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Old 06-16-2004, 06:17 AM   #188
Bęthberry
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Join Date: May 2002
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Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.
Boots There is a light that doth go out.

Leaving the Two-timing-ship behind at Wolven Cot, Ricky had muttered something about, "Let them dig their own barrow," or, 'Everybody must get standing-stoned," or "To everything there is a seasoning." Then, laughing as he gave her attire an appreciative eye, Rickey made the following suggestion to Gucyberry, his heart moved with a joy that he at least did understand, "Hey pretty, I see a roadway down into the belly of a tale; let me show you where I'm at." Ricky, it appeared, was adept at picking up Seventh Age street lingo, a linguistic skill which puts his Third Age verse into particular perspective. Here was a fellow with a very common touch.

Dodging ten ton trucks, Ricky pumped the Monterey up to around ninety miles an hour on the A4144, not quite as romantic as Ye Aulde Forest Road, but the Eagles were as unreliable in these eco-destructive days as the room service at Hotel California. But by the time he got to Woodstock Road, he was doing fifty miles an hour and then he hit St. Giles. Swerving left and right, sometimes wide and sometimes slow, Ricky managed the Monterey fast slow fast fast slow, as Gucy sang in execrable rhyme with the Monterey's movements. It was Poe'try in motion.

"Hey Ricky Ricardillo! Whither are you going?
Rubber you are laying.
Scholars your exhaust is slaying,
on a tear in front of gown and town."

Before Ricky could jerrydol the handbrake or merrydol a reply, a rising din hit the air and a shock wave of monumental proportions rocked the Monterey. Quite literally, for just over their heads, this being a convertible, flew pieces of that tombstone which Pimpi had heroically endeavoured to decipher. Alas in disaster the lovers were sundered, for the stone was cracked between the names. The Heron piece crashed into the right fender and then fell onto the road whereas the Nightingale fragment twirled in midair and then fell amidst some brambles. Oh, too cruel fate that would sunder lovers, even those not doomed to be separated by closed windows between alternate universes. Is all yet but Dust?

But then the vehicle really rocked with aftershock: the trailer jack-knifed into the Berk and Babbler--aka the Sméagol and Fried--luckily missing a long and winding line dance that went ever on and on. The line dance consisted of Peter Hackson fans. These New Zéa-lôt-Länders were desperate to sub-create certain activities commonly called panned-fictions. They were known to 'dress the part' outside darkened houses of ill projections. Here at the Berk and Babbler they satisfied themselves with reproducing the legendary exploits of that illustrious boy band, the In the Pinklings.

Yet the havoc was not finished. Just then a dust cloud worthy of the Eve of Destruction overtook the Monterey. "Oh, Ricky, what are we going to do?" wailed Gucyberry. "We were supposed to meet the Knock-on-woodship at the cemetary gates, but they just went flying over head."

"It's all right, honey, calm down and don't fret. The enigma stops here. Let me Ilúminate you. The Do-your-thingship has petty valar like Keats or Yeats on their side, but this car's Wilde on yours."

At that, Ricky ditched the trailer where it had careened into the Berk and Babbler, Sub-creating an avant guarde installation as controversial as any shark in Headington. Oh, the horror! the horror! of Modernë Artë. The Council Planning Committee called it Trailer Trash--until the Southron Arts Council recognised the symbolic merit of the installation as a prophylactic against cost overlays. But this is to recall prematurely.

Ricky put the Monteray into reverse and sped backwards, slow fast slow slow fast, narrowly avoiding a double decker bus this time. Gucyberry began to suspect she could hear in this backward movement some theme other than Ricky's rhumba beat. She was sure she heard the renegade Melkorcamp singing about walkin' on after the thrill of living is gone and desire grew hot within her. Yet she found not the fire, for it was with Ricky, who rose a third time and spoke.

"Mighty is the Parodyship, but mine instrument shall be the more wonderful! Let me find them and show them a New Music wherein they shall discover things which they had not thought."

"Oh, Emu, they will cut to the 'shrooms as soon as they hear this," thought Gucyberry. But yay and foresooth and even though his navigation sucked, Ricky was able to bring the Monterey to the Scene of Wolven Cot, Just-In-Time, according to Gateskeeper's modern marketing strategies, in order to hear Merisue yell, "Scarper!"

For his part, the great Lord Etceteron was in the process of addressing a skull, "Alas, poor Yollers, I knew him well." Sadly, the shock of the disastrous disintegration of the Travestometre had confused this uprightly knight to the extent that he was mistaking his Tolk' for his 'Speare in the Great Cauldron of Story, believing he was reciting the text of The Return of the Prince of Denmark. He intoned further, "Is this the sword that was reforged I see before me?" when he was rudely interrupted by none other than the resident poet, Vogonwë, who had picked up a shank bone in preparation for a recitation of how the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone.

Vognwe began, "Frankly, I didn't know he wrote such bloody awful poetry." Thankfully for once, the Fanship knew only too well how much Vogwe knew about poetry, and so no one took up arms against such uncouth sullying of archaic verse, although clearly here were grounds volatile enough for a Jallignite or one of the Eury-Furies.

For his part, Soregum was walking around dazed and confused, as if hit by shrapnel from a lead zeppelin. He tried to hit on Pimpi but she pushed him away. Meanwhile, Orogorn Two was athletically running around the perimeter of the territory. He had been expecting to arrive at Wolverton Mountain, not Wolven Cot, and found these danged Oxfordian accents just a bit too much. Initially he was sure that these REBs had commited no travesty, for his rules would not abide it. He thought they had instead sustained a hit from the gun of the infamous father of Wolverton--or was it Riventon--Mountain who would not let any suitors reach his daughter, domiciled high up on Wolve/Riven/ton Mountain. For some reason Orogorn's head kept ringing with the name Dârwën, the girl who defied evolutionary principles of survival. He had heard tell of this story from Claude King when he had been perusing the ancient shared lore files from the loremasters at Billloard. For her part, Leninia was humming the accompanying song, "I'm the Girl from Wolverton Mountain" but no one other than she and Orogarn seemed to have any memory for ancient songs of the Western Country Beyond the Havens, Tol Nasherëa.

Of course, none of this interested Kuruharan much at all. He was more concerned with the three R's of reconnoitering, recovering and recycling, to say nothing of g'rave robbing. This was indeed his kind of rave, although he justified it as his Civitas Dutifreeum. Chrysopylax was quite a bit miffed that this destruction extended far beyond anything he himself could personally accomplish and so for once he held his tongue, er, fire.

Yet, when all is accounted for--and there is certainly much to be accounted for here--it was Grrralph who suffered the greatest discombobulation from the exploding Travestometre, being brought not-face to no-longer-face with the truly dead (to say nothing of course of the barrow itself, nor of its occupant, who was certainly rolling over and over, but not gravely so). Grrralph, who as one of the not gratefully dead, wasn't just a regular working stiff but was a pretender to a chain gang all of his own, what with his chainmail and breastplate, his vambraces and chain hose, his steel studs. That's a lot of heavy metal to be wrapped inside when the five o'clock whistle blows. In fact, when Merisue yelled, "Scarper," he replied, "Not now, dear, my head hurts" before he remembered that he was no longer Gravlox.

As the Waffleship gazed upon this vision it seemed to them that now they knew A Void which they had avoided before except in thought and word (although some of them were ready to void if a water closet could be found). And they would have become enamoured of the vision and engrossed with the gross had not Ricky surveyed the damage and said it was a shame this was so perishable, a veritable Naught-Eä. And he sent them forth in the Monterey to seek the Bôt-ankh-ic Gardens, where the ancient Pinus Viagara would soon restore them to full righteous vigour.

And so the Flitship flitted forth, all crowded this time into the back seat of the Monterey, from which they sought the High, as Oxford's main street was called, for temporary inspiration. They nodded on their way past Flirton College, where no work of any consequence had ever been done--for that was what the Berk and Babbler was for--until they came unto the ancient, sacred Pinus Viagara.

Here the narrative appears to be taken over in another hand.

Oh, they were out on a drive in Ricky's car. They hadn't driven very far. There in the road straight up ahead. The Pinus was drooping. They were sure it was dead. Rickey couldn't stop so he swerved to the right. They'll never forget the sound that night. The crying tires, the busting glass. The painful scream that they heard last:

"Ricky! You, you, you catastrophe, you."

~ ~ ~

Well when they woke up the rain was pouring down
There was Old Dame Pillow looking all around.
Something fluffy was under their heads.
She raised her hand and smiled when she said
Whoa, whoa, steady there, you've had a bad dream.
You're back in the Age that you knew you would miss.
The realisation of imagined bliss.
Now that you're here you'll hold it tight.
You?'l find your Truth and it'll be half-Right


Whereupon Merisuewyniel, spritely but decorously observed, "Well, that rent the very web of our story, didn't it?"

Kuruharan observed, "Sure did. I'm glad that can be counted on never to recur."

"Well, we did appear to enter History," remarked Earnur. "We might even have fused History and Legend."

"Do you think anyone will ever find our tale true?" interjected Vogonwë with some excitement, who had begun to commemorate their exploits in a work of revisionary history entitled "The Loam Plumbing of Wolven Cot," wherein he hoped to argue for chivary as the correct form of substantive for 'excessive torment delivered unto dead white male authors.'

"Pshk!" complained Pimpi. "I never got to examine Gucyberry's closet."

"No, no, no,' shouted Grrralph, as he swung a baseball around to punctuate his comments. "This has gone on entirely long enough."

"You mean the entire game thing?" posited Soregum.

"Well, we have been at it for longer than the original quest," opined Orogorn Two.

"No, I mean this blasted post,?"screeched Grrralph. 'It should have ended at the catastrophe thing. None of you know when to stop."

"Stop? There's such a thing as stop?" exclaimed Leninia, looking at Earnur with a gleam in her eye.

"We will have to agree on a stop command," observed Chrysopylax, "before we really do some damage."

"I think we should aim for a happy ending," interjected Merisuewyniel.

Suddenly, they all felt a heavy weight upon them, as if they were reluctant to let this quest go. It was clearly going to be a great struggle. There was a long silence. Someone passed around some pipeweed and they all puffed at the pipe, lost in thought.

"I had imagined a kind of holiday, a series of adventures," said Kuruharan, "with tickets, like a leisure resort."

"Not all of the wood has been uprooted," remarked MeriSue, hearing her bow call to her in Osaycan youSee.

"Well, we did save the Mire for the end, didn't we?" said Earnur, without a trace of smile on his face.

"As long as The Mire lies before us, we will be safe and comfortable," observed Orogarn Two, who had vague memories of what life used to be like in The Mire.

"We can't have that now," said Grrralph. "We need to have rising action and some kind of resolution."

'Aye," they all agreed. "We can't stay hidden from The Mire much longer."

To tell the truth, they were very reluctant to start. It was anybody's guess who would make the next post to lead them on.

Last edited by Bęthberry; 06-30-2004 at 09:00 PM.
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