THE MARIANATED NOTTINGHAM AND OTHER ABUSES OF THE LANGUAGE

FOREWORD

I was going to call this the Forward to see if you’re paying attention, but it’d never make it past the editor. Those people have no sense of humor.

Here is where I thank all you gullib—I mean, brilliant folks who bought this book. Or lifted it from a friend, or snuck it out of the library. Whatever, you have saved another from reading it, and thereby performed a humanitarian service. Unless you’re reading electrons. Then you haven’t done anything useful at all. (heh heh)

Anywho, you are holding one of the grosser misuses of the written word, a collection of humor in non-standard format—screenplays and ballads, with only a few cases of actual prose just to confuse you. That is, a screenplay presented as literature (and I use that term loosely; pretend you’re the set designer, and let your mind go wild), and poetry for people who hate poetry—a.k.a. deranged doggerel. Solid meter, strict rhyme, and no redeeming social value.

Of course, you’re not really reading this. Nobody reads forewords, they skip to the good stuff. It’s just here to make the book longer, so you think you got more for your money. So I can pretty much write anything. Like, your mother’s hearing aid is set to filter out everything you say, and you wouldn’t know a pomegranate from a—

Oops. Well, there’s one in every crowd. Sorry about that bit with your mother.

So you, the single individual actually reading this, if you’re not used to reading screenplays, the format becomes as invisible as prose after a while. Just remember it’s in present tense; dialogue is indented with the speaker’s name capitalized; INT and EXT indicate new scenes in interior or exterior locations; and if you see (V.O.) or (O.S.) after a character’s name, it means they’re speaking as a voice over (they’re not in the scene, but you hear the voice anyway, like a TV documentary) or they’re off-screen (they are in the scene, but not visible). And screenplays are always in Courier type, but I didn’t figure you wanted to read that. Nor does double-indenting dialogue work well in small books, or in e-book format with selectable font sizes, so I slung most everything to the left. So I guess, really, it doesn’t look like a proper screenplay at all. Oh, well.

Now quit wasting time on stupid forewords and turn the page, already.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

(without page numbers)

(just look around a little, you lazy person)

O’Connor’s Last Quest

(because every aging knight should have one)

Macrohard #1

(because the arch-rival and nemesis of that other software company has to advertise)

Not So Much a Calling

(because, well, just because)

Macrohard #2

(because they need to advertise a lot)

Toothpaste

(because we all hate the same old, same old)

Dead Man Malone

(because Halloweeny tales should not be limited to Halloween)

The Marianated Nottingham

(because it’s about time someone told the truth about Robin Hood. I mean, think about it. Here’s this poor sheriff trying to start the world’s first national park to protect the declining deer population, and redneck Robin Hood hunts. And don’t even get me started on Richard. First he’s in France killing his father to take the throne, then he’s gallivanting off on crusades, then getting kidnapped by Germans, then back to France again. No wonder the English thought he was a good king. He was never around.) (Hey, I warned you not to get me started.) (And by the way, this one is long—a full-length screenplay.)

The Wicked Witch of the Yeast

(because I really, really want to annoy you)

Macrohard #8

(because—hey, seen a pattern yet? is there one?)

Cupid’s Revenge

(because, well, you’ll figure it out)

Macrohard #3

(because you have read H. P. Lovecraft, haven’t you?)

Burial

(because it’s always good to save a little money, right?)

Sentient Choice

(because the true story of how robots achieved legal sentient [human] status must be told)

Macrohard #7

(because, seriously, you think I’m paying any attention to the sequence?)

The Demise of Socks

(because secrets of the universe leak out now and then)

Macrohard #5

(because every wizened hag deserves happiness)

The Pirate Ballerina

(because when someone said she’s a private ballerina, I misheard)

Runaway

(because we all know parents never make mistakes) (er . . .)

Macrohard #6

(because reality needs a little help)

Doing Duty

(because somebody had to try it)

Macrohard #9

(because, as you may have figured out, I can’t count in a straight line)

Once a Bitch

(because when they say write what you know, I rebel)

Returning Goods

(because truth-in-advertising laws should be strictly enforced)

Macrohard #4

(because you can’t make me stop! neener, neener)

O’Connor’s Third Quest, Not Counting the Two He Didn’t Finish

(because The Mad Orthodontist From Hell was too short a title)

O’CONNOR’S LAST QUEST

O’Connor’s lost glory was quite a sad story,

’Twas making him feel mighty glum,

When townsmen suggested his mettle be tested

By trying a quest that was dumb.

They knew of a dragon who’s health, it was flaggin’,

And maybe O’Connor could win.

No way, he first thought. "I couldn’t have fought

A dragon back when I was thin."

But then he relented, from boredom consented.

He glanced at the rust on his mail.

His armor, it squeaked, his body, it creaked,

And somehow he knew he might fail.

He shook out the leaves while donning his greaves.

He fell as he mounted but twice.

But then he got down, walked off with a frown,

And wondered how armor got lice.

Returning sans armor, he thought of the farmer

Who’d lent him his dubious steed.

The sway in its back, the weave in its track,

Made riding a challenge indeed.

At last he was ready, resolve almost steady.

What-Ho! He was off to the test.

But leagues were a pain, mere three did he gain,

Ere stopping for well-deserved rest.

Disgraceful, thought he. "I’m just eighty-three;

You’d think I could ride all the night.

Instead I get sore, I’m stiff and what’s more,

My bottom’s a pitiful sight."

Yet finally he came to the cave with the name:

Here Gertrude carved high in the rock.

She had, it was said (a hush full of dread),

A face that could dry up a loch.

With wings that were green, a slime-colored sheen,

And scales that scattered like rain,

She’d seen better days, and in many ways

Was unjustifiably vain.

He knocked ’til she woke, then bravely he spoke.

Quoth he, I have come here to fight.

She asked him, But why? Said he, "I must try

To see if I’m still a great knight."

She snorted and smiled; O’Connor reviled

For trying to get at her hoard.

She then ate his horse, just as a first course,

And picked at her teeth with his sword.

He turned ’round and fled. Right quickly he sped.

He’d lost; ’twas terribly sad.

But then through the ground came a shake and a sound

That broke rocks, and felled trees, and smelled bad.

For the horse she had swallowed had gas, and it followed

That dragons, with fiery breath,

Would light off such fare, explode through the air,

And land poor old Gertrude in death.

And so, with great honor, the brave knight O’Connor

Returned from his last famous quest.

And still to this day if you ask him, he’ll say,

How I won? Oh, you’d never have guessed.

MACROHARD #1

FADE IN:

INT. HOTEL BEDROOM - DAY

A pudgy EXECUTIVE kisses a gaudy younger WOMAN in a cheap hotel room. She flops back on the bed, spreading her arms.

The Executive holds up one finger, nodding and smiling. He rips off his tie and sits at the desk in front of his glowing laptop computer screen. He types quickly.

Words appear: Meeting late. Home tomorrow.

A blue rectangle flashes in the lower corner of the screen, highlighting the word: SEND. He hits another key and grins.

INT. HOUSE

An elegant MATRON marches through a spotless bedroom. She frowns at a faint BUZZING sound. She picks up her cell phone and scans it.

The screen reads: Having affair in sleazy hotel.

Her eyes widen in anger.

The picture fades into the logo of MACROHARD: A blacksmith with raised hammer, holding an old-fashioned computer disk with a pair of tongs over an anvil.

              NARRATOR (V.O.)

Macrohard—the leading edge in error correction software.

FADE TO BLACK

[You skipped the Foreword, didn’t you? Naughty, naughty. Sooooo—INT. and EXT. indicate new scenes in interior or exterior locations, V.O. means voice over (like a TV documentary), and O.S. means the speaker is off-screen.]

NOT SO MUCH A CALLING

"T

hey took Grams

."

Myrana spat like a wounded wolverine, her long black ponytail slashing warriors right and left. The Pursuers were too strong, though, and pried her fingers off the sword she’d snitched. A grey-bearded soldier laughed and held it out of reach.

Captain Lanthal pointed at a scrawny body on the ground. Isn’t this your grandmother?

Not her. Myrana leapt for the sword, but didn’t make it higher than the guard’s shoulder. Grown-ups were so darned, well, grown up. My rooster.

You flagged us down for a chicken thief? Lanthal traded looks with her sergeant, then glared at Myrana. You think she’s all right?

Rooster. Not hen.

Your grandmother.

Oh. Myrana gave up on the sword. She went to Grandma and flipped her over. The ancient woman coughed out a couple of feathers. Great-grandma, really. She’s only ninety-seven. She’ll last forever.

Lanthal rolled her eyes. So what happened?

Myrana hesitated. Clearly, borrowing a weapon and chasing down the thieves herself wasn’t in the fates. If she answered the Pursuers’ questions, maybe they’d do something.

A couple came begging. I gave them bread, then Grandma shooed them off. Next thing I know they’ve got my rooster and Grandma is chasing them with a shovel. And yelling. And tripping over the anvil. I think she landed on Gretchen.

Another rooster?

A hen.

And the thieves got away.

Dammit.

Uh, huh. Lanthal shook her head. Look, we’ll tell the Soltup constabulary, but my troop has bigger bones to break.

Myrana fidgeted while the Pursuers mounted.

Lanthal glanced back. Vengeance ain’t a calling, girl. You leave them alone.

Yes, ma’am.

What is your calling, anyway?

I’m supposed to live with the sword.

You mean, by the sword.

Myrana shrugged.

Don’t go bad, girl. A rooster ain’t worth it.

Myrana blinked at Lanthal. I’ll try.

Lanthal’s mount kicked up dust, and the rest of the Pursuers followed.

Myrana watched them disappear around a hillock. Callings. Everyone had them. And whatever the semantical difference meant, hers was ‘with the sword,’ not ‘by.’

Well, one of hers. No one was supposed to have three, shoved down her diaper by infuriated birth seers degrading each other’s predictions. A warrior, or not. A healer, or not. And some confused religious nonsense. Stupid magic, anyway.

Myrana shrugged and helped her Grandma up.

* * *

A few years later, Grandma succumbed to age, losing a fight to a stag that wanted her vegetables. She’d always said deer were nothing but overgrown rodents. Myrana sold the farm for a pittance and set out to learn what her calling might really be, regardless of those damned birth seers.

Which was why she now found herself kneeling beside a nasty-looking pilgrim bleeding on the road. Fool man thought he had to pray on the limb of a tree, at his age. She tried to patch him up while he fumbled at her empty pouch, attempting to liberate a donation. It did no good. She had no idea how to stop internal bleeding. A stint as apprentice herbalist had taught her little before she accidentally set fire to the laboratory.

The old pilgrim grabbed Myrana’s tunic and cast spittle in her ear. Ka’Rantho Temple, he gasped.

Myrana smiled. What’s a Ka’Rantho Temple?

Show respect. Bloodiest god the Warpled Lands ever saw.

Never heard of him.

The pilgrim grimaced. No one else. Must believe. Worship.

Myrana snorted. You got the wrong devotee, pops.

The pilgrim yanked her closer. Sow’s Spine. Foothills.

He went into a spasm, coughing blood. Two minutes later he was still. Myrana reached down and closed his eyes. Then she rocked back on her heals and thought.

The Sow’s Spine wasn’t safe, what with bandits and Pursuers playing tag. On the other hand, it was only the foothills, and a temple might give her something if she told them of their pilgrim. Maybe he was a priest.

Myrana buried the man, hoping that was the right rite, then led her huge, black, former plow-horse against a tree. She climbed a low branch and lowered her small frame onto the brittle remains of a saddle.

Come on, Daffodil, she said. The beast didn’t move. Look, it’s your name, granite-head.

She nudged the horse with her heels. Nothing happened. She gave it a sharp punch in the withers, followed by a smack with her shortsword. The horse nodded like it finally understood and trotted off, following the rein like it actually had a brain inside the thick bone holding up its eyeballs. Myrana figured that might be getting optimistic.

In three days she found a lonely meadow in the foothills of the Sow’s Spine. A decrepit wooden structure leaned against a rocky outcrop at one end of the meadow, not far from the only tree in sight—a scraggly pioneer barely twice her height. Spiky turrets, hardly big enough for a crow to perch on, jutted from each corner of the single-story building, with either carvings or highly imaginative woodworm tracks trailing down their sides.

Myrana chuckled. This, the pilgrim’s lost temple? It was gloomy enough.

She stopped chuckling. After all, she’d been hoping for a handout, not an abandoned building. Well, maybe there’d be a trinket left behind.

She dismounted by the tree and rooted through her saddlebags for the hobble. She put it on Daffodil, took two steps, and turned back. The horse was tearing at the bark to get the softer wood inside. She took off the hobble, dragged the recalcitrant equine thirty feet away, and put the hobble back on. She pointed at the ground. Grass, she said. Eat that.

The horse moped a bit, but eventually tore into the turf like it had just discovered strawberries. Myrana headed for the building.

She paused outside and pulled a cloth from her belt. Clutching it to her mouth did little to filter the stench. She pushed the door.

The frame collapsed. Inside, ragged gaps in the floor surrounded a few rows of putrefying pews. Myrana decided to try the window at the back.

The shutters dribbled away at her touch, and one tap sent the window frame the way of the door. Myrana eased through the opening. Her foot went through the floorboards and she crashed into a block of wood sitting just inside.

It squished.

Watch it, Goddess.

Myrana slithered twice, struggling to rise. Her eyes darted around, seeing nothing. Who’s there? She managed to stand and snatched out her shortsword. Where are you?

At your service, Mistress of . . . whatever you’re mistress of. ’Tis I, at your feet. The voice came from below. From the soggy block of wood.

Myrana touched the tip of her blade to the wood. It fizzed. She jerked it back, took the cloth from her face, and rubbed off the sword. Part of the tip was missing.

You’re trapped under—

No, Goddess.

Stop saying that. You’re not inside?

I am the Altar, said the voice. A section of wall near where the window used to be oozed inward. Goddess, watch out!

Myrana leapt aside as the timbers, or what may once have passed for timbers, wandered slowly to the floor and passed through it. She could swear she saw ripples fan out on the remaining floorboards.

You’re the what?

"I, my dear mistress, am the Altar, your gracious host in this . . . excuse me,