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Why Two, Kay?
By, Roseidous

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor. And the bums gathered in a circle, the campfire illuminating their faces. The poets of drumming kept their heartbeats suspended as the smoke swirled up and then died. There, stories were woven and fortunes told; there were visions, there were memories, there were the echoes of thundering drag cars, there was laughter, and there was the sound of a thousand doves.
“Hey, Narrator, stop romanticizin’ the scene, will yah?” a bum grumbled.
“Yeah,” another griped, “we’ve got enough to deal with, what with the Y2K disaster and all, without some nut muckin’ it up with their fancy-smancy poeticatele talksie.”
One cried liberally: “We don’t pee in your yard (at least not yet), so you don’t in ours!”
Across the decrepit, trash-laden streets, in the velvet of darkness, by the silhouette of silent trees, a lone figure watched on—
“Yo, are you deaf or what?! Did we not just tell you to shut up your complicy-cated mutterance? Well?”
Hey, I’m the Narrator here, so I’ll tell the story as I please.
“Not without us you can’t. Anymore of that whatchamecallit and we’ll quit! Our union will see to that!”
What?! You don’t have a union; you’re bums for goodness sake!
“You better watch yer tongue, little Narrator. We do to have a union, the Union of Bums, and if you don’t watch it, they’ll come down so hard on your head that you’ll have to talk through your bunghole!”
All right, fine, you lazy drunks , I’ll tone down the wordiness.
“And while you’re at it, we’d like a pay raise. Peanuts don’t buy beer...or whisky, or wine...or brandy, or even bathtub gin! We want booze!” A few transients, half-asleep in their own vomit, mumbled agreement.
“And a real bathroom, not the bushes you told us to use!”
“Toilet paper! Don’t forget toilet paper! I’m tired of usin’ those oily, reddish leaves. They’re givin’ me a rash!”
Fine, you lousy good-for-nothing winos , I’ll get you some beer-nuts from the local bar and I’ll rent a port-a-potty. Let’s just get on with it! ...Now, where were we--ah, yes, there was a solitary figure watching the scene...

“Sssso I said tooo de guy, ‘Spaara dolllerr for a homelesss man?’ an’ he said th-that he was brrroke, ssso I fixed himm.” Wino slurred.
“H-how,” Vagrant, who was at the same extreme inebriated equilibrium as Wino, asked, “d-did ya fix him?”
“I took hisss pantsss, that’s w-what I did!” Wino and Vagrant both erupted in laughter, until Wino started choking on his latest upchuck, which only caused Vagrant to laugh harder. Which, of course, ended abruptly when Vagrant coughed up his breakfast.
Hobo eyed the pools of puke greedily. Such things made his Spew Stew so lip-smacking good! He’d have to scrape it up before the dogs got to it. Mmmm, he could taste it now...
“Hey, Hobo, got any stories to tell?” Tramp inquired.
“Nah.” Hobo answered, “nothin’ that I haven’t already told.”
“You could tell us how ya make that scrumpity-ous Spew Stew.” For years, Tramp had tried to get Hobo to divulge his secret.
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“You always answer with that.” Tramp eyed Hobo suspiciously. “Could that be the reason ya got fired from that resty-rant? And the twenty-five others before that?”
Hobo responded cryptically, “Could be.”
Part of Wino and Vagrant’s intoxicated discussion seeped into the conversation of Tramp and Hobo.
--“And t-that worked?!” Vagrant asked Wino, astonished.
Wino answered: “No! The girrrl ran off ssscreaming and I was nearrrly arresssted!”--
“Ah, you’re no fun. What about you, Bill? Any stories?”
Bill replied: “Define what you mean by ‘stories’.”
“Always the politicy-ian...” muttered Tramp.
“Hey, who’s that?” Hobo said, pointing across the street.
“I don’t see anythin’,” replied Tramp.
“It’s coming over here. I wonder whom it could--” Hobo’s words were cut short by an earsplitting proclamation from the mysterious person.
“THE SKY IS FALLING! THE FREAKIN’ SKY IS FALLING!”
Cloaked in shadows, Hobo could not make out any features the strange person possessed, except that its arms were wrapped around itself, as if it were giving itself a hug. It was still running towards them, but in an erratic fashion, almost as if it were stumbling over its own feet.
“The sky is falling!” the stranger, breathless, attempted to yell just as he entered into the radiant radius of the bums campfire. “I must tell the King!”
The reason, Hobo noted, that the stranger hugged itself was because it wore a white jacket that prevented any other position.
“Who might you be, stranger?” greeted Hobo.
“My name (gasp) is Chicken Licken. But that is not important! I must tell the King that the sky is falling!”
“Too late,” answered Bill, “the sky has already fallen.”
“What?! Oh, dear, then I am too late!” Chicken Licken moaned.
“That’s what I said. Would you like to hear how it happened?”
“I have nothing better to do. Who are you?”
“I’m Bill Clinton, that there is Hobo and Tramp, and over there, those two half-dead alcoholics, are Wino and Vagrant.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Billy Willy; same to the rest of you. Well then, how did the sky fall?”
“It happened on the year two thousand, when Barney™ took over the world. You see, Barney™ was an alien who used, through his highly annoying songs, the power of suggestion to cause kids to buy anything and everything that was Barney™. He soon became a trillionaire, and the first phase of his diabolical plan was completed.
“Next, he genetically engineered a metabeast known as the Monicamonster. He planned to use it to assassinate me, the former President of the United States. The metabeast was capable of transforming from its horrifying monster form to a sexy intern. Going by the name Monica Lewinsky, she, I’ll call it a she for now, was thus able to infiltrate my staff and get close to me. One night, while I was enjoying a pizza, she made her move and metamorphosed into a creature composed of her Monica Lewinsky head, a giant dog’s body, monstrous bat wings, and a snake-like tail with Linda Tripp as the fanged head. What was even more terrifying was the fact that she could breathe fire. Well, what could I do? Luckily I had been entertaining the Mighty Morphin’ Girl-Power Spice-Rangers. As you know, they are those badly dressed superheroes/banshees/prostitutes who do anything to make a buck. Well, a battle ensued, which I can’t tell you how much fun it was to watch...ah...well, anyway, the Monicamonster destroyed to Mighty Morphin’ Girl-Power Spice-Rangers and I was forced to defend myself.
“There was this sweet old witch I had met earlier who had warned me about the Monicamonster. The poor old witch had been taken advantage of and mugged by Barney’s™ henchmen, the two devious delinquents Hansel and Gretel. They had taken her candy cane, which she was dependent upon for walking. As Hansel and Gretel cackled over their triumph, they let slip Barney’s™ master plans, as henchmen usually do. To get even, the witch concocted a magical potion to defeat the Monicamonster. Upon her warning she gave me that potion and told me to get the Monicamonster to ingest it somehow.
“Left alone to defend myself, I reached into my drawers and pulled out my iron lance (the drawers of my DESK! Jeez, get your minds out of the gutter, people). I then sprinkled the potion onto the mighty lance and plunged it into the fiery mouth of the Monicamonster. The heat melted the iron and coated her throat, and it oozed down into her stomach. Instantly, she was reverted back into her Monica Lewinsky form, only the melted iron caused her to bloat up like a puffer-fish.
“Infuriated, Barney™ initiated his contingency plan, which involved suing me with sexual harassment and all sorts of other legal jargon.”
“Yeah,” Tramp interrupted. “Who can think straight with those her-ass-ment charges, and not to mention all those penal codes. Sheesh, it’s ludy-crous!”
“Yes,” Bill continued. “To make a long story short, Barney™, using the same metamorphic technology as the Monicamonster, changed his form into one of the presidential candidates and eventually became president. The final phase of his plan was initiated on the year two thousand, as we all here know.” Everyone, including Wino and Vagrant, shuddered.
“Is that how the sky fell?” Chicken Licken asked.
“Yes,” Bill answered, “on the year two thousand the sky fell. Metaphorically, of course.”
“What actually happened was much worse.” Tramp said.
“Oh yeah, immensely!” Hobo agreed. “What happened was the absolute worse case scenario.”
Vagrant said, “I’m j-just gllland I d-didn’t knnow it wasss comming!”
“Yeah, I would have died of fear.”
“Definitely.”
“Oh yeah.”
“You bet.”
Shudder.



Bill’s Moral: “Don’t stick your lance where it doesn’t belong!”
Chicken Licken’s Moral: “Never let them stick you in the rubber room.”
Hobo’s Moral: “Mmmm, Spew Stew…”
Tramp’s Moral: “Maybe ignorance is bliss…”
Wino’s Moral: “One isss nevver enough!”
Vagrant’s Moral: “Why the heck w-would I havva moral?!”

The Overall Moral of this Story: “Forget the little green guys…watch out for the purple ones!” (or something like that)


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