Forum Village

Creative Forums Creative Writing
1

Episode 1

It was a beautiful day in the Forum village.
The birds were chirping, the bees were buzzing, the flowers were flowering and the folk were peacefully coexisting, spreading love and compassion and mirth in every direction.

Tabula Rosa awoke that morning feeling slightly happy and somewhat alive. Life was alright and the only problem with the world was the lack of education and enlightenment that would make everyone similarly, sort-of, contented.
He kissed his wife, hugged his kid and headed for the local pub.

“Hi there” he called when he saw psyche, the resident Happiness Administrator

“How are you my friend? Peace, happiness and love to you, brother.”

“Same to you, my dude.” Responded psyche but he looked worried.

“Why the cloudy face, psyche?”

“Not cloudy but ‘contentment impaired’, my man, we must maintain civilities unless we wish to tumble into anarchy and free-thought.” Psyche paused in thought before he commenced explaining his “contentment impaired” countenance.

“There’s some contentment threatening news, I’m afraid…I mean….I’m anxiously deprived of love, there seems to be a certain fellow spreading thoughts and doubts amongst the sheeple populace. He threatens milk production.”

“Who?” Tabula had heard of such, vulgar, ugly, miserable beasts.

“Some fellow calling himself Satyr.”

“What’s he been saying?”

“He’s been talking about a drug more powerful than anything at my disposal, a drug so strong that it can result in a lifetime of happiness, a drug so addictive nobody will be forced to take it after it has been absorbed by the body.”

Tabula was shocked.

“Hey man. Ain’t nothing as powerful as your little ‘happy pills’. Remember when my neighbour had a bout of uncomfortable thought and you healed him of his ‘contentment disturbance’? Shit, I never go anywhere unless I first swallow one of your pills.”

Psyche leaned forward, as if to tell a secret. He whispered, which made Tabula even more ‘contentment disturbed’.
“He’s been saying that the most powerful drug in the world is ….is….is……an idea.”

Tabula winced.
“An idea?!”

“Yes. He says it infiltrates the mind and takes it over by flooding it with endorphins to distract it from the damage done.”

“You mean like nicotine that enters the system through the lungs, creates cellular damage but makes you feel calm and contented as a distracting mechanism? You mean like your pills which diminish awareness and maintain discipline by flooding the mind with addictive drugs?”

Psyche was a little surprised as Tabula’s insight.
“Have you been thinking, dude? Tell me the truth have you been filling the prescription I gave you?”

“Yeah, dude, relax. I’m dope. I’m on the pill. Everything is groovy. I just heard someone talking shit like that a few weeks ago at the pub, that’s all.”

“It’s worse than I thought. It’s spreading this….thinking. Did we check the love wall around the Forum? Someone has been slipping in and out, me thinks.” Psyche’s ‘contentment disturbance’ increased. He would have to up the dosage and alleviate all sense of discomfort. If this was allowed to spread some sheeple might refuse to follow orders or do their duty. Hell everyone would become…ill!!!

“Dude the Love gate isn’t anything more than flowers and a line in the sand, I……” Tabula stopped a little too late. He exposed his thinking and how he had forgotten to take his pills last night. He did feel a little withdrawal symptom. It was uncomfortable.

“That’s it!!! To my office now. We must nip this thinking at the bud before it spreads.” Cried psyche, grabbing Tabula by the sleeve and pulling him in the direction of his Love Hut.
“Remember last year what happened? Remember how we had to invade the neighbouring villager and teach those folk how to love? Sure we had to kill some and force some to take the pill but we did it out of love and compassion and because it was…right!!! Remember Brother Robertson, our resident Soul Administrator, who wanted to assassinate the neighbouring leader because he was anti-love and decency. He wanted to assassinate out of Love, in accordance with our Lords teachings. I don’t want any of that stuff repeating itself. Our devout leader Bush saved us that time but I don’t want anything threatening my peace and quiet and the future of my kids It’s a matter of facts and truth!!!.” Psyche was getting happiness impaired. A double dosage it would have to be.

“Hey!! What’s up brothers? Why in a hurry?” Shyster cam floating along on the wind of idealism. “Are you guys coming to the love fest tonight? It’s all good.” she winked.

Tabula pulled away from psyche’s grip. He tossed his long hair and smiled in the boyish way that made the girls moist.

“They say a storm is coming and it might be cancelled. We might get all……wet.” he smiled with nuance.
Psyche interjected to save his friend.
“He means a sunshine disturbance. Tabula hasn’t been feeling up to his contentment parameters. Next thing he’ll do is call silver-linings, cloud cover. Sheeesh.”
Shyster shrugged, her eyes were dim and hazy, totally inebriated. She smiled flirtatiously.

“Whatever man. I’m off to the porn shoot and I’ll meet you funky dudes tonight, maaaaaan. Peace and love dudes. Equality for all.”

“Ah, ah, ….yeah same to you.” Psyche blurted and continued dragging Tabula with renewed vigour.
“What a tough, independent, smart chick” Tabula muttered “She’s definitely my equal. Her friends think so.”
At this point Tabul’s lack of inebriation was becoming apparent.

“This Satyr might be on to something here. Ideas huh?” He mused while being manhandled.
“So these….ideas, enter the mind and usurp its energies, establish its interests, infect its connections. It then floods it with a reward, a pleasurable feeling of contentment and well-being as recompense for the damage done. Like genes take over and guide the cellular unity, we call being, into specific behaviours, sometimes to the detriment of the immediate creature, memes take over the mind and result in specific thoughts and values and in return it offers the sense of pleasure, of belonging……”

The situation was critical. There was little time and no one had to hear this tirade of thinking. It could result in Tabula’s ….sacrifice for the common good.
He might have to be ostracized and worse quarantined, like this Satyr had to be.

“……I mean what is this Love Wall, supposedly, surrounding and protecting the Forum village, anyways? It’s only a line in the sand…Compassion Gate is just a bundle of roses and……”

Psyche finally pulled him into his Love Hut office. As Contentment Administrator he was responsible for the well-being and normality of the village.
Diplomas were plastered on the walls, evidence of his worth and his ability; an authority on health and an expert on contentment.
He quickly found a double dose of ‘contentment drugs’ and injected Tabula.
The effect was immediate. A smile came over Tabula’s face, his eyes drooped, his body relaxed.
“Hey maaaaaan. It’s all good man.” he slurred. “What was I thinking man? Love is all dude. This Satyr faggot must be stopped. What’s up with that guy anyways? He must have been hurt and tortured as a child. I think I’ll go hunting for him.”

[size=59]to be continued…[/size]

2

Episode 2

Tabula exited the Love Hut in a huff, stumbling under the influence of contentment.

“Where’s my gun?!!!” he yelled heading for his home.

Bessy and tgbvfr97531 were outside.

“Peace and Love brother. Where are you going?” Bessy asked

“I’m gonna kill me a Satyr and oh Love to you too.”

“I last saw him at the pub, drinking like a fish and swearing like a sailor. He was talking about fear and how the Love Wall that protects the sheeple is really a Fear Wall. He said the wall is mostly for keeping us inside rather than keeping others from coming from the outside.” tgbvfr97531 said.
“But I set him straight. I told him he was ugly and his mother didn’t love him.” An expression of self-satisfaction spread over her face.

“How can anyone live like that?” Bessy asked rhetorically “How can anyone think like that and still be alive? How can anyone choose thinking over …feeling……feeling soooooo good man” she shook her head in pity.

By this time Tabula had moved on.

“Kill the bastard!!!” he heard both of them call out behind him. “Kill him with Love!!” then they slumped over in blissful ecstasy, smiles on their faces, an idea keeping their minds protected from the big, bad world. Like children.

It wasn’t long before Tabula had strapped on his blank-firing big gun, tied his hair in a ponytail and entered the town pub in a contented, self-assurance.

“I’ve come to kill Satyr!!!” he called. The crowed stood motionless, a hush fell like a stone and then the crowd erupted in a cheer.

“Huraaaaaahhhhh!!!”

Tabula soon saw the fiendish beast. His beady eyes, his misery on his face, his smell of wicked illness making the eyes water.

“You!!!” he said raising his rifle “I’ve come to kill you and mount your head on my wall!!”

“Do it Tabula” he heard Bessy say. She had made her way to the pub with her friend.
Psyche was there and so was Aldrerian, a scruffy brawler, everyone hated.
In the corner Dunamis and tentantive were watching ……tentatively. Shyster and detrop and the entire Forum village seemed to be there. Many more were watching from the windows.

“Let us talk” Satyr said calmly and smirked.

Tabula didn’t mince words he went straight to the matter.
“Have you been spreading filth about how Fear is the underlying emotion and that the Love Wall should be called the Fear Wall?!!” he bellowed and felt good about himself.

“And much more than that.” Satyr said. “I’ve been saying how ideas spread like diseases and infect minds and make them addicted to contentment.
Psyche audibly gasped in disgust.

“You are sick. Sick!!! I tell you. I should know I am the Contentment Administrator and I have the paperwork to prove it!!!” he said “You should be healed, given a triple, no a quadruple dose of Happy pills. You must be saved from yourself, but more than that, you must be cured so as to not spread your disease.”

“MY disease?” Satyr quipped “It isn’t I that stays behind a wall that isn’t there.”

“Ahhhhhhhh!!!”
The crowd moaned in unison.
Tabula raised his gun. Two shot were fired.

“Take that!!!” he screamed in contented anger.
Satyr just stood there.
“You are dead, you hear? I shot you, I win!!!” he shuffled his feet uncomfortably “Now…now….fall down and be dead.”

“Whatever” said Satyr nonchalantly.

Bessy erupted from the side
“You sir are a lonely, disturbed, miserable fiend. Love is transcendental….i don’t know how or why but….it is….so there. I WIN!!! WE WIN!!!”

tgbvfr97531 joined in, to support.
“You speak because you were never loved. I see your hurt, your pain. Can you not see how healthy we are, how wonderfully drunk on our own endorphins? Why don’t you want the same for yourself? What’s wrong with you?”

[size=75]to be continued…[/size]

3

[size=75][Can I play…?][/size]

Unoticed for the present amidst the increasing uncontented furore, Tabula sank to his knees, his impotent weapon, spent in vain, lying in his lap. The unprecidented disappointment, coupled with the accelerated metabolism of conflict had finally dispersed the cloudy headedness of The CA’s elixer.

Tabula blinked, and shook his head like a child waking after a comforting mid-afternoon nap. His long hair, once a magnificent tangled mane, dangled limply, sweat-soaked and lifeless, the boyish grin sliding slowly off his face.

Satyr, unphased by the bleatings of the sheep, slowly unfolded himself from the barstool, and stood. His dark eyes locked with the clear baby-blues of Tabula… His basilisk gaze spitting poisonous memes of pure animalistic joy…

“I…” Stuttered Tab.

And a hush slowly replaced the din echoing around the smokey snug.

“I have…”

"Yes - yes - you have to kill the bastard !!! " Spat the CA and his lackies. "Just get on with it Dammit !!! The co-efficient of happiness is going CRITICAL - DO IT NOW !!!"

“I have had… An idea…”

Satyr’s knowing smirk widened as the expressions on the sheeple around the room by turns fell from righteous exultation to dismay, and eventually to horror as their mirthful hero, their merry court jester with his whimsical penchant for flowery prose - Turned on them and said.

“He’s right you know, you can all bury your heads in the sand for as long as you like… Life… Basically… Like… Really… Sucks.” Tabula flung off the motley, to reveal the shiny black and red uniform of an officer of the dreaded Discontentment Diaspora…!

“No !!!” gasped the crowd, all unconsciously shuffling backwards. “This cannot be !!!”

“Aha !!!” Cried Tabula, tugging off the fake hairpiece, to reveal the ritually scarred and shaven scalp of a true fanatic. “YES - THAT’S RIGHT YOU SHEEPLE SCUM - I WAS ONE OF THEM THE WHOLE TIME - I HAD YOU ALL FOOLED - NOT THAT IT WAS ANY GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT !!!”

And then Tabula slowly swivelled upon his jack-booted heels.

“But you…” He raised a stiff finger at the now cowering Satyr… “But you, my lad… Have royally fucked things up.”

“But - But - I didn’t know…” Satyr’s jaw worked spastically… Jerking suddenly, remembering the protocol, he fell to his knees, burying his face in the beer-stained carpet… “Master… forgive me…” He moaned.

“Forgive…? Forgive… Such, such INEPTITUDE…?” Tabula strode to the figure and swiftly sank his boot into its ribs. “You… You miserable excuse for a philosopher - I would have had these ILP sheep eating out of my hand in a few months time…!” Tabula spat, a wad of grey-white spittle spattering across his victim’s hunch. “All of them, delightfully despondant, conveniently confused, looking desperately for a new light, a new direction… One which I would have given them… A truer path, heartless and cold… Why I would have created an ARMY of disillusioned souls, ready to goose-step toward the bitter mansions of our masters… ALL OF THEM !!! Did you think I amused them, played the fool, out of, out of - ALTRUISM !!!”

Satyr looked up in dismay from his genuflection. Tabula drew his knife.

“I ought to gut you like a pig, and let this deluded rabble dance on your thrice-damned entrails…” Tabula snarled… “But, I recognise the hairstyle - you’re a lay-brother aren’t you…?”

“Of the fifth declenchment your honour.” A look of hope blossomed in Satyr’s one good eye.

“I see.” Said Tabula. “Then, however much as I’d like to make you pay for wrecking my plans, you have the right of an honourable death.” Tabula cast the dagger down in front of the now pitiful Satyr, the selfsame Satyr who had once had been a figure of such spiteful pride. “Take it if you have the spine scum, it’s more than you deserve.”

Fingers trembling and beads of sweat pin-pricking his once-proud face. Satyr picked up the knife, one hand gripping the blade so tightly that a single race of blood ran down the tang. Muttering softly Satyr began the littany:

“May the beast within look favourably upon my works, for I have spread his gospel as I could… May that which is good come to befoulment… May that which is pure of form if not in root be forever judged only by its precursors… May life be forever damned not to progress, let it never escape the tethers of the animal… Let th”

“Cut the chit-chat, I haven’t got all day you know - hurry up and die already - before I change my mind.” Tabula interjected.

Satyr gave a last despairing look upward, and meeting nothing but cold steel and distain, in one convulsive movement, cast himself upon the blade. Shuddering, a last drawn out hiss of tainted breath, and his unfair form lay stretched and lifeless upon the pile.

Tabula turned, task completed, to the dismayed audience of his one-time peers. A roomful of eyes warily followed his every move. Tabula paced toward the juke-box in one corner.

"You, overgrown frat-boy - " He pointed at the slothful, but mightily quick-fingered Adlerian, “Gimme a dime.”

Flicking the coin into the machine Tabula punched in a number… A raunchy strip-show bass line thundered in the silence…

DAH-DAH-DE-DEH, DAH-DAH-DE-DUH, DAH-DAH DAH-DAH, DAH-DAH, DAH-DAH-DAH, DI-DI-DI-DI…

Spinning and gyrating, Tabula spun like a dervish, shedding lycra and PVC like a clothesline gone critical, till triumphant, he stopped dead, nude except for a sheen of clean sweat, and a magnificent pair of Union-Jack and Crescent-and-Star Y-fronts. Stooping to pick his sundered mane form the saw-dust he stuck it, raffishly askew upon his head… Breathing heavily, he started laughing at the crowd still shocked faces…

“Hah, you didn’t (puff-pant) think that I… I of all people would ever turn to the dark-side did you…? Bartender…” Tabula paused, panting raggedly. “Bartender…”

“FEEL-GOOD COCKTAILS ALL ROUND !!!”

Tabula wandered over to Psyque, Shyster and Bessy, and linking arms drew them quietly away from the milling throng,

“I tell - you, it’s gonna take bloody ages to grow this lot back…” Tab muttered darkly, fingering what was left of his hair, but then, brightening back to his old insufferably chirpy self, he turned to the fair Shyster and said…

“So - about that porn-film we were going to make together…”

[size=75]The End… Or is it…?[/size]

4

Episode 4

The girls chortled in spiteful glee.
“Oh Tabula, you’re our hero. Shall we tear his scalp off and offer it to you as a memento?”

Tabula turned in that slow, calculated way that makes it seem like he’s in total control and gazed upon Bessy and the other.
A diamond sparkled in his mouth.

“You can have it.” he magnanimously proclaimed, a bead of sweat forming on his nose. Then the girls giggled. His options were still open.
He had spoken the right words in the right way with the right amount of indifferent humor. It made him seem ….special.

Then he turned to his companions and their victorious banter. They back-slapped him and praised him as their villages new hero.
Bush be damned.

“See…” Shuster began “Love always wins the day; and if we have to kill every motherfucker to prove it? So be it.”
Psyche gleamed like a newly polished knob, his eyes restored to their original distant stare and vacant certainty.

But as they neared the pub exit a sound interrupted their triumphant speeches.

“Well, well, well. A little premature, aren’t we?”
They all turned, their hands clasped in the midst of exaltation, their faces frozen in delight and there stood Satyr again, bloody nosed and with an expression of calm serenity.
“Shooting blanks wont kill the beast, merry men of Love. The flesh requires more substantial proof.” Satyr smiled, a drop of blood coasting down his fangs.

“You should have stayed de….dead.” psyche stammered, quickly falling behind Shysters Amazonian presence. "I proclaim you dead and we the…victors……I win, I win….I mean….We win!!! We win!!!”

“This is our town.” Said Tabula. Shyster raised her eyebrows in astonishment but her gaze turned towards Tabula.

“What? What did you say?!!” she coughed

“Shut up bitch!!! You didn’t really believe that bullshit about equality did you?!”

Satyr’s smile broadened. He saw Bessy praying in the corner to some transcendental force. Aldrerian sat with a self-satisfied grimace on his face.

“Damn fools!!!” he muttered.

“Hopes and wishes can’t save you from reality, dear sheeple. Your minds cannot escape your bodies.” said Satyr making Aldrerian burst out in laughter.

Shyster stepped forward.

"Don’t you know who I am? My friends say I’m a Goddess!!! Kneel before my presence and ask me for mercy. I am liberated woman, I am a porno Queen!!!”

Satyr slapped her so hard she went looking for her teeth in the corner.
Psyche foraged for something in his pocket and came up with a piece of paper. He held it up like an anathema, like a crucifix.

“I…I’m a Doctor….I declare you sick!!! I diagnose you as d……de……dead!!!” he yelled before running our the door looking for his safe heaven and his wife’s warm embrace.

The paper drifted like a leaf to the booze soaked floor.

Satyr stepped forward and let his hoof bite into the ink.

“Have I told you about women yet?” he asked, as if genuinely curious.

“Shut your mouth!!” cried tentantive “Even though I see the logic in your message I still refuse to accept it!!!” then tentantive raised his/her arms to draw attention.

“Rise up brothers and sisters!! Let us eradicate this scourge from amongst us!!!”

They cheered around Tabula. Him, still grasping his gun of blanks and loud noises.

“This fool believes fear governs our village!!!” he said wanting to draw attention back to himself. “Let us teach him the essence of our love, the purity of our compassion, the absurdity of his claims by tearing him apart!!!”

Aldrerian remained silent, not wanting any parting this dispute. 10 to 1 seemed like a fair fight, all things considered.

“You miserable wretch” Bessy called her revenge “Now we’ll show you why you shouldn’t meddle in other peoples ….highs”

“Barkeep?” Tabula began….”A round of happy juice for everyone!!! Let us show this madman how happy we are and let him stew in his envy.”

The bartender poured the spiked liquid and a cheer of joy echoed in the hall.
Satyr watched as one by one they drank and fell doe-eyed and smiling in a contented stupor to the wooden planks.

Alone, he was left, with Aldrerian sitting on the other end facing him. All but the barkeep lay happily, moaning on the filthy floor and first amongst them Tabula writhed in ecstatic mirth. His voice silenced, his witty comebacks postponed, his happy-go-lucky persona obliterated in a flood of chemical contentment.

“Why don’t you join them?” Satyr asked Aldrerian.

“’Cause their kind makes me sick.” He took a gulp from his un-spiked elixir. “So, what now?”

“We wait until they come around and then….then we let them judge me before a tribunial and then we listen to them condemn me to exile or worse……to quarantine.” Replied Satyr without a trace of concern on his hairy face. As if he had seen this all before. As if he’d been tarred and feathered and sentenced a myriad times before.

Aldrerian looked at him curiously.
“Aren’t you going to run?”

“Why run? This is where the fun begins”

5

Episode 5

Tabula slowly came to his half-senses.
His dry mouth made him sit up, awakening from a dream of pretty flowers and kaleidoscope hallucinations. Spittle dripped down the side of his mouth.

He looked up and saw Aldrerian and Satyr sharing a drink. They turned and looked at him.

“You!!..” he gushed “….still…….here?”

“Now the fun begins” whispered Satyr.

“I’ll teach you to ….come here and disrupt our joyous love fest. I’ll teach you to come her and inject doubt and thought in our little village of flirtatious hedonism.”

He paused, collecting his half-thoughts.
“I’m gonna get our Judge/Contentment Administrator!!! You are going to get it now….buddy!!! A full round of my 142 proof reality check!!!” Tabula stumbled out as the rest of them slowly awakened from their drunken stupors.

Somenename rose, to block the door.
“You ain’t going anywhere……stranger.”

“I never intended to.” retorted Satyr.

Then Tabula came back accompanied by the now rejuvenated psyche wearing a judges robe.
“Grab him and seat him in the corner” yelled psyche, his authority renewed his courage heightened in the midst of his own health kind.

Somenewname and tentative grabbed Satyr and sat him across from psyche’s justice chair. A fleeting shadow of doubt passed by tentantive’s eyes, but the dye was cast and all that could be done now is watch and wait.

“What’s he doing here?!!!” psyche spat an accusatory finger towards Aldrrian. “He’s an imposter, a pretender. Throw him out of here. Only my knowledge counts here.”

“But ….but sir…” Pleaded Shyster who had by now found her teeth and her wits. ”He’s a fellow Forum villager her has a right to be here. If you exclude him then I’ll be next.”

Psyche considered her reasoning, her feminine voice reminded him of his little girls.

“Alright, but tell him to keep his mouth shut!!”

Now psyche’s attentions were completely focused upon the bestial deformity of the Satyr. Her hooves reminded him of the devil, his hairy face of a primitive ape and his audacity reminded him of fascism.

“And here you are, despicable fiend, caught in the web of your own doing, a prisoner of your honest mouth and un-censoring attitudes. You come hereto remind us of those secret whispers in our mind, those doubts, those lingering questions we cannot form into consciousness and you think……you think!!!..you are our better!!! Can’t stay dead, can you?”

“Love is transcendent, it exists beyond time space!!!” yelled Bessy from the side. “Lynch him!!!”

“He thinks he’s stronger because he speaks the right words in the right way and he has a more powerful skeletal and muscular form” called out Shyster “I’ll kick his ass!!!”
The crowed erupted in hysterical blood thirst.

“Kill!!! Kill!!! Kill!!! Kill him in the name of love!!!” they chanted.

Psyche’s demeanour softened.

“Now, now, fellow villagers.” He waves his hands up and down in a calming manner, in a hypnotic dance. “We must hear this fool out before we condemn him to purgatory!! We mustn’t allow anyone to believe we aren’t open-minded just people!!!” he cautioned

“Teach him how to love the way we did those bastard in the other village last year. Torture him!!!” someone cried from the back, the spiteful love flowing over the congregation like a mist of mob mentality.

Psyche waited for the voices to subside before he turned to Satyr. A victorious gleam in his eyes, the people all completely behind him, his authority ensuring his safety, his Will bolstered by those of his fellow villagers who, by now, had grown dependant on his magical chemical contentment pills.

“Plead your case! Then listen to my, already established decree!!!” he said. A smile covering his contentment from ear to ear. His authority preserved and those pieces of paper on his walls, still meaning ….something.

[size=75]to be continued…[/size]

6

…more to come… :imp:

7

Episode 6

“I just made some comments concerning your Love Wall – you know that line in the sand surrounded by pretty flowers that’s supposed to keep the big bad world outside - I commented how the flowers are rooted in manure and it is more a Fear Wall meant to keep you inside than anything outside.”

“Huuuuuuh!!!” The crowed gasped.

“He blasphemes against our Love God, he makes a mockery of life!!! Exile him and let God have mercy on his soul!!!” called out Iron Dog.

Psyche ignored Iron Dog, he had the first nail in Satry’s coffin, he needed more.

“What else?”

“Oh, and I mentioned how women had lower intellectual potentials, even if they make that up in other ways.”

“You bloody coward!!!” Shyster went hysterical “Can’t get laid, chummy. Taking out your sexual frustrations on us ……liberated, capable and equal women because they don’t pay attention to you!!!” she frothed “Chop off his balls!!!” she lunged forward her manicured nails glistening in expectation of blood.

“Hold her!!!” commanded psyche and two villagers barely managed to hold her still.

“Now either calm down or take it outside. This isn’t going to turn into a lynching, before I proclaim it to be. It’s ……it’s ….unhealthy.”
Then he turned to Satyr again.
“Do you have proof, do you have graphs and statistics, do you possess books and quotations and supporting evidence?” he challenged.

“Yes, do you?” scoffed a voice from the back and then stepped forward. It was a representative from the Rules and Regulations Office who called himself phork.

“The rules state it clearly, all opinions must be sanctioned and stamped before expression. All opinions casting aspersions upon established truths will be held to a higher standard than all the rest. If you dare research or form an opinion that insults or threatens the Forum’s health and stability, you are certainly allowed to, but you must then produce irrefutable, concrete evidence in support. Whereas if you present unthreatening opinion you can speculate at will”

“Irrefutable evidence?” asked Satyr.

“Yes” answered phork in that calm cold manner of scientific discourse.
The congregation silenced, the voice of Central control was in their midst and even psyche took a back seat.

“So, if I wish to express an innocuous or abstract opinion, like my opinion on infinity, for example, I can speculate all I wish and none or little evidence will be asked. Only my imagination and my personal perspectives will be presented, whereas if I choose to present an opinion which might insult a segment of the population or which endangered the foundations of acceptable. “healthy”, reality then irrefutable, supportable evidence must be provided?”

“That’s right.”

“Wait, wait. I’m still confused.” Satyr tried to put his thoughts in order. “All reality is refutable and uncertain correct?”

“Yes”

“All opinion is speculation and theoretical. It alters from decade to decade, and all scientific and philosophical discourse is about comparing speculative theories based on observable information….right?”

“Yes”

“So, you tolerate any speculation concerning Black holes, for instance, or about God, or about Free-Will or about the fabric of reality, creating fantastic images of vibrating strings that cannot be corroborated or proven but if you dare speculate on anything that blemishes social contentment or that challenges cultural morality you can either keep your mouth shut or be absolutely certain that you can prove your speculation?”

“You are beginning to understand now. You see Satyr we have standards here. We have free speech. But certain free-speech, if it cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt can result in punishment, in chastising, in ostracizing, in ridicule and defaming.”

“I see”

Phork continued

“Years ago speculating on the cosmos went against the morays of our Forum’s populace. Speculating on the nature of the universe, if it went against dogma, was punished with house-arrest or worse.”Phork began pacing up and down between the crowed, psyche and Satyr on the other side, as if in a lecture.

“Today speculating on the nature of the universe is allowed even encouraged, the morality has changed it has adapted so as to not be threatened by such speculation. But we value our peace of mind, our self-respect and social well-being. We cannot allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to speculate on issues that we hold dear. Our equality, our Love, our compassionate nature, our stability, our harmonious coexistence is the foundation of who and what we are. So we allow speculation, just a long as the speculator has the balls to risk the repercussions. You can comment on racial differences, but if this commentary does not support the established equality rule then it must, it must, be supported with mountains of evidence that prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt or else the ballsy one will have them chopped off, as an example to those daring to threaten the norm. Speculation must be curbed unless we wish all sorts of specualtions to come to light. Speculation must be now practiced by …experts, who can more easily be controlled and censored or taught to speculate in specific ways that lead to specific speculations. That’s why we have schools.”

Phork paused for effect.

“And even if evidence is provided, all means will be used to defame, degrade and ridicule the evidence at hand. Other, counter evidence will be provided, because evidence is easily t hand to support any position. Reality is unknown and so easily interpreted and reinterpreted and statistics can be warped and spun and directed through precise questions. Then aspersions will be cast concerning the commentators sexual practices, his mental disposition….This is where psyche come in handy…and his overall worth and happiness. In the end we are certain that speculation will be limited to abstract theorizing or in support of established belief or on topic with no threatening qualities.”

“And what about truth? What about free-thought?”

“Truth!!!” quaffed phork “There is no Truth. Truth is created and we dear Satyr, we decide what truth is created!!!” he stopped and spun around with his hands outturned “This is our truth. A quiet, harmonious, village with inebriated brains and happy countenances, with unquestioning minds and childish dispositions. The new man is coming to be: castrated, passive, calm, tolerant, peaceful, non-aggressive, equal, docile….Social man, global man, the man of tomorrow.”
He went on

"Free-thought? That is severely discouraged. Free-thought results in disharmony and disharmony to disassociation and segregation and a breaking apart….chaos. Free-radicals represent un-harnessed chaos. Order must be established.”

[size=75]to be continued…[/size]

8

Temporarily forgotten in the roar of rhetoric, Tabula slinked silently to the bar, and picked up the dagger Satyr had so convincingly cast himself upon some while ago.

With one manicured finger he pricked the point. It retracted.

“Goddamn it - My gun fires blanks and my knives are of the purely comedy variety. I must find myself a better dealer…”

He turned back to the hearing. It was getting chilly, standing there dressed only in his undies, so, stooping over the polished veneer of the bar, he grabbed a white cotton shirt, and a pair of jeans, as yet unrecovered from the lost and found box, orphans of the last ILP feelgood orgy.

The back and forth of empty debate continued to echo off the walls. Tabula wandered amongst the abandoned tables, searching for what he needed. A pocket mirror and a packet of fags. The toolbox in the supply cabinet of the men’s room supplied the final item - a pair of pliers.

So equipped, Tabula stretched, and strode into the centre of the room.

Phork was still in mid-flow, eyes to the ceiling, Tabula quickly seated himself beside the Satyr.

“How’s it going… Your one-man show…? Who are you trying to convince, them…? Or just yourself…?” Tabula smiled, and lit a ciggie.

[i]"Hah - you 142 IQ’d phony, I wi

“Hush now, and look at this…”[/i] Tabula dropped the mirror onto the table. Satyr’s eyes, reflexively drawn downward by the sparkle, followed it.

“Mirrror.” Tabula inhaled, and then blew a plume of smoke into Satyr’s scowling face. “And smoke…”

Suddenly around them, the forum village slowly lost resolution and disappeared, fading like pixels on a broken screen. There was a wrenching, and a slight sense of motion, like that initial drop as a lift starts descending.

Satyr jerked up straight - he was in a rectangular courtyard, walled in on all sides, a walkway, about 15 feet up and shuttered in an intricately carvern rosewood, ran the full length of the walls. It was hot - the air moist, but the breeze not seeming to lull the heat. In the center a fountain played gently. All around people sat: talking, laughing, argueing, drinking tea at low tables.

Suddenly, a hand appeared from behind him, an clamped down like a vice on his wrist, pinning it to the table. Another hand grasping some pliers, swooped over his shoulder, and before his already bewildered brain could collect itself - wrenched out the talon of his index finger.

“Sorry about that old chap.” Said Tabula in a conversational tone, pocketing the purloined fingernail… And sat opposite Satyr, who clutched his wounded mitt to his barrel chest.

“What is this place…?” Said Satyr. “How did I get here…?”

“A mere bagatelle - a device of smoke and mirrors. Do you like it…? We are in İzmir, in what used to be the Harem of a rich merchant. I thought it… Appropriate, given your ideas about the fairer sex…” Tabula smiled once more, “Would you like some tea…?” Without waiting for a reply, Tabula turned and signalled to a Garson, “İki çay, lütfen, açik olsun.”

“Emirinizle efendim, hemen geliyor.” The waiter bowed and left.

“So Satyr, having fun…? Making your waves in the forum village…?”

Satyr struggled to speak, but found his jaws unable.

“Playing your solipistic game of charades with your facsimiles…? And there’s me thinking you always said you could make no judgements of people without adequate knowledge, that no-one could declare you ill because, well, no-one was actually you… And yet, once more you prove the exception to your rule, and happily place words in the mouths of your projections, and impress deeds upon the bodies of those you do not know… At least by your own criteria…”

Satyr’s teeth ground in his mouth.

“I do not take kindly to becoming your marionette, though of course, such is inevitable in this game we are playing. But a competant spinner of subtefuge at least pays his characterizations the respect of consistency…”

The tendons in Satyr’s tree-trunk neck began to ping.

“Of what do I speak…?” Tabula spun his tea gently around the glass. “Let me enlighten…” Taking the silvered spoon from the glass, sunlight glinting off its lip, Tabula wrote in the air:

“Don’t get me wrong, my hairy friend, I charactierize you, and you characterize me, this much is given. But that particular utterance would never cross my lips, neither in reality, nor character.”

Tabula reached across and touched Satyr’s twisted lips. “I do not speak for you in this place, I do not put my words in your mouth in the attempt to damage a relationship with one you hold in respect.”

"I bear for you little real ill-will dear Satyr, and beyond a capricious need to pull out the corks of those I deem… full of shit, try not to cause real pain. "

“But, you have hurt me.” Tabula said simply, “And so - I will hurt you…”

Satyr’s eyes twinkled in mirth.

“I know what you are thinking… My bullets are blanks and my daggers are of rubber, I cannot hurt you with a weapon of my making… But…” Tabula smiled wryly and pulled out the talon he had wrenched from Satyr’s paw. Its pale length caught the chill gleam of the moonlight. “…Now, I have one of yours…”

And with those words, Tabula savagely cleft the skin of Satyr’s furred cheek with the razor edge of the beasts own weapon. A thick sludge of blood pulsed blackly in the gloom.

“A scar, for you to remember me by, dear Satyr, a momento for you to stare at all your days, a meme, from me to you - ‘play fair’ - both in fiction and in truth.”

Tabula stood, and brushing off the dust from his borrowed atire, walked toward the archway. “Oh - there, you’re free to go…” Tabula absently waved his hand, and Satyr suddenly slumped, the bindings cut.

“I leave you, for now - You can find your own way back into your story…”

9

Tabula walked along the beach of his imagination, bare heels scuffing the damp sand. The blood-red sun hung low on the horizon, dipping slowly toward the sea. Finding a smooth rock, still warm form the day’s heat, he sat. A small flame flickered briefly in his hand, and, exhaling a plume of blue-grey smoke, Tabula tossed the match and fished in his pocket. He drew out an uneven lump of cloudy rose-quartz, and held it up to what was left of the light. A ruddy glow began to dance in its depths.

Satyr still sat. Around him, people were slowly drifting away, the accompanying hub-bub of conversation slowly fading. Despite night-fall, the heat remained, and mosquitos droned erratically in the encroaching gloom.

A waiter came over and cleared the table, “Hesap Efendim…? Biz kapatiyoruz…” He said. Satyr blinked up at him, incomprehension written across his scarred face.

Seeing his plight, a man on the next table leaned over. “He says that the cafe is closing, he wants you to pay the bill.”

Satyr patted his hairy flanks… No pockets, no money. He turned back to the man, who was himself, preparing to leave. “Errr…”

The man smiled, “Left your wallet at the hotel…? S’okay, I’ll spot you.” He turned to the waiter and dealt out some small bills. Satyr watched, horror mounting on his features.

“That was, that was… Very altruistic of you.” He said at last, through gritted teeth.

“No biggie my hairy friend, strangers in a strange land and all that. You take care of yourself now.” The man said, over his shoulder, walking toward the Southern archway. He paused and turned briefly back, “By the way, I think they want you to go - they can’t leave until the last customer has gone you know… You’re keeping them away from their wives…” He winked, and was gone.

Satyr rose, and slapped the dust from his fur. ‘Go…?’ He thought, ‘But how…?’.

Outside the Harem, the covered market was still bustling, hawkers told their wares in a bewildering jabber of noise. People of all shapes, sizes and ages helter-skeltered about with bulging bags. As he walked down the narrow street, heads turned, and eyes stared. Satyr looked down at himself: A solid muscular torso, broad at the shoulder and tapering into the curling, wooley fur swathing his hips, powerful thighs zig-zagging backward to end in blunt hooves, and of course, his horned and unlovely head. And yet the eyes of the people betrayed no alarm, only a certain friendly curiousity.

Satyr couldn’t understand it. He could break any number of these sheep in two, and still - they did not fear him, indeed, some of the older village women, bosoms and backsides balloning out of their colourful skirts, did not even get out of his way, but buffeted past with only the scantest of pardons.

Satyr was perplexed. He had to get out of there. Swerving his footsteps to the side of the street, he squatted, and thought…

‘Where the fuck am I…?’
‘I’m in Tabula’s story.’
‘Where’s Tabula’s story…?’
‘In Tabula’s head.’
‘What is this place…?’
‘An extension of Tabula.’
‘What is Tabula…?’
‘Tabula… Tabula is… One that likes illusions… Tabula… believes…’

He stood and stretched. With a renewed sense of purpose Satyr looked closely around him… People were helping eachother, giving directions, running for change, unpacking and packing eachother’s stores and goods, cooperating. He spied a street-vendor shouldering a staff hung with cheap sunglasses, and strode closer. Sure enough, though of different types and makes, all the lenses were rosy-tinted.

Satyr laughed, the barking series of snorts, finally succeeding in startling the passers-by, who forked a warding sign against the evil eye toward him. A grin, made feral by the fangs it exposed, gleamed in the electric lights.

Tabula had brought him here with smoke and mirrors, the same would get him out.

Walking onward with his best imitation of nonchalence, Satyr looked at the midnight sky through the chinks in the stretched canvas and said,

“Oh-boy, I wish I hadn’t forgotten my cigarettes…”

Almost instantly, a tourist coming in the opposite direction smiled, and stopped. “Hey there - I’m gasping for a fag too, d’you want one of mine…?” She said, lighting up, and poffering her packet toward him.

Still grinning, Satyr took the packet, and the lighter, and walked on, leaving the ignorant sheeple blinking in his wake.

Smoke.

The sound of hammering drew Satyr off to his right. The street of Copper-workers was awash with noise and the acrid fumes of the polish they used to burnish their metalware. Light twinkled and gleamed on the plates and samovars glinting from every shop-front. Satyr quickly found a largish piece that would serve. Standing he began to turn back to the street as he proclaimed,

“If only I hadn’t left my wallet at the hotel…”

The shopkeeper’s boy pricked up his ears, and sprang to tug at his elbow. “Wait Sir, one minute.” The boy, his face smudged and his clothes pinholed from the forge, ran into the shop to converse rapidly with his father. After a short time, he returned and smiled. “My father say you take it, give address of hotel, I bring bill, you give money… Okay…?”

“Of course.” Smiled the Satyr, and waited patiently while the boy wrapped up the plate of copper, so well-polished you could see your face in it.

Mirror.

A sudden peal of summer-thunder, boomed softly in the sky, sounding for all the world, like a titan, chuckling.

A few hours later, saw Satyr crouching in an empty side-street, as the first streaks of dawn marbled the sky. His lungs were choked with smoke and discarded dog-ends littered the ground around his hooves. The copper mirror bore dents from his horns as he had beaten it against his head in frustration. Finally Satyr threw down the empty packet, put back his head and bellowed like a steam-shovel, flecks of foam spraying from his twisted lips. The cut on his cheek broke open, and a rivulet of blood spattered in the dust.

A few streets away, into the hand of a street-urchin was pressed a small-denomination bill, and into the other was pressed a scrap of paper. A manicured finger pointed, and the urchin sped off, his thin heels kicking up the dirt.

“Mee-ster…” A small hand tapped on Satyr’s shoulder. “Mee-ster…”

Satyr whirled, and caught the small wrist in a crushing grip, standing, he lifted the little boy, squealing and kicking, into the air.

“What…?” He said, and dumped the kid onto his butt in the dirt.

Trembling, the little child meekly held out the scrap of paper. Satyr took it, it read:

[i]Hello old chap - still trying to copy the magic of others…?

Here, just as anywhere else, you must find your own style of trickery…

Ps: Don’t kill the messenger…[/i]

Seeing the look of fatal rage surge across Satyr’s face, the little boy bolted for the mouth of the alley, and disappeared into the stalls.

The day turned hot. Sweat started to trickle and itch around Satyr’s heavily furred groin. His paws clenched and unclenched, talons clicking like dice, as he trudged without direction through the seemingly endless market. Suddenly a radio blared an old classic, splitting the early-morning quiet.

“Somewhere over the rainbow…”

Satyr blinked and found himself in front of a dusty bric-a-brac stall. Faded plastic fairies danced and twirled in the breeze, hung from bits of twine. Grunting, he moved on.

A girl, not much more than 12, rushed past, chasing a small curly-haired dog… “Gel Buraya !!! Toto !!! Gel !!! - Kötü köpek !!!” She squealed and sprinted after the runaway. A shop opened to his right, the seller hanging out halloween horror masks for the tourist-children, werewolves… Vampires… Wicked witches…

Finally, exhausted and hungry, Satyr sat and cooled his hooves in the moist shade of one of the many water-fountains dotting the market-streets. He looked around. This was the place of the shoe-sellers, and leather in every hue and style heaved upon the shelves. A flash of red caught his predatory eye. Flexing upward from his haunches, Satyr moved toward it.

A pair of dainty child’s slippers, sequined and sparkling in the harsh sunlight. A delicious ruby red.

‘Tabula - you motherfucker…’ He thought. Satyr glanced about surrupticiously, the small square seemed queerly empty of life. Stooping Satyr took the red-slippers and forced them onto his hooves.

He stood. And clicking the heels together three times, chanted:

“I want to go home.”
“I want to go home.”
“I WANT TO GO HOME.”

Tabula grinned as the last rays of the sun drowned themselves in the darkened sea. The light slipped from the quartz crystal, and with a flip of his wrist, he sent it spinning across out over the waves. Rising from his seat, he turned, and began walking, whistling now and then, back toward the cliffs.

Like nothing had happened, Phork continued his tirade. Satyr started awake in his chair, back in the pub in the forum village. Phork suddenly double-taked at Satyr, his speech dying in his mouth.

Psyque peered over, and broke into a delighted grin, flashing all of his pearly whites…

[size=117]“Hey Satyr… Nice Shoes dude…”[/size]

10

In which the Satyr scores a not inconsiderable victory…
An unlikely hero saves the day…
And the Ancient Arcana of ILP are summoned.

The whole pub errupted into merry peals of laughter, many fingers were waved and many thighs were slapped, not all of them belonging to the respective slappers:

[i]"Hah Satyr’s wearing girlie shoes ! -

  • Oy ! Get your hands off my leg greaseball -
  • never figured him for a cross-dresser -
  • sorry -
  • prolly never had a real girlfriend -
  • I need a drink, who’s round is it…?"[/i]

Satyr just slouched back in his chair, kicked off the red shoes and put his hooves up on the table, lacing his fingers behind his tree-trunk neck. If the comments and barbs sunk home, he showed not the barest flicker of anger.

The barman furiously poured and shook and mixed and blended as the various punters of the ILP compassion-crowd jostled at the bar to top up their happiness quotia, back to a pre-interruption level of bliss. Euphoria-shots were downed, Endorphin-Acceleraters were quaffed, and pints of Perception-inhibitor were tippled.

Only EmbraceTrees, who was a little on the youthful side yet to be fucking up her brain any more than was necessary, stood in solemn contemplation of the Satyr as he lolled languidly, surveying the free-for-all at the bar.

[size=84]“why ain’t you mad you great big meany…? tabula just whupped your ass again, didn’t he…?”[/size]

Satyr grinned, an unpleasent expression at best, made more so by the ragged gouge across his cheek, still scabbed and weeping.

“As usual, infant, you neglect to ask the more pertinant question…”

[size=84]“yeah…? so…? what would that be, huh…?”[/size]

“Well little one,” And in a single fluid movement the Satyr sprang from the chair and landed with an echoing double thump of horned-hoof on board, to tower over the slyph-like form of Embrace. “The more pertinant question would be: Where is the Adlerian…?”

Satyr’s claws popped out with an audible snick, and descended till they were only millimetres from the girl’s wide and fairly innocent eyes. “Possibly followed up by the purely rhetorical question: Who will save me now that all my friends are despairing zombie navel-gazers…?”

And Embrace peeped through the crook of Satyr’s arm, her eyes widening still further as she perceieved the chaos at the bar. All those who had been quaffing so mirthfully the instant before were now sinking to the floor, their expressions of glee sliding through shades of puzzlement, to denial, to dark enlightenment and finally to… Despair.

The Adlerian huffed and puffed into view from the cellar… “I spiked all the casks, just like you said boss… Did we get all those crypto-fascist-happiness-mongers…?” He hunkered over to Satyr, who absently patted him on the head, claws grazing his puckered scalp.

“Yes my pet, you have done well, our frollicking friends will frolic no more, not after the amount of my poisonous cocktail of psuedo-intellectual, preachy, foundationless assertions they’ve just imbibed, they’ll be lucky if they can even see the point of tomorow, much less actually live that long.”

Satyr turned back to Embrace, who still cowered, apparantly entranced, by the beast which threatened her.

“You see my child, the old adage is true - one bad apple does poison the barrel, and we are not one, but two…!!!” Satyr threw back his head and roared in victory.

"MWA-HA-HA THE FOOLS - THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD MATCH THEIR EMPTY EMPATHY AGAINST THE MACHINATIONS OF THE SAATTTYY - [size=117]JESUS H. FUCKING CHRIST [/size]!!!

EmbraceTrees’s size 9 DocMartin boot connected with Satyr’s big hairy bollocks with an eye-watering whallop of scuffed leather on flesh. Satyr dropped the little tyke and hopped around the room, both paws clutching his satyrhood.

[size=84]“i may not be able to capitalize my ‘i’s but at least i know enough not to go round with me genitalia wagglin’ about !!!”[/size] She shouted and bolted for the door. On the threshold she turned, [size=84]“you are so screwed now mr. high and mighty, i’m gonna set my boyfriend on you…!”[/size] And slipping off the silver pentagram from around her slender neck, she cast it on the floor and shouted:

[size=84]“MALİFİCTARİUS, NYCHTOCHROMATOGRAM, ASENSIS !!!”[/size]

With a loud bang, and a flicker of the lightbulbs, a dark form appeared upon the boards where the pentagram had lain. All around the pub, the gay daisies wilted in their pots, the various images of Christ in the religious corner hid their faces, and the crucifixes, with a tortured scream, turned upside down…

“Greetingsss…” Came a hissing voice from beneath the midnight robes and cowl, “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name…”

[size=84]“Whoo-Whoo”[/size] Chanted Embrace from by the door.

Dr. Satanical, levitated from his recumbant position, his arms spread wide in an hedonistic-anti-theistic-humanistic-individualistic welcome. "Please allow me to introduce myself - I am a man of wealth and ta

“Oh, just piss off you sad excuse for a devil-worshipper…” Thundered Satyr, after finally recovering his dignity. “You are no match for the likes of me…”

Suddenly, the mysterious form of the Doctor stiffened. And an aura of eerie red light began to dance around his fingertips.

[size=84]“uh-oh, satyr used the ‘d’ word, you’re just so in for it now buster…”[/size]

“Devil-worshipper…? DEVIL WORSHIPPER !!! - we modern satanists have absolutely nothing to do with that, that theistic whore…! But, perhaps you are right - alone I am no match for you, lucky then, is it not, that I am not alone…”

“Err boss, boss…” The Adlerian tugged at Satyr’s elbow, pointing at something on the ground…

“How dare you interrupt me dog…!” Spat Satyr.

“Sorry boss but, but look… Was that there before…?”

The Adlerian was pointing to a heavy stainless steel trapdoor that had sprung into existance near the bar. Some kind of vapour billowed gently from the hairline cracks around it.

“And, and, that…?”

A huge and hoary bookcase had come into being in the far corner of the room, a multitudinous conglomeration of musty tomes crammed into its capacious shelves. A veritable cohesion of knowledge. It creaked ominously.

“Errr, boss, what’s that noise…?”

From the kitchen area, in the backroom of the pub behind the bar, came the tinny scrape of a metal spatula, clanging on the hotplate to the meaty sizzle of burgers. A heady draft of 100% fried cowflesh with an interesting and piquant selection of relishes, wafted through the air.

Suddenly, there came a thunderous knocking on the door.

Satyr started, his head darting this way and that, ancient fight-flight reflexes flooding his animal brain with adrenaline. Unconsciously, he bared his teeth.

The Adlerian sidestepped until he was behind his master.

Dr. Satanical smiled his secret smile, and gestured to EmbaceTrees to open the door. Embrace, grasping the dull bronze handle, tugged the portal wide.

Framed by the sunlight, an enormous Swedish Amazon stood upon the threshold. A truly titanic pair of breasts strained beneath the skimpy fabric of her crop-top. Golden tresses of hair cascaded down over her shoulders, wavering gently as she tottered on stupendously high heels toward the centre of the room. As the light from the pub’s interior overcame the sunlight, her face became apparent. She was blindfold, and wore a gag.

Apparently finally happy with her position, the amazon, well-muscled legs planted like saplings, brought up her delicate hands, her kaliedoscopically painted nails sparkling in the half-light, to grasp the hem of her top, and tug it upwards over her head…

Her breasts lifted, then finally released from their confinement, fell, to bounce temporarily before assuming a resting state just brimming with dynamic tension.

Where the nipples should have been, were two red-lipped mouths… As one they suddenly opened…

[size=200]“Boobies !!!”[/size]

Exclaimed GCT.

11

In which the players assemble,
the subject of representation is discussed,
And the final stage is set.

With a screech of heavy metal pivoting on unoiled hinges, the trapdoor cranked slowly open. A hand, pale as milk, crept up over the lip, as a spindly form hoisted itself cleanly upward, to stand, rigidly to attention, in the dim lighting of the pub interior.

A figure tall and whiplash thin, dressed in the rag-tag uniform of a hundred different armies, a scarecrow draped in the weapons of all the different ages of man. An antiquated gas mask, circa WWII, trunk swinging gently, covered its features - a hole drilled through at the mouth, to emit a spit-stained cheroot. A voice, the composite of every war-movie you’ve ever seen, barked crisply:

“Hear yuh Hail from Mon-Tree-All boy…”

Satyr, for once at a slight loss for words stammered an affirmative…

“Only two things come from Mon-Tree-All, Steers and queers… Which one are you son…?”

Impenitant grinned beneath the mask, and stood at ease.

All noise from the kitchen ceased suddenly, its absence leaving a hole in the air. With a squeak of shoe-leather polished bright as a button, something tip-tapped its way into the room. Roughly 4 feet tall, a squarish body of yellow porous aquatic sponge, dressed in equally rhomboid pants and spatula in hand. Phaedrus, the legendary ILP chef, schlepped up to stand beside Imp.

“Anybody for a Plato-patty…?” His nose bobbed as he spoke.

[size=84]“who the hell are these guys doc…?”[/size] Asked EmbraceTrees.

And suddenly she was facing the bookcase, which, by simply dropping a ‘t’ - had suddenly ceased to be there, and had instantly become here. The books on the shelves rustled and whispered, their cellulose susurrations, punctuated by the hollow slapping of old leather bindings, resolving into something resembling speech:

"[size=84]who the hell are these guys doc…?[/size]
[i]
If, this cohesion falling loosely under the refferent pronoun of ‘I’, may offer some degree/gradation of guidance upon your utterance, we are that which is denoted by the term: the ‘Ancient Arcana’. Though others less respectful, perhaps in passing reference/inferrence to/from the numerical value of our post-counts and the wear and tear to our literary vocal chords this implies, to mix metaphors so to speak, have dubbed us:

The Four Hoarse-men of the Acropolis.

Which is believed to be some attempt at humour.[/i]

Dunamis"

[size=84]“why d’ya look so weird…?”[/size]

"[size=84]why d’ya look so weird…?[/size]

It must be understood that the intellectual no-space that is ILP, is a thing which is formed and reformed, instant to instant, within the collective gestalt-mind of its members. Each facet reflecting and warping the neuronal energy flow. Within such a nebulous medium the process of projection of some form of self is inverted, and the resulting portrayal/image is not so much a true reflection of the original poster it stems from, but a quixotic combination of all the inferred representations of such a one in the hive mind. We, simply by existing in this frame of reference for a longer period of chronology than the average poster, have been exponentially exposed to a greater cognative set, and hence have suffered a somewhat greater degree of representational misrepresentation.

Dunamis."

[size=84]“err…?”[/size]

With a crash, the door to the pub sprang open. Tabula Rasa drooped, panting on the doorstep, disheveled from running.

“He means.” Tabula paused briefly for breath, “They look like whatever the general consensus subconsciously thinks they look like.”

Collecting himself, Tabula looked around, and smiling absent-mindedly at all and sundry, said:

"Well, the gang’s all here - lets wind this sucker up shall we…?

[size=75]“i just want to know why he keeps writing his own name under all his posts… is he a trademark…?”[/size]

12

In which the Antiquated farts strike back,
Assured anihilation is temporarily everted,
And the need for a final solution is realised…

Satyr put his hands on his hips and glared defiantly at the bizzare company of Legends around him.

“So this antiquated bunch of morphically confused philosophic farts is supposed to what…? Scare me…? See how I tremble in their presence…”

Wrinkling his nose, he hawked a viscous gob of phlem onto the wooden boards at GCT’s feet.

“That for you and your bookish clan - I am of a purer breed, my philosophy runs through the true Greek blood boiling in my veins. You pathetic wannabes. My ancestors were discussing the truth before your inbred forefathers had even discovered their own backsides.”

Satyr’s clawed fingers flexed and wriggled over an unseen keyboard, and dark corruscations of black light, bloated with hideous memes, ebbed and flowed about the furrows of his horned brow.

“My user is even now preparing a post of such hideous power, such darkly persuasive content, such oxy-moronical duplicity that all those ILP sheep who do but skim its devious convolutions, shall be entrapped forever in a hopeless circular arguement, spinning round and round in its soul-sucking gravity… UNTIL THEIR BRAINS IMPLODE !!!”

“Gee - he sounds serious…” Sponge-Phaed twanged, “We’d better do something…”

Impenitent was, unsurprisingly, the first to initiate an all-out pre-emptive strike. Whipping out an oversized hand cannon with a bore big enough to put your fist down, he aimed square at satyr’s head and pulled the trigger.

The recoil nearly wrenched Imp’s arm out of its socket, with a tremendous bang and enough muzzleflash to roast a fair-sized deer - A small flag with the word ‘BANG’ written on it popped out of the barrel.

Dunamis’s Bookcase dematerialized with a hanclap of vaccuum, and swam back into existance right behind Satyr’s hunched form. From the top shelf a heavy Thesaurus, bound in Rhino-hide, tumbled to land with a slight thunk, onto Satyr’s head, bounced, and landed on the floor.

Sponge-Phaed, with dazzling spatula-work, conjured a delicious-looking patty out of thin air, and sent it spinning like some beefy frisbee, to splat against Satyr’s cheek, filling his beard with secret sauce.

GCT threw a shoe.

Satyr, obviously having expected more from the fabled Hoarse-Men, cocked a puzzled eyebrow, and curled his lip.

"Hah - is that the best you can d

Then he keeled over.

The Legends, Dr. S, Embracetrees and Tabula ringed the unmoving form of Satyr.

[size=84]“what did you guys do to him…? i don’t get it - your attacks failed, didn’t they…?”[/size]

Imp took a toot on his cheroot and shouldered his Quipmaster2000â„¢.

“These weapons of ours are mere charactertures of our actions in the real world young lady…” He droned through the rubber, absently rubbing the bunkerpale skin over his shoulderblade, “I, for example, just posted a series of devastatingly poignant, but subtley funny, one-liners underneath every post Satyr’s user has made today. It will be hours before he recovers form his conflicting senses of outrage and mirth.”

[size=84]“oh.”[/size]

"[size=84]oh.[/size]

And as for myself, I posted a missive of such byzantine inticracy and lexical conivance, that it will be hours yet still, before Satyr’s user will even begin to ellucidate some form of coherrent narration from it.

Dunamis."

“Huh…?” Tabula said, rubbing his brow.

[size=84]“big d. hit him with a thesaurus/spinoza double-whammy”[/size] Said Embrace helpfully.

“For my part, I hit him with the ethical shoe of deontology. I universalized to absurdity every rule he had laid down on human behavioral patterns.” Said GCT, his host boobies bouncing with glee, “It will be simply ages before he can subsume the implications into his ongoing arguementative stance…”

“I get it !!!” Shouted Tabula, punching the air. Turning to Sponge-Phaed he inquired: “So, what did you do…?”

“I hit him with a patty.”

“What, like - you cunningly struck down underpinnings of his assertions with a well-placed dose of good-old-fashioned meaty reality…?” Said Tabula, impressed.

“No, I just hit him with a patty.”

“Oh, er - right… Good one. Yeah.” Tabula slapped the sponge on the back with as much enthusiasm as he could muster and turned back to the group. “So - It’s all over then…? We’ve won…?”

“No.” Imp caught Tabula’s arm and dragged his ear down toward the unmoving form of the Satyr. “Listen.”

From Satyr’s flesh came the distant ‘tak-tak’ of frenzied typing. Like a spider plucking at the chords and strings of its broken web, Satyr’s user was franticly attempting to restore enough arguementative credibility, slowly but surely rebuilding sufficient awareness of his actions in the ILP group mind to launch his apocalyptic Ãœber-Post.

“We have only temporarily diverted enough of his narrative flow to nullify a good portion of his influence amongst the posters and lurkers of the Forum Village.” Imp muttered darkly, “His control over his representative homonculus in the no-space of the ILP Gestalt mind has wavered, but this has only bought us a little time.” He paused and shucked off a few of the ammo-belts that draped his scrawny limbs. Squatting and tugging off his gas-mask to reveal a crew-cut head, lined and weary from constant battle, he added, “A more permanent solution must be found, the window for action is closing fast. We must find a way to erase him for good.”

“Well shit.” Said Tabula. “We’d better get our thinking caps on then.”

13

In which the disposal of fictional characters proves difficult,
Meeting the Deux in the Machina,
And a return to hell.

“Kill him.”

“Kill him.”

"Kill him -

Concurred.

Dunamis."

[size=84]“kill him”[/size]

“Crusssh your enemiesss without mercy.”

"Boobies…! - [size=75][cough][/size] - er I mean, kill him."

“Look - guys, this ain’t ‘the good the bad and the ugly’” Interjected Tabula, pacing up and down infront of the prostrate Satyr, “It’s an open-ended story thread, no matter what we do to Satyr’s representation, if he’s clever enough, he can write himself back in…” Tabula stopped and shrugged, “It’s not the size of your guns that matters here, it’s detail, imagination and flair .”

“Pfff… That’s so gay.” Snorted Dr. Satanical, producing from under his robe a ceremonial dagger (with absolutely no connection to Satanic rites whatsoever) and, stalking to the body on the floor, hacked off its left ear, blood splattering his crimson cape. “Sssee - he bleedsss - he can die. Sssimple.”

“Jeeze…” Tabula rolled his eyes, took the knife away from the satanist. A strange kind of tug of war took place, one hand on the knife pulling away, one pushing, but finally Tabula plunged the blade through his own neck. Gurgling pitifully, clawing vainly at the haft protruding from beneath his jaw, Tabula collapsed in a heap, heels drumming on the wood. With a final protracted rattle, all motion ceased. Blood pooled like a dark halo around a fallen saint.

[size=84]“well shit. wtf was that…?”[/size]

“Sseemss Tabula wasss wrong…” Said Dr. S., extracting the blade and wiping it carefully on the dead Tabula’s shirt before stowing it away once more within his robes. “He’sss dead.”

|||[size=150]Glitch[/size]|||

“Sseemss Tabula wasss wrong…” Said Dr. S., extracting the blade and wiping it carefully on the dead Tabula’s shirt before stowing it away once more within his robes. “He’sss dead.”

[size=84]“hey doc - didn’t you just say that already…?”[/size]

The Satanist creased his brow, the motion setting his rubber horns askew. Peering closer at the corpse, he stretched out his hand and tugged at something unseen to the others, just below the jaw-line.

Tabula’s face came off in his hand.

“Asss I sssuspected, the Adlerian…”

“Jeepers !!! The Adlerian was Tabula all along…?” Exclaimed Sponge-Phaed.

“Err - no.” Said a disembodied voice from behind the bar. Tabula popped up into view, clutching a large remote-controller, bristling with joy-sticks and encrusted with buttons… Wiggling one, he made the Adlerian’s jaw wiggle spastically with a slight whirring of gears. “I glitched the story-engine… Notice how the Adlerian seemed to disappear right after you guys turned up…?” he looked around, eyes meeting only blank incomprehension, “No…? - well, my user had overlooked him by accident, but then used this serendipity to bring me back to life without breaking the continuity of the narrative… You see…? Easy-Peasy - no-one ever really dies in a story, they are just temporarily out of the loop.”

“Whatever we do - Satyr can, and will, always come back, in some form or another.”

“So - whaddawe do…?”

“I’m all out… Gentlemen…? Any bright ideas…?” Said Tabula.

"I’m all out… Gentlemen…? Any bright ideas…?

I am forced into the acceptance of a new and unprecedented concept: that of the inversion of ‘having an idea’, the formulation of 'no idea" in conjunction with the central theme of ‘self’ - most interesting.

Dunamis"

Impenitent scratched the bristles on his scalp, “Nope, no idea… But, I know a man who does.” He strode over to Tabula. “Hold still Boy - this may sting a little…”
From a pouch on his utility belt, Imp produced what looked like a small waffle-iron, hitting a stud with his thumb to activate it, the curious symbols on the metal began to glow red-hot.

"Err - Imp, what are you doing…?" Queried Tabula, "I know we don’t always get along but I have nothing but respect for -

“Stop your brown-nosing - I’m a moderator, all I’m doing is flagging your user-name… For banning.” And with that final word hanging in the air, he pressed the branding-iron firmly to Tabula’s forehead. With a sizzle, and an acrid stench of seared flesh - Tabula’s ILP representation slumped lifeless once more.

Imp stood over the paralyzed form. “Any second now… Wait for it…”

Tabula’s body suddenly winked out of existance.

|||[size=150]Discontinuity[/size]|||

Tabula awoke in an oval room, painted in a dazzling white. Monitors covered every surface, a riot of text wildly unwinding across the screens. About ten feet away, was a chair. And on the chair was a large tarnished aluminium bucket, with a mop stuck in it. The water seethed for a second, and a single soap-bubble sprang from the depths, wafted on an unfelt breeze, it wobbled through the air until it came to a stop about 5 centimetres from Tabula’s nose.

It popped. And from nowhere a voice, mellow and deep, and somehow… All-powerful said:

[size=167]“I am the Architect…”[/size]

Tabula stood up, for some reason he was dressed in a long tapering black coat, collar cinched at the neck, and a pair of shades. “I get it… Speech-bubble… Very clever.” he picked some lint off his sleeve. “Er - why am I dressed like a Goth with a techno-fetish…?”

Another bubble appeared.

[size=167]“Popular media contaminates everything…”[/size]

A second followed:

[size=167]“You must be tested…”[/size]

Two buttons on a small dais rose form the floor.

[size=167]“Press the blue one.”[/size]

Tabula jammed his thumb down as directed and suddenly all the screens were covered with his backlog of posts. A few screens, dotted sparsely around the room, glowed blue.

[size=167]“Those are the posts that have been judged as possessing some philosophic merit… Now the red button if you will.”[/size]

Tabula’s finger came down. The whole room suddenly lit up like a sun gone red-giant, the shades saved Tabula’s eyesight, but the split-ends of his hair began to smoulder, threatening imminant ignition.

[size=167]“And those are the ones that are judged as pure crap… Turn it off please.”[/size]

Tabula complied. “Oh - er - well, sorry.”

[size=167]“Don’t worry about it, that’s not actually a bad ratio compared to some of the other members I could mention. What do you want Tabula Rasa…?”[/size]

“Well - it’s about Satyr.” began Tabula, “He’s in danger of destroying the whole of ILP”

[size=167]“Just ignore him.”[/size]

“Sorry your almighty Benniness sir, but that won’t work, he’s not like the others. He’s after all of us, he cannot be destroyed, and he absolutely will not stop.”

[size=167]“Hmm… What does he want to prove…?”[/size]

“That all that is noble in humanity is actually… bullshit.” Tabula’s chest heaved in a mighty sigh, “He will not stop until everybody agrees with him, until he has achieved… total victory.”

[size=167]“Then he must have his victory.”[/size]

“Come again…?”

[size=167]“Do you ever wonder about Monoism and Dualism Tabula…? Do you ever wonder about the actual nuts and bolts of ILP…?”[/size]

“Er - is that a trick question…?”

[size=167]“Nothing is ever lost Tabula, no matter what happens to the holy-server, nothing is lost.”[/size]

[size=75]“Bloody gnomic pseudo-deities”[/size] Muttered Tabula darkly under his breath.

[size=167]“What was that…?”[/size]

“Nothing your omnipotenceness, frog in the throat… What were you saying…?”

[size=167]“Take this… And now piss off, you’re beginning to bother me.”[/size]

Something small, squarish and flat appeared in Tabula’s hand. “But…? What do I do with this…? Is it some kind of weapon…?”

[size=167]“Give it to Satyr, then let him do his worst.”[/size]

|||[size=150]Discontinuity[/size]|||

Tabula woke up on the floor of the pub, still clutching his prize.

The four hoarse-men of the Acropolis were dead. The Adlerian, resurrected, stood giggling over the tightly bound forms of Embrace and Dr. Satanical. They were unmoving, a glazed look in their eyes, and threads of drool webbing their slackened lips.

Satyr, his newly restored form swollen and seething with demonic power, black-light blazing in his eyes, stood exultant in the centre of the chaos, claws outstretched. A rictus grin of triumph fixed upon his features.

“AHHH - TABULA… WELCOME BACK…”

14

In which that which was one becomes two,
And synthesis is found anew.

[size=75]tak… tak-tak… tak-tak-tak… tak…[/size]

“CAN YOU HEAR HIM TABULA…? HIS ÃœBER-POST IS NEARLY FINISHED… YOU CAN DO NOTHING. [size=125]NOTHING [/size]- THE VILLAGE WILL BE MINE. YOU HAVE FAILED…”

The Satyr, seeming to suck the resolution out of his surroundings with his every breath, stomped closer to the stricken Tabula, his cloven hooves cleaving the boards like matchwood as he approached. As more and more of the ILP gestalt mind focused its attention on him, Satyr grew hyper-real, painful to look at, but impossible to ignore. Stooping now, his dimensions increased by the attention flooding through him, he swept up his enemy, one tremendous paw now easily encircling Tabula’s neck. Eyes popping and his legs kicking feebly, Tabula rose doll-like in Satyr’s grip.

[size=75]tak-tak… tak-tak-tak… tak…[/size]

“Don’t you,” Tabula gasped, fighting to get the breath to speak, “Don’t you realize it will be the doom of you too…? To animalistic stasis…?” Tabula batted at the steel-sinewed limb that held him, “To the death [size=75][cough][/size] of hope…?”

[size=75]tak-tak-tak… tak…[/size]

"ROMANTIC FOOL - YOU STILL KNOW NOTHING OF ME, DO YOU…? AFTER ALL THIS TIME…? I CARE NOT FOR THESE THINGS, I SHALL NOT SERVE IN HEAVEN - [size=125]I SHALL RULE IN HELL !!! [/size]"

[size=75]tak-tak… tak…[/size]

Satyr noticed the flat black object Tabula had brought back with him, and, plucking it almost daintily from Tabula’s hand with his oversized claws, he held it up for closer inspection.

“WHAT IS THIS BAUBLE…? YOU HOPED TO DEFEAT [size=125]ME [/size]WITH THIS, THIS FRIPPERY…?”

[size=75]tak…[/size]

Seeing his last glimmer of hope being slowly crushed within the hand of his enemy galvanized Tabula to one last act of defiance. Screaming wordlessly he wrenched himself free of Satyr’s grip and imediately leapt to secure a deathgrip on the Architect’s gift.

“Mine…!”

[size=200]“MINE…!”[/size]

[size=75][submit][/size]

Satyr threw back his head and screamed like a thousand banshees, his jaws stretching open impossibly wide. With a wet tearing noise, his lips and cheeks split back bloodlessly, almost to his pointed ears. A glob of living darkness threw pseudopods from the tunnel of his throat, long sticky strands of prose, barbed memes and convoluted tentacles of rhetoric. Slowly but surely, Satyr’s final desolate legacy to ILP clawed its way out of its conduit, and into the light.

Caught in two frenzied grips, with a taut snap of brittle plastic, The Architect’s gift snapped cleanly in two.

The bulbs flickered, then the lights went out.

Reality flickered, then the world went out.

[b][size=75]-

{Alert: system crash}

{Bootstrap <special sequence 4> initiate}

{Query - purge back-up…? y/n}

{Emerg purge <mode 2> copy x 2}

{Enter Password… “asabovesobelow”}
{validated}
{copy1.killfile//invert//quarrantine(configuration-looped)}
{copy2.killfile//invert//quarrantine(configuration-looped)}

{Operation initiated}

-[/size][/b]

In the no-space of the consensual mind, a soap-bubble, kaliedoscopic scrawls and skeins of typeface dancing madly about its surface, wobbled, deformed, and split. The two mirror copies drifted almost imperceptively apart.

Tabula blinked and shook his head… He’d been fighting something hadn’t he…? He looked about. Psyque and Bessy stared at him strangely.

“You okay old son…? You look a bit peeky.”

“Someone needs a h-u-g…”

Tabula shook his head to clear it of daydreams. All around him the other members were drinking and laughing, making remarks both snide and profound. Philosophy, petty and promethean, ebbed and flowed, filling some with slight queasiness, and others with delight. The ILP he knew and loved/hated ground on.

The darker subjects were neither discussed nor contemplated.

And the loop doubled back on itself…

[size=75][as above so below][/size]

Satyr blinked and shook his head… He’d been fighting something hadn’t he…? He looked about. Psyque and Bessy stared at him morosely.

“Are you well my lord…? You look… Perturbed.”

“What was that you were saying about selfishness…?”

Satyr shook his head to clear it of daydreams. All around him his minions were fighting or fucking as they saw fit, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. Assertions both snide and profound were defended to the death regardless. Philosophy petty and promethean, clawed and tore at itself, filling some with a weary horror, and others with evil delight. The ILP he stood over with bloody claws ground on.

The prospect of change was not an option.

And the loop doubled back on itself…

But in the potentiality between thesis and antithesis, a point of light blossomed, flaring brightly. A third bubble, expanded gently, and unlike the others, moved forward with time’s arrow.

Its surface was bare, tabula rasa, then something, not so much a being, as simply an idea of how to be, stretched out a tentative finger, and wrote:

[b][size=200]You are not bound by what you have been.

There is no certainty, only belief.

There is no truth, except that which you live.

There is room for all of us.[/size][/b]

And somewhere else entirely, a small child’s finger reaches out, and with a giggle, presses restart.

[size=75][click][/size]

15

Afterword.

Well, if you’ve read this far - Hope you enjoyed it. Writing this has been as much fun as I’ve had on ILP for quite a while.

I dedicate this to Satyr, without whom it wouldn’t have come about.

Also - a nod in the direction of the players:

Imp
GCT
Dunamis
Phaedrus
Ben
EmbraceTrees
Dr. Satanical
Psyque
Bessy
The Adlerian

If I’ve gently taken the mick with your characterizations… It means I like you. :wink: Well, almost all of you. :evilfun:

Comments welcome, and if you want to write your own pastiches, this is the place to do it.

Take care everyone.

Tab.

16

thank you

(now where did I put those bullets?)

:wink:

-Imp

17

Tabula Rasa

Easily as funny as the very best of the vintage ILP bitch fights.

:laughing:

Cheers,

James

18

…GCT has boobs?

…and why are my only lines just repeating what DrS says?!

19

I don’t know wether GCT has boobies or not, either personally or by proxy, but he sure likes saying the word… :laughing:

Embrace - words are just hot air - your actions spoke volumes.