- collaborators:
- Kleopatra
Yandros
The Dragonmaster
Once upon a time, I was
walking my parakeet named Buffy through
the newly reconstructed park behind my cousin's house and I met a man
with
a blue trench coat and a plan to take over the world. He said all I had
to
do was set my Buffy free and break into pet stores and zoos across the
nation, setting all of the animals free. And as I did it, I was to tell
them that they were free due to the workings of Big Blue. Then, when he
called together his army of intensely loyal anarchist animals they would
not miss his call.
So I slipped the little
collar off of Buffy's neck. "Fly free,
little one," I said, "Big Blue has set you free, and Big Blue will call
you." Buffy fluttered to the nearest treetop and started pecking a
squirrel. She was going to be fine.
I burned the parakeet leash,
swearing never to wrongfully imprison
another harmless animal as long as I lived. Then I raced home to dump my
goldfish into the nearest lake. I couldn't find a lake, so I settled for
the fountain in the nearest park and set out for the pet store.
I had not gone more than a
few feet when a man in a red trenchcoat
stepped out of an alley I hadn't noticed before and accosted me.
"Hey you! Yeah, you, punk.
I know what you're thinking. You
plan to free the animals to overthrow their human oppressors."
Actually, I was wondering
what on earth it was about me that
attracted strange men in trenchcoats to talk to me, but I decided not to
interrupt.
"The man in blue means you
harm. Only I know the best plan for
world domination. If you want to know more, meet me by the squirrel
statue at 3:00." With that, he vanished down the alleyway. Or he tried
to... actually the trenchcoat was a little big for him, and he managed to
get the tails of it caught under his foot, which resulted in him lying
flat on his face in the mud. Looking almost as red as his coat, he got
up
again, and taking great care as to the placement of his feet, ran down
the
alleyway and into a swirling cloud of red mist. Before I could
investigate, the mist, the man, and even the alleyway itself completely
disappeared before my eyes, and I found myself staring at an ordinary
brick wall.
A bit disconcerted now, I
decided to try and find a bite to eat
rather than immediately free all of the animals. On my way to the deli,
I
noticed a third man -- a midget in a black trenchcoat weaving through the
crowd towards me and carrying a
wooden duck decoy spray painted yellow, and with what looked like a
pencil stuck through it's neck, Upon seeing me, the midget shoved the
duck
into my hands, muttered "Quack, quack" and before I could gather my
thouroughly confused brain together to ask him what the hell was going on
he was gone.
So here I was holding a
heinous yellow duck in my hand and scratching my
head. Truly something weird was going on. I fought my way back through
the
crowd to sit down on the empty park bench off of the beeten path and
sighed. I then looked up to see what looked like a man in a green trench
coat and his seventeen clones following close behind him heading for me.
Oh, no, I groaned.
The one in the front
approached me. All of then cocked their heads to the
side and asked me, "Do you own any
plants?"
I tried to hide the duck
behind my back in case they had some kind of
rivalry with the man in black. "Why yes, actually, I have three plants on
The head man in green
grinned, and I saw that not only was his clothing
green, but his eyes as well, and his skin had a not unhealthy but
definately odd greenish cast to it. His hair, fortunately, was brown. He
wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. His clones bowed.
They all vanished.
My head was spinning. I sat
down with the duck in my lap and unfolded the
green man's note. It said: 'Meet me near the old oak in the South Street
park at 3pm, and bring your plants.'
"Oh, great," I said out
loud. "I have a conflict in my schedule and I
don't even know what's going on!" The wooden duck wiggled. I dropped it
on
its side, and it wobbled to its feet.
"In my opinion, dear chap,
you ought to go to the squirrel statue." It
paused, cocking its head to the side. "But then, the midget pays me to
say
that. However, if you could be so kind as to remove this pencil from my
neck, perhaps..."
You too can add to the madness. What do you think should happen next?
email your installment and send it off to msfc@dragonsea.net, and we'll
add it to the story!
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