“Mildlings! I am Jon Dough, the former Bored Demander of the Night’s Crotch. I gave you safe passage over the Trench many moons ago and allowed you to live here at Casablacka, free of charge. Now I need your help. We all need to march south so that I can reclaim my family’s castle. Most of you will probably die in horrific ways that you could never have even conceived of in the lands north of the Trench. Those who survive will most likely be subjected to the horrible racism and prejudice that the people of Westopolis feel toward your people. But that’s okay, because I will have won back my castle. Now, who’s with me?” Jon looked out at the Mildlings, but they stared back in shock. Jon wondered why they were so quiet—he thought he had given a pretty great speech—and then he realized that they were staring at the tail from the rat corpse, which was still stuck to his bottom lip. In one swift motion Jon slurped the rat tail into his mouth and swallowed all four feet of it whole, and the Mildlings erupted into cheers.
Jon approached the gates of Casablacka and looked to his friend Eddddd, who was still choking on Jon’s clothes. “And now my crotch is splendid,” said Jon. And just like that, he cast aside his brotherhood.
“Ammdnf mnow your crotfch isfff fffplendifff,” said Eddddd from under the pile of bloody clothes.
Jon cast one last lingering look at Casablacka. He nodded at Toast, who had proudly taken off his fake moustache and replaced it with an “I’m Jon’s dog” collar, and then he walked through the gates, naked, the Mildling army following close behind.
Bland
Bland Snark crouched behind a bush. It was a cool summer afternoon, and the steady murmur of a freshwater stream filled the air. At seven feet tall and 270 pounds of pure toned muscle, Bland’s glorious, able-bodied figure was impossible to miss, but thanks to a powerful layer of magic, he was completely invisible to the beautiful young women running toward the water.
“Come on, girls! Last one in is a naughty, naughty pharaoh!”
“Wait for us, Cleopatra!”
The girls shed their tunics and splashed in the water, unaware of the thirteen-year-old boy heavily breathing from his mouth a few feet away. Bland watched them like a lion with a gazelle fetish watches a gazelle, until suddenly his concentration was broken by a piercing shriek. The girls ran screaming into the forest as a hideously wrinkled little old man bubbled up to the surface and waddled out of the water, directly toward Bland. It was the Pink-Eyed Raven.
“Come, my child,” he wheezed. “We don’t have much time.”
Bland’s vision abruptly ended. He snapped back to reality and back into his pathetic crippled body, all crumpled up in his wheelchair. For the past month he had been living in the cave of the Pink-Eyed Raven, training in the magical art of wanking—the ability to view the past and the future and to inhabit the minds of others. Bland had shown promise in this art from a very young age, but the Pink-Eyed Raven claimed he could turn him into a master wank for just $60 per lesson.
“Let me go back! That was my best wank yet!” Bland yelled.
Encased in the large weirdwood tree at the center of the cave, the Pink-Eyed Raven rubbed his crusty eyes and wiped his hands on his slacks. “It’s dangerous to stay in these visions for too long, Bland. What you saw back there—the beautiful women, the experience of having a body that is not gross and crippled like yours—these are not your destiny.”
Bland wheeled himself away and furiously started doing pull-ups on one of the Pink-Eyed Raven’s branches, without realizing that the old man seemed to get some sort of physical pleasure from this. Ever since his legs were paralyzed after a fall from a miniature horse at a carnival many years ago, Bland figured he could compensate for his disability by getting his upper body extraordinarily jacked. His direwolf, Scooby, whose legs were also paralyzed by a fall from a miniature horse’s dog, wheeled himself up next to Bland in his dog wheelchair and spotted him. And off in the corner, busy trying to fit his fist inside his belly button, was the Snark family servant, Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming.
“Then what is my destiny?” Bland grunted between reps.
“Something much greater!” the Raven wheezed. “Someday you’ll grow up to become just like me. And when I believe you’re ready, I’ll finally kill myself and you’ll sit on top of my corpse in this tree for a billion years.”
“I’m not doing that,” said Bland.
“Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming,” said Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming.
“But to prepare you, I must show you your past, present, and future,” he said. And with that, the Pink-Eyed Raven placed his wrinkly hands on Bland’s shoulders, and they transcended the fabric of time.
“Hey! What in the seven hells are you doing?” Bland said.
“I have to do this… It’s part of the magic,” said the Pink-Eyed Raven.
“Get your hands off me, man.”
“Okay, okay, hold this tree branch then.”
And with that, Bland placed his hand on the Pink-Eyed Raven’s magic tree branch, and they transcended the fabric of time.
Bland would recognize the stench anywhere. They were in Wintersmells. The courtyard was bustling with people milling about, avoiding piles of manure scattered around the complex, slipping on piles of manure scattered around the complex. A cool, very handsome man was demonstrating how many backflips he could do to a group of off-the-clock prostitutes.
“Wow,” said Bland. “So this is me in the future.”
“No, no, that’s Donny Slick. You haven’t been born yet. The little punk crying in the pile of horseshit behind him is your father.”
They watched young Deaddard Snark wipe the snot from his nose and pick himself up, then accidentally fall back into the pile of shit, then pick himself up again. He pulled his wooden toy sword out from an adjacent pile of shit, then accidentally fell back into the original pile of shit again. Finally a young girl came and helped him up. Bland recognized her as his aunt, Yomomma Snark.
“Don’t cry, big brother,” she said, helping him up from a different pile of shit he had just fallen into. “I’m sure those bullies didn’t mean to beat you up. Let’s go home.”
The young Snark siblings walked through Wintersmells, with Bland and the Pink-Eyed Raven following behind them. As they approached the Wintersmells Public Library, they saw a chubby, bespectacled youth stroll out of the building, eating a powdered donut with one hand and stroking his neckbeard with the other. He excitedly waved when he noticed the Snarks.
“Is that—is that Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming?!” said Bland.
“Yes, that’s him,” said the Raven. “But as a child he went by a different name…”
“Greetings, friends!” the chubby boy said with a faux British accent.
“Hey, Ratpiss,” said Deaddard.
The three children walked together, though adults were constantly stopping them to say hello to Ratpiss. He had just won the Wintersmells spelling bee for the fourth year in a row and was widely expected to announce his candidacy for mayor in the coming days. “My apologies, chaps,” he chuckled to the Snarks amid the commotion. “Shall’st we duck into this alleyway for a moment of calm? There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Bland stared at Ratpiss in awe. He wondered how in the freakin’ heck this charming, articulate young man had matured into an oaf who thought rocks were candy. He also wondered how much longer the Pink-Eyed Raven would make him watch this, since all in all it wasn’t really that interesting. He saw the Raven pull a box of raisins from his pocket and pop a few in his mouth.
“No. Bring your own next time,” the Raven croaked when Bland asked if he could have some. In defiance, Bland snatched a tasty-looking sandwich from a window sill and gobbled it down as he followed the children into a deserted alley.
Once there, Ratpiss took off his glasses and dropped the British accent. “Alright losers, let’s do some drugs.”
“I knew you were gonna make us do this,” Deaddard sighed. “You’re always such a kiss-up to adults and always so mean
to us.”
“Ooh, wah wah wah,” said Ratpiss. “Wah wah, are you gonna cry? Are you gonna cry like a little baby? Wah? ’Cause of the little drug?”
“No!” said Deaddard, seconds away from crying. Ratpiss spat on his shoes.
Bland rolled his eyes and turned to the Pink-Eyed Raven. “Is this just some dumb morality lesson about how doing drugs will turn me stupid like Holdthedoor-thezombosarecoming?”
“Perhaps,” the Raven said cryptically and clearly unsure.
Ratpiss pulled a large glass bottle out of his coat pocket. “It’s milk of the heroin. Stole it from my mom’s medicine cabinet.” He took a pull from the bottle and slunk back against the wall as a doofy grin spread across his face.
Yomomma took the bottle from Ratpiss’s flopping hand and examined it. “Does it feel… good?” she asked.
“It’ll make you believe in God,” Ratpiss slurred. “Here, hit this shit.”
Deaddard squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t know about this, you guys. Isn’t this stuff, like, really addictive?”
“Whoa, Deaddard, you gotta try this,” said Yomomma, stretching her limbs in ecstasy.
Lacking both the morals and the social skills to correctly navigate this situation, Deaddard quickly gave in to the peer pressure and took a swig. His anxieties immediately disappeared, and he soon found himself reaching for the bottle again. Within minutes they had drained half the bottle, and the three of them sat in complete silence for a while, their eyes glazed over and emotionless.
“So why are you showing this to me?” Bland eventually asked the Pink-Eyed Raven.
“Yeah, this got pretty weird,” he said. “I just wanted you to see that your dad was a huge dweeb. Let’s go back.”
They exited the vision and returned to reality. Bland breathed a sigh of relief and wheeled himself through the red curtain and onto the stage but accidentally ran over Fozzie Bear’s foot in the process. Confused, he tried to turn around, but Fozzie’s yelp of pain was misheard by Animal as the cue to detonate the large ring of dynamite that surrounded them. Bland frantically looked to the Pink-Eyed Raven for help but saw that he had just been tricked into five separate Chinese finger traps by the Swedish Chef.
“What in the seven hells did you do?!” the Pink-Eyed Raven screamed at Bland.
“I didn’t do anything! Who are these guys?!” he screamed back.
“You clearly altered something in the past and caused a butterfly effect, you stupid idiot!”
“Quiet on the set, everyone!” said Kermit. “The show is about to begin!” Everybody scrambled to get to their places.
“You didn’t tell me that could happen!” Bland shouted over Dr. Teeth warming up the band. “All I did was grab a sandwich!”
“Well, you better go find another sandwich and put it back!”
“We better find a better book and get our money back!” said Statler to Waldorf.
Trying to escape the commotion, Bland accidentally flipped his wheelchair over a clucking chicken and fell face first into a custard pie. With the strength of his massive arms, he threw himself down the nearest staircase and dragged his body around until he miraculously found a catering table.
“Has anyone seen my $9,000 custard pie?” asked Miss Piggy.
He spotted Gonzo preparing to take a bite out of the last sandwich in the food display. Ah, Gonzo happily sighed to himself. I finally have a free moment to enjoy my delicious sandwich in peace and quiet.
Bland swiftly yanked it from his hands and wanked back to Wintersmells. Everything was as it should have been: the town smelled like shit, the kids were still strung out, and all was quiet in the streets—until Donny Slick burst through a door swinging a battle axe. “If I don’t find my sandwich in thirty seconds, I’m gonna do something nuts!” he kept screaming.
“Really makes you rethink history, huh?” the Pink-Eyed Raven said, appearing behind Bland. “Now put the dang sandwich back, and let’s go.”
“Oh, there it is,” said Donny Slick after Bland put it on a table behind him. “Never mind everyone! Forget any of this happened.” And everyone did.
With the universe restored to normal, the Pink-Eyed Raven announced that it was his bedtime. He had Bland apply magic antibacterial cream to his magic swollen eyes, as he did every night, and fell into a deep, noisy sleep. As Bland did his nightly one hundred crouching hover planks before bed, he tried to recount everything he had learned that day. If messing with the past had dire consequences for the present, then it would make sense that messing with the future would also have dire consequences but ultimately have no effect on him whatsoever. He decided the only thing to do would be to wank into the future, tell people he was a god, and see if any girls would find that attractive.
So as the Pink-Eyed Raven slept, snoring really loud and weird, Bland grabbed ahold of a weirdwood branch and wanked as hard as he could. He found himself standing at the top of a snowy hillside. A creaky voice spoke behind him.
“And now that we’ve raised the zombos from the dead, me and my army will march into Wintersmells and take over the world!”
Bland recognized the face from the decals on the punching bags at his gym. It was the Nighty Night King—the most dangerous terrorist in the world. And sure enough, in the valley below him were hundreds of thousands of zombos standing in formation.
“Ooh, Mr. Nighty Night, I can’t wait for you to rule the whole wide world,” said a tattered rag doll in the king’s left hand.
“Yes, Penelope Peanut, we will finally play teatime in a real-life palace,” said the king.
“And will there be ice cream every day?” asked Percival the Polar Bear in his right hand.
The king simply smiled, and the three best buddies kissed as the army of White Wieners and zombos stared ahead in obedient silence. Bland stifled a laugh. The king suddenly whipped around.
“Who’s there?” he shouted. Bland stood frozen, still unsure whether the murky, inconsistent rules of the Pink-Eyed Raven’s magic made him visible to the king or not. He tried to wank out of the vision but realized he didn’t know how to do it without the Raven’s help. The Nighty Night King delicately placed Penelope and Percival in their doll house and started slowly pacing around the hilltop. “Whoever’s spying on me… they’re not dolls, they’re limited-edition action figures,” he insisted.
Suddenly the king locked eyes with Bland and lunged at him. “Swear on your life you won’t tell anyone!” he shouted, giving Bland an Indian burn on his arm. Bland struggled to break free, but the king’s grip tightened more and more.
The world around him started to dissolve, and Bland soon found himself back in the cave, being shaken out of the vision by Scooby. The Nighty Night King was gone, but there was still a glowing blue mark on his arm where he had gotten the Indian burn. The Pink-Eyed Raven glared at him.
“You fool! Now that the Nighty Night King has touched you, the zombos will be able to cross the magic force field that was protecting this cave!”
“I don’t really see how that makes any sense,” said Bland.
“I dunno man, that’s just the rules!” said the Pink-Eyed Raven, trembling with fear. “They’re going to be here any minute. Leave while you can.”
Bland grabbed ahold of a branch. “No, no, I can fix this,” he said, and he wanked back to the future to make things right.
Except when he looked around he realized he was back in the alleyway with Deaddard, Yomomma, and Ratpiss passed out on the floor. “Goddammit,” he said.
“Whoa, hey, are you a cop?” said Ratpiss, stirring to life.
“No, I’m…” Bland stalled while he tried to wank out of the vision, but the magic failed him once again. “I’m, uh, an ex-cop.”
“Cool. You wanna hit this shit?” Ratpiss offered him the bottle of milk of the heroin. At this point, Bland figured the Pink-Eyed Raven would have a plan for dealing with the zombos and could probably transport him back to the cave if he needed him for anything. And even if his interacting w
ith Ratpiss in the past caused another butterfly effect, maybe it would prevent the Nighty Night King from entering the cave. It seemed like he had nothing to lose.
“What’s the butterfly effect?” asked Ratpiss.
“Wow, this is really strong shit,” said Bland, taking another pull from the bottle.
Meanwhile, the army of zombos had reached the Pink-Eyed Raven’s cave. They breezed through the magic force field and started banging on the cave’s front door. “Let us in!” they said in their zombo language.
The Pink-Eyed Raven nudged Bland’s crumpled up body with his branch. “Bland! Come out of your vision! The zombos are coming!” But no response. Scooby tried gnawing at his legs but remembered Bland had lost all feeling in them long ago. He tried gnawing at Bland’s arms, but his mouth couldn’t fit around the massive circumference of his muscles. Bland was out cold.
“The hell is wrong with you, Bland?! You need to get out of here!” the Raven screamed. Despite the commotion, Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming had gotten stuck in a bear trap a few hours earlier and had fallen asleep there. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”
Bland vaguely heard something in the distance but quickly decided it wasn’t important. He took another swig, fist-pumped the air, and put his arm around his young father. “You wanna know about the future?” he slurred. “Let’s just say, they’re not making a sequel to Avatar… they’re making five.” Deaddard’s eyes widened. “Unbelievable,” he said.
“Unfuckingbelievable,” cried the Pink-Eyed Raven, peering into Bland’s vision. But before he could pull him out of it, one of the zombos suddenly punched his fist through the door of the cave.
“Oh fuck,” said the Pink-Eyed Raven.
“Zoinks!” said Scooby.
“Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming!” screamed the Raven, returning to the cave. “Wake up! We need you to hold the door because the zombos are coming!”
Holdthedoorthezombosarecoming rubbed his eyes open and stared blankly at the Raven. He pointed to the ceiling.
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