Dear diary,
After the train clangs away and disappears over the hills, I look around and realize that I have leapt into the least opportune environment; for there is nothing but barren wilderness in every direction. “What? I thought we were only beginning to pull away from the station,” I shout aloud to myself in extreme vexation. “How could I have landed in the middle of nowhere? Zounds! Now that I see how much walking I’ll need to do in order to find a red-light district, I wish I had waited for the train to reach yonder mountains before jumping off; for then at least I’d be surrounded by snow, which I could use to chill my beverages.
“But, on second thought, saké is best served warm; and that is what the enormous mechanical goat that I piloted thru that previous adventure yielded when I milked its metal udder, hence my abundant supply. Thankfully that lovely woman on the train, while I was tumbling thru the air and landing here, had the presence of mind to lob me my handbag, which is where I keep my stores of liquor in small porcelain cups.”
I now unzip my handbag and retrieve a cup and drain it and toss it over my shoulder, then I reach into the bag and pull out another brimful cup of saké and drain it as well, and toss the empty cup away. — I do this repeatedly until I feel better. Then I begin my long trek to the nearest red-light district, heading North-Northwest.
Finally I reach my destination. “Ah, civilization, at last!” I sigh. Then I enter the first shop that attracts my attention. “I see you sell pastries here,” I say to the man who is standing behind the glass display case and unloading a tray of treats. “Very tasty looking,” I lick my lips. The man nods and smiles. “Do you speak English?” I ask.
“Ja, ja,” the man nods again.
“Oh, good!” I say. “Cuz I don’t know any other languages beyond this, plus grunting and howling (on account of being part Mifune and part Canine). Allow me to introduce myself,” I say while taking a bite out of a long frosted pastry that was lying on a tilted plate atop the case. I note that the man looks disturbed when I do this, and he moves his hands in a way that means “Don’t eat the sample pastry — it is made of wax!” But, if this is indeed what his gesture means, then he’s too late, for I am moaning with pleasure and sucking the wax off my fingers because I’ve already finished the decoy. “Yum, that was gr-r-reat. I haven’t eaten since I began my trek thru the desert to find this town. You have really beautiful women here. All very reasonably priced. Oh, yes, I almost forgot to finish introducing myself,” I give my hand another tongue-bath and hold it out for the man to shake it: “My name is Tolsteer-Yoshi, Gentleman. That’s my daytime persona. Then, at night, I’m Doctor Bryan the Wolfman. — What’s wrong; do you wish I were gloved?” I make this last remark because the man has not risen to shake my hand yet. He seems intent on his task, so I waive off the oversight. “I’m going to leave your shop now. Here is a caesar coin for your trouble.” I place a glittering piece of real money upon the countertop. (Seeing this, the man drops the tray that he was holding, and all the rest of the tarts spill onto the floor; and he arises and hastens over and clutches the coin to his heart.) “Au revoir!” I wave my kerchief while stepping out the front door.
Now I stroll along the boulevard for a while. Seagulls keep swooping overhead and diving and pecking at my coiffure, but I try not to give in to their sales pitch:
“I’m not interested in using the telephone right now,” I yell, shaking my fist in the air. (I presume that they are attempting to lure me into that famous phone booth from the 1963 film The Birds so that they can attack me there.) I look at my fingers after running them thru my hair, and I note that they are dripping with blood. I hold my hand with the palm-side facing the gulls and shout angrily: “Look what you’ve done — you’ve cut my scalp with your beaks! How would YOU like it if I flew up there and pecked at YOUR head?”
“You have soft lips,” say the seagulls amidst general laughter.
“I’m not talking about MY OWN beak, you stupid fools,” I say; “I’m talking about siccing the Giant Squid upon you, whose beak is razor sharp and can break the vertebrae in your neck if he/she/it lands on you with its tentacles wrapped around your little bird-brains.”
Then I make the “Devil’s Horns” hand-gesture again, insert my fingers into my mouth and blow hard, causing a delicate melody like the most enchanting choir of angels from heaven to fill the air. Then suddenly the giant robot goat whose udder continually squirts warm saké tramples forth from the brazen distance and stands there leaking.
“No, not you,” I say. Then I blow my Devil’s Horns again, and another fine melody twitters upon the soundtrack. This summons my trusty winged zebra.
“Pegasus, go home, I’m trying to call the Giant Squid.”
Pegasus leaves, smearing a rainbow thru the alleyway; and her strap-on unicorn-horn falls by the roadside.
Then I try once more to whistle for help. (Again, in case you’ve forgotten, what I’m trying to do here is get my pal who is a vast mutant shape-shifting squid to save me from these bullying seagulls.) After blowing with all my might into my finger-whistle, a sound like a music box twinkles throughout the upper atmosphere, and lo: Out from the frosted French doors of the Insurance Office across the street appears my portly old friend Executive Stevens. He uses a key to open the chain-lock that is securing his motorcycle to the potted hydrangea on the sidewalk; then he mounts up and drives across the street and parks in front of me and puts down the kickstand.
“Hi Bry,” he sez. We shake hands firmly, as businessmen should.
“My name’s actually Tolsteer-Yoshi for this mission,” I explain. “I was hoping that you would help me out.”
“What seems to be the problem?” Executive Stevens asks in French.
“These birds are annoying,” I gesture upwards at the circling gulls who won’t stop screeching. “I was hoping you could transmogrify into the Giant Squid and then partition yourself multifariously — by which I mean atomize into kazillions of squidlings — and suck their brains out. Would that be too much to ask?”
Stevens smiles: “Not at all.” He picks up his briefcase. “Be right back.”
I watch with fluttering heart and rose-tinted vision (which is the way that a younger brother beholds his courageous older brother when the latter is in the act of saving the former from the threat of evildoers) as Executive Stevens walks across the street and into the parking lot by the seafood restaurant: he opens the door of the glass telephone booth and then backs out immediately, bowing apologetically, because there was a Burning Tyger in the booth who was still using the phone. Then the Tyger finishes his call (“Goodbye, dear Zephyros, I’m hanging up now; I’ll arrive at your house in the suburbs very shortly — hey, in the meantime, stay out of trees!”) and Stevens enters the booth and changes his clothes (the camera is placed at an angle so that the audience cannot see anything too spiffy), with seagulls kamikaze-ing the booth all the while; and what was previously Executive Stevens now steps from the telephone booth as a Giant Squid.
Now, just as when one large potato is forced thru a grating system so that it emerges as slender crispy golden fries, the Giant Squid fizzes itself into an infinitude of squidlings — one for each gull — and these menaces suck onto the respective heads of these birds, as if they themselves (the little squids) are leathery helmets on Roman centurions, and the now-miniscule giant squidlings use their beaks to snap the neck-vertebrae of the seagulls, and then they pluck the feathers off the gulls and marinate their bodies in proprietary sauces, and season their flesh with secret spices and various flavorings, whereon the squidlings then use solar fusion to meld back together and form one Giant United Squid, which, after mating with the Large Robot Goat that happened still to be standing nearby and admiring the show (admiring, that is, until this moment of ravishment, which was not verifiably consensual), then uses its tentacles to serve up our vanquished enemies upon clean white plates that happen to match the porcelain cups that I keep in my handbag.
“Thank you so much,” I say, accepting my platter and starting to eat the roast gull with my fingers.
“I hope you find it to your liking,” sez Stevens (for he transmogrified back into human form while I was conveying the bird-meat toward my mouth).
“It’s delicious!” I say sincerely. “I hope there’s enough for seconds.”
“Yes, yes, take all you can eat,” the Executive hands me another plate.
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