Chapter 1
| The Story | The Authors |
|---|---|
| Vashondra frowned as she pulled her shaker from her coif. It was cracked. "Sometimes i just don't know. Dear Lord make me a bird so I can fly far, far away." She sighed. The novices approached the van. Each captive noted the waterbottles contained a single tadpole in each. The razors were all mauve. | |
| Little Tommy flushed the toilet, but try as he might, he could not get this grandmother's dentures to go down. | |
| "Taaameeee!" shrieked Grandma Pearl. "Come git ovah heah rait now dis instant. Yuze got me teet agin, dontcha, yo liddle whippasnappa..." Grandma Pearl turned to her daughter Pauline, Tommy's mother. She said, "Pauline honeh, ma ankles are actin' up mad. Go an' fetch yo son. Ahm gitten hungreh, an' I cain't have ma corncobs and frahd chickin wit jist me gums!" "Yes, Momma," sighed Pauline. | |
| Pauline rose from the battered rocking chair and threw down her needlework with just enough force to make a thud. | |
| One needle flew into the air, boomeranged off the rocker, and pierced her foot. Suddenly, she was crucified by her own handiwork. She didn't let out a sound. George might hear her. She musn't let George suspect she was ever in pain. George came by and didn't notice anything except that the television had been turned off. "What happened to my show," he asked. "I told you I was watching that show." Pauline, with a needle through her bony foot, forgot about having turned off the TV. But here she was, with something sharp picking at her sole and she couldn't rush to the TV as she normally would. She couldn't fix what was broken for George. George was a little surprised. Usually, she moved quickly. Usually, she jumped to it. He felt his anger rising. Always on the ready, always on the go. But suddenly, his eye caught a piece of needlework on the floor. He thought it was a picture of a naked woman. Well, oh my god, that was a pink nipple blossoming on a dumpling breast. He looked into Pauline's eyes. Was she a lesbian? | |
| Grandma Pearl came into the room dragging Little Tommy by the ear. With a wicked, toothless grin she said, "Lookie who ah found. Dam boy trahd flushin' me teet dahn the toylet. Ah still cain't fahnd ma teet." She shook the boy by the ear and he just stuck his tongue out at the old woman. "Yo jus wahtch it, mistah. Yo luckeh I ain't got ma switch, " scolded Grandma Pearl. She noticed that George was looking rather flustered and Pauline seemed to be in pain. She released Tommy, who ran off to the garden, and wobbled over to her daughter to offer her a comforting embrace. "There, there honeh.... dontcha mahnd that George. George, go mahnd yo son." George left, but not without apprehension. Grandma Pearl looked Pauline in the eyes and said, "Honeh, ah don't cayah if yuz a lesbian or a Lebaneez or a monstah from outah space. Yo still ma dawtah." Pauline burst out laughing and said | |
| "Mamma, I am a lesbian as you can tell from my needlepoint, but that is not the problem that worries me now. Have you heard from your other daughter, Candace? She was supposed to get married on Saturday but now she's cropped up missing." "Usea worryen bout dat no good sistah of yurs? She ain't my dawtah afters what she what she done did to thisa famly, Grandpa Pearl asked. "Boy George," she cried, "Fetch me a pig foot a da bottle of beer, Paulines done got me so upset I need to got ta da crying land." | |
| Vashonra, Bitzy, Tiki and Candace were helped into wheelchairs by the noviates. Vashondra had given up on her cracked shaker and was now reaching over into Bitzy's less than perfect beehive for the spare. As her hands grasped the last frozen flask, she heard the mauve razors spin into action. She took a one-minute gulp and passed it to Bitzy. As the electric razor goughed deep into her beehived scalp, she crossed herself and smiled. "Be brave my sisters, the final communion will be a well-aged port." | |
| Bitzy began to remember previously forgotten moments in her earlier years. This caused her to twitch and begin singing "Love Machine" in German. | |
| She drank so much she sweated alcohol. When she lit a cigarette, she incinerated herself to death. All that remained were a pile of black, smokey ashes. | |
| Children came running out of nowhere to inspect the pile of black ash. They giggled and held hands to form a circle around the pile. Then they all chanted, "Ring around the rosey, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" The children laughed so happily and skipped about in celebration. Then they all lit Cuban cigars and drank some of the liquor from the flask that the dead woman drank out of before they went home. | |
| However, much to the chagrin of the young cancer consumers of cancer, the cuban cigars had not gone through customs and all of a sudden, rabid customs officials came out of nowhere. The officials reclaimed the liquor, and polished it off before handcuffing the small children with cancer sticks. The children began to whine at such a high pitch, the collective eardrums of the customs officials burst and they fell to the ground, writhing in pain, much to the bewilderment of the children. | |
| From the heavens Dianna awoke to the echoeing strains of "Du Du Liegst Mir im Herzen" sung by whiney children. "Oh Fooey" she thought to herself, "I must go rescue the plot once again." | |
| The abbess, aka Mother Mary Magdelene, assesed the scene. As the cancerous children were being led out by La Migra aka the INS, she declared the Home For Friendless Maiden Ladies a womyn only space. The noviates gathered behind her as she led them in chant. "NOT THE WOMEN, NOT THE STATE; THE CHURCH SHALL DECIDE THEIR FATE!" Mother M&M's, as she was affectionately known, looked the customs suit straight in the eyeballs and spouted mightily through her dentures, "Out Out Damn Spot!" The customs agents, feeling like a wicked curse had been cast against them, retreated to their limousines, forgetting the horde of cigar smoking babies. Candace strained to look up from up from the gurney which the noviates had impalled her on. "That's my unborn baby," she hollered. Meanwhile Vashondra was trying to stuff all of the neccesities from her threatened beehive into her inner organs. A miracle had happened, the cracked shaker had reconstituted itself and was full of an icey cold liquid. | |
| VAshondra was amazed at the miracle before her and rejunvanated herself with the liquid of life. "YOU WILL NOT DESTROY US!!" Her voice boomed and all cowered at the sound. "RELEASE HER!" As Vashondra barked orders, her beehive seemed to grow and hum with strength anew. | |
| Sounds of German folk music began to enmanate from Vashondra's beehive. "Bruder Johann", "Andreas Hoffer", and "Prinz Eugen" blared through the convent halls. All of a sudden, the outer wall caved in and there, amongst the rubble, stood a figure clad in black. The dust swirled around him and everyone trembled at the thought of yet another character entering this lurid tale. | |
| Grandma Pearl scuttled into the garden, searching for a pair of dentures that her grandson had hidden. After peeking under flowerpots and poking in the soil with her cane under the rose bushes, she finally found her teeth peeking through the underbrush. "Damn boy mus beh Satan hisself, dat nasta whippasnappa," she muttered under her gummy breath. "Heya now...whut da hellis dis." As Grandma Pearl disturbed the soil with the end of her cane, she unearthed another, shiny object. It looked like a locket, but Grandma Pearl wasn't wearing her spectacles and couldn't quite make it out. She reached in to try to grab it, but the thorns of the rosebush provided an adequate barrier, and she immediately pulled it back. "Ouch dagnabit!" she said, sucking on her pricked finger. | |
| A squirrel who had been loitering under the very same bush scooped up the locket and ran off with it between his teeth. | |
| " soy as’ que sediento " grit— el bebŽ del unborn de Candace. " mayo tengo por favor un sip de su bebida? Le darŽ un cigarro si usted concede mi deseo. " | |
| " ich bin also verwirrtes " geŠchztes Tiki, ", wer diese alte Dame mit den fehlenden ZŠhnen ist und was ist geworden aus Bitzy? " | |
| " dames, yourselfs calmes, " Vashondra sifflŽs vers le haut. " il y a assez de martini pour chacun. Je remuerai tandis que le y'all recherchent que de vieilles dents malheureuses de foulques. DŽtruisez cet Žcureuil ennuyant tandis que votre ˆ lui, Tiki " | |
| "Oh, you varmint!" scolded Grandma Pearl. "Nowz yuv gone made my blood pressha go up, you rodent." She looked up at the tree branch the squirrel had scurried to, and she shook her cane at it. Grandma Pearl blurted, "If ah wuz twinny yeahs yunga, I'd go on up theah and kick yo ass." The squirrel just chirped back at her loudly, and strangely enough, it sounded like it was cursing at Grandma Pearl in German. "Oh, so youze a Natzeh squirrel huh? We'll see 'bout dat. Hmph!" She spat and wobbled back into the house to get her rifle. | |
| Everyone, even Granny turned to stare at Vashondra. Since when did she speak french, they wondered. "What don't you understand?" Vashondra lashed out querulously. "What I said was, ladies, yourselfs calm, " Vashondra whistled towards the top " there is enough martini for each one. I will stir up while the y' all seek that old unhappy teeth the foulques ones. Destroy this annoying squirrel while your in him, Tiki " | |
| " wŸnschen Sie Ihre ZŠhne, alten Coot? ", das sqirrel geneckt. " erhalten Sie Ihnen fetten Esel herauf sie dann, fartbag. ", Erreichend unten von einem Bebenglied, spat das Eichhšrnchen im Gesicht der Oma. | |
| "Du, Du bist, SEHR unhoeflich!" Die Oma schreit. "Ja, und was sonst, Affe?" Das Eichhoernchen liegt auf das Grund. | |
| "Hende ko alam yon problemo mo. Senabe ko yon buto mo es maleait." | |
| "Ich unhšflich? ", das Eichhšrnchen erwiderte, " verlassen Sie einen meinen Garten, oder ich beschw50re herauf eine Pest der Heuschrecken und der racoons zum Plagen Ihres Hauses. ", | |
| " GenŸgend " Vashondra schrie. " sprechen Sie Englisch, oder ich brenne Bohrungen durch beide Enden Ihrer alimenterykanŠle. " | |
| Like Vickie has any idea what the german shoppkeeper just told her. "Well, I may as well keep walking," she thought to herself. | |
| And suddenly she came upon the locket lying in the underbrush. She looked around but saw no one near to whom it may belong. She picked it up to examine it more closely. On the outside of the silver heart locket engraved were tiny letters. They seemed to be initials. She could tell the locket was quite old because the engraved letters were as worn as an old nickel you might see at a small-town flea market. P.K., she made them out to say. Vickie repeated the letters out loud to herself as if they might sound more familiar or make strange sense for some odd reason. | |
| Then some weird hairy ape came in an killed her | |
| Weird Harry, as his friends liked to call him, dosed her with a slab of barbecue beef created from his friend's dead carcass. Though he felt a little funny making a meal out of his old friend, Mad Cow, he thought the end justified the means. It took awhile for her to keel over, but he enjoyed watching her demise, which took place over weeks at the remote ranch he and the other beasts occupied. The Disenfranchised Animal Artists' Ranch looked like Noah's ark some days and like a slaughterhouse on other days. She wasn't a bad-looking woman, but she had to go. She kept repeating the 12 steps, along with the 10 commandments, interspersed with the names of all 52 playing cards. When she completed that list, she recited the ingredients in various recipes for ambrosia - the kind made with marshmallows and mandarin oranges. Weird Harry could only take so much. He wasn't sure whose idea it was to bring her here in the first place. Which of the animal artists felt a sudden compulsion for some human sex? He'd have to have a good long talk with that other-species craver. | |
| It was a dark twisted world that Weird Harry lived in. No one came in, and no one came out. People were no more than objects to him, not real feeling beings, just more objects in a world full of bizarre trinkets. His perception of life other than his demented one, of course, was bleak; he often did not understand the function other live things served, and treated them accordingly. But this one, this one was different. The sex question plagued him and he wondered whether or not he himself had been the culprit, and somehow had blocked it out and was trying to deny some urgent physical craving. | |