A Friendly Camper
Cast of Characters: William Burgles Hemroidal Murphy Roger Hopkins Xavier Zutros (A Swede) Natasha The Narrators
Act One Scene One: A horrible cavern
Narrator: We welcome you to this most horrible cavern, gentle viewers or readers or whatever ilk you may be of. This cavern is inhabited by a fearsome creature who will appear shortly. But, within the cavern lies two men who seem to have entered recently...
William (dusts himself off): Where the devil have I fallen? (Turns quickly) What is that crouched in the corner? Why, it’s a Shrewman. My Uncle Jimmy warned me about such people.
Burgles (Stands up): Yes, I am a Shrewman. But do not worry. We are not a fierce people. In fact, we behave much like hysterical women in any tight or tense situation.
William: I suppose that nothing gets done in your township.
Burgles: Plenty gets done until something happens. Once something happens, the entire village is thrown into a frenzy. By the time the situation is passed at least three of the townsfolk have burst their appendixi.
William: Appendixes. Multiple appendixes end with an ‘s’
Burgles: Maybe in your culture, stranger. But in Shrew Valley, more than one appendix is referred to as appendexi.
William: I’m sorry Shrewman, but you’re not in Shrew Valley. This horrible cavern that we have fallen into is in the Forest of the Shepardesses. See, look at my map.
Narrator2: With this, William pulled out a gigantic map from his pants and lay it on the ground, pointing to a spot marked ‘Horrible Cavern’. The hideous Shrewman walked over to the map mumbling the word ‘Shepardessi’ and then looked at the map.
Burgles: OH NO!! So the rumors are true! And all along we thought that we owned this Horrible Cavern! It must have been the Milkmen or the Guanolads!
Narrator3: And the shrewman began running around the Horrible Cavern in hysterics.
William: Hey Shrewman, stop this nonsense or I’ll bludgeon you with a lead pipe and dispose of your soul!
Burgles: Urgh, Urgh, Urgh, Urgh.
Narrator4: So William picked up a handy lead pipe and whacked the Shrewman across the head dropping him to the floor of the horrible cavern.
William: Now for your soul....what is that?
Narrator: And William turned to find a Hemroidal Murphy behind him leaning on a rifle and lighting a pipe.
William: Where did you come from?
Hemroidal: My, this is a horrible cavern, isn’t it? That’s a nice skin your wearing, sonny. What’s your name?
William: William
Hemroidal: Just what I need for my collection (pulls rifle to shoulder). Steady, Murphy, mustn’t ruin the pelt.
William: Eep. Shoot the Shrewman instead.
Narrator2: Despite William’s pleas, Hemroidal Murphy fired at the hunched over creature in the corner.
Creature in corner: Blurgh. You idiot. You should know that my coat is made of cement. Which explains why I can’t move over there to remove your bladder from your ears.
William: Your bladder is in your ears?
Hemroidal (obviously perturbed): Yes, where’s yours? Up your nose? That would explain a lot.
William: It wouldn’t mean anything at all except that it would be small.
Creature in corner: Not with your nose. You could hold the equivalent of a bathtub, bladder nose.
William: THat does it. That’s the last joke about my nose I’ll ever hear.
Narrator3: And so William whipped out a knife and cut his nose off.
William: Oh my! My bladder was in my nose! What will happen to the waste in my body now? Oh woe is me....
Creature in Corner: Don’t worry, the waste will stay in your bloodstream and slowly kill you. Then I can feast like a king.
William: You east corpses?
Creature in Corner: No, but you made me lose my appetite by cutting off your bladder. Do you want one of my extra ones?
William: where is it?
Creature in Corner: In my shoe. Here you go.
Narrator4: The Creature in the Corner tossed the spare bladder in the direction of William. But in mid-air, a hand reached out and grabbed it.
Xavier Zutros: I’ll be taking that. (Shoves bladder into pocket). My this cavern is rather horrible isn’t it?
Hemroidal: Who are you and where is your mother or more importantly, where is your aunty?
Xavier: My name is Xavier Zutros, a common Swede. My mother is up in the Dale of Zealous Acrobats while my aunty is taking a dip in the Poacher’s Pool of Paradise, a beautiful hot spring that supposedly gives the dipper power to grow excessive hair.
Hwem Merika: Why does your aunty want hair?
Xavier: Why wouldn’t a mollusk want hair? And who are you?
Hwem: Nothing but an apparition. Pay no mind to my wandering and flittering. Your aunty is a mollusk and your mother isn’t?
Xavier: Well, she’s my half-aunty. My mother’s father remarried a squid after divorcing the gnome.
Hemroidal: Xavier isn’t a Swedish name.
Xavier: Yes, it can be.
Hemroidal: No it isn’t. A swedish name is something like Horace Abromowitz.
Creature in Corner: That’s not Swedish. That’s Jewish.
William: No, Jew names end in ‘ski’.
Hwem: No, those are Carpathian women that end in ‘ski’. But that still doesn’t explain why you don’t look like a gnome if your mother was gnomish.
Xavier: That’s because I take after my father, the Toastking.
William: That would explain why you are so breadlike.
Xavier: No, that’s just his title. His race is that of the elves.
Hemroidal: Shut up. Your father was a piece of milktoast, admit it!
Xavier: Never!
Creature: Your bar mitzphah.
Xavier: Argh!
Narrator2: And Xavier attacked the creature in the corner with a knife that he had pulled out of his boot. But the knife shattered on the cement coat of the creature.
Creature in Corner: Har Har. Another victim of my cement coat.
William: Why don’t you follow up your victory by attacking them?
Creature in Corner: Have you ever put on a cement coat?
William: No, I can’t say that I have but I have put on a Coat of Steel.
Creature in Corner: Bah, those are nothing compared to cement coats. I put on this cement coat 15 years ago and haven’t moved since. I’ve watched many a person fall into this cavern that is oh so horrible and watched them disappear when the owner of this cavern returns. I think I’ve become rooted to the ground because I haven’t been able to move my legs for 10 years.
Hemroidal: Don’t you ask people to help you out of it?
Creature in Corner: No, because everyone that falls in this horrible cavern is psychotic. Look at the lot of you! William bonks the Shrewman over the head with a pipe and when he tries to steal his soul, this Hemroidal fellow falls in and shoots at me. Then William cuts off his nose, the Swede appears and attacks me. There’s something about this cavern that isn’t normal.
Xavier: You’re not too normal and that’s what isn’t normal. Who’s ever heard of someone putting on a cement coat, crawling into a corner and becoming rooted to the ground for 15 years?
William: I have. It happened to a farmer from the Mosquito Mountains two weeks ago. But it was in a pretty cavern and not a horrible cavern as this one is.
Burgles: Everything happens in the Mosquito Mountains.
William: Curses! He’s awake again. Now I cannot steal his soul.
Burgles: Who is the spirit floating in the middle of the room?
Hwem: Why I’m Hwem Merika!
Burgles: And I should know you why?
Hwem: Because I lived long ago in the Bogs of Masochism where I feasted on raw cherries and mango fruit. Many people came to understand why I ate these things, and in turn I threw them into the bog to show them why.
Hemroidal: Why?
Hwem: Why not?
Xavier: An appropriate answer.
Creature: If only it were true....
William (whirls about): What? It isn’t true! (Whirls back around to Hwem). You’re a filthy liar?
Hwem: Of course. I only wish I could have been that noble thing from the Bog of Masochism. But, alas, I am but a simple member of the Parchment Association, an association that only seeks to make parchment the number one thing to write on.
Burgles: I know of the Parchment Association. They do whatever it takes to make people conform to their wishes. Why, just last year they burned half the Shrews in my village with the very wood that they wrote upon.
Hwem: Aye, I was there and a lovely time it was too. My last act as a member was the pillaging of the Guanolads and their sacred Dungpile. You should have seen and smelled the action! It was enough to make anyone collapse with glee.
Hemroidal: I was a member of that Association once. But I found them too repressive of their members and I wanted more freedom to express myself. So I became a poacher.
William: Of eggs?
Burgles: Ooh, I like poached eggs. Someone in my village could make a mean poached egg before he was taken away into slavery by the Simple Folk. Considering the weapons of destruction they used to raze my village, I would call them the Complex Folk but their name remains the Simple Folk.
Xavier: Your village is pathetic.
Burgles: In warfare, maybe. But we are very industrious. That’s how we manage to build the village fast enough for the next attack.
Creature in Corner: Why do people attack your village?
Burgles: Oh, for every reason known for man. We’ve already explained about the Parchment Association and the Simple Folk, but we also wash ourselves with hard water and dry ourselves with leaves which brought in the Sanitation Lemurs who burned the village to sterilize it. Then there were the Mis-Fits who destroyed all the buildings and carried away the weak and old because we weren’t being nice enough to them.
Hemroidal: We, meaning the League of Poachers, just destroyed that village. It was pathetic. I’ve never had so many of the sick and weak to pick off in any expedition. Never got a good one.
Creature in Corner: Maybe you should have attacked the Health Center instead of the Mis-Fits. You would have gotten some big game there.
Hemroidal: Not enough of a challenge. They don’t know how to use their muscles. These weak and sick devils were wily and many escaped to the Wilderness of Wild Boars.
William: How will they survive there? From what I hear the wild boars are ferocious devils that seek the pancreases of all who venture into their fair wilderness.
Burgles: Pancrei. And that isn’t quite true. The Wild Boars were very weak when they destroyed my village nigh on to seven months ago. In fact, some of the members of my village didn’t run around like women and faint. We got a nice supply of Wild Boar meat for the winter. That is, until the very ground underneath us shifted and a rogue group of the Volepeople, known as the Vogues (naturally combining ‘rogue’ and ‘vole’), robbed all our meat supply and buried our village.
Hwem: Uprising in Ratchettown, due to the everpresent Wrenchheads that refuse to cooperate with authorities. Instead of their town, which leaves them susceptible to those thugs, the wrenchheads. Usually, these uprisings will last for weeks on end, for the town authorities are fat and idle, shiftless bums they are.
Creature in the Corner: Fifteen years of being in a hole, wearing a cement coat with ten of those years being anchored to the hard terra firma. I tell you people, the things I’ve seen are enough to cause the strongest man to look within himself and question, “why?” I’ll tell you why. The very nature of the beasts of this land is extremely violent and murderous. All seek to destroy their opponents. The only reason that groups stay together is to destroy those unlike themselves. Those who have no enemies to turn their hatred against, cannibalize themselves, destroying whatever semblance they had of a civilization.
William: This hole has left me pondering on how one survives without any way to escape. How does one manage to stay sane, as the hours, days, months, and years float by. What can one do? How does one rely on food? I suppose that this area of the land receives quite a bit of rain, so while one can drink the water as it falls, one can also be destroyed by a flood. There are also signs that a creature abides in this horrible cavern. So, there must be an entrance way and an exit.
Hemroidal: Why should I leave this cavern? Everything that is outside disgusts me, except for my poaching. Why, if I stay here I can poach all the creatures that fall within the confines of this horrible cavern. It’s time to value he outer world with this inner world. While the outre world may have light, fresh air, etc it also has the imps of hell lurking behind every tree, rock, bush, undergrowth, and creature-made structure. Here, I can be the one that springs upon the stunned individual who falls within. I have made my decision to stay.
Xavier: One really doesn’t understand the trauma of knowing that soon I will have a relative who is a hairy mollusk. These types of things force one to consider if one should pay attention to the other’s personal oddities or if they should conform to some reasonable standard. I will be disgusted to have a Hairy Mollusk Aunt, but I suppose I must pretend that she is normal. But what is normal? Is it whatever nature has given us? That seems to be the derivation of the word. Since Mollusks don’t have hair, my aunt is destroying the way she has been made by obtaining it. Oh, how could she do this?
Roger Hopkins: Oh, yes you did
All: Who are you?
Roger: Why, I’m Roger Hopkins, of course, the local vicar.
Hemroidal: A stripper vicar?
Roger: No, I’m a LOCAL vicar. Now, I’m going to preach to you my religion.
Burgles: I’m sorry, I already have my own religion. My people worship the plants and the skies above.
Hwem: I worship worms.
Xavier: I have gas.
William: Silotheque.
Creature in the Corner: Magnificent tricks are all I have to say about most things. Everything is an illusion.
William: Your mother was an allusion.
Burgles: And your father was a metaphor.
Hwem: And your sister danced with the leprechauns of love around the fairy circle on the outskirts of town until her heels bleed dew drops.
Roger: Oh my, I think that I have stumbled upon a strange flock. Let me set the ground rules for my discussion. One can intervene with an opposing view point at whatever time they want and then I will destroy them until you are convinced of my genius.
Xavier: I disagree.
Roger: On what grounds?
Xavier: On the shifting grounds you are standing on.
Narrator3: And the ground beneath Roger Hopkins swallowed up his legs.
Roger: I must preach to you before I depart from this life.
Hwem: You’ll just come back as a spirit to haunt this fruitless plain.
Roger: Once upon a time, there was a large ball of mucus in what is known as the center of the universe. This ball of mucus was hit by a gigantic flower that knocked the mucus ball into space, twirling and twirling. With each twirl, it became smaller until is was gone in its original form. But the bits that had flown off formed all the planets around us. This explains why I am sinking into the ground. This is an area where the mucus is weak.
William: Question. Where did the gigantic flower come from?
Roger: (Up to his waist in the ground). The gigantic flower came from the Titan Garden.
Hwem: Who owns the Titan’s Garden?
Roger: (Up to chest in ground) The cultivator of the Titan’s Garden is a slave named Bo.
Creature in Corner: Who owns Bo?
Roger: (Up to neck in ground) A mountain.
Hemroidal: That’s stupid. Mountains can’t own things.
Roger: (Up to chin in ground) In the netherworld they can.
Hwem: Please explain the netherworld.
Xavier: He can’t. He’s in the ground.
Burgles: That leaves a whole lot of answered questions.
William: Yeah, like why did the ball of mucus swallow him up and not the devil who’s perched on your shoulder, metaphorically speaking of course.
Hwem: That guy was kinky.
Creature in Corner: I feel as if I should join this Bo fellow in cultivating the mountain’s garden. It seems like such a beautiful life as compared to this existence in a horrible cavern watching the odalisques of Baal consume the very quivering forms that dare to fall within its bowels.
William: Ow, my bowels.
Burgles: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to poison you. It just happened.
William: What sort of poison attacks the bowels?
Roger Hopkins: Why, the poison from this rare form of snapdragon (descends from above holding a rare form of snapdragon).
Xavier: Merciful Heavens!!!!! I thought that the ground swallowed you up.
Roger: Sadly, my dear Swede, you do not understand all the complexities of this ball of mucus that is our earth. One can descend, ascend, float sideways through all obstructions until they arrive at the destination that we all seek. Yes, we all seek this destination, whether we know it or not. Everyone is searching for the inner peace that comes from plunging ones hands into the mercury of the core of the mucus.
Hemroidal: So, you’re saying that your form of heaven is actually the earth’s core.
Roger: Oh, the mercury I seek is not of this planet, but of another planet that is made of mucus. One must go from mercury to mercury, gaining a sample of each until he reaches the mountain that owns Bo. As you see, I am on my third planet already, for here are my two other samples that I have hidden from you all this time. Now, I must cease my preaching, rid myself of this body and proceed to the next planet in line.
Narrator: And Roger Hopkins reached for his knife, only to have Xavier grab his mercury samples while rummaging in his priestly garb.
Xavier: Now I! I can proceed to the next planet while you can just go back to those other planets to collect your mercury, you foul hag!
Hwem: Hag? He’s male.
Xavier: Look, there! A beautiful woman!
Burgles: Where?
Xavier: There...standing on the ridge...AAAAAAHHHHH!
Narrator2: And Xavier disappeared from all of the view of the others. And let it be known, that Xavier Zutros (a rather common Swede) was later found on the Beaches of the who brought him back to health and made him their king where he lived horribly ever after.
Hemroidal: Oh my! Was that the evil being that has been mentioned before?
Burgles: I think you mean the aforementioned creature.
Hemroidal: I’ll aforemention you, you nasty....nasty....EEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH A woman of the most stunning nature.
Hwem: Where is she?
Hemroidal: Why, on the ridge of course, you worthless mongrel....AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
Narrator3: And the poacher, Hemroidal Murphy, disappeared in the very same fashion that Xavier Zutros had disappeared, stunning the other fellows in the cave to the point of burgles wetting himself. Before we continue the story, we must at least put in a word as to where this poacher disappeared. Well, one day, a rather uncommon hooligan discovered what was believed to be the remains of Hemroidal Murphy in the dung of a Komodo Dragon. As he signaled his more common hooligan friends and yelled the information, he too, fell victim to the mighty Komodo Dragon. And as a further sidenote, the Komodo Dragon was beaten to death by a large dragonfly with a mean streak who subsequently drowned as the universal moral web took revenge.
Hwem: Heavens, people are disappearing like flies! And I’m just a floating apparition, in case any one forgot.
William: I did, actually.
Creature in Corner: I didn’t.
Roger Hopkins: My mercury was taken with that Swedish fellow! Now what am I to do?
Burgles: You’re a young buck. Why don’t you forsake your religion and join the army?
Roger Hopkins: What does the army have to hold for me? I’d rather wallow in my own crapulence. Oh, it’s the mystery woman again! What’s your name my sweet? Natasha?
Hwem: Where is she? I have a feeling like I keep saying that.
Burgles: You can’t feel. You’re an apparition, remember?
Roger: No, don’t leave...AAAAAAHHHH
Narrator: Not surprisingly, Priest Hopkins disappeared at the other two had. And, as the style has already been set, we must explain what happened to Roger Hopkins. After his disappearance, he was next seen in the army, and then later on the Echo Falls police force where he disposed of his strange blend of voodoo Buddhism and settled into a very strange and amusing life.
Burgles: OH NO!! There are only four of us left! And one is an apparition!
Hwem: Sorry, the universal moral web is calling me to a different assignment. It seems that someone has to deal with some rowdy Mexicans who have turned Cinco de Mayo into something a little more ‘hot’. They torched the forest and I have to appear to them before they are destroyed by a roving band of monks. Ta ta
Narrator2: So, Hwem disappeared, performed that duty and reappeared at little Jimmy Shipowitz’s bar mitzphah three years later, which was said to be the highlight of little Jimmy’s life.
Creature in the Corner: This is getting very deja vuish. Next Burgles will go, and then William, and then I alone will remain, once again the survivor. You can congratulate me now.
Burgles: Congratulations. You are quite the stud.
Creature in Corner: I know. Hey, who’s that in that other corner? Why have I never seen the other creature in the corner? And...and...it is a female! Why, if only I could go over there........AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
Nasrrator3: This time, the people that remained (William and Burgles), didn’t even jump or scream or wet themselves as this event was too commonplace. As for the creature-in-the corner, nothing was ever heard from him again, but a roving band of Mongols did find a chair somewhere in Namibia that was said to possess the magic powers of the creature-in-the-corner even though it was proved to possess nothing more than the powers of a homemaker.
William: Well, Shrewman.
Burgles: Well, Willy.
William: I congratulate you for surviving so long in this horrid pit. Too bad that you will be next.
Burgles: I wouldn’t be too sure, seeing how that woman is beckoning you.
William: I refuse to look for fear of reprisal.
Burgles: Well, I’m not going to look either until you look and get swept away. I refuse to be seduced.
Natasha: Hey, you idiots, look at me! I’m really, really good looking and I’ll sweep you away. Oh, come on, quite being such losers. Come on, Pleeeeasssee.
William: My, what a pathetic wench.
Burgles: I’m sticking my head into the ground for fear of looking.
Natasha: Oh you devils! You win this round, but I’ll be back!!! Actually I won’t. You’ve stolen my clever man trap. now I must go build another in order to survive.
Narrator: And Natasha disappeared as quickly as she had come, leaving Burgles with his head implanted in the ground and William staring at the horrible cavern’s wall. 15 years later, two maidens fell into the same horrible cavern where they discovered two sets of bones. One had its head in the ground, and the other stood with arms folded, facing the wall.
1 comment:
I feel better knowing that this magical piece of word-thought-play is out there for people to read.
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