The Return Of Tol Kien - THE saga, Part III

The following is a continuation of a house saga begun on https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/profile/emilie-van-damm/work/57ccc0f4387140b07f8b4569 - continued on https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/profile/emilie-van-damm/work/57d68f67387140d54e8b4569 - and now reaching Part III.

You will probably be very confused unless you read Parts I&II. (Clicking on the above links might not work: if not, just copy them into your URL bar.)

Now read on, Brave Reader:

Oblivious to Robbie the Robbee's perfectly justified intentions to retrieve his lojacked caravan, Aisha and Jon were making the most of the gypsy's belongings to dig several possibly random holes in a field near Stonehenge. Indeed, Aisha was oblivious to a great many things in her single-minded pursuit of her treasure. She was, however, blissfully aware of her new, daisy-decorated wellies: courtesy, she assumed ( rightly or wrongly), of Mrs. Easy To Rob Gypsy. – VF

[I’m still a bit woozy from that cocoa… and she’s coming through again.] – WL

Some few of our readers might find the following coincidence to be unbelievable in the strictest sense of the word. I can only assure them that in very rare cases, such as the one that is here under observation, fiction is indeed stranger than fact.

I pray them therefore to put aside doubt, and believe – if for only a brief time – that the next location on the itinerary of our antipodean friends was (astounding though this may seem) Stonehenge. – JA

[At this point, it might be of some merit to remind readers and potential contributors that they might find the following translation tool to be useful (in both directions): http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html ]

Unknown to Ms. Kangaroo and Prof. Wombat, they were carrying a stowaway: one of the CIA operatives [not the one dealing with Ms. Python] had camouflaged herself as Prof. Wombat’s wraparound sunglasses, which gave him an unusually pro-Yank outlook… as well as increasing his testosterone levels.

Red Ada (twice Victoria’s regional champion in kick-boxing) was feeling depressed after her thrashing by the puny-looking Jane Austen: “Strewth, ya Bastard, but that was a boil-over, wasn’t it?”

“Bloody oath!” replied her [acknowledged] passenger, “but she’ll be apples, Red: we’ll just invade the country and restore decent value systems.” – EvD

[WHOOOOOOSH!] Had Aisha been more observant, she might have noticed that the daisy-decorated wellies were not only new: they were brand new… or at least they HAD been before she’d scuffed them up and scoured mud into the scuffmarks (and the cotton-weave lining).

She might possibly also have noticed (but hadn’t) that the caravan was a bachelor’s [mobile] residence.

What she couldn’t possibly have known was that the daisy-decorated wellies had been meant as a gift of love for Robbie’s sweetheart, Mad Mountain Maggie (“Mountain” because of her size: not her domicile; while “Mad” had two meanings, both of them at times applicable). – JHiD

So, bearing down on Aisha and Jon are: a sightseeing kangeroo and co., a man and his mountain, two slimy literary agents (one stayed behind to watch the shop), and a soon-to-be-resurrected J.R.R. Tolkien (coincidentally, the deed must be done at Stonehenge). Aisha is busily digging holes by moonlight while Jon grooms his lustrous leg locks and sings a couple of ditties, drinking Robbie's stash of moonshine under a slightly blurrier moonlight.

Below the ground, something ancient is waiting to be discovered. – VF

Meanwhile… “Here, Wombo, just hand us out that bundy: it’ll get me through another two clicks, then I’m ready for the Matilda.”

The professor rummaged about in the kangaroo’s pouch for the bottle of rum requested, but found no such item.

“It’s gone walkabout, Red; chuck a yewy: I think I saw a waterhole just back there.” – WL

There was, indeed, a hostelry which served beverages of an intoxicating nature but a short distance to the rear of our two marsupial acquaintances, and thither they hastened in anticipation of refreshment and genial company.

“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company,” remarked Miss Ada as they made their entrance into the inn.

“Do not you bethink yourself that you have earlier expressed that very same reflection?” queried her substantially irked passenger. – JA

Sitting around a corner table in the pub (and trying to wash away the nasty side-effects of being suddenly transported there [sans fish, sans boots] by a Djinn – who may or may not make further appearances in this saga) were four (4) hairy-footed shorties (two of them drenched), one (1) dwarf, one (1) elf, and two (2) men. Unknown to them, they were on their way to meet their maker.

When the two (2) Australians had ordered drinks at the bar and approached the corner table, you could have cut the testosterone with a knife. – JHiD

The barman came over with three bowls of chips and a salad, eyed up the company with a smirk and said ' Ey up, wurz the rabbi then?' – VF

“HERE YOU!” shouted one of the furry-footed drinkers, “who-er you calling a rabbit?!”

Chairs, glasses, bottles, salad, and chips started flying; and in less time that it would take you to recite the Magna Carta backwards there was no one left standing except for the two Aussies and a barmaid.

At least: those were the only VISIBLE ones left standing. – WL

(Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste it's [sic] fragrance on the desert air.)

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it;”remarked the professor, “and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”

“Angry people are not always wise,” agreed his sanguine companion. – JA

At this point, the Djinn (muttering “no rest for the wicked”) appeared in a puff of dry-ice effect (no smoke allowed in pubs) and whisked the whole kit and caboodle – marsupials, fellow shippers [sic], bar staff, collaterally damaged boozers, Uncle Tom Cobley and all – off to Stonehenge, “before they get into any more mischief”.

At least, all of those that were VISIBLE. One traveller, not being able to twist a ring off his finger, remained unnoticed and therefore was left behind. – JHiD

Moments before the bewildered crowds arrival, two slimy literary agents are coming to the end of their chanting, powder-sprinkling, incense-burning ritual – finishing off with a dramatic 'Arise J.R.R. Tolkien!'

'Waaarrrgggh, huummph, graarggg, achoo. Pardon me. Call me Ronald' coughs the latest victim of the profit-seeking agents.

Aisha, as ever, hadn't yet noticed what was happening a short distance away, but was about to be interrupted by the arrival of assorted alarmed pub patrons, a gypsy, and a one woman army. – VF

In case some readers didn’t catch this point when it was made more subtly, let’s hit you over the head with it. Transportation by Djinn causes disorientation, a certain loss of some personal possessions (which the Djinn explains as “handling charges” – though we must point out that the situation re: the missing boots is entirely to be attributed to the fact that the transported weren’t wearing these items at the time of their departure), and severe nausea.

The last item on that short list often leads to a phenomenon that has been called the technicolor yawn, a tango with the toilet, painting the town red… and green and orange and pink, tossing one’s cookies, delivering a street pizza, speaking Dutch [a nod and a wink to Emilie], revisiting one’s breakfast, baring your guts to the world, launching one’s lunch, bringing it up for a vote, liquidating one’s assets, burping to the ninth power, uneating, parking the tiger, getting a refund on one’s lunch, laughing at the ground, readjusting fluids, feeding the fish, selling the Buick, barking at the ants, blowing the groceries, and – my personal favourite – speaking to Hughie on the big white telephone. – WL

[Thanks to Wilhelmina for the nod and wink: I’ll return the greeting at an appropriate moment.]

Unfortunately, there was no big white telephone available, so Hughie remained uninformed, though the ants benefitted from a most generous donation to their cause.

Also unfortunately, unlike their last “pit stop” in the pub, the questers (now joined by new friends made there) didn’t have the use of beer or other liquids to wash the taste away, and some had taken to licking the grass (after distancing themselves from that grass near to their arrival point and sacrificial altar). – EvD

[Can you readers – do we HAVE any readers? – imagine what it’s like to share an office with Emilie and Wilhelmina? It’s lucky for me that Jane Austen doesn’t show up here in zombie. Wait a minute: there’s a knock at the door… WHEW: it was only the postperson!] – JHiD

In the land of vomit, the wellied woman is queen, and Aisha sloshed purposefully and disgustingly to the very centre of the ring as quickly as Jon ran in the opposite direction. The arrival of dozens of pukers had overwhelmed the senses and stomachs of even the slimy literary agents, leaving a quite unfazed zombie-Tolkien to greet Aisha with a guttural 'Gghhnoswaith dagghhh! Zombies need a zombie language – something groany and Welsh with lots of throaty velar fricatives'. –VF

Aisha (who had failed her Eng Lit O-level and only got a C in Eng Lang) couldn’t make nor head nor tail of the late Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford (1945 to 1959)’s meaning, but she was a quick one to spy an opportunity. The ground where she had been planning to dig was covered in a multi-coloured and vile-smelling carpet, and – although her feet were safe in Mad Mountain Maggie’s floral wellies – her hands were quite unprotected; but this geezer seemed oblivious to the “unpleasantness”.

“Here, Guv’ner: want a job?” – WL

We shall leave the uncouth maiden of the rusty locks and the upstart literary personage (quite lacking the gift for words that one would wish to see in a fellow writer) to their distasteful intercourse and hither away in search of our hero: Jon of the bright blue eyes, luxuriant leg curls, and attractive jingle to his walk.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. [As ever, Ms. Austen’s bizarre use of commas is her own responsibility – ed.]

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. – JA

Perhaps our readers have not been unaware of the fact that Ms. Austen neither took part in the drinking of “amber fluid” in the forest clearing nor was she of the party in the pub on the way to Stonehenge.

To date – as far as I am aware – no scientific study has been carried out concerning the effects of gypsy hooch on cultured zombies of a retiring (though forthright) nature.

But we just might be about to have some light thrown upon the subject… -JHiD

By virtue of her relentless verbosity, the loquacious Jane had bored the pitiable agent quite unconscious; used her mystical zombie strength the free herself from chains; and was currently leading a daring escape with her fellow deceased and much-less-articulate zombie author prisoners. Whether by chance, predestination, or complicated plot, it was into this limpy gang that Jon ran as he fled. – VF

It didn’t take much (a jab to the solar plexus, a twisted arm, and a veiled reference to his “eggs”) for Jane to persuade Jon that the right, the correct, the only place to be was, in fact, inside the gypsy caravan, where he – with even less hesitation – played the host and offered the assembled company “a taste” of Robbie’s hooch.

Mr. Jonson asked if he might have a chalice of communion wine; Mr. Carroll was content (if that’s the right word) to settle in a corner with his opium pipe; but Messrs. [Jon] Abercrombie and Adams and Ms. Austen made up for the lack of participation on the part of these two deviants (from a strictly drinking point of view) and the remaining hooch was soon no longer remaining.

***

“The three As,” giggled Jon: “Alcoholics Anonymous of Albania!” – WL

Vare are shertainly not sho many mensh of larch ffffortue in the whirl, ash vare are pretty pretty pretty womansh to desherve zem.

Vare ish shafety in resherve, but no attrashun. One cannot love a resherved persian. – JA

One legend of literature (there being no communion wine to hand) was deep in his thoughts; one was deep in his opiate dreams of waistcoated rabbits and inventive white knights; two more were deep in their cups; and one – the greatest legend of them all, the Master, the absolute and ultimate champion of the written word – was deep in a hole that he had dug with his own hands… when over the brow of Coneybury Hill came a band of gypsies.

Were they arriving to trade horses with Japanese tourists to the prehistoric monument?

They were not. – JHiD

Aisha, as ever, did not notice the new arrivals amongst the crowd as she watched zombie Ronald delve deeper… until he stopped and reached up, holding what looked like a short branch. 'Alae, henig, harma', he cried, 'an ngell nin leithio nin tuulo sina du'. Aisha, clearly not a trained archaeologist,  grabbed the artefact eagerly and acknowledged her handyman with a sassy 'whatever, nerd'.

[Apologies to any middle-earth linguists if my translation is laughable.] – VF

[to be or not to be continued...]