Saturday 18 December 2021

A Pink Prelude...

Continued from... The I.T. Wizard of Oz and
 
Vworp  Vworp  Vworp

 As the Great Glass Elevator containing Norma-D2 and C3-Peenee faded from view, Mistress Maddie and IDV surfaced from the frothing gincuzzi.
 "Did you hear something?"
 "No.  And neither did you, so come on" Maddie said dragging IDV down again, the two of them disappearing beneath the spume-laden surface.

R E I N I T I A L I S I N G . . .

 "Oh, no" I muttered resurfacing, spitting a bow-tie from between my teeth - where did that come from?  "Not again.  Not now!" 
 
R E I N I T I A L I S A T I O N   C O M P L E T E.
S T O R Y   C H A N G E   I N   T H R E E . . .

 "What?  What's going on?" Maddie spluttered. 
 "The story's reinitialising!"
 
T W O . . .
 
 "So?"
 "So?!  So, I haven't quite got around to writing the next bit, yet!  If it doesn't have a new story to latch onto, the reinitialisation will flail around picking up any old bits of narrative that've been left laying around!"
 
O N E . . .
 
 "Well, I don't see that it'll be any different from any of your other efforts then, Tootes?"
 "Hmmph!"
 
M A R K.
 
A thrilled IDV
(not in shot, Maddie & Asriel)
 Like Venus rising from the waves - albeit it with more stubble - Asriel emerged from the foaming gincuzzi, a look of confusion on his face.  "Where...?  Where am I?"  The confusion turned to mild panic.  "Where are my clothes?!  And my bow-tie?!?!"
 "Oh!" I exclaimed.  "Maybe this won't turn out so badly after all?"
 Maddie clearly agreed as she assisted in pulling Asriel under, the faint grin of realisation that appeared on his lips was followed into the foam by his trademark raised eyebrow...

~O~

A little while later, wrapped up in fluffy pink bath robes and sprawled over a pink sofa...

 "So" Asriel said, his brow uncharacteristically furrowed, "let me get this this gay: Visiting your blog carries a risk of getting caught up in a bizarre adventure over the...  Oh, what is it again?  Over the brink?"
 "The Cusp, dear"  Maddie corrected, pulling the phone from her ear.  "That's right, isn't it?"
 "Hmmm?  What?"  I was otherwise engaged.
 "Pay attention, Tootes.  And stop staring at the poor boy."
 "Am I?  Sorry.  He's just so adorable!  Um.  Sorry, Asriel."
 "s'okay" Asriel replied with a blush.  "Ahem.  So, we're no longer on Earth?"
 "No.  I mean, yes.  I mean, we're on Earth.  Just not in the way you're used to."
 "And is this because you're a witch?"
 "Oh, Christ, no!  Well, not really.  Maybe?  A little bit, I suppose.  Look: I don't go seeking these haphazard trips over the Cusp out - they just seem to happen in my vicinity.  And sometimes in the vicinity of others..." I tailed off and glared down at the practically blank page that stared up at me from the notepad on my lap.  Why wasn't this story writing itself?  With a sigh, I looked back up and to Maddie.  She must be having better luck than me as her phone was no longer clamped to the side of her head.
 "Who have we got, then?" I asked her.
 "Biggins."
 "Of course.  Who else?"
 "Brian Blessed.  Dobbin the pantomime horse.  Um.  And, um...  Well, Judi Dench."
 "Judi Dench?  Dame Judi Dench?!  In a panto?" - I was aghast.
 "I'm sorry!  I just couldn't get hold of Judith Chalmers or Judy Finnigan.  Or Judith Hann for that matter.  And Maggie Philbin turned me down flat" Maddie said, then muttered "Of course, it would help if I had a clue who these people actually are..."
 "This is going to be a disaster."  I let out another sigh - one The Very Mistress would be proud of - and was rudely interrupted by the doorbell.

D i n g   D o n g!    D i n g   D o n g!

 "There's somebody at the door" Asriel rather unnecessarily pointed out.  
 "There's somebody at the door?"  Quite why Maddie was so surprised was beyond me.
 "There's somebody at the door!"¹  As no one else got up to answer it, I put my pad aside and pushed myself up off the sofa.  "I'll get it then, shall I?  Oh.  Where is the bloody door?  It's all so pink in here that I can't tell where one thing ends and another begins."

D i n g   D o n g!    D i n g   D o n g!

 "All right, all right.  I'm coming!  Ah, there it is" I said to myself as I spyed a door shape amongst the pink.
 As I pulled open the pink door, something small and black and fluttering shot out of the shadows above me and landed on my shoulder.
 "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgghhhh!" I screamed.
 "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeee!" a collective scream answered from the doorway.
 "Chweeenk chweeenk chweeenk!" Beaky shrieked practically in my ear.
 "Aaaarrghh!  Get off!  Get away!" I yelled flailing my arms around my head.  Beaky 'chweeenk chweeenked' a couple more times then flew off somewhere.  It was only then that I noticed who our startled and wide-eyed visitors were.
 "Ms Scarlet!" I exclaimed, looking down to meet her eyes.
 "Mr Devine" Ms Scarlet said patting down her hair.  Beaky must have got his claws caught in it - probably deliberately - when he flew off.  "I just need to use your loo" she continued and bustled past.
 "Woof!"  I looked further down.  It was Sid.
 "Hello Sid.  Hello everyone else.  Come in, come in."  
 "We certainly had no trouble finding you" Jon said as he and Madam Arcati made their way in.  "Something this big and phallic can be seen a mile off!"
 "And it's so pink!" Madam Arcati exclaimed as she handed me her coat and a small, crispy flannel as if I was some sort of lackey.  Me!  "Put that flannel somewhere safe, IDV.  And don't let Ms Scarlet get ahold of it!" 
 "Yes, and I think you need to get your sails looked at" Dinahmow said, also lumbering me with her coat.  "They're spinning a bit fast and almost took Mago's head off."  Mago glanced at me warily and followed Dinah.  "Poor Mago.  I'll just get him a drink to calm his nerves" she called over her shoulder as she headed to the drinks cabinet like an Exocet missile.  "And I might as well have one myself while I'm at it."
 Mitzi and Carmen, Ms Nations, and Savvy all bundled in after them, almost burying me under a mountain of coats.  And it wasn't long before they all found the drinks cabinet, too. 
 Big and phallic? I pondered.  Spinning sails?  Pink??  And then it came to me as the doorbell went off again: We had found ourselves in the Pink Windmill of Emu's World.

D i n g   D o n g!    D i n g   D o n g!

 "There's somebody at the door" Jon declared over the din, having also cottoned on to where we'd ended up.  
 "There's somebody at the door?"  Dinah looked up from topping up her wine, consternation evident upon her face.  She didn't like the idea of divvying up the wine amongst even more people.  Mago clearly agreed judging by his frown, and he held out his own glass for a top-up.
 "There's somebody at the door!"  Mitzi's proper, BBC continuity announcer voice rang out.  It was almost as if Suzie Blake² was in the room.
 "Oh, is there?" I muttered.  "Well, I'll just get it again then, shall I?  It's not even my bloody house!"
 "Chweeenk chweeenk chweeenk!" Beaky shrieked again from my shoulder - how the hells did he get there without me noticing? - terrifying both me and the second array of Blogorati (for who else would it have been).
 "Bloody hells, Beaky!  Bugger off!"
 "All right, Bab?" Hound greeted me as I ushered him in.  Cookie, Rimpy, Melanie, and Upton followed him through, but they'd barely had time to swamp me under their coats before that infernal doorbell sounded again.

D i n g   D o n g!    D i n g   D o n g!

 "There's somebody at the door" Hound sang gleefully, capering around like Rod Hull.  
 "There's somebody at the door?" Madam Arcati joined in.
 "There's somebody at the door!" Melanie 'helpfully' yelled with a big grin slapped across her face.  Despite being an American with probably no idea what was going on, she had thrown herself into the performance with gusto.
 "No, no, honestly, stay where you are.  Continue enjoying yourselves" I said as I extricated myself from the coats.  "I'll get it.  Again."  
 A feeling of dread swept over me as I opened the door³ - I should have known something was amiss as Beaky was nowhere to be seen heard. 
 "Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!!!" I shrieked.  "Grotbags!"
 "What did you call me?!"
 "Oh.  Er.  Very Mistress!  Why don't you come in?" 
 The Very Mistress swept into the room, her henchmenrobots Croc - clearly Norma-D2 with a giant green Croc jammed down onto her dome - and C3-Peenee as a taller, slimmer, but not gayer (such a thing wasn't possible) Robot Redford in her wake.
 "Well, now that we're all here, we might as well get down to business" she declared.
 "But what is our business, Ms Mistress?" Ms Scarlet piped up, now refreshed and abluted.

 What, indeed?


To be continued...
 

~O~


1. "There's somebody at the door!" - Emu's World
 
2. Suzie Blake's continuity announcer from Victoria Wood As Seen On TV.
 
3. "The Visitors" - Abba

28 comments:

  1. Grotbags? GROTBAGS?

    *storms off in a huff*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm terribly sorry, Very Mistress. You must have stumbled into some bad lighting. Actually, standing between Croc and Robot Redford would do it. That's what gave your skin that lovely green glow!

      Delete
  2. Even as a child I sussed the windmill. I didn't suss that emu was a vehicle for sexual harassment though.
    Are you going to incorporate a man dressing his wife up as a schoolboy and sitting her on his lap? Asking for a friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think Emu was a little too keen on asphyxiation sex-play - he always seemed to go for the throat first.

      Fan-dabi-dozi!

      Delete
  3. We've run out of wine! Again. Jx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

      Best not send Ms Scarlet out for any wine if we want any by the end of the year.

      Delete
  4. Forgot to say - have you looked into leasing a car ? I have no idea how practical it would be but if you don't want to make a long term commitment?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you know? I haven't. I hadn't even considered it (forgot it was a thing)! Fancy you coming up with a sensible suggestion?!

      Delete
  5. I feel like this entire thing is simply the script of one of your gin soaked nightmares. It is, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  6. reinitialisation will flail around picking up any old bits of narrative that've been left laying around.
    Oh my goodness, this is what happens on my blog - old bits of narratives stuck together trying to make some sort of sense!!! This is because I can never write the next post. You are a genius, Mr Devine!
    Why does the phrase ‘There’s somebody at the door’ remind me of Douglas from The IT Crowd!!!?
    Sxx
    -

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, dear. This Reinitialisation malarkey doesn't just afflict me, then? Do you think that if we ever could 'write the next post' we would get recognised and showered with awards and money?

      I have just watched a clip of Douglas going to answer the door - It seems he was a fan of - or was afflicted by - Emu's World, too! (I haven't seen the 'IT Crowd', but it's now on my list on Netflix!)

      Delete
  7. And the Ferrero Rocher header is back in time for Christmas!!!
    Sx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But of course!

      The majority of days of this year have been 'Christmas' here at Hexenhausli Device...

      [stifles chocolate & hazelnut burp in ladylike manner]

      Delete
  8. I haven't been to a party in ages!! And I can't drink for another 60 fucking days!!!!! xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well here I am somehow, and I'm hanging around the liquor cabinet, which suits. I'm not sure why I'm here, but as long as I can dig up a bottle of Bushmills and a comedy shotglass from the 1950's it's all good. And speaking of good, Kia makes a nice little economical little petrol putt-putt. Not that I'd be caught dead owning one. Still. *continues to dig through the bottled spirits*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. *yels from the gincuzzi*

      Since you're standing there, could you be a dear get me a gin, a smidge of ice, not too much, takes up room.

      Delete
    2. Don't dig too deeply into that cabinet - you're liable to get stuck to some of the older, stickier bottles in the back there. There's an opened bottle of Warninks Advocaat that's been in there since 1973!

      Here, hang on a minute... What was I thinking getting out of the gincuzzi and leaving you in there alone with Asriel?!?

      Delete
  10. You know, I never quite know what to do with myself at parties. I'm a bit awkward I'm afraid. After some small talk I usually go off and find something to fix. The host will suddenly walk in and be like how did you fix that? It hasn't worked in forty years! Or I'll spend most of the time talking to any animals that live in the house. Cats love to gossip, you know.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm inviting you to the very next party I hold - I have a loose bannister support, a dripping kitchen tap, and a cold water pipe that clonks against something when the water's turned off!

      Delete
    2. I'll be sure to stop at the home improvement store on the way there. Not sure about the clonking, maybe a fastener is needed to keep the pipe from wiggling about. The other two are easy peasy! I'd still plenty of time for some awkward chit chat.

      Delete
  11. With the likes of you and Asriel, is it any wonder I could stay under the water in the gincuzzi as long? And funny thing is, I just had that dream we three were in the gincuzzi together. How strange.......but when on the sofa, we had no robes on...and Asriel only had on a bow tie.

    Well, I guess we should go out and mingle before people talk.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Before people talk? Oh, I think it's a little too late for THAT, Mistress Maddie.

      Delete
    2. I'm putting my robe on before partaking in any mingling - I don't want to cause anyone to go blind!

      Delete
  12. Ah Grotbags and her mincing robot. Happy memories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Grotbags was always my favourite!

      P.S. I notice you didn't mention Croc. Is that because The Very Mistress is here?

      Delete

Tickle my fancy, why don't you?