Category: The Brain… It Bleeds!

(This is not a metaphorical sleep, no sir/maam!)

Once upon a time there was a man who was asleep for his entire life. He brushed his teeth asleep. He trimmed his toenails asleep. He ate kumquats and radishes asleep and even brussel* sprouts–though he wrinkled his nose, asleep, eating that last. He made kale and sea salt and vinegar chip and banana and blueberry smoothies asleep. He rode the bus asleep. He even drove asleep against the explicit warnings of the Surgeon General. Once he even flew in a hot air balloon asleep, but to be honest, he didn’t really enjoy it. When he spoke to people, he was asleep, although sometimes he stirred in his sleep when someone said something funny. He almost woke himself up from sleep sneezing one time and also that time he ate a really spicy pepper (it seemed like a pickle to his sleeping self). No one really noticed that he was asleep, because, well, they were asleep too. It was sort of funny all of this sleepwalking and talking and dancing and singing (yes, they even sang in their sleep, though not very well). You might think this story ends with the man waking up, but it doesn’t.

 

* Had to look this one up. Even now… it doesn’t look right.

(Pun? I don’t know what you’re talking about.)

Miss Camilla Take was lost. Lost in a fog of her own design, figuratively. Literally lost in the internally bewilderingly and deliberately incoherent Mall of America. Light seemed to come from everywhere. There were no right angles. It was possible to see bogglingly vast distances, but only in ways that made it particularly hard to navigate to nearby locations. There were no clocks. Slightly irritating music seemed to come from everywhere at a volume slightly too low to be conscious of. There was an unnerving echoey quality to the space. Everything about the place seemed to conspire against moving quickly through it with purpose.

Hugh was working the counter at Pickles and Plums, a pickled fruit fast food joint. He was mopping up a spill of blueberry pickle juice–that blue did not come out of the tile grouting easy–when a seemingly flustered young woman wandered aimlessly up to the counter. She stood next to the counter, but she was gazing off into the greater mall space area place. Hugh cleared his throat. “Welcome to Pickles and Plums, the only place for pickled fruit and sundries!” Hugh declaimed, repeating the standard line. The woman jumped a little. “Er, hi,” she said, scanning the board, mouth slightly open. She picked up a laminated menu and sort of bent it back and forth still staring at the board. Hugh stood there, still holding the mop. She said, “I’d like the Pickled Beep, I mean, Beet Juice Frappè with the celery garnish.” “Coming up!” Hugh said. “That’ll be $6.79.” He hustled to the back to make her drink, came back a few minutes later, and handed it to her. She gave him some money and wandered off, first going left, then going right. “Your change!” Hugh called, but she was gone.

(No, it’s NOT Tom!)

“You’re out of your wheelhouse, Foolery! Give me your badge!” the police somethingorother snarled, broomish mustache quivering.

Max Foolery had a choice. He could hand over his badge and gun with quiet dignity or he could roll on the floor and shriek like a banshee. He opted for quiet dignity, but in his heart he was rolling and he was shrieking.

flashback

Max Foolery snarled* in the face of the suspect, “You don’t know who you’re messing with, pal!”

The suspect, whose name was Dengoo Feevair and whose parents were French and inexplicably cruel, tried to snarl too, but it came out more like a squeak**. “You’re right! I don’t!”

“It’s Foolery. Max Foolery!”

“Oh,” Dengoo said.

“You’ve been fooleried!” Max growled***, slamming out of the room.

“I think you could improve…” Dengoo sighed. “Oh nevermind.”

flashfront

“Catch ya later, chief,” Max said, “Foolery. Max Foolery.”

“I know your name!” The “chief” yelled after him.

 

* Snarling was all the rage at Police City Police Headquarters.

** Squarl. Squearl. Oh, nevermind.

*** Don’t get me wrong, growling was still pretty popular at PCPHQ.

(and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow–oh wait, that’s too many tomorrows)

When Queenie Scaranges wanted things done, they got done. Usually. Eventually. It was a truth self-evident, that when she thought a thing, she did it. Mostly. Let’s be clear. Some thoughts, like the one about that mustache twirling villain on top of the suspension bridge support tower dancing a jig, would be most problematic to bring about. I mean, first of all, where could you find a reputable false mustache–one worth twirling anyway!–dealer in this day and age. Time was, you couldn’t skip a stone without hitting one, but now? Now, it was a veritable wasteland of mustache supply stores. Time was, when a person wouldn’t be caught dead out of doors without at least one (though sometimes three) mustache or false mustache upon their face. Some had it easier than others. Some, those lucky few, could grow luxuriant, brooms upon their faces, especially good for soup, if you know what I mean. The unluckiest of all, though, were those ones who could grow a “mustache”–if one could even call it that–but were left with such a patchy monstrosity that the only thing to do was to shave the nasty thing off and paste on a decent one from the shop down the road. Yeah, those were the good old days, she sighed, scraping some butter across her toast.

(Better get one of those ‘forever’ stamps.)

It was a lonely road traveling the space between the stars. It wasn’t just anyone who could stand the nigh infinite tedium of an intergalactic postal carrier job. Symone Goobswoom Nrtanda had been ranging from Arcturus to Betelgeuse and back again for a couple millenia now, relativistically speaking, anyway. Her beat up old Beagle-class carrier “van” was getting pretty rickety and banged up from all those micrometeorites and just the dadblanged cold and stellar/solar radiation. Sure, she had her tunes and her puzzles and her pet Gork, a Siloopian hedge crawler, and her cryomeditation center. Well, shoot, if anyone was as grounded, as centered, as mystically at one with the universe, well she’d eat her regulation-issue postal hat right then and there. Sometimes, she’d pick up some hitchhikers just looking for a ride or maybe even just to lift that specter of boredom, kinda lurking just out of sight. The last hiker had jellybeans, so that was pretty cool, a real retro-shoutout there, even came in one of them globular bean dispenser things. He only had one coin so he had to keep unscrewing the bottom to keep it out. That took a while, but, well, it’s not like they were rushed for time now were they? Most times, when she got to the address where she’d been headed for such a long time, she almost forgot what she was doing there.

Last time, actually, she’d knocked on the door and just stood there empty-handed until the small child-like creature had snurked, “Package? For me?” Came to her senses, Symone had rushed to her ‘pod and handed the package over. The creature had eaten it without even opening it, which her rubbed her the wrong way a little, but, well, who was she to judge.

(It was a pretty big henhouse, ok?)

Zombardo was pretty big in the wizard scene. He knew all the fanciest, fingeringcrampeningiest, tonguetwistingest spells. His beard was milky white and flowed like crumbcakes down his gaberdine* and/or velvet wizard robes. Speaking of robes, boy, were these ever robey! Stars and corlicupes and pentagrams and hexagrams and nonagrams and bedknobs and moons and more moons and still more moons and astrolabes and blunderbusses and just all kinds of other alchemickal symbols were plastered all over the darn thing. Also, there was some stains that might’ve been alchemical ingredients, but were more likely to be jam and baked beans sauce. Look, Zombardo had places to be! He didn’t have time to make sure that food didn’t get on his clothes! Also, he had no time to do laundry, even the magical kind of doing laundry! Also, he had gotten into a shouting match with the woman who did his laundry**. Zombardo sneezed and pulled a feather out of his hair. He shifted around and set his hand down on an egg, which broke and got yolk all over everywhere. Some hens clucked. Zombardo sighed as quietly as possible. There were goblins about!

 

* OK, I had to look this one up, but it sorta fits.

** She was really good. The best! But she could only put up with Zombardo’s snide comments for so long. And now the old fool had to tromp around in shabby robes. Serves him right, the old noodle!

(Not Carolingian, that would be silly.)

When your great-grandfather was a sea monster, you’re allowed to get a little outrageous, Martin Fishhands thought, as he covered himself in tar and chicken feathers. (Some people spelled it ‘Fishands’ and that was just wrong!) There’s never another chance to make a great first impression, Martin Fishhands thought, as he painted his nose purple. Everyone is gonna love this! Martin Fishhands hummed to himself as he strapped what amounted to a primitive bagpipe onto his back. He hit it with a stick and it made a warbling mournful sound. Perfect, Martin Fishhands thought as he rolled around in the pig sty with all the other pigs. The smell was pungent, to say the least. All of the omens (chicken bones, tossed runes, the state-of-the-art fragmenomancy) agreed that his expedition to the Sorbs was doomed, but Martin Fishhands thought, Superstitious nonsense! and strapped the religious symbols of thirteen different tribes all over his body. As he was headed out the door, he paused, trying to decide if he should wear his sturdy, comfortable walking shoes or the fancy, slightly too small ones that were really just the height of fashion this season. He chose the fancy ones, thinking, Gotta look my best!

Two hundred miles later, his feet were pretty sore.

(But I didn’t say which prime minster, did I?)

All in all, what is your favorite sandwich?

When I was a boy, famously, I prepared sandwiches for the great and the good, scraping mayonnaise and mustard with delicate runcible spoons. No, I think, rather, they were corncrake knives. That was a go, right enough, slopping on pickles by the peck, slicing them up with whatever we had to hand, ruminating on tea time all the while. xxxx, rest his soul, was rather fond of chewing on watercress. The rest of us called him “Cressy”. Don’t think he cared for it much.

When you have time for it, what do you do in your leisure time?

Just the other day a man barged into my office, bit surprising, and startled me while I was stirring my tea–three drops spilled on the ink blotter–anyway, this man, whose face was all red and puffy, I assumed, quite wrongly, from running up the stairs. Turns out, he’d been on holiday and discovered a new allergy, to crabcakes, I believe. Work, work, work, that’s all we talked about, him being my assistant, only I hadn’t recognized him with the redness and the puffiness.

What sorts of questions will you actually give a straight answer to?

The Sphinx was a great one for questions, really, tops at the questions. I mean, apart from being a mainly mythological creature whose statue got its nose blown off by some overeager Napoleonic soldiers. Something about legs, if I remember right. And did you know that Napoleon really wasn’t as short as all that, perfectly average for the time, it’s only compared to us modern longjohns that he seems rather short. Anyway, that’s all the time I have for today.

…thank you. For your time.

(No, they’re not made from crumbled cookies.)

When the bookshop opened, the line stretched around the block. Not just at this one, but in all the bookshops in the city. Not just in this city, but in all the cities in the world. Some strange mania came over the place* and everyone threw down their brainchain** devices and picked up a book, the nearest book to hand, only, GASP!, many realized, there weren’t***. Soon people were streaming in through the doors and not too long later streaming out with just stacks of books of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Some poor fools were trying to read a book while carrying six to ten other books. This often ended badly for all concerned****. One bookstore had to close early because, well, there weren’t any more books. Even the twenty year old text book on differential calculus went out the door. That bookstore owner wasn’t sad. On the contrary, she propped her feet up next to the cash register and smoked a celebratory cigar and poured herself a really quite generous glass of Laphroaig*****. The one thing she didn’t do: read a book******. A little later, she closed up the shop, strolled off down the street*******, and made her way home in the most leisurely way. After a nice long bath, she settled in with one of the three books she happened to be reading and dozed off, the book propped open on her chin. Her dreams were sweet and peaceful.

 

* The world, I mean.

** In a simpler time, we called them idea pipes, because piping ideas was where it was at, yo.

*** Any to hand.

**** There were some open manholes and one very open crocodile mouth. That’s just how it goes, sometimes, when you’re doing more than one thing at once.

***** She’d never dared to open the bottle before, let alone drink from it.

****** There weren’t any left.

******* Hopped and skipped over a couple reclined readers on the sidewalk.

(We’re not ready, the decorations aren’t up, and we’re still putting on our pants!)

Once upon a time there was a very tiny horse that sat on top of a hill that lurked inside of a sinister and unyielding forest and it whinnied and neighed until the cows came home or until the coffee and pork and beans were ready to eat. No one knew better than the tiny horse what a seriously great deal it had with all the coffee it could drink and the pork and beans it could eat–being tiny, a little went a long way, but there wasn’t a little: there was a lot! Still, it was a lonely life, being a tiny horse, very far and very high away. If only, the tiny horse thought, I could find someone or something to while away the time with, perhaps with a game of chess or checkers or backgammon or something more modern like Stratego, or even just in silence whittling. Not me, the tiny horse thought, I can’t whittle, lacking fingers and thumbs, but it might be comforting to watch or maybe not watch someone whittling away at a piece of wood until some interesting shape emerged or maybe just until the wood all got whittled away. I’m not picky, the tiny horse thought, slurping its coffee and chewing on the pork and beans (“Especially delicious today!” it thought, because what was the point of saying it aloud, there being no one to hear it. And then the tiny horse ruminated, philosophically for a time on what it meant for a tiny horse to say something when there was no one there to hear it. Did it make a sound? The tiny horse brayed (neighed! he was no donkey) with laughter at his silly “philosophical” musings) that were its dietary mainstay and for some reason didn’t have any negative nutritional effects. “Must be magic!” the tiny horse thought, staring moodily at the cows going home, far far away.