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« on: September 14, 2010, 01:37:11 am »
Today is a most exasperating day. A few days ago, I was gallivanting along through the jungle, minding my own business, and suddenly I came along and found Cousin Eustace in, of all things, an oaken cage. The dear fellow, yes, a bit scatterbrained, but a dear fellow none-the-less, apologies, the dear fellow said that he was minding his own business and had stepped into what he claimed was a cleverly concealed trap. I expressed my doubts and got quite the rude reply from him. I examined the cage a bit, but could see no way of extracting my chum. You would think that he could simply break a flimsy little cage such as the one he was in, but this was apparently not the case.
"Tough luck, old boy" thought I and began to continue along my path as I had places to be. It was then that I stepped into a cage trap of my own; Eustace thought this quite the laugh, the stupid git. He spent the rest of the evening mocking me quite thoroughly until we each fell asleep. As a mercy, he fell asleep first so that I could at least fall asleep without being serenaded with his feeble attempts at wit. I awoke the next day to find Eustace and his cage both gone. This was an unexpected twist and a pleasant one at first. As time went by, I began to see things differently. Between the both of us, we might have eventually figured a way out of this predicament, but, alas, this was a much more difficult proposition with only one of us about. Beyond that, well, he was still company even if it was exceedingly annoying company.
I began to feel quite sorry for myself as one will and thought for a while that this might be my permanent lot in life. How quickly I would come to miss those quiet moments. My solitary existence continued on for a while longer and finally came to an end when a stocky creature approached. Upon inspection, it was one of those... those diggy, bebearded provincial types. Dwargs? Dorfs? Something along those lines. He chattered at me in a inane would-be language that I couldn't make out. It sounded something like "Man, you're a big un, ain'tcha!" I remain unaware to this day as to what he said, but I suspect it was unflattering. Oh, I do so wish that I had attended to Uncle Frederick's language classes rather than watching birds.
Ah, but I digress. So there we remained staring eye to eye for a time. My eyes must have been decieving me that day; while I can clearly recall what my apparent captor was wearing, what he was carrying in his right hand (a sort of stick and tusk combination, a tuskstick, if you will), and even how he was missing his back left tooth, I have the oddest impression that he was shimmering the entire time. How the mind plays tricks on one in times of stress!
He muttered something that I did not catch, but which I interpreted to mean that fetching me back to whatever den of inequity he sprang from was his current purpose in life. I admit, I began laughing at the poor fool for this. I've seen these creatures before with their wagons and imbecilic muskoxen (that might seem harsh, but have you ever tried having a conversation with one?) and I could not imagine how he could possibly accomplish this mission without them. I quickly shut up when he reach out his left hand and hoisted the cage onto the corresponding shoulder with a single motion.
"CAD!" I said, "BOUNDER! Respect the laws of physics, you bearded mendicant!" While it seemed to accomplish little more than amuse him, I continued to abuse him verbally all the way back to his "mountainhome" or "footrest". This collection of hovels, this wretched hive of bearded villainy, this... this hole in the ground. Mountainhome, my foot! Footrest, my sainted spinster aunt's trunk! This place is little more than a massive, smoking pit in the ground with a massive collection of assorted objects surrounding it on all sides. One such collection that we passed housed a collection of cages, containing Eustace, that great braying jackass, who laughed at me so hard that his cage shook.
Even now, days later, another such collection currently contains myself along with as odd a menagerie as one might ever see. Crocodiles of all varieties, salt, fresh, cave, bears of various shapes and colors, and what appear to be thirty or forty dogs stacked in a single cage. My heart goes out to them even if they don't seem distressed about it in the least. My nearest neighbors are, of course, all muskoxen, who spend the majority of their time making up chants about something called goblinball. Confound it all.
Next time: Reginald begins his career OR A elephant never forgets. To kill.
