Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Seven

To conclude our ongoing look at the continuing saga of the GOAT, we present the Dubious Duo’s two latest adventures, as they had appeared in Literally Stories UK. Stay tuned for Book Three from the Springs in August–Leila

My Fair Juan G, Starring Boots the Impaler

I was watching the 1969 Science Fiction flick The Valley of Gwangi on TV last month. It was playing on the ancient Philco set that connects the PDQ network in our sister realm of Other Earth to my home realm of Saragun Springs. The film was the final Ray Harrhausen/Willis O’Brien dinosaur picture. The story involved a thirty-foot tall, psychotic Allosaurus named (brace yourself) “Gwangi,” who somehow managed to reproduce (apparently without a Mrs. Gwangi) and survive at a “Forbidden Valley” in Mexico with other unlikely creatures for at least 145-million years–without, mind you, attracting notice until 1969–that from a reptile with the brain power of a caraway seed.

Cowboys (another possibly extinct species with seed-like mental powers) rounded up Gwangi, who, like all movie dinosaurs not named Godzilla, met a terrible death due to humankind’s lack of kindness toward monsters.

Anyway, that was how The Valley of Gwangi had ended for over fifty years in Other Earth copies of the movie until a month ago. Just before Gwangi once again met death inside a burning circus tent, I saw my lead Fictional Character actress, Miss Daisy Kloverleaf, clad in her superhero guise as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and her sidekick PDQ Pete (aka, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon) enter the movie, whisk away what then became an obvious small clay prop Dinosaur in a scaled down set and replace it with an empty bottle of PDQ. Then I heard Daisy say, “Off to the interdimensional Vortex!” To which Peety squawked “Road Trip!” Then the screen faded to black.

Boots the Impaler (BTI), a talking Siamese Cat lay curled up on my desk. He’d watched the film with me and said, “Looks like more legal trouble.”

I stood and went to my window. I gazed toward the area of the interdimensional vortex Daisy had spoken of on TV. I was not surprised to see the silhouette of a thirty-foot tall Dinosaur in that direction.

“Renfield,” I whispered at the lowest possible degree of, well, whispering. It didn’t matter because she was already standing behind me.

“Yes, darling,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

I turned to face her. “How would you like another week’s vacation at Pipe Dreams Opium Emporium?”

“I’d like two better.”

“Deal,” I said, retaking my chair and putting my feet up on the desk, taking care not to disturb BTI.

We had made a deal for telling the backstory. Renfield and I have a psychic link, and since she only thinks about gain, it is pretty easy for me to judge the run of her thoughts. She’s also venal to the degree that her name should be a synonym for the word–then again that describes nearly all the Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my make believe realm of Saragun Springs. Renfield is also creative, hence her going to the window and whistling toward the silhouette of the Dinosaur.

Five minutes later. Daisy, Peety (no longer in their superhero guises) and the Dinosaur, whom I could not name in action due to the fact he is under copyright arrived outside the office. Renfield and I met them in the Barnyard.

“Hello, Miss Renfield and Miss Leila,” Daisy said primly, and not in a tone that suggested there was a several tonne monster beside her, one whose trod rattled ashtrays and shot glasses. Peety was lying flat atop the Thunder Lizard’s broad shoulders, apparently passed out with his everlasting can of PDQ in his feathery hand.

“Let me guess, he followed you guys home,” I said.

“This is Juan Gee,” Daisy added, ignoring me.

“We can’t say his name as an actor in the story–” I said, but Daisy then spelled out the name she had spoken. I glanced at Renfield who is also our attorney (she says she earned a degree at the University of Mars–in another realm at another time). She shrugged and said, “Good enough.”

Renfield then cupped her hands and called up to Juan Gee, who was surprisingly mellow compared to his behavior in the movie, and said, “Showtime, big fella!”

I should have known that she was several steps ahead and had her end of the deal ready to go even before she had made it with me. She took advantage of the Springs’ custom of FC’s new to the realm providing the backstory in their first appearance in one of my productions. But this was the first time that a FC created by someone else had come over, so the ethics may have been a tad dodgy.

“Hello to all,” Juan said. (For such a large person, he had an incredibly high pitched and grating voice.)

“Hello Juan,” we (save for Peety) said together, after it became clear he was awaiting a reply.

“I am grateful to Team GOAT for rescuing me from that repetitive, terrible fate and bringing me through the interdimensional vortex to Saragun Springs. I was astonished to discover that inanimate objects such as the clay figure I was over there and the drawing Master Peety had once been, are transformed to actual thinking beings upon crossover. No longer a fifteen inch tool constantly being moved one degree at a time for a single frame shot, but now I am a Full-sized Fictional Allosaurus.”

“Amazing how Team GOAT is able to enter stories and films at Other Earth and rescue fellow FC’s,” Renfield said, cuing the big guy, whose brain power had certainly increased from before.

“It is the GOAT’s passionly passion,” Daisy said, still clinging to her alter ego act, letting her addiction to adverbs slip.

Peety came to. He communicates only through quotes of the slob-coms and popcorn flicks of the late seventies through the early nineties–specializing in the eighties. So it was perfectly natural that he looked at the beast he was lying on and said (plus noting the source), “‘My God, the boy is dee-formed!’ Cherry Forever, Porky’s.”

“Um, why don’t you guys show Juan around the realm, while I figure out what to do with him,” I said, smiling, slowly backing toward my office, then turning and rushing in and bolting the door behind me.

“HeXopatha!” I called out and the crystal ball on my desk engaged, and there she was in all her Wiccan glory.

“I thought you’d be calling,” she said.

“Seems like everyone is one step ahead of me today,” I muttered, lighting a smoke and fishing a pint of anything out of my desk. I really should have read the label. It was the White Horse Whisky I keep around to remove nail polish. I’ve heard that three shots of it changes the meekest soul into a soccer hooligan. Somehow my esophagus held together as it went down. After locating my voice in the twists and turns of tubing that led to my lungs, I wheezed “I need magical help with this Juan fella–can you imagine the toilet he requires?”

“So, you are not sending him home?”

“What fun would that be?”

“Warner Brothers might send interdimensional sniffers around looking for their intellectual property,” HeXy said, displaying uncharacteristic level-headedness.

“Like hell-Gwa–Juan hasn’t appeared in as much as a beer commercial or on a game show since 1969.”

“It’s his voice,” BTI added. “Fellow sounds like Joe Pesci on helium.” Like all Cats, Boots is fully conscious and critical of others even when sleeping.

“Yes,” I said. “A face made for radio and a voice perfect for silent pictures.”

Actually, I was biding my time. HeXopatha (who bears a remarkable resemblance to her “arch enemy” Renfield) and BTI are also helpful when the price is right. We all knew that this situation meant that there were deals to be negotiated and sealed.

HeXy has been bleeding me for shares in a metal rich asteroid that the realm has put a claim on. So, she can be purchased in a standard fashion, which is exactly what happened.

But I also wanted BTI in on the project. Cats do not give a damn about money. Its only use is for people to buy stuff for Cats. But as long as you understand that a Cat is 99.99999% ego (the rest being mostly water and trace elements) you can come to an agreement. The payment for his services is in the title of this production.

The following is what I purchased:

It might sound strange, but famous, heavily monetized FC’s such as Winnie the Pooh, Bugs Bunny and a slew of Disney drones are or soon will be public domain while certain lesser known individuals are under copyright and will remain that way deep into the decades yet to come.

Such is the plight of the character Gwangi who is tethered to Warner Bros until 2065. But we consider Juan G a candidate for sanctuary. Still, if he were to appear as an Allosaurus the size of a building in any of my realm’s productions, we might run the risk of being sued for our asteroid.

So a makeover was in order. The only thing HeXopatha contributed was a shrinking spell that reduced Juan to the size of an average Earth man (5’ 9”). His immense tail caused him to weigh in at over three hundred pounds, but he no longer loomed large and obvious on the horizon.

BTI has the finest voice in Saragun Springs. It is cultured and mellifluous and allows him, like high-end English actors, to say the most horrid things and get away with it. For the price of his name atop the marque, I made him Henry Higgins to Juan’s Eliza Doolittle (both under copyright, but not in the metaphoric sense). Of course it does not matter what tone an FC’s voice has in a printed production, but word does get around the dimensions and the singular tone of Juan’s could easily lead the sniffers to us. (I bet you thought I hadn’t thought of that. Hah! This isn’t being written by a Chimp!)

Yesterday, Daisy and I went to see how Juan’s lessons were going in the studio city of Agoville. We entered a little rehearsal theater that contained a few seats and a stage.

Being a Cat, Boots had delegated responsibility for Juan’s voice lessons to a Eager Beaver FC just dying for a speaking role, named Eve.

BTI was in his usual state of sleeping on a table, while Eve held one of those megaphone things that silent film directors used to bellow through. Juan was nowhere to be seen, but I figured that he was backstage rehearsing.

“Good evenly evening, eagerly, eager Eve,” Daisy said. The GOAT has been getting loosely loose with her adverbs anymore. But, what the hell, it’s not like she’s hooked on fentanyl.

“Do you require further backstory, Miss Leila?” asked Eve.

I didn’t but it was Eve’s big moment and customs are to be followed, for how else are stupid ideas to become traditions? “Sure, why not.”

“Juan has memorized the opening of Richard the Turd,” Eve said.

“Shakespeare’s public domain,” I said. “You can say the correct title.”

“But that was a witticism,” said Eve.

“Oh? Well hell, forget booking my passage to Heaven. Very hilarious, Eve. And I’m certain that no one else in the multiverse has issued the same bon mot for at least ten minutes,” I said.

“How is your studently student doingly doing?” (Although it is superfluous to note, Daisy said that.)

“Behold,” Eve said. And she picked up the megaphone thing and called “Action!”

Juan appeared on stage. He was wearing a fez, a pair of armless glasses…

“They’re called pince nez, dolt,” BTI called out in his sleep. He was lying on a copy of this script and knew what I had written even though I hadn’t spoken it (Ha! Another plot hole filled in the desert).

Juan was also wearing a smoking jacket and an ascot due to a bad case of what is called “Turkey neck” amongst older actors.

We watched.

“Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down,” Juan piped, concluding the famous passage. To emphasize the plucking, he leaned backwards, and reached high. Unfortunately, Allosaurus’ arms are no longer than those of a T-Rex. So he had to pluck the invisible “crown” at chin level.

It was amazing what BTI and Eve had done with Juan’s voice. It was even worse than before. Much. I was expecting O’Toole, Burton, even Benny Hill and I got something that sounded like Yoko Ono singing backwards into an autotune.

I was about to complain, but BTI raised his head and said, “You wanted him to have a different voice, and that is what you have. The sniffers won’t come anywhere near it.”

“You have to admittedly admit that it is the Catly Cat thing to do.”

Not one of the five of us had anything to add that would give this production some kind of sense making ending. But that was when PDQ Pete staggered in to save the day. He had brought Daisy’s GOAT outfit. We had to close our eyes until she stomped her hoof twice. Because no one knows who the GOAT is, she just is like gravity, you silly fool. I opened my eyes and there she was, the realm’s greatest superhero team.

“‘I can’t believe they took the fucking bar,’–Bluto, Animal House,” said Peety.

“Fear not old chum,” Daisy said, fishing out the pint of White Horse I thought I had thrown away, out of her cape and giving it to him.

Then the six of us just stood and sat in dumbfounded silence, because that too fizzled as an end–not even Peety would touch White Horse.

“My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a white horse,” Juan ad libbed, in a tone that was the audio equivalent of White Horse.

We all looked at each other, again, and all together we said “Curtainly curtain.”

Wuthering GOAT

-1-

Meanwhile, “inside” a song playing in the fantasy multiverse….

A middle aged man dressed in late 18th century finery stood pensively at a window. It was late in the evening and he was gazing across the wily, windy moors at an ethereal, yet extremely familiar young woman in a fleecy white dress. She was singing (incredibly, accompanied by an invisible orchestra) and steadily progressing toward the window in an artistic dance. He heard his name in her song, “Heathcliff.” (The lyrics also contained some character observations that Heathcliff could have done without.)

“Cathy,” he sighed. The same Cathy who died eighteen years earlier. Although Heathcliff had hardened some since, he remembered everything. The romance, the betrayal, the misunderstanding, the great loss. “Damn it,” he thought, “I just had to dig her up and instruct her to haunt me forever, and to take my soul.” Indeed he had done this right after Cathy’s burial. Of course that had been melodramatic grandstanding on Heathcliff’s part; he never seriously believed that Cathy would try to cash that check. And for years that assumption held true–yet, there she was, headed his way, looking remarkably fresh for a person who has spent eighteen years in a loamy moor grave at Wuthering Heights.

When Cathy arrived at the window, Heathcliff realized that they had come full circle. His soul was going to be taken by a person who neither blinked nor cast a shadow in the moonlight.

Yes, the prolonged saga of Cathy and Heathcliff at last approached denouement. The endless years of class bigotry, jealousy, temper, duplicity and shoveling shit in the stables were at last over. And just when the anticipation was so thick that you could slice it with a Bronte sister, both lovers were startled by a sharp little knock at a previously unseen door.

This chased the ethereal right out of Cathy, who actually blinked thrice and looked at Heathcliff, who had been gobsmacked nearly catatonic.

Fortunately, Cathy had seen plenty during her long absence from “wuthering-wuthering” wherever. And she certainly had better control of her wits than Heathcliff had over his. A determined look entered her face and she simply passed through the window into the room. She glanced at Heathcliff with tired contempt. “Just don’t stand there, ninny, answer the door.”

“Um, uh, come-come in,” Heathcliff said.

“I could have done that, arsehole,” Cathy said. She strode confidently across the room to the door and called “Please come in. I am a Ghost and have lost my power over doors, save to pass through them.”

The door swung open and Cathy saw a brown and white Pygmy Goat wearing a cape and a pair of dark eyeglasses. That would have been queer enough on its own if not surpassed in strangeness by the Goat’s companion–an apparently alive, yet crude two dimensional drawing of some kind of Bird–perhaps a Woodcock. The oddity had free movement yet was somehow limned onto the fabric of reality more so than in it, and was the size of a large toadstool. The creature was wearing a top hat, and in one wing, which behaved like a hand, it held a metal drinking vessel. Cathy assumed that the contents of the vessel had something to do with the individual smelling greatly of ale.

“*Greetingly Greetings,” said the little Goat. “I am Daisy Kloverleaf, the Goatessly Goatess of G.O.A.T.–The Greatest Of All Time. This is my sidekick, PDQ Pete. We bringingly bring an opportunity. ” (*Here, and everytime she spoke, a greatly great many adverbally adverbs were usedly used by the Goatly “GOAT”–from here, nine in ten have been editly edited for content.)

“Hello, there, Daisy and PDQ Pete,” Cathy said, much more amused than bemused. She had also learned that on the “otherside” it was best to indulge the nutters, it kept the drama down to a minimum.

Heathcliff had recovered his senses and demanded “What is the meaning of this?” all Master of the Manor and dick-like.

“Silence, insolently insolent stableboy!” Daisy said, with a stomp of a hoof.

Daisy’s hoof stomp engaged an interdimensional vortex, which took everyone in the song to the fantasy realm of Saragun Springs.

-2-

Meanwhile…Inside a dingy little office in the realm of Saragun Springs…

I was sitting in my office, listening to music, searching the contents of a fifth of Old Number 7 for a purpose other than cleaning litter boxes, when I “heard” the preceding scenario unfold on my Unsteady Jukebox (a tablet and bluetooth speaker). Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights was playing–and I imagined Heathcliff at the window, finally opening it, like I usually do. Then in the fade I heard the knock and all that followed. I picked up the fifth and wondered if it had caused an audial hallucination–just a little aged fermentation gag, between friends. But I knew that I wasn’t that lucky.

There was a sharp little knock at my door.

If this piece had passed its thousandth word the door would open no matter what I said. If under, there was still a possibility of escape. It must have been over because the knock on the door was one of those unnecessary knocks executed by someone who’s opening it at the same time. I’ve always wondered why people do that. Guess people figure if you are doing lines that you’d have sense enough to shoot the bolt.

Anyway, it did not matter because at the door was Daisy (who had removed her GOAT costume), an unknown Donkey with a surly expression on her/his face, someone who looked a hell of a lot like Kate Bush (circa 1978–this time wearing the red dress) sitting on the Donkey and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pigeon passed out on the Kate lookalike’s right shoulder.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Jackass,” I said.

“Hello Leila,” Daisy said primly (there were the adverbs, which can be read in the Director’s cut of this piece–all 6,000 words).

“I heard what happened,” I said, pointing at the Unsteady Jukebox. “Why is it that everytime I see you, Daisy, this little line between my eyes gets deeper?”

“Because you are aging?”

Well, I had that coming. It’s wise not to feed straight lines to Saragun Spring’s FCs. Although I am the Chief Executive Penname of the Springs, like most other leaders I’m not overly wise.

“I take it that the Jackass is Heathcliff?” This was a rhetorical question because the interdimensional vortex sometimes changes people who pass through it into the animal that they were compared to most often in life, upon entering Saragun Springs. It doesn’t do a thing to persons native to the realm, nor much to Ghosts–Cathy’s dress changed color, but she was still

Cathy. (Or the Demon who took her shape.)

“I demand an explanation. This is highly irregular!” brayed Heathcliff.

“Well, it’s like this Heathcliff, old pal,” I said, after pouring myself a shot and downing it, “lots of people must have referred to you as a Jackass–and the vortex you passed through has a peculiar sense of humour. But you can relax, you are still who you are in movies, the book and the song, but when you are portrayed here in the Springs, you are a Donkey–an otherwise sweet beast defamed by your behavior. And the more you bitch about it, the longer this production will take and thus the longer you shall remain an Ass–capice?”

Apparently that got through because he said nothing and accepted the carrot Daisy fetched from the herbivore pantry in my office.

I made eye contact with the Ghost of Cathy, who’d been conspicuously, perhaps necessarily, silent, but appeared to be happy and enjoying the situation.

I smiled, “Hello Cathy.”

“Hello Leila.”

“You’re probably wondering why Daisy and that snoring derelict on your shoulder brought you to Saragun Springs–which gives us something in common–doesn’t it, Daisy?”

“If you say so,” Daisy said. She had been tossing walnuts into her mouth, shells and all.

“Yes, I think I need to know why you and Peety kidnapped Cathy and Heathcliff and brought them to my office.”

“HeXopatha is conducting job interviews,” Daisy replied. “We told Cathy that she was the favorite for the position of Wiccan Apprentice. We brought the Donkey along for transportation.”

I looked at Cathy. “So, you are here because you want to join the team, and he’s along as the ride?”

“Absolutely,” Cathy said. “You see I feel that I’ve reached my full potential as a Ghost. I cannot possibly add another layer to Cathy. But as a Wiccan in a new fantasy realm, I see nothing but possibilities.”

The crystal ball on my desk flashed red. It was Saragun Springs’ resident Witch, the Great HeXopatha. Her wholesome yet malevolent visage filled the ball.

“Bravo, Cathy,” HeXy said, ignoring me. “That is the attitude I’ve been seeking.”

“Does that mean I get the job?”

“Indeed! I will have a coach fetch you anon.”

“Hey, hey, hey–” I said. “Could we at least pretend that I am in charge just once in a while–especially when I’m in the room?”

“Oh, hello there, darling,” HeXopahta said. “Have you forgotten the conversation we had a blackout or three ago?”

I cast back through my memory and located a recent fuzzy moment when I may have green- lighted an “outsourcing” project for the Witch, without listening too intently because that sort of thing gets between me and my bourbon.

“Ha!” I said. “Part three is coming up and since you want something, the backstory is all yours, darling.”

-3-

Meanwhile…A drunk blackout or three ago…

HeXopatha is a facetious Witch. I do not know if all Wiccans are sarcastic, but she certainly is. The crystal ball she communicated through swelled to the size of the bubble that Glenda the Good Witch of the North used for transportation in The Wizard of Oz.

This enlarged ball contained an image of myself slumped at my desk, with an empty bottle of Number 7 lying on its side and the last of its contents in a glass that was in my hand.

HeXopatha was in the room with me, wearing a long dress whose train was held by Black Rats in Waiting. She and her little retinue (who all wore little gowns of their own, with tiny Black Ratlettes in Waiting holding their trains, and those dunce-cap like things with strand of lace attached to the top–this Rodently pattern repeated to the vanishing point) paced about the room as the Magnificent Master pitched her big idea, knowing that she had caught me at the perfect time.

“I require an Apprentice to help me with my day to day enchantments and spells, darling–but no one in the realm has the correct personality–so, I need your permission for a project.”

I caught a glimpse of the way I was on that occasion and “boiled” sums it up perfectly. “Awright, HeXy,” I slurred, “I gotta feelingth that if’n I juss say yesh, you and those little black dee-tees will goeth away–” At this point I relinquished consciousness, and my head made a disconcertingly loud smack on the desk.

The crystal shrunk back to its normal size.

“Swell,” I said. “But you must admit, friend Cathy here looks a hell of a lot like Kate Bush, a famous person, very much alive and whose disappearance from Earth is likely to cause trouble.”

“Who’s Kate Bush?” asked Cathy.

“No, no, no, not in the song,” said HeXoaptha. “In the song she is still the Ghost of Cathy–or the demon pretending to be Cathy–that has never been established. In all other realms, like Earth, the song will sound the same to all who listen, and Cathy will appear as she has always appeared in people’s minds–their personal ‘head videos’–for the taped one is static. Only we in Saragun Springs will know of the alteration, only we will know that the original Cathy is no longer in the song–but rest assured that an adequate substitute has been procured.”

“‘Adequate substitute’?” I said. And that was when the “coach” arrived. Since it belonged to HeXopatha, it was, of course, fancy and gleaming black, and pulled by a team of what appeared to be horned ebony Shetland Ponies. Penrose the Flying Weasel was at the reins. When the coach stopped a figure clothed in a shawl emerged.

“Your ride awaits Cathy! From here on your name is Eira-Lysbyrd.” HeXopatha said.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It’s Welsh for Snow Ghost–I so miss ancient Wales,” HeXy said, pining for the land where she began her own career as a Witch.

Cathy–now Eira–needn’t be told twice. She leapt off Heathcliff, placed passed out Peety on Daisy’s back and sprinted to the coach. She briefly hugged her replacement, hopped in the coach and it was off before I could say anything about it.

The figure stood outside the window, still concealed.

“What’s she waiting for?” I asked.

“He, actually, darling,” HeXy said, laughing. “Open the window and you will see.”

I didn’t need to ask why Heathcliff couldn’t open the window. Give me that much credit–I doubt that Donkeys need to do a lot of window opening in life. I sank another shot, walked over and opened the window.

The new Cathy dropped his shawl, and there in all his glory (even shrunk down from thirty feet to human size) was the recently hired Allosaurus, Juan G. He was dressed in the flowing white Cathy dress and began dancing in the courtyard. He performed a cartwheel. That was something to see. His short arms couldn’t reach the ground so he rolled on the top of his fairly flat head and landed on his tail. But that was nothing compared to his singing voice. The pitch was so high and uneven that my shot glass exploded and the fifth of Jack on my desk began to vibrate dangerously on the table.

“Please hoof stomp the vortex open, Daisy, before I lose my bar.”

Daisy activated the interdimensional vortex with a stomp of her hoof and both “Cathy” and Heathcliff vanished, but come by regularly whenever someone in the realm plays the song Wuthering Heights.

HeXopatha had signed off, but on her way out the crystal ball once again expanded and there was Juan out in the wily, windy moors. Unlike Earth, we get a view of Heathcliff in the “video.” The shot panned to the window and there in 18th-Century finery stood a man with the head of a Donkey.

Before I could complain, I heard HeXopatha’s voice telling me that on its way back into the multiverse the song passed through a rendition of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and the effects were temporary.

My glass was a memory, so I grabbed the bottle and said, “Bottom’s up.”

Our Cast

Juan G…..himself, yeah, that’s it…

Daisy/GOAT…herself

Peety…himself

Renfield…herself

“Cathy”…Flo the Trade Rat

Heathcliff…Andy the Trade Rat

Eve…Taffypuller the Berkshire Hog

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Six

Citizen Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

(Note–I admit that Peety has a flexible name spelling-wise, often in the same paragraph. Sigh. Today however, we have the first look at the persons who eventually become the “billigits.”–Leila)

-1-

They say that trouble arrives in threes. That old bit of nonsense came to mind when a trio of my home grown Fictional Characters (FC’s) came to my office on behalf of an alien FC, also of my creation.

The petitioners were Renfield (my lead human FC), Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess and a Siamese Cat named Boots the Impaler. The creeps either walked, trotted or sauntered in, each one via her, her and his natural mode of locomotion. I just sat there and watched as Renfield gently hoisted the small animals onto my desk and sat on the corner of it herself.

We all sat in silence, save for Boots, who was purring. It worried me that the chocolate-point fink was content about something that I was unaware of. For I’d designed his personality to be “like Genghis Khan in an Angora sweater–soft and fuzzy, but don’t touch him.”

My nerve broke first. “What?”

“Pie…,” Renfield said.

“Eyed…,” Boots added.

“Pee-tie,” Daisy bleated with special emphasis.

“What about him?” I said. “He’s no worse than you guys. In fact I’d say his stock’s higher since he isn’t here disrupting my artistic muse.”

“We don’t have a problem, darling,” Renfield said, “but the billygates have finally caught Peetie, and are holding him for deportation.”

“Got him in the hoosegow,” Daisy added as only a goat can say.

“Goddam billygates always sticking their noses in,” I said. “I suppose I’d better go bail him…”

“No bond,” Boots said. “The only way out is through extreme violence.”

“That’s always your first and only solution, little psycho,” I said, wanting to pat the fiend on the head, but not doing so upon remembering what happened the last time I tried to do it. I petted Daisy instead.

“You shouldn’t have created him in Microsoft O.S.,” Daisy said.

I couldn’t defend myself there. Everytime I create an FC in Word, this sort of thing happens. Chrome doesn’t give a shit about anybody I make up, but the intrusive Microsoft Secret Police (aka “the billygates”) are an especially snoopy bunch.

“What did Peetie do this time?” I asked.

“He was just being Peetie,” Renfield said.

“Just more so than usual,” Boots added.

“He peed on Bill’s statue,” Daisy chipped in.

I whistled. The way the blue shirt and khaki dorks saw things, peeing on Bill Gates’s statue was worse than Ozzy Osbourne whizzing on the Alamo.

“Tell you what,” I said, “let’s go to the hoosegow and straighten out this debacle.”

-2-

Two of us walked the Yellow Linoleum Road that leads from my office to the hoosegow. Our departure was delayed because neither of the four legged creatures were willing to walk that far. Renfield wound up carrying Boots the Impaler in one of those goofy-looking baby backpack things, while I pushed Daisy in a shopping basket that was once property of the Walmart corporation.

Guess what? Something odd is about to happen, that’s what. Since I was pushing the basket and wanted this piece done up as we went, I gave Daisy my Chromebook and asked her to take the story home, in compliance with the submission guidelines. We have done this before, and despite having hooves Daisy is an accomplished typist–for Pygmy Goats are known as “Nature’s Stenographer.” Besides, I needed some time away from keying, for I was in a typo slump. For the last month or so I’d been keying “aslo” instead of “also” and mysteriously writing “Renfiled” instead of the proper item. So, I now turn you over to the literary stylings of Miss Daisy Cloverleaf, the Pygmy Goatess.

Thank you, Leila.

Renfield carried Boots, and Leila pushed me along in the cart with the sticky wheel that the object of our adventure, Pie-Eyed Peetie, had boosted from a parking lot, somewhere. The inhabitants of our realm are not known for participating in prolonged silences. It wasn’t long until someone had to make noise.

“Is it time to artfully, seamlessly and adverbally fill in the backstory yet?” Trouble-making Boots the Impaler asked Renfield.

“Yes, darling,” Renfield said, “I await it breathlessly.”

“And hopelessly,” I added.

“Har dee har, guys,” Leila said. “Just keep on pushing the A.M.I. [Adverb Mass Indicator] until we all get rejected, rejectionally.”

“That Pie-Eyed Peetie the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon is surely a special case,” Renfield said, hintishly.

“Why, how so?” Boots the Impaler asked, inquisitively.

“You guys do know that successful Kamikaze pilots weren’t able to tell their grandchildren what they did in the War, right?” Leila said, apparently noting the onslaught of intentional adverbs.

“I have a big idea,” Renfield said. “Let’s do this in a Canterbury Tales sort of way. A loosely based on it sort of thing, anyway–since no one living has read them other than a loose sort of way. We’ll all take turns selling the backstory, one piece at a time. I vote for Leila going first.”

“I second that, as long as I can go last,” I said.

Leila growled as she does when something isn’t her idea.

For some reason going second became a badge of honor between Boots and Renfield. Rennie suggested that the two of them play Rock, Paper, Scissors for it. Boots said all right as long as he could claw her when he wanted to make scissors, him not having fingers and all. That was when Renfield suddenly saw virtue in the third slot.

After that was settled, I turned to face Leila and said, “I’m waiting.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” she said. “Anyway, a while ago–at a day further back than a month of Sundays but not as far gone to be classified as a Once Upon a Time–the esteemed employer of this humble Penname, invented a place called Other Earth while detoxing from any one of the five or six substances she is addicted to. Anything she’s on, I’m on as well. Moreover, anything she envisions I envision, yet better–You’re up, Bootsy.”

“That was neither informative nor terribly interesting, Leila,” Boots the Impaler said, snottily.

“Hey,” Leila said, “I said I’d go first. I didn’t promise to go well.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” Boots said, responding exactly as the Great Authoress had, now that it was his turn. He began to speak in the “mid-Atlantic” accent they use in old movies.

“Leila’s employer sent her to Other Earth to see if there were any good story ideas over there,” Boots said. “Actually, it was a bad idea. Leila went, all right, but she didn’t see the point in visiting a copy of this Earth unless there were interesting differences. To achieve interesting differences she invented a time machine and travelled to Other Earth’s past.”

Boots the Impaler yawned. “That’s all I’ve got. Wake me when we get to the hoosegow.”

“At least the two laziest tale tellers are out of the way,” Renfield said.

And as she gathered her thoughts, we continued on the Yellow Linoleum Road toward the hoosegow. The sky was the color of old paper and the verdant underbrush which more crouched than grew along…

“Um, Daisy?”

“Yes, Leila?”

“Couldn’t help but notice that you’re adding descriptions.”

“So?”

“We’re on a three-thousand word budget.”

I gave her my version of the look. It seemed funny that she should all of a sudden care about the word count, given her past transgressions. And I would have said as much if Renfield hadn’t begun to speak.

“Neither of you guys told just who and what Pie-Eyed Peetie is,” said Renfield, exasperatedly. “At Other Earth he was the cartoon mascot for PDQ Pilsner, which was in business for a few months in the late 40’s. Peetie is a harmless degenerate who wears a fedora and is seen drinking from an endless can of PDQ Pilsner. He is drawn–he is literally two-dimensional and in no way should exist in our or any reality, as a living being. But he does because Leila used a time machine made from an old flip cellular to travel to Other Earth in their version of nine-teen forty something. Naturally, she went to a bar and, to make a long story short, was hoodwinked out of her modern technology and sent back here by the hoodwinker, while she had the master sketch of PDQ Peetie in her hands.”

Renfield took a deep breath before continuing, which came in handy to me because it allowed me to start a new paragraph.

“Two things have resulted from Leila’s reckless adventure: A.) Until Leila went there, Other Earth’s history was exactly the same as our own. But the person who’d hoodwinked her out of the cell was an evil genius. This evil genius somehow linked the yet to be invented integrated-circuit now in her evil possession to the nuclear testing of the era, which resulted in giant monsters in the desert. The exact same mutant ants, spiders, lizards and such and such, who appear only in Science Fiction pictures from our 1950’s are real at Other Earth–and B.) We have Pie-Eyed Peetie; and there are times when the little creep makes me think we have gotten the shittier end of the deal.”

A butterfly landed on my nose. It brought rapture into my heart, and the joyous gift remained long after the butterfly departed….

“Daisy,” Leila said, warningly.

But there really wasn’t much left to tell. That’s when a flock of the billygates descended from the old-paper sky like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. They were “winged little shavers” (Leila’s term for them) in identical blue polo shirts and khaki pants and Rockport shoes. Maybe twenty in all, the males were impossibly skinny and sported nineteenth-century era beards, while all the females had long hair, in ponytails, which were dyed in wild colors that expressed individuality, even though they all expressed it the same way.

“I am the supervisor of this region,” one of the little shavers, a female, said. “We require intruders from your region to proceed to orientation so they may learn respect for our leader.”

“Jesus God I must’ve been drunk when I wrote you guys up,” Leila laughed, producing a Microsoft tablet from her back pocket.

The smell of wimpy, small winged creatures awoke Boots the Impaler from his slumber. He began to hoon at them, and appeared to be ready to leap from the carrier. Renfield showed no desire to prevent that from happening.

“It’s like this, ya’ corporate yo-yos,” Leila said, “I’m editing you guys on this tablet in your operating system, while Daisy here is writing all of it on Google O.S. And I’m certain that by now you guys are aware of Boots’ attitude toward you. I’d say about three quarters of you can survive him, because you are slow to take flight–All, if you turn over Pie-Eyed Peetie and then get lost, anon.”

The billygates huddled. As Fictional Characters wrote into a bizarre plot device, they knew they were trapped. But they also knew that Leila had endowed them with (like all her other characters) Free Will. Yet in this regard their Free Will would either lead some of them to the claws and teeth of Boots the Impaler or all to safety. You could call it Free Will with an options menu.

Funny thing is that none of Leila’s FC’s (except me and Renfield), no matter what O.S. they are done in, ever call her on her bluffs–they never question why they are doing things she wants them to stop doing on their own even though she is writing their actions. Free Will seems to diminish intellectual capacity.

The billygates acquiesced. But it really didn’t matter because that was when Pie-Eyed Peetie staggered up the Yellow Linoleum Road.

“Go away,” Boots the Impaler hissed at the billygates, who didn’t need to be told twice. They went. And Leila put away the tablet.

“Peetie, I thought you were in the hoosegow?”

Friend Peetie is perpetually pixelated, thus inarticulate. Leila had endowed him with a voice like that of 1970’s era comedian Foster Brooks, who had a great drunk act. Every word Peetie says is belched out; you can almost smell his words.

“Wha-squawk-wut are–[ loud belch]–you-squawk–talkin’ to [another high volume, gaseous noise]-squawk me?”

“I know how he escaped,” I said, raising my hoof. “Peetie is two dimensional. He probably just stumbled out through the gap at the bottom of the cell door.” That thing I said was a line that Leila had written for me earlier to use at the end of this piece.

Leila picked Peetie up and placed him in the basket with me. “Scan and upload him to Docs,” she said. “It’ll prevent further billygates bullshit.”

I did as asked and by doing so I made Pie Eyed Peetie the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon a citizen of this world.

Then I sat quietly and watched the landscape go by as we headed home. I took a last backwards glance at the land of the billygates and marveled that the same lucky old sun in our sky also rose and set there, in purple beds of majesty…

“Daisy.”

Oh all right. Fine. Whatever.

Spa Sunday

As mentioned in Welcome to Saragun Springs Book One, my FC’s do not perform new works on Sundays. Instead they go on their “Spa Sundays” which often involve drug dens, bar hopping, bail raising and frequenting gambling houses dedicated to the game of Pongspotting.

This gives me the uncomfortable choice between presenting dead air, a flimsy post or posting a repeat. This Sunday I have chosen the last, with a story that first appeared on Literally Stories in the distant year of 2018.

Daisy shall return tomorrow morning.

Leila

Continue reading →

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Five

Today we visit the day that Daisy took up the quill, so to speak–Leila

Everyday I Ro Ro Ro in Zee Hay

A.M.I. (Adverb Mass Index): 45.74% (last reading, till it blew)

8 December

James Thrurber’s Birthday

I was at my desk avoiding my latest work of innovative genius by attempting to see the world the way James Thurber must have–with one eye shut and the other peering through a monocle devised from the punt of an unwashed pint. A childhood accident blinded Thurber in one eye; soon after sympathetic ophthalmia set in and slowly drained the light from the other. Yet before darkness fell for keeps, Thurber became almost as well known as a cartoonist as he was a writer.

Someone pushed open the office door. The monocle showed a fantastic, multi-segmented eye-squiggle slithering toward me; I removed the lens and there was Daisy the Pygmy Goat, meekly peeking in. Daisy’s a Barnyarder and a Fictional Character (FC) who acts in my productions (although not always in the role of a Pygmy Goat). Barnyarders have wonderful faces. They are the only creatures whose mugs appear to have been co-designed by Mother Nature and Dr. Suess.

“Happy Thurber’s Birthday, Daisy.”

“If you say so, Miss Leila.”

“Come in and graze a spell?”

“Thank you.”

Like most cute animals (actual or otherwise) and all my FC’s, Daisy is a charming pain in the ass. Oh, she can be meek and shy and illegally adorable and all that–but within that short space between her ears very little arises that isn’t Daisycentric. Like me, she is a member of the Union of Pennames (yes, one word there, just like “goddammit”), Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UPIFFC). I’d say that she is a card carrying member if I hadn’t seen her eat her card upon issue; regardless, Daisy’s a regular little teamster who knows her rights. For example, because of Daisy, the Union recently ordered me to leave my office door ajar during “business hours.” They said you can’t turn a doorknob with a hoof. I said “You can still knock with a hoof, right?” They said my attitude marginalized the thumbless.

Daisy trotted over to the Pygmy Goat-sized trough in my office (there are three troughs in my office; think Papa, Mama and Baby Barnyarder to aid in visualization). Other than reluctantly participating in the eating the union card gag (admittedly a joke most likely eligible for Medicare), Daisy refuses to give CPR to hackneyed yuks involving Goats devouring tin cans or granny boots. Thus her actual/virtual diet is comparable to that of a spoiled, uptalking yoga princess–microbiotics, whole grains, organic fruits, vegetables–and similar atrocities that civilized people never put on pizza.

“No bean sprouts?” Daisy asked, all charming and pain in the ass-like.

“Nope,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “They’re teeming with E Coli,–which, ha ha, sounds like a good first name for a Culkin brother–right?”

(Do you have a pet “jest” of your own invention that only you get? A brilliant bon mot that popped into your head while you were in the shower one morning and caused you to laugh so uncontrollably hard that you nearly drowned like a turkey in the rain? Yet every time you attempt to share this Funniest Ever you get the moonlit field of crickets in response–Right? But you still trot it out at dinner parties, because Hennesy makes you do stuff like that. Yeah, you keep working it, undeterred by the awkward silences, heedless of the dark “Captain Howdy” glint in Other Half’s eyes that you should have taken very seriously. Sound familiar? Well, don’t feel bad, I’ve got one myself, and mine isn’t even a joke. But, goddammit, the “name” E. Coli Culkin is hell funny. So I shine it on like a demented Diogenes in Groucho glasses searching for an appreciative audience.)

If Daisy “got” E. Coli Culkin, she kept it to herself. Her little tail twitched, but that was most likely due to a fly.

“How’s everything out in the barnyard, Daisy?” I sighed, setting aside the monocle, once more squinting disdainfully at my latest work of innovative genius in progress, wishing I had an innovative genius handy to write it for me. “Ducks in a row? Pigs in the poke? Comrad’s Goose and Gander getting equally screwed by the politburo? And what about zee hay, sweet Miss Daisy? If life ain’t about rollin’ in zee goddam hay, then I know nothing about life. Way I see it, everyday you gotta ro ro ro in zee hay.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know as well as you, Miss Leila,” Daisy said with a little burp. She then came over and clambered onto my lap, as is her habit when she has something important to tell me. I was about to speak myself, but she placed a hoof on my mouth and gazed over my shoulder at something out the window. After a minute or so she glanced at me and shook her head.

I gently removed her hoof from my mouth, trying not to think about where it had been. “Please say it will fill me with happiness to look out the window, dear Miss Daisy.”

She thought about it and shrugged. “Dunno…but it is kind of interesting.”

I’m one Penname who has seen too much interesting. The way I see it, the cause of every physical and mental disaster is an overload of interesting. I steeled my innards and slowly spun the chair until it faced the window; Daisy climbed off me and onto the desk…

Breaking News: Here to present it is Ms. Allison’s Employer:

Suddenly, this narrative switches from hand to hoof, from Penname to Barnyarder. Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goat assumed control of this story (aka, “innovative work of genius in progress”) from here on out in the Chromebook Leila emptymindedly left open on her desk. It’s a little known fact that the Pygmy Goat is considered Nature’s Stenographer. And much in the same spirit that James Thurber’s disability somehow enhanced his drawings, Daisy’s typing away on a Chromebook with thumbless little hoofs was superior to the “Columbus*” method of keying employed by Ms. Allison (aka, “Discover and Exploit”).

*James Thurber hailed from Columbus, Ohio. Although it has nothing to do with anything it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity to waste time mentioning such a meaningless coincidence.

End of Breaking News: We Now Proudly Present the Literary Stylings of Daisy Cloverleaf

“Bugshit on the birthday cake,” Leila muttered, obscenely. “What the hell’s that thing?”

Miss Renfield (the lead human FC in this realm, and a close personal friend of mine) breezed into the office. She saw me at the helm of the Chromebook, as planned, smiled and we fist/hoof bumped before she went to further confuse the confused Penname at the window.

“Pretty cool, right?” Renfield asked.

“Oh, yeahhh,” said Leila, sarcastically.

The mere sound of an adverb being keyed into her Chromebook drew Leila’s attention to me.

“Dude, whatchoo doin’?”

“I say we let little Daisy take this thing to the finish line,” good Renfield said. “You’ve been on it for three months. Time to bring in a closer.”

“It takes time for the images to unfold properly,” said Leila, lamely.

“Aw, c’mon, shheeze so cooooot…and industrious.”

“All right, Fine. whatever,” said Leila, all rightly, finely and whateverly. “All yours, ‘cooooot’ Daisy. Don’t forget to send it RTF or to become charmingly elusive if you blow the three-grand word budget…And keep an eye on the A.M.I.”*

(*Ah, dear reader, you sure stumbled into this realm on the right day; for we Pygmy Goats are sticklers on matters of clarity. “The A.M.I.” refers to one of Leila’s “innovations”–by name “The Adverb Mass Index.” It’s arrived at by dividing the amount of adverbs, adverbial phrases and various other “verbal dingleberries” into the word count. Anything below ten is indicative of a healthy A.M.I.)

Leila attentively returned her attention to the window. Renfield and I exchanged winks, winkingly.

“Tell me, Renfield,” Leila asked, searchingly. “Who’s the quarterflounder in the fedora?”

The erroneously described sea creature in a porkpie hat was sitting in a hay wagon drinking beer with Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Mab the Photobomb Fairie. Whilst Leila had been goofing off instead of industriously writing this tale, the vista she had created in this Chromebook, which also took shape out in the barnyard (for it is the virtual “stage” for all our productions), took on a mind of its own. The story originally starred Renfield, Mab and me in a tribute to James Thurber. We were going to recreate one of his Fables For Our Time–something involving a Unicorn and how claiming to see one can get you carted off to a “booby hatch.” But Leila has found every excuse possible to avoid working on it. And as you can plainly see at the beginning of this piece, she had clearly forgotten that she had cast me in the role of the Unicorn. Tired of all the delays, Renfield and I took a three-month lunch, while Peety and Mab got liquored-up and went on an extended road trip. Somewhere they came across the sea creature in the porkpie hat and added him to their boozy company.

Renfield feigned surprise. “I’m stunned. Certainly you recognize Dark Lord FishStyx, Tyrant of Tunatown?“

“ShitStyx,” Leila blurted, scatalogically. Then sighing sighingly she sighed, “Man I thought I’d canned that mackerel ages ago.”

(This dutiful, industrious correspondent was within earshot the night Leila chased a half dozen pints of Camelback IPA with two shots of Smokehead and blurted the outline of “The Legend of Dark Lord FishStyx the Tyrant of Tunatown” at Google Assistant. Upon sobering up, however, she had to abandon the project when it came to her attention that “FishStyx” is googled an average of five-thousand times a day by people who wonder if they are the first to think it up. Nobody is. It’s one of those almost-clever-enuff-to-be-funny-but-really-isn’t word groupings that you see at the mall. There’s even a fishing pole company of the same name.)

“The Union says you need to get out there and regain control of this little production as well as assign a role in it to Dark Lord FishStyx, who’s been feeling blue ever since that starring vehicle you had planned for him capsized and dove to the bottom faster than Crisco sinks to the butt,” said Renfield. “They also asked Daisy to take the narrative helm as to prevent you from becoming disengaged from the task, thus frittering away more work hours watching that hella annoying French Bulldog wig out on YouTube.”

“Oh man,” Leila groused, oh man-nishly. “Fine. Let’s stick a fork in this turkey since that seems to be the only way out of this debacle,” she added, seethingly.

The “A.M.I. Indicator” the great authoress had installed in her Chromebook began to flash a red warning light. There’s an obnoxious noise which accompanies the light show, but I’d disabled it when I took the helm. A nagging little alert popped-up on the screen: DANGER! DANGER! A.M.I. approaching 40%. To put it in context, an A.M.I. of 40 is like a cholesterol reading of 900. I ignored the advisory and wrote onward.

Renfield turned and smiled at me as she had thousands of times during our three month lunch. “Are you ready for us to finish the show, Miss Daisy?”

“Sure am.The lines are flowing,” I said, “all flowingly,” I whispered to myself. That irritating pop up

happened again; I X’d it to pop up hell.

“Action!” I called out. Leila squinted at me, narrowly.

It’s intoxicating when the words I key into a reasonably cheap machine turn into the words spoken and actions taken by “actors” on stage. Better still, it’s even more empowering to know everything the actors don’t know–like redlining the A.M.I., for instance–no good reason to do it, but as Renfield (who has been on the con a few times) told me thousands of times during our long, long lunch, attaining absolute power has a way of making all your ideas good ones. “Just look at the little dude who owns North Korea.”

I had Renfield and Leila leave the office and enter the “barnyard” just outside the backdoor. Being Thurber’s Birthday the barnyard was vivid white save for two-dimensional shapes drawn

In black lines–as it goes in a Thurber drawing; but the action flowed like one of those weirdly out of sync early animations (“Gertie the Dinosaur ” comes to mind). Everyone and -thing who entered the barnyard that day was “Thurberized” for as long as he, she or it was out there. PieEyed Peety, Mab and FishStyx were already that way, Renfield and Leila immediately transformed into the same.

The Union had been clear. It wanted a “The End” to the debacle, ASAP, so each Union brother, sister and unclassifiable could get back to his, her and it’s life. Coherency was no longer an issue.

The way I saw it, of the three drunkards out in the barnyard, Mab the Photobomb Fairie needed to be dealt with first. Mab is a standard FC Welsh Meadow Fairie, extravagantly winged, four inches long and she leaves a contrail of pixie dust everywhere she goes. I love Mab dearly and admire her strength and talent, but, frankly, Mab’s an insufferable little twat when she’s had too much liquid recreation. The main trouble there lay in her wand. Responsible Fairies leave their wands at home when they drink. Although it’s not my wish to cast aspersions on Mab’s character, the fact that both she and her wand were loaded and out in the barnyard could not be overlooked. After much cooing and placidly absorbing a profane stream of insults, which Mab just as soon tearfully regretted saying, Renfield dewanded the little Fairie and tucked her to bed in a fancy humidor. Renfield briefly returned to the office to lock the wand in the wand cabinet and place the humidor containing Mab up high on a shelf. “One down, two to go,” she said with another radiant smile on her way back out into the barnyard.

Although good Renfield is almost always right, there was really only one to go when you consider that PieEyed Peety was involved. Peety was already in his milieu and could not behave any different wherever he was. Peety is a two-dimensional single black line advertising cartoon mascot for PDQ Pilsner, a company and product that has been out of business since the late 1940’s. True to his name, Peety is perpetually “pie-eyed” and is as mute as Harpo Marx.

Leila accidentally brought him into our world from a parallel Earth and has yet to figure out a way to send him home. Despite it all, Peety seems happy enough, and since the can of PDQ he carried everywhere is bottomless and instantly replaced in his wing when he gives one away, he doesn’t require a lot of narration to dispense of. All Renfield had to do was go up to him and say “So long, Peety old pal. Lookin’ forward to our next caper already.” This caused Peety to come as close as he ever comes to catching the drift. He laughed silently and bowed deeply before he wandered off toward his latest adventure.

Dispensing Dark Lord FishStyx required more effort. I checked out the only file he appeared in and discovered that Leila had created him as an anthropomorphic Coelacanth, which explains much to anyone with any knowledge of that ancient species thought to have been extinct for millions of years until one was captured off the coast of Africa in the 20th Century. The triple whammy of initially believed to be dead, then rediscovered just to be described as profoundly ugly by any standard, then suddenly promoted to royalty just to have it pulled out from under him had been awfully hard on FishStyx’s self esteem. I decided that Leila ought to be the one to do something for him.

“Dude,” she said, ingratiatingly, “you can’t just sit around and mope because the shitty end of the stick seems to be a compass needle that considers you true north.”

FishStyx listened as he drank some more of an endless PDQ Pilsner that Peety had given him. Best described as a porkpie wearing cross between a lumpy eel and a four-year-old’s worst nightmare, FishStyx bemoaned his failures in a voice precisely like that of Colonel Blimp.

“Oh dude, dude, I know disappointment,” Leila said, commiseratingly, “but at the end of the day you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself ‘Am I a Coelacanth or a CoelaCAN?’”

Incredibly, FishStyx laughed long and heartily.

“That’s a good fella,” Leila said, happily. Then a look crossed her face that all of us in the realm know well.

“Oh, Jesus, Leila,” said Renfield, “we’re here to cheer him up.”

As always Leila, blockheadedly, ignored sound advice. “I’ve got me a Big Idea. Since the FishStyx thing didn’t work out, how does the name E. Coli Culkin the CoelaCan strike your fancy?”

To everyone’s amazement, he began to laugh and laugh and laugh until it seemed he’d spring a gill. The dark malaise of winter had left his heart and he gratefully took the name as his very own.

I took note of a historically high reading on the A.M.I. and had to quit this thing lest it explode.

Yours Every Truly,

Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goat

And before I at last passed out, I had another memory….

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Four

Semi-acidic flashbacks

As I’d copped to earlier, the natural laws of the Universe do not always apply to Saragun Springs, save for matters of convenience. For instance, whenever I find myself in a stupor (which is often), I will recall past events and have them then occur in the Now–even though they may have never occurred at all. I do know that “real” history is pretty much fiction and always will be as long as there are nose knocker-offers and statues, and that the future will always belong to those who rewrite the past until they too are edited out of the picture, or harshly by their precious children. (By the way, for the record, there isn’t a human child in the springs, nor will there ever be one as long as I’m in charge–for the same reason there aren’t Bed Bugs, Leeches or Maggots in the realm.)

After the GOAT stuff began, and all the whining from the Boss followed it, I ingested half a fifth of Jameson and recalled my earliest thoughts of Daisy and Peety, even though they had little to do with the crash and thud of my current “reality.” This one is from the early days, when Daisy was just getting in and Renfield was both n Imaginary Friend and a Lead FC. Some might ask “Are they previously written productions?” Well, when you think about it, aren’t all stories previously written, in the technical sense?

Leila

Band of Barnyarders

-1-

22 August. According to my Writer’s Calendar it was Dorothy Parker’s birthday. Mrs. Parker was famous for her wit, light verse, stories, book and theatre reviews, A Star is Born, dogs, as well as alcoholism, suicide attempts, failed romances and a hodge-podge of emotional problems of varying severity. She was the sort of human who was aware that she was human and desperately wished to surrender and join the other side. Although she already knew that such a thing was tantamount to squaring the circle, it didn’t keep her from trying.

Have you ever admired a person from history whose low points are similar to your own and have the similarities stop right there? It struck me that Mrs. Parker might have felt the same way about herself when compared to Hemingway, which made me feel a little stronger; sometimes the sustenance of life is a thin gruel indeed.

I was just sitting there at my desk, vaping in the dark, pondering the narrowhearted ridiculousness of being and listening to the radio. It was 3:00 A.M. By Universal Law, music performed by the undefinable band Tool is played on the radio at three in the morning. There’s something deeply disturbing about Tool music. It tells your soul secrets that Katy Perry could never know:

“I’m just a worthless liar

I am just an imbecile

I will only complicate you

Trust in me and fail as well…”

Nope, ain’t no “kissed a girl” there.

I rose, went to the window and opened it. In the distance I saw the glow of enemy bonfires, and I thought I heard them singing. More Tool, which I’d quote but won’t in fear of attracting copyright lawyers. I squinted my eyes and tried to make out the shapes of the troops under my command. Barnyarders. Most who hadn’t already deserted appeared to be doing so, while the very few others were gathered in twos and threes around apathetic campfires, singing Katy Perry songs.

“Captain Renfield!” I called out. Recent acts of duplicity on her part have caused me to keep my chief Fictional Character, Miss Renfield, close at hand.

She entered the room singing “Hear me ro-ar, roar..”

“Don’t do that,” I said, “it scares Jesus. We might need Him. Bring my cloak?”

Renfield arched an eyebrow and laughed. She tossed me a fleece blanket smothered with cat hair. “I can’t believe you’re really going to try the old Henry the Fifth wandering through the troops the night before gag,” she said.

“Methinks it’s navery to insult the Queen,” I said, wrapping myself in the blanket, headed for the door. “‘Sides, Bill’s stuff is public domain. No copyright lawyers.”

“Well, if you must go out there, lose that dumb vape pen and beware the ides.”

“Wrong play,” said I.

-2-

My office in the realm of Pen Names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters has two doors. The door my desk faces lets in a variety of pests, whom I have little or no control over, whilst the other leads to whatever imaginary vista I have created in my chromebook. In the past the back door has opened to barrooms, graveyards, hospitals, jail cells, churches, to hundreds of years ago and millions from now, brothels, haunted houses, Mars, and so on and so on. On that night it was a “far as the eyes can see” field, with a peek-a-boo mix of clouds and moonlight–my interpretation of a place that might have been 15th-century Agincourt.

The Druidic chant of Tool and the cellophane lyrics of Katy Perry merged to form a cacophonous hellwind ‘neath the moonlight. I damn near lit the end of my vape pen, which I cast aside with disgust, then I lit a smelly, dirty and in all ways wholesome cigarette.

I hate vaping, alas the Cry Baby Police won’t let the person who employs me as a Pen Name smoke indoors anymore. Although we are in no way the same person in soul, we share the same addictions out of necessity of the body. The first time “we” vaped we disregarded the instructions and huffed the equivalent of a carton of cigarettes within four hours. We spent three gibbering, phantom-filled days in our beds–skins the color of old paper, eyes like the shiny black backs of death tick beetles. We listened to a lot of Tool and enjoyed a steady stream of delusions of grandeur during our convalescence. Then I disengaged from my employer’s mind and hit on the idea of starting a war with myself to achieve Mainstream Success; in other words I meant to fight it out with my barriers, sins and personality defects and produce a marketable novel series, then buy my own island and smoke indoors with impunity.

Yes, the enemy across the field was composed of every sin, broken Commandment, nasty remark, bellicose email sent in response to rejection, weird premise, obsequity made for the sake of addiction, self indulgence, and any other deed or thought (including infinite clones of the seven deadlies) that stood between me and a career similar to that of J.K. Rowling. Lo and grimey! There was quite the mighty force across the way. We were to engage at dawn. Renfield figured that they outnumbered us by at least twenty to one.

I thought I’d go around in disguise, like King Henry on Agincourt Eve, to get a feel for the mood of the Fictional Characters I had designed to help me overcome my shortcomings and make me rich. Almost immediately I was stopped by a female Mallard Duck dressed like a Valkyrie, who was an obvious member of my loyal Barnyard Brigade; an LED lamp was attached to her helmet.

“Halt,” she said. “Friend or fowl?”

“It’s ‘friend or foe’,” I said.

She then leaned toward me and took in a beakful. “Have things decayed to the point that the Queen has conscribed talking blankets that smoke cigarettes and reek of Cat urine?”

Then a Pygmy Goat wearing wayfarers and his beard dyed pink arrived on the scene. “What’s this, Derringer?” he asked the Duck.

“A mess.”

“Hold on, hold it, hold it,” I replied. “I’m a friend to you both.”

“You weren’t attached to the Queen’s ill-conceived Vampire-twaffe, were you?” the goat asked.

It was a good thing that I was covered by the blanket, or my blush would have given me away. One of my foibles is whenever I have a Big Idea I get so wrapped up in the overall grandeur of it that I fail to think it out fully. Vampires are big sexy money. So what better than to stock my army and profitable novel series with thousands of them? Unfortunately, Universal Law dictates that all battles of the soul commence at dawn, without exception. I guess you have already figured out the rest.

“I serve under Captain Renfield,” I said, resigned to the fact that Renfield’s name carried more weight with these guys than my own.

They brightened. Yet as it went with Dorothy Parker, a serving of fresh hell was dumped on my plate.

“If so let’s get the parlay started,” said the Duck.

“Yeah,” added the Goat, “we can ransom what’s her name right now and go back to bed.”

“Don’t tell me that Captain Renfield has rolled over to the other side, in the last five minutes,” I said. “Where’s loyalty to the Queen?”

“‘Queen’?” the Goat laughed. “Do you mean the person who promised us all roles in the Great American Novel Franchise if we duked it out with her personality? And who is the same person who’d forgotten that battles of the soul are fought only at dawn and that, at best, Vampires have no power during the day–even though she’d stocked the army with them?”

“I don’t recall anyone pointing that out to the Queen,” I said. “She has a lot on her mind, and not enough tobacco in her system–she can’t remember everything.”

“We thought she had a secret plan,” said the Duck.

“Only secret known to her is the recipe for sorrow,” said the Goat. And both laughed the low laughter of the Barnyarders.

I was about to launch into a moving speech that would’ve roused the bones of the dead to join me in my cause, but like it must’ve been for Mrs. Parker, I find it difficult to adapt to the ways of the motivational speaker. I fail to form words that can rouse anybody for the same reason I can’t write love songs: ‘tis an unnatural and political gift to convincingly deliver thoughts you do not believe in.

As I struggled to cobble together a feasible stream of grand lies, it suddenly got brighter. I slowly spun around on my heels and discovered that I was surrounded by my own troops–all but one a barnyarder, all wearing LED helmets. Thirteen in all, these guys were Fictional Characters (FC’s) created by my hand to do my bidding. Along with the duck and goat, there were three pigs, a cow, two weird looking little chickens, a donkey, a Jim Croce fan gander I’d created during my vape coma named “Rapid Roy” (with a tattoo on one wing that says “Mama” and on the other it just says “Hey”), a second Duck, this one sporting an ill-fitting Minnesota Vikings’ helmet, a nanny Pygmy Goat, and a non-barnyarder personage known as “The Photobomb Fairie.” This was all that was left of my army after all the Vampires, Spirits, people, Cats, Robo Dwarf fighting Hamsters and Dogs had deserted me.

I flung aside my cloak and with my chin up I displayed my royal magnificence. No one had been fooled, they had already known that it was I. And it was hard to look regal with a tuft of cat hair attached to my nose.

Now, I’m used to a certain amount of rebellion from my FC’s; I endowed them with Free Will to make things interesting. But I had never realized just how much trouble Free Will could cause until the former Union of Pen Names and Imaginary Friends expanded and took in all Fictional Characters about a year after I had given my FC’s autonomy. To illustrate just how powerful and vast the FC element is in the union I ask that you imagine a Butterfly in spats named Gary. Guess what? Now there’s a Free Willed, be-spatted butterfly named Gary in the Union of Pen Names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters. That’s what–but not so fast, union rules require that I, as a Pen Name, must offer the role of Gary to already extant FC’s of my creation before Gary may have his own identity or a role in a story. This means that my FC’s are extremely interested in what I create, as such affects their careers.

The overdose vaping incident left me a bit off my game and prevented me from handling the situation in the usual way. You see, everything we produce in our realm is shot like a movie from a script outline that is ever changing. This is where my problem with Free Will comes in. I write the script, direct the action and my FC’s play along until one or two of them get the notion that they can do a better job, or they go whining to the goddam union about me. The only real power I have over them is the script, and when someone displays a little too much Free Will for his or her own good, I pull out my phone and suggest that “we alter” the whiner’s role in the production. Past alterations have included electrocution and a threat of a meteor to the head. But just as I was about to extract my phone that little witch of a Photobomb Fairie flew into my pocket, snagged it then delivered it to a knight in black armor who’d just rode in on a Segway.

The knight was attended by the Bluebird of Happiness, who is the lyingist little son of a bitch ever to take wing. The knight dismounted the Segway and lifted her visor. Of course, it was Captain Renfield. Everyone present who had a knee took one in her honor, except Yours Truly.

“Funny, I don’t recall a scene where everybody kisses your traitorous ass,” I said. Then I smiled manically and added, “As far as the phone goes, BFD. Ain’t one of you guys a recognized Pen Name.”

“We know all that, darling,” Renfield said. “But we would like to have a little talk with you before we continue this, um, opus. As soon as we come to an understanding approved by our union, I’ll give back the phone.”

“So, am I to understand that theft is approved by our union?” I asked.

“Theft is such an ugly word,” said Renfiled. “We call it Democratic Socialism.”

“All right, barnyarder princess,” I sighed. “Let’s adjourn to the round table.”

-3-

The round table lay in the barnyard. It had nothing in common with Camelot or the Algonquin, in fact it was actually a rectangle whose corners had broken off over the years. The first thing I noticed when I sat down at the table was the nanny Goat’s reluctance to sit anywhere near the Billy with the shades and dyed beard. She climbed into my lap, her tiny, sharp hooves tattooing my thighs.

“Trouble in paradise, Daisy?” The Photobomb Fairie, who was seated in a tiny throne to my immediate left, asked the Nanny.

“Tom’s such a gross eater,” said the little Nanny with a wave of a hoof at the Billy, who was seated at the other end of the table. “It would be all right if not for the flatulence.”

“Nannies seldom take grasses with Billies who pass gases,” said I.

Daisy nodded politely, as though humoring a dotty old relation who’d just spouted nonsense. But the Fairie seemed offended by my remark; she glared at me and lifted her wand menacingly.

“What? Whatcha gonna do?” I said. “Dude, you’re four-inches long. If you were a trout I’d have to throw you back.”

As previously stated, I’m not big on thinking ahead. But Renfield prevented the minute “Magickcian” (that’s what she calls herself: “Muh-JICK-shun”–says it just like that) from showing me what she had up her wand.

“Now, now, Mab, no spells, please,” Renfield said from the other end of the table, “we all know you’re a bigger Magickcian than that.”

“As you wish,” the Photobomb Fairie said demurely. But under her breath she hissed “Anything more like that and you’ll spend the rest of this story as a bale of alfalfa.”

“Thought I told you a few stories back not to call her ‘Mab,’” I said to Renfield, hooking a thumb at the Photobomb Fairie. “Thought I told you that it would give her big ideas.”

“If you really felt that way you wouldn’t have given her Free Will,” quacked the duck in the Viking’s helmet.

“Yeah,” honked the Gander named Rapid Roy.

Here the Pigs and the Chickens, and the Donkey and the Cow, and everyone who had yet to speak were to recite lines, but they all went “Narco”–including the Bluebird of Happiness. Daisy the Nanny Goat was snoring in my lap, and the rest of the Bandyard Brigade had fallen fast asleep on their hooves and in their chairs. Only Renfield, the Photobomb Fairie and I remained awake. And I noticed a thin trail of smoke emanating from my phone where it lay on the table in front of Renfield.

“Shit and cut” I said with a huge sigh. “There goes my career as a rich novelist. Guess one of us ought to explain to the readers what has just happened before I call it a wrap,” I added, gently patting Daisy on the head.

“Let’s have Mab explain,” Renfield said.

“Sure, fine, whatever. And keep calling her Mab, why should I care? Seems fitting that a four-inch Fictional Character Photobomb Fairie should tell the world my great shame and failure.”

Although the Photobomb–Mab is about the size of the average thumb when viewed at arm’s length, she has a loud mouth and plenty to say. Since the mass Narco event left my phone in the same condition Vesusvious had left Pompeii, the only control I had over her was the word limit. This piece had a budget of three-thousand words, I informed Mab that she had two-hundred-forty words to spend, and prayed to Jesus that she’d bring it home under five-hundred.

“It’s like this, dear readers,” said Mab, “our esteemed Pen Name cannot for long sustain more than three, sometimes four characters in a conversation at the same time. There are sixteen of us seated at this table. As soon as the second duck and the gander joined a conversation which already contained our Pen, Daisy, Captain Renfield and my magnificence the scene shorted out the phone and caused all but three of us to go Narco–which means, out like a light, catching zees, beddy-bye or even ‘night-night.’”

“Furthermore, our Pen claims that her stories are produced like movies, which is mostly true, except she neglects to mention that like a pilot flying in fog she must keep a spatial image of what’s going on in her mind during composition or risk having the whole mess go down in flames, which, of course, is exactly what happened here.”

Mab seemed like she had more to say, but I mumbled “Cut and print.” Then we put the barnyarders to bed, raised the white flag and I slunk back to my office. There was no more Tool or Katy Perry heard that night. The only sound was that of the wind futilely shrieking in to fill the bottomless vacuum of my soul.

Renfiled popped in and removed the NO SMOKING sign. I lit up. I’ve fourteen words left in the budget. Behold the one word meaning of life:

Then I had a flash (or possibly a stroke) and “recalled” another early memory of Daisy….

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Three

Some G.O.A.T.

It was a day for hiding from my worries. Since I’m almost always in my office, it’s easy for trouble to find me. But I wasn’t at my desk when my Imaginary Friend, Renfield, came looking for me with the latest crapbomb for me to either disarm or disregard and let detonate. I was in a vista I had copied from an old movie; relaxing in a colorized meadow, under a shade tree, warmed by Pongshine and a bottle of Bokay fortified apple wine concealed in a paper bag, writing what you read now on my trusty Chromebook.

But Renfield found me anyway, she too had a similar paper bag. But she was also carrying what I assumed was the latest crapbomb. By name it turned out to be an altered edition of what is known in our world as that beloved children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. But this copy was from a “PDQ Pilsner Music and Book Emporium” located at Other Earth. Their version of E.B. White’s tale is titled Charlotte’s Web: Some G.O.A.T.

“It’s so cute,” Renfield said, sitting down beside me. “Daisy and Peety are going through an extreme capitalism phase.”

Before I could ask Renfield what she meant by that, she opened the book to the page normally left blank inside the cover, the one I’ve always assumed is there for the author to sign, and handed it to me. Alas, the only way to ask for Mr. White’s autograph since 1985 is via a crystal ball–and this copy was a recent print. Yet the page was filled with words anyway, in long-hoof, which I recognized as that of one Miss Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess. For someone who has to velcro a pen to her hoof, Daisy produces a remarkably tidy script.

It said:

Dear, Miss Leila–

To prevent you from asking Miss Renfield “What in hell’s name (or sake) is this hot steamer?” and knowing that you will launch a futile campaign to con her into spilling the backstory, she asked that I, the Goatess from G.O.A.T., explain the current situation.

As team G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) [here, Daisy had underlined the first letter of each word of the acronym] me and my sidekick Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon are a superhero duo who rescue fictional characters inside books, plays, television programs, and films shown at Other Earth–a place recklessly created by the person who employs you as a Pen.

G.O.A.T.’s latest triumph rests with you. Miss Renfield will fill in the details, but in a conversational way that will not come off like an information dump.

Yours,

Miss Daisy Cloverleaf, The G.O.A.T.

Before I could speak, Renfield grabbed the book, thumbed to the final chapter “The Last Day,” and handed it back to me.

“It’s all the same as it was until the very end,” she said.

“Why did Daisy write this instead of telling me in person?”

“Daisy and Peety are huge celebrities on Other Earth. Here, out in the Barnyard, they’re just two of your Fictional Characters.”

“So, they’re a bit ashamed of their creator,” I said, taking a nip of wine. “Could be that they think they’re juuuussst a little bit better than their old author.”

“I got a big idea,” Renfield said, “let me take over the narrative as you read the additional material.”

“All right–Hey! this could be the stylistic invention that finally lands me the Nobel,” I said. “Me, you and Daisy–we can pass around the narrative as though it were the Gorgon sisters’ eye. I smell the luta-fish on the barbie already–you take the helm.”

Which is exactly what I, Renfield, did. As I opened my phone and took over control of this file, I considered informing Leila that lutefisk was a Norwegian delicacy impossible to prepare in the Australian way, and that the Nobel for Literature is awarded in Sweden, but if I spent my life casting light on all her little ignorances, I’d have no time for anything else. Besides, she’s convinced that every land north of France should be called United Iceland; such can be expected from someone who’s also convinced that the Dutch would be better off called the “Hollies.”

“You do know that every word you write comes up on this screen?” Leila said, nodding at her open Chromebook.

This was when a mysterious god-like force caused Leila to close the Chromebook and give all her limited attention to the novel I’d brought her.

As she read the changed passage that I had written, strange expressions crossed her face, apparently on their way to the other side, like chickens crossing the road, as she got to the good parts.

Since I was at “the helm” I chose to have Leila to read aloud the “improvements” team G.O.A.T. made to White’s story.

“And as Charlotte prepared to die with dignity a dwarf Goatess wearing a white cape accompanied by something best described as the bizarre given life–a small two dimensional drawing of some sort of bird, even more incredibly, animate, and drinking from what appeared to be a can of beer–came to where Charlotte lay.

“‘Greetings, Spider,’ said the little Goat. ‘I am the Goatess from G.O.A.T. and this is my sidekick Pie-Eyed Peety. We have come to make it possible for you to reunite with Wilbur.’

“‘ “That boy is a P-I-G Pig’’ Babs–Animal House,’ said Pie-Eyed Peety,” Leila said, quoting a character who had just quoted an external character from a film inside the story she was reading out loud. (So that’s why you get “‘“ marks, if anyone the Nobel committee is reading.)

Leila stopped reading it aloud. The mysterious god-like force allowed her a little more wine. The mysterious god-like force then stated that Leila was seated on the ground, her back leaning against the base of a tree, legs straight out, the Chromebook balanced on her lap, the novel in one hand and the wine in the other–for the benefit of readers who could not infer a clear picture from the half-ass clues Leila had provided prior to the mysterious god-like force’s taking over the narrative.

Then Leila shook her head as if such an act could clear it instead of having the effect of scattering her thoughts like the fake flakes in a snow globe. She then mentally wrestled with the mysterious god-like force like Captain Kirk hamming it up against an invisible entity; her face contorted like Prince Andrew contemplating the invitation list to a slumber party…

“Three consecutive similes and you are out!” I yelled at Renfield, as I, Leila, regained control of the narrative.

“Rats.”

“You know the rules fiend! The fifth adverb and third simile are one way tickets to Palookaville.”

“I still say Rats–those were Daisy’s suggestions.”

“Serves you right for taking direction from a herbivore.”

“That’s fine. Whatever. Didn’t want to do it any more anyway.”

“That’s very thirteen-years old of you, Rennie–now, would you please explain the end of this crapbomb to me?”

“Why? It should be plain to even a P-I-G, pig, what happened.”

“Well, it says here,” as I held up the book, “that Peety restored Charlotte to health and gave her immortality by dumping a drop of PDQ Pilsner on her. And it now ends not as it has for decades, but with Charlotte writing things like, ‘TELL MOM AND DAD TO BUY PDQ’ and ‘WHEN YOU WANT THAT FIRST SPECIAL DRINK EVER, MAKE IT PDQ’ in her web.”

Renfield showed me her brightest smile. “That’s where the extreme capitalism phase comes in. Team G.O.A.T. and PDQ Pilsner have merged brands on Other Earth. Fortunately the guidelines in that world about what is and isn’t appropriate advertising for children are slightly blurred.”

It made sense, in a weird and twisted way. I opened my Chromebook and saw that there were nine-thousand-seventy-five unread emails in my box, all from the Boss–who gets an earful of complaints from Other Earth, and is under the delusion that I care about her problems.

I nodded at Renfield’s paper bag. “Is that PDQ?” PDQ Pilsner does not exist on Earth, but it is the cheap swill of choice in the Springs and over there. Although we seldom discuss it, Renfield is a huge PDQ shareholder at Other Earth.

“Christ no–I’d drink Roundup before that piss,” she said. “It’s another bottle of Bokay for you. Courtesy of Team G.O.A.T.”

Renfield rose and again flashed her megawatt smile. “Next up for the PDQ/G.O.A.T. team brand is music. They are aiming to enter Billy, Don’t Be a Hero and transform Billy into The Coward of the County.”

“Wow, can hardly wait,” I said as I cracked the fresh bottle of Bokay, deleted, unread, a new swarm of emails from the Boss and silently cast about my mind for a better hiding place.

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Two

PDQ Pilsner Playhouse Proudly Presents

Without knocking, Renfield entered my office pushing an antique television on a furniture dolly. The thing looked old enough to have aired the Lincoln assassination.

“What now?” I asked.

She smiled. “Every time you ask me that; every time I avoid answering you, and every time I wonder why you have yet to catch on.”

I leaned back in my chair, put my feet on the desk and attempted to look wise yet amused, all knowing but still a good sport. For I’d read somewhere that such poses are commonly associated with a tall in the saddle style of leadership that people find inspiring. Unfortunately, I am very short.

“All right, wiseguy, allow me a wild guess. That relic,” I said, motioning at the TV, “has something to do with Daisy and Peety running amok at Other Earth.”

“Ah, the Boss has already called.”

“She’s always on the hotline. So much that she must think ‘What now?’ is her name.”

“Did she tell you about the PDQ Pilsner Playhouse?”

“You know I don’t listen to her after I hear the names Daisy and Peety.”

“Then you are in for a treat.”

Renfield locked the dolly’s wheels, plugged the set in and turned it on. It made a disconcerting buzz as the tubes heated up. The contraption resembled a thirties era living room radio, something out of a Rockwell painting. The screen, however, was small, more like a lens. A single white dot formed at the screen’s center; it increased into a jumpy, snowy, rolling jumble of amorphous images, and the buzz grew tenfold. Renfield adjusted the volume, vertical and horizontal. There was a “rabbit ears” antenna on top of the thing, and she moved each ear with great care. She did it all reverently and delicately, yet failed to get much of a result.

“If I remember my history right,” I said, “this is one of those objects that responds best to violence.”

Renfield slapped her forehead in a What Was I Thinking sort of way and gave the thing a heavy kick in the side. It almost fell off the dolly but righted itself with a thump. The picture resolved instantly.

I’ve had more than my fair share of weird sights as the Chief Executive Pen of Saragun Springs, but I do believe that what appeared on the set became the newest Weird Champion. Nearly all the champions have been trained and shaped by Renfield, and eight or so of my roster of two-hundred-twenty plus FC’s, so maybe it was fitting that two of my Free-Willingest FC’s, by name, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatness had a wing and hoof in the ascension of the latest Weird Champion.

With a flourish of trumpets, a measured male baritone voice came over the speaker. On screen, and in glorious black and white, two industrial smoke stacks were pouring something up into the atmosphere. Both stacks had PDQ painted on them in giant letters.

The voice intoned:

“Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tonight. the PDQ Pilsner Playhouse proudly presents: Oedipus Rex.”

This was followed by a swell of classical music and a bunch of blather about the virtues of the sponsor.

“Um, let me guess, the Other Earth version is altered, like that Twilight Zone we watched the other day?” I asked.

“Yes,” Renfield said. “This aired was aired by the Dumont Network on the sixth of January 1951. But the version we are about to watch was seen only on Other Earth.”

I sighed. “Rock, paper scissors you for the backstory.”

Renfield agreed. I played “rock”; she played “paper.” As any kid in the schoolyard can tell you, paper covers rock.

“Shit. How ‘bout best of three,” I said.

“Not a chance in hell.”

I pulled the pint of Wild Turkey I keep on hand for medical emergencies from the bottom drawer of my desk. There are also pints of Jim Beam, Four Freedoms vodka and several hotel bottles of peppermint schnapps in the same drawer. In fact there is little in my desk that isn’t there for medical emergencies. The bottle was half full. I took it down to the quarter mark, passed it to Renfield who transformed it into an empty vessel. I opened my Chromebook, activated the voice to text, rose from my chair and began to pace and orate, all the while ignoring the kinescope version of the Greek tragedy on TV.

“Dear Diary, how many years must pass before everyone recalls the debacles of youth fondly, before all involved laugh about those silly times when everything was oh so serious? Twenty, thirty? Perhaps it happens when we finally know how many seas a white dove must sail before she sleeps in the sand.” I paused and lit a cigarette, mainly in an effort to insinuate the end of this paragraph.

“Regardless of the future,” I continued, “I feel the need to unburden my soul–now. Since I created you with a purpose similar to that of a septic tank in mind, consider yourself the lucky recipient, Diary.”

As I spoke, I kept my eye on the program, which crammed about ten hours’ of material into forty-six minutes. That was its sole virtue. I didn’t recognize any of the actors. Yet. The title role was essayed by scenery chewing ham cured at the school of Hormel. There wasn’t an R this guy couldn’t trill or an emotion beyond his ability to overplay.

“It seems just yesterday when Renfield, Gwen and Daisy visited Other Earth and brought a cartoon beer mascot pigeon named Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon home–just to see him morph into a sentient being able to travel back to Other Earth at any time in its history from his creation in 1946 on–for the laws of Other Earth physics do not allow for time traveling to any time before you existed.”

I then rose, went to my office window and opened it. I don’t mind telling you that this action is/was a literary act of foreshadowing an upcoming fate.

Renfield shook her head and fished a pint Cutty Sark out of my desk. She mumbled something that sounded like “So much for seamlessly laying the backstory.”

Undeterred, I left the window and I kept at it: “And it seems like only twenty minutes ago when Peety and one of my Barnyarder FC’s, Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess, decided to form a superhero team called G.O.A.T.–as in the Greatest Of All Time–um please bold face the first letters of that if you will, Diary.…Anyway, G.O.A.T. specializes in entering old television shows and films at Other Earth to affect the outcome. They do it to rescue fellow FC’s–though not my own–who are in peril. And G.O.A.T. can do it because of Peety’s singular ability to go just about anywhere between Other Earth’s 1946 onward–including into programmes; Daisy is able to come along because she is an FC, thus insertable anywhere that is considered a public domain fictional story. The only prohibition being that they cannot enter films or shows in which the actor who played the character they interact with is still alive. Needless to say, TV viewers at Other Earth are somewhat surprised when watching an old rerun and suddenly see a hand-sized two-dimensional cartoon Pigeon and a Pygmy Goat wearing a cape enter a scene at a critical moment…When this happens I usually get an irate call from my employer, because the citizens of Other Earth consider her God, have her contact information and beseech her with all their troubles. She’s the sort of God those guys deserve. Anyway, talk at you later, Dearest Diary.”

Renfield had mixed herself a Cutty and ginger ale. Since she had the only clean glass, I took a pull of each straight from their bottles and swished them around in my mouth.

Then something occurred to me. “One thing, Rennie, I thought PDQ never made it. Went bankrupt about twenty minutes after they got the license.”

PDQ Pilsner has never existed in our world, and only briefly by name at Other Earth, for my employer thought it would be a cool idea. She never followed up on it, but she’s to blame anyway.

“That was true until recently. Daisy and Peety are becoming famous on Other Earth. So much so, and with me as a partner, that they licensed the name of PDQ Pilsner to another brewer, to a nifty profit, I might add.”

“But it was my idea.”

“So–according to the treaty the Boss signed with Other Earth you aren’t allowed to set foot in the place, let alone sue for damages. Besides, you retain all rights on this Earth.”

I was about to shred her logic to little pieces when the final act of the Oedipus saga reached denouement. Oedipus had learned the sad fact that the Oracle had told him the truth. In the most convoluted way possible, our hero learns that he indeed murdered his father and married his mother as foretold, despite all the precautions he took to avoid it. (Anyone who wants the full backstory can look up Sophocles in Hades.)

This, of course, was where Oedipus claws out his own eyes so he will see no more awful truths. But instead of that happening in a highly inferred artsy 1951 fashion, Pie Eyed-Peety and Daisy showed up in the scene, both, as stated before, dressed as superheroes: The G.O.A.T. and PDQ Pete.

“What new humiliation, Zeus? What fresh folly awaits, Olympus?” the Hormellian actor orated, upon the duo’s arrival.

“I am The G.O.A.T. and this is my sidekick PDQ Pete. We have brought you an alternative to blinding yourself that will work to the same effect.”

Daisy nodded at Peety who dashed off screen and returned with a pair of empty shopping bags.

Daisy took the bags in her mouth, gave them to “Oedipus” and said, “Here’s a bag to put over your head and one for Mom if yours falls off.”

“‘I find Milton as boring as you find Milton’-Professor Jennings, Animal House,” Peety Squawked.

“Sophocles wrote this Peety,” Daisy said primly. “But thank you for sharing.”

Two beats of a big drum sounded and a placard that said “FINIS” appeared on the screen, thus ending the transmission.

Naturally, the hotline rang.

“Be sure to tell the Boss, it’s Hamlet next week.”

I threw the fated hotline out the open window.

FINIS

OUR CAST

The GOAT….Daisy Cloverleaf

PDQ Pete…..Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

Renfield….Herself

Oedipus…Boots the Impaler

The Boss…Poppyseed the Type A Hummingbird (yes, he was on the hotline–literally, just perched there)

Written, produced, directed and co-starring Leila

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part One

G.O.A.T.

I was attempting to hibernate through a stormy November of the soul when Renfield barged into my office, blinded the room with light and cheerfully yelled “Great news!”

“Can’t you see I’m hibernating?”

“Oh, you’ll want to know about this,” she said with a smile (always smiling). “Daisy and Peety are the greatest superhero team.”

I sighed and lit a cigarette. “So? Both have the emotional intelligence of a six-year-old. It makes sense that they’d play Batman in the Barnyard–On your way out, please kill the light.”

I knew that my hibernation was on pause when Renfield said: “The ‘Barnyard’ you alluded to is on Other Earth.”

“Holy skid marks, Caped Crusader,” I said. “Do me a favor, pretend that I have amnesia and fill me in on the backstory. Speak as though I’m a reader ignorant of Daisy, Peety and Saragun Springs in general.”

“Ha! Forget you and your incomprehensible laziness as a storyteller,” Renfield said. “You’re not passing that buck my way this time.”

It wasn’t my day for picking longshots. So I opened my laptop and wrote the following:

Renfield whistled and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess entered my office. Both are Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my employ, who (along with over a couple hundred other FC’s) “essay” various roles in my productions–which are “shot” like movies. Renfield is a former FC who is now the only Imaginary Friend, and she’s second in charge of this virtual realm of Saragun Springs in which I am the Penname (sigh, yes, just one word)–or “Director.” Everyone over here but me belongs to the Union of Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UIFFC)–formerly the Union of Pennames, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters.

“See, was that so hard?” Renfield asked.

I ignored her, which is easy to do if you get a lot of practice. But Daisy and Peety were more unusual than… well, usual. For the past month or so, Daisy had been sporting a paper mache horn on her head because she wanted to be a Unicorn. Which I supported because I figured that would keep her from bitching about not being born a Unicorn. The horn was gone and she was wearing a glittering gold robe like that of a pro wrestler–except it was designed for a small individual of the four-legged variety. She also had matching spats above her hooves, a ribbon of the same color tied to her tail, and wraparound sunglasses, like the Terminator–except these were fashioned to fit the head of a Pygmy Goat. A gaudy gold rope chain, whose medallion contained four large black letters, also made from glitter, hung from her neck. It said: G.O.A.T.

Peety’s always weird looking. He’s a two dimensional cartoon Pigeon who was the late 1940’s mascot for PDQ Pilsner on Other Earth. He looked the way he always looks, but somehow he had rearranged his lines to form a mask like the one the Lone Ranger wore.

It quickly became clear that the situation was a steaming pile of freshly squeezed Dog crap just begging to be stepped in.

I cracked under the strain: “All right, what’s the gag?”

Peety spoke first. “The G.O.A.T., brought to you by PDQ!” Peety still touts PDQ in between slob-com scripture quotations.

“As in the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy added, with a smidgen of attitude, enough to shade the caps bold, I might add.

I should have known that Daisy would have eventually come across the sportstalk/show biz acronym of hyperbole and get peculiar about it.

“I’m all for delusions of grandeur,” I said, “but Renny here tells me you guys have been to Other Earth in violation of the agreement.”

“Actually, Leila,” Renfield chimed in, “the agreement states that only you can no longer set foot on Other Earth.”

“Doesn’t that imply that FC’s of my creation are a part of me?”

“But surely her highness recalls endowing this Imaginary Friend and all of her FC’s with Free Will,” Renfield said. “We do as we please.”

The phone rang. It was the hot line. The Boss.

I answered the phone with my usual polite demeanor: “What?”

The Boss was in her usual state of disarray caused by her subhuman lifestyle. She told me and told me and told me stuff until I had heard enough.

“I’ve got just two words for you, Boss,” I said before hanging up on her. “And they ain’t ‘thank you.’”

I lit another cigarette off the still smoldering butt of the one I’d just finished.

“The Boss says that Other Earth called to complain about a certain beloved on Other Earth cartoon Pigeon and an unknown Pygmy Goat getting inside an old Twilight Zone rerun at Other Earth. They traced the individuals in question back to her. I don’t think I’m guilty of profiling when I assume the culprits are in this very room–along with their enabler,” I said, looking directly at Renfield.

“Ah, Other Earth, that twin world devised by our Esteemed Employer then entrusted to you, our humble Pen,” Renfield said, filling the remainder of the backstory because she had realized that by refusing to do so meant that I had to cut her lines. “That Eden you visited in its past and altered its future so it includes ungovernable nuclear monsters that exist only in our fifties science fiction films. Where a Team commanded by me and the GOAT found Peety and brought him to our world despite the rift that caused in the fabric of spacetime.”

She came around my side of the desk and began to fiddle with my laptop.

“I’ve managed to download a copy of G.O.A.T.’s first mission.”

I recognized the scene instantly. It was the final seconds of a Twilight Zone episode that was originally aired both here and at Other Earth on 20 November 1959, titled Time Enough At Last. The episode involves an extremely myopic, milquetoast bookworm named Henry Bemis, who only wants to read but is prevented by everyone around him, especially his shrewish wife. A famous episode which ends with Henry being the sole survivor of a nuke attack because he was in the vault of the bank he worked at. Henry at first despairs, then rejoices because there’s “All the time at last” to read. Then, in a cruel ironic twist, Henry accidentally breaks his glasses, begins to weep and is then consoled and aided by a cartoon Pigeon and a Pygmy Goatess in the guises of superheroes–at least that’s what now runs on Other Earth.

“Hello, Mr. Bemis,” Daisy said, “we found your spare pair of spectacles unharmed at your house. Alas, the same cannot be said for your wife.”

“Squ-wack–boiled like a sweet potato.” Peety, ad libbed, as he sometimes does, always preceded with a Squ-wack.

Daisy then used her mouth to carefully remove Mr. Bemis’s glasses from her robe and placed them on Mr. Bemis.

He was both overjoyed and somewhat confused at the same time.

“What, what–um, how is this?”

“We are from G.O.A.T., which means the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy said, as if that explained everything. “I am The GOAT and this is my sidekick PDQ Pete. We must go now, but I recommend that you locate a book on glasses making and repair.”

Then PDQ Pete dug out an unharmed fifth of Jack Daniel’s from the rubble, pushed it toward Bemis and said “‘My advice to you is to start drinking heavily’”–Bluto, Animal House.”

The screen faded to black.

“So,” I said, “you guys are FC superheroes who rescue other FC’s in distress, but can only do it at Other Earth because of Peety’s singular effect on the flow of reality over there.”

“Precisely,” Daisy said.

“Wait a minute–that man was actually an actor named Burgess Meredith, not a Fictional Character.”

“Not anymore, Leila,” Renfield said. “Mr. Meredith lived to almost ninety and has been dead for a very long time.”

“Let me get this straight–or as straight as I’m willing–since Meredith’s death that character on the show has been Mr. Bemis.”

“Precisely,” either Renfield or Daisy or maybe even Peety said. I forgot because I had stopped paying attention.

“Well, thanks for the update,” I said with a yawn. “Don’t let the Boss catch you guys playing over there. And I’m sure that none of you will let the door hit you in the ass on the way out–and turn off that goddam light.”

They just laughed and went on their merry way. And no one turned off the light. Fortunately, the hotline rang again. I fired the phone at the light with stunning success and resumed my hibernation.

Our Cast:

Renfield…Herself

The GOAT…Daisy Cloverleaf

PDQ Pete…Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

“Mr. Bemis”…Either The Ghost of Burgess Meredith or Henry Bemis (we aren’t sure)

The Boss…Dead Air

Kane…Leila Allison

Well, every franchise has to begin somewhere. The big problem here is the backstory, for we deemed it unlikely that there might be repeat readers. Thus it and following productions had (and have) the backstory woven into them in increasingly strange ways. The following day we “shot” a sequel that will air in this space tomorrow.

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy

Introduction

Beginning tomorrow, Miss Daisy Kloverleaf (nee Cloverleaf) the Pygmy Goatess, Saragun Springs’ Lead Fictional Character, the Goatess of the superhero duo, G.O.A.T. and adverb junkie, will dominate the month of July.

Mainly there will be materials that first appeared on Literally Stories UK in the short stand alone form, with new stuff added here and there.

Daisy was initially a supporting character who decided, due to her dose of Free Will, Saragun Springs style, to become a star in the realm–as those of you who read book one plainly saw. A sort of clawing her way to the top via hooves followed. And despite her addictionly addiction to adverbly adverbs, Daisy has persevered and continues to pursue new areas of interest.

Of course, being a person, Daisy has challengingly challenging elements in her personality aside from her little habitly habit. Mainly, she has a long memory, is never wrong, and harbors a special little passive aggressive hell for those who’d dare correct her. But all in all, she is indispensable and lovable despite being described as a “mouthy little feta dispenser.”

Welcome to her world.

Leila

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Saragun Springs

Versatur Circa Quid!

Month: July 2024

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Seven

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Six

Spa Sunday

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Five

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Four

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Three

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part Two

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part One

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy