Month: January 2025

a sample of the rubaiyat of the billigits

since the tale ended a day early, please behold the first four quatrains of the rubaiyat of the billigits (translated by daisy kloverleaf)

billigits eschew all capital letters and punctuation marks

The full version will be coming to this site sometime this spring

Leila

i

gather ye all around the fire and sit

and hear the legend of the billigits

with ears wide open and pieholes kept shut

‘tis the best path to our wittily wit

ii

up in the sky is neither bird nor plane

neither ping nor pong nor shania twain

tis winged folk orange blue fair and wee

silence fools as i explainly explain

iii

wee folk eighteen inches from tip to toe

neither boy nor girl nor escargot

the billigits are always front page news

admiredly admired dontcha know

iv

they serve a witch one bewitchingly fair

they sing and dance to the autotune lyre

they wear hemp slippers that fall off in flight

they billigittingly stun all who stare

The Oz Exception: The Season Finale

At the western edge of Chareslton’s New Town Cemetery lies humble, yet magical Alone Park. Although it is no more than an aged, somewhat forlorn bench (generously slathered with decades of birdshit) in a tiny lot rich with crabgrass, the presence of a non-fruiting Enchanted Cherry Tree makes it special.

Unique occurrences are commonplace at Alone Park. Just a half hour ago, the Volunteer Weekend Caretaker, Gwen Cooper, her Ghost boyfriend, John Mallory (contained inside her phone), and a Pygmy Goat named Fenwick Kloverleaf had passed through an interdimensional vortex that had briefly opened in the trunk of the Enchanted Cherry.

And just a moment ago, the door reappeared. It irised open and out popped a keg and six Black Rats dressed like movers in old movies, complete with little baseball hats. They huffed and puffed the keg down the side of the tree and placed it on the bench. The crew returned to the vortex, hopped in and from inside came the unmistakable, congenial sound of tips being passed out. “Thank you boys, here’s one for you and you and you…”

Gwen Cooper climbed out of the vortex, with her phone in hand. In the realm of Saragun Springs, John has a strange elastic physical shape, but here he only exists in the Caretaker’s Cottage or in Gwen’s smartphone when movement is necessary.

Gwen landed on her feet and gave the keg a happy knock. SARAGUN SPRINGS FAERIE ALE BREWED BY THE PDQ PILSNER CO. OF SARAGUN SPRINGS. BOTTOMLESS.

“I’ll have to get the hand truck to move this,” she said.

Fenwick poked his head out the vortex. “No need,” he said. “Now that it is in your realm, it is even more weightless than a balloon–that is typical of bottomless kegs. The Rats put on a bit of a show.”

Gwen plucked the keg up in one hand. “Amazing.”

Hark reader! You hear a strange noise, like the grinding of gears as this post goes from the past to the present tense…

Right now, John’s face fills the screen of your mind. “Dear reader, today was supposed to be the penultimate chapter of this tale. But Leila got blasted at the party and deleted what might have been the greatest work of genius in the history of literature…”

From off screen, you hear a laugh and a voice a lot like Gwen’s mutter “as if.”

“Anyway,” John says, smiling like a candiate’s better half, “as a great man once said after Lassie plucked Timmy from yet another abandoned well, ‘All’s well as long as Timmy isn’t in it.’ If that quote makes sense in your mind to any degree, then you have been exposed to Saragun Springs much too long, and we encourage you to seek the help of a mental health specialistor nearest liquorcabinet. Before we go, I encourage everyone to remember to put the cream on your scones before the jam…”

Gwen is again heard off screen. “What! Not that again–no wonder you are dead, lover. Too ignorant to live. No live human being has ever ruined a scone that way!”

“Just completing the tale, darling,” John says. “Ending where it began.”

“I see,” says Gwen. “Oh well, just roll the credits.”

The Oz Exception

Starring….

Dame Daisy Kloverleaf/The GOAT

Gwen Cooper

John Mallory’s Ghost

Fewnwick Kloverleaf

Penrose the Flying Weasel

The Great HeXopatha/Renfield/Mari-Kat Lywd (an identity mixture at best)

Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon/PDQ Pete

The Woak Grove

Ernie the Evilmost Elm

Sheep up the yingyang

Juan Gee

Professor Moriarty

Beezer and Barkevious the Braw Bros. Baw

One Legion of Black Rats and various minions

The Spring itself

One Conjured Demon

One conjured Bad Pixie

The Interdimensional Vortex

16 Psyche

Pong

Ping

the billigits

“D.O.”

And of course our vast herd of belligerent little Lambs featuring

Tam, Boaby and the other one whose name I forget.

and Leila Allison as the befuddled pen

The Oz Exception has been brought to you by PDQ Pilsner, proud sponsor of the Pushsprings awards–be sure to try the newly acquired Faerie Ale.

Next week will feature an edited novella from long ago, whose excepts first appeared in Literally Stories UK. Then sometime come spring beware of the “rubaiyat of the billigits.” (remember, billies do not use caps). Double beware of a sample of their work coming here tomorrow.

The End

The Oz Exception: Part Twenty-Three

Ah, here we are nearing the end of this minor catastrophe. Soon, the little fellows pushing horseshit wheelbarrows will be the only ones remaining of this peculiar parade. And yet we have endured a long run of strangely turned out events. In that manner, the Oz Exception is pretty much a match for the Universe because the cosmos makes as much sense and has zero story arc; according to the James Webb Space Telescope there’s just more and more of the same stuff,  farther than any eye can see, or any mind to imagine. And yet there’s that measure of Free Will that allows for unlikely changes….

Gwen and John approached Juan Gee from behind. Both were dressed in Oktoberfest garb, carrying tankards of Faerie Ale, and there was a considerable amount of polka music within the chamber.

“Welcome to the Pushsprings Awards afterparty,” said Juan. Whose voice is an awful lot like that of Truman Capote, which, trust me, takes a bit of getting used to when spoken by a Dinosaur.

Peety and Daisy eschewed their Team GOAT costumes and here clad in dirndl and lederhosen.

“What?” I bellowed across the astral plane. “Whose idea was this? What happened to the giant wizard’s head over the boiling cauldron and the chorus of dancing demons?”

“Oh, they’re all here,” said Penorose, who swooped into view. “It’s just that we got tired of waiting for you to spice up the narrative, so we decided to have a party instead.”

“You know about this, Daisy?”

“Yesly, yes–it was my ideally idea.”

I cast about my mind for better ideas that would not cost me too much effort and came up empty. “All right,” I said, “fill a tankard for me.”

End Partly Party Twenty-Three

The Oz Exception: Part Twenty-Two

“As Team GOAT walked through the Witch’s dark castle, uninhabited save for a mouthy Flying Weasel named Penrose, an invisible voice, like that of an unnecessarily hushed golf announcer, who is a hundred yards from the green, spoke incredibly long, needlessly italicized sentences (such as this one) about their doings…”

“That winged Rodent bit of this and that, keeps tailing us?” Beezer said, noticing Penrose’s androgynous shadow cast by torchlight, falling on the stone floor.

“The wee critter got sucked into the gravity of yer behind,” Barkevious said, using his go to insult when he’s unable to think up better.

“You excel at a shit attitude, brother,” said Beezer.

“Hooray for me,” Barkevious said, doing a sarcastic little dance. “I’m number one at behaving like number two.”

Daisy hoof stomped the floor. “Quiet! The readers can’t hear GOAT’s backstory.

“Ah damn, that again,” said the italicized invisible voice. “Anyhoo, GOAT goes inside stories to help out protagonists who are hard against it all. For instance, they entered an old Twilight Zone episode and gave a character who had tragically broken his glasses to an ironic conclusion a new pair, and once they ‘went’ inside a film called The Valley of Gwangi, and actually kidnapped the Dinosaur lead and bring him to Saragun Springs–but his name is Juan G. due to copyright issues….”

“In fact, the crew turned a corner and found Juan Gee guarding a room from which familiar voices flowed…”

“’Who goes there?’ In his transfer to Sargun Springs, Juan reduced in size from being a thirty-foot tall Allosaurus to about five-ten. Still nearly two yards of Thunder Lizard is a lot to suddenly behold when you round a corner in a dark castle. The wind was howling outside and flashes of lightning illuminated the walls through openings in the ceiling.“

“Daisy stopped and looked up in the general diterction that the invisible voice was coming from and said, ‘Are you sayinly saying it’s a darkly dark and stormily stormy night?’”

“The wind sighed and poured herself another drink.”

End part twenty-two

The Oz Exception: Part Twenty-One

Daisy has it in her contract that there be rousing, heroic music when Team GOAT arrives on the scene. So, imagine if you will, something like the Star Wars’ theme, or that of the Christopher Reeve Superman, and you will know the flavor of the duo’s entrance melody.

Although her transformation and that of Peety (who somehow rearranges his drawn image to include a mask–but he still carries the beer and quotes the same films) to Team GOAT was coincidental to both Daisy and Peety disappearing, Dogs are very good sports and will go with the flow.

Weasels, however, have an obligation to live up to their names as used when compared to humans.

“Haha!” she/he laughed, “It’s Bruce Wayne and his boy toy.”

“Interfere with the storyline again, Weasely Weasel and you will see little hoofprints everytime you need to wipe,” said Dai–the GOAT, who is not the most patient of superheroes.

“‘Roadtrip!’ Bluto, Animal House,” said PDQ Pete–it was at least the twentieth time he had said that since the linoleum was rolled out, but no one got shitty about it, except, for, you guessed it, Penrose, as the brave four entered the castle just to have the door raised behind them.

“I once read an article about the brain power of Pigeons,” said the Weasel from up high in his turret. “It was written in invisible ink.”

“Goddamnit,” I said, watching it on my Chromebook–”Oh, well, that’s what I get for letting a Weasel ad lib.”

“Silence, nonsensical Stoat,” said the GOAT. “I believe that this is where the narrator fills in the backstory of Team GOAT as we walk deeper into the castle,” she added, looking directly into the camera.

“Oh, shit,” I said. It’s a hell of a thing to blow your lines when you are writing them, but I have special talents. I turned on my microphone and began reciting what you will read tomorrow.

End Part Twenty-One

The Oz Exception: Part Twenty

I was watching the progress of the team on my Chromebook (HeXy’s castle is loaded with several easy to tap into cameras and microphones) when the hotline rang. Only the Dubious One uses it, and only when she has her usual dubious nonsense to share with me.

“What?” I snarled, answering the phone with that special tone I share only with her.

“Hmm, uh huh, yeah–I see–little Dogs shouldn’t be so liberal with the word ‘cunt.’ Perhaps ‘twat’ will appeal to your prudish sensibilities. I’m sure that the uptight older Brit royals use it all the time, when referencing the shitty choices in marriage that some of them make. Not that I’d call Fergie or Philip a cunt, but I can see where twat might apply to the late consort of the late queen, who was probably neither–despite what Johnny Rotten said about her.”

The previous paragraph is an example of the strategy I use on the Dubious One. She’s usually on a bender or in the midst of a heavy hangover. All you have to do is blather in her ear until you hear the magic words: “Fine. Whatever,” followed by a click and the sweet sweet dial tone. This is exactly what happened.

Then I had an inspiration. One that would end this third week of our ongoing adventure and seamlessly lead into the final five installments that begin on Monday.

I went to my closet and pulled out the special spotlight. Since it was night, Ping was up, so I aimed the light at him when he was directly over HeXy’s castle in the Enchanted Wood.

After doing so I returned to my Chromebook. As desired I saw Daisy looking skyward then she whispered something to Peety; both disappeared behind an Evilmost Elm Tree. When they returned I beheld the GOAT and PDQ Pete, our resident superhero team.

Funny thing is that only Daisy can see exactly what image is cast on Ping. It’s a blur to everyone else, me included. Of course that might be due to the oddity of the Goat eye, but since Fenwick can’t make it out either, it remains a mystery–or maybe it’s because I cannot think of something interesting or entertaining enough to describe it with.

Regardless, team GOAT was on the job…

End Part Twenty

Starting Monday, the final five installments

The Oz Exception- Part Nineteen

The Oz Exception: Part Nineteen (R Rated for language–ooooooh)

While the team continued its progress to HeXy’s castle (since, as explained before, everything is boutta mile away in the Springs they meandered a bit to stretch the narrative), I sat down and retraced the story arc and discovered that it was as flat as Ramses the great’s ekg has been since well before the pyramids went up.

It began at what seemed to be a fairly interesting magic graveyard, followed by Fenwick inviting Gwen and John to the realm ostensibly for Oktoberfest, which actually wasn’t completely forgotten about, but it did not last long.

Then we ended up in Agoville for the pushsprings awards which were disrupted by the bratty Lambs. Naturally, Gwen and John were abducted by the Flying billigits in a naked grab for the spotlight by the Great HeXopatha. I made a graph and saw no arc, no theme, no foreshadowing, no thinly veiled scenes pilfered from the Bible or Shakespeare. Just a bunch of random stuff, barely connected, created by separate minds concerned (rightly) with their own stories. In fact, it is a lot like life if one overlooks talking livestock and winged Stoats.

Still, I teetered at the edge of the abyss of depression. But that’s when Daisy called and told me that they were at the castle and that I should stop feeling inferior for a moment and get on with it.

Anyway, the team (now reduced to four because Promo admitted to being HeXopatha’s spy and vanished laughing in a puff of green smoke) arrived at the castle. There was a moat and the drawbridge was up. Beezer called to Penrose, who was wo/manning the tower.

“Hey, ye mind dropping the plank so we may enter?”

“I would.”

“Now lissen up ye prick or prickcess, it’s been a long story with no end in sight. Unless you want friend Peety here to fly up and get tough with you.””

Peety zoomed up and issued the following peculiar “threat”: “‘I think you’re all fucked in the head. We’re ten hours from the fuckin’ fun park and you want to bail out! Well I’ll tell you something, this is no longer a vacation. It’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun! I’m gonna have fun, and you’re gonna have fun. We’re all gonna have so much fuckin’ fun we’ll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You’ll be whistling ‘Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah’ out of your assholes!’ Clark, Vacation.”

“Anyway,” Beezer added, “Maybe what he said means the same as they’ll be picking bits of you out of our stool if ye don’t drop the goddam plank.”

Penrose dropped the plank, without warning Beezer that he was standing where it would land.

Beezer climbed out from under. “I’ll Rolf Harris ye a new one for that, you little cunt or cuntess.”

“Can’t say coont-word to an undetermined gender, lardy butt,” said Barkevious, who was now holding a clipboard and wearing the Censor of the Day badge.

Beezer sighed. “I’ll Rolf Harris ye a new one for that ye beige shemale.”

Barkevious sighed. “Better off going with coont than that.”

The intrepid foursome entered the castle.

End Part Nineteen

The Oz Exception: Part Eighteen

The gang marched onward and soon encountered a field that contained a giant poppyseed themed buffet. Daisy went for the poppyseed muffins, Beezer and Barkevious both devoured the poppyseed pizza and even Promo wasn’t finicky enough to bypass the poppyseed herring (although he had been told about the “trap”).

The poppyseed laden food caused the breathing creatures to fall asleep. They were snoring under the azure sky and when they awoke they’d forget all about the mission and go home. Or so that was how the spell was set up.

But all spells have their loopholes and being that Peety is unaffected by poppyseeds and wouldn’t eat any unless there was poppyseed PDQ (which HeXy overlooked), he remained conscious, well, at least in his version of such a state.

He flitted to each of the sleepers and poured a swallow of PDQ in their mouths, at the same time sharing quotes from his favorite films, because those are as close to magic words he knows.

Daisy heard: “‘I’ll be back,’ thuh Arnold, The Terminator.”

Promo was informed: “‘When you’re Jewish, you either learn to fight or take a lotta shit. I don’t take shit.’ Schwartz, Porky’s.”

For Beezer: “‘Thank you sir, may I please have another?’ Sir Kevin Bacon, Animal House.”

And Barkevious: “‘Don’t be obsessed with your desires, Danny. The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote “a flute without holes is not a flute, a donut without a hole is a Danish.”’ The late Chevy Chase, CaddyShack.”

“Chevy Chase is still alive,” Barkevious said as he awoke.

“Tell that to his career,” said Daisy.

Naturally, the Baws went back to the buffet before anyone could stop them. But it was all right, with his Google-like mind, Peety is never out of magic words.

End part eighteen

The Oz Exception: Part Seventeen

(As Told, partly, by the Great HeXopatha)

So many peasants are needlessly afraid of Witches. As long as you do as told and do not become curious about events that do not concern you, all will be well under your tiny thatched rooftops.

And yet from my point on the astral plane, I saw a little Goat in a blue gingham dress, that strange Pigeon that I’d dearly love to collect and two Dogs with more personality than brain power, all bent on interfering with one of my projects. Fortunately, I had a minion embedded amongst them, Professor Moriarty. Black Cats are born into the dark service, no matter “who” thinks they own them.

I magically placed a transponder in “Promo’s” collar, which let my Legion of Lambs know where the imps were at, therefore freeing me from always having to be on the astral plane. Still, it is always good to rattle the bowels of do-gooding seekers. On cue, four carefully hidden Lambs tossed green smoke bombs into the path, and I appeared in the haze.

Alas, not all went as planned, but rest assured I will remedy the situation….

I, Leila, returned to the astral plane and took back the wheel of the narrative because HeXy is loath to recount her backfired attempt at scaring the infidels.

Upon her “incorporation” in the green smoke, both Beezer and Barkevious broke character and ran to her with tails wagging. Not only is there the uncanny resemblance between Renfield (the Boy’s master) and HeXopatha, but their scents, as sniffed by Dogs, apparently, are precisely the same as well.

“I am the Great and Powerful HeXopatha, Hounds–begone and quiver in my mightiness!” she said, but her dismissal would have carried more weight if she hadn’t smiled affectionately, given both  boys pats on the head and milk bones  from a sack concealed in her robe.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Daisy ad libbed, referencing the Wicked Witch of the West’s demise, I guess. Another script  shot to hell.

“No thank you, I’d rather have a house dropped on my head,” Ren–HeXopatha laughed. (Apparently,  whoever she was had guessed the same thing.)

Yes, the scene was officially taking the big swirl into the sewer. And to complete the disaster, Peety went on a bizarre rant: “‘What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re gonna let it be the worst. “Ooh, we’re afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble.” Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I’m not gonna take this. Wormer, he’s a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer…’ Bluto, Animal House.”

It was long past time to leave the astral plane and hope for a better tomorrow.

End Part Seventeen

The Oz Exception: Part Sixteen

The Oz Exception: Part Sixteen

To keep the adverbs to a minimum, I held the narrative, and affixed a spy cam to Barkevious’ collar so I could watch the adventure unfold and describe it. But he managed to lose the cam about five steps into the journey and all it showed was a stretch of the linoleum road that had been scarred by years of carelessly dropped cigarette butts. Of course, since I had forgotten to place the microphone on anyone, it really didn’t matter.

This minor setback required downing my Faerie Ale boilermaker and chasing it with a small vial of special blend, peyote-infused tequila. This potion allowed me to cast a portion of my consciousness into the astral plane, therefore giving me insight into actions that I could not possibly know anything about. (Yes, I do write this stuff, but the liberal, literal Free Will of my FC’s has yet to produce results equal, or even similar to the written script.) Anyway, it was a hell of a plan B and I wish I had thought it up sooner. (Remember, I too have Saragun Springs’ Free Will.)

Being a cartoon, Peety needs nothing except his magic can of PDQ, being Dogs, Beezer and Barkevious require food every hour or so (or so they claim). So I made certain that there were plenty of caches of Dog food along the way, even though the adventure was slated for only three thousand words of real time. Promo insisted on a catered tuna, which the Baw Bros knew better than to touch. For Daisy, being a Goat, the forest is a great buffet. She began munching on Woakcorns that lay on the portion of the linoleum road that passed through the Woak Grove. Naturally, this infuriated the Woaks.

“Murderer! No regard for our precious children!”

Daisy had heard all this before. Although she was endowed with great charm, there is also something quite steely about her personality. No one can make Daisy cry. Certainly not a tree.

“Funnily funny way to treaty treat your children,” she said. “Leavingly leaving them on the groundly ground.” Then she bit into a Woakcorn. “Ohhh, this one tastes like shatterly shattered floral dreamly dreams.”

Naturally, the Woaks began to pelt her with their “precious children.” Fortunately, Woaks have shitty throwing limbs. They are accurate but speed and distance are lacking. This, of course, is due to a lack of protein in the Woak diet.

Daisy laughed and capered away with a sack full of Woakcorns. (Daisy is all about preparation. She carries empty foraging sacks wherever she goes.)

Then the wholesomely evil image of HeXopatha’s face got in the way of mine on the astral plane. Sometimes that happens, there is no such a thing as an astral plane controller.

“I see you’ve dipped into the peyote again, darling,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I sighed.

“The same thing you are, just keeping an eye on developments.”

“Well,” I said, “it might be a fine idea to switch the narrative over to the protagonist.”

HeXy smiled.

End Part Sixteen