Discworld and Member Articles
|
|
|
Written by TheJackal
Saturday, 27 August 2005 |
Meanwhile, Nemoy was continuing on his journey into the unknown. He’d so far come to the realisation that the unknown was actually quite boring.
Nemoy had not met a single person on the road in the past hour. That was, if you could call it a “road”. Most of the time, the way forward consisted of barren earth that had been moulded into a track through repeated usage.
It seemed to Nemoy that the road was uncannily silent. The only sounds to be heard were the distant screeches of birds.
All this quiet time to himself had allowed Nemoy to replay the events of the past week in his head, especially the recent incident by the cliff. Upon further thought, he felt a bit cheated. He’d heard that your life flashed before your eyes before you die. Nemoy wished he knew who ‘they’ were so that he could tell them to go to hell. After all, it stands to reason that, if you saw your life flashing before your eyes a few seconds before you died, then you wouldn’t be able to tell anyone because logically, you would be dead! The obvious exception here was Nemoy himself, but he wasn’t going to allow a mere technicality stop him from calling them all lying bastards.*
At this point, it could be said that Nemoy felt no emotional fervour for his life. His one quest was to find out what was going on. The only cause he could think of was that of revenge. He knew that any revenge instilled would most certainly come in the form of violence.
It is true that, at one point in his life, Nemoy might have admitted to being a craven man. Although in his opinion, this also meant that he was being wise. After all, the heroes of this world die honourable deaths, but it is the cowards who live to see another day, and in most cases, old age. This policy had suited Nemoy down to the ground. He figured he must have been absent the day they handed out the honour, but that was fine with him.
It could also be said that Nemoy was, and still is, a selfish man. He felt no empathy for any other living thing. That made him a very dangerous man, as Mr. Norbert, a vegetable salesman, was about to find out.
Mr. Norbert, or “Norb” as his friends called him, was a simple man. That was, until he innocently came across Nemoy.
To those who knew him, Norb was always a happy, loquacious person. Unluckily for him, probably the most annoying thing that someone in a bad temper can come across, is someone who’s too jolly. In Nemoy’s case, who was absolutely livid, there simply wasn’t any room for more anger. To try to squeeze it in could end up with internal combustion, and that’s never a pretty sight.
So Nemoy was forced to vent his anger on the next person he saw. This, by chance, happened to be Norb. I can safely say that in years to come, people will still talk about that day, and of how Norb came to be mortally afraid of cucumbers.
Nemoy was now travelling fast on the empty road. He still didn’t know why there were so few people around. The last person he’d seen in miles had been that strange looking fellow with the vegetable cart. What puzzled him even more was that tomorrow was market day. Usually in places like this there would be a myriad of people, horses, and wagons, all on their way to the local marketplace so as to be ready for the morning.
However, Nemoy was still too angry to get worried about that for the moment as he still didn’t even have a proper plan, although, this fact was now beginning to sink in. What did he think that he could do? Just waltz into the tavern in which he had caused the ruckus the other day and placidly ask for some information? No, he had to think of something.
By now it was starting to get dark, so Nemoy decided it was best to set camp for the night. Hopefully a good night’s rest would sort his mind out, and would help to come up with a proper course of action.
Ron, Number 831, was scared. He was also very tired. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but the fear kept him going. Ron knew he was in trouble. They had made a big mess years ago and Brother Rubeus wasn’t known for his forgiving qualities.
The next day, Nemoy awoke around noon. He hadn’t planned on sleeping that long but had been pretty tired from the day before. After folding up his makeshift tent, he lugged his supplies back onto the horse’s saddle and set off.
Sleep had calmed Nemoy down, and the uncharacteristic bravery that had been instilled in him by rage, had now begun to turn towards nervousness. Nemoy was a pusillanimous person by nature. Furthermore, he felt that he had been amazingly lucky lately: being stabbed in the back, falling nearly one hundred feet off a cliff, and yet coming out unscathed from both could do that to you. Now that he was intentionally seeking almost certain danger, it seemed like Nemoy was riding his luck a tad too much. But hey, he had gone too far now to turn back. Nemoy wanted answers, and if he could inflict some pain and revenge on the way, well then all the better.
The Kelderin is a remarkable beast in many ways. For example, one might remark- upon seeing that it has five legs and stands nearly four feet tall, with more claws than you care to count- on how unusual and remarkable it is. At the same time, it must be noted here that incessantly remarking on how remarkable something is, will inevitably take away from its overall perceived remarkableness. In the long run this would be remarkably detrimental to future perceptions of the Kelderin.
Hopefully you can understand the above statement. We’re sorry that it could not be condensed further, but the version in front of you is the result of many painstaking hours of editing, not to mention the gigantean efforts that were made towards its simplification.
With that being said, we return our attention to the story, where rather unluckily, Nemoy was being stalked by one of the over-aforementioned Kelderin. Nemoy was blissfully unaware of this fact, which was probably a good thing, as he definitely would not have been pleased to know about it. As the adage goes, ‘ignorance is bliss’.
The Kelderin is an animal that jumped in early when the claws and large teeth were being tested out, and had liked them so much that, not only did they buy the premium package, but they also seem to have killed the person selling that particular claw and teeth ensemble. Needless to say, this gave the Kelderin a sizeable advantage when it came to the evolution stakes, with the beast progressing handsomely as a result.
And because the Kelderin had been the most ferocious and deadly animal around for centuries, they had come to the opinion that ‘Anything is food, so lets eat it.’
This motto of sorts had affirmed the Kelderin’s all encompassing rule of the forests in Southern Realm, although many other beasts are today, still unaware of it existence. Now to some this would be a matter of great puzzlement.
‘Why don’t they know about these horrible, meat-eating beasts?’ I hear you ask.
The answer to which I’d swiftly reply:
‘Because those horrible, meat-eating beasts don’t leave any witnesses.’
Think about it…the beast has five legs. It uses its fifth leg (which is positioned where other four-legged animals would have a tail) to propel itself forward onto its prey. This spring loaded attack, together with the Kelderin’s five, long, sharp claws (on each paw), makes this beast simply unstoppable in one-on-one combat.
Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, this specific Kelderin was hungry. He had not eaten in two days because he’d had indigestion.
The beast crept ever slowly through the foliage, heading ever closer towards its dinner. It was careful not to give away its presence too soon. It stood still and began to tense up its muscles. Finally, it sat back slightly on its fifth leg and got ready to pounce…
But pounce it never did, for at that exact moment, the Kelderin suffered a massive coronary attack. All those years of rich, red meat had finally taken its toll on the poor fellow. The Kelderin could at least take some posthumous comfort in knowing that it too would later become another animal’s dinner.
Nemoy never knew anything about his close encounter with death, and never would. He continued on his journey, blissfully ignorant
_______
* This is a worldwide phenomenon. In can be found in nearly all cases that the way ‘they’ claim things to be, in fact turns out be completely wrong when compared to how things really are. You soon realise that ‘they’ are either very stupid, or else, are a dirty big shower of lying feckers. Therefore, the general rule of thumb here is to listen to what ‘they’ have to say on the matter and do the exact opposite. This can avoid future misleading situations, stress, and a whole of anger.
 |
|
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed