Welcome to Saragun Springs: Book Four HeXopatha and the billigits Part Five

The Fifth billygit of the Apocalypse

****

I was just sitting there, taking up space, contributing nothing to the Universe other than not plotting its destruction. I was studying the concept of wrath as dispensed by cyber-mobs, and I arrived at the conclusion that those who frame witches do so to forestall winding up bound and tossed into the river themselves. Hardly a revelation, but the truth seldom wows. When you get down to it the words of the prophets are found on the subway walls, tenement halls and in stupid tweets, old chum.

My Imaginary Friend and second in command, Renfield, popped into my office and told me that the billygits wanted to see me.

I snapped out of my philosophical cogitation. “No, they don’t,” I said. “I passed them off on Hezopatha. She’s now Herod to the little jeebuses, not I.”

Renfield smiled a smile that informed me what she had said wasn’t a request. Like it or not I was going to see the billygits. Renfield whistled and the four billygits flew into the room. Then she departed, closing the door behind her.

The billygits eschew capital letters. So, there’s no disrespect when I list them by name: mothball, weasel, pinto and flounder. Your basic billigit is eighteen inches long, winged, androgynous (but I like to call them “guys” or “boys”–sue me), orange skinned and they all wear blue polo shirts, khaki pants and tiny hemp hard-sole slippers that are always falling off. Except for slight variations in their faces, billygits are identical physically, but they do have differing temperaments. Unlike only Renfield and myself, the billygits are among the Fictional Characters (FC’s) in our realm of make believe. They were created two productions ago; and in the publication which precedes this (if this current one makes the grade) I had given them to a powerful FC named Hezopatha the Witch as minions because I discovered having four winged little orange dudes around the office is highly irritating. I played the role of “Satan” in that story, thus sealing the deal in hellfire, scorched scrolls and smoldering wax seals.

“What do you guys want? You’re Hezopatha’s problem now,” I said, wishing for a trap door like that in Mr, Burns’ office on The Simpsons. In this realm, you never know when wishes will come true. And sure enough a trap door appeared under the billygits. But since they fly, it wasn’t a useful wish; wasted wishes are the only kind that come true around here.

“Magnificent Master sent us,” said mothball, who was to my far left. I then noticed that Hezopatha had given the boys name tags.

“The Magnificent Master desires another billygit,” weasel, next in line, added.

“How come?”

“For the Magnificent Master’s OCEAN project,” pinto chimed in, all haughty like, as if I knew what he was talking about.

“And what is OCEAN?” I asked when it became evident that no one was going to expand on the subject.

I knew that Hezopatha was up to no good, being a Witch and all. Although I had created her, I had also given her Free Will, as I do all FC’s–even the billygits. “Hezzie’s” Free Will usually manifests itself in mayhem and missing persons. But since those who turn up gone are not actual human beings, just actors playing chunks of peasant stew, I stay out of her way. Hezzie is also a sociopath, thus highly creative. Ambitious too. And her latest scheme for upward mobility was underscored by what the billygits then told me.

“The Magnificent Master…“ flounder started, but I interrupted him.

“Now that all you guys have called Hezzie ‘Magnificent Master’ feel free to stop kissing her butt. I won’t tell.”

“Magnificent Master told us you’d say something of that flavor,” flounder said.

“She said to ignore it and any attempt you make at wishing for a trapdoor,” said weasel–no, mothball.

Renfield had been eavesdropping over any one of fifteen ways to listen in, and she sent me a Googled definition of OCEAN, which appeared on the screen of my open laptop. As I’d somehow sensed, it was New Age claptrap devised by smart people overeducated to the point of uselessness.

“My bullshit detector tells me that OCEAN is a patchouli reeking, personality labeling acronym that stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, sometimes called CANOE–What the hell is Neuroticism? Is that what Woody Allen experiences as he creeps to the girls’ room?”

Silence. Sour expressions were on the winged pests’ faces.

“Hannah and Her Sisters fans, eh?–well never mind–how about telling me what OCEAN has to do with placing people upside down on meat hooks?”

“Magnificent Master requires a fifth billygit to complete her greatest spell,” I forget which one of the little dudes said it, but I know one did.

“Each one of us represents a letter,” flounder–I think, said.

“Ah,” I said (fairly sure about that). “And you need a fifth for the N, being there’s only four of you. Still, what precisely is the aim?”

The four just fluttered, exchanging confused glances.

“Just pulling your chains, boys–Everyone knows that Hezopatha never tells anyone but her Rats what she is up to. Could be, in the greater scheme of things, that she only devised this OCEAN plan just to get me to make the awful Woody Allen joke. Hezopatha moves in mysterious ways. Who are we to question her? Yet I’m willing to bet my eye of newt futures that she’s planning to raise some sort of passive-aggressive New Age Demon. You see, guys, the Magnificent Master is the type of individual who is only happy when Coyotes are digging up the bones of those who crossed her from unmarked graves in the desert.”

More silence.

I sent Renfield a message: SUMMON TEAM G.O.A.T.

She replied: WHAT’S THE MAGIC WORD?

My retort: RIGHTFUCKINGNOW.

I smiled. “If I greenlight a fifth billygit, you guys promise to go and stay away?”

For the first time since our little conference began, the billygits behaved as though they approved of my existence. They assured me that I would not see any more of them if I granted their request.

Renfield sent me a message. (And yes, she was in the next room.): IT’S DAISY’S SPA DAY. SHE’S GETTING HER HOOVES PAINTED.

Me: THAT’S OK. PEETY WILL DO. GET HIM.

Renfield sent me a middle-finger emoji.

Me: PLEASE.

Renfield: HE’S IN THE GUTTER.

Me: I’LL SEND THE BILLIES TO HIM.

“Boys,” I said, “you know Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon?”

They all shook their heads yes.

“I need one of you not to know who he is for the sake of the backstory.”

pinto took the bullet. “My, who is this Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon?”

“Glad you asked,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “He’s a two dimensional cartoon beer mascot from Other Earth, a place created by our Creator–the reckless fool I’m Penname to, that talking bratwurst who gave us Free Will. Peety, via the out and out breaking of all the physical laws of the Universe and then some, now also exists in this realm and carries a bottomless can of PDQ Pilsner, a piss-like brew which used to exist only at Other Earth. Peety is also the sidekick to the G.O.A.T.–whose true identity as meek and mild Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess cannot leave this room or they’ll be finding pieces of you guys in dumpsters from here to Mars. Anyway, the only way a new billygit can be created is by Peety baptizing an extant billygit with PDQ Pilsner–You fellas know where the Gutter Bar and Grill is?”

“Should we?” mothball asked.

“It would be helpful.”

Fortunately, weasle knew where the Gutter was.

“Cool–go there and ask Peety to do his magic.”

******

I was dozing at my desk a few hours later, dreaming of hail falling on the roof.

I awoke and saw a smiling Renfield standing in front of my desk. Yet the sound of hail followed me into unwanted consciousness. I again wished for a trap door–which happened, but this time it appeared under my chair.

“What’s that noise?” I asked, half wondering how long she’d been standing there. The sound of the hail increased by the second.

“It’ll be easier if you look out the window.”

I slowly swiveled my office chair and looked out the window. Thousands upon thousands of tiny hemp slippers were falling from the sky. And I saw several flocks of bright orange, blue and khaki birds flying overhead. But they weren’t birds.

“That’s a whole mess of billygits,” I said. “I probably should have seen this coming.”

“Right?” Then Renfield took my laptop and downloaded footage taken by the

camera at the Gutter. Security cameras in this realm are very good. They record sound and even pan from one speaker to another. Could say they’re the same as magic.

Pie-eyed Peety is a gregarious little fellow and always a pal. He used to speak his own words, but for a long time now he has only communicated by quoting the popcorn flicks and slob-coms of the late seventies through the eighties. Stuff like Slap Shot, The Terminator, Caddyshack, Porky’s and so on. And he has a big thing for Animal House. He knows it better than Satan knows the fiddle.

And it was a good thing that Renfield and I knew our Animal House. For what played out on the magic security camera would have made little sense without the knowledge.

Although Peety is loaded around the clock, he tends to get drunker when he’s in the Gutter. Who knows why. Just another one of those mysterious things that makes poets shrug their scrawny shoulders.

Renfield had to turn up the volume so it could be heard over the steady drumming of billygit slippers hitting the roof. We watched the four billies fly into the Gutter and interrupt Peety’s foosball game.

“Shit,” I said, “should have told them not to bother Peety when he’s got his foosball on.”

“Right?”

Peety reacted to the pests in his normal-for-Peety way. He approached flounder and saw the nametag Hezopatha had given him and bellowed: “Redo those buttons! Dress that belt buckle! And damn it, tuck in those pajamas!”

“Double shit,” I said, “Peety only quotes Neidermeyer when there’s gonna be trouble.”

“Right.”

“What’s that on your chest, Mister?” Peety said, his face inches away from flounder’s.

“Um, it’s the name tag the Magnificent Master gave me–see it says…”

“A Pledge Pin!!!”

Peety then shook his bottomless can of PDQ (which sometimes appears as a bottle or a mug–but is always present and bottomless) and sprayed the four billygits, who reproduced exponentially, a line formed behind all of them. And Peety just kept spraying and spraying, begetting more and more billygits.

I closed the laptop.

I heard a loud bell chime in my desk and the sound of slippers falling on the roof immediately ceased. I opened the drawer and pulled out the crystal ball that is my direct line to Hezopatha. Her lovely, yet evil visage filled the orb.

“What’s up Hezzie?”

“Just calling to thank you for the minions, darling.”

I saw movement in the curves of the ball–orange and blue swirls.

“Are they all with you?”

“Yes, the last flock passed over your little shack on their way to me just seconds ago.”

A quick glance out the window confirmed that. Not a billygit in the sky, but there were plenty of hemp slippers lying around.

I smiled. “I’m guessing that the ‘OCEAN’ project involved Peety spraying an ocean of PDQ, as to provide you with an endless supply of minions. I’m guessing you knew Peety would fuck things up somehow and give you what you really wanted.”

Hezopatha laughed. Always laughing.

“Well, that was then,” I said, “and this is now. I need you to send out a battalion of billies to come and get these goddam slippers–must be a yard deep in some places.”

She didn’t reply, but I heard her echoing laughter as her face faded in the darkening ball.

“Hey! I’m serious! This is my job!” I yelled at the crystal ball. But Hezopatha was offline.

“Professor Jennings, Animal House,” Renfield said.

“Peety ain’t the only one who can quote scripture,” I said. “Goddam Hezzie went rat bastard on me. Maybe the slippers will dissolve in the rain. “

Renfield was mixing a pitcher of martinis at the bar. “According to the computer model, Hezzie has something close to a quarter million billygits at her disposal–there would have been more but someone challenged Peety to another game of foosball.”

“Wow,” I said, whistling. “That’s a lot of pledge pins.”

I noticed that the trapdoor was still under me and pushed the button. But goddam reality had either followed me down the hole or was running simultaneously at an even lower level of expectation.

Renfield poured the martinis and I wished for rain.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Four

(This one features a rare performance by your author in an acting role-LA)

Name Game

(Vital Information)

Before we begin, it is important to know that Satan never cheats at games. In fact she may be the only thinking being in the universe who is honest to a fault when it comes to games of chance. But her truthful nature does not mean that she is a good loser. Oh, she’ll shake your hand and heartily extol your virtues as a gamer; but she’ll never forget the sting of losing. In that regard it might be better if she did cheat, or at least flipped the board to conclude a Monopoly match with a mistrial. But, as we will soon see, that is not her way….

Now On With the Show

The Witch needed a name for her newest season on Earth. The need had nothing to do with business. Her vast wealth and properties were under the enchanted aliases of her human familiars–a trustworthy lot because they knew that something much worse than death (a something most likely to be as creative as protracted) awaited any servant caught dipping in the Witch’s till. Such certainty reinforces loyalty. No, the want of a name stemmed from the idiotic peasant need for labeling things.

For the record, the Witch was born in Gomorrah and was called Myrrh, as in the third best birthday gift for boys named Jesus. But upon becoming a Witch, among the many things she left behind was her name (which she never much cared for anyway). And she wouldn’t have bothered with one at all if it weren’t for the pettifogging peasants incessant need for labels.

Ever since ascending to Witchood, she alternated one-hundred thirty year seasons between Hell and Earth. In the old days, the nameless Witch would wreak havoc on the peasantry until it was time to return to Hell for another hundred-thirty-year sabbatical. There wasn’t anything the peasants could do about her after she had cast spells of obedience on the local authorities–usually the royal and monied clans in any region. Yes, there was a time when a woman who looked thirty could stay that way for generations, and the peasants who populated those rapidly changing generations knew how to look the other way, and taught their issue that it would be wise to do the same.

But even peasants get wiser, thus more dangerous. And prior to her previous term on Earth, which began in the second half of the 18th Century (and was her first season spent in the “New World”), the Witch took special note of the ugly doings at Salem, from her vantage point in Hell. Fortunately, not a single victim of that persecution had actually been a witch–but it stood to reason that maybe the peasantry had evolved to the point of feeling emboldened enough to interfere with the projects of an unmarried young woman of means who did not age a day over the course of many decades in a community that featured an inordinate amount of missing persons and a copious population of viscous Black Cats, Condor-sized Owls and somewhat arrogant Rats. This potential complication caused the Witch to devise a scheme in which she was a rich widow who aged (via a simple general eye of the beholder spell) for the first sixty years then “died” and gave over to a young “heiress” namesake who bore an uncanny resemblance to the young Witch–not that any peasant with enough sense to still be taken seriously would be around to notice, not with an average lifespan of around forty-five, not with the inexplicable way that villagers who looked in the Witch’s direction a bit long suffered unfortunate accidents. She also toned down the size of her Owls but did nothing about the attitudes of the Black Cats and Rats.

Her previous earthly season ended in 1891–according to the tiresome peasant way of numbering even the years. Hell keeps up on current events much better than its opposite number. Whilst “below,” the Witch rued missing out on the tumultuous 20th Century, but looked forward to entering the Twenty-first and practicing her special brand of mayhem well into the Twenty-second. She got restless–for all Hell’s splendors, one can only beat Satan at cribbage so many times and still get a buzz from it.

Although the peasants had multiplied, advanced wildly ahead technologically and were overall better educated–they were still peasants who continued to grossly overestimate the moral quality of their souls; thus the majority was just as tribal, labeling, superstitious, venal and spiritually bankrupt as ever–perhaps more so. Good times lay ahead.

So upon returning to Earth and relocating to a new home in the American Midwest in 2021 (for it it’s required of Witches to travel to new regions every Earth season), the Witch awaited a scroll to appear in the bough of an evilmost elm tree that she had enchanted, which served as her connection to Hell. Satan herself chose the names Witches went by.

In keeping with tradition, the scroll appeared in the enchanted evilmost elm at three A.M. on the day of the first new moon after her return to Earth. The Witch stationed a Rat Squad at the tree to await the scroll’s arrival. Of all her beloved animal familiars, Rats were the most efficient. And also in keeping with tradition, though she had hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Rats within reach of her magic, they were all divided into squads of thirteen. Rat Squads had the keenest attention span of all her familiars (humans included). Though she never punished any of her animals, the Witch knew that when she sent an unsupervised Black Cat out on a quick mission, the deed would get done but she wasn’t likely to see the fiend again for a week or so. No one does A to B better than a Rat Squad.

When Rat Squads perform a ceremonial march, twelve form a circle around a single Rat who serves as the “Star” in a Rattish pentagram. They take turns being the Star because only the Witch is considered the leader. Such a formation entered the open front door of the Witch’s house at precisely one minute past three on the morning of the first new moon. The Star toted the scroll freshly sent from Hell, it lay perfectly balanced on her sleek back.

The Witch noticed that the wound scroll was thicker than usual. In all other ways it was the same–made from parchment peeled off the hide of a damned soul, slightly scorched at the edges, rolled and tied with a black ribbon, the Master’s wax seal in place. But it looked too large to contain a brief salutation and one name. Something about it caused the Witch to recall the cribbage tournament attended by Demons, Sorcerers and the Queen. She had defeated the Master fifteen times in a row and was crowned champion. Despite her gracious acceptance of defeat, the Witch knew that the fink would pull some kind of payback, by and by. Indeed, something about the scroll reeked of petty revenge. But tradition required she open it. She did so thinking that maybe it was time to let go of some traditions.

“My babies,” she said, smiling, kneeling to take the scroll. “You shall be the first to hear our new name.”

She unrolled the parchment. It said:

Darling!

I already miss you! Yet since your departure my cribbage results have greatly improved.

I’ve given the matter of your name a great deal of thought.

I humbly present three choices. You must select one, for there won’t be a fourth…

The Witch laughed.

“I have a choice between three, babies,” she said. “The first I shall reject is ‘Cher Hitler’; next out will be the charming ‘Vicki Bin Laden’–with all the i’s dotted with little hearts–See?” she showed the scroll to the Rats–”how quaint.“

The Rat Squad laughed at a degree in keeping with their Mistress’s mood, yet not to a point which dared to insult the Master.

“Hi ho!” The Witch said, reading more, “the Master has locked the last choice with a spell which commands me to give it to my loyal Rat Squad to read aloud,” she said, handing the scroll to the Star.

All thirteen Rats studied the scroll and after several exchanged, nervous glances, the Star spoke up in English. “It’s a song, your royal darkness…”

“A song?”

“Yes, milady, a reworking of a popular song from sixty years ago.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

The Rats began to perform the tune. Six maintained a beat by smacking their tails on the floor, and six others vocally backed up the Star who sang:

“Bambi!

Bambi mo-mam-bee

Bo-na-na fanna fo-fam-bee

Fee-fi mo mam-bee

Bambi!”

“Bambi?” The Witch said. “Bambi? Oh that unholy hussy. What a little baby! I knew she couldn’t handle losing–”

“There’s more,” the Star said, lifting the scroll toward the Witch. “It instantly appeared at the end of the song, but isn’t written in Rattish.”

“This ought to be rich,” she muttered. The Witch named Bambi read the addition, and for the first time ever her Rats saw a perplexed expression on her face. She read it several times and even flipped it over to see if there was more on the back.

“Babies?” she said, at last, “Did you pass anyone–or thing in the courtyard? Says here I’ll soon be hearing the beat of little wings.”

Although highly efficient, Rats are mission oriented. They only tend to the tasks the Witch sends them on and do not make mention of any oddities they might see. There could have been an elephant herd out in the courtyard, but if it wasn’t a part of or interfered with the mission, the Rats would ignore it. They would assume it was Witch business that did not concern them.

“Yes, Mistress Bambi,” the Star said, fully aware of the dark gleam that the name put in the Witch’s eyes, but also confident that the name was endorsed by the Master herself.

“O-un?” She spoke the Rattish word which meant “more than one”–for all their reliability and cleverness, Rats cannot count higher than one, but know when there isn’t just one.

Being a high tech matter, the Rats consulted one another and arrived at a consensus:“Yes, o-un.”

This is when I, the writer of this tale, and four new Fictional Characters (FC’s) of my creation appeared at the open door.

“Knock, knock,” I said. “We bring good news for Bambi!”

The Witch and I go way back. But that’s so many moved pegs on the cribbage board ago.

“You,” she said. “What’s the meaning of this?” She held the scroll aloft, the Rat Squad stood at attention. The witch glanced down at them, not without affection. “Why didn’t you guys say she was out there?”

“At ease, little friends,” I said. “Because I wasn’t until after they passed.”

“And who are they?” The Witch asked, motioning to the four FC’s who were hovering in the air, just behind me. “And why should I soon be hearing the beat of little wings?”

“These are the billigits,” I said, nodding to a row of four identical, winged, orange skinned, androgynous individuals of about two feet in length. Each one wore a blue polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants and hemp slippers that were always falling off. In fact, three of the eight slippers were already piled under them on the ground.

“Let me guess,” The Witch said, “these guys are looking for minion work.”

“Bingo, Bambi,” I replied. “Say hello to Mothball, Weasel, Pinto and Flounder.”

“What if I tell you I have enough minions?”

“What if I tell you that Bambi could be rearranged to read Hezopatha?”

“I’d say welcome to the team, Mothball, Weasel, Pinto and Flounder.”

“Done, Hezopatha,” I said.

And with that, I left Hezopatha, the Rat Squad and the newly employed billigits to their adventures and returned to a Hell of mostly my own creation.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Three

(the billigits go through many changes– spellings, population, vocations; sometimes they are orange, others they are blue–call it mindless evolution–LA)

Meet the billigits

Word has it that the first billygit was the result of a passionate affair between a runaway Disney Princess and a Flying Monkey on leave from the Wizard of Oz. The Princess was tired of being a thirty-two-year old woman forced to play a “tween” and the Flying Monkey was bored due to the liquidation of his Witch. It was a “what happens in the Emerald City stays in the Emerald City” sort of fling. Or so I heard. I really can’t say much more due to copyright issues, but I won’t refute it, either. Whatever their origin, the now plentiful billygits (who did not stay in Oz, and insist on a lowercase b to start their name) are. Yet unlike most things that are, billygits multiply when some PDQ Pilsner is poured over their heads; this action instantly produces a twin billygit.

Your basic billygit is a winged, androgynous, ankle-high, bright orange individual who wears a blue polo shirt, khaki slacks and hemp slippers that invariably fall off during flight–and in no way should be confused with a Pixie or a Fairie. Although they are identical physically, each billygit has a sense of individuality, and they all believe they are the original billygit that all other billygits are based on. Like most illogical beliefs supported by historical records, it is the driving force behind the billygit culture.

You can tell when a flock of billygits has passed because the landscape below will be littered with their little hemp slippers. Sooner or later, a slipperless billygit will retrieve a pair from the ground because, being identical, they all wear the same size. The billygits are similar to a Greek chorus in my little fantasy realm. They wander from story to story and pass unasked for observations.

After proofing the previous two paragraphs, my Imaginary Friend, and second in command of our realm, Renfield, opined that what I wrote causes more confusion than clarity. To be transparent, she actually said:

“What the fuck is this? Didn’t you used to have the ‘billygates’? Little winged people that your paranoid behind was convinced were the Microsoft Secret Police, and they were watching you?”

“Copyright issues ended that, Rennie. Lawyer stuff.”

“Sure, whatever you say–but don’t try to con me into helping with the backstory–you gotta dig that hole in the desert yourself.”

Anyway, as the ruling Penname and CEO of this realm in make believe, I govern two-hundred-twenty-eight Fictional Characters (FC’s). As my creator gave me Free Will, I’ve done the same for them. And due to a contract I signed, without first reading, with the Union of Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, before I can create a new FC, I have to offer the role to an already extant FC. This leads to stuff like Daisy the Pygmy Goatess (an original, elemental FC, developed before the contract) playing various human and animal and “whathaveyou” roles in my stories. Daisy has great range and can play anything from an ameba to the Diana Ross of Supreme Beings. If my little opuses were visual, there would be trouble. Fortunately, readers see what their own minds clap together from the provided information. It would be awfully tough to convince someone who watches a Siamese Cat, Pygmy Goat and Cartoon Pigeon walk into a bar and get them to believe that they are actually seeing a Witch, a Black Lab who identifies as a Wolf and a sulfurous Demonic Minion enter a bar. It strains credulity and raises penetrating questions that I’d rather not answer. So, blessed be the words.

Still, according to the Union, I need to make sure that all my established FC’s are cast in a role at least once per year. Thus the real reason behind the billygits. I guess I would rather have you believe they are the spawn of aging Disney princesses and Baum’s Flying Monkeys, but for those annoying seekers of truth, there you have it.

Unfortunately, some of my FC’s are one note performers who refuse to play anyone or -thing other than a generic pain in the ass, in keeping with their own personalities. Since billygits are essentially one note, generic pains in the ass, it is a match made in make believe. And since it was quickly approaching the close of our year, I still had four FC’s who’d been lounging around the dock pilings, taverns, gambling and opium dens that contain the hallmark activities of unchecked Free Will. I had the three biggest “stars” in my realm, Renfield, Daisy, and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon, round up the idlers and bring them to my office.

As it goes with all things that are Union business, I am required to pass the narrative of the meeting to an FC who is both a Shop Steward and capable of using a Chromebook. Though a hooved creature, it has been long known that Fictional Pygmy Goats are known as–as I’ve stated in previous works–”Preter-Nature’s Stenographer.” And although she does it daintily, Daisy has yet to meet an adverbly adverb that she doesn’t approvingly approve of, and is a master of coining new adverbs that are dismayingly dismaying, bizarrely bizarre and redundantly redundant. Daisy is the reason why I invented the Adverb Mass Indicator (A.M.I.); which used to be located on the wall behind her little desk in my office. The A.M.I. used to beep when Daisy got all prosily and purpley. The handy device cut down on the adverbs, but to make up for it, Daisy discovered the simile like a middle-school boy convinced that generously applied amounts of Axe will make him a big hit with the ladies*. She lays them on pretty heavy–and always in couplets; and she knows that I have yet to invent the S.M.I.–but plans for it are on my desk, waiting for there to be enough gin in me to go at them like a reality show Frankestein cobbling together yet another pop culture freak.

Anyway, here’s Miss Daisy Cloverleaf (aka, “The GOAT”):

(*Renfield has peeked over my shoulder and informed me that this is at least the fifth time I’ve compared a heavy application of a noxiously noxious sort of thing to a kid smothered in Axe. True, I’ve used it before. But speaking for all who have had to take the bus to work or school or anywhere, I promise to stop making the comparison as soon as spray “colognes” are kept in locked cabinets and require the same level of scrutiny for purchase as liquor, cigarettes and guns.)

Again, Miss Daisy.

There were eight of us in the office. Packed like sardines, already on each other’s nerves like a group of eight nervly nerves getting on-ers. Aside from Miss Leila, Miss Renfield, Pie-Eyed Peety, and I, Daisy, by day a humbly humble stenographer, but on evenings and weekends The GOAT–who with her trustily trusty sidekick PDQ Peety, rescue public domain FC’s from fates like Groundhog Day, with our wits, more like Batgoat than Supergoat—Drat! There goes the cursedly cursed A.M.I.

“Um, Daisy,” Leila said, from behind her desk. “I can see everything you write on this screen…please stay on topic–remember the budget.”

Drat. That confoundedly confounding three-thousand word limit. Drat drat and triple drat. Three thousand drats…drats like a pox; drats like locusts…

“Day-zee…”

Drat.

Anyway, also on hoof were sleekly sleek Gordon Cormorant; Lordly Lord Fishstyx the Motivational Coela-CAN; an incomprehensibly lazily lazy Trade Rat named Andy (who had missed two productions due to a month long peyote bender), and an obnoxiously obnoxious Literary Turkey named Krook.

I said a pox upon you A.M.I.!!!

“Day-zee…”

Drat.

“Good news, gang,” Leila said, chewing gum and smoking a cigarette at the same time. “I’ve got roles for the four of you to play. In fact, Miss Daisy over there is sealing the deal as we speak. I’m certain that forcing me to send a search party out to find you guys is just a little misunderstanding.”

Lord Fishstyx took exception to the idea. “I don’t think it is right that you push us into roles that we have yet to examine.”

The others “here here’d.” It was obvious that Fishstyx had an agenda.

“What would it take to make you guys participate with enthusiasm,” Leila said, rooting around her desk drawer for the Scotch that I happen to know Miss Renfield had confiscated earlier.

“Our names above the byline,” Lord Fishstyx said, “or we might not remember our cues.”

“Charming. You don’t even know what the roles are,” Leila said. She had located a pint of Four Freedoms vodka and took a drink, which caused her face to pickly pickle like a baby sucking a lime, like, um, like whatever Jesus, Mary and Joseph said was blowing in the wind…

“Day-zee.”

Drat.

“Tell you what, there’s always Plan B,” Leila said. Then she typed the following in her Chromebook, which was synchronized with mine. I NEED TEAM GOAT TO EXECUTE PLAN B!

My reply: ONLY IF I CAN DISENGAGINLY DISENGAGE THE A.M.I, LIKE PULLING THE PLUG ON A RICH UNCLE BEFORE HE CAN CHANGE THE WILL. LIKE…UM…

Leila: ALL RIGHT. FINE. WHATEVER.

Me: I RELEASINGLY RELEASE THE NARRATIVE TO YOU.

I took over because Daisy is a Goatess of action. Although she is what is called a “TeaCup” Pygmy Goat–about the size of a beefy housecat, Daisy is able to tap an enormous quantity of rage energy. The A.M.I. was encased in a small red plastic square, attached to the wall just behind Daisy’s desk in the corner, and, as always it had beeped adverb over mass warnings during Daisy’s contribution to this effort.

Upon gaining permission, Daisy closed her Chromebook, placed her front hooves on her desk and reared up, well, her rear hooves and obliterated the A.M.I. with one solid double-hoof kick. Just as she did that Peety squawked “Hasta La Vista, Baby” and credited the Arnold, for although Peety mainly speaks through the slobcom medium he’s also a fan of the Arnold. The A.M.I. made a final bleat as the bits of plastic rained down on the room. After Daisy muttered something that sounded like “Enjoy the weather in “A.M.I. Hell,” she voice activated a bluetooth speaker which played Team GOAT’s “theme”–which sounds like a cross between the Superman and Star Wars themes.

GOAT, of course, stands for the Greatest Of All Time. Daisy made mention of her superhero alter ego and Peety as her sidekick, earlier. Although everybody knows who the GOAT and PDQ Peety really are, we are supposed to close our eyes upon hearing the theme and cannot open them until we hear a loud hoof stomp on the floor.

Upon opening my eyes there was The GOAT, wearing a flowing yellow cape and wrap around sunglasses. Daisy–I mean The GOAT–always appears in a different outfit; sometimes she wears “onesie” tights, like those supported by the 70’s glam bands until they got too fat for them, sometimes it’s just a cape. This was one of the cape sometimes.

“Hooray! Team GOAT has come to save the day!” Renfield called from the back of the room, her voice heavy with the Scotch she’d filched from my desk.

Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon’s “transformation” to PDQ Peety takes less work. Since Peety is a two-dimensional Cartoon Pigeon, he rearranges some of the lines in his “drawing” into a Lone Ranger/Kato type of mask.

The GOAT and PDQ Peety turned to face the four idler FC’s seated in front of my desk.

“Greeting, billygits,” said The GOAT.

“What the hell is a billygit?” Lord Fishstyx, still the mouthpiece for the outfit, asked.

“It’s the role I have for your lazy asses,” I said. “I need eight billygits for an upcoming story and you guys have been elected.”

“Eight?” Lord Fishstyx, the only one of the four who could count beyond three, said. “It looks like you are shy four billygits!”

“Not anymore, sedentary landfish–” said the GOAT.

And with that PDQ Peety shook up the bottomless can of PDQ Pisner he carries no matter who he is, and sprayed the four FC’s. All four instantly found themselves seated beside an orange, winged billygit wearing a blue polo shirt, khaki pants and hemp slippers. The left slipper on the one seated beside Krook had already fallen off.

Peety then went from each of the original four and passed out “pledge pins.”

“‘Your Delta Tau Chi name is Weasel…Your Delta Tau Chi name is Mothball…Pinto…Dorfman,” Peety said, pausing in front of Lord Fishstyx, “I’ve given this a great deal of thought. From now on your Delta Tau Chi name is Flounder.’–Bluto, Animal House.”

I raised my hand to silence the four freshly renamed FC’s, who had begun to complain loudly. “I’ve got a deal for you guys. You either play a billygit and mentor your clone–or maybe I could get by with the four new orange guys only and let you all head on back to your massage parlors and public houses. To select the latter I will need each of you to make your mark on a release that prohibits you from bitching to the Union about me.”

“That’s blackmail!” said Fishstyx.

“”Mention extortion again and I’ll have your legs broken’–Mayor Carmine,” Said PDQ Peety.

Krook the Literary Turkey and Gordon Cormorant both quickly made their marks and left without looking back. Andy the Trade Rat had passed out earlier, so Renfield had his wife Flo come get him–and since he was indeed incomprehensibly Lazy Trade Rat we allowed Flo to make his mark for him. That left Fishstyx, who was still in a snit.

“You know, I could make it five billygits,” I said. He finally saw that his position was hopeless, made his mark and went away.

I didn’t see Team GOAT leave, for they are invisible, like the wind–or so they claim. I did see Renfield sneak out, but she would have told me that I gotta dig another hole in the desert by myself if I asked her to stay.

The four freshly born billygits, new FC’s created by devious means, guys we now call Weasel, Mothball, Pinto and Flounder, all gazed at me with hopeful, optimistic eyes.

“Boys,” I said. “I’m endowing you with Free Will.”

That, of course, took the hope and optimism out of their eyes.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Two

(Note: This one made it painfully obvious that our Witch needed a same, and pronto-LA)

Evilmost Elm

-1-

Upon arriving at her new home in Wisconsin, one of the first things the Witch (even before choosing her “real” name) needed to do was select a tree for enchantment. In past incarnations she had enchanted everything from a scrawny scrub pine barely clinging to life on a steppe to a majestic redwood in northern California. Unlike other duties discharged by her vast array of familiars, tree enchantment was a task she had to perform in person. In a way it was like picking a Christmas tree, yet instead of murdering the damn thing and dragging it home, the Witch would endow the chosen tree with eternal life. The irony was not lost on her.

Enchanted trees gave the Witch a connection between Hell and the Earth itself, and they intensified her spells. Since she had to travel to a new land every time she returned from her latest season in Hell, a new tree had to be enchanted upon her arrival. She took heart that none of her former enchanted trees were sad to see her go. To the contrary, nothing conveys malevolent grace or gleeful, malign intent better than a retired enchanted tree. And if a branch happens to break off and kill a peasant now and then, well, accidents happen.

There were many suitable candidates for enchantment on the large estate that one of the Witch’s familiars had purchased with a tiny portion of her vast wealth, while she was preparing for her return from Hell. Hemlocks, hollies, oaks and maples; even a sinister crabapple tree, twisted and deformed, a veritable leper of a tree, which seemed to actively pursue the job. But it was what the Witch did not own that she coveted. And at 3 AM on her first day in Wisconsin, she saw a young Evilmost Elm standing on the other side of the fence.

Her human familiars, those shadowy persons who worked behind the scenes and did the housework and drove the cars and saw to the humdrum of her business affairs, were also of no use when it came to buying an enchanted tree. This too had to be done personally. And although the Witch had black cats who stole baby breath for kicks, and rats, by the thousands, who could dig and fill a grave faster than any machine, thus easily capable of plucking and replanting a tree without attracting unwanted attention, the Witch was an honest Witch.

-2-

The peasant’s name was Marcie and was the only person at home. The Witch knew that the instant the rather plump blond of maybe thirty opened the door the next morning.

“Hello, neighbor,” the Witch said.

“Um, hello–”

“May I come in?”

“Well, it’s not a good time right now–” said Marcie, unease in eyes, which pleased the Witch.

“Excellent,” the Witch said, stepping inside. “Good thing I don’t need to be asked in, like a vampire.”

“Who are you?”

“Why, Marcie, didn’t I mention that I’m your new neighbor.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Maybe you should come back when my husband is home.”

“No need. I’ll get down to business. I’d like to buy the elm in your backyard.”

“Really, I think you should go.”

Then the Witch, not the most patient of Witches, spoke a spell into Marcie’s brain.

“I’ll go when I’m fucking good and ready to go, useless twat. Unless you want to hang upside down from a hook, bled like a shoat, you will sell me that tree.”

“Five hundred?” the Witch said, smiling, showing the money.

Marcie agreed that five hundred would be just fine.

-3-

At three the next morning, the Witch summoned every rat in ten counties and spoke impeccable midwest rattish to the masses. Within seconds the magically assisted horde uprooted the Evilmost Elm, tossed it over the fence, and transplanted it into the Witch’s soil. The Witch never tired of watching how well the tiny fiends worked together.

“Wonderful, my babies–wonderful, wonderful.”

The Witch gave the Evilmost Elm her profane blessing.

Then it was time to try it out, think of it as a test, to judge its connection to Hell.

The Witch gazed at Marcie’s house. “Such a pity about the husband. Going mad like that…Seems it’s always the quiet ones.”

A light came on in the house.

The rats applauded.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part One

Towen Meeting

-1-

Charleston’s sleepy New Town Cemetery had once been the center of a controversy. For many years Town was spelled ‘Towen’ on the fancily etched marble dedication obelisk located just inside the main gate. The unique spelling was on purpose because the wealthy widow who had donated the land for the cemetery and paid for the obelisk wanted it that way. She claimed that it was the name of the Welsh village of her birth. Despite more than a century of weathering, you can still mark her unpronounceable name on the obelisk, but, oddly, not those of the local big shots who’d presided over the cemetery’s plating in 1882.

Continue reading →

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits

Introduction

As with Peety and Daisy, I never know when an FC will distinguish her/his/itself and take off in my mind. Originally a nameless Witch, then Hezopatha (after a brief stint as “Bambi”) and finally taken to calling herself HeXopatha, Saragun Springs’ resident Wiccan has morphed from a one off character and has established herself firmly in the realm, which is short of antagonists because I find old fashioned storytelling, at times, just that–old fashioned.

The billigits began as the “billygates” (the Microsoft Secret Police), changed to billygits and appear to have settled as the billigits (bill-luh-gits). They are four eighteen inch tall, androgynous, orange, winged individuals who wear blue polo shirts, khaki slack and hemp slippers that usually fall off in flight. Sometimes they are blue skinned, but usually they are orange. billigits eschew the use of capital letters and they have become a heavy presence in the realm.

I’d explain further, but it’s easier to invite you back tomorrow for the opening of Book Four.

Leila

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Eight

(Today we reach the end of book three. There are many fables and you should either look forward to them or be thankful that they end right here for the time being–LA)

Program note: Book Four, the Great HeXopatha will appear in September

Now for our featured presentation…

The Wishingwellwraith and the Trade Rats

Flo and Andy were a Trade Rat couple who lived at the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. Flo had dug their den (aka “midden”) on an abandoned ranch, close to an old well that had dried up ages ago. Although they weren’t exactly in the desert, the land was thick with mesquite, chaparral, agave cactus and peyote.

Little did the couple know that the ranch had been a hideout for famous bandits and desperados in the nineteenth century. Or so the new owner, who’d recently moved in, claimed. And if Flo and Andy had been cynical Trade Rats attuned to human affairs then they might have made the connection between the advent of the new highway that passed less than a mile from the ranch and its heretofore unknown history as an outlaw hideout. And if Flo and Andy knew how to read, they would have understood the sign that the new owner had erected at the ranch’s entrance:

Renfield’s Wild West Ranch

The James Gang, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa,

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid All Ate Peyote and Drank Tequila Here

Guided Tours: Three Dollars for Adults, Five for Each Child

Also, a Real Live Wishing Well (Reasonably Priced Wish Menu)

According to her mother, Flo hadn’t married well. Andy was a lazy Rat who spent nearly all his time loaded on peyote and fermented agave, and tom-ratting about with his like-minded, worthless friends. While he was passed out in the midden one day, Flo had watched the smiling young woman who now owned the spread attach another sign, this one to the dilapidated well near their midden. Although it has been established that Trade Rats are illiterate, we aren’t. The sign on the well said this:

Wish Menu:

Luck: Fifty Cents

True Love: Ten Cents

Termination of True Love: Seventy-five Cents

Contextual World Peace: Fifty Cents

Wisdom: A Quarter

Lesson Learned: A Quarter

Happiness: Function Currently Out of Order

Results Vary

Then, incredibly, after hanging the sign, the smiling young woman looked directly where Flo was hiding. She took three steps in that direction, stopped, held up a disco ball keychain, which glinted gloriously in the ceaseless sunshine, then tossed it in the well; still smiling, she walked away.

Trade Rats (aka “Pack” Rats) are the famous characters of Ratdom known for their adoration of shiny objects–Glitters, that they immediately procure with haste. Trades are also known for “paying” for Glitters by replacing them with other objects. This leads to things like the mysterious transformation of a carelessly stored heirloom pocket watch into a pine cone.

After the woman had gone, Flo wasted no time climbing down the old bucket rope that led to the bottom of the dry well, which was no more than ten feet deep, and likely never a source of water. She located the keychain, danced about, and swapped it with one of the dozens of pebbles lying on the well’s floor.

And just as Flo was about to climb the rope back up with her prize, a Wishingwellwraith Spirit suddenly spoke to her. His name was Smythe.

******

“He wants us to do what, pet?” Andy asked that night over his supper of peyote and fermented agave cactus. Even though Flo had already explained the deal to him twice, Andy was fixated on the keychain she’d brought home, besides, he wasn’t much of a listener to begin with.

“‘Us?’” Flo said with a contemptuous little snort. “As in we, as in you and me? As in a joint effort called ‘work?’”

“No need to bring your mother into your voice, love.”

Whilst Andy was eating, Flo had already begun work on the short tunnel that would connect the midden to the bottom of the well. As was so often the case in their marriage, their conversations involved him sitting there consuming, paying little heed to her words, whilst she labored back and forth. This would go on until he’d say something ugly about Mom, which would cause her to hurl a stone at him. Flo had a pretty good arm for a Trade Rat, and Andy excelled at ducking hurled objects. Therein lay their compatibility.

But this time she did her very best to explain the situation to him, if only to gain a better grasp on it for herself.

“It’s like this,” she said, “the ghostie–remember me telling you about him, by the name of Smythe?”

“But of course, pet,” Andy lied.

“He told me that the human that’s come round wants us as business partners. Says that there’s going to be lots of other humans coming round to the well fairly soon. Furthermore, the ghostie is of the wishing well persuasion, which means–”

“I know what that means,” Andy said. “He’s the middleman.”

And for once Andy had caught the gist. All animals, no matter how “low,” can communicate with human Spirits (who, by the way, resent being called a “ghostie”), but, for maybe a thousand reasons, animals cannot talk to living persons. Andy’s constant intake of peyote gave him an especially keen knowledge of ghosties. For instance, without being told, Andy knew that Wishingwellwraiths were personages of low character; grifters who enjoyed the hunt far more than the spoils. ‘Wraiths had a knack of parting fools and their belongings even though the ‘Wraith, being dead, had no use for material goods.

The peyote, more than Flo, made the situation clear in Andy’s mind. “So, the human wants us to fetch the money from the well and bring it to her in exchange for Glitters.”

“Precisely,” Flo said. “That’s why I’m digging this tunnel.”

“Don’t let me keep you from it, pet.”

******

The smiling woman’s name was Renfield. She no more cared about the history of the Wild West than she did for Smurf genealogy. But as a professional Supernaturalist, Renfield had coaxed a large cash grant out of congress for the study of the interactions between Wishingwellwraiths and Trade Rats. The ranch Renfield had bought from the government for a bid (the only bid) of twenty dollars was the blind from which she’d observed the doings in the well on multiple spy cams she had arranged down there on the sly. A tiny portion of the grant was spent at various New Mexican Dollar Stores; anything small and shiny was cleared off the shelves. Anyone wanting to purchase a keychain or a compact mirror at a southern New Mexican Dollar Store during that time had to drive to either Arizona, Texas or Tijuana.

The ranch and the new highway opened the same day. Smythe, the Wishingwellwraith Renfield had engaged for the study, worked his silent magic on people from his place at the bottom of the well. The “Grande ” Opening grossed nineteen dollars, thirty-seven cents, four pesos, two bus tokens and a washer.

Three-thirty-seven (along with the pesos, tokens and the washer) of the take was spent on wishes. As planned, Renfield had dropped an empty felt marble’s sack that had a drawstring into the well, the night before. She then told the ‘Wraith to have Andy (who actually came along, but did none of the work) and Flo fill the sack with the coins and leave it on the back step of the house. In keeping with the Trade Rat business model, Renfield had left two small mirrors, a tin charm bracelet, a packet of ball bearings and a Yosemite Sam keychain on the back porch. The Rats emptied the sack on the step and filled the bag with their pay and scurried off to the midden.

This process repeated itself for a week until (as Renfield had predicted) the ‘Wraith got bored and decided to cause strife. She smiled as she watched the following unfold in her laptop, which communicated with the spy cams in the well.

Flo was busily collecting another couple of dollars in coins when Smythe began talking to Andy, who was just sitting there, dazed on peyote.

“You’re being played for a sucker, friend,” said Smythe.

“How so?”

“These bits you exchange for cheap Glitters are worth ten times what you are paid. She puts all the money in a little wood box and does nothing with it.”

“We know.”

Those two little words stunned the ‘Wraith. “‘We know?’”

“It’s like this, friend,” Andy said, “you offer services you cannot possibly provide for money you cannot possibly spend because you are an…what’s that people word pet?”

“Asshole, dear,” Flo said, as she dutifully arranged a pile of pebbles and cactus seeds as payment for the loot.

“Yeah,” Andy continued, “an asshole. You get a kick out of conning, and when that bores you, you look to cause trouble.”

“You seem to know a lot about Spirits, for a Rat,” Smythe said.

“More than you know about Rats, friend,” Andy said with a wink.

After Flo and Andy left, The ‘Wraith, who knew about the cameras and microphones, translated for Renfield what the Rats had said to him.

******

The next phase of the study involved the duplicity of Rats. Despite their attitudes, Renfield knew that what the ‘Wraith had said to the couple wasn’t forgotten. So, she decided to pay a little less for the coins and told the ‘Wraith to explain the concept of taxation to the couple.

It didn’t go over well.

“I won’t work unless we are paid in full,” Andy said.

“As far as you go, there’s no difference,” laughed Smythe.

Flo didn’t say a word. Renfield observed the female Rat; she looked thoughtful, twitching her whiskers, as though she had a big idea.

After filling the sack with that day’s take, Flo conked Andy on the back of the head with it.

“Why’d you do that for, pet?”

“Never you mind,” she said. “Just follow me.”

The Rats disappeared into the tunnel, beyond the reach of the camera, microphones and the nosy Wishingwellwraith.

Renfield wondered what kind of rebellion that Flo, who was obviously the brains of the outfit, had planned. If it was interesting, it might pry more money out of congress for future Supernatural studies.

She switched to the back step camera. Under normal circumstances the Trades would be out there in a couple of minutes.

Renfield began to record her voice on her phone:

“Oh, here comes Flo, now,” she said. “But no Andy–shit, hold up, that is Andy, but not Flo. Where in hell’s name is she? Oh my God, Andy is actually doing work! He looks chagrined. Maybe rats can’t count, but they must know what fewer looks like…Paid them with a pair of fingernail clippers, the bus tokens and the washer they brought me a while back…”

Andy took an awful long time going about his tasks. Between each movement, he’d take a rest and gnaw on a wad peyote he had in his cheek. Even with fewer items to load, he took ten times longer than Flo to put them in the sack. Then Renfield heard two sharp whistles from somewhere out behind the house. Andy had heard them too, and he scurried off with the sack in the direction the sound had come.

Something’s up, but what? Renfield thought as she collected that day’s wishing well take. The mystery was solved the instant Renfield discovered that the wood box she kept the change in was open, the twenty dollars or so in coins were gone and that one of those weird bulb-like blooms of peyote had been left as payment.

Fortunately the entire house was on one camera or another. And that evening, Renfield laughed and laughed over her Cutty Sark and ginger ale, watching over and again, Flo fill a Dollar Store shopping bag with the loot and drag it swiftly out the open window.

The Amoral: You Can’t Cheat an Honest Rat

End Book Three

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Seven

Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost

( Prefatory Remarks by Ms. Allison’s Employer)

After almost three years in the making, Leila Allison Studios has informed me that something called Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical has opened its pitiless eyes and is currently slouching off to anywhere but Bethlehem to get itself born. Although this… whatever it is… exists in print only, Ms. Allison insists on bringing her productions forward as though they were motion pictures, complete with a cast, crew and an expense voucher that I am hesitant to look at.

According to an urban legend whose popularity exponentially expands with that of the increasing population of congenital idiots, it takes three years for swallowed chewing gum to pass. Ms. Allison feels that the audience should view Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable with the soul of that urban legend in mind. For reasons unchallenged by critical thinking, Ms. Allison is certain that any audience able to identify with a wad of Juicy Fruit, grimly determined to survive a perilous journey through untold miles of intestines only to wind up someplace a little less than heaven, is probably the sort of audience who will embrace Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable for whatever the hell it might be.

Leila’s (here I make like Pilate and wash my hands of the affair) little whatever it might be “stars” four members of the Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, to which Writer-Producer-Director Ms. Allison reluctantly belongs. The players include Renfield Stoker-Belle typecast as Renfield Stoker-Belle; a “literary turkey” named Krook briefly essays the role of the TomTom Ghost until he’s suddenly (and inexplicably) replaced by Miss Izzy (Queen of Shoeboxes), who chews the scenery (as well as a bit of Mr. Krook) as the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. There’s also an old car named Lucille involved. She has no lines but I’m told that she drives the action. Ms. Allison so wanted a celebrity fictional car for the role, but union rules forced her to settle for one of her own construction. My guess is that Titty-Titty Gang Bang and Herpes the Love Bug were both unavailable.

Anyway, I figure that I should step in and issue this fair warning: Something in Leila Allison Studios has opened its pitiless eyes and has slouched off, possibly, in your direction.

Your Obedient Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Now For an Unscheduled Crafted Insincere Apology

I have returned to post a crafted insincere apology. The innocently meant “Titty-Titty Gang Bang” and “Herpes the Love Bug” comments shared above have provoked the ire of corporate congenital idiots. Someone in my organization leaked the prefatory remarks early, hence the necessity of a crafted insincere apology.

In this case the two injured parties (Chitty-Chitty so and so and Herbie the etc.– to both I’d meant only passing offense) work for “The Ears.” Disney has moles everywhere that regularly report instances of “non-Mouseketeerishness” to the head of Uncle Walt–which, according to reliable intel, is currently located in a meat locker outside Encino, California.

The Big Diz aimed to get tough with me and sent over a couple of goons with voices like Bob Hoskins and Mike Reid, but in form were actually interchangeable Goofy and Pluto in fedoras and raincoats. I had to think of something quick. Fortunately, I am in possession of a “sex-toon” in which a certain corporate fairie (whose name ryhmes with “jinkle hell”) is so jazzed up on pixie dust that she overlooks the age (mainly the lack of it) of a famous woodenboy/nosedildo.

My collection of sex- and sin-toons keeps me out of the mortuary. Just last year the teetering Speed Racer franchise got a small dollop of what a sin-toon can do when some person unable to come to an accord with virtual Edo-mafia posted a few cells which depicted Pops losing Spridel and Chim-Chim at a Casbah gambling den. I informed the comic-canine goons that I’d post the sex-toon and some serious #MeToo doggie-doo concerning their past hump-the-leg activities (some of it goes back to the 30s) that would Kevin Spacey both of them into an early retirement if we couldn’t work out a solution amenable to #MeOnly. Thus I got out of the tight spot by promising a crafted insincere apology.

I live a blessed life. I’ve managed to issue a crafted insincere apology without saying sorry to nobody nowhere no how. I rock. Oh, yeah, don’t forget what I said about the slouching thing with the pitiless eyes. It’s definitely headed your way.

Always Your Obedient Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Ms. Allison’s Feckless Fable (aka, “The Slouching Thing With Pitiless Eyes”)

Renfield Stoker-Belle exited her haunted house in the wilds of Torqwamni County one sunny Saturday morning and cheerfully hopped in behind the wheel of a “cherry” 1967 Dodge Charger convertible named “Lucille.” She engaged the motor and spoke to her beloved automobile.

“There’s awesomenicity in the air,” Lucille,” she said. “At long last we are off to the Great Torqwamni County Leftover Food Storage Device Symposium–where I, the one and only Renfield Stoker-Belle, will proceed to awesomenicitize the gathering with my revolutionary double-smack corner burping system.”

The location of the symposium was in a part of the county unfamiliar to her, so Renfield plugged the coordinates into her TomTom. The instant she did that a weird little voice that sounded like a cross between John Geilgud and Porky Pig blurted “Hulululu-lah-too-too” out of the TomTom.

An extremely perplexed, vexed and perhaps even hexed WTF expression entered Renfield’s pretty face. This condition was in no way eased by a snap of static and the sudden emergence of a purring second voice inside the TomTom, who growled “Get out before I fricase you.” This was followed by what sounded like the panicky ruffling of feathers and the beat of tiny talons running off into the distance.

“What the hell’s going on in there?” Renfield asked as she beat on the TomTom with her fists.

“Stop that, woman,” the purring voice said. “I am the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. I demand that you take me to a wishing well that’s on the way to your asinine convention. There I will assume my vocation as a Wishingwellwraith.”

After a couple of years living in a house that’s a portal routinely used by ghosts to cross-over from one side of reality to the other and back, Renfield sighed with the same degree of annoyance one displays when encountering an encampment of cookie selling Girl Scouts strategically placed at the supermarket’s main entrance.

“We ain’t going nowhere until you tell me A, what happened to the other dude, and B, how can you be a ghost of a ghost?” Renfield said. As an experienced supernaturalist (as well as a leftover food storage device icon) she knew that the best way to deal with ghosts was to keep them talking. For whatever reason, ghosts cannot lie.

“The ‘other dude’ is a pain in the ass who cut the line and hopped this device even though I had already laid my claim to it long ago. I’d kill him if it were possible, but since he’s dead to start with the best I could do was give him a good whack of electricity, which, as you know, can be highly uncomfortable to accept no matter what side of the grave you call home.”

Renfield considered the situation. She eventually whatever shrugged and placed Lucille in gear. “All right, fiend,” she said, “I’ll take you where you want to go, but it better be on my way, or I’ll plug your butt into a wet generator.”

It was three miles north to the well where the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost wanted to go. It lay at the end of a reasonably level dirt road, which Lucille didn’t find objectionable. The well looked as though it had fallen out of a fairy tale, with its little stone circle, bucket draw and thatched roof. Somebody had even affixed a quaint wooden sign with “WISHES TAKEN FOR A FEE” engraved on it to the tiny roof.

“How do you know about this?” Renfield asked, still seated behind the wheel.

“This is my property and I had it built before I died,” the purring voice said as it vacated the TomTom and began speaking from the well. “Thanks for the ride. Hope you awesomenicitize them at the dumbass meeting of yours.”

“Just a minute, buster,” Renfield said. “Why a wishing well?”

“In life I was the president of a large payday loan company,” the former Ghost of the TomTom Ghost, now a Wishingwellwriath, said. “I so love taking other people’s money away from them. Just watching it stack, don’t you know?”

“I get it, it’s all clear to me now,” Renfield said. “You’re an asshole. It explains everything. Tell me, wishy, do you have the power to grant wishes?”

“After the ‘asshole’ crack, I’m afraid that answer will cost you,” the Wishingwellwraith said. “We both know I cannot lie, but I’m not required to reply.”

Renfield laughed and reached into her purse then flung a dollar coin into the well and listened for the splash. She replugged the coordinates to the symposium into her TomTom and placed Lucille in gear.

“Oh, hell no,” the Wishingwellwraith said. “But I do sell them false hope, which, nowadays, is a marketable commodity.”

Renfield gave the wishing well and its contents the Finger before spinning Lucille around and driving off to make awesomenistic history.

The Amoral:

The Optimist forgets that things are only at their brightest when the sun explodes.

****

One More Crafted Insincere Apology For the Road

Just heard from an indignant Wishing Well Ghost who objected to the character of miserly, grifting Ghost of the TomTom Ghost/Wishingwellwraith just presented. Told him I’d say sorry for real if for fifty grand if he could either triple the president’s IQ or endow him with a sense of taste. I even gave this ghost a method of accomplishing both at the same time: “Just turn the S.O.B. into a Spam sandwich.”

If we should see this event unfold before the next election, then I’ll say sorry. Until then I will reach out to the readership to raise the necessary funds.

Awesomenistically Your Faithful Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Six

To conclude this book we present a three parter to finish the week–LA

-1-

The Renfield/TomTom Ghost Debacle

All writers have that one bugaboo story that refuses to finish. It’s as though the damned has something against you, and would do anything to mess with you, even to the point of sacrificing its chance of appearing anywhere in the Universe. My bugaboo story is called Renfield and the TomTom Ghost. It has been in production for two years, yet not even a hundred words have been “shot.”

Although I have finally figured out a way that might move Renfield and the TomTom Ghost across the finish line before I die, I’m determined leave a record of my suffering in this matter just in case it does kill me.

The Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (from here, UPIFFC) is responsible for both my woe and the possible solution. It is important to know that the woe part was inflicted on me by the union with intent while the solution came up by accident.

I’m a humble pen-name, and when I came along my union was known as the Amalgamated Union of Pen-names and Imaginary Friends. I get along just fine with my fellow aliases and the imaginary friends–hell, the way I see it, everybody should have a dozen of each. Unfortunately, about two years ago (which is not coincidental to when Renfield and the TomTom Ghost began to shoot), my dues-hungry union decided to expand and include under its incompetent wing all fictional characters. And I mean all of them. No exceptions. Everybody and thing ranging from the facehuggers in the Alien franchise on up to Hamlet is in the UPIFFC (almost wrote “on up to Jesus Christ,” but I’ve got enough people mad at me as it is). As a pen-name, when I create fictional characters, I also create fellow union members. It is an insipid situation that causes me to be both a comrade and “The Man” at the same time.

There once was a time when I just wonked-up (yes, busybody autocorrect, I mean “wonked-up,” not “worked-up”) a character and went on my way. “No, no, not so fast,” said the union after the inclusion of fictional characters. “You now have to offer the parts in every new story to all of your previously created fictional characters, before you can create new people or creatures.”

My trouble stems from the fact that since I’m a pen-name, I’m also a fictional character, and possibly even an imaginary friend to my “employer.” (Right here, I am resisting all temptation to bash on that rat.) Persons who have the nerve to publish under their own names are not obliged to follow UPIFFC rules. Moreover, as a virtual type of person, the way I “write” is completely different than what goes on inside the tweedy, elbow-patched, pipe smoky, oak panelled studies in which you breathing writers produce works of genius during the narrow interval which lies between the cessation of one drunken orgy and the start of the next. My productions resemble movie sets at which I am the producer, director, screenwriter and, sometimes, an actor.

{Now for a word from Ms. Allison’s “employer”: “Have you ever noticed that some writers begin new paragraphs with information that really should be in the old paragraph? It happens because, in this case, the writer read somewhere that modern day readers are turned off by long-assed paragraphs of, say, greater than eight lines–which happens to be the length of the previous paragraph. If I know Ms. Allison as well as I think, an example of this is about to happen.”}

I arrive “on set” at hell o’clock in the morning, hair askew, clad in a ratty bathrobe, a novelty-sized coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, one slipper on, the other MIA, and one eye closed in an unconscious effort to balance out for the missing slipper. The “script” we shoot from is just an outline with only a few set scenes and lines in it. It’s what my actors do with it that creates the story’s final draft. So when I, even in my slovenly condition yell “Action!” I do it with the high hope that the magic will ensue–or, at very least, the literary equivalent of that truthful crudity “It’ll make a turd” ensues.

Not so with Renfield and the TomTom Ghost. It is to be a simple story about Renfield driving her “cherry” 1967 Charger named Lucille into the wilds of Torqwamni County to attend Tupperware-Con (Renfield is a food-storage device fangirl and expert). She’s to plug the coordinates into her TomTom, but a ghost has gotten into it and refuses to direct her to the convention until they locate and return the ghost to the wishingwell it “wishes” to haunt, but cannot find. All right. Fine. Whatever. So it ain’t Lord Jim; but I dare you to find anything else like it.

I had written the piece for one of my major fictional characters, Renfield Stoker-Belle. Although she loved the idea of “at last seeing my name atop the marquee, where it belongs,” she was still a touched pissed at me for making her look both duplicitous and a bit of “a weirdo, in general” in earlier pieces. Realizing from the title that I couldn’t shoot the yarn without her, she went diva on me. Her demands caused her to come off as both duplicitous and a bit of a weirdo, in general.

“I want my own dressing room,” she said. “No more sharing a john with anthromorgraphic rodents and peeping tom shadowghosts,”

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” I said.

“I also want a bowl of Skittles–a big mo-fo of a bowl, fresh everyday, mind you, in my dressing room–minus the purple ones. If I see even one purple one, I will not perform until you remove the offending Skittle, personally.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever.”

“Also, I’ll do the script as writ, but I insist that three words be included. Word one: ‘awesomenicity’ as a noun–as in the state of awesomenicity that I inspire. Word two: ‘awesomenicitized’ as in a verb–by such I mean–”

“I know what a fucking verb does, fink.”

“And…’awsomenistically’ as in an adverb. Everybody knows that you are keen on adverbs and collect them all adverbally-like.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever. Will there anything else, Sire?”

“Just one itsy bitsy thing–a non-issue when you think about it,” Renfield added with a duplicitous bat of her pretty green eyes. “I want to chose my co-star. I’ve got the perfect dude in mind.”

Although I didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other about who played the TomTom Ghost, I figured that I should show token resistance to at least one of her demands. “Hold on a minute there, weasel-girl,” I said, “the union says that I’ve got to cast all parts from my own stable of fictional characters. If you have one of those bohunks you see on one of those fingerbang romance novel covers in mind, you’re S.O.L.”

Renfield’s vocabulary is often as profane as that of a whorehouse parrot. Yet she feigned great offense to what I had said to her, as though she were one of those mass produced Disney princesses introduced to the concept of farting. “Could you be less crude in the presence of talent?” she said haughtily. “Rest assured my co-star is one of yours. I had to sift through many two-dimensional cardboard persons to locate someone who will both serve the story and at the same time remain aware of who is the star of the piece.” Then she smiled and whispered: “I can see that you’re getting twitchy because we have just entered the seventh line of this paragraph. Relax. I told my supporting actor to come see you at hell o’clock tomorrow morning in that cat-pee reeking slum you call an office.”

Sure enough, at hell o’clock the next morning there was a scratching at my office door. Not a knock, but a scratching, like that made by a rat in the wall.

“Come in,” I said confidently, because I had “Security” on hand just in case things got uglier than they already were. There’s no better protection against the loathsome critters that dwell in the sub-basement of my creative dungeon than the virtual version of my fuzzy white cat, Miss Izzy. (For the record, the virtual version of my corpulent black cat, Sir Dudley, adheres to the Falstaffian Code as far as the relationship of discretion and valor go–they meet at a homonym, for both Sir Dudley and Sir John like to hit the “sack.”)

The door creaked open, and standing there, all eighteen inches of him, was a turkey. Not a turkey as in that staple of 70’s sitcoms, the “jive” turkey; nor was he even a real turkey nor a virtual representation of such. He was a literary turkey–meaning he had at one time been an oft-rejected and subsequently retired piece I had written a long time ago, thus released into my “Turkey Pen,” where he (according to my muse) took the shape of a cartoon turkey composed of the printed words and numbers that had been present when he was an oft-rejected story. He (and dozens of others of his kind) had evolved into a fictional character when I had a story called Out in the Turkey Pen published a few years back.

The dynamic that exists between feline and fowl in the virtual world of pen-names, imaginary friends and fictional characters is the same as what it is in your so called “real world.” The little turkey cringed at the sight of Miss Izzy, and Miss Izzy began to chatter at the sight of the turkey.

“Oh for the love of cranberry sauce,” I groaned. “You can be the TomTom Ghost. Now get on out of here before Miss Izzy strews your giblets all over the rug.”

I should have vetted the little turkey, whose name was “Krook.” He turned out to be a ham–not as in Hormel, but Shatner, And he was a belligerent little fucker as well. For two goddam years he emoted and chewed the scenery and got in the way of the story. I have abandoned the thing over and again just to return to it because, I guess, I am curious to see what it is like to repeatedly punch myself in the face. Renfield finds the situation she has caused highly amusing and often pelts me with purple Skittles because I had found out, a bit late, how hard it is to imagine a bowl of Skittles without the purple ones in it. Damn near impossible.

Just yesterday I had another go at the christless thing. It went like this:

Renfield leapt into her cherry ‘67 Dodge convertible named Lucille with great

enthusiasm. “There’s awesomenicity in the air this morning, Lucille,” Renfield said,

awesomenistically. “We’re off to Tupperware-Con, where I am the featured after lunch speaker.

The topic is Burping in the 21st-Century. I’m going to awesomenicitize the audience with my revolutionary double-corner snap and release.”

She started Lucille, who greeted the sunny morning with a throaty purr. Renfield proceeded

to feed the convention’s coordinates into her TomTom, unaware that a ghost had gotten into the device overnight.

“Guide us to Tupperware-Con, trusty TomTom,” Renfield said, once again awesomenistically. Instead of repeating the coordinates the ghost in the TomTom said, “Hulululuzipppptbuthum….”

“Cut!!! I screamed as I leapt out of my director’s chair. “Krook! You’d better be having a goddam stroke in there. I don’t recall writing ‘TomTom Ghost, here, why not make a weird-ass noise instead of reciting the dialog as writ?’”

Krook popped his head out from under the dashboard. “It’s called improv, young lady,” he said as though he were goddam Peter O’Toole. “I was speaking in Ancient Gobblish–I’m not surprised that you’re unfamiliar with it.”

“Read the shit as writ or I’ll familiarize my foot with your—”

“Director abuse! Director abuse!” Renfield laughed as she pelted me with purple Skittles. “Miss Leila’s just one private part noun away from a meeting with a union rep.”

“What an excellent idea, Miss Renfield,” I said. “I’m going to do just that! After all, it’s our union.”

The Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters is a ramshackle structure located at the corner of 12th and Never in a part of town where it’s best to keep one hand on your wallet and the other on the pepper spray. The guy who represents me and my characters is named Lennie. No surname, just Lennie. He also happens to be one of my fictional characters, so I guess you could say that there’s a conflict of interests.

Lennie is a dim version of Mark Twain, and he has perfected the art of feigning dementia as to cut down on unnecessary conversation (which is all of it). You’ve got to read between the lines with Lennie to locate the wisdom. Hell, you’ve got to write what lies between the lines with Lennie, just to ascertain whether he’s still breathing. Although his tutelage inevitably leads me to anxiety and despair, I figured “any port in a storm will do”–an old cliche, which pretty much means the same as “any rat in a plague will do” when dealing with Lennie.

I entered Lennie’s office without knocking still clad in my robe, hair askew and one slipper missing. From his chair behind a desk that had been very old in 1903, Lennie regarded me with the same degree of awareness a mannequin has for other mannequins.

“Still running the senility gag, I see,” I said, less than awesomenistically, as I plopped down in the severe wooden client chair in front of his desk. “I know you’re in there because I created you. Keep on playing turtle or ostrich or pin the tail on the Julian Assange with me, rat bastard, and I’ll never go away.”

He sighed. “And who may you be?”

“I may the the person who relocates this sonofabitchin’ building to the North Pole unless you come out of hiding in plain sight.”

“A worse neighborhood? I tremble at the thought.”

I recalled the wino I had to step over on my way into the building; I recalled all the strewn trash on the cracked sidewalk; I recalled all the dregs of society milling about the grounds; I recalled blending in with it all perfectly. “All right,” I said, “I’ll improve conditions around here as best as my budget allows. I’ll do it even if you are your usual less than helpful self. All I ask is that you actually listen to me for a minute or so, before I let you drift back into your inner sanctum. Deal?”

“You’re that Allison woman, aren’t you?”

It was my turn to sigh. “All right. Fine. Whatever. Have it your way. But since you seem almost able-bodied verbally, perhaps you could advise me on what to do with an FC of mine named ‘Krook.’ The little jackwagon is deliberately ruining a story, which should’ve gotten him fired for cause a long time ago, if not for the union.”

“”’Krook?’” Lennie said softly. “From Bleak House? Using other writer’s characters is forbidden.“

“No, no,” I said. “Not him–not the real unreal him,” I said referencing the ugsome would be blackmailer of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House. “I don’t steal from Dickens anymore than anyone else does. My Krook is a literary turkey whom I had writ for a different story. There were dozens of turkeys in that thing and I named each one after a character from Dickens. I had a Krook, Twist, Fagan and so forth…”

“Seems unkind,” Lennie said, gazing at a point in the wall behind me, “that Mr. Krook should now suffer a fate worse than spontaneous combustion.”

I was in the process of mentally filling in the blanks after “Listen, here, rat bastard,” when I found myself in a blissful state of awesomenicity. Could say I had an epiphany. Could say I asomenicitized a kidney stone. Round here, it’s all pretty much the same thing.

“Eureka!” I shouted and I leapt to my feet and began my “happy dance.” I’d say that a confused expression entered Lennie’s face, but that would be redundant.

At hell o’clock the next morning I called the Renfield and the TomTom Ghost team together, armed with a new script. I showed the altered copy to Renfield only, who glanced at it, shrugged her shoulders and said, ”All right. Fine. Whatever.” Apparently her highness had had enough of the pugnacious poultry’s antics as well.

After I yelled “Action!” the same old bullshit wafted the same old steam heavenwards until the TomTom Ghost spoke. As Krook once again proceeded to “improv” gibberish, which sounded like Yoko Ono singing an aria backwards, the new script kicked in. A flash of fire and ozone emanated from under the dashboard, and Krook, though unharmed, exited that area with great haste.

“Cut and print scene one,” I said. “Thank you Mr. Krook,” I continued. “You have essayed the role of the TomTom Ghost to perfection. But the new script outline requires a new actor to play the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost because the original TomTom Ghost has spontaneously combusted. Our story is now called Renfield Asomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Krook said.

“You’re just now catching on to that?” Renfield said through a mouthful of green Skittles.

“We’ll see what the union has to say about this,” Krook puffed.

“It won’t say a goddam thing, you little a-hole,” I said. “I gave you the role of the TomTom Ghost, and now that the TomTom Ghost has been vaporized, a new player will assume the role of the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost.”

Before Krook could get even shittier about the situation than he already was, I summoned the great actor I had secretly cast in the role of the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. “Miss Izzy, we are ready to shoot scene two.”

Miss Izzy strode onto set and once more the uneasy and extremely one-sided feline fowl dynamic presented itself. Miss Izzy lit out after Krook who beat a hasty retreat to the Turkey Pen and hasn’t been heard from since.

Only God knows how well casting a virtual female cat in the role of a male ghost of a ghost will go. But if you ever do see Renfield Awsomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost coming your way, I hope you will read it and come away with renewed appreciation for of suffering of the artist.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Five

The Pygmy Unicorn and the Effluvium

Introduction

Today we present two fables due to their byte-sized length(s).

The Unicorn and the Effluvium

: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical

The Players

The Pygmy Unicorn: Miss Daisy Cloverleaf, Pygmy Goatess (Shop Steward)

The Effluvium: …………………………………Renfield (Venal Imaginary Friend)

The Voice of Denial:…………………Maab the Photobomb Fairie (Shop Steward)

The Voice of Rage: ..Poppyseed the Hummingbird (Shop Steward, Emeritus)

The Voice of Indifference:… Boots The Impaler, Siamese Cat (Shop Steward)

The Voice of The Other Cheek: …Flo the Trade Rat (Shop Steward Emeritus)

Himself: …………….Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon (Shop Steward)

Kane: ……………………………………………………………………..Leila Allison

Act One

One sunshiny spring morning, Daisy the Pygmy Unicorn carried a heavy heart to her beloved flower patch in the meadow–which she dutifully fertilized with a quick evacuation of glitter out her butt. All was well in the meadow, but Daisy couldn’t forget her despair because she had overheard someone say “There goes that little goat with the paper mache horn glued to her head,” back in the barnyard.

Act Two

Daisy plopped down in the patch and instantly crushed tiny tendrils of fledgling clover to death. Her heart was filled with woe. Then voices began to speak in her head.

“They weren’t walking about you, Sweetheart,” said the Voice of Denial. “Maybe they were talking about all the other Pygmy Goats who have paper mache horns glued to their heads.”

“Like hell, they weren’t talking about you,” said The Voice of Rage, “I say you go back and cleanse the barnyard.”

“I might be willing to help do that…depends how I feel after my nap,” said The Voice of Indifference.

“Now, now, little friend, if you identify as a Pygmy Unicorn, then you are one in the eyes of the Law,” said the Voice of Other Cheek.

Of all the Voices, Daisy identified with The Voice of Rage best.

Act Three

Daisy was plotting her revenge when the Effluvium Spirit who enhanced the scent of flowers came by.

“What you need, little friend, is an attitude adjustment,” said The Effluvium. The Spirit then activated the magic that lay in a nearby field of poppies and urged the scent on Daisy. This caused Daisy to forget all about her sadness. And she went home to the barnyard and spent the rest of the day smiling as she rolled, rolled, rolled in zee hay.

The Amoral As Spoken By Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon:

“Squ-wack–Thee Who Smelt it Dealt It.”

Poppyseed and Flower Power

Poppyseed was an orange Rufous Hummingbird, who was as aggressive and single-minded as they come, until he flew over a burning field of “wildwood weed,” one afternoon, during the annual two-thousand mile migration. Something in the drifting smoke asked “Why must you always be in such a rush, little friend–Have you never been mellow?”

The rest of the flock had avoided the field, but Poppyseed was known for his individuality and recklessness. He alone had flown above the pungent blue smoke, and he alone found himself perched on a weather vane atop an old barn, with no memory of lighting there, wondering why he had never been mellow.

Under normal circumstances, such a dipshit question would have enraged Poppyseed. But that was before a new philosophy had edged into his cut and dry, now! now! now! personality. What’s it all about? Poppyseed thought, watching the rest of the flock zoom into the distance.

“It’s about peace, love and harmony…seeking oneness with the Universe, my busy little friend,” said a human Spirit that suddenly appeared on the barn’s rooftop. The ghost had long lank hair which flowed below the brim of a floppy hat. He was wearing sunglasses that had round yellow lenses, striped bell bottom pants, sandals, several strings of beads–and if Poppyseed had known anything about human politics, and could read, he would have recognized the face of Richard Nixon on the tee-shirt the Spirit wore, with the words “What me Worry?” printed below Tricky Dick’s cartoonish visage.

“Do peace, love and harmony taste good?” Poppyseed asked. “I like aphids and honeysuckle myself.”

The Spirit laughed softly and removed his sunglasses. Poppyseed saw strange images take shape and melt in the ghost’s kaleidoscope eyes. Psychedelic colors and paisley fractal flows… and he could hear music. If Poppyseed had known anything about 1960’s pop music, he’d have recognized Incense and Peppermint as lip-synched by Strawberry Alarm Clock on The Ed Sullivan Show. And there were visions… Hundreds of young people of various races standing in a field, single file, hands joined…all singing the praises of a god called Coca-Cola…then a man standing out of doors in buckskins with a feather in his hair…a single tear falling from his eye…

The wind had shifted during Poppyseed’s vision quest, and the blue haze cleared from the area of the barn. Thus Poppyseed’s intense, light’s speed metabolism had time enough to process and eject the remaining effects of the wildwood weed smoke as though it had never been breathed. Poppyseed immediately glanced in the direction the flock had gone and calculated that he could catch up to them after only a few minutes on afterburners.

The Spirit sensed the change in the Hummingbird’s attitude and tried one last sales pitch. “No, no, little friend. That is the old way…the way of the establishment…”

“Could you be more useless?” Poppyseed said. Although he had little patience with, and even less time to speak to any of the human ghosts that all creatures can see, he felt obliged to break a talon off in this fool’s ass. “‘Have you never been mellow’? ‘Harmony with nature’? ‘Why rush’? It’s like this–mellow, laid back Hummingbirds wind up as lunch for cats and stoats. Get a job, goddam hippy.”

And Poppyseed zoomed off to rejoin the flock.

THE AMORAL: All You Need Is Love and a Decent Credit Score

	David Henson on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	DWB on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	Bill Tope on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	ireneallison12 on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	DWB on Aerialist by Bart Edelman

	David Henson on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	DWB on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	Bill Tope on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	ireneallison12 on Jitter and Jam by Bart Ed…
	DWB on Aerialist by Bart Edelman

Saragun Springs

Snarl at the Dying of the Light: Est. 2025 Seattle and Chicago

Author: ireneallison12

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Book Four HeXopatha and the billigits Part Five

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Four

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Three

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Two

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part One

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Eight

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Seven

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Six

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Five