?"
"Shut up, and have another toke, Doctor. By close examination of the clues in Chapter 30, I have uncovered the true identity of the thief."
"Go on, Holmes
"Go on, Holmes," Watson urged again, trying to ignore the intrusion of an unwonted chapter heading.
"It is of course, no one but The Red Hand himself!"
Watson gasped. "The Red Hand?" Then he looked puzzled. "The Red Hand? Who on earth is The Red Hand?"
"Aha," aha-ed Holmes. "If you care to look at Chapter 4 of the novel, you will notice that King Keesh suspects the work of The Red Hand in Parliament."
Watson walked across to the table, and picked up the thick wad of neatly word processed pages, and looked for Chapter 4. When he found it, he quickly scanned through Keesh's seemingly interminable awakening, Queen Queen's arrival, and finally found the phrase: " ... which is why Keesh suspected The Red Hand in the work of Parliament." Watson looked aghast. "Brilliant Holmes!" he exclaimed. "Brilliant. But how did you know it was he? What clues gave it away? What precisely, in Chapter 30, led you to suspect some little remarked person in Chapter 4?"
Holmes took a long slow toke on his pipe and said (as befits a Holmes), "Elementary, my dear Watson. Especially if you are in possession of Chapter 15!" Watson stepped back in amazement. (Steps back in amazement.) "Holmes! You are a genius."
"Yes, my sycophantic little friend. one of my underworld contacts got his grubby little hands on this for me, though he will not say from whom he obtained it." Holmes reached into his pocket and removed a scrappy piece of paper, which he handed to Watson. Watson unfolded it and began to read:
Chapter 15
The Red Hand |
From the battlements King Keesh could see a single lonely figure scampering across the fruit full landscape. Who he was, or where he should be running to, Keesh had no idea. In one of those rare Lorrainian moments, the clouds parted, and a brilliant ray of the evening sun burnt across the brown and umbrian country, a narrow band of burning white that for an instant fell upon the dark scurrying figure. King Keesh gasped. For a few brief seconds, the light, that cut the air of Lorraine like a knife, had fallen directly onto the arm of the distant running figure. And in that instant Keesh had seen the deep, deep crimson colour of the hand. Keesh knew that legend told that this could be one person and one person only. The Red Hand. And that fortuitous beam of light had revealed another thing. That cruel hand held a wad of writing paper!"
"Astounding, Holmes, I never would have guessed it!" Holmes paused for a moment.
"Chapter 36"
"Wait for it Watson, wait for it. I haven't said my dramatic punchline yet."
"Sorry, Holmes."
"Okay. Now, Watson, we must visit the Chez Maurice bistro."
"Alright now, Holmes?"
"Yes."
"Right."
Terrible was the carnage. Unexploded tomatoes nestled dangerously amid the bodies of fallen Fruit Force and mangled Magnolians. Great would be the tales of this battle. The Battle of the Bistro would go down in Fruit Force lore for they had vanquished the Magnolian horde!
Miraculously, Chez Maurice appears almost untouched, as Holmes and Watson enter.
"Ah, Maurice," says Holmes, effusively, "I see you are unhurt."
"That is true, Senor Holmes, I was very lucky."
"I notice you are wearing your glasses," whispers Holmes meaningfully.
"I know you're observant Holmes," mutters Watson, "but isn't that taking things a bit far?"
"Far from it, Watson. You see if Maurice were indeed Nutty Slack resurrected*, his glasses would be hopelessly lopsided. Viz: only one ear!" crowed Holmes triumphantly. "Therefore, Maurice, I accuse you of being The Red Hand. Book him, Danno, Murder One."
"Masterful, Holmes, absolutely brilliant," murmurs Watson sycophantically.
"But Senor Holmes, you are wrong. Look, Sellotape and Super Glue 3!" And with that, Maurice shows how his spectacles are stuck to one side of his head.
"Too bad for you, wise guy," says Holmes, Cagney style, "that just means I'm gonna have to rub you out." He then throws one of the aforementioned tomatoes at Maurice, killing him instantly.
"Why did you do that, Holmes?" asked Watson.,
"There's no harm in you knowing, since you're gonna die anyway. I am, in fact, The Red Hand!"
"The Red Hand?!!"
"The Red Hand. Yes I," pulling off his disguise, "Muckwright Sludgebottom." Dum Dum Da DUM! "Ever since Chapter 21, you have been reading my story! And now you must die." Another tomato finds its mark.
"And now, dear reader, there's only you to dispose of ....
END OF VOLUME 1
VOLUME 2Perhaps it is too early to reflect on the dichotomy that is farce and filosophy, and yet, my Karma is a rubber duck called Gerald, who feasts on wine and kangaroo eggs From The Collected Works of Nutty Slack |
Still, for the moment you are spared an untimely death by tomato, dear reader, as I think that, before you go, you should catch up on all the other things that have happened elsewhere. For example, can we really leave Fooloosha trapped in the Lurid Mountains? And what of Lord Filthmonger? And wouldn't you really like to know what happened in Chapters 12 to 18? Of course you would. So to find the answers, read on, dear reader, read on!
Thousands of small insects, and possibly the odd rodent, are crushed to death by the jackboots of the Flying Fruit Force, who are en route to the Lurid Mountains to rescue King Keesh's beloved Fooloosha.
Fooloosha lay in an eerie eyrie in the Lurid Mountains. She was tightly trussed up. Naked. To the bed. In a room full of mirrors. In one corner of the room sat Filthmonger.
And as he sat and watched, he remembered times long past, of past loves and past lives.
And after he had taken her, and taken her again, words and worlds sprang unbidden to mind...
I move among the shadows, a symphony with the night. Unnoticed, I move, first here, now there, furtive, ever furtive. I am the Blind Alley Kid.
Once you might have known me. In a small town that has no name, yet has many names, I lived a meaningless existence. All that is changed now. For now I am the Blind Alley Kid.
Let me take you to the furthest, darkest corners of the globe, and to the deep shunned corners of your mind. For this is my story ...
In the dampness, the sound of feet sloshing through rotting cardboard boxes and inch deep water. Another sound running - then a swift cry and all is silent.
Peer out from under your hiding place, carefully now, mustnlt be seen. There! The body with one of the kids from round the block leaning over it. Carefully, carefully, crawl out from under the cardboard debris. Into the shadows.
He's going. Looks round, streetwise, but doesn't see me, not here at home in the shadows. Gone. Out to the body, old guy, about fifty, the streetwise kid's had all the good stuff, but he might have left something a little guy like me could use. Through the pockets. Nothing. Check his mouth - no good fillings. Damn. WAIT. Listen here come feet hide hide hide.
"Hey kid!"
Move away from the body, it's the gang.
"Hey, guys, it's the little peanut from down the block. What say we teach him not to interfere with the V8s?"
Blades out - run! Down the alley, down another, here come the feet, run, run. Blind alley! Wall. Nowhere to go! Here they come!
King Keesh peered over the Royal Scribe's shoulder and shouted "Lackey!! Stop writing dreadful modernist science fiction!! Get on with my demand to Filthmonger!!" When the Royal Scribe finally climbed down from the chandelier and rearranged himself in the Royal Writing Lackey's chair, he tugged his forelock and apologised most effusively to the King.
With a leap and a bound and a hey nonny no - it's Nutty Slack! COME ON DOWN!
"Nutty!"
"In times of yore, King Keesh, I did opine of killing Kings and rotting fruit and things you do not mention on the Inner City line. And yet, you seem to live on yet, for here you are, no corpse I see, and you've not been to the astral plane, I bet. Nay, I know, for here's the nub, and there's the rub, Fooloosha's in deep trouble, Kingypoo."
"By the five tongues of the Lurid Mountains, Nutty, why are you talking like that?" exclome King Keesh.
"By way of a postpostpostmodernist change, old fruit."
"What news have you of my beloved Fooloosha, my favourite spook three times over?"
"Far have I wandered upon the plain (the astral one that is), and gone by train (sometimes), and seen things you haven't seen that are all around the globe and in between, and of the things that I have seen is Lord Filthmonger in his lair, and several maidens fair, no less, one of whom is your Fooloosha, I'd recognise her dress, (though that was on the bedpost, she not being in it), coast to coast I'd searched for her, for I loved her too, Kingypoo."
"By the great Blangathurple, thy tongue is mighty strange, Nutty. What are you trying to tell me?"
"Oh, Kingypoo, the lovely Fooloosha, your love who I loved too, is at this moment at Filthmonger's mercy, far away in the mountains lurid (whose names are the Lurid Mountains) and due to my non-corporeality three times removed, I have left undone things I had better did, and so you see me, unfooloosha'd, undone, undid; I sigh," sighs Nutty.
"Nutty, your present incarnation seems most verbose. Are you saying Filthmonger even now holds my beloved?"
"Oh King Keesh, you are most keen, you have disentangled the skein of these words of mine. Unravel all my words line by line and surely my King you will uncover the grist and that metaphoric sort of thing."
"So Filthmonger does indeed have Fooloosha," the King persisted.
"Yes, my lord, 'Tis as I said ...
"Oh, shut up Nutty, I have to think."
Queen Queen walked around the State Room of the royal palace of Lorraine. In her hands she held a long pole. This she poked into the dark corners of the room. As she did so, she dislodged one or two, or perhaps even three, fruitbats. Queen Queen, not the most subtle of monarchs, stomped on each bat as it fell. Little pools of blood and fur punctuated the vast expanse of the marbled floor of the State Room. The thin streams of blood blended with the red veining of the marble.
Queen Queen smiled quietly to herself. Obviously she knew something that King Keesh did not. It is that sort of smile. Secret, but unguarded. The smile of somebody who has planned and succeeded. Ah, if only, she thought to herself, it had not meant so many fruitbats. She shrugged her shoulders, and then smiled again. It did, nonetheless, provide good sport. She moved to another dark corner of the State Room, and pushed the stick into the shadows. A pair of fruitbats fell to the floor. While they lay confused and disoriented, Queen Queen stamped one great foot upon them. She heard bones snap, and saw the explosion of blood and offal as the frail bodies ruptured. Satisfied, she moved onto the next corner.
King Keesh sat on his favourite mink chamberpot, holding his head in his hands. From time to time he wailed softly. "oh, Fooloosha, lost to the foul claws of some hideous peasant! What am I to do? Eeeek!" This last exclamation was unrelated dither to the monarch's love life, or to his bowels, but was due to the strange apparition that had suddenly sneaked up behind him. It was revoltingly filthy, dressed in distinctly unfashionable rags, and under its long lank hair it seemed to be carrying a strange book.
"No, no!" cried the King. "I do not want any dirty pictures, I couldn't even face the new Royal Doulton catalogue just now. Do go away."
"Aha!" said the loathsome figure. "These are no dirty pictures, this is the answer to your problems."
"Nonsense," snarled the King, standing up in royal rage (and promptly falling over, as his royal trousers were still around his ankles).
Keesh picked himself up and allowed the Fly Buttoning Lackey to do his duty. "How can a mere manual bring back Fooloosha, recorporealise Nutty, and do something about Queen Queen who, I suspect from reading the last chapter, is deeply implicated in the strange goings-on that have been on-going hereabouts?"
"Oh King," replied the hairy Hermit (for so he was), "not only will this sacred tome improve your life, cure impotence and/or piles, and tell you how to solve all your problems. It will also improve the tone of this epic, allowing you to quote mysterious bits from it at the start of chapters (adding an air of authority to your claim to heroic status in this novel)."
"But what is this book?" inquired Keesh, "and how much is it anyhow?"
"For a mere pittance, not exceeding 2 cart loads of jewellery and a dozen avocados, I offer you the sacred book of Dhu Wei the Sage. This triumph of pre-pre-ancientism was hand illuminated by the scribes of lost Br'knl. Listen and I will read you a section for free." So saying, the putrid palmer opened the tome, declaiming:
And lo it came to pass that the one whose name is not spoken, whose colour is as the emerald, did look upon the people of the land. And he waxed wroth, saying 'Behold, these people are peaceful, and happy, and they sing as they work (which is not often)'. And he cursed them, sending forth doubt and dissension. Then he spake again, saying 'Let the people be cast out from this land which flows with milk and coffee, and let them wander among the savages who worship glass-fronted boxes'.
Now there were certain ones in the land who spake against this. And they murmured amongst themselves, saying, 'Do we not know the sacred word? How can we be split asunder?' And they did grieve mightily over all that had come to pass, calling upon the sacred word which is called...
Here the hermit slammed the book shut, raising a cloud of dust and squashing an unwary fruit-bat.
"Well," he said, "do you want the book?"
King Keesh was indeed impressed, and, after giving the hermit the requisite two cartloads of jewellery (of which Lorraine had more than enough, crammed full of talented artisans as it was), and a dozen avocados (at which King Keesh baulked somewhat, as twelve avocados was more than enough to start a small Fruit Force), the beautifully illuminated book of Dhu Wei the Sage passed from the hermit to King Keesh.
After the hermit had made his (for some reason, somewhat hasty) departure, King Keesh ordered the Fly Buttoning Lackey to perform his duties again, and the king slowly settled down upon his mink chamber pot to read the wit and wisdom of Dhu Wei.
He quickly sought out the passage the hermit had read, and searched for the word. He read with a mounting thrill: " ... all that had come to pass, calling upon the sacred word which is Arnold."
"Arnold?? What sort of sacred word is Arnold?" raged King Keesh, much to the consternation of the Fly Buttoning Lackey. King Keesh promptly stood up and fell over for the second time, as befits a man with his trousers around his ankles. The lackey helped the King up, and promptly did the necessary with the Royal Breeches. The King looked at the lackey and asked pathetically: "Arnold? What sort of word is Arnold?"
"Proper noun. Christian or first name, although there have been some famous Arnolds with that surname," said the lackey, knowledgeably. The king cuffed the lackey sharply around the ear.
"I know that, lackey. What is its esoteric significance?"
The lackey was a shrewd man, and knew how to mollify the king when he was in a royal rage.
"Perhaps," the lackey suggested, "further study of the tome might elucidate you. Perhaps ... Dhu Wei is some sort of Zen master."
"Indeed," mused Keesh, "Mayhap you are right, lackey. I am gone to the study. If Queen Queen wants me, I am out. Begone."
And the lackey was gone, leaving King Keesh to trudge his tired, weary, lonely way to the study.
Chapter 1
"In the beginning, there was bugger all. Not even a trimphone. Then KAPOW!! - Arnold!"
"Did I really shell out all that jewellery and fruit for this?" thought a vexed King Keesh, and kicked the royal whipping boy in frustration. The royal whipping boy whimpered, as a good whipping boy should. "Perhaps it improves later on. The chapter the hermit read me certainly seemed good." He flicked hesitantly through the pages, finally letting the book fall open at a well thumbed page.
"She took a deep breath. Her nipples stuck out as he ran his hands over her ... "
"By the effluvium of the Royal Lavatory Suite! I've been fobbed off with cheap porn!" Keesh settled down for a good read.
The small group looked up nervously as the huge mass entered. Indeed, it looked like a decoy for the whaling fleet mentioned in Volume 1. It was of course...
"Queen Queen, thank goodness you've come. Dark deeds are afoot, dark deeds."
"Relax Filthmonger, I've got things well under control."
Filthmonger! Let us examine the occupants of the table, for dark deeds indeed appear to be, so to speak, afoot.
At the table, in a green eyeshade, sits Filthmonger. To his left, in a beany hat, sits The Red Hand (alias Muckwright Sludgebottom, alias Sherlock Holmes). To his right, in deely bobbers, sits William the Conquerer. The late William the Conquerer! Queen Queen sits down in the vacant chair.
She gets up suddenly and rubs at her large posterior. "I've been goosed!" she declaims royally. She looks accusingly at The Red Hand, Filthmonger, and William the Conquerer. They all look innocent (they all are) but blush to be so sternly scrutinised by the regal pupils. Queen Queen attempts to sit down, but jumps up again quickly and points a fat finger at those at the table. "What is going on here? I am Queen Queen, Queen of all Lorraine!" Filthmonger looks at William the Conquerer. "Tu, Willie?"
"Non," Willie replies, "Pour quois? Queen Queen est tres gross."
"Vous n'etes pas so skinny vousself, solshine," snappéd Queen Queen.
"Is it you, Red Hand?" asked Filthmonger. The Red Hand opened his mouth as if to make some comment, but quickly closed it as the penetrating pupils of Queen Queen bore into him, and shook his head.
"Then what is going on?" the Queen demanded.
'J'avez ne idee," dit Willie.
Queen Queen attempted to sit again. A resounding slap, as if of flesh on wobbling rump, resounded resoundingly around the room. All gasped (although Willie gaspéd). Queen Queen lumbered up. Once again demands and denials were made.
King Keesh, if he were at the cabal, would be the only one to hear, of course, the ghostly cackle of Nutty Slack, who, totally naked as he was, was thus invisible. And also enjoying all the physical contact with Queen Queen. For, as is becoming apparent by the thrust of the narrative, Nutty Slack
"I would like to recount," King Keesh announced to the Fly Buttoning Lackey, "a story I once heard." The King coughed, then began his story.
And it came to pass that a maiden came into their midst, the most beauteous maiden Dhu Wei had ever seen. And she did charm him with her lyre playing, and soon the two were in love. Before the sun had passed the mountains a dozen times, Dhu Wei married the maiden, whose name was Fen Dar. And soon they begat a son, and was the custom in those days, they called him Dhu Dar.
When the boy was five summers old, he was taken to the great town of A'n'phraxx by his uncle, who was a trader in lamprey pelts, and obviously very poor. And lo! The inhabitants of the town were all women. This confused the young Dhu Dar, so his uncle explained to him that they were the concubines and personal bodyguards of the Great Blangathurple himself.
So the boy examined the woman with renewed interest, and soon, in his boyish mind, there grew A Great Question*. One day he accompanied his uncle on one of his lamprey hunting expeditions. After a hard morning's hunting, they stopped to eat in a great canyon, where the walls resounded with echoes. After a time, Dhu Dar summoned the courage to ask his uncle the Great Question.
"Uncle, how can you tell which women are concubines and which bodyguards?"
Which bodyguards? echoed the canyon.
"Well, boy, the great Blangathurple chooses his women carefully. The concubines are lovers of men, while the bodyguards are, well, camp," replied his uncle.
Well, camp, replied the canyon.
"Uncle, can you tell which are the lovers of men, and which are not?"
Arnott, came the echo.
To this his uncle replied:
"Well, the camp town ladies sing this song, Dhu Dar"
DhuDar...
"'The camp town racetrack five miles long - oh da doo dah day' ... "
Ohdadoodaday...
"'Oh da doo da day..."
Dhu Dar's uncle looked puzzled. Somebody had sung the last line just as he had opened his own mouth. He looked about him, and there, standing tall and magnificent against the afternoon sunlight, was Blangathurple himself.
His mind finally made up, King Keesh sprang from his vast jet, marble and alabaster throne and headed straight towards the barracks of the Fruit Force. He went to the Macramé Majorette. "Prepare the Fruit Force for action! We go today to rescue Fooloosha from the Lurid Mountains!"
This was a bold and rash move. King Keesh was still not sure he had an offensive weapon capable of routing Filthmonger's fruitbats. Honoured members of the Fruit Force had been issued with the latest weapon, the Hot Potato. Handled correctly, it might just give the Fruit Force the edge. Might. But he wanted Fooloosha. Badly.
One hour later, after hasty preparations, King Keesh, his retainers, and the Fruit Force were trudging across the wearisome landscape of Lorraine. It is, of course, during this march that a kestrel, unnoticed by anyone, is crushed by the marching feet.
King Keesh heard a familiar voice.
"'Tis I, King Keesh, you know my voice and I have come of my own free choice to tell you all there is to tell about how I loved and Fooloosha fell into the evil clutches of Filthmonger the Lord of the Lurid Mountains beyond the ford."
"Nutty!" exclaimed King Keesh delightedly. "It's you!"
"Indeed, I am me, my beloved King, and tho' I love you here's the thing I have to tell and sad to relate it bodes not well for my future fate, nor your's nor Queen Queen's, for I will relate some ugly scenes."
"And I have received, from King Keesh himself, this missive demanding the release of Fooloosha," Filthmonger cried.
"Pass it here," demanded Queen Queen. She read:
|
'Give me my Fooloosha back, or there'll be trouble." Sgnd King Keesh,
King of all Lorraine, Champion of Right, Believer in the True Faith, Invested in the name of Blangathurple, The Right and True Custodian of the Blangathurplian Faith, &c., &c. |
"Oh well; terse, anyway," the great Queen observed. Then she turned the page over and said, "Wait! What's this?" And she read:
Chapter 17
"We've got him now," said Claw, leader of the V8s.
"Yeh, where are you going to run to now, Peanut?" asked Scorpio at Claw's side. The V8s blades glittered in the afternoon sun. Four walls encircled Peanut. Three of brick, one of flesh and steel. "Fuck you, Claw," shouted Peanut, "fuck you and fuck the V8s."
"The peanut's got spunk, Claw," said Scorpio. "You want I take him out?" Scorpio's eyes stayed cold as ever, which was colder than his mother's icebox. Claw's eyes glittered. "No, he's mine. Give the Peanut your knife, Scorpio." Peanut hardly saw Scorpio's hand move, but he felt the knife nick flesh from his ear, then heard the deep thud as the blade sunk an inch into the sleeper that leant against the wall behind him. The cut hurt, but Peanut didn't show it. He took two steps back, never taking his eyes from Claw, then quickly pulled the blade from the wood.
Claw's blade flashed in the last rays of the reddening sky.
Blood red. He walked, confident but wary as a cat, toward the cornered peanut. Blades flash. Peanut, the fastest kid on the block, drew first blood, that trickled from the knife wound on Claw's cheek. "Got spunk alright," said Claw, and smiled then - QUICK! stop his hand!
Peanut's blade flies from his hand, arcs away and lands with a clatter at the foot of the wall.
"Too bad Peanut," said Claw quietly. "Now you pay for this." He touched his cheek. Peanut backed towards the wall, the smiling Claw advancing on him. His hands touched stone. This is it.
Suddenly, the stone wasn't there anymore, as hands grabbed him and pulled him back into the dark, then a door slammed
"Good thing I read that chapter when I did, Peanut, or you'd be a goner."
Peanut looked up at his benefactor. Queen Queen stood there, sweating slightly (sorry, glowing, monarchs don't sweat).
"Wha'ppen ?" asked Peanut, bewildered.
"Why, we just saved you from certain death. You were caught in one of the alleys that contain our secret exits. In the nick of time, we opened it and pulled you in. The V8s are still probably wondering where you've disappeared to."
Peanut now noticed the others in the room - three unsavoury looking men. At that moment, he wondered if he wouldn't have been better off left to the V8s.
"And now, Peanut," continued Queen Queen, "in exchange for saving your life, I've a little errand I want you to perform."
"So that's their secret!" cried King Keesh. "They've got concealed exits into other novels, so whenever I get close they just duck out of postpostmodernism all together !"
"Right !" replied Nutty, "and yet, O King, while they did plot and prime their extra-postpostmodernist assassin, I sneakfully and with great effort, nicked a map."
"Quick, before they can insert this V8 Peanut into Lorraine we must elude them and attack from the rear. This way...
fade
Sherriff Keesh leaned back in the saddle and spat at a rattler. The wad of chewing tobacco sizzled on the bare rock, baked by the Arizona sun. He stood up in his stirrups and waved to the posse behind him.
"Right men, Old Nutty, the prospector, tells me that Red Hand and his tribe are rampaging in the Lurids. They've gone on the warpath and captured the fair Miss Fooloosha, mah beloved."
He pulled a six-shooter banana from his holster and waved it in the air.
"Cut 'em off at the pass !" he yelled.
fade
Captain "King" Keesh stared through the forward viewscreen at the ghastly sight of the Lurid Nebula. There, in the darkest depths of unexplored space, far beyond the Thousand Suns, was the lair of the evil Dr Filthmonger. There too was the gorgeous Yeoman Fooloosha who was doubtless at this very moment the subject of one of the hideous doctor's perverted experiments. He crossed to the keyboard of the ship's N.U.T.T.Y.600 computer and typed in a question.
"Estimate arrival time/search quotient."
The printer chattered and he ripped off the printout. It read ...
"O Kingy, though things are sorely warped and twisted you should be seeing Fooloosha again in a couple of chapters."
Captain Keesh stared puzzedly at the printout for a minute. Then he went over to check the weaponry. The photon tomatoes were nearly up to full charge. Suddenly, the radar proximity alarms began clanging !
fade
Boss Keesh fingered the trigger of his sub-machinebowl and stared through the car windscreen. He puffed nervously at his cigar. Then he heard it again, the distinctive note of the V8 engine!
Yes. Complicated business, isn't it? Pointers:
There's still a lot of action to come, and a lot of questions remain unanswered.
Who can tell where we are and what is to come? I can't. The imagination determines the characters, and the characters determine the plot, and if they can be said to possess their own imagination, determine all these convolutions.
So I yawn, I stretch, and decide:
END OF VOLUME 2
VOLUME 3"This great and glorious bible is the inaccurate rendering of the novel in which we live. 'Fifteen thoughts of Dhu Wei the sage' |
"I saw it!'
"Saw what?"
"Chapter 17"
""I saw it!""
""Saw what?""
""Chapter 17""
"""I saw it!"""
"""Saw what?"""
"""Chapter 17"""
fade
Mind you, it wasn't the missing Chapter 17; it a mere scratch on the surface of time's vinyl. That chapter 17 was in fact Chapter 17 from The Book of Dhu Wei the Sage, which King Keesh is at this moment reading as he leads his great and glorious Fruit Force towards the showdown at the Lurid Mountains.
Many are the tales of the great Blangathurple and his glorious Virgin Warriors. Perhaps the most magnificent is the adventure that did occur when his love was spirited away by the evil King Brussels of the Mountains.
When Blangathurple discovered this, terrible was his rage, and he swiftly journeyed to the town of Alnlphraxx to mobilise his Virgin Warriors. It was here he met the boy Dhu Dar, and took him in his charge as his squire, for Blangathurple had need of a squire. And Dhu Dhar's uncle he made King of the city of Myxama and the district of Tossis.
Then did he take them with his massed forces of Virgin Warriors to march against King Brussels of the Mountains. And the legions of warriors did stretch from horizon to horizon, and the noise of their marching stilettoes could be heard even in the bowels of the earth and in the heavens, where the gods waited to receive the maidens killed in glorious battle.
Thirty days and nights they walked, until at last they came to the great walled city of Avoirdupois that sits at the foot of the mountains. And arrayed in front of its walls were its greatest heroes, led by King Brussels himself!
Then Blangathurple did offer up praise to the god Arnold, calling upon him to bless his great war cucumber, that he carried ever at his side.
And the sky boiled and went black as night, though it was only 1:27pm, and yea! the heroes of Avoirdupois did quail at the sight of the power of Arnold!
Then five tongues of fire did appear in the sky, bathing the hordes and mountains in its lurid glow.
And Blangathurple let cry his battle cry, and led his forces into battle toward the lurid mountains.
In the city of Avoirdupois, at the end of the first day's fighting, King Brussels called to him his two greatest generals - King William the Apothecary and Prince Metric. All were covered in the dust and blood of battle.
"How went the fighting on your fronts?" asked Brussels.
"My forces are winning on the right end of the line," said King William, proudly, "and soon we will have conquered the sluts he sends against us."
"The fighting at the left of the line has been fierce indeed, O my king," said Prince Metric. "We have all of us been soaked in the blood of our enemies, and of our brothers. Indeed, my sword hand is so stained with blood, I fear it will never be clean again."
"Go then, my brave warriors," said King Brussels. "Return to your troops and tell them to continue to fight for the Kingdom of the Mountains!"
When they had departed, King Brussels did summon two others to him. One was a young man of dark skin and glittering eye. The other was the faithless wife of the uncle of Dhu Dar himself, though she was now Queen of Myxama~Tossis. To these two, the king spake. "Hie thee away now from here, lest ye are discovered. Should Avoirdupois fall, I leave it to you to continue the fight."
And so they left for another chapter.
On the second day of the battle, the fray was joined early. At one end of the line, Dhu Dar led the Virgin Warriors against Prince William the Apothecary, though his caused seemed doomed. The Prince's forces seemed invincible, and the Prince himself seemed protected by the gods. Slowly, Dhu Dar's forces began to lose ground.
At the other end of the line, Dhu Dar's uncle, King Myxama-Tossis, led the forces in the fierce fighting against Prince Metric of the Red Hand, as he was now known. Neither side would give ground, and terrible was the slaughter.
In the centre, Blangathurple's forces faced those of King Brussels himself. Here, the presence of the man who was almost a god, Blangathurple, swayed the tide of the battle. Greatly did he fight, despatching ten of the enemy with one blow of his mighty cucumber. His warrior maidens too fought valiantly, striving to compete with the greatest warrior of them all. Slowly, inexorably, the heroes of Avoirdupois were driven back towards the wall of the city.
In the midst of his troops, King Brussels was dismayed. He exhorted the Avoirdupians to greater efforts. "Do not relinquish, men, fight these demon women. Remember, they are not real women, but indulge in the vilest sexual practices!"
And the Virgin Warriors heard this and were dismayed, until Blangathurple cried "Ignore his filth! Death to the Filthmonger!"*
"Death to the Filthmonger," went up the cry as the Virgin Warriors attacked with renewed vigour.
At the end of the day, the battle was over, though at a heavy cost. King William the Apothecary's forces had routed the troops at one end of the line and slain the young Dhu Dhar. However, William's conquering forces had been routed by Blangathurple's crack troops, the Iron Virgins, and fled into the Lurid Mountains.
Dhu Dhar's uncle, on hearing of his nephew's death, had called upon his troops for a final effort, and with the aid of the gods had killed or captured all of the Red Hand's troops, including the capture of the Red Hand himself.
In the centre, Blangathurple, the god who was a man, struck Filthmonger's head from his shoulders, whereupon the remaining heroes of Avoirdupois surrendered instantly. Blangathurple then sought out Dhu Dhar's uncle, and said to him, "The gods are calling me, for I have spent too long amongst mortals. To you I bequeath all my empire, which in memory of my favourite concubine shall be called Lorraine. I dub thee King Keesh of Lorraine!" And with that, he disappeared to the plane of the gods.
The Great Blangathurple, armed with his war cucumber. surveys the Lurid Mountains.
And in his place stood Fooloosha.
"Ah, Fooloosha!" cried King Keesh, "at last we are reunited!"
Meanwhile, in an derelict house in Berkshire, ripe for demolition, the author slumped exhausted over his desk after the effort of Chapters 17 to 20.
Reunited with his beloved Fooloosha, King Keesh breathed a huge sigh of relief. "You are back, beloved! Tell me what befell you."
Fooloosha told of the horrors she had suffered at the hands of Filthmonger. When King Keesh heard, he raged and cried to heaven, and wanted to rip Filthmonger apart with his own hands. But Filthmonger had been killed in another chapter in another book, and how this was done will be explained in Volume 4*.
And yet ...
And yet ...
The stench of battle. Pools of semi-solid blood. Groans of agony intertwined with severed limbs. A severed head. The head of Filthmonger. Lord of the Black Banana. King of Brussels. Mouth agape.
The dead Dhu Dhar's aunt, Soe Dhar looked down on that mouth, the mouth she knew so well, and wept. Her great Lord and lover was dead.
She bent down and cradled the head in her hands, staining them crimson. Filthmonger's eyes stared blankly out at her and his thick mauve tongue hung limply out. He looked just like he always did on a Friday night.
"Gawd, have I got a headache," he said, blinking in the strong afternoon sunlight. "For god's sake get me out of that sun, woman."
Soe Dhar screamed a little scream and dropped the head in surprise.
"Aagh! That's right, make it worse. Go and drop me on the ground. Why don't you have a game of football with me while you're about it," said the bodyless Baron of Darkness.
"But, but..." stuttered Soe Dhar, "...you're dead!"
"And yet!?!"
"Course I'm not dead, you stupid bitch" said the head.
"You can't kill a nematode as easily as that. The mere lack of a body is a temporary inconvenience. I'll soon grow out of it."
"You mean you're alive?" said Soe Dhar, still in a state of shock.
"Well, if you knew a bit of biology, my girl, you'd know that nematodes, especially super-evolved giant nematodes, can simply regrow themselves in the event of being sliced in two. Takes a bit of time of course. About a week. So stop dribbling and pick me up! We've got some plotting to do."
Soe Dhar picked up the head, wrapped it in her shawl and rushed off to the eerie eyrie to tend her sick master. or what temporarily remained of him.
Meanwhile, a forgotten headless body stirred slowly to conciousness and stood up, confused.
Claw spat on the ground. "Where's the Peanut gone?"
Scorpio looked puzzled in a cold sort of way.
"Thin air, Claw."
The V8s began to drift away. Dispirited somehow. The sun shined. A rabbit screamed. In the distance, in the green, Claw could see two figures walking, over the hills and into Holland. one looked like the Peanut. Perhaps. It was hard to tell from this distance. Could be anyone. The V8s were going, amorphous. They needed a head.
Claw didn't run, but walked purposefully toward the small knots of gang that had formed. Found a point at which he was roughly the centre of the gang. Shouted: "hey - we'll get the Peanut."
Then he knew that he would have to indulge in gratuitous violence to win the V8s again. He sighed. He hated mindless violence.
Soe Dhar said to the Peanut "You must worm your way into my husband's court somehow. Peanut. Have you any particular skills or talents?" She found it difficult to avoid references to "worm" since Filthmonger's startling disclosure.
"Mugging, petty larceny, grand theft auto; that sort of thing," the Peanut replied.
"Oh god!" said Soe Dhar hopelessly, "we need subtlety here. Can you do anything?"
"I can tell jokes."
"Try me," said Soe Dhar.
Peanut recounted two enormously long and laboured jokes, one about fish and the other about the retinue of Blangathurple himself. When he had finished, Soe Dhar admitted that the jokes were terrible, but he did have great confidence. There was little else for it but confidence and a great deal of luck.
"Come. We must take you to the court of King Keesh as he is now named. You are to be court jester - somehow."
The Peanut gulped. He hadn't liked it much when Claw faced him, steel in hand and eye, and his weapon lifeless on the floor. But court jester to King Keesh? And how did Soe Dhar know there was even a vacancy?
He scratched at his ear. The wound caused by Claw's knife had gone septic. Scab, flesh and pus came away in his hand. Pain seared through his head. hef he didn't act promptly, might die of blood poisoning. In a flash he had the knife from Soe Dhar's belt, and had cut off his ear.
Soe Dhar gasped. Tears streamed from the Peanut's eyes. Compassion filled Soe Dhar's heart, she took the youth in her arms and kissed him fully on the peanut. The Peanut's heart filled, in its turn, with a strange new desire.
Suddenly, the Peanut burst out:
"And here's my tale, and here's a thing, I hope you will not rail against me at the news I have to sing, but I would fain to dub you Queen, Queen of all Lorraine... "
Then he stopped, and looked puzzled, and said "Why am I talking like that?"
But Soe Dhar was lost in thought, inspired by an idea that the Peanut had unwittingly helped give birth to.
FINIS
