by Ira Nayman
“Yeah, like getting a piece of goddess ass!” Eddingslacht sneered.
“Actually –” Bao Bai-Leung started.
“No, no, no,” Bertrand Blailock warned him. “Don’t engage with them – that’s what they want.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not their main objective,” Abercrommerle cooed. “After all, they’re really good at fomenting violent mayhem.”
“WHAT?” Bao Bai-Leung exclaimed.
“Maybe they’re here to see if they can start a war among the gods,” Abercrommerle concluded.
“I’m supposed to just let that go?” Bao Bai-Leung asked.
“This is how they operate,” Bertrand Blailock informed him. “They suck you into their arguments by making outrageous statements and, before you’re even aware of what is happening, unproductive days have passed.”
“Are we supposed to just let them get away with it?” Bao Bai-Leung blurted.
“They have a weakness,” Bertrand Blailock assured him. “Watch…”
“Hey, Gigi,” Dipshoomanik taunted, lewdly thrusting his pelvis forward, “what do these guys have that a god doesn’t have?”
Gigi(XerXemanXander) continued to stare fixedly at Bertrand Blailock’s watch; it was as if Dipshoomanik didn’t exist. ePik Flayel(Gigi), on the other hand, bit his(her) tongue, but, since the Quints didn’t know that identities had been switched, they weren’t paying attention to him(her).
“You know,” Dipshoomanik spat, “children of gods and humans are about as popular as vegans at a weenie roast.”
“Nudists at a convention of southern Baptists,” Crankassette helpfully added.
“Canada Revenue Agency agents at a…umm…well, pretty much anywhere!” Babblebropper contributed.
“What we’re saying,” Abercrommerle summed up, “is that you shouldn’t dip your pen in a divine inkwell.”
“Not if you don’t want a literarily transmitted disease!” Eddingslacht mocked.
ePik Flayel(Gigi) looked like he(she) was about to explode. Bertrand Blailock took his(her) hand and squeezed it encouragingly. Tense seconds passed. Finally, Abercrommerle muttered, “I told you this approach wouldn’t work.”
“What are you talking about?” Dipshoomanik responded. “Sexual taunts always work.”
“Not in this case,” Babblebropper pointed out.
“You didn’t give it enough time!” Dipshoomanik complained.
“Studies show that seventy-nine per cent of encounters where one person’s sexuality is challenged end in the person walking away,” Babblebropper pointed out.
“Studies show that one hundred per cent of studies fly out of somebody’s ass!” Eddingslacht scoffed.
As the Quarrelsome Quints argued among themselves, they turned to face each other, eventually forming a circle. Bertrand Blailock led the others around the circle, allowing them to continue down the street.
“How did you know…?” Bao Bai-Leung asked.
“They live to provoke an angry response,” Bertrand Blailock replied. “If they don’t get it from us, eventually they’ll seek it out from each other. It’s just human nature, really.”
Shortly after, the group arrived at a mighty skyscraper of a building. (Really. They had to dust flakes of sky off the roof at the end of every day.) They took the elevator up to the 67th floor and entered Suite 7316. The room they entered was a large crib: white bars lined it from floor to ceiling along all of the walls. There was a door in the bars that you had to walk through to enter. Game consoles and screens littered the floor, with comfortable sofas and plush chairs arranged haphazardly throughout. Soggy pizza boxes and cartons of half-eaten Chinese food could be found everywhere. The walls were bare except for a wooden plaque on which had been burned the message: ‘GOLDEN RULE: post unto others as you would have them post unto you.’
Sitting on a couch was a man who had to be at least six feet eight inches tall, and almost as wide, with muscles the size of toaster ovens. On this frame sat the head of a three month old baby. A very pissed off three year old baby. “…told you: I don’t want to play a stupid matching colour game!”
“But,” said a very circular (round head, round torso, plump round fingers at the end of round hands tethered to his body by long round arms) man standing near him, “you always want to play Oscar Ocelot’s Oniony Adventure!”
“You’d have to have the attention span of a gnat to enjoy that game!” the first man shouted.
The second man waved a hand, as if to say, “Weeeellllll…”
Bertrand Blailock cleared his throat. The two figures turned to face the others.
“Give XerXemanXander his body back,” ePik Flayel(Gigi) commanded.
“I…I am XerXemanXander,” XerXemanXander (Cossakian) weakly asserted. The people who confronted him(him) clearly didn’t believe the statement. “I…I have the high score on every game since Pong because I – I do nothing all day but sit around and play games.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” the other man, Geriontarius, muttered.
“He,” ePik Flayel(Gigi) stated, pointing towards Gigi(XerXemanXander), “has been staring at a watch for almost an hour because he thought it was a game.”
“Aha! Got you, you little blinking number!” Gigi(XerXemanXander) exclaimed, pressing a button on the side of the watch. “Oh, wait, no…”
“That’s the real XerXemanXander,” ePik Flayel(Gigi) insisted.
“If you would please come with us,” Bao Bai-Leung said, “we have a few questions we’d like to ask you…”
“Fine!” XerXemanXander(Cossakian) quickly blinked his eyes and said, “What…where…happened…I?”
“What?” Bao Bai-Leung exasperatedly asked.
“I…I am Geriontarius,” XerXemanXander(Cossakian – Geriontarius?) stated. “How…how did I get into this body?”
“Wait a minute!” Geriontarius(?) said. “Wait just a minute. I’m Geriontarius!”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?”
“I say it because it’s true!”
“You say it because you don’t want anybody to know you’ve switched bodies with me!”
“I haven’t switched bodies with anybody! This was the body I was…well, born with wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Let’s say this is the body that I have come to inhabit over the years!”
“Okay, it may not be much to look at, but it’s mine! Give me back my body!”
“ENOUGH!” Bertrand Blailock shouted. “Cossakian, stop pretending you’ve switched bodies with Geriontarius – you’re still in the body of XerXemanXander!”
“How did you know that?” XerXemanXander(Cossakian, definitely Cossakian) asked.
“Because,” Bertrand Blailock explained, “in the myth of ‘ePik Flayel Trying to Impress Everybody on Godreads’, he is made fun of by three other gods: Gigi, XerXemanXander and BuzzKejl. In your own twisted way, you’ve involved them in this adventure. Well, not BuzzKejl – you’re too lazy to make the story that complicated. Still. Geriontarius had nothing to do with it, so you have no cause to involve him by taking over his body.”
“Oh, by Arrundel’s endless animosity!” XerXemanXander(Cossakian) grumbled. “Fiiiiiiinnnnne!” He was enveloped by a white light and disappeared. Everybody held their breath for a few seconds.
“Nope, I’m still trapped in Flayel’s body,” ePik Flayel(Gigi) frowned.
“I’m still playing the number game,” Gigi(XerXemanXander) informed them.
“By Assundel’s assless assinassity!” XerXemanXander(ePik Flayel) moaned, looking himself over. “How did I end up in this body?”
“And, the circle,” Bertrand Blailock said to himself, “is complete.”
7. Slow Motion Solutions
Albert Abrachnel was standing behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back, whispering.
“Now, Dmitri,” he was saying to his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Duodenom, “you know the Transdimensional Authority has no…aah, authority to enter into trade agreements with pe
ople who live in other dimens – yes…yes…of course. Sure, I think solar-powered chewing gum has interesting commercial potential, but –”
Doctor Alhambra sauntered into the small office. “Al,” he said, “we have a problem.”
“I’ll have to call you back,” Abrachnel whispered. Then, he turned to face Doctor Alhambra. “You figured it out?”
“How far did you throw your voice this time?” Doctor Alhambra asked.
“Omsk,” Abrachnel brightly told him. Abrachnel was proud of his voice – he had once spoken to somebody on the moon. Russia was a relatively small (and getting smaller all the time) polar ice cap away. “What’s up?”
“I think I know what we’re up against. And, if I’m right, we have a hell of a problem. A hell of a –”
Bob Blunt rushed into the office. “Chief, I broke Jeroshi Cornifferous!” he breathlessly reported. “I know who the mastermind behind this is and where to find him!”
“Hold on, Blunt,” Doctor Alhambra informed him. “I was here first!”
“But,” Blunt insisted, “we need to stop this guy!”
“From doing what, exactly?” Doctor Alhambra coolly asked.
“Doing…what? You know! Whatever…whatever nefarious plans he is nefariously planning to do!”
As Doctor Alhambra and Blunt argued about who should reveal his information first, Abrachnel smiled to himself. This was exactly the kind of executive decision he was born to make!
8. To Your Scattered Bodies GET OUT OF HERE!
“Feeling very adventurey, were we?” Arrundel tetchily asked the group after they had returned to his headquarters. “Thought you’d play a little game of ‘switch the bodies and see who notices?’ did you?”
“I like games,” Gigi(XerXemanXander) pouted.
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Arrundel roared. Gigi(XerXemanXander) looked at the ground, abashed.
“This was not our choice,” ePik Flayel(Gigi) stated.
“While you were off having adventuresome adventures, you know what I was doing?” Arrundel ignored him(her). “I was trading memos with the legal team of the rain midgets! I was trying to keep them from storming the gates of our immortality! You think that was an adventurous adventure? No! No gallivanting in the flesh of other gods for the All-programmer!”
After a moment’s contemplation, XerXemanXander(ePik Flayel) asked, “So, can we have our proper bodies back?”
“That’s got to be ePik Flayel in there,” Arrundel said. “He never listens!” Then, with a wave of his hand…nothing appeared to happen.
“Oh, thank god,” Gigi said. “I mean, the god. Arrundel. Thank you.”
“It was a simple location transformation,” Arrundel told her. “Anybody could learn how to do it if they cared enough to.”
ePik Flayel looked at the watch in his hand and threw it to the ground.
“Hey!” Bao Bai-Leung protested, picking up the watch. “Be careful with that!”
“Hey!” XerXemanXander protested. “I wasn’t finished playing the game!”
“Geriontarius is at your crib,” Gigi told him. “He says he wants to finish your game of Black Sheep Down.”
“Ooh!” XerXemanXander enthused. “Can I go? Can I? Can I? Can I? Can I?”
Arrundel waved his hand, and XerXemanXander ran out of the room.
Bao Bai-Leung looked meaningfully at Bertrand Blailock, who shrugged. Seeing no help there, he turned to Arrundel and asked, “Can you tell us, please, sir, what happened to Germaine Cossakian?”
Arrundel listened for a moment. “He’s not here,” Arrundel answered. “He’s not in Digitaleusia.”
“How is that possible?” Bertrand Blailock blurted.
“That’s a good question,” Arrundel responded. “One I shall have to take up with Blastfurn, the keeper of the Sacred Firewalls between our realm and yours.”
There seemed to be nothing further to say or do, so the two Transdimensional Authority agents walked over to the Home Universe GeneratorTM (remember the Home Universe GeneratorTM? this is a story about a Home Universe GeneratorTM) and put one hand on it. Before they could give the command to return to Earth Prime, ePik Flayel walked over to them.
“Time for one more trick?” he asked.
Bertrand Blailock turned to his partner and suggested that Bao Bai-Leung take the Home Universe GeneratorTM back to Earth Prime while he dealt with this. Bao Bai-Leung nodded and he and the machine shimmered out of existence.
As they walked out of the throne room, Bertrand Blailock asked, “BuzzKejl was one of the gods who tormented you in the myth, but Cossakian didn’t switch consciousnesses with him. Why not?”
“That’s the rule of three in action, isn’t it?” ePik Flayel replied. “Three body switches is funny. Four would have been pushing it!”
9. Time for One More Trick
Deep in his hut, ePik Flayel has a 720 seat concert hall. He doesn’t ever actually hold concerts there; he just likes to see the look on people’s faces when they try to get their heads around the idea that his hut is large enough on the inside to contain a 720 seat concert hall. (Once his listeners have made their peace with this concept, he often casually mentions the seaquarium.) Mostly, he comes to this place after an adventure to wind down and get in touch with his roots. After Arrundel had put everybody’s consciousnesses back into their proper bodies, ePik Flayel retired to his concert hall to listen to Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album.
Around the track ‘Finland’, a figure appeared at one of the doors at the front of the hall. “Hey, cousin!” the figure greeted him.
“Hi, cousin!” ePik Flayel perked up in his comfortable sofa on the stage and, with a wave of his hand, turned down the sound.
The figure slowly made its way up an aisle, daintily clutching its side.
“Ribs still hurt?” ePik Flayel asked.
“Getting better,” the figure told him.
“You, aah, may not have properly thought that trick through,” ePik Flayel, not unsympathetically, suggested.
“I was trying to think like you,” the figure said, arriving at the foot of the stairs.
“Mission painfully accomplished,” ePik Flayel complimented him. Then, seeing what was happening, he asked, “Do you need help getting up the stairs?”
“I can manage!” the figure testily answered.
“Son,” ePik Flayel said, “you’ll look more awkward than a bull at a milking competition.”
The figure stopped in its tracks. That didn’t sound anything like ePik Flayel. In fact, he had only just met the man and hadn’t spent much time with him, but if the figure had to guess, he could have sworn that it sounded just like…
Before the figure could finish his torturously meandering thought, ePik Flayel leapt off his couch, ran down the stairs and, grabbing the figure’s hand, proclaimed, “Germaine Cossakian, you’re under arrest for crimes against the multiverse!”
Bertrand Blailock walked out of the wings of the stage and said, “Hey, cousin. Don’t you know that you should never kid a kidder, and you should never, never, never play the identity-switching gag on somebody whose sense of his own identity is, at best, very shaky?”
“Oh, well done,” Cossakian sourly stated. “I would applaud, but my hands seem to have been put in cuffs.”
“Sorry about that,” ePik Flayel(Blailock) apologized. “It’s standard procedure when arresting gods.”
“Not a problem,” Cossakian assured him. “I’ll just…” He blinked his eyes. Seconds passed, ending with a look of frustration on his face. He blinked his eyes more rapidly. “Oh, what now?” he asked.
“I, ahh, took the liberty of asking Arrundel for a sub-routine that would neutralize your ability to switch identities with other people,” ePik Flayel(Blailock) explained. “It was downloaded into you and activated the moment I touched your hand. You’ll also find that you can’t just teleport to another dimension.”
“Wonderful!” Cossakian moaned.
“Sorry for th
e inconvenience,” ePik Flayel(Blailock) sympathized.
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Welcome to the multiverse’ before you say that?” Bertrand Blailock(ePik Flayel) asked. ePik Flayel(Blailock) looked at him blankly. “Sorry. I, uhh, must have been thinking of another story.”
With that, the consciousnesses of Bertrand Blailock and ePik Flayel were returned to their senders (you didn’t know that Elvis was a soul-stealing shapeshifter? How do you think he survived his own death to end up pumping gas in a station in Lubbock, Texas?), and Bertrand Blailock took Cossakian in for processing.
“Friend me on Faebook!” ePik Flayel hastily suggested, but he was already alone in the room.
10. The Dastardly Plan…Revealed!
TRANSCRIPT
STAFF MEETING
IN ATTENDANCE: Albert Abrachnel, Bob Blunt, Biff Buckley, Beau Beaumont, Blabber Begbie, Barack Bowens, Bao Bai-Leung, Crash Chumley, Noomi Rapier, Doctor Alhambra
Use Pomerantz note taking apps to make the hours seem like minutes!
DATE: Wednesday
BUCKLEY: Can you give me a hint?
BLUNT: Not until the Chief officially starts the meeting and asks me to report.
BUCKLEY: Just a little one?
BLUNT: Sorry.
BUCKLEY: Animal, vegetable or mineral?
BLUNT: Yes.
ABRACHNEL: Okay, everybody, if you’ll just settle down. Settle down, people. Please –
BUCKLEY: That wasn’t very helpful.
BLUNT: Who do I look like – Dear Abby?
BOWENS: Can it, everybody! The meeting is starting!
ABRACHNEL: Thank you, Barack. Oh, and before I begin, I would also like to thank Mrs. Finster in Data Collection and Interpretation and Technical Support for making the cookies that we are all enjoying with our coffee.