Category: The Brain… It Bleeds!

(Or are you just glad to see me?)

Juncko Skazzarak the wizard’s voice was raspy from hours of incantations. What he wouldn’t give for a lozenge! You never read about wizards getting sore throats in those adventure novels that Yarbalast the Portly* was always carrying around, nose stuck in, etc. Juncko wouldn’t be caught dead reading those, the covers, yeesh! But he had a read a few on the toilet here and there, to pass the time, etc etc, while taking care of personal affairs, so to speak. Anyway, Juncko really preferred the menthol cough drops. They reminded him of the eucalyptus trees back home, but in a good way, not like orange marmalade, which was the bad way. Don’t get him started on orange marmalade, pretty much everyone thought after, really, well, first meeting. Wizards often met over breakfasts, so this did come up rather a lot. Juncko’s voice was sore because, quite frankly, he wasn’t a very good wizard. He’d missed the accented syllable on the 23rd passage of the Convocation of Illustrious Netherworld Beings Ill-Met By Moonlight (lesser version) for the Magickal Purposes of Ascertaining the True Time not just once but three times. All the wizard shoppe had were the damned cherry ones and those Juncko could not abide.

 

* Not because of the weight he carried, but because of the weight he carried. Should it have been “the Porter”? Come on!

(They’d make pretty sturdy shoes though.)

Millicent Toujoulaueab bestrode the puddle like a mighty colossus, etc etc. Some worms wriggled a bit on the wet ground. There was a break in the rain, although Millie’s raincoat and boots were still wet, and no sun actually shone through the clouds, there were only different shades of grey, flowing in layers across the sky. Millie laughed. Jumped. Landed. Splash! This rain was good for something, anyhow. And Millie ran off down the street, laughing. The sun shone through for a moment. Everything glittered. A rainbow arced across the sky. Millie’s knees were wet with mud.  Someone walked a dog six or seven blocks down the street. A squirrel ran off down a tree and up another one. There was the smell of chimney smoke in the air. The sun went away, but Millicent didn’t care. She ran off too, just like the sun. The worms still wriggled there.

(I think you know who I’m talking about…)

Grorm the barbarian strode purposefully through the foul wizard’s eldritch lair, massive sword clutched in one hand, while the other trailed one finger along the dust covered stones of the wall. Grorm sneezed. “Filthy wizards!” Grorm cursed. “Too stingy to hire a cleaning service.” Grorm bellowed in rage and his inchoate burst of anger echoed throughout the sorcerer’s cramped and twisting corridors. “Yahhh!” Grorm yelled, his massive boot knocking the last door down onto the floor. More dust flew into the air. Grorm sneezed three times in quick succession. “The devil take you, wretched warlock, or I will!” The room was full of books and scrolls and loose sheets of parchment and more books, books on shelves, books stacked on the floor, quills just lying all over the place, there was even a crocodile head or two, but mostly just books. Really it was pretty out of hand. A figure sat with his back to Grorm at a desk at the far end of the room. Grorm strode manfully forward and tripped on a stack of books, tried to get up, but his foot slipped on a piece of paper and he went down with a crash, more dust flying into the air. There was another sneeze. “Damn your eyes, you squint-eyed mountebank!” Grorm staggered to his feet, eyes red and watering. The figure at the desk wheeled around. Yup, wizard. “Oh ho ho, you dull-witted oaf. So you’ve come to match your mettle against the magical, mystical might of Mooglorb the… er… Mighty?” The wizard cackled and stood, arms raised, magical energy beginning to pour through his fingers. “Jubba jubba croopa poopa…” Grorm threw his sword through him. The wizard wheezed his last. “I expect you’ll be wanting my magical swords…” Cough cough. “Nah,” Grorm said, plopping some tiny reading glasses onto his nose, “I came for your books.”

(I opted not to eat at the Subway…)

Gaius Asclepius Pontius Maximus Erratus swore under his breath. “By Hades fevered breath and all the unclean sandals of Hercules!”* It was hot and dusty and dry and all he’d had for breakfast was a handful of berries and nuts or something.** His sandal strap had broken. Again. “Just my luck, curst by the gods, or etc.” GAPME rolled his eyes heavenward, slung his bag of turnips* over his shoulder and trudged off to the Colosseum, sort of shuffling his left foot so that his sandal wouldn’t pop off. He kept getting rocks stuck in there. He was half tempted to throw his sandals at the blind, one-armed beggar, but then realized he hadn’t dropped any coins in Mercury’s temple for a while. Still, that beggar didn’t look very fast… A herd of swine rushed through the street, nearly knocking him over. He shook his fist at the swineherds and swung his bag in he air around his head. A couple of turnips flew out.**** One hit the beggar on the head who felt around in the dust for it, took a bite, and smiled. GAPME shook his head. He had some turnips. He’d do something with them, he wasn’t sure what. He was sure he’d make oodles of denarii!

 

* In Latin, obvs.

** It was ever thus.

*** Or the Ancient Roman equivalent.

**** It was a pretty shoddy bag.

(Funny how you never hear about high cunning…)

Rufus Diggory and Gruncemeier Yoiks had constructed an intricate rubegoldbergian trap out of marmalade, duct tape, a jar of pickles, several clothespins, a waxwork replica of King George III (old crazy version, natch), a whole mess of paperclips, three toasters, a triangular cheesegrater, a banana and a half, also banana peel, a chest of drawers in the regency style complete with “pineapple” legs, a gorilla suit (empty), several kegs of some rather tasty stout (partially drunk), a trunk full of middling to poor cheap romance and mystery novels, jellied doughnuts (not part of the trap, but you’ve got to fuel inspiration somehow!), an emperor penguin on a treadmill, literally thousands of dominos all lined up and Ready To Go!, Uncle Scarmantreau’s writing desk full of ball bearings of all different sizes, shark teeth, a musical saw, and an ant farm.

“Delicious!” Rufus cried. “Those neanderthals won’t know what hit them.” He cackled for a bit in a slightly annoying way.

“Rather!” chortled Yoiks and danced a little jig. His left foot hit one of the dominos and the whole trap flung into action. Twelve minutes later they were still standing the dominos back up when the neanderthals burst onto the scene, threw rocks at them, and that was the end of that.

(Like “Oh my gahd!”, you know.)

The Gahd of Sneezes, whose name was impossible to hear and also pretty impossible to spell (but let’s call him Sneezles), was having a bad day. Seriously bad. It had all started when Yowch, the Gahd of Stubbed Toes, had sneezed one too many times and shouted, “Right back atcha, pal!” and, as Sneezles walked away, turned his head and laughed, sure enough, he stubbed his toe painfully on the shell of an imaginary deceased turtle or something and then while yelping–manfully, natch–and hopping out of the way somehow managed to stub three other toes while coming down vertically. “How can you stub your toe with a vertical motion?” Sneezles cried (also manfully, because gahd!) and wiped his eyes for no reason. Being a gahd was tough. Just for that, Sneezles afflicted 37 people with sneezing fits in Cleveland. Ha ha ha, Sneezles thought to himself, feel the might of my sneezes, puny humans! After that, though, things were kind of boring for a while. Just not a lot going down up (down? sideways?) in the Realm of the Gahds. They even got his ambrosia order wrong at the cafeteria. Figures! Sneezles thought and would have smote Ambivilia, Goddess of Getting Your Order Wrong and Not Giving a Fig About It, for it, but… she was not one to cross. Sneezles sat in midair and drank his drink he didn’t quite like until it had all been drunk and then stared off into the middle distance for about 6,000 years. Say what you will about eternity, there’s plenty of it.

(Meddlesome because curious. Curios because what are they?)

Reginald “Reg” T. Nibbs had a shop full of curios. Mostly they were dusty. Yes, dustiness, he thought, was their primary and defining characteristic. In spite of all of his efforts, frantically dusting with an ostrich featherduster, as soon curios in the third shelf of the southwest corner cabinet were free from dust the curios in the fifth shelf of the northern middle cabinet were crying out* to be dusted. Reg sighed, as he did often these days, thinking of the weight all of these things had on his life** and remembered those, yeah let’s go there, halcyon days when he recognized himself in the mirror and when the world seemed endless and possible. Then there was that one day when he thought the best thing in the world would be for him to own a, for lack of a better word, curiosity shop. Sure, plenty of curious people came in to the store, but precious few of them actually bought anything. This was the lingering conundrum. How to get people to buy the tchotchkes, gewgaws, fripperies, and antiques gathering dust all over his shop. Reg sneezed.

* Not literally.

** Again, not literally.

(On second thought, maybe that title doesn’t work so good.)

What’s the collective noun for wizards? Weed? Wadge? Widget? Quabble? Squabble? Drainditch? Wow? Scattering? Makaluke? Hermaneut? I feel like there are a lot of good options. Still, all evidence supports exiting as quickly as possible when you get a bewilderment of wizards in the sanctum. Like, what good could come of all that esoteric knowledge compressed into such a tiny space. Someone’s liable to get turned into a frog or dissipated into a frog. No, when you’ve got a spatch of wizards gloaming about the place, eldritch eyes burning in the gloom, well, I’m not saying that leaping out the window is a good idea, but let’s just say you want to keep that option open. I’m pretty sure wizards feel the same way, veering quickly away from the mere suggestion that a zoom of wizards might be collecting in some place. Like, that invitation to the Wizards Ball is more like an outvitation, am I right? Also, wizards aren’t so keen on lending out their magical grimoires and no one is ever the first to volunteer their home to host a spook of wizards. Also, where do you put all those hats?

(It was a big cat, ok?)

You’d be right to be terrified of the massive Intergalactic Space Cat lurking out somewhere past the Triangulum Emission Garren Nebula*. It could pounce at any moment. Not on you, silly. On our sun. What do you think Intergalactic Space Cats eat/play with? It’s a vast space out there with only a few*** stars to play with/eat. Imagine: you’re an immense Intergalactic Space Cat. Planets, not to mention moons, even the biggest gas giants are really beneath your notice. You’re hungry and you’re cold and you’ve just traveled countless light years to the next star. You’d sure hope it’s not a tired, small brown dwarf star at the end of its career. You want a bright, shining, and hot star, burning in the fullness of its prime. Man, that nigh eternal nuclear explosion is gonna be looking pretty good at that point. When the Intergalactic Space Cat pounces on  your local star, try not to feel too put out. It’s just its nature.

 

* OK, I know you’re thinking, what? Not the Cat’s Eye Nebula? Seriously? And I’m here to tell you that even Intergalactic Space Cats think that some things can be a little too on the nose**. Don’t put Intergalactic Space Cat in a box, is all I’m saying.

** Yes, Intergalactic Space Cats have noses. And yes, they are quite cold.

*** Relatively speaking.

(They’re really not.)

Once upon a time there was a statue. It wasn’t just any statue. It was the ugliest statue in the world. Everyone–simply everyone–said so. The villagers were at a loss for words when attempting to describe its ugliness. They just said, “It’s ugly,” and left it at that. This satisfied most people. Sometimes birds would poop on the statue, but this did not make it uglier. Once a young wag put a traffic cone on the statue’s “head” thinking, perhaps, to lessen the impact of the ugliness with a bit of humor. It failed. The traffic cone stayed up a long time, because no one really wanted to get close enough to the statue to take it down. Visitors from out of town who were unfamiliar with the statue or who came to see if it was really true, that it was the ugliest of all statues, would often weep with holy dread upon catching the merest glimpse of it. There were handkerchief carts all around where you could buy a handkerchief. They made a brisk business. Sometimes, for the locals, it would just get to be too much, and they would leave town, taking only a small suitcase or handbag. They were never seen from again. Many people in the village had nightmares. The children in the village were so afflicted by it that they drew nothing but pictures of the statue with their crayons. For some reason it never occurred to anyone to tear it down. They just lived with it.