A narrative blog following the adventures of a group of six people with suspiciously similar characteristics. Updates... well, it used to be three times a week, now it's sporadic.
At this point, after smashing a dent in the table and screaming about Germans, Jews, and Americans at the top of his voice, The Interloper’s friends finally came over from their table and, in very soft and calming voices, said, “Roger? It’s about time that you put down the jar and get back to the Uni, don’t you think?”
“Fuck off!” shouted The Interloper.
One of his friends, a man who looked like he stepped out of a Led Zeppelin picture, sighed and took out a black canvas bag. “I hate when you make us do this, Roger. I really do.”
“What—?”
The Led Zeppelin man then forced the bag over The Interloper’s head. The Interloper struggled for a moment, and then we heard soft snoring coming from inside.
“He thinks its night-time,” said another one of The Interloper’s friends.
They took him from underneath his arms and dragged him out of the pub, tipping the barman generously.
When they left, I took the seat previously occupied by The Interloper, and said, “Now what in green Hell was that?”
The Traveler, starry-eyed and beyond confused, said, “I have no idea. Frankly, I don’t think I want to know what goes on in that man’s mind. Knowing might just kill me.”
There is a special sort of silence one experiences after a tragedy. It is heavy, remorseless, and, usually, full of regret. In the wake of whatever it was The Interloper was saying, our party felt that silence full-force. In fact, we found ourselves unable to speak for the rest of the time we were in the pub. I imagine that the brute force of racism, xenophobia, and nationalism acted as a sort of kryptonite to everything we held dear and forced us to reboot, as it were. After about an hour of sitting still and drinking in silence, we filed out. The Traveler and The Student went back up to campus to browse through course material for a module they shared; The Writer mumbled something about going for a walk for a few hours; The Stalker left at some point without the rest of us noticing; and The Drunkard and I went to buy a very greasy, unhealthy food known as doner meat and chips.
“you can do that and—wait, why did I start talking weirdly?”
“Shut up,” said The Interloper, “I’m about to tell a story. Ooo, look at that, my voice has gotten all bendy and I only had three pints!”
There was once a river known as the River Thames. It was located in a magical land called London, which was once the seat of a glourious Empire that existed to keep the darkies in place.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted The Traveler.
“You take His Name in vain,” said The Interloper, “and I’ll kill you.”
Well, our story takes place a long time after the darkies got uppity and tossed the rightful rulers—my people, the British—out of their dark, spider-infested parts of the world. Now, in London, there was a man named Uncle Timothy FitzWilliam Patrick. We will call him Timothy for brevity’s sake. Timothy looked around him at the state of the world and didn’t like it one bit. Why, just last week, a curry shop opened up where there was once a good, God-fearing British pub called The Empire. Every day, Timothy would wake from his flat—owned by the money-grubbing Jews, he well knew—and despair.
One day, he was strolling down the Embankment—he didn’t have a job since the Indians snatched it away from him—and thinking about what retribution he and his friends in the God-fearing BNP could enact against the darkies. This was his daily routine. He would wake at eight o’clock, have some good, British Earl Grey tea, put in the good, British whole milk, put in some good, British cane sugar, and enjoy his breakfast of good, British fried eggs. Then, he would read the only paper worth reading, The Daily Mail, and go for a walk down The Embankment, glaring at the people who, by divine mandate, should have been British subjects instead of that cheapened word: citizens.
Today, he passed a certain place in The Embankment walk where there was a ladder leading into the Thames. He assumed that it was there for some sort of maintenance project or some sort, but, as he would soon find out, he was dreadfully—and yet awesomely, supremely, and fantastically wrong.
“What in the Hell does that mean?” asked The Writer.
The Interloper leapt up from his chair and swung a fist at The Writer. He dodged. “Next time I’ll knock your fuckin kike nose in!”
As he walked by, he noticed a part of the river bubbling. “Well this is right odd, then,” he thought to himself. “Good British river like the Thames shouldn’t be bubbling like that.”
And then, bursting out of the water like some fish or something that bursts out of water, a submarine burst out of the water! It was the grandest thing Timothy had ever seen. Painted up like the Union Jack, flying the Union Jack at the top of whatever it is that pops up out of a submarine and from whence people come up and go, “Hello” at you. Out of the top bit, a man wearing a Royal Navy uniform popped out and went, “Hello!” at Timothy.
Timothy, doing the only thing he knew would be right proper, clicked his heels and said, “Hello!” right back at the man.
“Right!” said the man, whose name, it came out through conversation, was Captain Reginald St. Reginald Smythe. “We’re down a man, First Officer Turpington being shot out of the torpedo bay for saying that the Indians might not be so bad. How would you, citizen, like to come aboard and serve your country?”
Timothy didn’t need to think at all. “Sir, to refuse service would be nothing more than to spit in the face of the Queen, and I am no traitor, sir!”
“Jolly good!” said Captain Reginald St. Reginald Smythe. “Come aboard spit-spot and we’ll set you up with all the bits and bobs you need to be a proper submariner!”
And so Timothy climbed up the top bit of the submarine, climbed down the ladder after the Captain and beheld the most glourious sight he had ever seen. The interior of the submarine was completely painted up with murals of glourious British victories throughout the history of the Empire. From the Battle of Bunker Hill—where the British slaughtered the Yanks with not even a casualty—to the Siege of Delhi—where the British busted down the walls of that city just by thinking “God Save the Queen” at it—to the time where, graciously, the British gave up its Colonies to the undeserving darkies, even though it hurt the British.
“God save the Queen!” shouted The Interloper for no apparent reason. He then took a shot of Beefeater dry gin before continuing.
“Attention!” shouted the Captain, removing his hat and revealing his clean, chiseled, handsome British countenance. “We have a new mate aboard!”
“Righty-o!” shouted the rest of the crew, all chiseled handsome British faces, and not a lick of a homosexual among them.
“Pluffles!” shouted the Captain.
A shorter man, six-five—for all of the crew were between six-five and six-ten, all being proper examples of military men—strode up with confidence, saluted and said, “Yes, sir!”
“Pluffles,” said the Captain, “this here is First Officer Timothy FitzWilliam Patrick. He will be in charge of hunting down the darkie submarines in the Thames, and will be your immediate superior officer.”
Pluffles saluted the Captain, clicked his heels, turned, and saluted Timothy. “God save the Queen!”
“God save the Queen!” roared Timothy. This was, easily, the proudest moment of his life. It beat out the birth of his son by a long shot.
Within an hour, First Officer Timothy was in full military parade regalia—for the officers of the HMS Awesome did not dress in anything other than the best and most impressive uniforms.
“The HMS Awesome?” asked The Drunkard.
“Shut your bloody pie-hole, you Colonial bastard!” The Interloper shouted in such a shrill, loud voice that the pub was silenced for a good three minutes.
The first sign of action came in half an hour when, while cruising the Thames near Big Ben, Sonarman Copperpot noticed an American submarine blaring hideous rock music through the water. First Officer Timothy, duly enraged by the Colonials’ audacity, shouted a string of obscenities not fit for common usage, and said to Pluffles, “Pluffles, I order you to blow those Yankee-doodle-dandies out of the water!”
Just then, the HMS Awesome received a radio transmission from the American ship, USS Queerboat. It ran as follows, “Please, Mr. Strong British Man, don’t kill us, for we are all American fairies and cannot defend ourselves.”
“NO MERCY, MR. PLUFFLES!” First Officer Timothy shouted.
“Aye aye, sir!”
The Americans were then killed to the very last one. The crew of the Awesome celebrated by drinking standard-issue Navy Rum.
Not half an hour later, the Awesome was on the other side of the Thames and spotted a Nazi U-Boat that was thought to be sunk in 1944, but, due to them being sneaky Kraut bastards, had been loitering in the Thames the entire time, taking up space that belonged to the British. “Well, well, well,” said First Officer Timothy.
The Germans then hailed the Awesome. “Vell hello, English svine,” their captain said.
“You bastards,” responded Captain Smythe.
“Vee are here to take avay your precious London, you Jewish svine!”
“They dare call us Jews?!” shouted Timothy. “KILL THE FILTHY JERRY ROTTERS!”
Then they blew the U-Boat out of the water, sending it flying back to Godless Germany. They celebrated by drinking standard-issue Navy Rum.
“I don’t see why not,” I said. And, in truth, it seemed like a great idea. Over the past week, I’d been thinking about our contest, the two tales we’d already heard, and which was stronger. Though the question of who would be going next hadn’t entered my mind more than a couple times, it was really an important question.
The Writer, whose twitches had subsided to a much more manageable level, took a sip from his ale and said, “Who’s it going to be? I can always go next, perhaps I can weave a yarn about—”
“No,” the four of us said in unison.
The Writer shrugged his shoulders and glanced furtively around the pub.
“How about you?” asked The Traveler to The Drunkard.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You’re in journalism, so I’d expect that you’ve got some interesting things to say. Doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s completely fictional, to be honest.”
“Now hold on,” said The Writer. “Doesn’t have to be completely fictional? I thought that we were telling stories that only happen in the imagination! That were only brought to us on the wings of the Muses! To expect—”
“Goddamnit,” said The Student, leaning over to me, “is this guy a fiction writer or a poet?”
“—that we would interject our own, base, unworthy lives into this contest is laughable! I should say—”
The Drunkard smacked The Writer upside the head with his open palm. “Shut up. You’re telling me that bullshit you said on the plane didn’t happen to you?”
“That is exactly what I’m saying, and I would appreciate it if you would cease attacking me—”
“When I attack you, you will be laid up for a good week and a half. Son,” the Drunkard continued, “what you told us was so laden with pretentious and angst-ridden bullshit that to say it was fictional is a lie on par with saying Saddam Hussein was a direct threat to the United States.”
The Writer mumbled into his drink and took a swig.
“Fuck it,” said The Drunkard, “I’ll give you a story. It might not be the best I have to offer—on account of you all just now asking me to tell you one—but it’ll be better than this shmuck’s by a long run. When I was working on a paper in my senior year at Cumberland Rift University, I was sent away to follow the Republican candidate on his election circuit. Now, they gave me an allowance of a thousand dollars to spend on—”
“Ey lads, what’s going over here?” asked a man who was rapidly swaggering towards us from the other side of the pub. He was tall, about six-five. He had short-cropped brown hair, tanned skin, the build of a body-builder, and wore dark jeans and a black t-shirt that had the words “Fuck Heidi” ironed-on in pink. “You telling stories, yeah?”
“I, uh,” I said.
“Well, yeah,” said The Traveler.
“Wicked. You know,” he said, pushing The Student out of his chair and taking his place (I got up, gave The Student my place, and leaned against the wall), “I’m a pretty good storyteller myself.” He cleared his throat. “Comes from watchin the telly most of the day, don’t it?”
“I see,” said The Traveler. “Well—”
“Tell ya what,” the man continued, “why don’t I tell you Yanks a story, show you what’s done.”
The Traveler and The Writer exchanged a quick glance that said, “This man can easily snap us in twain, we should probably ease him out of this.”
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