... broke wind, adjusted his cod piece and stumped over to the unflapable Madame Butterfly. "I prefer snooker, but Eight Ball's good enough for me." He then unscrewed his peg leg and chalked up the end, asking "Do you mind if I break?"
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... broke wind, adjusted his cod piece and stumped over to the unflapable Madame Butterfly. "I prefer snooker, but Eight Ball's good enough for me." He then unscrewed his peg leg and chalked up the end, asking "Do you mind if I break?"
To which the glaring Madame Butterfly replied, "You may break, sailor man, but you'll lose game after game, for you haven't a leg to stand on against me!"
And so, the ball breaking began. The outcome of the first seven games...................
... total domination by Madame Butterfly and her mad eight-ball skills. Dejected, defeated and deflated, Ahab hopped his way over to a leather wingback chair, flopped down in it and reattached his wooden appendage.
Bob, quick to take up the gauntlet, stepped forward, thumped his chest with his fist and declared, "I, Bodacious Bob, do challenge you, Madame Butterfly! And, will emerge victorious where Ahab failed to cut the mustard!" Unimpressed, she fixed Bob with a smoldering glare of such saucy salaciousness, Wee Tommy broke out into a sweat. "Bring it on then, Bobby! Let's see what you got!"
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, someone was beating a dead horse of another color. On the other hand, she wore a glove and the shoe was on her other foot, while she waited for the other one to drop. And, although it was just a drop in the bucket, she kicked it and was pushing up daisies from six feet under. Yet, he felt a little under the weather, or not, to be sure. :confused:
Glistening ripples spread acroos the surface of the placid, moolit waters near the docks. A dark, squishy mass emerged from the briny depths and scuttled ashore on ten sinuous tentacles, dragging a four foot long, wooden post behind it. The spineless creature made its way carefully up the waterfront, past the Taco del Mar, and into the heart of Techville.
Nary a soul witnessed the strange spectacle of this nocturnal cephalopod, muttering constantly to itself as it dragged the barnacle-covered post to the town square. Nor did anyone see it plant the water-logged post into the soft ground, attach a rumpled piece of parchment to it then leave, as silently as it came.
Wee Tommy awoke early, from his usual spastic bladder, picked himself up from the gutter and staggered bleary-eyed to the public toilets next to the town square. On his way there he noticed, or rather, he ran into a strange, soggy post, with a notice on it that read: "BUMP!"
<The mad laughter of squids in the distance.> :eek:
Of course, the sodden sailor was blurry-eyed and, well, sodden with alcohol, so he thought it read 'Dump', which brought his present conditon to mind and he hurried off to do his morning ablutions.
It was the sharp-eyed (and always sharp-witted) Madame Butterfly who finally got to the post and read the message thereon.
"Someone or something expects to take me for a sucker", she mused, "but this old gal has seen this Kraken humour before, and I didn't laugh then either. It may well be calamari time again!"
Returning to the bar, she began searching the kitchen for a large pot and a sharp knife.
Meanwhile, a much less distressed Ahab was returning from the loo, and...................
... realized he had been Wee Tommy on the way to the loo and, yet, was now the barnacular Ahab. How had this happened? What was going on?
The world began to spin crazily about his head, while strange, conflicting thoughts and emotions raced through his feverish brain.
"I yam what I yam!"
"Nae! Wee Tommy I be!"
Ahab... Tommy... Captain... Wee!...
Ahab became aware of a strange presence, a sinister entity who, somehow, appeared to be inside his skull. It was the vestigial remains of his unborn twin, still attached to his brain stem like some evil, sentient parasite manipulating his thoughts. Then, a familiar voice echoed in his mind.
"Och, laddie! You've found me out now, have ya? 'Tis true enough, though. We are one and the same, you and I, Captain Ahab and Wee Tommy." :devil:
"No!" he screamed, "It can not be! It is inconceivable!"... :eek:
And it truly was, for not 5 seconds after Wee Tommy had wended his wobbling way to the outhouse, our satyrated sailor-man had himself made a zig-zagged trail to that very same spot.
Finding the 'his' taken, and being in dire need, he made use of the 'hers'.
An so it was that, as Wee Tommy exited his commode, so too did Ahab, and, seeing the staggering Scot (or sot?), he murmured low right behind him, 'I am Ahab, I am Ahab', which caused the episode as detailed above.
Thus, when Wee Tommy cried "No! It can not be! It is inconceivable!", the old salt leapt upon his back and pummelled him a good one or seven, shouting, 'Of course it canna be ye dimwwit. You are you and I are I, or summit like that!'.
This confusing part of their morning was interrupted by.........
...Auntie Mags, who wonders what she's doing in the Men's Loo? And has been away so long, that she's lost it ...
Looking around for some demure ladies, she espies ....
... Madame Butterfly whetting her cutlery in preparation for a calamari feast. Her glassy, unfocused eyes were fixed upon the far horizon, which was quite a feat considering she stood in a windowless kitchen, deep in the bowels of Castle Carlysle on the Moors.
"Sching!" the razor-edged knife rang, each time she swiped it across the whetstone, with smooth and deceptively easy strokes. The pale olive-hued flesh of her delicate hands contrasted sharply with the stark white of the knife's ivory hilt and glistening steel blade.
Petronella, straightening her somewhat dishevelled attire, entered the kitchen with the spry barmaid in tow. Spotting the distracted Madame Butterfly, they exclaimed...
There was a hollow wooden "THUNK" as the rusty spade struck something beneath the slick dark earth. Pausing to wipe his nose on a filthy sleeve, Scungeon Foulpester, the aged parish sexton, stood (or stooped) perplexed. He leant the spade against the side of the open grave in which he was standing (or stooping) and ran his dirty fingers through the matted and greasy yellowy-grey stings that passed for hair atop his toothless skull.
"Ere.." he wheezed, "Ain't sposed t'be no box in this ere plot. Not yet, any ow."
He clutched the spade for support, and with a noise like the crushing of egg shells, he slowly made his way to his knees and began scooping the foetid wet soil from the lid of the unexpected coffin.
Gradually a brass plaque emerged from the dirt. Scrintching up his rheumy eyes, Scungeon traced his fingers slowly over the letters trying mouth the sounds, "p... p.... p.... aa..... aa.... an..... d... d... do.... dor.... aa."
"Ere.." he sputtered suddenly, "That mean all gold, don' it."
With arthritic excitement, he pulled an ancient pocket knife from his shabby pocket and began to work loose the death's-head-figure screws in the lid. As he prised the top half of the lid open with glacial effort, a boney appendage trailing bits of rotting flesh reached out and handed him a URL: http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=73397 .
Scungeon, startled out of the few wits he possessed, knelt frozen, gums agape, staring down at the incomprehensible object in his filthy hands.
Suddenly the resounding bang of the coffin lid being pulled shut brought him to his limited senses.
"Ere..." he gasped.. "Vicar'll know what t'make a this."
He pulled himself up on the spade and with snail-like speed scrambled up and out of the open grave.
As he headed off through the yellowy mist towards the vicarage, he was suddenly troubled by a dim recollection of a long distant maternal figure boxing his ears and spit-scrubbing his childhood, Sunday-school face and hands.
He paused momentarily to wash his hands up against a dying oak, and then shaking the dribble from the URL he carried, he shuffled on to see the vicar in sure and certain hope.
____________________________________________
http://forums.windrivers.com/images/.../2010/07/1.jpg
It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!
Quote:
Originally Posted by houseisland
...in sure and certain hope that the URL would 'be saved' ... I mean as on the 28th October, it will be all of three years old! Can one believe that?
The vicar saw Scungeon Foulpester approaching and turned to that most helpful book .....
....the Sears-Roebuck 1932 catalogue, tore off a page, wiped and then rearranged his robes.
After absent-mindedly washing his hands in the nearby bowl, he went to greet his unwelcome grave digger.
Throwing open the rectory door, he said...........
.....'I didn't expect to see the Vicar of Dibley here ... do come in, dear'
To which she replied ...