The Jarvis Nebulae Files - Part Four
© Duncan Wheeler 1997-2007
The Cave Dwellers Society of Tasmania is a highly respected underground organisation that reaches into the upper echelons of the business world. In fact it leaves virtually no occupation untouched, with members in every field from Engineering to Art, Commerce to Psychology, Politics to Music. It was a bright winter Sunday outside, and my recycled baked beans were cold when I spotted the newspaper ad for the meeting, and decided upon infiltrating this enviable club which apparently offers great benefits to cross-country travellers, among other things. The ad was written in code of course, as a stringent screening process keeps out the muck. It was disguised as one for an escort agency.
A subtle difference between the lady in the picture and the normal escort ads was that the lady pictured had a receding forehead, really big gums and one or two teeth missing.
When I looked closely at the picture, past the woman, on the wall behind I saw the silhouette of a man with a club. At first I thought perhaps that it was an attempt at honest advertising, but woe-be-to-me my youthful idealism was soon quenched by the waters of my swiss-precision clockwork brain.
Because the wording was also slightly different from the usual. Instead of, "Attractive young babes available - very discreet, personal service" it actually said, "Attractive worn caves available - very distant, pretty good service if you1re used to waiting for about five days for your pizza". You see, not the average eye could pick that up.
Anyway, it was without hesitation then that I called the number and thus entered the world of the CDS. Unbeknownst to them, Jarvis Nebulae would soon be in their midst, scraping charcoal from cave ceilings and learning secret rock-chipping skills. I didn1t give them my real name, I told them I was the Lord Mayor, and I was planning a solo camping holiday across in the wilderness in order to bring my spirits back to the basic levels.
The first thing I had to do before joining was to clothe myself properly, in order not to stand out from the other members, and in the confines of a semi-rural outer city suburb there was really only one option.
A fine breath-like mist had clogged my glasses by the time I reached the paddock where at least fifty of your classic black and white dappled cows were cautiously eyeing me over their tasty meals of crud, sorry, cud. I was sweating profusely, partly from the exertion of carrying a five-foot solid Huon club (which I'd fashioned from my parents' coffee table) up a 35 degree slope. Partly because, well, I1ve never killed anything that big before.
A man has to do what a man has to do, and I summoned up the courage. Then I looked for the smallest calf I could find so that it couldn1t fight back if things got nasty. There! A pathetic little critter the size of a large dog, but with no teeth and no brain. Still, I approached cautiously, remembering my late teenage conquests of killer ants in the playground. Then I did a magnificent war-cry and ran at him brandishing the club over my head. But in an instant, I was surrounded by half a dozen cows, dropping big piles of soggy green poo from their buttocks which splashed up off the hard ground onto my brown leather pants. If they poo that bloody much, why don1t they just cut down on the food?
I looked at my pants, which were finished. Then I realised the calf was out of sight, and I ran for the nearest exit, but a cow swayed in my direction as I attempted to escape. It was then that I saw something in its big black eye that troubled me. It had a... I wouldn1t say mean... but a slightly less passive and dumb look in its eye. In my shock I ran to the other side of the ring of cows, but the same happened again, and this time it was closer, and when I reversed around again, the ring was silently closing in on me, all of their normally docile and fearful eyes simply glistening with... with mild unpassiveness. What was happening? This sort of display of intelligence was worrying. Normally cows couldn1t put up a fight against a toaster in a game of chess.
As panic rose in my heaving chest, I stood on my head and tried to summon my spirit guidance officer from Zoon, but the reception was bad on this hill (why, of all the dewy meadows?), and I was forced to give up. But I was still standing on my head when the leader of the cows (yes! - it amazed me too that there was a BLOODY LEADER) saw an opportunity and made a wily move towards me and grabbed my foot in its mouth. The others soon joined in and as I screamed for my mummy they carried me across the paddock towards some rapids. These fat-arsed skinny-legged creatures couldn1t do the Riverdance if their last mouthful of grass was marijuana, and here they were about to waste me on some rocks.
As they carried me down the bank to a crescendo of rushing water, I was starting to lose my pride. My throbbing head was filled with my advanced blood type. Why was my renowned super-spy-like resourcefulness failing me now? Cows couldn1t rally a rebellion against the grass if the quantity of poo exiting their bums correlated with intelligence! The big fat dumb-arsed herbivorous quadrupeds couldn1t... I realised the futility of trying to figure out an insult for them and thought hard, harder than I1d ever thought before.
As they threw me into the river I remember crying one last, "I'LL SEE YOU IN MY NEXT MEAL!!!! HA HAA HHAAAA!!!" before complete darkness enveloped my being.
For more randomness in the form of thoughts, stories, music and videos, visit imaginaryband.com or duncanalex.com
© Duncan Wheeler 1997-2007
The Cave Dwellers Society of Tasmania is a highly respected underground organisation that reaches into the upper echelons of the business world. In fact it leaves virtually no occupation untouched, with members in every field from Engineering to Art, Commerce to Psychology, Politics to Music. It was a bright winter Sunday outside, and my recycled baked beans were cold when I spotted the newspaper ad for the meeting, and decided upon infiltrating this enviable club which apparently offers great benefits to cross-country travellers, among other things. The ad was written in code of course, as a stringent screening process keeps out the muck. It was disguised as one for an escort agency.
A subtle difference between the lady in the picture and the normal escort ads was that the lady pictured had a receding forehead, really big gums and one or two teeth missing.
When I looked closely at the picture, past the woman, on the wall behind I saw the silhouette of a man with a club. At first I thought perhaps that it was an attempt at honest advertising, but woe-be-to-me my youthful idealism was soon quenched by the waters of my swiss-precision clockwork brain.
Because the wording was also slightly different from the usual. Instead of, "Attractive young babes available - very discreet, personal service" it actually said, "Attractive worn caves available - very distant, pretty good service if you1re used to waiting for about five days for your pizza". You see, not the average eye could pick that up.
Anyway, it was without hesitation then that I called the number and thus entered the world of the CDS. Unbeknownst to them, Jarvis Nebulae would soon be in their midst, scraping charcoal from cave ceilings and learning secret rock-chipping skills. I didn1t give them my real name, I told them I was the Lord Mayor, and I was planning a solo camping holiday across in the wilderness in order to bring my spirits back to the basic levels.
The first thing I had to do before joining was to clothe myself properly, in order not to stand out from the other members, and in the confines of a semi-rural outer city suburb there was really only one option.
A fine breath-like mist had clogged my glasses by the time I reached the paddock where at least fifty of your classic black and white dappled cows were cautiously eyeing me over their tasty meals of crud, sorry, cud. I was sweating profusely, partly from the exertion of carrying a five-foot solid Huon club (which I'd fashioned from my parents' coffee table) up a 35 degree slope. Partly because, well, I1ve never killed anything that big before.
A man has to do what a man has to do, and I summoned up the courage. Then I looked for the smallest calf I could find so that it couldn1t fight back if things got nasty. There! A pathetic little critter the size of a large dog, but with no teeth and no brain. Still, I approached cautiously, remembering my late teenage conquests of killer ants in the playground. Then I did a magnificent war-cry and ran at him brandishing the club over my head. But in an instant, I was surrounded by half a dozen cows, dropping big piles of soggy green poo from their buttocks which splashed up off the hard ground onto my brown leather pants. If they poo that bloody much, why don1t they just cut down on the food?
I looked at my pants, which were finished. Then I realised the calf was out of sight, and I ran for the nearest exit, but a cow swayed in my direction as I attempted to escape. It was then that I saw something in its big black eye that troubled me. It had a... I wouldn1t say mean... but a slightly less passive and dumb look in its eye. In my shock I ran to the other side of the ring of cows, but the same happened again, and this time it was closer, and when I reversed around again, the ring was silently closing in on me, all of their normally docile and fearful eyes simply glistening with... with mild unpassiveness. What was happening? This sort of display of intelligence was worrying. Normally cows couldn1t put up a fight against a toaster in a game of chess.
As panic rose in my heaving chest, I stood on my head and tried to summon my spirit guidance officer from Zoon, but the reception was bad on this hill (why, of all the dewy meadows?), and I was forced to give up. But I was still standing on my head when the leader of the cows (yes! - it amazed me too that there was a BLOODY LEADER) saw an opportunity and made a wily move towards me and grabbed my foot in its mouth. The others soon joined in and as I screamed for my mummy they carried me across the paddock towards some rapids. These fat-arsed skinny-legged creatures couldn1t do the Riverdance if their last mouthful of grass was marijuana, and here they were about to waste me on some rocks.
As they carried me down the bank to a crescendo of rushing water, I was starting to lose my pride. My throbbing head was filled with my advanced blood type. Why was my renowned super-spy-like resourcefulness failing me now? Cows couldn1t rally a rebellion against the grass if the quantity of poo exiting their bums correlated with intelligence! The big fat dumb-arsed herbivorous quadrupeds couldn1t... I realised the futility of trying to figure out an insult for them and thought hard, harder than I1d ever thought before.
As they threw me into the river I remember crying one last, "I'LL SEE YOU IN MY NEXT MEAL!!!! HA HAA HHAAAA!!!" before complete darkness enveloped my being.
For more randomness in the form of thoughts, stories, music and videos, visit imaginaryband.com or duncanalex.com
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