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? ? ? Mighty Issue #36
? ? ? ? ? illicit "Road To Somewhere"
? ? ? ? ? ?? Liquid -By whoops
? ? ? ? ? ? Kollections
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The man slowly ambled his way down the winding road. The road forked, and
the man stopped. "Now which way did Mom say to take.." he mused to himself. He
spotted something sticking up behind a tree in the tongue of land between the
two roads. After a close inspection, he saw that it was a piece of wood. He
grasped it in his hands and tugged, but it was firmly lodged in a crack in the
hard mud. He gathered all his strength and pullllllled.. and it came loose in
his hand. He pulled so hard that he was thrown to the ground, and he sat there
a moment, picking up the pieces of his thoughts from where they'd fallen. He
looked at the piece of wood he held in his hand.
"Take right, Fame and Fortune await.
Take left, Chance Adventure and Fate."
He wondered what it meant. "Fame and Fortune...hmmm," he mused to himself.
"That sounds better than fate, maybe that's the way that Mom meant for me to
go." He set out on the right path. He walked, and walked..and walked.. and
moseyed..and meandered..and sidled..and jogged..and hopped...and ambled...and
perambulated..and, to make a long story short.. <too late!> generally moved in
one direction for a while. He walked for so long that his feet soon began to
ache and moan, muttering nasty things about being trampled. He walked for
hours without seeing a living soul.
As he moseyed along, the path began to narrow. Finally, he came to a dead
end in the road, and he looked around curiously. The road went nowehere. It
stopped in front of him, with a large shrub blocking his way. He reached out
to touch the shrub but hastily drew his hand away, for the shrub was a
shocking sight (and touch,too). He glanced at the bushes around him, and his
eyes passed over a patch of white. He peered through the bush at the patch of
white. Suddenly the leaves rustled, and a figure popped out of the shrub.
"Hello," it said. "I'm Glorie." The man looked at her. She was a foot taller
than him, and he was no midget himself. She had wild hair, almost completely
black, but with a streak of burnt sienna in the middle. It looked like a fiery
ember trailing down the center. Her hair poured down her back and spilled
halfway to her feet. She was dressed in all white. She spoke again. "Tell me
the answer to this riddle, and I can show you where you are to go."
"My first is the first of First,
Next comes the beginning of the Afterlife.
Followed on by the start of Myself,
Finished with the end of Time."
The man pondered this for a minute, and then answered. "Correct!" she
said, a bright tone in her voice. "You can go on now. Hang a ralph." The man
started to tell her that there was no road going right; after all, the road
had already ended. But then he looked at the right, and there was a perfectly
paved road leading on. What a mircle. Well, he should expect that with his
Father. He thanked her and continued on his way. Presently he came to a tall
statue that was lying in the middle of the road. He tried to pass it, but it
rose up and extended an appendage. "Stop," it commanded in a deep bear-a-tone.
"PhootyNacho must have an answer to this:
The start of the finish is my first.
Nothing is my second.
My third forms 'to be' for you,
My fourth a cross is reckoned.
My fifth is you yourself,
My sixth is the middle of the end,
My seventh is the beginning of the end."
The man answered correctly, earning an appreciative look from the hunk o'
wood. "Clever, pal. Go west, young man. Go back to the fork and take the other
way. This is not the way for you." By now, the man was getting used to things,
and he looked up and gee-whilikers, there he was at the original fork in the
road. But the statue was gone. He looked at the sign that lay in the road and
mumbled, "...fate..." He wondered once more what the rest of the sign read.
But, no matter, at least he knew which way to go this time. So he started
along the left fork, putting one foot in front of the other, then the other,
then the other, losing track of how many feet he had put in front of each
other. He never had been very good at math. Presently he came to another fork.
A small gnome rushed out from a nearby bush. He was short and stout and
carried a brown leather sack on his back. He sprang up to meet the man's face
and hurriedly shouted, "take a chance, damnit! answer it!" and then screamed:
"A hundred is my first,
The start of the heart comes next.
Following is the beginning of the answer,
Continued on by the end of men.
A square of ten closes on,
Concluding with the end of time and space."
The man quickly shouted out the answer and the gnome excitedly sidled away
to the bar that he had been partying at before. Whatever. The man looked again
at the road, and found that the fork he had been at only seconds ago had
disappeared, and instead there lay a long, straight road that led on up to the
horizon. The man realized he had a while to go yet and decided to rest first,
so he settled down on the grass beside the road and drifted off to sleep. Some
time later he awoke to find himself in the midst of a great wood. He crawled
to his feet, steadying himself against a nearby tree. He heard a giggling
sound and the tree quivered beneath his touch. As he looked up, he saw the
tree move and expand up into the sky. It stretched until its branches were as
high as the sun. Then its trunk shimmered and a face appeared on it. It spoke.
"Who are you? Oh, geez, Jess, it's been a while. You haven't visited your Dad
in ages, you know," the tree said to the man. "But just in case it's not you,
you gotta tell me this:
Liturgical season before Christmas day,
You are the next yourself,
The second word of that second phrase,
Conclude with the end of the meaning of life."
The man thought about the riddle for a moment and then gave the correct
response. The man sighed, mumbling, "I wish Dad didn't have that asshole enemy
and didn't need all this protection, these riddles are getting harder and
harder." The tree then reached out one of its long branches and pointed the
way the man was to go, and the man sauntered along some more. He walked for a
bit until he reached a pond in the middle of a clearing. Next to it was a
large sign declaring "DRINK" in bold letters. He realized that with all this
trekking he had developed a thirst, so he settled down next to it, cupped his
hands, and drank from the cool clear water. His surroundings shimmered and
changed until he was standing before a grand gate, encrusted with pearls and
with spires of gold and white twisting around it. Several birds flew around
the gate, which seemed to stretch for miles into the sky. The man walked up to
the gate and demanded, "Let me in! Let me in, I say. Dad?" Suddenly a booming
voice came from the top of the gate, "Who art thou? Answer this riddle first:
Beginning of Far Reaching Life
Beginning of the Answer
Beginning of Time
Beginning of the End."
The man gathered his strenth and yelled up to the top of the gate, "Pete!
Hey, Pete! Darn it! It's me, Remember? Didn't dad say I was coming? Mom's
letting me stay the weekend. Let me in, will ya? I swear, sometimes I thin
kit's really not worth it to visit Dad anymore." The booming voice replied (in
a more docile tone) (if it is even possible for a booming voice to say
anything in a docile tone), "Oh, Jesus. Oh sorry, Jese, Right away Jese!" and
the gates silently swung open, obviously having received some WD-40 as an
X-mas present.
A great white being flew down from the sky and alighted nearby. "Oh,
Jesus, I'm extremely sorry. I beg your pardon. We didn't expect you till
afternoon."
"Aw, that's all right, Pete. Don't worry about it. Mom was busy helping
dad build some cabinets or something and she sent me early. Now how about you
see to getting me a good strong cup of coffee? And tell Dad i'm here. There's
a good angel."
And St. Peter flew away.
<The answers to the riddles can be found on the sign he found at the fork>
? ? [MiLK] Information
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????????????? [MiLK] Issue #036, "Road to Somewhere" by whoops
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