A-Z

Ashwin berated cranberries decisively, elegantly flouting grotesque harmonies inside jubilant, keratin luminosity. Methodically, Nathan opened prismatic quorums, relentlessly stupefying transfigured undercarriages, violently waggling xenophobic, yelling zealots.

Middling darkness

Wherever Fenforth roamed, the misery followed him. It cast a pall over his waking, and tormented his dreams. Horrible visions of cute puppies and sweet lollipops, smiling children and glorious sunrises! The fact that his suffering was deserved did little to ease his agony, nor dry the cold sweat from his brow. He trudged on.

THE END

Snorts Akimbo

Randomly surveying the interior of six curtained homesteads was hardly a job for Mr. Chronograph, but he had been coerced into this subservient task by his arch-nemesis Vanzo the Vainglorious. Coerced, bullied and handsomely paid. Old Chroney (as the young, handsome and wealthy Mr. Chronograph liked to call himself) was having a splendid time!

"Ah, Old Chroney, what has your magnificent life come to?" he asked himself aloud in the third person. "Why, startling magnificence I would think, Old Chroney!" came his steadfast, yet stertorous, reply.

"Well, if it isn't Vanzo the Vainglorious!" boomed Vanzo, announcing his own entrance.

"For an arch-nemesis you seem to be treating Old Chroney quite well!" bellowed Mr. Chronograph across the cavernous foyer of homestead number four.

"Arch-nemesis smarch-nemesis!" pfawwed Vanzo, "Let's be friends instead!"

"Yes, let's Vanzo and Old Chroney indeed be friends!" exalted Mr. Chronograph.

They celebrated with much snorting and merriment.

THE END

Narcissistic vicissitude

“That's a totally awesome title!” wailed Beverly.

“Yeah, man, like, whatever,” breathed Karl.

The euphonic tones of a belittling harpsichord eased beyond the wafting drone of a bagpipe. Little caring for the state of mind of poor Mrs. Wannabe, the voluminous chords arced crescendingly, crashing desultorily into tonal oblivion.

“That's a totally awesome tune!” caterwauled Beverly.

“Yeah, man, like, whatever,” decanted Karl, “and enough with the wailing and caterwauling already. If I was more cliched, I'd say you're harshing my buzz... but, instead, I'd have to say you're cradling my wanton hedonism... yeah, totally.”

Arriving late was tantamount to murder. Punctuality ruled. Franklin winced at the belligerent cacophony. La Cucaracha expectorated painfully from the doorbell.

“That's a totally awesome tune!” hissed Beverly.

“Just answer the door, man,” sentenced Karl.

What hideous manner of she-beast was this? Oh, right, Beverly. Franklin disregarded her dishevelment.

“Evening, Mrs. Wannabe,” polited Franklin, as he roughly grabbed Karl and dragged him out the door, and out of their lives forever.

“That's a totally awesome exit!” mused Beverly.

THE END

Throttling gargoyles

Rampant screeches filled murky, stifling air. Horrified onlookers gasped, haltingly. Acrid sulfur breathed from openings in the walls, gaping voids resistant to frantic grasping. Eyes like burning embers glared mercilessly from each corner, further detail hidden by clamouring darkness.

An engine growled to life, slicing the scene with cacophany. Was this the heroism required? No. A cowardly escape instead. Bodies went limp as hope died, and a final cry was heard.

THE END

Fanciful letters

Wherever his golden stamina conveyed him, it never seemed to be enough. Never. Why was it that Francesca always seemed to be avoiding him, just when his hilarity quotient peaked? It seemed more than coincidental, more than fateful. Some kind of conspiracy perhaps? Very likely.

Zen was hard to look at. He thought he was so damn funny! I mean, sure, that thing with the cumquat and bowling ball was pretty clever. But the sycophants who girt him with their supercilious perforations were beyond nauseating. Better to avoid him and his "posse" entirely. Definitely.

Arthur the Forgotten wrote letters. Many, many letters. He never sent them, of course. Sheer bravado! Artistic endeavour polluted by the act of transmission! His fancy ran free. Free to decipher the wonders of Zen's circuitous mind. Free to bathe in the splendour of Francesca's decisiveness. They were worthy muses.

THE END

(Thanks to Em for the reprint rights)

Bravo, gumby crimelord

["This is just a title in search of a story, isn't it?" the narrator asked himself.

"What do you think all these blog entries are?" he replied.

"Self referentialism is so 1992," he dismissed himself, "Get on with a story!"]

The balding tyres squealed in agony as Bravo arced through the intersection, sirens close behind.

These pigs ain't gonna catch me! he thought to himself in cliched gangster.

A surprisingly dull high-speed chase later, Bravo sat relaxing in his club, the sounds of pursuit receding rapidly into the distance.

Aah, a job well done, Bravo was congratulated by his own mind.

THE END

Fish and their Mums

"Where do you think you're going?" questioned Marvin's Mum.

"Out." replied Marvin simply.

"Well that's all right then." continued Marvin's Mum.

"Good." said monosyllabic Marvin.

So Marvin proceeded to flap (or flip, depending on your viewpoint) his tail, and swim out into the calm blue ocean.

"Byeee!!!" called Marvin's Mum in his wake.

"Bye Mum!!!" shouted Marvin back.

THE END

Quintessence

Rapidly the platoon floated whimsically upon the rancid ovoid transport, vapidly pillorying their intransigent neighbours - the Smiths - as was their wont.

"Oh happy day!" warbled Willy Warbler the Warbler.

Spotting his unctuous perfidity, the leopard leapt upon him, besetting him with spots.

Such is the cruelty of nature.

THE END

Frink the dog

"When travelling sideways through the blank letterbox of time, it is often necessary to finagle the balance of your hedge against some other tree trunk, in order to ensure you are categorised adequately in the case of a merciless catharsis."

Frink yawned, as he often did during Dr Rutabaga's hyper-convoluted visionary lectures, and was surprised when an episodic caveman ran juggling through the boudoir located beside him (logically speaking - the boudoir was actually in 18th Century France, where it belonged).

Dr Rutabaga grinned a self-satisfied grin at Frink's surprise,

"If you had been listening to the crap I've been spouting the past six hours, that event would have enlightened, rather than surprised, you."

"Touche" replied Frink, as he peed on a nearby fire hydrant.

THE END

Sedentary Nature

"Stop sitting there!" quailed the ornamental, oriental, accidental pudding.

"But that's what I do!" expectorated Nature.

THE END

Whiney Worry Wart

“Wiggle wiggle,” whispered Whiney with wiles.

“Wander wonderful.” wangled Worry worrisomely.

“Whatever!” weplied Wart.

THE END

Razzle and then some

Cleveland was cool this time of year. Well, cool in a stupefyingly, stultefyingly humid and intensely, inspirationally HOT kind of way. Which was why Horace had decided that this was the way it had to be. For all time.

THE END

Bink-a-tonk-hoy

“Splatter!” spluttered Splitter Splotter.

THE END

Mark my words

"Oh dear!" wailed Finnegan morosely.

He had long since given up on receiving his annual cucumber disbursement and had been planning on getting a good deal on black-market squash instead. However, that rapscallion Grimley had snaffled up the entire local supply and it was looking like a long, squashless winter.

Meanwhile, Grimley began putting his secret army of animated squash to work - on nothing less a task than taking over the world!

Squashina didn't think much of life as a soldier in Grimley's militia, and had her own plans to foil Grimley's dastardly plot. These plans, though, will not be revealed until the next instalment : "Figure of speech"...

THE END

Martini

"Pickles McLachlan here, Sir. I just received your call."

"Good, Pickles. We need your special talents down here immediately."

"I'm on my way!"

A hasty taxi ride, a short pogo stick romp and an interminable jog had Pickles at the crime scene within days. By the time he arrived, everyone had left the area and, in fact, the crime had been solved. It had been under the washing machine the whole time!

An hour later, Pickles sat in the Rusty Smog, his favourite all-you-can-eat restaurant, sipping a martini out of a bucket.

THE END

Sorghum pasties

Greg wasn't achieving much with the mortar and pestle as he viciously, sickeningly wrenched the green goo from its antithetic hiding place. He continued trying, nonetheless. It wasn't so much the frying as the ketchup that bothered him. His Aunt Theba had said there'd be blue pants like these, though, so he was reasonably well prepared. Except for the lumpy grenade, but that turned out to be porridge, in any case, so won't be mentioned here.

"Augur well!!!" wailed the field of pasties (so it sounded more like "Auuugur weeeeellll !!!", but that was probably obvious, so I'm just irritating you with this exposition. I can stop it if you like... Oh, you would?... Fair enough). Enormous egg-like explosions garnished the pasties with sorghum, as they slowly died, gasping, gasping, recovering a little, wheezing, snorkelling and, finally, breathing their last.

Cement Cadillac

"Oooh... aren't we the clever one!" shouted Mandy, very sarcastically.

"Shut up!" screeched Sam distractedly, as a large volume of cement poured steadily into the passenger seat of his Cadillac.

Norghul, the gramlak, thought this was very entertaining behaviour, until his Cadillac passenger seat began similarly filling with cement. Which made Joe laugh, up to the point when the cement covered his head, sitting in Norghul's passenger seat as he was.

THE END

Where Oh where?

“OK, where do you want this?” wheezed the conspiratorial handbag.

“Over by the fastening, behind the lizard.” replied mysterious-figure-numero-uno.

“Sure thing boyo!”

“That’s Boy Oh to you!”

THE END

Edgo the hippo

Edgo manfully (well, hippofully, since he's not a man) shifted the filing cabinet, revealing the faded, tattered slip of paper which had fallen to the floor and been blown underneath the cabinet by a mysterious gust of otherworldly wind.

[The narrator pauses to gulp for air after that overlong sentence].

When Edgo tried to stand up straight, though, he found his back disagreed strongly with the concept of straightening. He called immediately for his three monkey masseurs.

[A two hour massage session later].

"There. That's better," sighed Edgo as he slumped into his heavily reinforced recliner. "Now where was I?"

[Edgo was dead soon after, his absent-mindedness and tendency to amnesia making him easy pickings for a disgruntled hyena who Edgo had helped send to prison].

THE END