PERNA BLA -
An epic tale of epic proportions
Staggering blindly across the burning
desert, far now from the smouldering ruins of the city, her sole possessions
tied in a spotty bag on the end of a stick except for Loppo her pink fluffy
bunny who hopped smiling along beside her,
Perna Bla remembered her uncle Distrin Gad's parting words to her just
before he slid into the bubbling crevasse; "Go, my child! You must leave all this behind! There is a bold destiny before you, of
heroism and cowardice, love and hate, yin and yang, salt and pepper! You must embrace your destiny with both
arms, and indeed, armies that you will surely gather around you to achieve the
destiny that is your end, as though it were your destiny! Never be unflinching in your fight to battle
the hordes of Squaq, for surely he is the devil himself in that ridiculous
metal mask he wears so you know he is the evil one!"
"But I'm only fwee," had
protested Bla.
"And you must remain free, my child,
to battle the fight against the evil hordes who would deny you the destiny that
is your destiny! You must aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ~squelch~
bubble"
Perna Bla cursed the childish speech
impediments she had been written with and besides, she was 18. Ish.
Plodding now across the desolation and scrub, she had barely begun to
ponder on the absurdity of the pink fluffy bunny who, although merely a cuddly
toy, was still hopping along with her - how did he do that, when he merely a
sack of wool stuffed with straw in a vaguely rabbitoid shape? - when a shadow
fell over her. She looked up.
Volquiss! The evil one's pet veagle had tracked her down! Here she was, in the middle of the desert
with no cover, and the vicious rubberywinged spikeyfeathered carboniferous bird-like-type
thing was swooping down upon her, talons stretched and sparkling in the
evernoon sun as though she were naught but a sandmouse!
---------------------------------------
"ACTUALLY," iced
the voice The Author had come to think of as his own personal persecutor,
"I quite like sandmice! What makes
you think they're so naught
but?"
Sandmice? But I made it up, thought the Author.
"Bubbling
Crevasse! Bold Destiny! And what ridiculous names!" continued
Bella Pondweed Boyle, sterning him down with her dreaded stern. "Get out of my class at once!"
The Author slowly slunk out
of the story he had written - and would continue writing, whatever the flimps
and margins the intelligentsia of his world threw at him - and faded from
immediate view, from whence he would probably emerge momentarily and then only
in times of great stress or times of not great stress.
"What about me?"
"About you, Perna Bla,
this is nothing more to be said in this class.
Go and find something to do in the rest of the story."
Perna Bla used the door in
the manner to which it had become accustomed, this particular time in exiting
mode. To a door there are only two
places to be, inside it or outside it, and by keeping a careful count this door
was happy in the knowledge that it knew exactly how many people were
where. Let us not point out to it the
number of people who go out or come in via the window, thus upsetting its
contentment, for the room to which this door led had no windows, nor any other
door, and we shall not see this room again, for it has little reality, and that
only for as long as it is useful. Let
us instead ask the door in which of the two places itself resides, thus taking
up all its pondering time with seeking the answer to this question.
There, now it is so zenned
out it is vanishing, which is why we shall not see the room again, our last
glimpse being of Bella Pondweed Boyle turning upon the rest of her class,
nostrils flaring - she still hadn't found the money for rhinoplasty - as she
prepares to vent her neuroses on the poor, quivering wretches who have paid
good money to have their dreams torn apart and surrendered to the shredder.
Coo, this is a bit different
from that desert he's been writing me in for the past fifteen years (hence her
advanced years for a fwee-year-old), thought Bla, I must immediately taste the
pleasures of such a world, for I have in my spotty bag the entire fortune of my
uncle Distrin Gad in the form of coins of tin, notes of wood and milk bottle
tops which must surely be treasures beyond worth in any world. Look at all those big white buildings with
futuristic industrial steaming pipes all over the place, and all the flying
cars and pedestrian walkways in the air with aren't there at all. For Perna Bla was a product of her author's
imagination, stilted by many years of reading all the bad science fiction he
could find, yet with all his bottled hedonism tucked away, which she could now
let out, being finally in a world where such things were possible, rather than
the city of Atlympisfard which had been a thin crib of all the legendary cities
ever where everybody wore sheets and spoke in stately tones and which had been
razed to the ground countless times. So
she went for the first pub she could find.
Meanwhile…
A cat is a wonderful thing
to be, perched high up in a chumbley tree, thought Ganap, who was a cat,
perched high up in a chumbley tree with tail curled neatly around feet, for
cats can sit neatly in high places and get fed Pussyum and people pick you up and
cuddle you and if you don't feel like it at the moment you just have to wriggle
a bit and jump down, and they think it's adorable because cats only want
cuddles when they want cuddles, they're almost human aren't they? Hardly, I don't go rooting around in
dustbins[1] like those two down there.
"Nope, not in
here," proclaimed Soob, thrusting all the wrappers, teabags and slimy
things of unsure origin back into the bin.
"Not here either,"
said Dennis, scooping detritus back into the drain and replacing the cover by
dropping it on his toe.
"It must be around
somewhere, unless he's trying to be experimental and ending up just being
self-indulgent."
"I favour the latter, you
know what he's like. He came oozing
through just a second ago while you had your head in the bin, scribbling away
in his little notebook. You should have
seen him, his pockets are full of scraps of paper, cigarette packets, and he's
got several looseleaf folders hanging from his belt. You'd think he'd write himself a van to carry it all around
in."
"I thought it was his
Creative Writing Class on Fridays," said Soob, to remind you who it was
speaking now. "Why can't he stay
out of things and let us get on with it?"
"I'll bet he's got it
tucked away in his jacket somewhere.
Next time he vibes in I'll try to get it off him."
"Oh well, maybe we'd
better just get on with our meagre lives and perhaps it may pop up somewhere,
it usually does in these things."
"You haven't been a
fictional character very long, have you?"
"Look, I'm past caring. I've been through a squillion bins,
wastepaper baskets, cupboards under the stairs and I even searched a nun, but
if the plot needs us, it's just going to have to come to us. We'd better be in it after all this."
Dennis picked up his trusty
guitar and strummed an approximation of a chord. "Fancy a busk while we're waiting?"
Soob grumpily kicked her
accordion before strapping it on and playing a strangled fanfare. "Might as well, let's get down to the
Hub, people are mad there and might throw us enough pennies to get drunk."
They toddled off, writing
another three-chorder as they went, and Ganap settled down to a long nap; it
had been at least ten minutes since her last one. Below her a pillar box materialised and a head looked out, peered
around, shook itself as if to indicate a negative and popped back in. The pillar box dematerialised.
Later that night confirmed
hedonist Perna Bla would arrive, much the better for alcoholic experience, at the
abode of Eoyra and Mirtand, who, being dry and flaky from excess themselves and
recognising a kindred spirit (not to mention a spirited kinder), would oblige
the pickled one with a broom cupboard for the resting of her person, it having
no brooms in it due to them being in the garage where one generally keeps one's
mode of transport. Thus would be formed
the trinity of the Psyclone Psysters, but before that many things would happen
to many people, none of which are documented here. Instead, we meet Bobswell, who, in his donkey jacket and wellies,
is sitting in his coal cellar studying the ethics of boredom.
"Pretty boring
this," he thought, immediately cursing himself for causing such a
significant effect as a sudden realisation to mar the dinginess. Bob liked to think of himself as a very
boring person, which is why he was sitting in his coal cellar not doing things,
little thinking that the very fact of his obsession with being boring actually
made him out of the ordinary and, ipso
fatso, slightly interesting.
However, Bob was too boring to understand this, and continued to sit in
his coal cellar. Beyond his ken, and
peeping through a knothole in the cellar doors, a line of children snaked
around his weed garden, weaving around the giant snapdragon (which was sulking
because nobody would come close enough to provide a snack after its first hasty
lunge which sent two or three brave adventurers blubbing home with scraped
knees) and trailing out of the dangling gate where hung a sign scrawled on cardboard
with a red crayon proclaiming "See
the Boring Man 10p a glimpse".
Beside it stood Damien Potts, little brother of his big brother, his
pockets heavy with coin threatening to expose his Ultra Boy undies. At the other gate, provided by several
missing slats in the fence, an awe-struck crowd had gathered comparing notices,
much along the lines of "Coo!
Wasn't he boring?" and "What a pillock!" So it can be seen from this that Bobswell
was failing spectacularly in his attempt to be The Most Boring Person in the
Universe.
Damien had just begun to
tear the lining of his shorts so as to provide an extra pocket for his cash
overflow when he heard mutters of disquiet rippling their way back along the
queue, along the lines of "He's doing something interesting!",
"What was that thing anyway?" and "What a rip-off!" With the good sense he had not been born
with, he picked up his sign and disappointed the waiting punters.
"That's all for today
folks, the cleaners are waiting to start work, open for business tomorrow,"
he lied, and beat a hasty retreat before the befuddled could begin to protest,
or realise that now they could get in for free so what were they paying for in
the first place?
The event which had caused
the unrest in the ranks was implausible, absurd and, as has been mooted, not at
all boring, though for Bobswell it was rather upsetting. He had been continuing to sit in his coal
cellar unaware and, despite himself, feeling pretty good about the whole thing,
when a pillar box suddenly materialised before him. At first merely startled, he swiftly rose to anger at the
intrusion.
"Who dares to be
interesting in my coal cellar?" he roared.
In answer a woman of
indeterminate age in a white lab coat emerged from the little door the posties
collect the letters from.
"It is I, the Goodly
Doctrix," she truthed. "I
seek the Most Boring Person in the Universe."
Great delight gripped the papier-maché heart of the Almost Completely Not Interesting One, and he
bellowed, "Then you have found him!
It is I, Bobswell, Assistant Corporation Gardener which must surely be
the most boring job in the world!"
"Bobswell? Not THE Bobswell?"
"Probably."
"The Bobswell whose
name is emblazoned in wood upon the walls of the halls of The Boring Society of
Dumbleford?"
"Er, yes. I used to live there."
"Gosh, that's
interesting."
As the words hung in the air
between them, an icy coldness gripped the decaying-vegetable-matter heart of
the Bob, and the Goodly Doctrix hmmmed.
Shrugging her shoulder pads, she turned and vanished into the interior
which seemed much bigger than the exterior as the first tear began to trickle
from Bob's nose, only to vaporise in the receding wake of dematerialisation.
As if in a daze, which he was, Bob
performed the necessary motions to plod his wellies up the steps to the house
proper, where he would spend the rest of the night in the company of a bottle
of vinegar not watching the television he didn't have, but it was no use,
however boring he continued to be he knew he would never be able to forget the
moment he had been A Little Bit Interesting to someone, whoever she was. Maybe he could be the Second Most Boring
Person in the Universe?