I should set fire to the great outdoors

By Gabriel, 17 Oct 17, 3

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AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

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I once fell down some steps and got my own toe stuck in my eye. That was the biggest toe I’d ever seen until today. I know it’s perspective but you don’t ever really expect to see a giant toe. Nobody gives themselves a giant toe and I’ve seen a lot of giant things. I saw this forehead once whose John C. Riley-eque ridges had been expanded into balcony seating. Three standard sized dwarfs and a teacup dwarf, each impeccably dressed for the occasion, were sitting in them using opera glasses to peer about at the world and quietly comment to each other. I was insane with curiosity but didn’t know whether to approach the forehead’s owner or the dwarfs about it, so I left the matter a mystery which is something that torments me to this day.

The toe belonged to what I’d originally mistook for a large rocky outcrop.  It was large in the sideways sense not the upwards one so myself and my butterfly were confident of scaling it and saving a lot of travel time. In my youth I’d participated in the hip fad of Obese Meth Rodeo before People for the Ethical Treatment of Fat Cunts had it outlawed. I was reminded of it as I gripped into the beige quartz ridges of the rocky outcrop, and took the moment to show off my considerable grip strength to nobody but myself. Nothing builds grip like clinging to the psoriasis hardened ridges of a scooter-bound dugong made furiously mobile by a recent interest in designer stimulants. The outcrop I was pawing my way up felt like a sugar-crusted jube that had been left out, something I should have paid attention to but missed amidst the general absurdity of the Open Zone. Of course the rocks here are weird. Why would they be anything else?

I was deceived! Twice, actually. I’d thought the far side safe enough to simply walk down, leaning back to ensure gravity’s arseward pull kept me on my surface, but the damn thing was a notch too slippery and I fell. I’ve never been a fan of momentum. Motion should always be the reward for active work, dammit. Momentum is, naturally, incredibly biased toward me and takes any opportunity it can to cause me unjust harm, so down the far side I went. Never one to let the forces of the universe have the last laugh, I grabbed for whatever I could and found what I presumed to be some kind of tree root. Presumption normally makes a pre out of sum and ed but here I felt justified in mine as I was still operating under the belief that what I was climbing was a geological feature and not the sleeping form of 500 meter tall Vinnie Jones. The root was a hang nail that my weight ripped from the toe, taking a large stream of delicate toe flesh with it like a magician’s novelty scarf. A far off hill tore itself from the landscape. The surface rippled like cornflour gravy as a face fought through the years of accumulated soil. Eyes screamed themselves into existence above a sneer and focused themselves remarkably quickly on my tiny, escaping form.

I’m the first to admit that I’ve made my mistakes in life. In retrospect, doping up the monstrously obese with painkillers, stimulants, and various infuriants just to make sport of clinging to the buggers is a bit of a dick thing to do. And yes, I tried my hand at some high scores in the city’s Vinnie Pits. But it was a different era! Seeing how many clones of Vinnie Jones you could slaughter in a 15 minutes time limit wasn’t viewed in the same light as it is today. It’s not like people kept a single operating consciousness across the lot of them to ensure the Vinnies would learn and grow ever more savage at the injustice of their predicament. I think. So no, I don’t think there’s a certain poetic justice in being chased by the 500 foot version some dingbat made. Get off your high horse, because they too were outlawed as cruel.

You don’t run away from something that’s about 250 times taller than you are so much as you scoot from various hiding spots in a generally away direction. Applying some of what I learned dealing with my infestation of office gnomes, I managed to keep out of the thug leviathan’s sight while making for the edge of the containment field. My eyebrow was twitching in the Z pattern of the old shoryuken notation so I knew I was close to the omnipresent invisible communication systems of the modern day. The gargantuan novelty actor was ignorant of my plans, and a lot otherwise, so a small rockfall a few hundred meters away the colossal cretin had itself caused so occupied it that I could pretty much walk away calmly. Charles Grodin Butterfly fluttered by and all was well. And then the sun went down.

The sight of a standard monstrosity like Vinnie Jones is breathtaking if you aren’t used to it, but I’ve seen enough for it to be just another building-sized man trying to stomp on me. But goddamn, the Imperator Class Titan Character Actor Michael Chiklis blocking out the sun makes even the Vinnie look small. I think it’s something to do with Mr Chiklis’ head to face ratio massively favouring the head that does it. That and his pectorals are still classified as mixed use suburban lots. He must have heard the active Vinnie Jones, decided that the fight wasn’t over, and gotten up to continue the pair’s endless duel. A quick scan of the horizon had me certain that there was a missing mountain, though perhaps I’d simply miscounted. Its weight shook the ground as it barrelled in Vinnie’s, and unfortunately my, direction. A testament to the engineering marvel that were its knees. Vinnie Jones shrieked, unfurled the membranous wings he’d kept concealed for most of his career, and in one slow, billowy flap, took to the sky.

I, even at my distance, was blown arse over tit but fortunately in a tit-arse-tit-arse pattern that suggested I’d been blown in the direction I was already heading in. My eyebrow spasmed and I hooked the edge of an old emergency signal which I patched through to a Scout’s First Pain Amplifier I’d had implanted in Janice during last year’s Christmas party. Apparently it took the office a little while to realize her squealing and clutching her eye were actually the dashes and dots of Morse Code which explains why it still took so long to rescue me. Ah, Samuel Morse, you inventor of a strangely immortal communication method and stabber of lady’s eyes, how you’d smile to see today!

I’ll admit a kind of kinky thrill at being close to a giant monster battle that actually has the potential to do me mortal harm. The ones in the city are so safe, they’re about as fun to watch as bumper bowling. That said, I have no intention of ever dying, let alone in as ignominious a fashion as getting crushed in the Outer Zone. I’d look like a hipster. So I ran, leaving my view of the battle just a scarce few glances over my shoulder. Chiklis’ raw might was something else. The Vinnie was no small sight but his lean, ropey arms were being easily held apart by the Chiklis’ thicker counterparts. The sight of a shrieking bat Christ attempting to smother the star of TV’s The Shield with its wings was a doozy. Chiklis mouthed at the membrane of the wing like a baby gorilla gnawing at its egg, presumably trying to find a point of purchase on the shimmering surface to bite into. His sandworm like lips pinched into one and tugged until the Vinnie brought its knee up and pushed out of the Chiklis’ grip. Vinnie Jones had flapped into the air and was maneuvering around Michael Chiklis’ laser breath as the drone copter flew me back toward civilisation and some level of revenge for all this business.

It will be nice to get back in to the office and see what calamity the cheap dunderchuds I hire with your Patreon funds have created for me. Until then, I know I’m behind on a few things but it’s been tough to find a moment to write, what with all that’s been going on, so you can write all your complaints down in a letter, poison the envelope, and then eat the fucking thing.

Gabriel

Gabriel

gabrielmeat

3 replies to I should set fire to the great outdoors


Jarred on 15 Jan 20 said:

This is a beautiful combination of eloquence and absurdity. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, thank you.


Gabriel on 16 Jan 20 said:

Wow! Somebody reads these.


Joshua on 23 Oct 17 said:

Unrelated, I assume because I didn't read this, new doc on hulu about the dana carvey show. Too funny to fail.

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