Chapter 9
| The Story | The Authors |
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| Mr. Tickles hated being called silly. "I am not a silly little man!" | |
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At this pronouncement -- muffled and cavernized into the ghostly voice of melodrama by the great hollow interior of Donovan's colon -- Li'll Debbie pushed her now-comatose lover away. As Donovan rolled onto his back, the last kicking remainder of Mr. Tickles disappeared into the bard's lower G.I. tract. Inside, Mr. Tickles trudged forward. He fished into his pocket and found a stumpy candle-end but then, sniffing the air, thought better of lighting it (lucky for Donovan, eh?) -- and besides, what was that he saw up ahead, round the next bend, so to speak, the way if you stand at the front of a subway train you came see the glow of the next station aways down the track...what was it, and who, then, that pale blue glow up ahead, that flickering as of a late-night television? What new enemies or companions-in-adventure were to be found in the brocolli-blessed intestines of Donovan? | |
| He might have said had he heard it. Of course with his head was buried as deeply as it was in the butt of the Scottish bard. it would have sounded a lot more like "omph noofa philee miffll an ! | |
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At this pronouncement -- muffled and cavernized into the ghostly voice of melodrama by the great hollow interior of Donovan's colon -- Li'll Debbie pushed her now-comatose lover away. As Donovan rolled onto his back, the last kicking remainder of Mr. Tickles disappeared into the bard's lower G.I. tract. Inside, Mr. Tickles trudged forward. He fished into his pocket and found a stumpy candle-end but then, sniffing the air, thought better of lighting it (lucky for Donovan, eh?) -- and besides, what was that he saw up ahead, round the next bend, so to speak, the way if you stand at the front of a subway train you came see the glow of the next station aways down the track...what was it, and who, then, that pale blue glow up ahead, that flickering as of a late-night television? What new enemies or companions-in-adventure were to be found in the brocolli-blessed intestines of Donovan? | |
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The dwarf approached cautiously. He could hear the others outside, making fake megaphones with their hands and calling his name through the comatose body of Donovan... Debbie lilting "Yooooo-hoooooooo," ...Meredith shouting "Heeeeeere, Ticky-Ticky-Ticky-Ticky," ...Cap'n Cupcake (at last!) solemnly intoning "We'll never make it to Cupcake Island without ye, laddy," ...And Big Chief Big Wheel dispensing his native American wisdom: "Rectum of one man no place for other man to live. Specially if first man be Scottish. Usually mean he drink too much firewater, then eat haggis. Yuckum." Rectum of one man no place for other man to live... Mr. Tickles pondered that one for a minute. True, it was true, there was no denying that at first listen, and yet -- as he stole towards the blue light down the tunnel -- why, somebody else seemed to be living here. And from the sound of it -- children's cries (the dwarf loathed children) -- more someones than just one. So perhaps the times were changing, there had been Feminism, there had been Reggae, there had been Post-Structuralism, and there had been South Park -- so perhaps the roles expected of men and women really ahd changed enough so that it was now possible, in these golden new times, for a man to live inside the colon of another...! He found himself grinning, the dwarf did, from ear to ear! It was as if he'd at last found his niche! No one would be mean to him here! No one would tease him! And that Jake, that ball and chain, that royal-pain-in-the-ass, was simply too tall to follow Mr. Tickles in here! The thought cheered him more than anything else had been able to in months, as he stepped into the circle of firelight. | |
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His cheer was rather shortlived as it were as he observed the rumpled figure slumped into the heavy overstuffed armchair. The chair was pulled up so close to the fire as to almost set it alight as the figure attempted to suck whatever heat it could from it. The long maroon velvet doublet and ruffled shirt the figure wore stained with intestinal fluids. The high folded leather boots cracked and caked with fecal matter. At first glance he appeared to be asleep, laborous stentorian breath rising and falling like a winter tide. Mr Tickles glanced about at the rest of the colon's accoutrements. A sea chest, some maps, a few South Seas knick knacks and a pair of hammocks swinging from some pre-cancerous polyps. The figure spoke wearily. "Well, Pan, so you've found me at last. I must say the years have been even less kind to you. My how fat you've grown." Mr Tickles turned to protest but the figure in the chair merely raised an accusing arm and said "And none of your backtalk, Pan. I've been waiting for this day. "Smee, set another place for dinner. We've got a guest." The end of the upraised arm terminated in a large shining metal hook. | |
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"And what'll we be serving t'night, Cap'n Hook? What gourmet fare, then?" "Why -- leftovers, Smee. Same as every other meal...Though I must say, thank the briny deeps he's off the psyllium husks! Almost swept us away at the end... He's been quiet today, though. Seemed to be famished yesterday, we must 'ave eaten six meals -- ah, fickleness of Fate, Fate's a more capricious bitch than the salty sea!" His voice trailed off then into reverie -- | |
| "What's that?" asked Smee, "I can't here you, you're reminiscing again aren't you?" | |
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"Reminiscing again, reminiscing again, reminiscing again, reminiscing again..." The ethereal Cockney trill of Smee's voice reverberated off the walls of Donovan's colon and exited his bum with a strangely amplified brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap! "Why, I'd know that voice on me deathbed!" exclaimed Cap'n Cupcake, bringing his ear close up to Donovan's blowhole and finding himself rewarded with a snootful of flatulence as, back inside, Smee began to sing a bawdy old pirate song from the days of the Spanish Main
Now, the sexual life of the camel
But the Sphinx's posterior regions
...only serving to confirm Cap'n Cupcake's suspicions. "Smee!" he exclaimed. "Or I'm a maldive shark! Smee! Scaly bugger's got a keel-hauling coming to 'im, 'e was me First Mate an' me trusted friend till the day 'e tried organize a mutiny on me old ship. Fancied 'imself able to navigate a snack-cake ship through the stormy seas of expiration dates, 'e did! Well, well, well -- old Smee 'imself!" | |
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"Chief Big Wheel go to me sea chest an' fetch me that enema at the bottom (no pun intended, me laddie)under those ol' and sticky pastry magazines. Be sure to fill it up good'n full of harsh sea water. An' if it be Smee a-hidin' in there we'll flush the rotten blighter out one way or another." Cap'n Cupcake stood pensively for a moment eyeing Donovan's puckered sphincter. "Aye, an' if I'm not a knob eared lubber it takes more than one rotten apple to fill up a barrel this big." | |
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Li'l Debbie sat off to one side, sobbing, plucking petals off daisies ("Donovan, Tickles, Donovan, Tickles, Donovan, Tickles," ad nauseum) only faintly comforted by the tender ministrations (or was that minestrone?) of Meredith. Meanwhile, Chief Big Wheel had returned with the trusty old enema, a plunger, a portable generator, an electric pump, a triple-strength garden hose, and the DiGiovanni Supraú Home High-Colonic Kit, as well raingear and a variety of delicious chocolatey snack-cakes for all. They hooked up the generator to the pump, the pump to the hose, the hose to the enema bottle, and the whole zany contraption to Donovan's pasty hindquarters, which had been rendered immobile by several lengths of rope tied with trusty old sailor's-knots to the posts of the conjugal bed. Likewise had the Scottish bard's wrists been bound. And then they began to pump him. Thirty-five standard gallons of salt water did they pump into him. A sturdy cork did they then insert into his sphincter, allowing the brine a full forty-five minutes to work its salty, cleansing magic. Then the cork did they remove. All present donned their raingear, at which time Cap'n Cupcake began in earnest to work at Donovan's nether opening, sweating gobbets of rich chocolatey sweat in the searing midday sun. At this point, the denizens of Donovan's trendier-than-Soho colon began to appear: A nation of sea-monkeys; Two dromedary camels; The elusive Count Chocula; | |
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And then, with a great gush of watery brown liquid flecked with the remnants of Donovan's last meal of organic pumpkin-seed bread, a fully grown female giraffe came forth from the bard's rectum, staggered to its feet, shook itself dazedly off and galloped off into the dense jungle foliage. "Mary, Joseph, and Excalibur!" exclaimed everyone in unison, not least of whom was the drenched and sputtering figure of Amelia Earhardt who had arrived in the salty brown wake of the giraffe, clutching the copy of 45 Grave's Autopsy LP which Ram—n Montoya stole from me in 1988; Next came several bootleg copies of Chef's all-time favorite film, Kathie Lee Does Jersey City; A litter of newborn Afghans; Bond, James, in the arms of (good heavens!) Miss Moneypenny; An old boot; A veritable menagerie of formerly impacted gerbils; Bitsy Bootleg, looking sheepishly away from Meredith; And another gush of liquid. What would come next, they wondered? | |
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An Albino alligator a waterlogged copy of Gone With The Wind three pencils a baby's arm holding an apple The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin conducting Carl Orff's Carmina Burana several rubber squeak toys a flashlight a slightly less than mint copy of Action Comics #1 a rather tarnished Grammy the secret diaries of Adolf Hitler (forged) and finally one dwarf and two old pirates who sat in the sand sheepishly and squinting in the afternoon sun. | |
| "Yuck!" said Mr. Tickles. "That was horrible!" And so saying he ran off. Where was Cupcake Island? What did everyone want with him? His last question was answered by Meredith. Grasping his arm with unusual strength, she proclaimed, "You have to come with us to the radio station and tell us what Donovan's intestines are like!!!" | |
| "'Tis no use! I have already consumed Donovan's intestines! Shortly after consuming his testicles!!! Next is Mr. Tickles' testicles!!!!! For I dearly love Rocky Mountain Oysters!!!!!!!!!!" | |
| Surely he was delirious and babbling incoherently having been immersed in an atmosphere of methane. His brain was infused with such gases as Donovan had been socially trained to retain, and they were taking their toll on Mr. Tickles' demeanor. Meredith grabbed his paw and led him through a field of poppies running and skipping to get him winded, breathing heavily in and out, clearing his head for the impending radio interview. | |
| Mr Tickles loved the blue and white patches which made up the cloth of Meredith's dress. They reminded him of the kitchen table cloths he used to lay on on hot summer days, the smell of tuna sandwiches being made, and his good fortune to be able to lick the tuna can afterwards. He thought of tuna as he was running with Meredith. As they reached the edge of the poppy field he began to feel nervous. The radio station was not far off. It's big 50,000 watt antennae protruding up into the sky. Meredith looked at him and smiled. | |
| "Everything is really going to be all right, you know," she said. Mr. Tickles smiled weakly and gave an uncertain nod. Meredith tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. "You haven't changed your mind, have you?" she asked. He reached out and lightly touched her sleeve. "No, I haven't." He said decisively. "Let's do this." | |
| 'ok' said meredith, "the first thing you have to do is take off all your clothes and paint your body pink." mr tickles looked at her in stunned silence. finally he managed to splutter out "ALL MY CLOTHES??!" meredith sighed and rolled her eyes. these tax inspectors were all the same. | |
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And with these last pronouncements — for the umpteenth having absolutely nada to do with the story at hand — "told by an idiot/full of sound and fury/signifying nothing" — the dwarf knew that once and for all he really was gone. Crazy. Bull goose loony. Stuffed fuller than Sibyl with voices that just weren't going to go away. Plagued by hallucinatory sex-kittens. "I'm cuckoo for Coco-Puffs," was all he could manage to stammer, weakly, grasping the trunk of a coconut palm for support, which rained six successive coconuts down onto his head before dissolving into the old, ill-cared-for Plaster of Paris it had been formed from, many years back, for episode #13 of Gilligan's Island. Mr. Tickles knew none of this from his vantage point upon the ground — his head throbbed with six new goose-eggs and his overworked libido was, as usual, "all dressed up with no place to go," and he had gone crazy. Crazy. This was a beginning them, he allowed himself as a final sentient thought, a last cigarette before quitting, so to speak — the world was not as he had imagined it! Everything was a lie. Perhaps he wasn't even required to be a dwarf any longer, eh, think of that? And with that, the remaining substance of the dream broke apart, the sky shredded and shrivelled away into a million million tiny pieces, revealing a new sky behind itself, the sun behind the sun of the ancient Maya, the whorling of the constellations in brand new configurement, the Dog Star licking its butt, all former horoscopic promises bedamned, even the trees no longer strictly tress the way we have come to assume them. He stood up then. He stood up, and he kicked sand over the deflated skin of what had once masqueraded as a Meredith, he hitched up his pants and he headed off into the next great adventure of his life. Someone, Raven or some other Trickster God, had pinned the May 3rd page from an old Page-A-Day Ziggy calendar on his back. It bore the quotation "Today is the First Day of the Worst [sic] of Your Life."
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| EPILOGUE: | |
| It is said that Cap'n Cupcake and Big Chief Big Wheel never did reach Cupcake Island. Injun Joe just seemed to vanish, for a while that is, but these were just considered the fevered hopes of his long suffering fans. Donovan eventually moved to Wales with L'l Debbie where they opened an incense store that doubled in tarot card readings, elaborate beeswax candles, and little lead crystal figurines of wizards,dragons and unicorns. | |