Star Warts - A Brief Interlude

Act I

The scene: An empty, out-of-the-way dirt road between two villages in rural Massachussetts, lined with tempting fruit trees. For some strange reason, a crowd of people sitting in chairs is off to one side of the road, looking suspiciously like what you always figured a TV audience would look like, although there are no cameras or anything else TVish around, except the audience.
Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl. Bob Dylan begins to sue.

As they near each other, both stop, one looking startled.

"So, we meet again, Barf!"

"Yes, but not fruitlessly, Ham," smirks Barf as he pulls a vinatge WWII pineapple from his bag, pulls the pin, and lobs it.

Ham watches helplessly as the pineapple hits and explodes. He is knocked backwards, and realizes he is covered with a sticky substance, which turns out to be not blood, but pineapple juice. A pair of Barf's prized honeybees buzz too close for comfort, looking hungry. Ham swats them dead.

"You PIG!" shrieks Barf.

"Well, of course," returns Ham, looking nonplussed.

A volley of cherries takes Ham by surprise; they stick to him when they hit. He throws a cloven hoof at Barf; it hits his open mouth, and the big Circle K logo on the back of his cape disappears. Barf's smug smile is twisted into pure, unadulterated fury.

"Your goose is cooked now!", he shrieks.

Ham, looking frantically around him, sees that, indeed, his goose is laying, plucked and smoking, on a platter beside the road. Fighting tears, he slowly turns back to Barf as a crowd of dogs and mad Englishmen fight each other over first bite of the bird.

"Barf, you've really got my gander up! You'll regret ever starting this little brrrouhaha!"

"Brrrouhah?", Barf asks genuinely.

"Brrrouhaha!", insists Ham.

"Brrrouhaha????", demands the audience you had forgotten about.

"BROUHAHA!", Ham rants.

"Ohhh..."

One of the audience, looking rather miffed, not to mention suspiciously like Mel Brooks, makes a mental note to call his lawyer in the morning.

The two combatants go at it fast and furious, Ham throwing various parts of his porcine anatomy with deadly accuracy at the (former) Lord Kosher, and Barf pelting Ham with various sweet, sticky fruits from the surrounding trees, occasionally supplemented by other substances. A couple of times, Ham is nearly stopped when brown sugar bazooka missles coat him deeply with their vile goo.

Before the battle is decided, a tall British officer suddenly strides forcefully into the middle of the fray, and shouts,

"STOP! Enough o' this silliness. This all start'd out well enough, but now you've just gotten plain STEWpid."

Ham and Barf eye each other for a moment. They come forward as if to shake hands. Suddenly, they rip the officer's uniform off, and throw a kilt and fake beard on him. His eyes take on a far-away, proud look. His fist goes high in the air. Bagpipe music drifts in like muzak on steroids, and the Limey-cum-Scotsman runs off looking for a cliff, from which to dive.

Ham and Barf eye each other for a moment and break out laughing. Soon they are lying on the ground, rolling and guffawing. Suddenly, Ham jumps up, grabs his well-done goose, and tosses it at Barf's head. Barf dodges just in time, and retorts with a volley of currants.

Ham and Barf eye each other for a moment in a lull, while both try to catch their breath. The heat of the battle is taking it's toll; Ham is beginning to look a little glazed. Barf merely looks pickled after Ham's last vinegar attack.

Suddenly Ham drops from exhaustion. Before Barf can react, the audience races to Ham, forks and knives at the ready, and commence carving.

"Just like Christmas!", one remarks.

"Honey, it's baked just right," another mumbles through a large bite.

"I prefer Underwood, but it's not bad", Olivetti chatters.

Barf wharfs.

Soon, nothing is left of Ham but a large round bone with a hole in the middle, and the crowd, belching contentedly, wanders off to see where the Scotsman went, hoping for more entertainment.

Barf, still lacking a logo after having lost his kosherity to his now dead foe, trudges slowly off, head down, dirty, smelly and sweaty, into the sunset, where, naturally enough, he catches fire and is reduced to lifeless carbon compounds.

Scene J

Aeons later, a passing spacecraft lands on the spot of the epic battle. They find no intelligent life on the planet. Scanning with the time transponder indicates that there never was any. The chief science officer, staring intently at the transponder, catches occasional images from old "I Love Lucy" and "Dallas" episodes. He barfs, not realizing that he is participating in the history of the spot; nor would he care if he did. Sad, his research at a dead end, his funds depleted, his crew decimated by suicide after translating ancient runes of the sort, "How bout them DAWGS?!", the science officer lifts the craft, and cruises slowly off, head down, dirty, smelly and sweaty, into the sunset, where, naturally enough, the craft catches fire, and it and its inhabitants are reduced to lifeless carbon compounds.

Scene K

Aeons later, the lifeless carbon compounds having gone through hydrogen and helium stages on the star's surface, they are blown by the solar wind back to the third planet, whence they return hence thencely. Combining under nearly lavatory-perfect conditions, they are struck by random radioactivity and electrical sparks, finally forming a thick primordial (or was it postmortemal?) soup. The elements form and reform various compounds, but nothing ever comes of it. Unable to form even a simple protein, they are unable to motivate off into the sunset. Depressed, dirty, smelless and sweatless, their passion consumes them, and they are again reduced to lifeless carbon compounds.

Scene L

Aeons later, the Omniscient One focuses some attention on this miniscule blob of mass near a small energy source near the edge of a double-spiral group of various, multi-colored, radiant points, somewhere east of infinity. Musing long over the likelihoods that develop from probabilities based on creating life on this mass-point, she says to herself,

"Nah. Not worth the trouble."

Instead, She forms life on the 4th planet, and sees that it is good. And Her Son goes down to live among them, and is crowned Prince of Peace, and reigns with His Mother. And it is good.

And it stays that way forever. Selah.

This bit of insanity contains references to living people, but is in no way to be construed as having any connection with reality. This is a work of free-associativity fiction, and no offense is meant to anyone or anything, living or dead, animal, vegetable, mineral or spirit. As God is my witness, no blasphemy is intended.

Last updated: 6 May 1994

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Miles O'Neal <roadkills.r.us@XYZZY.gmail.com> [remove the "XYZZY." to make things work!] c/o RNN / 1705 Oak Forest Dr / Round Rock, TX / 78681-1514