March 18, 2004
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Are You Game?
Okay, here's a serial story game that I didn't begin. My clever colleague did, when I tried to write a boring diatribe about government documents (he definitely knows what to do about government documents
) So because he began it, I get to be the first in on the tale, but then
It's your turn! Give me your best/weirdest/wackiest
.
The sole rule: you cannot make two consecutive comments. Otherwise, make as many as you like!
START
“I showed ‘em…heh heh heh…yes’ir, I showed ‘em.” The slow, regular rocking motion was not a nervous twitch for Howard, it just felt right. He could move his stool, the one piece of furniture in his padded room besides his cot, to the center of the room, but the corner offered that safe, quietness that he longed for. “They think they’re soooo smart, but they won’t forget the name Howard W. Longbottom… no, they won’t!” His chart read like a laundry list of mental disturbances. His “occupation” read, “Government Accountant” causing room for speculation as to the “chicken and egg” question. Can one remain sane in a world of convoluted policy and incessant forms or does one have to already be nurturing the seeds of insanity in order to enter this cavernous world? “They have me to thank for Form 1617. That’ll keep ‘em stirred up, lonnnnnng after I’m gone…heh, heh, heh!” contributed by WaitingForEpiphany
Comments (17)
....Howard jumped a little as the lock rattled and an orderly edged in.
"How's it goin', sir?" asked the solidly-built young man, easing around the edge of the door with the dinner tray and the folding table. "You and Form 1617 havin' a good day?"
Howard's jovial grin eroded and his breath came a little more quickly.
"Have YOU used Form 1617?" he asked slowly and with intent.
"Can't say I have, sir," smiled the orderly, backing up a little and letting his hands hang loose. He was used to Howard.
"Know what it's called? Huh? Know what 1617's called??" demanded Howard.
The orderly did, but he held on to his smile and his silence.
"The Cannibalization/Modification Report!" screamed Howard, launching himself.....
launching himself straight into the arms of the orderly, pitifully crying huge crocodile tears...
"It was to be my crowning achievement! My masterpiece! Like Colonel Sanders was to fried chicken, I was to become the purveyor of all useless bureaucratic forms from now until the end of days!! Waaaaaaaahhh!!!"
The orderly tenderly patted Howard on the head, absorbing his moans and deflecting as many of his salty tears as possible.
"Are you ready for your medication, Mr. Longbottom? Remember what happened the last time you refused to tak--" The orderly was cut off by a sudden rapping of knuckles against the glass on the door.
In entered Dr...
....Sicklebones, who smiled in a saccharine fashion at the two.
"Now, now, you love-beans," he said condescendingly, "can you separate for enough time to let me have a word with the patient?"
Howard and the orderly rolled their eyes at one another in shared distaste for the newcomer. But the orderly stepped obediently outside the open door while the Doctor, a manaical glint to his eye, pulled, with a flourish, from his pocket a large, gleaming, metallic..........
In entered Dr Shortstuff, one hand holding the wrist of the other behind his back in what he hoped would be considered a leisurely gesture but actually gave him a frog-marched appearance.
This patient was dangerous, and the Doctor hoped that the orderly took the situation seriously. There were already almost a hundred casualties of Form 1617 in the morgue beneath the hospital, and although Longbottom didn't have the look of a homicidal maniac that evidently wasn't the case. This man had single-handedly developed the most efficient population-control device the government had ever introduced. Unfortunately nobody except Longbottom actually knew how it worked...
Longbottom grinned as Shortstuff hesitated, the crocodile tears forgotten and almost frozen in place on his cheeks.
"More questions, Doctor ? Already ?"
Shortstuff smiled reassuringly. "Just the one, Mr Longbottom. Just the one."
The orderly left the room as Shortstuff asked...
Damn
"did i not ask you to give me a stool sample? why, then, were using the stool as furniture at the start of this story?" he asked.
At which point ShortStuff took out a huge syringe and asked Howard to expose his last name...
File numbered 3872. It contained all the details of how Form 1617 worked to control populations. Longbottom grimaced as the Doctor snapped on his rubber gloves. The 'Snap' of latex on flesh would have made a lesser man cringe. But Longbottom knew the file was on microfiche in Aramaic and would dissolve when it made contact with the outer atmosphere. "There's something you should know, you frog-faced quack.....," Longbottom sneered menacingly.
...his hands on his trousers. "Without Aramaic, you're sunk."
And with that, Longbottom leaped for the door. The quick-thinking orderly opened it wide as he dove out, then slammed it resoundingly on the shocked Doctor.
The orderly ran for the open trade entrance at the end of the hall, where large trucks were unloading the days' supplies. Bewildered but quiescent, Longbottom hastened to follow......
...and together, they dove headfirst into a container of soiled bedsheets, which were headed to the lavanderia in, of all places, Puerto Vallarta.
Of course, they had no way of knowing this as the truck roared down the highway towards the airport...all they new was that the sheets were soft and smelled vaguely of....
Parfum VI, oddly enough, from the highly-prized collection belonging to the Warden's daughter and maintained in the Warden's residence some distance from the mental hospital. The bottle (spilled over the container of bedsheets during a minor altercation between an orderly and a nurse involving the accusations of both that the other had stolen the heart of the Warden's daughter from the speaker) was lying, in all its unmarred, pristine, sparkling beauty, at the edge of the container.
Longbottom, staring wide-eyed at the orderly as they hunkered down in the bedsheets and the truck doors slammed home preparatory to the drive-off, picked up the bottle and absent-mindedly gestured with it as he said........
"I know why you're doing this. You think I don't, but I do". The even stare emanating from beneath the thick, shaggy brows fixed the orderly as if he had been tethered and bound. “You think by helping me escape I will be your friend and that I will help you.” Spittle formed at the corners of Longbottom’s thin, cracked lips as he spoke in his slurred mutter. The bottled pointed in time with his speech as if to emphasize every carefully chosen word. “I have no friends, you know. They all died when their forms were rejected by Him”. The orderly squirmed as he felt Longbottom peer into his soul. “You want to be my friend so’s I will help you with your 1040EZ form”. Longbottom’s voice raised above the din of the bouncing truck, “Form 1040EZ is SHIT! It doesn’t deserve to be a government form!” The truck bounced hard over the tracks causing Longbottom to drop the bottle. For a moment both men stared at each other, then…
....each dove frantically for the bottle. In that split second when the bottle hung suspended in air, defying gravity, the orderly noticed it contained a miniature Aramaic to English dictionary. Longbottom, no stranger to the astute reading of other's faces comprehended the gravity of the situation and sought to prevent the Orderly from unlocking the form's secrets. Suddenly, a third head popped up from the load of perfume laden laundry. It was ........
.... the gopher from Caddyshack -- the Aramaic-speaking gopher from Caddyshack.
The stripe of chestnut brown hair that ran across his back stood straight up, fueled by his adrenaline rush as he sprung toward the bottle. Snatching it cleanly with an audible *clink* as his front teeth closed upon the glass, he made an extraordinary pivot and dashed toward the air vent near the front of the truck box. Longbottom and the orderly grasped wildly at the empty air, knocking their foreheads together, producing the sound of two coconuts colliding.
The gopher squirmed through the vent, and scrambled to the top of the laundry truck. Looking around while whizzing down the highway, he saw...
the dog-catcher's truck, coming from the other direction, but having just jumped the highway divider and was about to collide with the laundry truck. Not knowing what to fear most -- the crash or the long net of the law -- how would a gopher know that a dog-catcher had no interest in his miserable little hide -- the gopher dropped the bottle of perfume as he jumped from the truck (did he survive the jump? stay tuned) -- the two trucks miraculously missed each other but still the driver of the laundry truck went off the road and the vehicle came to rest near some ...
Tar pits. They had strayed too near LaBrea. As part of the newest government cost cutting plan, the asylum's laundry was driven off campus two hundred miles, round trip, every day. The strong, hot stench of molten tar assaulted the gopher's senses. The driver couldn't believe his dumb luck. He'd wanted to see the famed tar pits, but couldn't stop to view them due to the demands of his job. This was his big opportunity!. He extracted himself from the partially opened driver's side window , pushing skyward to freedom. If only he'd brought his camera and his palentology book! No mind, this was an experience he'd treasure forever. His reverie was broken by the soft scratching sounds coming from........
a trunk hidden in the bushes. Hello was called out, but who said it? Standing now, listening hard for the sounds and words, he recalled another time when he auscultated so intently.
Years ago... in school or at play. He'd always use his aural skills to find the underlying meanings to what anyone would say. Teacher at the blackboard, what did she really mean... bully chidding him, surely through the evil words, there was more to it all... He stopped his intent listening one evening when his mother sat him down to tell him...
..."You were adopted."
The groundhog's chubby cheeks went slack. "But... I look exactly like you and dad!"
"No, not when you were little," replied his mother "Just an hour ago. We got an offer that was just too good to pass up."
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