💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › ezines › textfiles › ezines › ADDENDUM › adde… captured on 2021-12-03 at 14:04:38.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
------------------------------------------------------------------------- Addendum URL: http://www.adden.tr.cx/ Issue# 78 : The Exiled Seagull with the Inverted Head II 29th June 2002 Author: Phoenix ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Continuing Wanderings of the Exiled Seagull with the Inverted Head Doesn't it ever get you just how one-way that long winding treacherous road, life, can be? I hopped on this road, and it's lead me straight to you, the Walrus King, and now I'm about to be stripped, skinned, boiled and chomped on. Roads don't get much more one-way. I mean, it's life, love or leave it, and we all do. Leave it, that is, not love it. I mean some do, some don't... Anyway, what would I know? I'm just a pilgrim. "A pilgrim?" I hear you ask, stuffing another cream bum into your gob, you bloated puddle you. "Where you pilgriming to?" I am not, as I am sure you suspect, an ordinary pilgrim. I am a full fledged member of the Collector's Guild, oh Rabid Rotund one, recently promoted to Enthusiast First Class, and a specialist. I specialise in: STORIES. I collect stories, oh Super-large Lump of Lard, and I am on the trail of the most epic, the greatest story of all. For four months I have trudged this road, through the Heavenly Kingdom of Come. I deceived the Dread Demons of Ludo. I traversed the cliffs of D'Ova, and crawled through the Swamp of You'll-be-back. I managed to survive an audience with Count Procrastinon, and everywhere I went I found bits and pieces of this story. It is said, far beyond these borders, beyond the Autumn Veil and the Land of the Dog-Heads and the City of Curios and Theocratic Editorius, there is the Desert of Boundary, where the bones of unwary travellers garnish the plains, and roadside assistance is just not likely. It is a journey well worth making, for it is said that in the midst of the desert is an oasis (it's a little pond, my Sweaty-stench, with palm trees), called Welcome by some, and Wisdom by others, and Timezone by others, though this is probably a case of mistaken identity. In the midst of this oasis is a pool, and in the depths of this pool is a mountain. Yes, flappy-chops, under the water. Sitting (somehow) on top of this hydrologous peak (I DID NOT make that word up, cynical one, I collected it somewhere) is a master of wisdom, once a lonely wanderer and wonderer, a creature that, deformed and noxious to the eye, is said to know the Fifth Question of Truth. As I don't know (oh grotesque creature from my most tormented nightmares) Questions One through to Four, this is pretty impressive. What's more, though, the journey of this unseemly Seeker is an epic that, published in full, will make me the Greatest Collector in the Guild, far better than stupid Jerky Jenkins and his Amazing Quantum Erotic Stamp and Coin kit. The royalties, you undestand, the royalties... Oh you flubbersome warmongering dollop of beef, don't eat me. Spare me my life, so that I might complete my quest! Surely, such a story intrigues you. Let me free and, on my return, I shall bring to you the news of the Mystic Contorting Seagull of the Oasis. Price of freedom? But I have nothing, Your Royal Nauseating Pukebucket, except the claws on my feet and the pelt on my back. What else should a poor wandering gerbil scholar carry? I need no backpack, for I shall carry my souveniers back in my skull. Perhaps a story shall suffice to placate your hunger, and buy my passage? (Oh, you'd best do something about those stomach rumblings. I thought the castle was falling down.) How about my miraculous escape from the clutches of evil Doctor Dissection? Oh, you don't like stories where the bad guy wins. Um, the destruction of the twin cities Sodoff and Gongetouttahere? I see, heard it before... What about the time I encountered the fifteen Naughty Nubile Nude Nymphomaniacs of North N? Ah, the corpulent one doesn't care for a romance... I know, I shall tell you of the Tunnel Beast beneath the Mountain Matrimony. I had been warned some days earlier of the Warrior Women in White, who waited above the mountain passes for unwary male travellers, whom they ambushed, forced marriage, and magically transformed into tired, depressed weight-gaining workhorses with their magical artifact, the Mortgage. It seemed I would have to walk round the mountain or risk an unlife of Tax Income Forms and Joint Bank Accounts until I was told of an alternative path, a tunnel BELOW the mountain. This would cut months off my travelling time. I found the tunnel with little problem (it's simple enough, Girthy One, to find a secret tunnel anywhere. You need only wait until sunset, and then the Sun's rays are bound to light up some otherwise invisible passageway) and proceeded down. Down, I went, guided by glow-worm, and down further. Soon the tunnel branched, and I took the wider tunnel. Then it branched again, and again, sometimes into five or six other tunnels, and each time I took what looked to be the main tunnel. Shortly afterwards I was forced to admit I was lost. Even this wasn't such a problem, except that I was hungry and Gilbert the Glow-worm was paling somewhat. Still, I decided to have a little rest when... At first I thought I was imagining things, Father of Fat Arses, but no, I heard it again... shuffling, echoing up the passageway. I froze, waiting, then, came a cry so heart-rending, so terrifying (more so for echoing out of five different passageways at different times) that I marked my passage in a most distinctive and olfactory way. SOMETHING WAS STALKING ME IN THESE TUNNELS! Aside from the brief evacuation of my bowels, and to be fair I needed to go anyway, I did not panic, Corpulence Incarnate, for a Collector is trained to be prepared for all situations. I picked a tunnel according to my scientific method (Eenie, Meenie...) and ran as fast as any gerbil has run before. It was in vain, I tell you, for soon I heard the shuffling again, as of somebody TRYING to be stealthy, and failing. I could not tell which tunnel it came from, which is the way of things underground you understand. He might well be down any passage I head down, so I paused. Shuffle... shuffle...shuffle...silence. "GOT YOU!" I span around to face the most horrific beast I had ever seen until I met you, Godacirious Bastard (yes, I made that word up). It was something like a small bear in desperate need of a haircut and manicure. To be continued... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Addendum (C) Phoenix June 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------