Canto Thirty-One – Moonbase Gundahl
Commander Biznap was a capable pilot and Farbick admired the way he simply turned the Golden Wing in the air and took off towards the mother ship. Simple and elegant was always the mark of skill.
“Now that your commander has gone and left you to die…” said Stabharh, the scrawny little Galtorrian lizard-man enforcer, “you need to show us how to work the space tech devices. And hurry because I know some Galtorrians that are dying to eat you.”
“Have you ever eaten a Telleron before, Stabbie?” asked the cruel and obese Lord Bahbahr.
“Of course not. But we haven’t had food in so long, I was beginning to consider eating you, my lord. And don’t call me Stabbie.”
“Ah, we will have none of that! You are required to lay down your life to serve me. It is the law, and I own you body and soul.”
“Who besides me is left to enforce the law?” asked the skinny lizard with an evil grin.
The smile vanished from the face of the corpulent Galtorrian ruler. Farbick carefully noted the malevolent glares passing between the two lizard-men and vowed secretly to himself to take maximum advantage of such a situation.
“What device would you like to learn about first, my lord?” asked Farbick with a timely interruption. Then he strategically added, “the skortch pistols perhaps?”
“I am much more interested in the force-field thingy that kept the cannonballs from destroying that spaceship. You have no idea how useful that could be if Senator Tedhkruhz learns that we have returned here.”
The little enforcer seemed to whole-heartedly agree with Bahbahr. So Farbick moved near to the force-field control and activator box lying at the foot of the pile of Telleron tech.
“That is a very wise choice,” said Farbick as Starbright looked on encouragingly. “May I turn it on and demonstrate?”
“Please do,” said Bahbahr.
Farbick ignited the control box with the click of a button and a sudden electrical humming noise that sounded reassuring and powerful.
“By adjusting the three-dimensional coordinates like this,” said Farbick, “I can place an invisible shield around you and Stabharh. You can’t see it, but it is impervious to kinetic attacks and weak energy attacks. Gunpowder will never pierce it. Show them, please, Starbright.”
“How?”
“Pick up that chair there and hit Stabharh over the head with it.”
“Now, hold on there, frog-boy!” growled the lizard man.
Before Stabharh could even flinch, Starbright picked up the chair and threw it at him. It shattered in the air as it encountered the generated field.
“Impressive!” said Bahbahr.
“Do you want to know what I find most impressive?” said Farbick, laughing. “It can be shaped in the form of a box. Just as the chair can’t penetrate the walls of the force field, neither can the two of you. You are our prisoners now.”
The two lizard-men seemed stunned. It was entirely possible that Farbick had won the day already. He could now pick up a skortch pistol and finish these two threats in a blink. Yet, somehow, that didn’t feel right. He could not do a deed that was just as bad, if not worse, than what the lizard-men themselves were capable of.
From the courtyard above in the ruined fortress, Farbick and Starbright suddenly heard voices and the sound of someone scrambling hastily through rubble.
“I thought we were alone on this moon,” said Starbright, horrified.
“We were…” said Stabharh with a sneer, “at least we were not burdened with anyone who counts. But the remaining inhabitants of Gundahl are coming now, because of my silent alarm. And hopefully they have weapons to kill you two with. Who is the clever fellow now, hmm?”
*****
Facebooking and Birdwalking
This is my bird-walking illustration. I know that it is totally the wrong picture for the job, but it is a bird walking, isn’t it.
It is not a stretch to suggest that most of what you find on Facebook is not real. Especially when it comes to the endless posting and sharing of topical political memes. I had thought when Facebook came out with their reaction-emoji thingies, that there was at least one I would never find a use for.
Boy! Was I ever wrong about that. Now that the gold-plated pumpkinhead that got himself elected somehow is busy with his markers and crayons making executive orders, it is about the only one that really fits anywhere.
We made a big mistake allowing Trump to play Prexy and be the one in charge of making the rules of the game. You all knew he was gonna cheat before the game even started, didn’t you? And it won’t last long. He is making allies like Australia into offended enemies. He is banning burn victims, heroic Iraqi translators, doctors, and researchers from coming into the country with their entry visas and green cards and other proof that they have a right to be here. He is burning up any goodwill and patience and level-headedness that we have tried to afford him. He will be impeached, or worse, sooner rather than later. And then we will have to live with the irreparable damage he has done.
And we probably deserve it. We have made mistakes before, and if we live long enough, we will make more in the future. But this was a big one. And I don’t have to feel happy about it. No matter what my conservative friends on Facebook tell me… or what names they call me.
So that’s where the bird-walking comes in. The mind has to wander away down paths of lesser resistance. We need to go where the sandpiper would go, walking down the beach to look for new and interesting-looking seeds to eat.
You really should add this to your Bob Ross Bible if you haven’t already.
All of my illustrations in this article, except for the walking bird, which I drew myself, are clipped directly from Facebook. Facebook is sometimes the soul source of wisdom for Village Idiots, and I should probably make an effort to be one less of the time. But it is also an excellent source of bird-walking topics that get my mind off the terrible things and onto free-floating tangents that take me to places my mind would really rather be.
I would’ve liked to have attended Pillsbury’s funeral, but the meme only gave the time and length of the service, not the date. I fear that by now I have missed it. But I am sure the service was well done.
Nostalgia memes on Facebook are great. They make me feel all squishy and sad again about the times long gone and how terrifyingly horrible they were compared to how terrible they are now.
Remember John Wayne Gacy? Or reports on television about the Viet Nam War? With pictures? Full color pictures of the My Lai Massacre in living color on NBC, with all the blood in bright red. Yeah, that stuff on TV kept us outdoors quite a lot.
But Facebook bird-walking is a dangerous sport. If you let it, it will eat up your whole life, minute by minute, hour by hour. And I’m not sure it makes you smarter in any way. I know some pretty stupid people who are on Facebook quite a lot.
Bird-walking at its best, though, is to coddiwomple. And though you don’t know where you are going, you will get there sooner or later, so you might as well look at the scenery and appreciate the irony along the way. Life should be a leisurely stroll, not a rush to get away from gold-plated pumpinheads with executive orders in their tiny, tiny hands.
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Filed under angry rant, battling depression, clowns, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, foolishness, humor, irony, memes, Paffooney
Tagged as bird walking, Facebook, politics