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Once upon a time in a kitchen faraway, a wicked greedy-guts shook his three-fingered fist at our hero in the madcap manner of an angry cartoon. So with classic Tom-&-Jerry nonchalance our hero bashed it over the head with the butt of a frying pan –
BAM!
The wicked glutton wazzled like a just-struck gong then slumped to the tiled floor in a crumpled heap, twitching with fatal spasms – a half-eaten chicken drumstick still wedged between his misshapen gnashers.
As our hero (whose name was Nailer) observed the curvature of the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut, his ears were subjected to a piercing bark. Now on seeing what he saw, Nailer should have quivered like the shaft of an arrow just after impact with the bough of a conker tree – but no.
Swivelling one-eighty degrees on the heels of his boots, his aquamarine eyes fell on what had unleashed the bark: it had the hooves of a billygoat, the legs of a rhino, the wings of a buzzard, the dangling genitalia of a stallion, the torso of an oiled weightlifter, the long neck of a swan, and the head of a snarling badger.
This was indeed a most hideous creature: a thing lifted straight out of a fabulist’s darkest sketchbook. So what did our hero do?
Did he freeze like a hapless pixie who has mislaid his pouch of wonderdust?
Did he wet his knickers and whimper like a pigtailed girlie?
Did he faint dead away and tonk his noggin on the open door of the fridge?
No, of course not. Our hero is a man of steel, a man of granite, a man of titanium, with the heart of a bull and the will of a taxidermist.
This is what Nailer did:
He glanced to his right, and beyond a small crowd of toby jugs and a shield-shaped chopping board he espied some finely polished shears, then in epic slow-motion he grasped their ebony handles, shifted his balance, flexed his heroic knees and dived headfirst at the damned monstrosity with the gusto of a twinkle-eyed swashbuckler –
SNIP
The monster’s head hit the floor with a soft thud – blood gushing from its floppy severed neck. Easy.
It was at that moment that a blackbird pecked on the windowpane above the cooker.
What do you seek, lord of the thicket? Nailer asked, as serene as a still forest pool.
“The pixies are being attacked by a gang of club-wielding brutes!” croaked the blackbird, flapping its wings, shedding feathers. “They need your help, Nailer!”
Roaring with the crackling menace of a Balrog-infested bonfire, our hero saddled his snorting hippopotamus (which was scratching its hefty hindquarters on the edge of the tumble dryer) and smashed through the backdoor into the golden daylight, snapping together the glinting blades of his shears like a scissor man of yore.
It wasn’t long before he arrived at the pixies’ woodland retreat, which was known as the Trulipearl Glade, and what did his aquamarine eyes behold?
Did they see a thirty-strong crew of slavering brutes running amuck? – no.
Did they see battered pixie corpses strewn all over? – nope.
Did they see the sacred wishing well smashed to smithereens? – did they sh_t.
The tricksy blackbird had somewhat embellished the truth.
The scene before our daring hero was thus:
There was one brute. One! And what mighty weapon of terror was he brandishing? . . . Nothing but a leafy twig. That’s right, the weapon equivalent of a fairy’s glitter-sprinkling wand. A band of club-wielding brutes indeed! Wait till I see that ruse-happy blackbird! (That’s what Nailer said, not I.)
The flower-crowned pixies were all huddled in a nearby gully, cowering like jelly-boned poodles.
Pfft, thought Nailer, what a pathetic throng of scaredy-cats!
Mumbling ancient profanities (too rude to repeat), Nailer threw away the shears, slithered off the hippo, strolled over to the grunting brute and planted a skull-shattering left-hook on the back of its oblivious head. Then, just to make sure the brute was a goner, our hero launched into a two-footed stomp jig – a bit like what a Morris dancer would do if he’d guzzled too much cider at the village fete – targeting the brutes dumb-ugly mug with the treads of his steel-capped boots –
MASH
MASH
MASH
CRUNCH
POP
The so-called threat to the pixies’ tranquillity was a veritable mush of never-returning sludge. Nailer huffed a contented smirk, then pulled out his pipe, filled it with ogre-leaf, sparked it, and spent the remainder of the afternoon leaning against the wishing well blowing smoke rings, eyeing the spineless pixie folk with a menacing stare.
The End.
BAM!
The wicked glutton wazzled like a just-struck gong then slumped to the tiled floor in a crumpled heap, twitching with fatal spasms – a half-eaten chicken drumstick still wedged between his misshapen gnashers.
As our hero (whose name was Nailer) observed the curvature of the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut, his ears were subjected to a piercing bark. Now on seeing what he saw, Nailer should have quivered like the shaft of an arrow just after impact with the bough of a conker tree – but no.
Swivelling one-eighty degrees on the heels of his boots, his aquamarine eyes fell on what had unleashed the bark: it had the hooves of a billygoat, the legs of a rhino, the wings of a buzzard, the dangling genitalia of a stallion, the torso of an oiled weightlifter, the long neck of a swan, and the head of a snarling badger.
This was indeed a most hideous creature: a thing lifted straight out of a fabulist’s darkest sketchbook. So what did our hero do?
Did he freeze like a hapless pixie who has mislaid his pouch of wonderdust?
Did he wet his knickers and whimper like a pigtailed girlie?
Did he faint dead away and tonk his noggin on the open door of the fridge?
No, of course not. Our hero is a man of steel, a man of granite, a man of titanium, with the heart of a bull and the will of a taxidermist.
This is what Nailer did:
He glanced to his right, and beyond a small crowd of toby jugs and a shield-shaped chopping board he espied some finely polished shears, then in epic slow-motion he grasped their ebony handles, shifted his balance, flexed his heroic knees and dived headfirst at the damned monstrosity with the gusto of a twinkle-eyed swashbuckler –
SNIP
The monster’s head hit the floor with a soft thud – blood gushing from its floppy severed neck. Easy.
It was at that moment that a blackbird pecked on the windowpane above the cooker.
What do you seek, lord of the thicket? Nailer asked, as serene as a still forest pool.
“The pixies are being attacked by a gang of club-wielding brutes!” croaked the blackbird, flapping its wings, shedding feathers. “They need your help, Nailer!”
Roaring with the crackling menace of a Balrog-infested bonfire, our hero saddled his snorting hippopotamus (which was scratching its hefty hindquarters on the edge of the tumble dryer) and smashed through the backdoor into the golden daylight, snapping together the glinting blades of his shears like a scissor man of yore.
It wasn’t long before he arrived at the pixies’ woodland retreat, which was known as the Trulipearl Glade, and what did his aquamarine eyes behold?
Did they see a thirty-strong crew of slavering brutes running amuck? – no.
Did they see battered pixie corpses strewn all over? – nope.
Did they see the sacred wishing well smashed to smithereens? – did they sh_t.
The tricksy blackbird had somewhat embellished the truth.
The scene before our daring hero was thus:
There was one brute. One! And what mighty weapon of terror was he brandishing? . . . Nothing but a leafy twig. That’s right, the weapon equivalent of a fairy’s glitter-sprinkling wand. A band of club-wielding brutes indeed! Wait till I see that ruse-happy blackbird! (That’s what Nailer said, not I.)
The flower-crowned pixies were all huddled in a nearby gully, cowering like jelly-boned poodles.
Pfft, thought Nailer, what a pathetic throng of scaredy-cats!
Mumbling ancient profanities (too rude to repeat), Nailer threw away the shears, slithered off the hippo, strolled over to the grunting brute and planted a skull-shattering left-hook on the back of its oblivious head. Then, just to make sure the brute was a goner, our hero launched into a two-footed stomp jig – a bit like what a Morris dancer would do if he’d guzzled too much cider at the village fete – targeting the brutes dumb-ugly mug with the treads of his steel-capped boots –
MASH
MASH
MASH
CRUNCH
POP
The so-called threat to the pixies’ tranquillity was a veritable mush of never-returning sludge. Nailer huffed a contented smirk, then pulled out his pipe, filled it with ogre-leaf, sparked it, and spent the remainder of the afternoon leaning against the wishing well blowing smoke rings, eyeing the spineless pixie folk with a menacing stare.
The End.
Nice use of imagery.
Fantastic.
Love this: the will of a taxidermist
the questions to the reader give it something of a child-like fairy tale quality. Top stuff.
Love this: the will of a taxidermist
the questions to the reader give it something of a child-like fairy tale quality. Top stuff.
Great. Loads of good words.
Awesome, and other words that convey 'Stryke like'. Really enjoyed it, as I do with practically everything you write.
"the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut" - superb. The way you mix words and the surreal quality of all your stories are why you're the most original writer on these forums by far.
"the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut" - superb. The way you mix words and the surreal quality of all your stories are why you're the most original writer on these forums by far.
Once upon a time in a kitchen faraway, a wicked greedy-guts shook his three-fingered fist at our hero in the madcap manner of an angry cartoon. So with classic Tom-&-Jerry nonchalance our hero bashed it over the head with the butt of a frying pan –
BAM!
The wicked glutton wazzled like a just-struck gong then slumped to the tiled floor in a crumpled heap, twitching with fatal spasms – a half-eaten chicken drumstick still wedged between his misshapen gnashers.
As our hero (whose name was Nailer) observed the curvature of the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut, his ears were subjected to a piercing bark. Now on seeing what he saw, Nailer should have quivered like the shaft of an arrow just after impact with the bough of a conker tree – but no.
Swivelling one-eighty degrees on the heels of his boots, his aquamarine eyes fell on what had unleashed the bark: it had the hooves of a billygoat, the legs of a rhino, the wings of a buzzard, the dangling genitalia of a stallion, the torso of an oiled weightlifter, the long neck of a swan, and the head of a snarling badger.
This was indeed a most hideous creature: a thing lifted straight out of a fabulist’s darkest sketchbook. So what did our hero do?
Did he freeze like a hapless pixie who has mislaid his pouch of wonderdust?
Did he wet his knickers and whimper like a pigtailed girlie?
Did he faint dead away and tonk his noggin on the open door of the fridge?
No, of course not. Our hero is a man of steel, a man of granite, a man of titanium, with the heart of a bull and the will of a taxidermist.
This is what Nailer did:
He glanced to his right, and beyond a small crowd of toby jugs and a shield-shaped chopping board he espied some finely polished shears, then in epic slow-motion he grasped their ebony handles, shifted his balance, flexed his heroic knees and dived headfirst at the damned monstrosity with the gusto of a twinkle-eyed swashbuckler –
SNIP
The monster’s head hit the floor with a soft thud – blood gushing from its floppy severed neck. Easy.
It was at that moment that a blackbird pecked on the windowpane above the cooker.
What do you seek, lord of the thicket? Nailer asked, as serene as a still forest pool.
“The pixies are being attacked by a gang of club-wielding brutes!” croaked the blackbird, flapping its wings, shedding feathers. “They need your help, Nailer!”
Roaring with the crackling menace of a Balrog-infested bonfire, our hero saddled his snorting hippopotamus (which was scratching its hefty hindquarters on the edge of the tumble dryer) and smashed through the backdoor into the golden daylight, snapping together the glinting blades of his shears like a scissor man of yore.
It wasn’t long before he arrived at the pixies’ woodland retreat, which was known as the Trulipearl Glade, and what did his aquamarine eyes behold?
Did they see a thirty-strong crew of slavering brutes running amuck? – no.
Did they see battered pixie corpses strewn all over? – nope.
Did they see the sacred wishing well smashed to smithereens? – did they sh_t.
The tricksy blackbird had somewhat embellished the truth.
The scene before our daring hero was thus:
There was one brute. One! And what mighty weapon of terror was he brandishing? . . . Nothing but a leafy twig. That’s right, the weapon equivalent of a fairy’s glitter-sprinkling wand. A band of club-wielding brutes indeed! Wait till I see that ruse-happy blackbird! (That’s what Nailer said, not I.)
The flower-crowned pixies were all huddled in a nearby gully, cowering like jelly-boned poodles.
Pfft, thought Nailer, what a pathetic throng of scaredy-cats!
Mumbling ancient profanities (too rude to repeat), Nailer threw away the shears, slithered off the hippo, strolled over to the grunting brute and planted a skull-shattering left-hook on the back of its oblivious head. Then, just to make sure the brute was a goner, our hero launched into a two-footed stomp jig – a bit like what a Morris dancer would do if he’d guzzled too much cider at the village fete – targeting the brutes dumb-ugly mug with the treads of his steel-capped boots –
MASH
MASH
MASH
CRUNCH
POP
The so-called threat to the pixies’ tranquillity was a veritable mush of never-returning sludge. Nailer huffed a contented smirk, then pulled out his pipe, filled it with ogre-leaf, sparked it, and spent the remainder of the afternoon leaning against the wishing well blowing smoke rings, eyeing the spineless pixie folk with a menacing stare.
The End.
BAM!
The wicked glutton wazzled like a just-struck gong then slumped to the tiled floor in a crumpled heap, twitching with fatal spasms – a half-eaten chicken drumstick still wedged between his misshapen gnashers.
As our hero (whose name was Nailer) observed the curvature of the fallen bellygod’s hairy beer-gut, his ears were subjected to a piercing bark. Now on seeing what he saw, Nailer should have quivered like the shaft of an arrow just after impact with the bough of a conker tree – but no.
Swivelling one-eighty degrees on the heels of his boots, his aquamarine eyes fell on what had unleashed the bark: it had the hooves of a billygoat, the legs of a rhino, the wings of a buzzard, the dangling genitalia of a stallion, the torso of an oiled weightlifter, the long neck of a swan, and the head of a snarling badger.
This was indeed a most hideous creature: a thing lifted straight out of a fabulist’s darkest sketchbook. So what did our hero do?
Did he freeze like a hapless pixie who has mislaid his pouch of wonderdust?
Did he wet his knickers and whimper like a pigtailed girlie?
Did he faint dead away and tonk his noggin on the open door of the fridge?
No, of course not. Our hero is a man of steel, a man of granite, a man of titanium, with the heart of a bull and the will of a taxidermist.
This is what Nailer did:
He glanced to his right, and beyond a small crowd of toby jugs and a shield-shaped chopping board he espied some finely polished shears, then in epic slow-motion he grasped their ebony handles, shifted his balance, flexed his heroic knees and dived headfirst at the damned monstrosity with the gusto of a twinkle-eyed swashbuckler –
SNIP
The monster’s head hit the floor with a soft thud – blood gushing from its floppy severed neck. Easy.
It was at that moment that a blackbird pecked on the windowpane above the cooker.
What do you seek, lord of the thicket? Nailer asked, as serene as a still forest pool.
“The pixies are being attacked by a gang of club-wielding brutes!” croaked the blackbird, flapping its wings, shedding feathers. “They need your help, Nailer!”
Roaring with the crackling menace of a Balrog-infested bonfire, our hero saddled his snorting hippopotamus (which was scratching its hefty hindquarters on the edge of the tumble dryer) and smashed through the backdoor into the golden daylight, snapping together the glinting blades of his shears like a scissor man of yore.
It wasn’t long before he arrived at the pixies’ woodland retreat, which was known as the Trulipearl Glade, and what did his aquamarine eyes behold?
Did they see a thirty-strong crew of slavering brutes running amuck? – no.
Did they see battered pixie corpses strewn all over? – nope.
Did they see the sacred wishing well smashed to smithereens? – did they sh_t.
The tricksy blackbird had somewhat embellished the truth.
The scene before our daring hero was thus:
There was one brute. One! And what mighty weapon of terror was he brandishing? . . . Nothing but a leafy twig. That’s right, the weapon equivalent of a fairy’s glitter-sprinkling wand. A band of club-wielding brutes indeed! Wait till I see that ruse-happy blackbird! (That’s what Nailer said, not I.)
The flower-crowned pixies were all huddled in a nearby gully, cowering like jelly-boned poodles.
Pfft, thought Nailer, what a pathetic throng of scaredy-cats!
Mumbling ancient profanities (too rude to repeat), Nailer threw away the shears, slithered off the hippo, strolled over to the grunting brute and planted a skull-shattering left-hook on the back of its oblivious head. Then, just to make sure the brute was a goner, our hero launched into a two-footed stomp jig – a bit like what a Morris dancer would do if he’d guzzled too much cider at the village fete – targeting the brutes dumb-ugly mug with the treads of his steel-capped boots –
MASH
MASH
MASH
CRUNCH
POP
The so-called threat to the pixies’ tranquillity was a veritable mush of never-returning sludge. Nailer huffed a contented smirk, then pulled out his pipe, filled it with ogre-leaf, sparked it, and spent the remainder of the afternoon leaning against the wishing well blowing smoke rings, eyeing the spineless pixie folk with a menacing stare.
The End.