The beginning of this story is currently missing and so begins somewhere in the middle. To be fair, it is the beginning of the middle and so is, in a way, the beginning. Just not the beginning of the story. However, due to the absence of the beginning it follows that the paragraph you are reading is indeed the true beginning as nothing precedes it. Therefore, the story starts at two places at once, making it logically impossible and might simply be the product of a deranged mind ruling the cosmos because it has nothing better to do.
--------------------------------
He stared at the phone, and in some strange way it seemed to stare back. Talnem phones are different from earth phones, because they are in fact conscious beings from the Lurb continent who are paid to relay messages from point A to point B. The fact that they are shaped exactly like regular earth phones is purely coincidental, and on no account should anyone look deeply into this strange relationship between Earth and Talnem.
Slowly, painfully, John reached down and picked it up, pressing each button in the order of the correct number leading to his doom. It started to ring; he had hoped it was broken or busy.
It made the funny little clicking noise that indicated someone had picked the phone on the other end up, and yet no-one answered. After a 3 second silence that might have lasted for a 100 years, John decided to lead and spoke quietly into the phone.
“Ah, hello?”
“lol”
It took John a moment or two to digest that. His facial expressions had morphed from shock, to curiosity, and finally settled on the familiar total confusion. Perhaps “lol” was the new cool thing to say.
“Er yeah,” he continued “listen, is Melissa in? I need to-“
“ROFLLOLZERS!”
And then the line went dead. John stared at nothing for a while, decided to shift his weight from foot to foot for a bit, looked up at the ceiling, squinted, looked down at the floor, and finally ignored everything that had happened in the past five minutes and made himself a jam sandwich. He was about to head back to his room when the phone rang again. He picked it up.
“John? Are you Ok?” A voice said immediately; it was Sleeve, a friend of his.
“Well yeah, I guess. What’s going-“
‘Spam! Don’t eat any spam!”
“What!? Huh?”
“Just don’t! We’re coming to get you! Get dressed and pack food, we’ll be there in ten minutes!”
And once again the phone hung up. Well, Ok, fine, perhaps people just didn’t say goodbye anymore. But this was getting quite scary now; he had never heard Sleeve use so many exclamation marks before.
Following the mysterious instructions, he packed as much food as possible into an old suitcase that had been lurking in the undergrowth of his bedroom. In fact he packed everything he could apart from the mysterious spam, which in any case was out of date by a few years. When food goes off on Talnem, it tends to develop a few magical properties such as fighting back when you try to eat it.
The door rang. Then it burst open.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KICK A DOOR DOWN.”
“Yes, but the general idea is not to ring the bell first”
“John!?”
Three figures entered the house, well, not quite; one of them got stuck in the doorway. After an embarrassing 5 seconds the largest of the three broke free, taking the doorframe with it. John was, quite understandably, a little miffed.
“What the heck did you do to my door!?” enquired John.
A small fat figure presented itself. In the gloom of the night, it was hard to tell who was who or who was what or why. But John was quite sure who it was.
“Sleeve?” he asked “What’s going on? Who are these people, what was with that phone call, and who the ruddy hell is paying for my door?”
The thing known as Sleeve looked up at him. Sleeve was not a human. In fact, no-one really knew what Sleeve was on the account that he hid himself underneath endless layers of bright multi colored bandages, making him look like the absurd combination of a fat Egyptian mummy and a rainbow. The colors were currently easier on the eyes, given that it was dark.
“Well,” came the strangely dry voice of Sleeve “The horrible truth, the mad reality, is…” he paused dramatically, holding the world at its breath, “The terrible, horrible truth… is a secret as I honestly don’t have a clue. But people are eating other people and talking strangely so let’s get out of here before we become lunch. And stuff.” Finished Sleeve lamely, with a sort of shrug that conveyed that the madness of life is something you shouldn’t really question and the best you can do is just get on with it. Yes, it was a rather informative shrug indeed.
“Wow” said John “That’s just… wow.”
“I figured you didn’t want to get eaten. So I contacted you. And stuff”
“Thanks. But did you have to wreck the door?” asked John, giving a disdainful glance at the rectangle hole in the wall which opened up to the night.
“I didn’t. I’m rather fond of doors. No, it was this guy who broke the door down.” Sleeve said, pointing to an enormous figure looming in the background like some great big swamp giant from the land of Nooge. This was, primarily, down to the fact that it was indeed a great big swamp giant from the land of Nooge.
The creature approached John and gave a nod. Then he spoke, with a voice that could stop a charging Elephant in its tracks (Not that this has been tested in real life. This is simply a rather clever literary device that highlights the power of the character, and… oh right the story. Yeah.).
“MY NAME IS URG. I AM A SWAMP GIANT FROM THE LAND OF NOOGE. I LIKE FLOWER ARRANGING AND BOULDERS. MY HOBBIES INCLUDE-“
This continued for about half an hour, where Urg went into great depth about his hobbies and interests, and even gave a few detailed insights about his opinions on modern light bulbs. Nobody had the heart, or courage, to stop him mid-lecture, so they just stood there and listened to it. As it droned on in an impossibly powerful voice, John started to wonder what kind of subject a swamp giant would study in a university. Probably moss.
After it was over John quickly addressed the final member of the group, who was lurking in the corner and had so far not said a word. Well, thought John, at least he is a human. Hopefully we can have one normal person in this rather unusual social gathering.
“Well, if I exist, which I’m pretty certain I do, then this collection of sensory perceptions goes under the name of Walmart. That, I believe, is the name you shall call me.”
It was much worse than ten swamp giants combined.
It was a philosopher.
“Hi” said John with a false smile. He turned to Sleeve “So what’s the plan? What do we do?”
“Simple. We make it up as we go along.”
--------------------------------
Sleeve was not just famous for his bizarre appearance. He was considered by many as one of the best students of Magineering (basically a mixture of engineering and magic) ever to study at Weavereed University, and often showed off his work in the form of insane motor vehicles that could quite easily top 100mph, providing they didn’t hit anything along the way. They usually did.
John, Sleeve, Urg and Walmart all sat in Sleeves pride and joy, Burning-thunder, a 6 wheeled iron menace that could quite happily drive through a brick wall. It was hardly a nimble thing, but Sleeve said he had picked it because it was extremely tough, was the only one of his contraptions that could accommodate Urg, and most importantly because it looked cool.
Burning-thunder drove through the entrance (literally) of the university and into the great beyond. Well, actually, it was just a load of grassland. There’s nothing really great about that at all, when you think about it. Unless you like grass.
“I LIKE GRASS. IT IS GREEN.” Commented Urg, with the social grace of a stuttering leper being held in court for the massacre of an entire kingdom. This is of course an exaggeration, and on no account does the author of this story believe that lepers are mean people. It is simply a metaphor, and one can go into great depth about how lepers have contributed to society, and how their positive influence has been felt the world over. For instance, if it hadn’t been for Lepers, we would never have invented the cure for leprosy.
“Yes, grass is interesting…” replied John. “Sleeve, do you have a radio? I want to know what’s going on with all of these cannibal people”
Sleeve looked over his shoulder at John, and with the hand he wasn’t steering with pointed to a blue cord hanging down next to John. “Pull that cord,” asked Sleeve “It activates the radio transmission. I configured it so it automatically connects to the location service channel. And stuff.” Pulling the cord, John was surprised to hear a sharp voice speak into his left ear.
“…and on no account should you approach them, friends or family. Stay locked up. We aren’t entirely sure why, but it seems as though long words drive them off. And also, if you encounter one wearing a crown then you have to- ARGH!!!” A blood curdling scream ripped through the speakers, and was followed by solid silence. John, Urg and Walmart exchanged looks.
“You don’t think that-“
But no sooner had John begun than a new sound came from the speaker. It rasped a little, static playing from the speakers. And then, John heard the same voice he had heard on the telephone this morning…
“lol”
Sleeve suddenly stopped burning-thunder and turned around in his seat; everyone focused on the speaker, stunned. It spoke again.
“LOLZERS ROFLMAO OMG!!!”
And then the radio went dead.
“Um…”
“Wow…”
“…”
“THAT WAS SCARY.”
Sleeve flicked a couple of switches on the front control panel and asked John to pull the cord again. Nothing but static. He swore.
“What,” he said quietly “was that?”
No-one spoke. It was hardly one of those respectful silences for the man who had just died over the radio. It was one of those silences which indicated that no-one had a clue what was going on, and were half expecting someone to leap out shouting “April fools!” Unfortunately, it was Joob (the 13th month).
“I am experiencing a sensation in my brain that indicates, although I can never be certain, that I have a good idea. Let us ask the Meat Thinker.”
--------------------------------
On Talnem, the bacon-dex is nothing short of legendary, although most people are not aware that the talking books which have cropped up all over different parts of history are in fact the same book, and that this book is, for whatever reasons, mainly made out of bacon.
Despite the mysterious past, anyone in ownership of the bacon-dex will not deny that it is an extremely useful device. It can give vast amounts of information about any subject you care to ask it, is virtually indestructible, and easily fits into a pocket. Sometimes it gives information about events that haven’t even happened yet.
The bacon-dex has had many names throughout history and was currently known as the Meat Thinker. It had somehow found its way into Weavereed University, where it was being studied by very experienced scientists who wanted to find out how it worked and whether it was actually edible. During the dead of night though someone stole it, and due to an incredibly stupid series of events the bacon-dex traveled through time, got ingested for ten years, witnessed the end of the universe, and found its way back to the current time where it had ended up in the hands of Walmart.
It has had a rather colorful existence.
--------------------------------
There was a long silence after Walmart suggested this. Philosophers said many things, strange disturbing things that should be locked up and thrown into the deepest oceans, but this was particularly strange and so it got it’s very own long awkward pause.
“What,” asked John eventually “Is a meat thinker?” Walmart reached into one of his oversized robes and pulled out a strange, red, book shaped thing that had a strange trapezium shape engraved on the front. He opened it up, clam like, and it revealed a screen, many foreign looking buttons, and two speakers.
Walmart sighed. “I hear it has boundless knowledge, an intelligence that stretches beyond the stars… if only I knew how to work it.”
“It’s broken?” asked Sleeve, who held it to his ear and shook it up and down as if expecting a rattle.
“I don’t think so,” replied Walmart. John noticed he had dropped the mystical voice act and was being, for the first time, intelligible “It’s only the buttons; no-one knows what they mean. Go on, try typing something in and see what pops up.”
Sleeve randomly pressed some buttons, much like a computer worker mashes the keyboard when he pretends to be working very hard; the boss then wonders over and asks why “blkhbkfhbkabfkafbikbfiwaebifkjrg” is all over the screen. The worker lies and says the computer has a virus, and so the entire network is shut-down and everyone gets the day off.
When Sleeve had finished a funny little “fwee!” noise traveled through the air and the meat thinker started talking in a small, mechanical and somehow polite voice. This is what it said;
“The northern mountain fungi ram goat is especially vigorous during the rise of sundown, when the going gets tough be sure to stock up on paper clips!”
“I THINK IT IS RUBBISH.” Supplied Urg helpfully.
End of chapter one. And stuff.
--------------------------------
He stared at the phone, and in some strange way it seemed to stare back. Talnem phones are different from earth phones, because they are in fact conscious beings from the Lurb continent who are paid to relay messages from point A to point B. The fact that they are shaped exactly like regular earth phones is purely coincidental, and on no account should anyone look deeply into this strange relationship between Earth and Talnem.
Slowly, painfully, John reached down and picked it up, pressing each button in the order of the correct number leading to his doom. It started to ring; he had hoped it was broken or busy.
It made the funny little clicking noise that indicated someone had picked the phone on the other end up, and yet no-one answered. After a 3 second silence that might have lasted for a 100 years, John decided to lead and spoke quietly into the phone.
“Ah, hello?”
“lol”
It took John a moment or two to digest that. His facial expressions had morphed from shock, to curiosity, and finally settled on the familiar total confusion. Perhaps “lol” was the new cool thing to say.
“Er yeah,” he continued “listen, is Melissa in? I need to-“
“ROFLLOLZERS!”
And then the line went dead. John stared at nothing for a while, decided to shift his weight from foot to foot for a bit, looked up at the ceiling, squinted, looked down at the floor, and finally ignored everything that had happened in the past five minutes and made himself a jam sandwich. He was about to head back to his room when the phone rang again. He picked it up.
“John? Are you Ok?” A voice said immediately; it was Sleeve, a friend of his.
“Well yeah, I guess. What’s going-“
‘Spam! Don’t eat any spam!”
“What!? Huh?”
“Just don’t! We’re coming to get you! Get dressed and pack food, we’ll be there in ten minutes!”
And once again the phone hung up. Well, Ok, fine, perhaps people just didn’t say goodbye anymore. But this was getting quite scary now; he had never heard Sleeve use so many exclamation marks before.
Following the mysterious instructions, he packed as much food as possible into an old suitcase that had been lurking in the undergrowth of his bedroom. In fact he packed everything he could apart from the mysterious spam, which in any case was out of date by a few years. When food goes off on Talnem, it tends to develop a few magical properties such as fighting back when you try to eat it.
The door rang. Then it burst open.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KICK A DOOR DOWN.”
“Yes, but the general idea is not to ring the bell first”
“John!?”
Three figures entered the house, well, not quite; one of them got stuck in the doorway. After an embarrassing 5 seconds the largest of the three broke free, taking the doorframe with it. John was, quite understandably, a little miffed.
“What the heck did you do to my door!?” enquired John.
A small fat figure presented itself. In the gloom of the night, it was hard to tell who was who or who was what or why. But John was quite sure who it was.
“Sleeve?” he asked “What’s going on? Who are these people, what was with that phone call, and who the ruddy hell is paying for my door?”
The thing known as Sleeve looked up at him. Sleeve was not a human. In fact, no-one really knew what Sleeve was on the account that he hid himself underneath endless layers of bright multi colored bandages, making him look like the absurd combination of a fat Egyptian mummy and a rainbow. The colors were currently easier on the eyes, given that it was dark.
“Well,” came the strangely dry voice of Sleeve “The horrible truth, the mad reality, is…” he paused dramatically, holding the world at its breath, “The terrible, horrible truth… is a secret as I honestly don’t have a clue. But people are eating other people and talking strangely so let’s get out of here before we become lunch. And stuff.” Finished Sleeve lamely, with a sort of shrug that conveyed that the madness of life is something you shouldn’t really question and the best you can do is just get on with it. Yes, it was a rather informative shrug indeed.
“Wow” said John “That’s just… wow.”
“I figured you didn’t want to get eaten. So I contacted you. And stuff”
“Thanks. But did you have to wreck the door?” asked John, giving a disdainful glance at the rectangle hole in the wall which opened up to the night.
“I didn’t. I’m rather fond of doors. No, it was this guy who broke the door down.” Sleeve said, pointing to an enormous figure looming in the background like some great big swamp giant from the land of Nooge. This was, primarily, down to the fact that it was indeed a great big swamp giant from the land of Nooge.
The creature approached John and gave a nod. Then he spoke, with a voice that could stop a charging Elephant in its tracks (Not that this has been tested in real life. This is simply a rather clever literary device that highlights the power of the character, and… oh right the story. Yeah.).
“MY NAME IS URG. I AM A SWAMP GIANT FROM THE LAND OF NOOGE. I LIKE FLOWER ARRANGING AND BOULDERS. MY HOBBIES INCLUDE-“
This continued for about half an hour, where Urg went into great depth about his hobbies and interests, and even gave a few detailed insights about his opinions on modern light bulbs. Nobody had the heart, or courage, to stop him mid-lecture, so they just stood there and listened to it. As it droned on in an impossibly powerful voice, John started to wonder what kind of subject a swamp giant would study in a university. Probably moss.
After it was over John quickly addressed the final member of the group, who was lurking in the corner and had so far not said a word. Well, thought John, at least he is a human. Hopefully we can have one normal person in this rather unusual social gathering.
“Well, if I exist, which I’m pretty certain I do, then this collection of sensory perceptions goes under the name of Walmart. That, I believe, is the name you shall call me.”
It was much worse than ten swamp giants combined.
It was a philosopher.
“Hi” said John with a false smile. He turned to Sleeve “So what’s the plan? What do we do?”
“Simple. We make it up as we go along.”
--------------------------------
Sleeve was not just famous for his bizarre appearance. He was considered by many as one of the best students of Magineering (basically a mixture of engineering and magic) ever to study at Weavereed University, and often showed off his work in the form of insane motor vehicles that could quite easily top 100mph, providing they didn’t hit anything along the way. They usually did.
John, Sleeve, Urg and Walmart all sat in Sleeves pride and joy, Burning-thunder, a 6 wheeled iron menace that could quite happily drive through a brick wall. It was hardly a nimble thing, but Sleeve said he had picked it because it was extremely tough, was the only one of his contraptions that could accommodate Urg, and most importantly because it looked cool.
Burning-thunder drove through the entrance (literally) of the university and into the great beyond. Well, actually, it was just a load of grassland. There’s nothing really great about that at all, when you think about it. Unless you like grass.
“I LIKE GRASS. IT IS GREEN.” Commented Urg, with the social grace of a stuttering leper being held in court for the massacre of an entire kingdom. This is of course an exaggeration, and on no account does the author of this story believe that lepers are mean people. It is simply a metaphor, and one can go into great depth about how lepers have contributed to society, and how their positive influence has been felt the world over. For instance, if it hadn’t been for Lepers, we would never have invented the cure for leprosy.
“Yes, grass is interesting…” replied John. “Sleeve, do you have a radio? I want to know what’s going on with all of these cannibal people”
Sleeve looked over his shoulder at John, and with the hand he wasn’t steering with pointed to a blue cord hanging down next to John. “Pull that cord,” asked Sleeve “It activates the radio transmission. I configured it so it automatically connects to the location service channel. And stuff.” Pulling the cord, John was surprised to hear a sharp voice speak into his left ear.
“…and on no account should you approach them, friends or family. Stay locked up. We aren’t entirely sure why, but it seems as though long words drive them off. And also, if you encounter one wearing a crown then you have to- ARGH!!!” A blood curdling scream ripped through the speakers, and was followed by solid silence. John, Urg and Walmart exchanged looks.
“You don’t think that-“
But no sooner had John begun than a new sound came from the speaker. It rasped a little, static playing from the speakers. And then, John heard the same voice he had heard on the telephone this morning…
“lol”
Sleeve suddenly stopped burning-thunder and turned around in his seat; everyone focused on the speaker, stunned. It spoke again.
“LOLZERS ROFLMAO OMG!!!”
And then the radio went dead.
“Um…”
“Wow…”
“…”
“THAT WAS SCARY.”
Sleeve flicked a couple of switches on the front control panel and asked John to pull the cord again. Nothing but static. He swore.
“What,” he said quietly “was that?”
No-one spoke. It was hardly one of those respectful silences for the man who had just died over the radio. It was one of those silences which indicated that no-one had a clue what was going on, and were half expecting someone to leap out shouting “April fools!” Unfortunately, it was Joob (the 13th month).
“I am experiencing a sensation in my brain that indicates, although I can never be certain, that I have a good idea. Let us ask the Meat Thinker.”
--------------------------------
On Talnem, the bacon-dex is nothing short of legendary, although most people are not aware that the talking books which have cropped up all over different parts of history are in fact the same book, and that this book is, for whatever reasons, mainly made out of bacon.
Despite the mysterious past, anyone in ownership of the bacon-dex will not deny that it is an extremely useful device. It can give vast amounts of information about any subject you care to ask it, is virtually indestructible, and easily fits into a pocket. Sometimes it gives information about events that haven’t even happened yet.
The bacon-dex has had many names throughout history and was currently known as the Meat Thinker. It had somehow found its way into Weavereed University, where it was being studied by very experienced scientists who wanted to find out how it worked and whether it was actually edible. During the dead of night though someone stole it, and due to an incredibly stupid series of events the bacon-dex traveled through time, got ingested for ten years, witnessed the end of the universe, and found its way back to the current time where it had ended up in the hands of Walmart.
It has had a rather colorful existence.
--------------------------------
There was a long silence after Walmart suggested this. Philosophers said many things, strange disturbing things that should be locked up and thrown into the deepest oceans, but this was particularly strange and so it got it’s very own long awkward pause.
“What,” asked John eventually “Is a meat thinker?” Walmart reached into one of his oversized robes and pulled out a strange, red, book shaped thing that had a strange trapezium shape engraved on the front. He opened it up, clam like, and it revealed a screen, many foreign looking buttons, and two speakers.
Walmart sighed. “I hear it has boundless knowledge, an intelligence that stretches beyond the stars… if only I knew how to work it.”
“It’s broken?” asked Sleeve, who held it to his ear and shook it up and down as if expecting a rattle.
“I don’t think so,” replied Walmart. John noticed he had dropped the mystical voice act and was being, for the first time, intelligible “It’s only the buttons; no-one knows what they mean. Go on, try typing something in and see what pops up.”
Sleeve randomly pressed some buttons, much like a computer worker mashes the keyboard when he pretends to be working very hard; the boss then wonders over and asks why “blkhbkfhbkabfkafbikbfiwaebifkjrg” is all over the screen. The worker lies and says the computer has a virus, and so the entire network is shut-down and everyone gets the day off.
When Sleeve had finished a funny little “fwee!” noise traveled through the air and the meat thinker started talking in a small, mechanical and somehow polite voice. This is what it said;
“The northern mountain fungi ram goat is especially vigorous during the rise of sundown, when the going gets tough be sure to stock up on paper clips!”
“I THINK IT IS RUBBISH.” Supplied Urg helpfully.
End of chapter one. And stuff.
