Parenthetical Archaeological Ornithopter Droppings

Parenthetical Archaeological Ornithopter Droppings

Anthony, Callum, David, Warren

30th August, 1989

In the age-old tales told by the age-old tale tellers, the one consistent feature was the age-old laughter of the sage Stuart. His irregular sexual habits caused him to be very friendless, squat and also to constantly burst into laughter for no apparent reason and take no further items of clothing.

Past Patrick's corpse there lies another, longer item of plastic, belonging to Stephanie's only masseuse, Anja. Anja's relation with Patrick had become strained as he smelled pretty off and was no fun at all in bed. Still, his funeral had been only the day before, and she was expecting company. The company arrived and joined them in eating pizza. A loud, slow flapping noise startled them, then the sun was blotted out by a huge sinister shape. Its left-handedness was due to a zymurgical table which had four legs.

Robert was startled by the sound of a falling sludge-covered fridge, which ruptured and caused the greatest nuclear accident since Ozalp bit off the main coolant supply hose at Chernobyl. Previously, all of Anja's rock collection was confiscated when it was found to be caused by a large pulsating lump of excrement. The sound of an ornithopter circling overhead wasn't heard by Patrick because he was dead. Likewise, he was unaware of the large rodent busily chewing its way through his leather boot which was perched on the nose of the porcelain statue of Queen Victoria, made in her honour by Cheng the magnificent, court sculptor at the often frequented opium den of the Doctor, and other mutant chickens with camomile flavouring.

The going was getting tough as the small gathering waded through Patrick's liver. By the light of a passing Batmobile fragment, the party saw the huge explosion which decapitated the Statue of Liberty. Mice fluttered about now their nests were going to the bottom of New York Harbour, where Ken Thompson was designing an iniquitous mousetrap. The sludge was starting to thicken causing Sir Mervyn Moncrieff X.Y.Z. A.T.T. U.C.B. U.N.I.X. to contract AIDS from Ozalp by a strange, twisted and sordid affair. At the funeral, his long lost daughter from upper Bulgaria ran to the coffin, clawed it open, and ran off carrying the corpse. The coffin, feeling lonely, went out in search of a freshly dropped dropping. But suddenly, a passing mobile crematorium seized it, and an erratic but stable pteradactyl ensued.

Under the ash, archaeologists found evidence that a peaceful hamlet had once been totally consumed (even the copper pipes!) by some previously unknown species of ant, which had obviously been present in plague proportions. A piece of fresh fruit.

Tesselating tensely in the top of the Alhambra, Patrick and Dennis joined hands and strolled off into the sunset. They were never seen again.

On another note, the trombone exploded. On yet another, and louder note, a blood-curdling screech came from the stoat skin bag-pipes played by Robert. Dressed as a one-armed bandit, he fled the scene, pools of shiraz dripping from his knapsack. Wielding a huge samurai sword with his free arm, he thrust out at the ornithopter, breaking both his knees and lacerating his hips badly. ``Hmm'', he thought, ``maybe I should have used the sword.'' Later, from hospital, Fred snapped, ``Drop dead'' at reporters. In any case the sword had been confiscated by the Japanese Heritage Commission, who claimed that the severed arm who owned the artifact had been last seen crawling in the direction of Mecca. Suddenly a loud voice boomed out ``That groveling will do you no good.'' The artifact was dropped and broke open revealing a huge pair of badly arthritic eyes. Suddenly, distracted by this, Stuart stopped laughing long enough to kill Patrick.

Departing for the north, Melinda handed in her resignation notice to the stoat herder who aimlessly ran in random arcs not unlike circles. However similar these arcs were soon terminated as she plumetted to her death. The diving Ozalp was too late and joined her as another smear on the rocks. Soon after this the ornithopter flew drunkenly into the ash deposit. Later generations of archaeologist were puzzled at finding such a machine in a ruined bronze age village, but in popular circles this rarely rates more than a brief parenthetical note.