So, Highwayman is riding a nuke right towards the Winking Moon aka the narrator of this jaunty little blog fiction. Dang.
But…but when he busted through the clouds he opened up the tiniest of gaps allowing the briefest of glimpses into the happenings of the factory floor.
[Camera 3 slow zoom through the clouds] Focus in on the pile of hummus smothering John Barleycorn. It starts to wiggle and then jiggle. It would seem that the scarecrow has some life left in him yet. He reaches a fist out through the hummus; the laser blast didn’t kill him, though he is a little frazzled. He shakes himself free from the tyrannical grip of the pasty dip and emerges to a very dramatic score. [Camera one tight focus and twirl around him, like a Michael Bay movie].
“It’s Barleycorn,” he said badassedly, wiping the dip from his brow. “Look at what I found.”
What he found was this [camera 2 steady focus on “this”]: an odd contraption with gears and levers and a toaster on the side and an antenna and an attached instruction manual.
Barleycorn scanned the manual for the “Plot Device,” it seemed pretty straightforward to use. He pointed the device and turned the crank, but nothing happened. Stupid plot device!
Highwayman was so close to ‘nooking’ the moon that he was just an udder length away from the cow that was always jumping over the moon.
“Crapola!” Barleycorn exclaimed. “It’s not working.”
“Is it plugged in?” Agent Rainmaker offered.
“Is it plugged in? What? No. You don’t plug in a plot device, it’s just supposed to work, so long as the reader keeps reading. That’s what plot devices do, they move the plot forward.”
“Oh, crap, really?” he said. “But we didn’t even get to get down.”
He tried the plot device again. It still wasn’t working.
“I’m really my twin sister with a brain implant of my brain,” she ventured.
“You’re a man. What?” He said, confused as heck. “That’s not plot, those are just ridiculous soap opera tropes.”
“Oh, sorry. I guess I don’t know what plot is.” She admitted. (That makes two of us.) “What’s the manual say?”
Barleycorn flipped to the troubleshooting section and in big bold letters he read: For the plot device to work properly, John Barleycorn Must Die.
He grimaced and tossed the book down. It should also be mentioned that while the plot device wasn’t saving any days (or moons) at the moment, it did provide a nice force field for Barleycorn. The lasers, Pio! Pio! Pio!, just bounced right off of it.
John Barleycorn didn’t know what to do. He did know that he wanted to live.
“What’d it say?” Agent Rainmaker asked.
He thought for a moment and considered sacrificial herodom. “Nothing. It’s didn’t say nothing.”
Aw, Barleycorn what the heck man? You coulda been the big hero in this piece. I guess I just have to find another way to stop the dastardly Highwayman.
BAM! John Barleycorn is dead! How did it happen? I’ll never tell, but just know that it did happen when you were looking at that diabolical diversion I created.
As soon as he saw the rainbow-farting butterfly fluttering through the rafters of the fantasy factory, Highwayman grabbed a of Mr. Fantasy disappeared in the wink of an eye. Where’d he run off to? Stay tuned for answers coming directly after this shootout…
Pio! Pio! Pio! Laser blasts rang out in the Fantasy Factory.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Joke pistols declared to any literate henchmen within the line of vision that didn’t need corrective lenses.
There had to be a thousand of the henchmen. Probably more. What was even worse was that whenever one fell, it promptly disappeared and two more spawned from some dark corner of the factory. Agent Stiffupperlip and John Barleycorn could only do so much.
“Scarecrow!” Stiffuppeelip yelled out, barely audible over the Pio! Pio! of the lasers. He motioned his straw mate over to a pile of crates that he was using for cover. “This isn’t working. We need back up.”
“Can’t you radio it in?”
“No.” He spat. “They’ve got the Low Spark. Can you imagine what would happen if a whole platoon of suits showed up. The static cling would eradicate everything.”
“Oh sheesh! What do we do?”
“We’ve gotta get my partner and that pant suit into the fight.”
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Bang! Bang!
“Actually her name is Agent Rainmaker,” John Barleycorn declared with a glint moonlight in his eye. “And they’re not called pant suits any more, just suits.”
“You gotta thing for the pant suit there Scarecrow?” Bang! Bang! “Okay, I’ll cover you while you get her outta that damn mime box. Once you got her, I’m gonna need some time to wake my partner up. Got it?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Bang! Bang!
Piopio! Pio! Pio! Pio!
Bang! Bang!
John Barleycorn dashed off into the epicenter of the hummus and Stiffupperlip was doing a bang up job providing cover. Ha!
But just as things were going goodly, Stiffupperlip shot a bigger-they-come henchmen and the harder he fell. A cannonball tidal wave of the pasty, tasty dip washed over the barrier and got some schmootz on his bright Bang! banner.
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Ba__! Ba__! Ba__!
John Barleycorn was trying his darnest to get the invisible mime box holding his (hopefully) beloved Agent Rainmaker. “Hold on Rainmaker! I’ll get you out of there yet—“
“Barelycorn! Look out!” Agent Rainmaker said, making her first speaking appearance since Chapter 6. But it was too little too late. John Barleycorn took a Pio! Pio! Pio! to his straw head.
He fell beneath a pile of goop. Agent Rainmaker began to grieve and, true to her name, her grief manifested in the form of rain.
Rainclouds formed over the roof of the Fantasy Factory and totally obscured my vision.
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Ba! Ba!
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Ba!
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Pio! Pio! Pio!
From the sound of it, things were not going the way of our heroes down on the factory floor.
Since I don’t know what’s going on right at this moment, I’ll take some time to tell you something scandalous that went down around the time Will Smith was supposed to be at a barbecue today.
Pixanne and Esteban Calcutta took refuge from the madness in an emptied out crate. They held each other tight, finding comfort in each other’s arms. And then, they totally started making out; it was all mushy and lovey dovey and all that crap that’s not as awesome as balrogs and not-at-all veiled references to the great progressive rock band Traffic. (Seriously, if you don’t own any Traffic albums, shame on you!)
Let’s see, what else is going on. The balrog hasn’t done much lately; he’s just kind of laying there.
Hmm. The thing at the Labyrinth has all but winded down. Not much to report there.
Giant Baby is asleep in a comically large crib. He’s totally sucking his thumb.
Pio! Pio! Pio!
I don’t really know what else to say. There are still big rain clouds over the roof of the factory. Big, big rain clouds.
Pio! Pio!
Oh! Don’t leave yet! I’ve got it!
Enrick Schmidt the Duck Billed Platypus suddenly realized that he needed to go back to the Fantasy Factory for…something
No. I can’t do that to Enrick. He already lived happily ever after. Sorry, Enrick. It was just a bad dream, go back to sleep.
Well, I guess that just about wraps everything up then. Sorry I couldn’t give you a proper ending to this here story, but I hope you enjoyed it. I mean, it wasn’t that good, but whatever. It’s almost dawn anyways and the Winking Moon has to catch a few z’s of his own. So, until next time, take it easy.
Pio! Pio! Pio!
Wait! What? I thought the lasers were done.
Oh my goodness, there’s a rocket flying out from behind the clouds of the Fantasy Factory.
Highwayman is straddled atop it, grinning from ear to ear. It’s another nuke.
And it’s coming right for me! Er, I mean: it’s heading straight for the Winking Moon!
And we're back. Sorry for such a long delay on the Cheeseburger Haiku, where the rigid structure of Japanese poetry and the deliciousness of American cheeseburgery combine. Once again I'd like to take a moment to apologize to all of you devoted C.H. followers. I abandoned my post and I'm sorry. Never again will I let my duties fall by the wayside.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the latest burger on my plate--and I mean that quite literally, for the burger of the day is made by none other than the Josh. Now now, I know what you're thinking, Josh can't haiku a Josh burger. But, too bad, because he's gonna. I'll try to be as fair and honest as I can as far as other burgers are concerned and, not to mention, I live 3000 miles away from my beloved Weber. So, already I'm at a disadvantage.
The Burger:
Yeah, that's Carl Weathers.
The Haiku:
First time Griddler
my New York maiden voyage
Not bad Josh, not bad
The Aftermath:
Discussion:
This is a little strange for me. This was my first time on the Griddler, which is some kitchen contraption used to simulate an indoor grilling experience. It came in the mail a few days back--a gift from C-Note's mom (Thanks Lou!)--as an early Christmas present. As soon as I tore the wrapping off of that bad boy, I knew what had to be done. Burger time with Josh.
As it was my maiden voyage on the Griddler, there were a lot of variables that I was not able to manhandle, such as the heat and the method for getting the perfect grill marks on my meat pad. But, beyond that, there is still one variable that I do, and always will, control: the deliciousness. I am in charge of the deliciousness. And so in honor of my mechanically automated robot companion, or M.A.R.C., or Marc, I made that deliciousness my beeotch. To start, I put on my best grillin' shirt (Bull Shirt) and rubbed some special Weber brand burger seasnins into about a 1/3 pound of meat. While that was griddlin' I fried up some bacon, aka deliciousness' BFF. And to top it off, some Roland brand dill pickles* and ketchup. I had a kaiser roll to top--and bottom-- it off.
*A note on dill pickles: One of the most annoying things about New York has been the pickle chip situation. Hardly any of the seven thousand markets carry dill freakin' pickle freakin' chips! One time I bought some that were clearly labeled dill, and when I chomped into it, I found that I had been deceived. They were not dill but bread and butter. I'm just gonna say it: bread and butter pickles are not the bread and butter of the pickle industry. They're more like the salad, as in, "get that crap away from my burger you damn dirty hippie!"
The burger. It was good, not great, but not the worst. The meat was a little overcooked for my tastes, but that's a chance you take when you're cooking on a double sided griddle. The Roland brand dills were actual dills and went well with the Warren Zevon I put on to get my burger makin' juices flowing. Overall, I'm pleased with the result--it's been ages since I've had a Josh burger. I may not have to wait that long for another because in a week I'll be home and able to spend time with my glorious beloved grill.
One more thing: if you're reading this Carl Weathers, know that I will gladly cook you a Josh original any time you want. I know you're a stew man, but give it a shot.
Doused in garbanzo, Agent Stiffupperlip scowled at his luck. He was certain that there was plenty of time. Someone was messing with the time stream and from the looks of it, the missile launch was permanently delayed. Chickpeas or no chickpeas, Stiffupperlip had a score to settle.
The henchmen surrounding the weapons were all confused by the sudden dousing of hummus. Stiffupperlip was quick to capitalize on the mayhem, “Scarecrow, are you ready?”
“Yep.” He winced a little as the suit shoved a pole down the back of his shirt. It didn’t feel good; it felt like being back on the farm.
Stiffupperlip devised a plan—a plan that would utilize teamwork and ingenuity. He hucked a huge wad of the gooey stuff over to the corner of the factory, effectively turning the henchmen’s attention. The scarecrow that they didn’t notice was there earlier inched a little closer. When they looked back, they noted the scarecrow, but since it was unmoving they paid it no more attention. A second plop of goop struck the wall and with the henchmen heads turned, Barelycorn moved closer still. When the henchmen looked back to the scarecrow, one of the henchmen thought to say that he thought the scarecrow was closer than before, but he ended up shrugging his shoulders and thinking that it was all just a part of his imagination. Stiffupperlip hurled yet another blob, and so it went until the dingleberry scented scarer of crows was near enough to the cache of weapons to make a grab.
As instructed, Barleycorn threw the remaining roll right stone. As the henchmen closed in on him, he grabbed a gun off of the table and waited for the magic to happen.
Stiffupperlip clenched the stone and gave a nod to the memory of his fallen mentor. This one was for Constable Ballyhoo. Stiffupperlip tossed the roll right stone like a grenade right into center of the henchmen amassing around the scarecrow.“Alfonso Ribeiro!” He shouted with supreme authority.
Moments later, the guy who played Carlton in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air manifested out of the air around the roll right stone.
Alfonso looked around, noticeably upset. “What the heck! Where am I?”
“There’s no time to explain!” Stiffupperlip shouted. “Sing the theme to Reading Rainbow!”
“What?” Alfonso Ribeiro screamed. “I don’t know the theme to Reading Rainbow!”
“But aren’t you that guy who hosted the show and then went on to play Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: TNG?”
“No. I was Carlton in Fresh Prince.”
“No, that’s not you. You’re the Reading Rainbow guy.”
“I am not. My fame is primarily derived from playing Carlton in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air!” Alfonso demanded.
“Okay then, if you’re Carlton, prove it!” Stiffupperlip responded.
It’s worth noting at this moment that half of the henchmen are struggling with John Barleycorn over control of the gun while the other half are a little star struck.
Alfonso put his hands on his hips, “Well, galddarnnit. I guess I’ve got no choice.” He flung his arms out flamboyantly and poof! the gaudiest Cosby sweater ever seen in the land of Make Believe appeared on him. And, oddly, Tom Jones appeared and grabbed a hold of the microphone that Michael Buffer used earlier to announce the start of Highwayman’s rocket launch.
What happened next looked a little like this:
“Oh,” Stiffupperlip said, overjoyed by the brilliant dance display. “I guess you are Carlton. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“I told you. Now can I go home?”
“Yeah no problem,” Stiffupperlip said, digging out his wallet. He fingered through the piles of rubles and clams, eventually settling on a small stack of bacon strips. He handed one strip of bacon over. “Before I send you back home, do you mind telling me who the reading rainbow guy is?”
“Yeah, sure, that was Levar Burton.”
“Oh, right! Levar Burton, I knew that!”
Alfonso stared down at the piece of bacon. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Oh nothing, just say ‘Will Smith’.”
“This is unusual, but, whatever. Will Smith.”
In a flash, Alfonso Ribeiro was gone and standing in his place was the man himself: Will freaking Smith!
“Aw hell no.” He said. “I was supposed to be at a barbecue today. And what the hell is that smell?”
“Garbanzo.”
“Garbanzo?”
“Yeah, sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Smith. Would you mind saying ‘Tommy Lee Jones’?” Stiffupperlip asked, handing over a strip of the crispy stuff.
“Sure: Tommy Lee Jones.”
And then Tommy Lee Jones came.
“Where am I?” Tommy Lee Jones said.
One of the henchmen felt compelled to speak up. “I didn’t kill my wife,” he declared.
“I don’t care,” he looked down to see that he had been handed a strip of bacon.
After a seemingly innocuous request, Tommy Lee Jones said…
Clint Eastwood appeared.
“Mr. Eastwood,” Stiffupperlip said. “All these thugs are planning on standing on your lawn later.”
Clint Eastwood gritted his teeth and pulled out his magnum and said “Do you feel luck punk? Well, do ya?” He shot a henchman in the face. “Get off my lawn,” he sneered.
Stiffupperlip smiled in delight and handed over another piece of bacon. He only had two more left. He realized that he didn’t have a plan to get to Levar Burton, that he was just naming off his favorite actors as they occurred to him. “Uh, excuse me, Mr. Eastwood. Have you ever been in a movie with Levar Burton?”
“No.” He spat.
“I terribly sorry Mr. Eastwood. Does anyone have a smartphone?” Stiffupperlip asked. A henchmen, who was still enthralled by Dirty Harry, handed one over.
Stiffupperlip went over to imdb.com and found the bio for Levar Burton. Scrolling down through the list of his roles, he smacked himself on the forehead. There it was: he already had his answer.
He was in Ali with Will Smith. Stiffupperlip kicked himself; he really wanted to see that movie, but for some unknown reason, never got around to it. When he got home he was going to put it in his Netflix queue.
Stiffupperlip knew what he had to do, but it meant not being able to see Morgan Freeman. That was upsetting. “Mr. Eastwood, could you say ‘Tommy Lee Jones’?”
Clint Eastwood gritted his teeth more and warned the bastards to stay off his lawn. Tommy Lee Jones appeared and didn’t care that somebody didn’t shoot his wife. Will Smith came and was wearing an apron that said ‘Kiss the Cook’ and he had a spatula in his hand. On that spatula was a burger. He was finally at his barbecue. Stiffupperlip put his last strip of bacon on the burger and made his final request. Will Smith was thankful for the bacon this time; he had a hankering for a bacon burger but didn’t want to run back to the store.
“Levar Burton.”
And just like that, with six strips of Kevin® brand bacon, Agent Stiffupperlip turned Alfonso Ribiero in to Levar Burton. It didn’t take much coaxing or cajoling to get Levar Burton to sing the Reading Rainbow theme. And it went something like this:
By the end, all of the henchmen were reliving their first grade experiences and wishing that they never dropped out of school. It was a touching moment and at the end of it, everybody in the building was literate. Which meant that they could read real good.
John Barleycorn was so happy that he almost forgot the plan. But when Agent Stiffupperlip screamed, “Scarecrow! The plan! It’s time to enact it!” he remembered the plan. Barleycorn pulled the trigger on the gun and a colorful flag flew out of the barrel, it said: ‘BANG!’ Now literate, the henchmen read the banner and toppled over dead. Yet more henchmen fallen to the allure of crime. They never received their money in return for their villainy, which just goes to show that crime does not pay. And, even if it did, the benefits are paltry at best. No dental and no 401k plans, what a gyp.
Agent Stiffupperlip ran over the pile of henchmen bodies and grabbed another weapon off of the table. Bang! Bang! Bang! The gun said to more of the readin’-henchmen.
And so began what would later be recorded in the history books as ‘The Shootout at the Fantasy Factory.’
And through the power of Wpirjghp, Agent Stiffupperlip spread open the diliddium metal bars of the monkey cage like they were made of a more malleable metal. By his watch, there was still around nine minutes before the missile launched. Plenty of time to save the day with enough time to tuck the missus in for bed. But before that his first order of business was to retrieve his gun and then discharge said gun directly into the area of space occupied by Highwayman’s face and then hand out a big heap of whoop ‘em to Highwayman’s stupid henchmen and disarm the rocket and say a kick-butt pun and maybe even chew some bubblegum—in that order. But before he began his first order of business, there was the ritual of the zeroth order of business that preceded any and all business—the straightening of one’s tie, the dusting off of one’s lapels and the adjusting of one’s cuff situation. Confident in his appearance, Stiffupperlip sprung into action.
“Psst.” John Barleycorn whispered, and thus forcing Stiffupperlip to pause. “Get me outta here. I can help.” He spoke with an air of reverence. Though Barleycorn couldn’t be certain of it, he suspected that he was in the presence of a student of the great monkey bar bending master Nfksdnfo.
“It’s no good scarecrow, I can’t have any civilian casualties. You’ll stay in the cage until it’s safe to come out, capiche?” Stiffupperlip said, repeating the zeroth order of business. He promptly turned from the scarecrow and a hay-stuffed fist scratched the back of his jacket.
“No, please. I have a terrible fear of monkeys, especially of the flying variety.”
Agent Stiffupperip was ready to shrug the bothersome field decoration off when a faint aroma tickled his senses and propelled him to spin around in a flurry. “Dingleberries!”
Barleycorn jumped back from the bars, “Sorry officer. I meant no harm, honest.” He said, over-apologizing and ushering Stiffupperlip to be on his way with his eyes. Barleycorn nearly busted at the seams when he was yanked back to the front of the cage. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Stop, please. Stop!” He sobbed. When no harm became of him, he paused from his reaction which he then categorized as a gross overreaction.
Stiffupperlip was sniffing (sniffing?) sniffing Barleycorn’s vest. Face planted right in the scarecrow’s bosom. “Dingleberries,” he said, even more dramatically than the last time. “Why do you smell like dingleberries?”
Solidified in an embarrassing wince, Barleycorn peered through his button eye. “Dingleberries?” he asked at last. “Oh yes, dingleberries. I dropped my hand in a big pile of them over there.”
“Where?” Stiffupperlip grilled.
“Over there.”
Stiffupperlip recognized the area immediately as the place where his roll right stone came to a stop. Just then he had an idea. The monkey bars holding John Barleycorn wiggled like wet spaghetti as he yanked the timid scarecrow from the cage. “C’mon scarecrow. We’ve got a day to save.”
Highwayman grew tired of waiting for the missile to launch. He had to go out to his van and pull a camping chair out of the back because he was tired of standing around and waiting for his plans to fruit (read: fru-isch). Although the chair looked much more comfortable than it actually was (as camping chairs are wont to being) he sure did make it look comfy to the rest of his minions who were just standing around waiting for something bad to happen. Highwayman stretched out and rested his feet atop the glass case that encapsulated the once-heroic and dastardly Agent Rainmaker.
Crime did pay, Highwayman decided. Sure it took years of scheming and enough moolah to buy a moderately sized country, but it was worth it. He was mere minutes away from blasting that stinking Winking Moon into oblivion. Yes, that was his plan all along: to nuke the moon. Taking his cue from President Barbicane, Highwayman conspired to send a missile to the moon and blind the moon’s one good eye, thus snuffing out the narrator. That handsome and dashing, dapper and alluring, good-looking and pleasant to be around narrator. As far as the story is concerned, there was just no logical reason for him to want to snuff out the narrator. Without the Winking Moon there was no land of Make Believe, no Fantasy Factory (sometimes capitalized, sometimes not) and no Highwayman. What a stinker of a plan. To think, he wants to rob the good people of some middle notch, grade ‘C’ fiction. What a tool. Unfortunately, it looks like he may get away with it too, even though he’s never recited his motive.
Highwayman had a good motive for wanting to blind the Winking Moon, and he was a little upset that he didn’t get a chance to recite his monologue—it took him years to perfect the evil monologue—longer than it did to plan the dastardly deed itself. But none of his adversaries proved to be daring and or dashing enough to deserve such a performance.
Somehow, and he didn’t know how, the countdown went from ten minutes to ten seconds. And for some reason, there was a cartoon bean and a pixie standing in the middle of the factory floor.
Everything was going to plan, and now sooner than anticipated; the bean and the pixie weren’t part of it, but you’ve got to admire the efficiency. Highwayman was pleased “10, 9, ate, Se7en (starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman), sicks…” Highwayman said along with the somewhat sexy sounding voice. He was glad he paid the few extra clams for the sexy voice, it was much more pleasing that the nasally voice.
Wait a galddarn minute, Highwayman thought, this is exactly the type of situation that precludes the reemergence of the story’s true hero. He sat up in a hurry, readying himself for whatever was sure to come at him.
“Hey guys, looks like we succeeded in evil,” Enrick Schmidt the duck-billed simian said, proudly holding onto the bottle thrown to him early by Highwayman. “What do you say we have a toast?”
Highwayman leapt up from his lawn chair, his actions hampered from stiff muscles caused by the lawn chair. “No!” He screamed as Enrick Schmidt the duck-billed simian popped the lid. The last thoughts that crossed Highwayman’s mind after he heard the cork erupt was that he couldn’t believe that the ultimate hero would have been that dang lawn chair that gave him a cramp that stopped him from reaching his henchman in time.
The bottle of Vlad the Imp Aler exploded in a shower of chickpeas. The beans of the garbanzo variety sprayed in all directions from the mouth of the bottle, pummeling Enrick Schmidt the duck-billed simian and all those around him. And what more, the rocket’s fuse had been doused with hummus, never to light again.
While Highwayman had a contingency against any willful heroism, he failed to account for heroism of the stupid kind. Good ol’ Enrick Schmidt, after this is all done he was going to finish conductrician school and live a happy life. Hooray Enrick!
Agent Rackensack snored in his footnote-encrusted sleep and he very nearly rolled over, but not quite. (4)
(4)Agent Rackensack found himself on the back of a luck dragon. It was totally awesome and he was having so much fun. He wasn’t even thinking about that night at the fantasy factory when he was the big hero that saved everyone. There were too many radio and television ads that occupied the forefront of his thoughts. It seemed like everybody wanted him to endorse their products nowadays—he even got an offer to supplant that hilarious two-dimensional anthropomorphic coffee bean that everyone loved so much.
“Did you hear that?” Pixanne muttered nervously (bet you thought this plotline was long forgotten. Well, it was. But there’s an explanation as to why so much time passed without checking in on these Pixanne’s dilemma with Esteban Calcutta the two-dimensional anthropomorphic coffee bean). Huddled in closely beside Esteban Calcutta the two-dimensional anthropomorphic coffee bean, Pixanne trembled with fear each time Highwayman pressed a button. She thought she would be long gone before the stuff went down. With each miniscule step towards whatever evil deed Highwayman sought to bring about, Pixanne shuddered and not-so-unwittingly, cowered closer and closer to the cartoon bean.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she felt strangely safer encased in his two dimensional grasp. Stranger still is that she could swear that only mere minutes had passed since she came into the office with the roasted mocha emblazoning on the door, but from the looks of Highwayman’s stack of remotes and the amount of would-be heroes captured and locked in the monkey cages, she knew that much more time had passed.
Just then the alluring robot voice came on over the loudspeaker once more. Missile launch in twenty minutes.
Something definitely wasn’t right. Pixanne grabbed a hold of Esteban’s wrist and looked at his watch. She was about to complain the uninvited arm wrapped around her waist when she realized that his clock was stupid. There were like seven hands on that thing, and there was even a digit readout in hexadecimal numerals. No sane person could use that thing to tell time.
Esteban read her confused gaze as well as he could read his own wristwatch—he was after all no sane person, being anthropomorphic did not make him an anthropomorph. “Were you checking the time m’lady? Or were you just wanting me to hold you closer?”
“What’s going on?” Pixanne asked, forcing his arm away and ending their embrace now that attention had been called to it.
“I suppose you are referring to the little time anomaly that you seem to be experiencing, no?” Esteban asked, settling into an explanation he’s given a thousand times before to anyone willing to listen to him. Once Pixanne nodded in response he continued. “Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity? It is when you are unhappy and your hand is on the stove for a minute and it feels like an hour but and then when you are happy and with a pretty pixie for an hour it feels like a minute.” He stared in a blank expression for at least a minute. “I don’t understand. How are those two are related. Second cousins maybe? That Einstein fellow is not too bright.”
Missile launch in ten seconds.
“Esteban!” Pixanne trembled. “What in the blue blazes does that have to do with this wacky time anomaly?”
“Blue blazes? Again, the colloquialisms. They make no—“
Pixanne stomped her feet and placed her hands on her hips, ending up in that adorable ‘harumph’ position that was proprietary to pixies and their ilk.
“Ah, yes. The time,” Esteban pulled the pocket watch from the tiny pocket in his vest and fiddled with the exposed hands. “To your eyes I am but a two-dimensional anthropomorphic coffee bean. This is not entirely the case. Where you are bound to three dimensionality and the confines of linear time, I experience two dimensions spatially and two dimesions temporally. Two dimensions of time. While I am not privy to such features as say, a well-rounded behind, I am able to access and manipulate time—to a degree.”
“So that explains the wristwatch and the pocket watch,” Pixanne said. The resolution of the two-timepiece dilemma was much more satisfying to her than the revelation that Esteban experienced time in two dimensions. At least now it made sense whereas before she found it superfluous and annoying.
“Chronometers,” Esteban corrected.
“What?”
“This,” he held up his wrist—chronometer, “and this” he presented his pocket chronometer. “These are chronometers, not watches.”
“What? I don’t care.”
“Oh, okay—“
Missile launch in two minutes.
“You have to do something!” Pixanned shrieked. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want to be here to find out when that missile goes off.”
Casually, Esteban reached for his pocket chronometer and flung open the spring-loaded cover. Looking fondly at the picture that he kept inside—a fond memory of the coffee bean farm back home—he fiddled with the knob. When the big hand and little hand and the medium hand and the stagehand and the other three hands were exactly where he wanted them to be, Esteban snapped shut the lid and tucked the chronometer back neatly in its place. Patting his pocket, he said, “There you have it m’lady. You now have all the time in the world. How about you and I go grab a cup of coffee?”
“Sure. Yes, just,” she was incredulous of her quick and honest response. There was no sense in fighting it anymore; she really did have a thing for Esteban Calcutta the two-dimensional anthropomorphic coffee bean. “Let’s go.”
Esteban opened the door to a still world. The rocket stopped rearing to be shot into space, the henchmen were no longer being hopelessly incompetent and Highwayman’s plans were on a temporary hold. “After you, m’lady” Esteban chivalrously gestured.
Pixanne acquiesced to his request. On her way out she paused, “Coffee? You drink coffee? Isn’t that a little—you know—odd? Being a coffee bean and all.”
“I don’t like to think of it as cannibalism m’lady. I prefer to think of it as getting reacquainted with old friends.” He smiled to himself. “I think I’ve just come up with a wonderful new slogan for the ad guys: ‘Coffee. Not cannibalism.’” He let it simmer on the edge of his tongue. “Do you like the sound of that, m’lady?”
“No. Not at all. That’s actually the worst—it’s just terrible.” Pixanne said, savoring the bittersweet taste of her brusqueness. “And would please stop referring to me as ‘m’lady’? It really is one of my pet peeves and I don’t like it.”
“I don’t get it. Centuries and centuries devoted to domesticating the peeve, yet nobody seems to like them. Why do so many people bother with all of the trouble of getting a peeve in the first place? Unless they are just finding these peeves abandoned in some alley. I understand that it would be considered inhumane to just drop off all of the little helpless peeves at the pound and let them care for the poor animals. But if you’re not going to love the peeve, then why keep the peeve? It doesn’t make any sense. You domesticate the peeve, you let the peeve into your home, you don’t like the peeve. Every time I hear that people say that, it really bothers the part of my nervous system thatdeals with logic. I find it annoying to a greater degree than the mean of the population.”
“Pixanne stopped short and turned. “You really don’t get it, do you? That is what a pet peeve is.”
“What is?”
“A pet peeve. It’s not a pet. It’s something that bothers you.”
“Another colloquialism?” The look of confusion on his face faded to understanding and back to confusion again. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh what?” Pixanne asked, already knowing the answer to her query. The floor of the fantasy factory was slowly churning back to life.
So, I tried to write a novel in one month. Foolish me. The goal was to write 50,000+ words from the one minute after Halloween to the very end of November. This is no small feat, but I was able to accomplish my goal. Sort of. I didn't actually finish the novel. There is still the pesky climax and resolution to write, neither of which I know much about.
Since I'm going to tell you about the trials and tribulations of writing such a massive amount of words in one month, perhaps I should tell you what it's about. The story is based in a fictional world where people can voluntarily induce synesthesia upon their minds as they see fit. Synesthesia is a real phenomenon where some people experience extra sensory modalities when they experience stimuli within alternate senses. For example, someone might see the color green and have the taste of spaghetti in their mouths. Or maybe a person who hears the squeak of nails on a chalkboard gets the taste of spaghetti in their mouth. The possibilities are limitless, and most of them don't even involve spaghetti! Wikipedia 'synesthesia' for more information. Okay, so that's the background of the world. In the story, we follow around the protagonist who, unlike 99.999 % of the population, was actually born with the condition. Unbeknownst to everyone else who has the synthetic form of the condition, she is the very reason that the technology exists. She is also the inspiration for a character in a series of books written by her mother. Naturally, she dislikes the books, dislikes her mother and really dislikes the synthetic-synestheic people. But when people start dying off for unexplained reasons, it's up to her to put things right. Or something. There's still quite a few kinks in the plot, so I'll remain light on the details. Also, as it is now, I sadly don't have a single gun in the narrative. Before it's finished, I'll make certain that it's all like "blam blam blam."
Over the course of 30 days, I wrote around two to three hours a day, everyday. Good grief. To do this, I woke up an hour earlier than normal and devoted a good portion of my prime television viewing hours to writing. The first week was a breeze: everything I had outlined previously was, more or less, flowing pretty easily. By the time the second week rolled around, I was constantly wondering why it was still November. In the third week I inserted some interesting plot points that I hadn't previously considered. Things were looking up. And then the fourth week hit. I was all like "uhhhhhhhhh." With nearly quadruple my average monthly word count, I could not think of anything to write that actually made sense in the scope of the story. So, I wound up just writing the lyrics to all of the Michael McDonald songs I could think of. Not really, but my writing was stunted for sure. I finally crossed the finish line with...less than grace; the last sentence was a freaking struggle. BUT, I did it. Approximately eighty hours of work devoted to accomplishing a goal I set for myself about two days before the start of the month. As good as it felt to be finished, the end didn't come with triumphant celebration but with a sense that my goal was not yet complete. The book needs an ending. And damn it, I intend to give it one.
I'd like to announce to the entire blogosphere that I owe a great deal of thanks to the lovely C-Note, otherwise known as Courtney Something Kalof. Without her encouragement and picking up of my slack for things like eating and cleaning things I may have still finished, but I would have been much, much stinkier by month's end and there would have been a pile of dishes up to the ceiling. There may have been a supportive comment or two in there from her. (Actually, more like 88. I became a huge whiny jerky jerk face at certain points in the month.) So thanks to my gal pal for her niceness.
I've addressed the attempt at writing a novel in a month, now I need to address some other things. Namely, my guilt. I have eaten two burgers since the start of November, and written absolutely none haikus about them. Without tightly structured Japanese poetry, my burger-capades are not as fun as they should be. I've flirted with the idea of writing late haikus for each of my burgers, but ultimately I am not going to do this. It wouldn't be fair to the burger. But worry not, one of the places definitely warranted a return visit, and another was on the crappier side of so-so.
Other things that deserve space on this page: I've got a new word or two that need to enter the cultural lexicon as soon as possible, so look for a few more "Loss for Words" columns coming up. My smash-hit short fiction Shootout at the Fantasy Factory needs an ending. And I've got one for it coming soon, I promise. It's got a great twist ending and Lavar Burton may even make a special guest appearance. Sometime down the line I'm going to move my comic strip publishing venture over to the Extreme; I've got a few more I've been working on and I'll go ahead and publish the archives as well so our newer readers won't be confused. And because it's a little weird for me to have a character in my comic strip that I haven't spoken to in years, after the completion of this saga, I'm going to change the direction of the comic. So look for new characters and a new title. Woo hoo! Of course, I still may throw in a few "That's Dego" classics in from time to time with the optional DVD commentary. What else is in the works? I'm not sure, I've got some other projects in various stages of development. And by various stages, I mean that I've thought about them. Perhaps I'll find the time to conduct an interview with the co-creator, producer, director and writer of the smash box office hit (in my mind) Rough Draft. There's also a Van Halen project rattling around in there somewhere. Also, my plan to nuke the moon is still in the works.
