Songs dig holes in the air and sometimes I fall into those holes. I got trapped in a hole made by a song about badgers.
The countryside is full of holes. Many of them are the result of Melanie's songs. When she was young she used to share an ear with her sister. They started singing together. When they sing everyone joins in. People for miles around will sing and they can't stop until they get to the end of a song.
Sometimes strange creatures emerge from the holes. The singers have to keep singing and hope that these creatures don't have sharp claws.
No one pays any attention to the lyrics because they're wondering what's going to swoop down out of the sky and attack them. One of those creatures terrorised everyone in the area for weeks. He came out of a huge hole made by a song about making servants wash themselves at least once a week. This creature used to sniff people. They found this more terrifying than having their hair cut by a monkey (in fairness, the monkey is getting better at cutting hair). We were working on a plan to shoot him down, but his reign of terror came to an end when he started sniffing the fire on top of Maurice's chocolate factory. Maurice keeps it burning to stop helicopters from landing on it. The fumes from the fire would make the monkey faint, but the creature in the sky loved the smell. He's still there, hovering over the factory. Maurice charges tourists who want to see him.
Bertie: If Louise told him to jump off a cliff, would he do that?
Roy: Probably. She told him to become Batman, and he did his best. He came very close to succeeding. He modified his car to make it into a bat mobile, and it nearly killed a swan. He found a nemesis in a Norwegian man, but the Norwegian man was too strong. Bob kept losing their battles. The real Batman wouldn't have done that.
Bertie: Did you really invent it, or did you find it pecking at your head when you woke?
Bob: I invented it.
Bertie: What raw materials did you use?
Bob: Some of the raw materials were things I found pecking my head when I woke, but I also used some glue, some paper and a few raisons.
Roy: My uncle Willie invented something similar a few years ago. Because of the frequency with which his head ends up on the ground, it was only a matter of time before his invention started pecking his head. If you're going to invent something whose only reason for being is to peck things, make sure that its beak isn't sharp enough to make a hole in your head.
Bertie: I've often said so.
Roy: I know. If it makes another hole in your head, something even worse could come out of that. In fact, that creature could have come from a hole you made by singing a song in your sleep.
Bob: No, I invented it.
I see all these insects and I wonder where they're coming from and they probably wonder the same thing about me. I was a cartoon pig when I said that. Picture a cartoon pig and read the first sentence again. Picture a German diplomat and read the previous sentence again. Picture a French chanteuse and read the previous sentence again. Picture a red dot and look up at the ceiling/roof/sky/person-looking-down/void/floor-if-you're-hanging-upside-down. I wouldn't hang upside down if I were you. Picture your doctor and read the previous sentence again. |
Billy is a part-time superhero.
He fights villains and aliens with the other local superheroes. Sometimes their missions are more mundane, like getting cats down from trees or squeezing the water out of birds who get wet in the rain. Sometimes they have to stop the aliens from conducting experiments to answer stupid questions. |
Emily was angry with him
because he told everyone
that she made a wedding dress
for her cat.
He wanted to get back in her good books by doing something superhero-like for her. He asked her if there were any villains bothering her, or aliens annoying her cat. She said that if he wanted to do a favour for her he could find out what her sister is up to. She's hardly ever at home in the evenings, and she always changes the subject when you ask her where she's been. Spying on women is the sort of thing villains would normally do. He got the advice of some villains who owed him a favour after he rescued them from the aliens. They gave him classes in spying on women. He got beaten up many times before he became good at it. After two weeks training he was ready to spy on Emily's sister. He saw her leaving the house wearing a hat and sunglasses, even though the sun had gone down. He followed her to a house about a mile away. When he looked in the window he saw her playing the flute with a band. They performed the songs written by the man who played the xylophone. He used to play with a wedding band who wore top hats. They let the bees in their hats make most of the music. The only reason they played their instruments was to ease the stress of having bees in their top hats. Emily was hoping for something more scandalous than this, but she appreciated all the effort Billy had put in. "It wasn't a wedding dress," she said. "It was her costume for a Renaissance Fair." |
Links. |
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'Darcy and O'Mara' is a novel by Arthur Cronin. Click here to buy the paperback or download the ebook for free. Very Slight Stories Henry Seaward-Shannon The East Cork Patents Office The Tree and the Horse Mizzenwood William Snagpock |
Bibliodyssey Illustration Art Cartoon Modern Doc 40 Local Girl's day in pictures The post-it project Balla Dora Typo-Grafika Why, that's delightful! Bjornik's Pen and Ink |
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