Author: Steve Cavers

“Those people wouldn’t know artistic integrity if it jumped out of a hedge and bit them on their soft, dangly parts,” Doug said thoughtfully before returning to the moment. “Well, maybe that was a bit harsh.”

The pub was dark by this point. It was after 10pm, by which time the waitress had taken the helm at the dimmer switches and lowered the lights to approximately a shade darker than “Intimate” on the mood-lighting scale. Possibly closer to the “Hide the Rat-infested Filth” marker, in fact. Doug examined the pub.

A couple at the jukebox flipped endlessly through the albums, playing that back-and-forth game of finding out that their musical tastes don’t actually mesh completely when put in practice. This was quickly followed by a thinly-veiled struggle for dominance at the jukebox controls. In the end, war was averted because he had the loose change to pay for it – so they compromised and she chose the songs.

Next to them at the pool table was a foursome enjoying a game. Random chit-chat was punctated by the occasional explosion of laughter at a closely-missed shot. The waitress, Wendy, slipped past them, between the regulars, and back to the bar. Her trips were like little moonshots from the homebase of the bartop and out between the unheavenly bodies in seats. In and out she wound, dodging one and orbiting another, until she touched the far corner by the fireplace before falling gently back through the masses to terra firma for another pitcher or two.

Doug turned his attention to his companion in the booth. Bob’s head popped up over the edge of the table for a furtive, darting glance at the smoky environment. He then dropped back to his original pose with his head resting comfortably on his forepaws.

The conversation between them had almost dried completely, Doug realized, so he looked to tying things up.

“Let me tell you,” he temporized, “I have been to a lot of Ice Capades shows, and those sorry bastards wouldn’t know artistic integrity if it jumped out and bit them. And that would be a generous favour.”

By this time, Bob had completely lost interest and had burrowed his head into the safety of Doug’s burlap backpack. Inside the bag, the cat slithered in circle a couple of times before settling down carefully with his tail curled around and over his paws. His watchful eyes peered out the darkened opening.

Presently, the waitress docked herself at the table long enough to drop the carefully-folded tab before moving on. Glacing at the total, Doug grimaced. He dragged a couple of unwilling twenties from the safety of his wallet and threw their poor bodies onto the bonfire of his life.

“Well, Bob, it looks like we’ve used this place up.” With that, he slid free of the booth table and stood on slightly wobbly legs. “Come on, Bob.” Doug swung the pack up and over his left shoulder, making Bob emit a kind of indignant “Mwerp!”

Outside, the chill cut suddenly into him, and he pulled his coat closer to his body.

“Alright back there, Bob?” Doug called over his shoulder.

“Ow,” commented Bob.

The phone rang and Doug lifted it absently.

“Hello?”

“Dude! You’re eating my sight!”

“What?”

“My sight! You’re eating my sight RIGHT NOW!”

Doug paused a second or two before starting cautiously. “Um…,” he said in a measured tone. “Who is this?”

“It’s Bill, dude!” The voice rose in pitch by about a fifth. “And you’re eating my sight! Right now! Don’t deny it.”

“Bill, I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Are you on something?” Doug rubbed the bridge of his nose, as he heard an exasperated sigh from the phone’s earpiece.

“You told me,” Bill said in a lowered tone, “that you would never visit my sight.”

Doug frowned deeply for a moment before a loose object in his brain fell suddenly into place. “Oh! Site! You mean your website!”

“Yes!” shouted Bill. “You… are… reading… my… site. You said you never would, but I caught you!”

Although he couldn’t actually see Bill at the moment, Doug could almost hear him leaning closer to the phone as Bill whispered, “I have your IP address in my server log, you bastard.”

“Bill?” Doug began gently. “You’re a moron.”

Silence.

“Oh. Well. Um…,” Bill responded, which he followed with a barely audible click of the reciever.

Like an achene found in the virulent indeterminacy of our velarization, the weblog — the multisensory, multipolar, and in fact, multivalent concupicense of interdiscplinary conferencing — traditionalizes the sepulchural memes that once waxed serotinal. Can we express the cultivability of a tonomerous and germinal instrumentality of Hamiltonianism through the errant parvenue of the Internet?

My penguin says No.

Over at Modem Noise, Adrian is conducting a little contest to “Write a brief synopsis for a Truly Horribly Wretchedly Awful novel“.

So, without further ado, here is the synopsis of my novel…

Title: The Rippingly Adventurous Tale of Narwin, the Golden Rhinoceros, and His Pelican, Pip

Synopsis: Long ago in the green Trellian Valley, a Rhinoceros named Narwin lives with his family and a sickly old pelican named Pip, whom they occasionally hire as a mime at family outings. Like most young rhinoceroses, Narwin pays little heed to the goings-on of the world outside the Trellian Valley.

Flashback 2000 years: Trellian sits the leaders of two armies on the twin rocks of Aelia and places between them a chess board. Corthnoc, Supreme General of the Army of Hortenoc, ends the chess game abruptly when he counters his opponent’s Kolnikov Gambit with a pointy object to the throat. With this, General Artonius capitulates with a solid thud to the floor. Thenceforth, the Hortenoc maintains possession of the valley.

Two thousand years later, Narwin and Pip embark upon a journey to rescue the Stones of Aelia from almost certain destruction, which is to be determined by a lengthy series of judicial hearings with presentations by all stakeholders. In a sudden twist of irony, Pip is revealed as the true owner of Aelia. They contemplate this revelation in several intimate scenes in various hotel elevators.

Then, in another twist of fate, Pip explodes unexpectedly after eating too many squid-flavoured jellies. The whole mission now being moot, Narwin returns home by way of the Rocks of Aelia and one of them tips over, crushing him. With that, Trellian returns to the valley, bringing the joys of chess!