“Can’t use this,” said Reginald as he gently tapped a mesh glove and watched blue static play across the surface. “Chrono-gloves are very tricky. I once smacked a man while wearing it and he vanished. Turns out that I’d hit him in such a way that his father had been stillborn. I felt kinda bad for a few hours.”
By this point, Sir Reginald’s trip across the bridge had become a tedious, delirious journey. Five weeks since he first found the Misty Misty Water Bridge, one of the few remaining entrances to a place he had read about for years. The bridge had never been a priority, just one of those things you toss around in your head as something you’d maybe like to do someday if you get the time and the weather is right. Well, it was someday, he had the time, and the weather was just right.
The directions had been in a book he obtained absolutely by accident. The online purchase of a near-mint, first edition of Convent Cruelties brought them to him in the form of extra pages glued into the middle. He spent days of highly-skeptical research confirming their authenticity.
Christ, Reginald thought as he saw large, bejeweled shadows in the a few yards ahead of him, it’s more fucking nomes.
( OH SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS A "NOME" )![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
fairyarmadillo, it's now ready for YOU. That's right, YOU!
“The boss here says that you gotta pay here and now or he’s gonna break your legs at the hips and fuck you in half.”
“All he did was grunt!”
“I can understand him.”
“I still insist that Pig-Head Lincoln isn’t really the one in charge here. He’s just some tall clone with a hog’s head mod, and he’s secretly controlled through tronix in your brain.”
“Really? Cause I got zero interest in breaking your legs at the hips and fucking you in half, but Pig-Head Lincoln? He’s game.”
“Will he leave the stovepipe on?”
“Absolutely.”
evil_egg for...ummm...evil_egg . It's also for my Hero-A-
"Oh, make something up."
Another glance at the watch. Time was running out, and the foreman was too nervous to think. Sir Reginald, meanwhile, was trying to clap with one hand again.
"I don't know what to tell him."
"Tell him anything,” said Sir Reginald, losing his patience. “Tell him the portal…er, the doorway…was unstable, and you had to fill it back in."
Fr. Schneidemann was a good, punctual German, and he had already arrived in the sacristy. Noticing the open door to the basement, he followed the sound of voices to the portal. He might have admired the accuracy of Cardinal Newman's description of Purgatory, or he might at least have spoken to the men. Instead, he simply exclaimed, "Mother, is that you?" and rushed over the bricks and through the portal before either man could stop him.
"Poor man. Portals like that are always one-way."
The foreman was beside himself. "There's a Mass in ten minutes! The Bishop is coming next week! We've got to get him out of there!"
"That would take a plenary indulgence. And I haven't got one."
The foreman made a noise as if to speak, but Sir Reginald held his finger to his lips and slowly said, "Brick it back up." And he turned to leave.
On his way to breakfast, Sir Reginald made one last effort and gave up. Who ever heard of an Englishman clapping with one hand, anyway?
“And your tunic, your Majesty—I mean Jack—is a bit too precisely laced on the side. Nobody cares about precision in fashion when you’re as poor as me…I mean, you…”
“I share your confusion! This is a grand social experiment, my friend, and what we learn from it will surely HURK!”
The Prince’s face froze as the pauper thrust a dagger between his ribs and directly into his heart.
“My father used to tell me that one of life’s great ironies is how every man wants both to be royalty and to kill royalty. Look at me; I’ve gotten to do both.”
The Prince fell to the ground, grabbing at the paupers boots, mouthing breathless words as he died.
“Amazing. I believe I’m the only man who’s ever known what he’ll look like when he dies.”
He allowed himself a smile before calling out for the palace guards…
“Please, just call me Mr. President, Mr. President. And yes, our plan will work. Right now, thousands of Iranian sleeper agents are ready to strike, prepared to take action against your corrupt American government!”
“You wouldn’t.”
“And why not, Mr. President? What do we stand to lose? The deal is as follows; leave us and our nuclear programs alone or we will crush your economy, throw your populace into armed revolt, and have all of your fun for ourselves.”
“Does…wait, does that last part even make sense?”
“You are not one to talk, Mr. President. Literally. Your move.”
“All right, fine, we give in. Just call ‘em off, Mamoo.”
“It’s Mah…oh, never mind. As soon as you push through the U.N. resolution that we have prepared for you, I will give the order to stand down.”
“Nice one, Mr. President. Well played, you bastard.”
“A pleasure speaking to you.”
President Ahmadinejad breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up the phone.
Operation Loiter At Wal-Mart And Target And Buy Every Wii We Can Get Our Hands On To Keep The Americans From Getting Them, Thereby Ruining Christmas And Every Other Day For As Long As We Can Keep It Up was an unprecedented success.
###“Cheeseburgers for Jesus?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Cheeseburgers for Jesus.”
“I…was that a question?
“It was the first time, yeah. The second time it was a statement.”
It’s precisely for reasons like this that I hate going Christmas shopping. You’re doing something relatively innocuous, like trying to get all of the motion-activated barking dogs to go off at the same time by jumping in front of them, then some guy who smells like gin and mustard is talking to you about cheeseburgers and Jesus.
“So…did you want me to give cheeseburgers, um, to Jesus? Or for Jesus? Was that some sort of commentary on…I dunno, pop culture or something? Oh, pop culture and religion and consumerism, yes? I’m right, say I’m right!”
“It’s just cheeseburgers for Jesus, man. It is what it is.”
I looked over at a little boy who was looking at Gin and Mustard Man. I mouthed the word “run” at him but he just started laughing. I mean, REALLY laughing, like I’d just put a trout in my pants or something. Gin and Mustard Man turned at stared at the kid, who immediately started crying and ran off in search for his parents.
“Now. Cheeseburgers for Jesus.”
“Look, you crazy bastard, these dogs aren’t going to bark on their own, and I gotta see if somebody’s hidden one of those Judge Death figures. I found a transparent one behind the Fantastic Four movie toys, but…hey! Dude! Not fucking cool!”
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nano_wrimo.You see, in one of the boxes that my grandfather left behind was a strange gun, rounded and very rusty. It weighs several pounds and has knobs and dials along the side. If you put your ear against it, you can hear it quietly humming, and on its side is a dark and cracking piece of masking tape, upon which is written “Disintegrator Gun: still dangerous.”
My grandfather worked in a granary since the day he turned twelve and didn’t learn to read until he was forty-five. According to my mother, he’d never been able to change a light bulb without blowing a fuse. He couldn’t have invented this, it’s too complex to be a toy, and it seems unlikely that a man who spent most of his life hip-deep in feed corn would have ever been in a situation to stumble upon something like this.
So where did it come from? I don’t know, but it’s sitting on my desk now. Every time I bring it close to my laptop, the LCD starts flowing and the fans start spinning faster. My cat’s hair stands on end when she gets too close. I set it next to a fountain pen which promptly started leaking ink out of its tip. If I hold it near my head, my fillings ache.
If I hold it in my hand, I feel like the most powerful man in the world.
It’s like a little boy’s dream come true, but I can’t bring myself to so much as touch the trigger. I thought of testing it in on a rock in the back yard, but what if it’s got a really wide beam, or punches a hole in the ground the size of an SUV? What if it explodes in my hand?
What if it does nothing?
So for now it sits on my desk, all but begging me to pick it up.
“Be a hero,” it whispers.
“Be a villain,” it suggests.
“Be whatever you want, so long as you use me to do it.”
I know that I’ll break down soon. I’ll use it on a tree or a wall, a car or a criminal, on a bank or on myself. But I’ll use it.
And I’ll never stop.
timeasmymeasure
