Common History Tents (story #40)

Well, hi there, everyone.  Are you through crying bitter tears because the story wasn’t written yesterday?  No?  Okay, we’ll wait.

Ready?  Swell.  So last week, we were a bit saddened that not one single reader out there commented on the story.  One of our readers suggested that perhaps people were a bit stymied by the more pensive tone of the poem and were simply ruminating on it all week (was it funny?  Was it serious?  What did it mean?  What did it not mean?  What is the matrix?).  If that is the case, then perhaps we at the club can take solace in the possibility of creating a container for thought, a vehicle for reflection, a more thoughtful if less vocal readership.

Well, that’s all well and good, but it does nothing for our instant gratification complex.  Therefore, we are imbuing this week’s story with subliminal messages to make you all comment on it.  So there.

COMMON HISTORY TENTS

Art by Geoff Strout

Colin was not an ordinary boy.  He was, in fact, the ugliest boy ever created.  Buck teeth, coke-bottle glasses, elephant ears, an enormous Adam’s apple; these were actually his more attractive features.  No one understood what had happened to Colin, because his parents were the most attractive people you’d ever want to meet.  His mother and father had never worked a day in their lives because when people saw how beautiful they were, they simply gave them money.  Colin, conversely, merely inspired people to throw dirt clods at him.   Needless to say, he grew up quite sad in his hometown of Surrey With The Frinjontop in jolly olde England.

“Oy!” the local boys would shout after him.  “What you so ugly for, you tosspot?”  (editor’s note: in an attempt to give this story a sense of realism, we will be writing all dialogue in authentic British dialects, with regional colloquialisms, spellings, and slang.  And, by that, I mean we’re going to make it all up and not care who notices.)  They would follow him around all day calling him “Ninnyboots” which is of course a popular British colloquial slang.

Most days Colin would just shrug off their insults and try not to look in any mirrors.  But, one fateful Thursday, as a particularly large dirt clod struck him in the back of the head, he decided he had had enough.

My goodness, the fight that ensued was massive.  Quite epic, really.  But this story isn’t very funny so far and a fight scene isn’t going to help that so instead we’re going to go check in with Colin’s beautiful parents instead because, at that very same moment, they were in their gigantic tent (everyone in Surrey With The Frinjontop lived in tents, it was a very progressive town) watching an Eddie Izzard DVD, like all good Bitish people do, and that is much funnier than a fight scene.

“Eddie Izzard sure is funny, isn’t he, dear?” said Colin’s father, Rock Buttress, to Colin’s mother, Stereoscope Sparkle-Buttress.

Nodding happily, she replied, “yes, he is, my diddly-pop.  But not nearly as attractive as you are.”

“That’s true, me durky,” Rock said, frowning a little.  “It is a sniggly shame that so many people are so much less attractive than we are.”

“Oh, Rock,” said Stereoscope, “you just care too much.  That’s your problem.  Really your only problem at that.  Otherwise you’re just swucky.”

“Now, pooter-pie,” said Rock, continuing the authentic British pet name-calling, “you really mustn’t fawn over me so.  It embarrasses me.  And I am slightly less attractive when I blush.”

“That is odd,” said Stereoscope as though they had never had this conversation before, “because blushing actually makes me even more attractive.”

“How true that is, muffin noodle,” Rock said, flashing her a devastatingly handsome smile.  With that, they both dissolved into fits of uncontrolled, yet extremely good-looking, laughter.

“I do believe we get funnier every day, squishy-bum,” Stereoscope said once they had gotten control of themselves.

“So we do, my nifty clock-paddle,” Rock replied, wiping away tears of laughter.

Suddenly, the front door opened and in trudged Colin.  He was covered in dirt, his glasses were broken in two places, and he was limping.  He looked at his parents, who stopped smiling and simply stared at him.  With sudden ferocity, he raised an accusing finger and pointed at them.

“This is all your fault!” he cried, his voice shaking with rage and humiliation.  “You gave birth to me without passing on a single attractive gene!  How is that even possible?  How can the two best-looking people in the world combine their DNA strands and come up with someone as ugly as me?  I mean, honestly, how did you dooftopodes manage that one?”

“Oh my,” said Stereoscope.  “I fear we have let you believe an untruth all your life.  My darling ugly boy, I think it is time you learned the facts.”  And with that, Colin’s parents sat him down and told him where he really came from.

Right about now you are probably thinking he was adopted or something.  Well, nope, the truth was that his parents actually made him in the basement one day twelve years earlier when they didn’t have anything better to do.  I may have forgotten to mention that, aside from being sickeningly attractive, they were also mad scientists.  However, if you go back to the beginning, you’ll note that I did tell you that Colin was “created” rather than born.  His teeth really came from a male rabbit (also known as a “buck,” see how we teach you things here at the club?), his eyes really were made from coke bottles, his ears were from an elephant (don’t worry, they didn’t kill the elephant, they just took part of his ears and, let me tell you, he had ears to spare), and his Adam’s apple was…  Well, okay, his Adam’s apple was actually a tennis ball, but I couldn’t very well have mentioned that at the beginning of the story without giving away the big surprise ending, could I have?

“You know,” Colin said upon learning all of this, “the fight scene probably would have been funnier.”

THE END

“Hey,” you’re probably saying to yourselves right now, “with their goofy sense of humor there at the club, I was sure that the ‘subliminal message’  would actually be something totally overt and probably over the top.  How could I have missed it?”

Well, ha ha ha, we actual did something subtle for once so, whether you liked the story or not, you now get to play the fun game of figuring out where the subliminal messages lie.  That’s right.  The Story of the Week is also a game this week, and potentially a bigger waste of time than online solitaire.  Go us.

See you in six,

The SotWC