The Autobiography of a Jellyfish

 

 

 

 

In the name of TOLKIEN, the irrefutable, the incomprehensible!

TOLKIEN hath said, "If I, wearing [the Ring], were to command you, you would obey, even  if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command."

And MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, CEO of FATS, proclaimeth: “WHAT THE...  That miserable rat has been messing with MY accounts!!! Nevermind. He won’t win. You will not win!!! You’re HISTORY!!! BWAHHAAAAAHHHAAHHAA!!!!!” and again, “Truth is never Cheap...”

Whereby TOLKIEN and MORAMBAR meaneth, “Thou shalt make a killing from thine autobiography.” And I shall be obedient unto their word.

For those who do not follow the tabloids and are consequently unaware of my fame, I am Pseudonymus the Jellyfish, Viceregent of MORAMBAR, who in turn is the One True Interpreter of TOLKIEN’S Truth.

Not that everything about me is serious. In addition to my glorious mission of worshipping TOLKIEN, toadying to Morambar, spreading the Truth, and making money, I have several lighter hobbies and interests, such as world domination, oppressing the masses, eating plankton, spamming, masterminding pyramid scams, managing HMOs.

Odious unto me are Balrogs, Counts, anti-FATS disinformation, Jensen's so-called FAQ, unions, the welfare state, and fishing nets. I loathe Christopher "TOLKIEN" and his lies. But we will have more to say on these topics later.

I live my life entirely according to the wisdom of TOLKIEN, as revealed by MORAMBAR. TOLKIEN's greatest works are the Book of Unanswered Questions, a collection of terrible Truths edited by MORAMBAR; TOLKIEN's correspondence with MORAMBAR; and the essay on why poor people suck, where he explains that Thorin, Farmer Maggot, and Fëanor are the heralds of the Market.

TOLKIEN has had an impact on all the moral choices of my life since my conversion. For example, I was once faced with the question of whether to fire janitors for unionizing. In the end, I followed Pippin's example, and tore up the labor laws.

All my writings, many of which are required reading, were inspired by TOLKIEN and MORAMBAR (apart from an early bit of juvenilia about plankton classification). A bibliography will be provided at the end of this volume.

Under TOLKIEN, MORAMBAR alone do I acknowledge as Lord and Master, and it is his glorification that forms (apart from making money) the chief purpose of the work you are about to peruse.

Now that you know who I am, I must tell thee my story, wherein the truths of TOLKIEN and MORAMBAR shine like the bright light of the hotel in Kazakhstan burnt down by the ashes of TOLKIEN’s cigars.

 

 

Of old was the land of Flameea and Trollaria under the sea, and jellyfish abode there, and sea cucumbers, and blind wormy things. FATS arose in the primordial ocean in the depths of time, and at the command of TOLKIEN took possession of Flameea and Trollaria (commonly called Rogsylvania by the impious). It was during this age that the foundations of the underwater castle were made with the jellyring by an earlier incarnation of TOLKIEN.

Alas, this knowledge was lost, censored by the pyromania of the Balrogs.  For the seas and the lands changed, and loathsome beings made their habitation therein. And we sit in the tide pool of exile and are cut off from the bliss and the perks and the blackmail and extortion rackets that once were ours and will never come again.

But now, we have returned; and we claim our own.

~~~

A little later in the Palaeozoic Era (probably in the Cambrian Age), we jellyfish were the master race, the Firstborn of MORAMBAR.  If TOLKIEN lived then, he must have been a jellyfish, just as He was an eel during the Age of Fishes, and a tyrannosaur during the Age of Dinosaurs. We know that TOLKIEN thought the world should be underwater because He liked eels (see Letters 1,463).

Afterwards, Balrogs were made in mockery of jellyfish, just as orcs were made in mockery of elves, and Dell laptops in mockery of computers.  The lies that the Balrog Count has inflicted upon the world, claiming that jellyfish are degenerate aquatic Balrogs who lost their brains, show just how far Balrogs and their fellow-travellers are willing to go in blackening the reputations of those who disagree with them. Not unlike their claim that the entire world is legally balrog property. Their lies are aided and abetted by Communist orcs, who claim that cnidarians are the simplest organisms at the tissue grade of organization, and are essentially bags made of two cell layers, or “cell bags” as they call us, boasting for their part of possessing a _head_ with a _brain_. In truth, our entire being is a vast brain, which is why we are so wise and know how to interpret Mr. Udunvagor's interpretations of TOLKIEN, even “Cann so illa att bieras at crunathr kunungr warthr mith nequaru waldi bort rekinn af sinu riki tha aigu ai gutar scatt vt giefa vtan haldi hanum vm thry ar oc thau aigu thair e huert ar scatt saman giera oc liggie lata. En tha vt giefa than thry ar iru vt gangin thaim sum tha rathir suia riki” or “Tolerance, Humanism and Overal Niceness – these are the Foundation Bricks of FATS.”

There are four Great Houses of Cnidarians (Cnidaquendi): Anthozoa, which includes true corals, anemones, and sea pens; Cubozoa, the amazing box jellies with complex eyes and potent toxins; Hydrozoa, the most diverse group with siphonophores, hydroids, fire corals, and many medusae; and Scyphozoa, the true jellyfish, to which my family belong and which are aptly called nature’s nobility.

My family bided its time at the bottom of the ocean, creating a brilllllllliant civilization in spite of trilobite oppression.

Jellynor is our sire, the great jellyfish who inherited the jellyring and used it to make the cnidarils, the slimers three, that formed the basis of my family’s fortune. Or he would, and should have been our sire, had his wooing of Medusa not ended depressingly when the latter betrayed Jellynor and gave 3 hairs to Jacques Cousteau and none to Jellynor. Meanie. But I should respect her, since she’s my ancestress.

Through the long ages of the world, my family reproduced both sexually and polypally. Then Cyanea capillata bore me of Semaeostomeaendil CDVII Lionsmane, my only begetter. And with that the tale of my days begins.

 

 

A Rocky Path to Enlightenment

MORAMBAR hath written: “For many years I was forced to travel a rocky path to enlightenment by myself” (Morambar Manifesto, 2 Faqril AT 113). None can imagine what that exile meant for the greatest TOLKIEN scholar that beeth; but those deprived of TOLKIEN's Truth must in sooth journey a lonely road. Many go to their deaths not knowing that TOLKIEN modelled Aragorn after the Marlboro Man and Margaret Thatcher. Such was I in my youth.

As a polyp, I did what most jellyfish polyps of good family do, and sat around budding. My parents’ servants would ever and anon bring me candied plankton until I became a young medusa and was able to go out trick-or-treating, dressed as a pipe-smoking human, on Jellyween. The servants were rude and arrogant, because my parents, oblivious to the fact that TOLKIEN never mentions Sam’s getting paid at all, were far too generous. But I was too young to understand this as yet.

My nanny was a starfish named Scratchy, and my parents saw to it that she educated me well, reading the numbers from the Coral Reef Journal every night. How my heart leapt at the numbers! “Davy Jones’ Industrial Average 6791! MERMAQ over-the-counter composite 111099494.1252622272388383!” it was like a foretaste of MORAMBAR’s revelation that welfare stunted the hobbits, or, as TOLKIEN says: “An invasion of neoliberal economists would do them good.”

Then I became a young medusa, and the shock never quite left me. The slime, the tentacles gangling beneath me with no sure mooring in TOLKIEN’s truth … in the early days, I went trick-or-treating, as I have said, or made fun of sea-cucumbers, or occasionally vandalized coral reefs with my friends, drawing dirty pictures of female jellyfish in heat.

One year, I ventured near a beach where a middle-class English family were vacationing. They mumbled a lot. The little girl had a doll called Tom that she kept making recite bad poetry, so I got annoyed and stung her, singeing part of her hair off. “Priscilla!” yelled a grumpy older man’s voice. “DRRRreghjgjjjmmmmmmmmnfhfhgdgggkh!” (There was also some creepy satanic presence, which makes me wonder whether Christopher was present. Perhaps the old man’s tobacco was just off; but I heard evil laughter about footnotes.)

I majored in planktonomics at school, and wrote essays on subjects like plankton classification and why only the larger Scyphozoa really deserve plankton and that giving away free plankton at Jellymas was socialism.

The first time I wended my way out of the Sargasso Sea, I saw a beautiful sight. An enormous being, with enormous bosmata, bathed placidly upon the surface of the ocean. Her baleen was exquisite, covered with just a light gloss of make-up that only enhanced its natural beauty. And her flippers! I could go on and on, but my fellow-jellyfish already find my mammal-fixation odd. And if you want any steamy sex scenes, I fear you will have to pay $569.99 for the special extended edition of this autobiography.

There is an account of those days, and their traumatic end, included by MORAMBAR’s gracious Will in Chapter 5 of The Da TOLKIEN Code:

“One bright day, an enormous ship called the TOLKIENic sank in the Sargasso Sea.  We converged upon it, for we needed a break from plankton, especially since it was Thanksgiving; moreover, it’s cheaper to raid shipwrecks than to buy [Jellymas] gifts.  My beloved blue whale Cindy and I found a wonderfully ritzy cabin filled with good stuff that had belonged to a retired couple.  ‘I like material goods,’ I told Cindy.  ‘Me too,’ said Cindy.  ‘Do you think this human’s dress makes me look fat?’  ‘Not at all, dear, my little planktoncita,’ I replied distractedly, as I sampled the old guy’s cigars.  Then I saw a strange sight.

“Hidden in a closet were several boxes marked ‘TOP SECRET.’  Needless to say, I opened them, and what did I find but several tons of contraband materials, including fine-grained smurvacco and a gigantic cache of books, all by the notorious renegade, [J.R.R. TOLKIEN, who jellyfish lore asserted was a kind of tartar sauce gone slightly moldy].  I had never read a book before, except for a volume of planktonic dialogues, [since my entire reading materials had consisted of the business section of the newspaper, and I’m not counting textbooks]; but my sixth sense told me that these books would be remarkably profitable.  Cindy laughed at me as I lugged the books to our trench, and told me I should take the cocaine instead, as there was no market for heavily footnoted books in Anglo-Saxon about whether Ents wore underpants; but I laughed and said, ‘These books will be a gold-mine.’

“Unfortunately, although I knew the professor would bring me loads of money, I wasn’t sure how.  As I searched desperately for insider trading tips, only to be disappointed by what seemed to my ignorance rubbish about splits among Elvish clans, Cindy oft and anon had occasion to laugh and say ‘I told you so.’  ‘Don’t laugh yet,’ was my only reply.  The truth is that I was already becoming mesmerised by TOLKIEN’s wisdom, beyond that of any market guru.

“Finally, I decided to undertake a quest for the Mines of Moria, as my cousin Eustace told me that they sounded the least phoney of these countries.  I promised Cindy immense riches when I returned.  She wanted to come along; I, however, insisted that I must do this myself.  A good thing too, for who knows what horrors would have befallen her, had she too suffered what I was to suffer.
Horrors such that, if I spoke to any other than your Greatness, I would have to charge many a Paypal account before I consented to relate them!”  (And that is why this book is a bit on the steep side.)  “As I swam in the northern seas in search of mithril, or at least gold, I was caught in the net of a mad scientist.  He brought me to a lab, where he performed unspeakable experiments upon me[, drilling open my soul and brutally stuffing it with obnoxious spam.  E-mail after unclean e-mail he force-fed into my screaming brain, often gloating to himself about the corporate sponsors this project would gain him.  An eternity this torment seemed to me, and yet very little distinct memory remains me of the commingled mass of fear and loathing that never left me.

“How I escaped, I myself barely remember.  Some kindly eels, to whom the mad scientist had overfed brain hormone, freed me, but I no longer knew what to do with myself, and wasted away my life in eel-pubs, trying to recall the purpose that had brought me there, but unaware of anything beyond r3financing m0rtgages and 3xpanding intimate organs, reduced to selling my own ink to make ends meet.  So it was until TOLKIEN's light freed me through thy [Morambar Udunvagor's] scholarship.” 

TOLKIEN! Glory be to Thy name!  I was barely Cnidarian, I was less than the meanest plankton, when Thy light shinéd on my profit margin.

 

 

All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter; Bank Notes Don't

One day, as I sat in the eel-pub murmuring spam-messages to myself -- no longer being mocked even by the eeligans, for yes, even they had come to pity my plight, and commented among themselves that “that Drb. Scienceb bloke isb a right git forb blubbing ub hib mindb” –- Blob, the barkeeps assistant, led a mysterious and august Rich Being into my pitiable presence.

The majesty of this Being's pocketbook overwhelmed my senses, and to this day I cannot describe his appearance, save that he was as terrible to behold as an adware-blocking software, and yet more gracious he than a rich shoppomaniac teenager. At first I could only continue babbling spam, longing that someone might free me from this torment or at least buy my stuff. Then the being struck me with a JRRT-monogrammed credit card that awakened my spam-benumbed mind, and I saw, and in  his money-enhanced speech I perceived the wisdom that could answer all questions about TOLKIEN’s least jottings. (This tale is told more fully in The Da Tolkien Code: A Dinner at the Eelery.)

"Yes, Mr. e-bay member?" I stammeredeth.

"Who are you?" he asked. Of course, he knew better than I, for he had read all of TOLKIEN’s oceanographical works; but he sought to test me.

"My name is Pseudo. Pseudonymous al-Faqhater. Download MS Office for free..."

He might then have annihilated this worthless existence into dussst; but pity stayed his hostile-mergering hand. For he knew that TOLKIEN's Will was that my life should acquire a new purpose through the furtherance of His design to save a suffering world from ignorance of TOLKIEN’s favourite tobacco. "I always thought of starting a minor business, when my current quest is over,” said He. "I could use someone to run the advertising. What about
you?" By “minor business” he meant the salvation of the World through revealing TOLKIEN’s truths about the Market; and “what about you” was not a query, but a command, that I might become, as he says in Canon, his “most faithful servant.”

"Me? Really, sir?" I asked. "Please click OK to confirm the transaction."

He said "OK" and I asked him the Questions of the Spammers; but he was in haste to accomplish TOLKIEN's Will by holding a board meeting, and so he dragged me, still sputtering spam-babble, out of the pub and onto a Riverboat yclept the Queen Beruthiel.

 

 

Money Partings

Or as Mr. Udunvagor pointed out under similar circumstances, pointed out: May BUQ, and your generous donations comfort me in this difficult time...

It was also in this period that MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR developed a cure for my spammaphasia, an embarrassing condition created by the horrible experiments of Dr. Science. It caused me to babble spam messages about 3nlarging people's m0rtgage5, etc. (Most instances where I lapsed into this jargon will be ignored.)

Alas! Those happy and golden days in the presence of MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR were not to last. His august Pocketbook had shielded me from the abominatia of the accursed Temple of Tyope, an abominable place of anti-Tolkienish hypocrites and misspelling liars, where people mess up their keyboards (which they have the vanity to call a palette), and turn off their spellchecks. And in that despicable of despicables I managed to obtain credit card information from a number of tourists. But at what a cost!

For TOLKIEN removed UDUNVAGOR from my mortal sight shortly thereafter, upon the storied isle of Tol Kien, whose name caused me to swoon with awe. I last saw him in the company of a lady eel. My soul became as dust and ashes, worse than the failure of any Ponzi scheme; for my contract had not yet been signed.

After His Customerness and I were cloven asunder by the crowds of Japanese camera-bearers at Tol Kien, I swore an oath to TOLKIEN's Name to find him again.  To finance this quest I created a scam that offered tickets to Valinor, which was quite profitable.  But even profits avail little, unless TOLKIEN invest in thee; and I was captured by the Balrogs, as is revealed in The Wanderings of Blogambar: The Da Tolkien Code. Of them I shall not speak; only MORAMBAR and TOLKIEN dursen describe that horror.

(I have kept this chapter brief because I cannot abide to relive that day of doom.)

 

 

The Field of Zucotti

They say that, when TOLKIEN had been dumped by a beautiful Betazoid female, and all seemed lost, for his love-life with Edith was blighted by the fact that Edith hated fantasy and had tried to murder Lewis and was trying a new lipstick – although TOLKIEN did not much mind her thing for French lieutenants, since he didn’t find her much in the erotic department – just then He heard of Franco’s victory, and whooped for joy. So in the midst of my imprisonment in Rogsylvania, a light shined, and MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR appeared to my sight that had long been shrouded in darkness. Brighter than the skin-cream of Arien was his complexion, and utter wisdom and Republicanism in his glance. There in the dark pits of Rogsylvania, he taught me much.

“Out of doubt, out dark, in the day’s rising means that global warming is a liberal lie to destroy the oil industry,” he intoned; or “the system contained twenty-four letters, properly understood, is all you need to know in order to play the stock market.” I fainted.

Canon, cited above, reveals how MORAMBAR withstood and triumphed over the Balrogs, so I will not defile those glorious deeds with my lowly narration, especially as those events are too terrible to utter. I will move on instead to my last conversation with him in that land.

“Great One!” I cried. “Did Elves have antlers?”

“You are not yet ready for that knowledge,” he said softly. “And it is not time for lore, but for deeds. My quest for Tolkien has reached the point of no return, and I begin to see terrible things in the future, neon lights advertising places of ill-repute where Orcs cavort with Entwives, the defilement of all that Tolkien stands for!”

“Alack!” I choked. “What must we do?”

“I will go to Barftat, a community devoted to the wisdom of TOLKIEN,” he replied. “This quest is far too dangerous for thou. Thy task is rather to visit the wealthy citizens of Capital City and persuade them to give us oddles of dough. For Truth is never cheap.”

“Thou art too kind to me,” I said, falling prostrate upon the ground and looking like a starfish with my tentacles spread out. “Canneth we sign a contract?”

“Verily, when we meet again we shall do the paperwork,” he said. “And if you find any useful information there, tell me it and I shall give thee perks. And know that I am never far.”

“Good Master, kind Master!” I burbled.

“Now take this mushroom, and say three times, ‘There’s nothing like dough.’ These words will take you to Capital City.”

He handed me a mushroom of an entrancing odor of bank-notes.

“Now go!” he said; and I obeyed, and saw a fair green country under a swift sunrise.

 

 

Money Meetings

When I arrived in Capital City, I was immediately enchanted by the beauty of the skyscrapers, which were surely what TOLKIEN had in mind for the cities of Valinor. And the neon lights there did assuage my blistered and bothered soul. The city was laid out like an enormous Monopoly board, and Monopoly was held one of the Sacred Mysteries there. Every house was made of emerald, and every hotel of ruby; and the dust of diamonds covered the streets and would have adorned my shoes as the dust of Tirion did the shoes of Earendil, if I wore shoes. Money grew on trees, which made me wonder for a moment if I had landed in some disgusting pinko utopia; but happily, a sizable fee was charged for picking any money, so I needn’t have worried.

Luckily, MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR had blessed me with some pocket-money for my sojourn, on the principle that one has to have money to make money, especially since the bankers of Capital City are far too canny to spend money on someone who doesn’t have any. I also had an entourage of assistants whom we’d borrowed from a nearby village, so as to look more impressive; and MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR had created business cards marked “Pseudonymus, principal negotiator and CFO, Morambar UDUNVAGOR TOLKIEN's Truth (MUTT), Inc.” After I’d paid the entrance fee, they welcomed me with open arms. They all wore top hats like the guy in Monopoly, except for the women, who all looked and talked like Margaret Dumont. They were all in perfect health, since their positive thinking drove away all the viruses – who, in any case, were too busy getting rich themselves to infect anyone.

“What are you selling, what are you buying, and what is the price?” they asked in unison, according to the customs of their people.

“I’m selling stock in a new corporation, Morambar UDUNVAGOR TOLKIEN's Truth (MUTT), Inc., for which I’m offering derivatives at 37%. As TOLKIEN teacheth, the underlying price on which a derivative is based can be that of an asset (e.g., commodities, equities (stock), residential mortgages, commercial real estate, loans, bonds), an index (e.g., interest rates, exchange rates, stock market indices, consumer price index (CPI) — see inflation derivatives), or other items. Therefore, this is the deal of a lifetime and blah blah blah a lot of hucksterism.”

“This intrigues us,” said a guy with a larger hat than the rest. “Would you care for a game of Monopoly?”

“Can I be banker?” I asked. They smiled indulgently, thinking I didn’t stand a chance against their wiles, and said yes. They even let me be the shoe, although they did charge extra for that.

From MORAMBAR Morambar UDUNVAGOR’s wisdom and from my own instincts, honed as they were in the cutthroat environment of the Sargasso Sea, I knew that the key to being a successful banker is getting the government in your corner by “lobbying,” and then writing all the regulations to benefit yourself. Having thereby obtained all the money and most of the property (certainly all the good property, like Boardwalk, etc.), I impressed them so with my acumen and talent for gaming the system, that they were sure Morambar UDUNVAGOR TOLKIEN's Truth (MUTT) must be brilliantly successful, and immediately put all their stock in it.

“You won’t regret this,” I said with a smile, taking off my hat to all the Margaret Dumonts.

To seal the deal, we went to an exclusive bar and got roaring drunk and quite chatty. Not only did I make even more dough than I had already, but I obtained some valuable information about Middy City, a mysterious and legendary land of glitz, ganja, and fuhgeddaboudit.

“Ish Middy City a capitalisht mecca like thish ish?” I asked casually.

There was an awkward silence. “In a manner of speaking,” said McDuck. “But, er, um … they say it contains unspeakable horrors.”

“Cradle-to-grave welfare benefits?” I gasped, forgetting my drunkenness in my dread.

“Worse,” said Pluto van Crat. “Much worse.”

“It is a wretched hive of crime and deprivation; where orcs and halflings copulate in public parks, elf courtesans and dwarf transvestites lurk in dark alleys; where pirates of Umbar walk side by side with Rhovanian Norsemen, and trolls are hired as muscle for Easterling bankers and Far-Harad drug lords!” screamed Yvonne Lott-de-Stuff, before collapsing in an epileptic fit.

“At the centre of the horror is the BUQ,” continued van Crat in a hushed voice.

“The what?” I whispered.

“The Book of Unanswered Questions,” he explained. “We’re not sure what it is, but we’re pretty sure it’s so evil that none durst lay a hand on it even if it were offered for free and promised to earn us 20, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000. It gives its drug baron wielder an unspeakable power to bend reality to his own liking. And that liking is nasty and unpleasant.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Madame Lott-de-Stuff, recovering. “Something cheerful, like the Great Depression.”

The conversation turned to lighter matters after that; but I kept this information in mind for when I would make my report to the Emissary (Udunvagor) of the Great One (TOLKIEN).

 

 

The King of the Candy Hall

Or, as Mr. MORAMBAR  UDUNVAGOR commented: "It be 'equity investments', spelled with 'q'”

My mission in Capital City completed, I used the magic mushroom to return to MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR’s side. Were it possible, I would have thought him despondent: a dark cloud of gloom surrounded him, such as no meteorologist would have the courage to look upon. But I hoped my report would change this.

“I sought knowledge of Tolkien in Barftat,” he said. “But I have found only rubbish. They do not even call Him by His proper name, but only ‘Tollers,’ which surely proves that they are Lewisites. They probably dress up like fauns or Munchkins when they think no one’s looking.” He seemed disgusted and sickened.

Trembling between hope and fear, I showed the Decider my bags of moolah. "O Great One!" I cried, bowing. "I have collected much dough for our cause through Ponzi schemes! Capital City is indeed a paradise, where everyone is rich and has hats like the guy in Monopoly(tm) and talks in Maine accents and doesn’t need health care because the viruses would rather gamble on the stock exchange!"

"Tolkien would be impressed," he murmured, cheering up slightly. I made a note of this in my Notepad of Truth.

"It be 'equity investments', spelled with 'q'," he counselled me with the absent-minded air of one who takes his omniscience (gained through deep insight into TOLKIEN's works) for granted -- which advice I took down with my usual fervor. "I wonder if Middy City is a good place for equity investing..." he added.

"Middy City?" I said in an unusually quiet voice. "Why do You speak of Middy City?"

"Because,” he declared, "it appears that Middy City is destined to be the next destination of my quest, if only I can find a way."

I shuddered visibly (as only a jellyfish can). "Please, master!" I exclaimed. "Say it ain't so! During my stay in Captal City I learnt a great deal of the evils of that place. Middy City is a place of unspeakable horrors!"

I then proceeded with a detailed description of a once great city which had degenerated into a wretched hive of crime and deprivation, doubtless through electing liberals to the moot, and all of the filthy abominations that the citizens of Capital City had described for me. He seemed most attentive when I spoke of that mysterious artefact called the Book of Unanswered Questions, or BUQ.

“It is apparent that the corruption of Middy City begun when the BUQ first appeared there,” he said slowly and as endued with TOLKIEN's unutterable Wisdom. As he told me later, when he deemed me worthy:

“The handiwork of Tollers was seen all too clear in this unspeakable abomination of nature. BUQ, whatever it was, must therefore be that last remaining clue
to the mystery, but if even half of what was told about Middy City was true, there was no hope that I could break this dark spell by myself. And more than that, my heart was now ablaze with a desire, not just to end this madness once and for all, but to wipe out all traces that it had ever existed at all, and so to preserve a good memory of a good man I had once known, and let His name be unstained by the madness that he had fallen into, or die trying.”

I do not know what He meant in speaking of TOLKIEN and of Sacred BUQ in this manner. Perhaps he meant that BUQ must be freed from the vile hands of the Middy City mafia; perhaps he meant that TOLKIEN voted Labour once in His youth, on a bet. I do not know. As often, his words are impenetrable. Let me then return the narration of such facts as I do know.

MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR arose from his brown study. "My loyal follower!" he cried with a voice that echoed bright and clear in the desert sand. "We have been given a higher duty to set the world free from this cursed presence of darkness! Gather your finances. We shall go to Pezopolis and raise an army never before seen in this land before, and finally they shall follow me... TO THE GATES OF MIDDY CITY WHERE THE FATE OF OUR AGE IS DECIDED!!"

The protoplasm within my bosom swelled with pride in my Master’s determination and with gratitude for the honor he had done me in allowing me, his lowly servant and that of TOLKIEN, to accompany him on this glorious venture. There was still the little matter of the contract, which he scribbled impatiently and handed me to sign. “I hereby give MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR my soul in exchange for globs of dough and the power, under him, to interpret TOLKIEN's Wisdom. Blah blah blah.” Then we set out.

~~~

Forth we travelled, towards the mighty Pezopolis, that we might address the ruler of Fredonia and receive his blessing for our cause. As we neared the capital, more and more people began spontaneously to join our travelling party. There was a cowardly barbarian named Attila; an emotionally confused cyborg, armed with a battle-axe, whose name was Herbert Marx Brzeznsky, and who spoke dog-Latin; and a travelling hobo who suffered from Tourette's syndrome and several other unmentionable genetic disabilities, who said his name was Wellington, and more followed them. MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR called this a sign of a divine blessing on our cause, wherefore I took the opportunity to set up few pyramid scams and religious marketing networks to keep us in funds.

As we approached the city gate of Pezopolis, a small pez gatekeeper, armed with pen and questionnaire, came out to meet us.

"Is this a revolution?" he asked in an uninterested voice. It transpired later that we had interrupted another polo game.

"Far from it!" declared the Master with enthusiasm. "We have come from far away, to offer our services to the King, to help him rid this fair land from the plague that has tormented it far too long!"

The gatekeeper marked something that looked like “Babbling Nut” on his paper and spoke briefly into a walkie-talkie, before turning back to address us.

"Very well,” he said. “The King is bored and will therefore consent to see you.”

"Your king will marv3l at my master's wisdom h0t babez refin@nce barclay's nig3rian h3lp! The spam is s3izing my s0ul!" I nattered. The Decider hastily reached into his first-aid kit of awe, seized a syringe, and injected it into what passes for my head.

"Thank Thee, O Great One, whose mercy ..." I began; but MORAMBAR interrupted me.

"Yes, never mind, you're making me blush," he said modestly. By now we were being ushered into the throne room, which was filled with a sweet candy incense. The entire palace was made of plastic, and the courtiers were dressed in uncomfortable-looking plastic guillotines.

"I am Fred, the Great and Powerful! Yabba-dabba-doo!" boomed -- or squeaked, albeit impressively -- a voice.

"Your Majesty!" cried MORAMBAR in accents of determination that turned my soul to jelly. "I seek nothing less than the salvation of the world! Middy City, that filthy pustule on the appendix of Middle-earth, must be DESTROYED in the name of Tolkien, Him Who Arose in Might!"

"Now that you mention it, they did kidnap Our beloved niece, Slytherina Knickerblogger," mused the King. "Unfortunately, the Diet were out golfing at the time."

"Uh, what?" asked the Decider, as the absurdity of this comment cut his glorious verbal rampage short.

"Yes,” said Fred. I noticed his voice was a little whiny. "We always told her not to go out after nightfall without her nanny. We are so afraid of what they might have done to Our beloved Slyzzi..."

"Well,” said the CEO. "You are our King, lord. Surely you have done something to rescue your niece?"

"Of course We have!" Fred cried. "We sent envoys to all counties in my empire, demanding their help against our common enemy."

"Good,” I said.

"Not really,” Fred whimpered. "From Capital City, there came knights, but they demanded a horrendous wage, and left again when We could not pay them. Hell would only send help when We promised constitutional reforms recognising their usurped Communist government. Tiundaland demanded that We stop our hobby, moose-hunting, and hunt foxes instead. And in Balróggy-Tildanorška, our envoys were
eaten."

The Master frowned. "Seems this monarchy has slight authority problems,” He whispered to me.

Fred jumped from his throne and stood before Mr. Udunvagor. As he was a pez dispenser, not bigger than the span of MORAMBAR’S black hand, that left him in the uncomfortable position of cowering beneath the Master's splendid tuxedo. "Save my niece, O Stranger,” he cried. "Save her and we will pay you in gold, jewels and chewing gum!"

“Such noble task I would do even for free," he declared piously. I confess I was shocked at this act of generosity, and whimpered in my confusion. Only later did I understand that, as TOLKIEN shows in the Silmarillion, sometimes you have to offer customers freebies and deals in order to make money. "But of course it would help to have an advance payment to cover our expenses," he added, to my relief.

“This is wise,” said the King. “But the Diet have not yet voted discretionary funding, so I fear We don’t have much to give.”

“O your Majesty!" said the Decider. "Permit that I address the Diet! Are they back from golfing yet?"

"Yes," said the King. "They are in the Royal Entertainment Room, where none durst interrupt them."

"Including even the King?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" whined the King. "Haven't you begun to get a notion of my powers yet? Or lack thereof."

The Diet, along with their friend Terry Han, were sitting in the entertainment room, watching what looked like a porn video. So far, saith the Master, had this once great realm declined. The Rogsylvanian representatives were snacking on the delegation from the Landgravate of Punicoola, which made up two-thirds of that fief's population.

The Royal Herald Bam-bam beat upon a gong, and one or two members of the Diet stood to attention. The others shrugged or didn't notice at all. They had evidently not learnt their manners from TOLKIEN.

"Lords of the Realm!" squeaked Fred. "We request your aid in rescuing my niece from the gang-lords of Middy City – a subject on which this stranger wishes to address you.”

"Noble scions of the illustrious High Kingdom of Fredonia!" cried MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR. "An evil doth innest itself among us like a wicked serpent among TOLKIEN's tobacco blossoms! For Middy City hath defiled the name of Tolkien with putridities beyond human ken! Do ye then join me in annihilating their loathsomisms!"

"Maybe later," said the Balrogs. "When we're done with our snack."

“What’s Tolkien?” asked a few very slightly curious voices.

" i see my freind long time on my train, jump of that train, HAN sees his freind in his house! he called FRODO! no hes not FRODO thats a joke. hes name BRUCE. he dont want me tell his name YOU STAY MY NAME OFF THAT MESSAGES BOARD HAN he call NO BRUCE I CALL! bures dont go on AFT he call THEY LAUGH AT HANTURN ALROUND" said Terry Han.

"Er, right," the Decider murmured (and I thought).

While waiting for the Diet to make up their mind, we left and took a stroll through Pezopolis, keeping a vigilant eye on the sky, to avoid any temporal or narrative discrepancies. We found out that the city, though bearing a mighty
name, was really not as impressive as I had thought. In fact, most of it consisted of a single dusty street, with buildings on either side, basking in the desert sun. The gatekeeper's mansion where we had arrived first had the house number 1, and that gave MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR an idea. As he explained later, the number reminded him of the rhyme of the lascivious female eel in the Eelery:

"In Rogsylvania, 640.
In Capital City, 231.
100 in Humidor, in Pezopolis 91 --
But, but, but, but in Hewwo,
But in Hewwo, 1003!""

Hoping to repeat his success in Hell, where he had found a clue regarding TOLKIEN at house #1003, He started walking along this street, looking for house number 91. The buildings were spread out, so it took a while. Number 6 was a saloon. Number 10, a shabby little hut which had "Prime Minister" on its letterbox. Numbers 14, 21, 23, 28, 34 and 39, candy shops; number 46, a pez brothel, number 52, with huge neoclassical colons, the Diet, where we had just been; number 53, Mac Donalds. number 57-72, the largest structure of the town, the palace. He hurried past number 90, a gatekeeper mansion just like the first one - and he had left the town. In front of him, as far as he could see, stretched the powdery sugar dunes of the Trifle Dessert. (We later heard that Madame Palin’s salon – number 76 – was the fashionable court hang-out, when the élite weren’t playing polo in the polo fields to the west – but that no one there took even the slightest interest, and some gossips even intimated that Slytherina Knickerblogger had run off with a troll named Tom.)

The Decider sighed. "Well,” he told me, bafflingly. "I suppose one cannot be right *every* time."

“Surely *thou* can, boss!” I blurted; but he said nothing, and I was left with yet another incomprehensible mystery.

Yet our trip to Pezopolis was not wholly vain. At our departure, King Fred accompanied us outside the city walls, transported in a wicker-basket amidst coloured Easter eggs and lollipops.

"Little help can We offer for your quest," he said. "But take this sacred weapon, and carry it proudly to the battle. It is a plastic lightsabre, that has passed along in the line of my family for many generations. May its light send fear to the hearts of all creatures of darkness. Batteries not included."

A stout, pale warrior stepped forward and handed me the weapon.

"This is Captain Elmo, commander of the Finns Brigade of my personal guard. I shall put him and his men at your command."

The King pointed at a disorganised group of rugged – or ragged – men who seemed all to be talking to their hands as far as I could see.

"Roger, roger," said Elmo.

"That's about all he can say," said the King apologetically.

 

 

Blog Wars I: The Passing of the Crazed Company

We left the walls of Pezopolis behind us, and travelled further into the surrounding desert, following the old Aluminium Can Road, so called after the beer-cans littered there by the Hosers who arrived in the Wood between the Worlds and inaugurated the Age of Cans and Bottles.

As night fell, the Decider ordered that we make camp for the night, and summoned his war council to his tent. There he laid open the map of Fredonia, to decide which path we should follow thenceforth.

"The Aluminium Can Road leads to here, the Temple of Tyope, and to the river. From there it would be a short way to Capital City, but the road there is long and full of perils. We would be travelling right by the Rogsylvanian borders and across the Roggy Mountains. On the other hand, if we would take the northern path, we would reach the river quite easily, and from there travel onwards with BOATS, according to the wisdom of Celeborn. So which way should we take. I want to hear all opinions."

"Let's go the quickest way to the river, and then swim," I said. "If thou grant it, CEO of the Holy One. I'm getting desiccated. And getting desiccated always makes me spammy. I feel @nother att@ck coming 0n. 0h, and Great One, the discipline 0f this @rmy is buy p0rn ... No!"

He shook his head, injected me with another anti-spam dose, and looked almost dispiritedly at the soldiers playing pinochle.

"That sounds good to me," he murmured, and then cried out to the army in a resounding tone: "Friends! Romans! Proudfeet! With the Voice of Tolkien I call you! We shall cross the upper" (and hopefully balrogless, I thought to myself) "reaches of the Wogahwash and so come to the source of the Ouiskie River, and thence boat, or swim, our way to glory! We shall be hailed and invested in Capital City like the Defenders of the West!"

"Roger, roger!" yelled Elmo.

So we beclamb the frozen lava beds of the Northern Wogahwash, meeting no balrogs, though we espied one roasting some soccer-players. We did, however, run into a herd of Mooserogs, a weird and frightening moose-balrog hybrid with wingéd antlers.

The Mooserogs took us to their sacred gathering place where thousands of these massive creatures came together to test their strength and compare their crowning antlers. There MORAMBAR stood upon the large boulder and read out the proclamation of King Fred that henceforth no man was allowed to enter the Tiundaland forests for the purpose of hunting down its inhabitants like wild animals.

After the cheers had faded, the Mooserog elders thanked us and promised a squadron of strongest young Mooserog warriors to help us in our cause. Some wildschwein from Tiundaland also joined us after we had plied them with aquavit and bought some Ikea furniture. Thus strengthened, we left the Mooserog land and arrived at the upper courses of the Ouiskie River.

~~~

We were now sailing through familiar landscapes, where our journey had once begun many moons ago. Our final destination was the river’s delta, where MORAMBAR had seen His first glimpse of the notorious and magnificent Middy City, but first we were to make a quick stop at Capital City, in order to hire the Buckeroo™ mercenaries who had offered their services to King Fred. The Boss entrusted me, “my faithful servant” as he deigned to call me, with the task of bargaining a reasonable deal with them.

But before we got far, a screeching sound was to be heard, and the Master’s boat stopped abruptly, as if it had hit some rocks. But there were no cataracts, as far as I could see. I looked ahead and saw that the ship was stuck on a big, grey, round, metallic and slightly rusty something. I recognised it from half-forgotten jellyfish legend as a submarine, although I had thought they looked more impressive. Above the surface of the water stood a long, thin periscope glaring at us.

While the CEO and I were still wondering about this new turn of events, the hatch opened and a thin, grey and somehow shadowy someone stuck his head out. It was a Commie Orc, an officer of their evil secret police (NKVDork) who had been rude to Mr. UDUNVAGOR when he had graced the accursed Orc-country with his benefic presence.

"Oh no. Not you again,” said the officer. "What are you doing on my submarine?"

"What are YOU doing with your submarine in the middle of a public river??" retorted the Decider. How majestic he looked that day, as He stared down the insignificant pinko who had dared to interrupt our quest!

The officer stood upright. "WE are patrolling the river for smurvacco smugglers on our vessel, SOB Potemkork, the pride of the Hell Navy,” he sneered. “Prepare yourself to be boarded for inspection and interrogation!"

"Out of our way, you eeldropping," replied MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR contemptuously. "We are on a mission from Fred, and above the authority of Hell. Begone!"

The officer grunted and growled, but seeing the wildschwein loading the catapults, he gave up and ordered his boat to retreat.

I was in awe at the way the Emissary of TOLKIEN had been able to put the oafish officer in his place after the irreverent manner with which the Helluvans had treated him when in Hell; and He too, if I dare say it, looked quite pleased. Without further interruption we soon arrived at Capital City.

The residents were amazed and amused by our wooden fleet, and welcomed us to the harbour after we paid the usual docking fees. MORAMBAR promptly sent me to negotiate with the mercenaries, whom I offered immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses, etc.; and I had a few drinks with Pluto van Crat and Yvonne Lotte-de-Stuff and the rest of the crowd. While they were waiting, the rest of the officer staff were invited to attend a soirée aboard a luxury yacht anchored in the middle of the river.

As MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR himself later told me in a letter:

“There I met a grande (in more senses than one) dame yclept Hecate Mensenlarger, former goddess of death who had moved up in the world. Like most of the female population of Capital City, she looked a lot like Margaret Dumont, you know, the lady in the Marx Brothers movies. The males all wore bowlers and had access to the best Cuban cigars. I myself bought a bowler, and if I say so myself, I looked
very dashing.”

Of course, Aunt Heckie does not much look like Margaret Dumont now, but then she was not originally from Capital City, and had assumed a disguise for purposes of her own, possibly involving starting up a muffin company. But this is not the place to tell that story.

We departed at dawn the next morning. By the grace of TOLKIEN, I had succeeded beyond expectations, and hordes of Capital City's élite mercenaries had joined our ranks. This had effectively wiped out the cash advance payment of King Fred, but I trusted in MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR’s wisdom that we would not need any more funds, as we were fully supplied and armed; and TOLKIEN has observed that you have to spend money in order to make money. Thus we sailed on, as crowds of Margaret Dumond look-alikes waved at us from the docks, throwing flowers and toilet-paper rolls.

But we were headed for a surprise. Before long, as our fleet approached the place where river Wet joined with Ouiskie, we found our way blocked by a fleet of dark and ugly metallic armadillo-like boats, who stood in our way with cannons pointed at our direction, and red flags lifted at their masts.

The Master, who did not seem the least taken aback, had decided to try peaceful means first, so he commanded me to take a loudspeaker and cry out: "Join us, and we will give you discounts on stocks in any public or private corporations we acquire in Middy City!"

The nearest gunboat left the blockade line and steamed towards us. On its deck a peculiar figure could be seen. At first I thought it was another very small flag. Then I noticed it was Bluh the Handkerchief, one of
Hell's most influential Commissars, whom I had seen in a tabloid.

"We are not here to fight you,” Bluh proclaimed. "For quite a while now, our Hobbit-spies have been noticing something strange in the delta of the River Ouiskie. New suburbs have been popping up overnight. Boring areas, featureless and decadent, where loud-mouthed youths cruise around in cabrios and gang members headbang to the sound of rap music." It shuddered. "We believed Middy City was safely confined out there, on its islands on the open ocean. But it seems that it is growing. It started to... metastasize. If we do not act soon, it might one day cover all of Fredonia. We think it has something to do with a mysterious power source they somehow acquired, which we only know under the name BUQ."

"You know of that?" I asked. "How?"

“Through our intelligence-sharing with the Capitalists,” replied Bluh. "In light of this situation, we have decided to form a Popular Front and ally with you against this scourge (of course, we will bang our shoes on desks and bury you later). Our forces will join your fleet. These men are tested in battle, the 47th Battalion of the People's Army of Hell."

"47th? How many battalions do you have?" the Decider asked suspiciously.

"Numerically, three or four,” Bluh admitted. "But they have undergone a complicated series of political splits. These here are all members of the 47th battalion--"

"-Except me,” a tall, stout orc from another boat shouted. "I'm from the 31st Battalion. We're doing entryist work in the 47th and--"

"Whatever,” Bluh concluded (obviously even it was bored by the Commie jargon). "Now go and save the world!"

The gunboats joined our fleet, and we resumed our course down the river. I didn’t entirely like being surrounded by armed Communists, but I figured that MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR knew best, and would unleash his awesome power if the Orcs tried anything. And after all, Saruman had allied with Orcs, and he was a wizard.

Soon the buildings of Hell, on the left riverbank, thinned out and retreated, and we entered a flat land of marshes and fields of high reeds. The river broadened and slowed down. The delta was close, as was our date with destiny. Nor did she stand us up.

 

 

Blog Wars II: Middy City

Or as UDUNVAGOR observes: “Merlin too had wings, as the aforementioned passage evidently provens.”

“And ye sew was it, that the armies of Fredonia came together on a single cause: to wage war against the Middy City, and rescue Slytherina Knickerblogger, the beloved niece of the King Fred, from the clutches of the vile gangster Huggy Beorn, who ruled Middy City with an iron hand, before she was turned out to a ho. And the fleet that gathered around the Gnubie Pot, was the greatest that Fredkind had ever seen since the Great King Fredgar landed with his army to conquer the land from the evil Narnians."

Or so the Chronicles of Fredonia would tell later...

Upon arriving at the Delta of the River Ouiskie, we were greeted by the charming natives, who called themselves the Gnubies. The Gnubies, who were wearing loincloths and flowers in their hair, first lurked shyly from their caves, then emboldened themselves to come forward, bringing us offerings of fruits and vegetables, and asking questions such as, "Do you guys have wings?" or "Who framed Bilbo Baggins?”  But they were promptly pointed towards the FAQ, for we had more important business at hand. War was about to break out, and we needed information about Middy City. The Gnubies seemed to think it was ruled by Prince Philip Boyen, their tutelary deity.

MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR and I talked with them for hours, but I couldn't focus my mind on it. In the background, the Flag with the Offputting Pants fluttered in the breeze, and that was much too irritating. In the end, Mr. UDUNVAGOR asked Brzeznski, the cyborg who spoke dog-Latin and whose initials were HMB, about it.

"According to officiales recordos, it was designatum to be the landmarkia Fredoniae, the prima res refugees et immigrantes would see when they approachunt our shores,” the cyborg answered. "Obviousliter, the hidden agenda was to puttandum them off so much that they would return to ubi they came from. I think the keeper of the flaggus will be able to tell you moreum. There ille comes." A very annoying man from a Monty Python skit arrived at this point.

The man rolled his eyes wildly, touched the Decider’s shoes with haggard, trembling fingers and croaked: "It's..." He then died, fortunately for my nerves.

The next day, our great Leader called us together for a meeting of the utmost import for the destiny of the universe.

“Compatriots and co-conspirators," He began, focussing us again upon the matter
at hand. "Hear the words of the Fredonian Tourist Guide of the Yore: 'If yon travel south by southeast from the furthest point of the Gnubie Pot, yon shall come to an island covered in perpetual mists, and protected by underwater reefs. But if yon shall make it past the reefs, and find the small open gap in the unclimbable rocky steep, yon may sail through the gap until it opens to a wide lagoon with a smaller island in the middle. And on this island, yon would see the exact replicas of the colossal statues of Isildur and Anarion, with hands raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; for this be the Shrieker Island, where all the unpleasant habitants and unfriendly spirits of Middle-earth have gathered. Certain death awaits there.

“'But if yon sail by this island, the fair City of Middy awaits yon with many tourist attractions and evening entertainment locations.'

"Collaborators," he continued. "This may be fine and well for the ancient superstitious tourists, but are we like them?! No! We are brave and free Fredonians! We do not fear ghosts and goblins. I propose - and insist by the by - that once we reach the shores of Middy City, we establish a base of operations on Shrieker Island. From there we can take the city by complete surprise. Who agrees?"

“I agree, Great One,” I replied instantly. “Let none dispute the all-wisdom of the Decider! But I have a request. Can we buy the Statue of Canonicity cheap and then lease it out at wildly inflated prices?"

The Boss said there would be time to decide that after the conquest.

"The ghosts of Capitalists have no terror for our heroic troops," declared Bluh the handkerchief proudly. "We shall be there on your side and none will dare to stand before us."

"Roger, roger," commented Elmo.

One by one, everyone pledged their loyalty to our cause, until only Attila, the cowardly barbarian, stood alone, sweating and trembling with fear that was grievous to behold.

Bluh sighed. It rose to its full height of thirty-six point five centimetres (diagonally) and thundered: "Apply the Re-education!"

Two muscular orcs grabbed Attila's arms while a third one shoved a funnel into his mouth. Then he poured a Melchisedech bottle of Angmarskaya vodka into the upper opening. When he had finished, Attila swaggered on board MORAMBAR’s flagship without further resistance, a slightly moronic, but not unhappy grin on his face.

I leapt joyfully into the water. "That's better!" I cried. "Being on land is so trying; I don't know how you guys can stand it." A fleet of loan sharks saluted me and joined our army.

Thus onward sailed we, until strong winds that seemed to come out of nowhere began to push us off course. We solved this problem by having the steam-powered ships of Hell Navy pull the weaker ships behind them. And so slowly we crawled towards the wall of fog that loomed ahead of us, hour after hour, until suddenly the winds died down and we penetrated the thick layer of mists.

***

Not much is known in Fredonia about the history of Middy City and its five boroughs: Manhobbiton, Brandibucklyn, Queenya, the Bagronx, and Shrieker Island.
Legend maintains that the Elves came first, as one would expect, and that they built their fabulous mansions on the avenues of Upper East Side, which came to known as Tunaville. They were followed by the Dwarves, who settled on the area on south side which the Elves dubbed Little Moria. Together the talent of Dwarves and the vision and financial acumen of Elves created the massive stone palaces of the downtown area. The principal Elvish thoroughfare (called Straightway) leads to the gated community of Valinor.

Men and Hobbits came later, and settled on the island of Manhobbiton, except for some eccentric hobbits who crossed the Withywindle River and founded Brandibucklyn. Of course, the different species have become hopelessly mixed up over the centuries. Everyone in New Lórien is Rohirric, and they’re still rude.

At this point, it was discovered that the Orcs had entered Middy City as well, and they had secretly built a huge system of underground tunnels everywhere under the city. It was then the brilliant Dwarf engineer John Narvisson suggested that the tunnels would be used to build a city-wide mass-transport system. The Orcs were relocated in the area that came to be known as Udun's Kitchen, and later settled the Bagronx. Border disputes between Orc and Dwarf gangs would happen on occasion, but otherwise the Orcs adapted quite well to the community.

A representative of the Ents, Mr. Longfellow Quickbeam held the longest recorded speech at the City Hall. And when it was over, there was nobody who would dare to disagree with his suggestion that a large area in the city centre would be preserved as a natural resort for Ents and a place of refreshment zone for the public. (This may be because most of the audience were asleep, and not a few even dead.) Thus came to be the great Fangorn Park of Middy City. Personally, I was more interested in Mazurwal Street, the financial centre where the Middy City stock exchange did its stuff.

Persistent rumours amongst Dwarves tell that the Moria Balrog had cometh to Middy City as well, and was living incognito on the Penthouse Suite of Waldorf Imladris. Even though this was generally considered to be both ludicrous and completely against the cannon, nobody had ever managed to discover the true identity of that mysterious dweller. We visited his coooaffee shoooap later; but I will relate what I recall of those momentous events anon – or at least, those that is lawful for the masses to know. For now, let me return to our arrival in Middy City.

***

All eyes now gazed into the transparentless fog for a glimpse of the impassable rock barricade. And then a voice that resounded throughout the fleet cried, "The gap! THE GAP!! Straight ahead and starboard! The gap!!" And suddenly there it was. Quiet as ghosts, we slipped through the narrow passage, one ship after another, into the dark waters of the black lagoon, until we beheld grungy-grey shores and beyond them a grungy-grey country under a swift, vaguely smoggy, sunset. And then we saw the skyscrapers.

I had never before seen such skyscrapers, though I later learnt that these were the least of Middy City's wonders; for a large part of the megalopolis was actually underground, and the sewers were gnawed by nameless things. Even Tolkien knew them not; they were older than He, saith Morambar; but I understood this not. The odd thing about the skyscrapers of Manhobbiton was that many of them are round, in the style of the Midihobitlan hobbits such as the Baguínez. A certain feeling of unnaturality hung over Middy City. The buildings seemed almost sentient, and changed places constantly; and streets were never where they ought to have been. The Reunited Kingdom State Building even made sarcastic faces at us, and I was sore adrad.

But more wondrous still was the Statue of Canonicity, in the form of Isildur, who held one hand palm outwards to hold back from Tolkien discussion those who did not follow the FAQ, while the other hand held volume X of HOME opened to page 361.36667757548848484. Beside it stood a statue of Anárion holding a printout of the FAQ in one hand, while with the other he beat an offensively stereotypical Gnubie to a pulp for misspelling his name. This was the feared Statue of Nitpicking. When we had passed these abominations, we approached Shrieker Island, home of the golfing Nazgul attorneys.

MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR had laid his plans very carefully, for expert in strategy and tactics is he, and not a semicolon in TOLKIEN’s writings could he not apply to military science. Since this side of the island was empty and hidden from the many eyes of the city, the Decider ordered the fleet to stand by and make preparations for the final invasion. He took only a small advance team with him to explore the island. As we climbed over the hills bordering the landing beach, we could just barely hear the sound of a distant bell from the city echoing across the waters.

"The Shrieker Island ferry," he cried. "Hurry! We must reach the port on the other side of the island in time to meet it. Forth!"

As we rushed through the island, we got a good sense of its character and that of its inhabitants. They were well-to-do, which was promising; but to tell the truth, Shrieker Island, though pretty, was rather dull. Everyone had beautiful gardens full of twisted, malodorous white flowers that might have been Modern Art. (MORAMBAR assures me that TOLKIEN called all art after the Norman Conquest "Modern Art.") They all had at least one Mordcedes-Benz, an expensive make with pterodactyl wings on either side and a Ring of Power in front where the Mercedes-Benz logo would have been. I heard a 1960s pop band singing "Another Morgul Valley Sunday-ay" in the background.

Fortunately for us, most of the inhabitants were either at work in downtown Manhobbiton, where they were CEOs or expensive lawyers, or were shopping at Mount-Doomingdales. We only espied the odd Nazgul-retiree puttering about in the garden. “Everything’s gone downhill,” muttered one. “Werebears have no class and misquote Tolkien and don’t respect their betters.”

The journey was irritatingly long because Shrieker Island isn't on the smialway (underground train) and has rubbish public transit.

But finally we reached the other side of the island and found the ferry to Manhobbiton. After standing in a queue for roughly two and a half hours, we were allowed to buy overpriced tickets and get on board. I carefully studied their fleecing techniques, in case they might come in handy later. Then we started our journey towards Manhobbiton.

We had almost arrived at the shore of Manhobbiton when the ferry suddenly stopped. In search of the vessel's captain, the Decider shoved his way through all the Easterling tourists crammed on deck and, having pushed several of them overboard, found the captain.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"The quay is blocked,” the captain answered. "By a demonstration."

Curiously, I peeked through even more tourists and beheld a group of perhaps thirty or forty strange people standing or sitting on the quay of Manhobbiton. The leader of them - I assumed he was the leader because he wore a cheap-looking papier-mâché crown - held a sign: "Barad-dûr must be rebuilt, at least as high as before — or the hobbits have won!"

Then the demonstration was drowned out by an altercation between two neighbours in an apartment complex: a young hobbit on a balcony full of potted plants, and a wretched old creature on a balcony covered with worms and other gross things. They were shouting at each other.

"Yeah? What's wrong with my taters?" yelled the young hobbit.

"Ssss! We told you we've got a f*cking allergy, Gamgee,” hissed the wretched creature, and blew his nose. I thought at first that he said "allegory," and was about to flame him before I realized my mistake.

“What’s not wrong with them?” chimed in a neighbouring Orc. “It’s all the cilantro you put on it; regular elvish trick.”

We dodged the potatoes and potato bugs that were being thrown about, and hopped on board the smialway to Mathom Square. Mathom Square was crowded with Easterling tourists called wainriders, or weinuraidaa, on account of the enormous tour wains that deposit them at all the tourist traps. They gawked in amazement at the marvellously glitzy and tasteless neon lights and posters that had been put up by Gandalf. The posters mostly displayed the famous new hot ent-actress, whose new film, /Desperately seeking Fimbrethil/, was making an unbelievable splash. The neon lights advertised dwarvish techno-gadgets like talking swords with a palantir-chip that makes them interactive. If you liked neon, they were gorgeous; the art of Gandalf improves, so to speak, with age.

An organ-grinder uruk was entertaining the passers-by, while a chained-up snaga with wide nostrils and a funny suit collected money from the audience.

“This place is damned,” said the Master, darkly.

“But what a market!” I could not help exclaiming.

“Some things are too abominable even to be bought and sold,” he replied mysteriously. “Now return to the fleet! You will lead the army to war when the time comes. I must go on alone, for none can share this destiny.”

“How will I know when the time is come?” I asked.

“You will know. The power of TOLKIEN, miraculously activating thy mobile phone, will make it known to you.”

 

 

Blog Wars III: The Scouring of the Middy City Public Library

Or “You have a point, despite your insolence,” saith the Boss.

I bowed and made my way back through the sewers, which were full of watchers-in-the-water, Fastitocolon, and other riffraff. When I arrived at the fleet, the crew were dancing to Haradric salsa while Bluh muttered something about bourgeois decadence.

“Now is not the time!” I yelled. “We’re at war. Prepare for the Master’s signal. We’ll celebrate later!”

The military preparations involved a lot of stinging sailors into shape, and would make boring reading. So I’ll skip over all that and narrate what I later learnt about MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR’s deeds in Middy City. He’s more interesting than I am, anyway.

MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR skipped over most of his adventures in Middy City, such as when he got lost on the anga-train, or was mugged in the Bagronx by rap-blaring modernist critics, and moved straight on to his discovery of the Book of Unanswered Questions in the Ioreth Memorial Public Library. He also drank a lot of cooaffee; for one of his missions was wandering in Sharkey’s Village recruiting weird people over coffee. It was there, I believe, that he first ran into the betentacled mutant Armand, a weird knight named Trasque, Clippy the sentient paperclip, and others, who directed him to the aforementioned Ioreth Memorial Public Library.

The library had originally been built by Elves to house their collection of narcissistica; but this had long been overwhelmed by the donations of a prolific and wealthy pensioner of the early mayor Elessar, a certain Ioreth. She had also made several alterations in the building from Early Dwarvish to Late Third-Age. She had commissioned the famous Silent Watchers that flanked the entrance, along with several photographs of herself with Elessar. This formidable lady had saved the library from the brink of ruin on condition that it rename itself after her (its previous name was Menegroth), and that it showcase her works – all 5,687,908 of them. The library had somehow managed to expand its collection to include other authors; but even they were classified according to a system devised by Ioreth and called the SIN (Standard Ioreth Number). It goes without saying that the collection was vastly inferior to that of FATS’ Forger Tolkien Library. But the latter, of course, did not exist then.

One peculiarity of the library was that no one, not even the librarians, knew what was on the third floor, or indeed, whether that floor existed. The elevators went straight from the second floor (which housed the non-Ioreth stuff) to the fourth, where Ioreth’s household tips were kept. This oddity in numeration piqued MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR’s curiosity, and he searched around on the second floor for a stairway, until he noticed an ontological anomaly behind a stack of volumes of the Encyclopaedia Hobbitana. After moving the volumes, he found that they concealed a small but serviceable wormhole.

The Master was no stranger to wormholes, so he made his way through the anomaly, possessed by an ever-growing fascination as he examined the tobacco-ash and footnotes saying things like “He was never a member of the Royal House” or “Either Arglebargle IV or someone else.” At the end of the wormhole, he came upon a fearsome Librarian with horn-rimmed glasses of Doom that were clearly made of the Morgoth Element. She glared at him and said: “None may view this part of the library but the One who knows the Professor and can answer the questions!” Only she spoke in Gothic verse, of course.

“Ask!” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR haughtily.

“So, you think you know the Professor?” sneered the librarian. “Very well. The guardians of the Rare Book, the Book of Unanswered Questions, shall dine well tonight! Now answer: Who is called Edith? What road does she walk? Why is the womb barren on one side? Where are the cold marriages?"

“Edith was the wife of the Professor,” replied the Master without hesitating. “She walks the road to the apartment where dwells the French lieutenant, Gustave. The womb is barren because she and the Professor did not sleep together and she and Gustave used protection after the birth of Michael. The cold marriages are in Oxenford, because it is too drizzly there for romance to flourish.”

The librarian looked slightly less happy; but she gave a forced laugh and said, “You have passed the first test. The next two will be harder. And even if you, alone in the entire omniverse, should succeed in piercing this mystery, yet the mystery itself will slay thee or drive thee mad.”

“Will not,” said MORAMBAR.

“Will too,” said the librarian.

“Will not,” said MORAMBAR.

“Will too,” said the librarian.

“Nunh-unh,” said the Decider. “Now let me pass, hagling!”

The librarian obeyed, but with a sarcastic smile. Speaking of smileys, the next hurdle was the FAQMeister, who said:

"There is a book, created by the Dark Powers:), so evil that
no man may touch it without putting his soul into:) peril...
Those who have read it, have become some of the most dreaded:)
and infamous monsters:) and tyrants of history. But the:) book
itself has no words in it:). Each:) reader:) who:) opens the:) book:)
will see a different text, for the book shows them their
deepest, most intimate desires:):) and ambitions in:) writing -
but :)in a twisted and corrupted f:o)rm. … The book has had many
names throughout History: Necronomicon:), Gospel of:) Judas,
Malleus:) Maleficarum:), and so forth - and most recently it was known as
Mein:) Kampf...:)”

“Maybe if he were to dog you from news group to news group for speaking out against the abuse and harassment he inflicts on others, you might feel differently,” said MORAMBAR fervently. “Here's hoping you don't find yourself added to his long list of victims.”

The FAQMeister screamed and ran. The Master easily overcame a couple of booby-traps (mostly Sindarin mutations and tirades against the Normans for speaking French), until he came across a more fearsome foe: a published Tolkien expert, none other than Tom Shippey, subtlest of liars, whose apparent championship of Tolkien masks a determination to undermine His Truth, even as Nidhögg undermined capitalism through government regulation of industry. Shippey glared at MORAMBAR and said:

“Many of Chritopher Tolkien’s notes on sections of The History of Middle-earth create a similar impression. …”

“The Dark Power cannot make; it can only mock!” cried MORAMBAR triumphantly, and Shippey slithered off without even getting to finish his sentence.

Then he beheld sacred BUQ; but like many sacred mysteries, it had concealed its greatness under a modest exterior, looking rather thin with lame green covers; but before he could ponder this for long, the last of the obstacles appeared. For the Being who had created the traps and had hidden the BUQ had one more card up His sacred pipe-stained Sleeve. Just as MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR saw the BUQ, He also saw the BUQ’s awful Guardian, an ancient Egyptian deity (in profile) with the aspect of a German professor. This was the dread Horus Engels, expert on TOLKIEN through the long ages before He was Tolkien. And he spoke words such as only the greatest of Minds could comprehend. But prose does not suffice to convey the marvel of this encounter; so I will take the liberty of quoting an epic poem I wrote on the subject, having duly paid myself a hefty fee for permission to do so:

Long years had HORUS, the unnaméd dread,
Lurked in th’Ægyptian desart, whose unread
Posts of eldritch wisdom did gather dust,
‘til TOLKIEN commanded, Whom no one durst
gainsay, that Horus guard His sacred Book,
that no unhallowed hand should sneak a look
nor the unworthy glance, till One appear,
To Whom It May Concern, to whom is clear
Why trolls have pants: MORAMBAR is his name,
Who through the wormhole to Horus’ den came.

“Just because unregenerate sans brain,”
spake Horus, “exclusionism fain
exists and has for a long time, there is
(sponsored by porno pix of Tyler, Liv!)
no reason for us to accept it from TEUNC.
For TEUNC thinks naught of violating (skunk!)
the spirit of an indigenous folk
whose art and songs and way of life – no joke! –
are proof that the things TEUNC wants to do are
unfair, if not illegal. To nefar-
iously deny this is to deny
science, let alone the evidence, aye,
of one's own powers of observation.”

MORAMBAR drew himself up with Graecian
Dignity and majesty, and he cried,
Swelling with a justifiable pride:

“Will you steal for me? Will you ruin yourself
and give everything unto me?” (like elf)
“Will you lie, cheat, deceieve, dishonour all,
and even kill thy brother for me, thrall?
Will you worship only me as your true
Master? Will you die for me? Well, will you?
Morambar Udunvagor - Master of
Arda, Lord of the Earth,” and shone above.

Horus Engels squirmed uncomfortably
and lost some bandages, but managed he
to pull himself together and to scream
(now buy MORAMBAR’s elvish shaving cream!):

“The truth -- as pungent and repulsive as
Holland's notorious cheeses – broken has
finally. TEUNC is running an under-
ground empire. But that’s” (MORAMBAR thunder-
ed) “not the end of their cynical and eke
cabbalistic epiphany. Their – eek! –
only answer to rational appeals
to sanity and a higher, one feels,
definition of reason is burning
books, intimidation, undiscerning
insinuations that those who dare to
stand up and be counted in the – achoo!
struggle against their relentless dyslex-
ia are cannibals. I feel, alack!
impelled to warn all opponents of the
warmong’ring philatelism that the
Armageddon approach’s, encouraged by
TEUNC's paid ragamuffins.” I’d have said, “Bye!”
Not so he whom TOLKIEN wills to decide:

MORAMBAR laughed pleasantly and replied,
“There is an ancient prophesy about
a 'Chosen One'; and he shall bring” (no lout
the Big Boss!) “together the Flamers and (stuff)
Trolls and of th’ newest light will come above
the Harvest, when the blood of men, elves and
hobbits will flow like wine.” He raised a hand.
“You ARE that Chosen One, Horus! Do not
try to deny it - do not, O do not
turn your back on Destiny.  It’s okay
to be afraid: after all, your life, hey!
will never be the same again. But it”
(MORAMBAR’s speech became an instant hit!)
“will be the easier if you accept
this burden, than if futilely attempt
to shake it off. It is a part of you -
it is who you are... “

Horus looked, yahoo!
wildly around – the wild eyes of Horus!
As Lång pointed out in a rare decorous
moment of truthfulness – and cried apace:

“Hey, why didn't you use a spoiler space
instead of revealing the existence of
Granny Weatherwax and Lord (you’re an oaf!)
vetinari to everyone? Haven't
you read the FAQ?” (I confess I haven’t,
not that one at the least, for Pratchett is
a false fantasy writer; boo and hiss!)

MORAMBAR gazed upon Horus full stern
and, grabbing the BUQ, hit Horus – ‘twas earned! –
on the head with it, saying quietly
but emphatically (“hee hee!” thought he):
“See what you done, you blackhearted sporgers!!
You've upset poor Horus so much that, grrrz!
he's posting COMPREHENSIVELY!! That’s NOT
the purpose of his existence... it’s NOT!:-( “

As in JACKSON’s film bopt on the head by
Gandalf Denethor was, like swatted fly,
So now did Horus’ dread crumble in dust,
And TRUTH triumph, as aye it ever must.
Forsooth did Horus, still in profile, kneel
before the Master and said, being healed:

“At last! Finally, someone who shares my
insight into the mortal peril, aye,
to sanity, decency and healthy
living that TEUNC constitutes! The, the, the
movement to eliminate the pseudo-
semantic prestig’tation of TEUNC, oh!
can commence, though not without personal”
(this poem endeth soon, for TOLKIEN's merciful)
“risk. The euphuistic troglodytes who
attempt to hush me up, put an end to
my quest to impart the Truth stop at naught.
I learned that when I pregnant was brought
to th’ maternity ward.” For MORAMBAR
indeed it was, yea it was MORAMBAR
who was destined by TOLKIEN’s mighty Will
for all eternity, for good not ill,
(this poem is brought to you by Tolkien’s Booze,
so buy it and get drunk; do not refuse!)
to obtain this sacred Book, MORAMBAR’s own,
and to reveal such of its truths, by TOLKIEN shown,
as he forechose unto the multitudes:
MORAMBAR who discovered TOLKIEN’s nudes.

But the fulfilment of that destiny was far in the future. For now, the Decider apperceived that TOLKIEN had set the traps and guardians, so that none who be unworthy might reach a blasphemous hand to that most sacred of treasures. For sacred BUQ gives its wielder the Power of Subcreation, per TOLKIEN’s Will.

Horus stood aside, and MORAMBAR seized the BUQ; and as he held it, it began to change. It began to thicken and glow, and its green cover changed to a gilt leather of great antiquity. Mysterious hieroglyphs in the likeness of skulls surrounded the JRRT logo that adorned the front cover – a logo stained with blood and brain stains. This wonder shows beyond a doubt that the Book was the true possession of TOLKIEN, transmitted to MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR by hereditary descent. (It afterwards transpired that a brilliant capitalist named Bilbo Gates had donated the BUQ for the salvation of his soul – or mayhap he thought it *was* his soul; how he obtained it, no one knows.) Accompanied by Dr. Engels, MORAMBAR then returned through the wormhole, where he found again the librarian, looking pouty.

 

 

Blog Wars IV: The Siege of Gotham

“Show no mercy, for you will receive none.” TOLKIEN, Letter 45463738573646445463636437475757566367228888383666

“What are you taking out of the library?” asked the librarian. “You know you need to go to circulation and check it out.” She didn’t seem to notice Horus, perhaps because she was half mummy herself.

“Die,” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, and she did. Later, he resurrected her and used her as a zombie myrmidon. (Mr. UDUNVAGOR always hated librarians, because they let the masses borrow books for free; and that is socialism.)

As he left the library, he felt the need for another coffee break; so he stepped into Gamgee's Ground, one of Middy City’s many coffee shops. Horus did not partake, because they didn’t have caffeinated brains.

Two regulars named Ganny and Froder were taking coffee together in the coffee-house and kvetching about Saurbucks.

"This is good cooaffee!" said Froder. "Prooapah fooahteen-twenny! That Sooahbucks crap will nevah replace it, Ganny. It's strictly from hungah!"

"Fuhgiddaboudit, Froder!" said Ganny. "Unless we destroy the ring, Sooahbucks will covah Middy City in a second dooakness of bad cooaffee!"

"Don't bullsh*t me, man," said Froder. "What fooah theyah gonna turn ooall the independent cooaffee-house ownahs into slaves? Whose cooaffee'd be roasted by that?"

"Theah's such a thing," said Ganny, "as hatred and revenge!"

"Oy," said Froder.

“This coffee is filth!” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR. “Isn’t there any decent coffee-shop in this town?”

“Theah’s Lava Joe’s, a Balrog joint,” said Ganny. “But I don’t like the crowd: too many f*kkin’ gooablins.”

“Cheers,” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR.

Unfortunately, it was then the police grabbed Mr. UDUNVAGOR and hauled him off to the courthouse, where he awaited the summary justice of Middy City. Nor did his bribes avail him, for the court laughed sarcastically thereat.  Horus’s testimony, regrettably, didn’t make much of an impact either. All the jurors unanimously adjudged it to be “weird.”

A voting roll-call was carried out in order to decide upon the fate of the Boss, and the result was, for such a dramatic decision, uncomfortably close. 288 deputies voted against death and for some other alternative, mainly having him turned into a Harry Potter character. 72 deputies voted for the death penalty, but subject to a number of delaying conditions and reservations. 261 deputies voted for the Decider's immediate death. Stripped of all titles and honorifics by the rogue government, Citoyen MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR was led to be guillotined in front of a cheering crowd in the Hobbitropolitan Opera House. The executioner, Ted Sandyman, testified that the Decider bravely met his fate.

It was then the signal came into my soul, saying “the Master has need of haste!” So, having made final preparations and given the army its orders, I speedily swam down the Withywindle to the courtroom, where I arrived just in time to stop the execution on the grounds that he didn’t have proper counsel, and to serve as his lawyer.

Huggy Beorn, the capo of Middy City, had brought the Decider to trial on trumped-up charges for treason, because he said the denizens of Middy City were figments of TOLKIEN’s imagination and because he “looked creepy.” I, UDUNVAGOR's servant and, if I say so myself, a gifted speaker, nearly swayed the judges to let the Boss go.

But Huggy, an uncouth creature and scumbag resembling a teddy bear wearing a leather jacket, dreadlocks, and of course a backwards baseball cap in honour of the Middy City Yanakils, said that MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR was an “*sshole” in Tolkien's service: that constituted treason. (There was a mild irony in the fact that Huggy Beorn was the head of the local mob, or éored.) To decide the matter, I and Huggy fought a single combat. Though Huggy was a cheat and didn’t use proper tentacle etiquette, TOLKIEN intervened and Huggy was transformed into a bear of little brain and died a traitor's death: "Four chargers are brought out and tied to Huggy's honey jar ...four sergeants drive them past the spectators towards a stream of honey ... Huggy is lost, his ligaments will be drenched intolerably until all his blood sugar is torn apart," as Edith prophesied before she went to the bad (or returned to it). Unfortunately, this made the mob very annoyed at Horus and me. A stroke of luck, if luck you call it, saved us; for the army arrived; and blood flooded the streets of Middy City like a tastelessly violent Hollywood film.

After the deaths of many heroes, including Attila the Hun and Ajax the Cleaner, and the Middians Niggle and Parish, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Virus. We slaughtered the Middians (except for some of the women and children whom we kept or sold as slaves) and reconsecrated the temples to TOLKIEN.

For I devised an e-mail offer of a giant hollow wooden elf, an animal that was sacred to the Middians. It came with a virus built by Epeius the Dwarf, and guided by TOLKIEN with the inscription:

The Fredonians dedicate this thank-offering to TOLKIEN for their return home. 

The virus was filled with soldiers led by me. The Middians "joyfully dragged the virus inside the city", although both Ganny and El Rondo warned against keeping the virus. While Ganny had been given the gift of prophecy by the Valar, he was also cursed by TOLKIEN never to be believed. Serpents then came out of the sea and devoured Ganny, a portent which so alarmed the followers of Froder that they withdrew to the Green Dragon and got drunk. The Middians decided to keep the virus and turned to a night of mad revelry and celebration. Sindaron, a Moriquendi spy, signalled the fleet when "it was midnight and the clear moon was rising" and the soldiers from inside the virus emerged and freed MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR.

Then our army attacked, and there was an epic battle against the foul hosts of Middy City: Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Ents, Men, and Hobbits. A great massacre followed which continued into the day. As FATS’ most celebrated poet put it:

Blood ran in torrents, drenched was all the earth,
As Middians and their alien helpers died.
Here were Ents lying quelled by bitter death
All up and down the city in their sap.

The Middians, fuelled with desperation, fought back fiercely, despite being disorganized and leaderless. With the fighting at its height, some donned fallen enemies' attire and launched surprise counterattacks in the chaotic street fighting. Other defenders hurled down coffee mugs and anything else heavy down on the rampaging attackers. The outlook was grim though, and eventually the remaining defenders were destroyed along with the whole city.

We then gave ourselves over to jollification for weeks on end. But no description of the drunkenness of UDUNVAGOR shall ever be told. Howbeit, not eternal was this party; for alas, all good things come to and end in this world.

***

As the Decider, myself, and the army were celebrating the destruction of Middy City in Lava Joe’s Balrog Coffee Shop, a bald guy in a tuxedo with a bad fake foreign accent walked in and enquired: “To vhat do you attrribute zis ensusiasm forr mass destrructsion?”

“Who are you?” I asked in the most unfriendly voice I could manage, which was slightly more unfriendly than a nuclear missile.

“This is Dr. Angst Sexfeind Tollmann, a mad psychologist who used to make his living as a Tolkien-impersonator,” said the Master, who then turned to Dr. Tollmann and said: “Begone, foul mind-shrinker! With Tolkien’s blessing, I have triumphed on the field of battle today!”

“Haff you indeedt?” sneered Dr. Tollman. “Ve shall see if you can vithstandt my psycho-analysis!”

“Not /another/ epic battle!” said Deldo, king of the Bastarnae, who had really only come along so he could sample Middy City’s pleasure domes. But he was out of luck. For there followed indeed an epic battle in the coooaffeee shooap, where the MASTER’s sarcasm duelled with the feared psychobabble of Dr. Tollmann. How masterfully did the Great One hurl coffee beans and blazing mugs of joe at the enemy! How cravenly did Dr. Tollmann, cowering under a table, use dastardly deceit in psychoanalysing the servant of Him who is beyond every psyche!

“If you forrgive my psychoanalysing you :-), I'd say you are trrying to defend your grandmozer, by using ze arrgument ‘*Everyvone* vas racist back zen,’ ven ze rreal rreason she hated orrcs vas zat it rreminded herr off ven vone stole herr rrattle ven she vuz six veeks oldt!” laughed Dr. Tollmann.

“Well, I don't see it mentioned in the FAQ, so it must not be true.</sarcasm>,” thundered our Leader.

“You arre merrely acting out ze frrustrratsion you experrienced vhen yourr parrents took avay your toy atom bomb!” retorted Dr. Tollmann, grinning maniacally. 

The balrog clientele meanwhile blasphemously amused themselves by placing bets on the fight’s outcome.

I am loath to recount what happened next, and in any case even in FATS this may only be made known to four people, all of whom already know it: MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, Horus Engels, Hecate Mensenlarger, Dr. Tollmann, and myself. And the pain is too near. It was then that the Great TOLKIEN showed His true Greatness, instantiating in Mr. UDUNVAGOR Frodo’s remark that someone has to lose things, give them up, so that others might keep them. So, for those who are allowed to see it, here is the account given by Dr. Tollmann (but heavily abbreviated, as I have left out the psychological discussion).

 

 

The Ride of the Tolkienim

Thus saith the Boss: “Alas, that is not the case.”

Before leaving the rubble of Middy City, we had of course to track down Slytherina Knickerblogger. We eventually found her holed up with an unpleasant customer of elvish extraction, named Eol O’Maeglin, who however had just been killed, although Slytherina didn’t seem to mind much. She had evidently been thoroughly acclimatized in Middy City; she had an atrocious local accent, although her looks were all that one could desire in a lady pez-dispenser. She gave a start and dropped her beer-can when she saw MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR and me approach. “OhmiGoooad,” said she. “I’ve seen some strange-lookin’ crittahs in dis neighbahhood, like that creepy Ent-gooablin hybrid that kept stooalkin’ me till I kicked ‘im in da silmarils, but jus’ wait till I write in my blooag about youse guys. I bet I get even mooah replies dan when I posted about dat itch. One a yas look like a lamp wid eye an’ a buncha stooackins trailin’ under it an’ da udda look like a space alien wid antennas dat’s havin’ a bad self day. Watcha wooant? If youse is lookin’ for da bar, it’s up da street an’ got smashed up anyways.”

Mr. UDUNVAGOR was not the least dismayed, and cried out, “Glorious female scion of the stem of Pez-Flyntenstone! We are come to free you from the power of Huggy Beorn, whom we have slain and dethroned, and to restore you to your exalted uncle, the King of Fredonia!”

“So it’s youse guys dat smashed up dis town?” she said. “My Gooad, yas don’t play around, do yas? Well, I gooat away from Hug petty well on my own. I guess I might as well go wid youse guys, dough. Dis town looks like a wooash-out!”

So we took her on board ship, where she made short work of the entire beer supply, and we drifted up the river, past the gnubies and Hell, until we reached Capital City. During this journey, I had trouble accustoming myself to the Boss’s new appearance, which he had assumed after the destruction of Middy City, and even more difficulty getting used to his new mental state. “I have gone through fire and water and many a weird plot twist,” he said. ”I have forgotten much that I thought I knew, and learnt much that I had forgotten. For example, I’m none too sure who any of you weird people are, or even of my own name, but I know that Tolkien wrote chapter 2 of LORD OF THE RINGS while eating octopus-flavoured ice cream with an eel-strumpet.”

The worst thing about this trip was the constant presence of Dr. Tollmann, who spent the entire voyage psychoanalysing everyone in sight, even MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, who for some mysterious reason did not fry him for his presumption. It was refreshing when Aunt Heckie and Slytherina beat him up.

When we arrived at Capital City, the first thing the Decider wanted to do was see Hecate Mensenlarger again. ”All I much remember about this town is that her muffins were hot,” he said mysteriously. He remembered her address perfectly, however.

“MORAMBAR!” she cried when we arrived at her door. Then she hugged him, and I went blind and don’t know what happened next. The next thing I knew, we were headed for lunch at an expensive restaurant called Le Trolle Flambé. It was just the four of us, MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, Hecate, Horus, and myself. As it happened, this restaurant belonged to Hecate, and featured her cooking. She was in a French mode at the time.

“Heckie, your muffins are impressive, but your caviar is an abomination!” said MORAMBAR when we had been seated and served. ”Now hand me a box of cigars to chomp on!”

"Don't get uppity!" answered Hecate. "Eat your vegetable stew! It's healthy and good for you! … You’re not supposed to *eat* cigars, Bossy-wossy!”

“TOLKIEN did!” retorted Mr. UDUNVAGOR. ”TOLKIEN loathed French cooking so much that He created Denethor in order to satirize French eating habits as well as European defeatism vis-à-vis the Soviet Union!”

“Wow, Exalted CEO!” I exclaimed, as MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR chewed two cigars while lighting a third. ”Thou knowest a lot about TOLKIEN! It’s a pity the rest of the world can’t spread Thy knowledge at hefty prices.”

“Pseudonymus has a point,” said Heckie. ”We should share your insights with all the poor kids who don’t know TOLKIEN!’

“Long and mournful was the lowing of the dejected aurochses who, fried in buttermilch and raspberry jam, served as the inspiration for this plan, as TOLKIEN observed while being eaten by bouillabaiisse,” agreed (I think) Horus.

“Only if they are worthy!” said the Decider. ”If any unworthy attend my lectures, he shall die!die!DIE!”

“Now, don’t go all ‘die!die!DIE!’ on us, MORAMBAR,” said Heckie. ”We’re talking about giving knowledge about TOLKIEN to the masses, and maybe discussing your ideas with other TOLKIEN scholars. We could have picnics and potlucks where we talk TOLKIEN while eating my home cooking.”

“Think of the money we’ll make, Great CEO!” I said. ”We can start by enlightening other scholars, and then sell thy truths to the multitudes, who shall glorify TOLKIEN's name as they shell out the moolah.”

“Yes!” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR, suddenly enthusiastic. ”We shall free them from the trammels of ignorance and teach them to sacrifice hecatombs to the glory of TOLKIEN’s name! And then they shall all grovel in the dust before His wisdom, and millions and millions of slaves will bring me tribute in exchange for learning that TOLKIEN’s dandruff healed His secretary Joy Hill’s headache while He knocked a critic on the head with His walking stick for being a socialist!

“was canonized after my death in A. D. 390 - a death induced by being repeatedly hit over the head with meringues by my enemies. It was a dwelling befitting my genius, and my position as the darling of great MORAMBAR. Horus Engels Chuy?n ti?p Ba?n pha?i ??ng nhâ?p tr???c khi ??ng bài ?ê? ??ng ba?i, tr???c tiên ba?n pha?i tham gia va?o nho?m na?y. Vui lo?ng câ?p nhâ?t bi?t hi?u cu?a ba?n trên trang ca?i ???t ??ng ky? tr???c khi ??ng,” said Horus.

“True,” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR. “The three of you now have a new mission: to interview the crew to see which of them shows the most promise for Tolkien scholarship. The cyborg Brzeznski and that weird knight we found in a café in Middy City’s freaky neighbourhood will make good Tolkien ninjas. And when we hit the Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelery, I’ll look up a friend of mine named Armand. Then we can place advertisements in the newspapers, unless I get inspired to do something else. Heed the words!”

“Oh, theah you awe,” said Slytherina, approaching us with a couple of beer-bottles in hand. “Can we get a move-ooan? The beeah heeah is so expensive, it’s friggin’ ridiculous."

We did get a move-on, although the four of us continued to discuss this issue amongst ourselves. We also had discreet tête-à-têtes with likely-looking people. The cyborg who spoke dog-Latin seemed very interested, although only Horus really (probably) understood what he thought he was talking about.

When we arrived at the Eeeeeeeeelery, we were seduced by eels again. Then Mr. UDUNVAGOR showed his nose for HR in a startling way.

He led us up to a quasi-humanoid with tentacles who was sitting at a table with 44 used beer-bottles, 37 half-used beer-bottles, and 157 fresh beer-bottles, and said, “Armand! I have come to speak to you because you are not yet very drunk.”

“Imhardlydrunkatalllssssshshshshshshshshshshshss,” said Armand. This was the most intelligent thing he said on this occasion, or on many others.

“I command you to join us in our quest to glorify TOLKIEN,” said the Boss.

“Surethingskkkhhkh,” said Armand and took another gulp.

“Are you sure, Lord Decider?” I said. “With due respect, he looks and sounds like a sodden idiot.”

“Thy puny intellect cannot fathom the depths of my Thought, minion!” replied MORAMBAR. “For under the inspiration of TOLKIEN, I see into the depths of this creature’s soul, and know he is one of the wise ones of Tolkienology.”

“Yeah,” said Armand. I bowed my head, and never again questioned this hiring choice. I never since, indeed, saw the slightest indication in Armand of any expertise in TOLKIEN or in much else. But what my puny mind could not perceive, the vast Brain of MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR could.

Armand spent most of the rest of the journey getting drunk with Slytherina. It was around this time that Cindy the Blue Whale joined our company, having spent several years, as she said, looking for me and trying a new diet. “Let’s have sex,” she added.

“This river is a bit crowded, but all right,” I agreed. But MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR rebuked us, and then Slytherina got into a fin-fight with Cindy by calling her a fatso.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the New Library, where the Librarians greeted Mr. UDUNVAGOR with great respect.

“You look a little off; I hope the journey wasn’t unduly hazardous. Did you ever find TOLKIEN’s daughter?” asked the Head Librarian.

“There is no TOLKIEN’s daughter!” retorted the Decider. “You made her up in order to distract me from my true mission: the glorification of TOLKIEN. Now lend me all your books about TOLKIEN at once!” And he handed them his library card.

“We only have a handful of books about that mysterious Being,” said the librarian. “No one has borrowed them in centuries. But we will do what we can.”

They brought down twelve ancient tomes with titles like “101 Exceellente Recypees for a Compleat Toolkyene.” “There are due in …” began the librarian.

“I shall return them when it pleaseth me,” interrupted MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR. “Now I shall get on the next aeroplane from the Library to Pezopolis, where I have dealings with King Fred to conclude before I commence my real mission.”

“Gooad, whaddaya want all these books fooah?” cried Slytherina. “Will you put beeah-booattles ooan them?” MORAMBAR did not deign to reply; but Cindy snorted a water-blast that accidentally (I hope) drenched Slytherina and started another fin-fight, which was the chief source of amusement on the way to the airport.

The New Library is, of course, the only library in the world to have its own (admittedly rather small) airport. It was situated upon the roof, and presided over by the airport librarian.

We took an elevator to the roof, and there the airport librarian greeted us, looked briefly at our library cards, and left us to the tender mercies of FSA, the Fredonian Screaming Annoyance, which made us stand in line for six hours while they strip-searched us. Then the Boss lost his temper and killed them, a feat that FATS still celebrates yearly, and we hijacked a plane to Pezopolis.

The flight was short but painful, since Dr. Tollmann began psychoanalysing us again. But the less said about that, the better. The worst was when he began slipping us blackmail notices written in psychobabble. Fortunately, Cindy knocked him out with her tail

When we arrived at Pezopolis with Slytherina, the King gave us a hero’s welcome, with a band consisting of a banjo, a drum, and 7 kazoos. We described how we had destroyed Middy City and saved Slyherina, leaving out the beer. There was some bafflement at MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR’s changed appearance, which resulted from his glorification by TOLKIEN after the destruction of the Abomination of Middy City. The court poet afterwards composed an epic in our honor; and we all received free pez souvenirs. The nobility were occupied with the pleasures of the court, which seemed mainly to consist of tiddlywinks. That finished, the court celebrated our triumph with a spectacular casino-bash. It’s true that it took a while for the King to understand his niece’s idiolect, especially given that there were no Middicitian interpreters. But they had a touching reunion nonetheless, and the King made Mr. UDUNVAGOR a Peer of the Realm of Fredonia.

“And anything else you desire, if it be in my power” (this reservation was not very encouraging) “I will grant it,” said the King.

“My followers and I require safe conduct to the Wood between the Worlds!” replied the Decider.

“That’s very dangerous,” said Fred. “You never know what will come out of the pools there, or where you will end up.”

“Yeah, I once landed ooan a planet that gooats no booze!” shuddered Slytherina.

“What others dare not, I may, and indeed must,” proclaimed MORAMBAR. “My destiny calls me to the fabled world where TOLKIEN caused Himself to Be!”

Fred bowed his head.

 

 

A Cool Welcome

“Do I care? Does anyone? Who knows these things,” as Mr. UDUNVAGOR pointed out.

In we dove, MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, I, Horus, Aunt Heckie, Cindy, and the others. Upon diving, we found ourselves in a Wormhole that possessed the shape and fragrance of TOLKIEN’s pipe. Indeed, it would not surprise me if it indeed *was* TOLKIEN’s pipe; and we only survived it through the grace of TOLKIEN.

When we alit, we saw a bunch of weird people doing drugs. Many of them held surfboards. No one much noticed us, although someone did remark that my tentacles were “like wow.”

“Where are we?” I asked, still feeling a little dazed.

“Like what drugs are you on? You’re in LA, dood.”

“O truly blessed inhabitants of TOLKIEN’s hallowed world!” perorated the Boss, “do thou beings lead us into His glorious presence!”

“Wow, he’s on something strong,” said someone.

“Is tolkin like meth?” asked someone else.

“Let’s go surfin’,” said someone else, and I suppose they did. We wandered aimlessly into a place called Hollywood, where we espied more drugged out people, most of whom seemed to be having disgusting sex. Most had clearly never read TOLKIEN, or much else, although one or two said His /Hamlet/ was their favourite book.

Then we somehow made our way to a street corner, where the Decider cried out, “People of TOLKIEN’s world! Why do you not glorify His name? Is one of you TOLKIEN in a clever disguise, and all this a test of our faith? Awake, for TOLKIEN alone shouldst ye praise!”

Finally, the police arrested us for causing a nuisance. The imprisonment was relatively mild, and made the easier since this persecution was for the greater glory of TOLKIEN.

“Is there a library in this filthy hotel?” demanded MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR of our jailor.

“There is, and non-violent inmates are allowed to use it,” said the jailor.

“You will take us there at once!” ordered the Decider.

“Say please,” said the jailor insolently.

“Please,” said Aunt Heckie before MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR could punish the jailor as he deserved.

The library was dirty, and most of the relatively few books were pulp novels. The encyclopaedia was old and, quite shockingly, had no reference to TOLKIEN. We did find a dog-eaten copy of LOTR.

“WHY IS THIS SACRED CANON NOT BOUND IN GOLD AND BEDECKED WITH PRECIOUS JEWELS!” yelled the Boss.

“Quiet, man, I’m tryin’ to read /Da Cat in da Hat/ so I can get a job when I git ouda here,” said a prisoner.

“It says in the blurb that TOLKIEN lived in Oxford, in England,” I remarked.

“We must find out where that is in relation to California,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “Then we shall hijack an aeroplane to take us there.”

“The reservoir from which TEUNC draws its cronies is primarily the masses of lewd twisted kleptomaniacs,” said Horus.

“Do you have something against kleptomaniacs?” enquired a well-dressed gent who was stuffing some random books into his hat.

“Never mind that,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “Where’s the nearest airport, and do they have flights to London?”

“Of course they do,” said the kleptomaniac. “When we get released, I’ll steal a car and drive you there. Would you mind if I robbed you on the way?”

“I’m sure we can make a deal,” I interposed, hoping we had some useless rubbish we could persuade him to take. “Or perhaps you could put off the theft until we get to the airport, and then help us steal an aeroplane?”

“That sounds amusing,” he replied. “I’ll take you to Los Angeles International Airport, and have a go at that.”

So he drove us to the airport and told security to let us through because he was rich. “OK,” they said. “But who are these weird people, and what on earth” – pointing rudely at me – “is /that/?”

“They’re major contributors to the Republican Party,” he explained, so they waved us through, as they were all hired by Reagan cronies.

“When we get to Oxford, we’d better find TOLKIEN held in proper reverence there,” MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR told the stewardess.

“Um, yeah,” she muttered. “Would you like cream in your coffee?”

“No, you fool!” retorted the Boss. “TOLKIEN always had black coffee, and so should all His followers!”

I hastily poured out my café au lait and ordered a black coffee according to the CEO’s teachings.

The flight was very long and boring. On the way they showed a stupid movie about an evil Scanian rodent named Mickey Mouse.

“Why don’t they show movies about TOLKIEN’s sacred deeds?” protested MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR.

“Will you please shut up about To-clean? PLEASE???????????!!!!!!???” screamed the other passengers, blasphemously.

At last we arrived at Heathrow Airport in London, and stood in a crowd waiting for the immigration people to let us in. When we finally reached the official, he asked to see our passports.

“We don’t need them, since we’re Republican contributors,” I explained.

For some reason, this did not please the official at all. “Oh, you are, are you? You’re under arrest,” he said, as guards seized us and put us way in a room, where they asked us several incomprehensible questions about people and places we’d never heard of, and did we know of any plans to bomb anything?

“Of course not, you idiots!” said Mr. UDNVAGOR. “We are here for the greater glory of TOLKIEN!”

“So O’Tokey is the chief IRA terrorist?” asked one of the interrogators.

Finally one of them said, “These people clearly don’t know anything about the IRA, or much else,” and they let us go. But we still couldn’t get in without our passports (or with them, since Fredonian passports weren’t recognised), and the officials were too dense to understand the Boss when he informed them that he was above their insignificant little laws, per TOLKIEN’s Will. In the end, the Decider had to use the power of BUQ to blast us to Oxford.

“Do they not even glorify TOLKIEN in His own country?” I asked. “Why is His statue not prominently displayed in the airport?”

MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR caused a small thunderstorm in his anger, but said nothing.

“Now, MORAMBAR, don’t go drenching TOLKIEN’s sacred precincts on us,” said Heckie. “How would you feel? Let’s ask this student if he knows anything.”

“Most blessed inhabiter of the hallowed soil whereon the feet of TOLKIEN trodded!” exclaimed Mr. UDNVAGOR.  “Do thou indicate to us His sacred dwelling-place, or at least His holy temple!”

“No speak English,” said the guy.

Undeterred, the CEO addressed a group of students that were leaving a pub.

“Sorry, can’t help you, mate,” said one.

“Had a drop too many, have you?” said another.

“These bloody TOLKIEN nuts get weirder by the hour,” snickered a third, probably one of Dyson’s ill-begotten spawns.

“Weird,” said Horus.

We decided to check out Merton College, whereof our sources claimed that TOLKIEN was a fellow. We did indeed find a bust of Him in the chapel, although the people in the chapel appeared to be worshipping someone else. They were very annoyed when MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR adored TOLKIEN’s bust, and kicked us out of the chapel.

“When I take over this town, I shall make those interlopers pay!” said the Decider. “But first things first! First I shall enrol as a student in Merton College, to see if TOLKIEN’s Wisdom is taught there. Then I shall impart to you what I deem you worthy to know!”

“Yes, Great Boss!”

“Be sure to have decent meals while gaining Wisdom.”

“Yxxx myx pyx.”

So MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR took an exam that the lackeys of this school dared to impose upon him. He seemed grumpy when he came out of the examination hall, muttering about being tested in “stupid drivel that clearly had nothing to do with TOLKIEN” and having to wait for the results instead of being told immediately that he had triumphed.

While we waited, we saw some of the sights of the town. We tried out a number of pubs and were laughed at. In The White Horse, we all felt a horrible miasma of evil and fled, unmanned (even Heckie). The Eagle and Child actually had some pictures of TOLKIEN and some of those He had deigned to call friends; but no one adored them, and pub was full of filthy stains. The King’s Arms were full of boozers. We went to a museum called the Ashmolean, and searched high and low for sacred relics of TOLKIEN, but there were none. We went to see TOLKIEN’s grave, feeling certain that here, at least, He would be properly honoured. But …

“What is this blasphemy?” cried MORAMBAR UDNVAGOR. “WHAT IS THIS BLASPHEMY??????!!!!q! NO MAUSOLEUM???!!! NO ADORING MILLIONS??!!! COKE CANS, DOUBTLESS LEFT BEHIND BY ANTI-TOLKIEN TROLLS??/!!! FILTH, FILTH, EXCRESCENCE OF FILTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And Mr. UDNVAGOR would have dug TOLKIEN up, that the Author might be more decently disposed; but some infidels kicked us out.

The last straw was when the Decider was informed that his application to Oxford had been rejected. He screamed a litany of curse-words, destroying a small college in the process.

Then the police came, again …

 

 

The Worst Debate

The Decider hath observed: “Bolger had no means to pay up the diabolical property taxes of Shire.”

“Can we conquer this world, Boss?” I asked, as we sat in our English prison cell.

“We can – and shall!” said MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR. “But we must not forget TOLKIEN's Wisdon that says, More haste less speed. Thus did TOLKIEN condemn Radicalism. First we must get out of here, and then we must educate a fanatical army of TOLKIEN-worshipping ninja terrorists, to liberate TOLKIEN's sacred home world from its anti-smoking TOLKIEN-hating liberal tax-and-spend armadillo-like oppressors.”

“That is a noble goal, Master,” I spake. “But where shall we find these students?”

“We'll start with the inmates of this prison,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “The Wisdom of TOLKIEN telleth me that they were probably arrested for not paying this evil régime's Commie-taxes.”

So during our lunch break in the prison cafeteria, MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR cried aloud, “Follow me out of this monument to socialist tyranny, to a new home where TOLKIEN's wisdom shall resound!”

“Grawp!” added Horus.

“Wotcher on abaht, myte?” said the other prisoners.

“He means we're leaving this prison to go to a wonderful place where we'll teach you stuff and you'll get free muffins, ducky!” said Aunt Heckie.

“You berks ain't goin' nowheah!” said the guards.

“Oh, aren't we?” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “Look upon THIS!” And he showed the guards Sacred BUQ; and straightway they were reduced to gibbering wrecks by the unspeakable dread that overcame them and caused them to babble incoherently about Miwadi. “HONESTLY, MUM!” they screamed, and fled. The Decider laughed them to scorn.

“This is almost too easy,” I remarked. “Whither now?”

“We need to find a secret place where we can brainwash these idiots” (looking at the prisoners, who had all fainted) “and collect more students, while we hatch our plans to conquer the world and liberate it from its TOLKIEN-hating Commie-masters,” spak the Decider.

“Let's go underwater, Master,” I suggested. “No one will expect us to be there.”

“We can't all breathe underwater, jelly-boy,” said Aunt Heckie, rudely.

“With power of BUQ, we can do anything!” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “I'll create my school there, and blah blah blah.”

“Come with us, kiddies!” said Aunt Heckie to the prisoners.

“Wheah, luv?” said the prisoners, after they had recovered from fainting, fainted again at the sound of Heckie's voice, and then recovered again.

“To TOLKIEN’s school, where we'll rehabilitate you and enable you to get revenge on society, for a bargain price,” I explained.

“And if you don't, we'll kill you,” added MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR.

“Cahnt us in, then,” said the prisoners.

“Order it today! I will not indefinitely hoard the fruits of my fertile brain, the treasure troves of pondering the conundrums of protoventriloquistric society, from the Aunt Rocs of ahimsa. And this has nothing to do with gonorrhoea,” concluded Horus.

So MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR lifted up Sacred BUQ, and a flash of lightning struck, removing us all to a beautiful coral reef in the mid-Atlantic, possibly in the Sargasso Sea and possibly not (the exact location is classified, in case we decide to use it again).

“Now, you will build TOLKIEN's castle!” commanded the CEO.

“Why don't you use BUQ?” said someone, perhaps Sir Fmat de Trasque or one of the extras.

“Fools! Power of BUQ must be held in reserve!” rebuked Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “I will use it to place finishing touches on the castle and protect it from harm; but the actual building I leave to our liberated prisoners. They can earn their keep.”

“We daon't knaow 'ow to build a bleedin' castle,” complained the prisoners, like a bunch of whinging Commie-complainers who want everything for free. That's why the One let Saruman conquer the Shire; because the hobbits were welfare-babies. MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR knocked the prisoners off their feet with a thunderstorm, and then addressed his cabal:

“Pseudo and Brzeznski, you design a castle. Armand will supervise the workers when you're done. Get with it! You, Aunt Heckie, bring me cigars and coffee now!” snarled MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR.

By TOLKIEN's inspiration, the work was done. Or most of it was, anyway. The Boss found that he had to use more of BUQ's power than he had intended; and we had to give up on restrooms altogether and have people go outside to do their business, until we decided for reasons of security that this arrangement should be changed and we will leave the details out of this. Aunt Heckie took that ill;  but it must be admitted that the result was a beautiful mélange of all the architectural styles we were able to find in the encyclopaedia we'd borrowed from the prison, from German faux-Gothic and Russian onion-dome to Aztec ziggurat to ancient Greek acropolis to Stonehengian megalithic, all brilliantly re-imagined through the prism of a Marine Coral Colonial sensibility. It was easily the most remarkable achievement of civilization after /The Lord of the Rings/.

It should not be supposed, however, that it was all over in a day. The prisoners were kept at the task after their classes had begun. And even after the castle had been built, we had a job keeping the battery that powered it running in the days before we forced the prisoners to build us a hydroelectric generator. But as stupendous an achievement as all this was, it was but a means to an end: the end of teaching TOLKIEN's Truth to Tellus' teaming trillions. It was to further this goal that the CEO summoned the élite of his servants.

Mr. UDUNVAGOR cleared his throat. “Now,” he said when he had called us in council (me, Horus, Aunt Heckie, Brzeznski the stout dog-Latin cyborg, Trasque, and Armand). “We must prepare our curriculum for these students.” He spilt some coffee and cigar-ash in his enthusiasm.

Aunt Heckie shifted uneasily in her seat. “MORAMBAR, dearie, don't you think we ought to consider how we're going to feed these people, first?” she said, crossing her legs. “And come up with some hygienic arrangements?” She took another bite from a muffin, the scent whereof reminded me of my youth as a polyp.

“Hygienic?” repeated Mr. UDUNVAGOR scornfully, wagging his ears. “/Hygienic/???? Does TOLKIEN even once concern Himself in sacred Cannon with /hygiene/?”

“Well, people in His books do take baths,” said Heckie defensively, picking her teeth. “And they eat!”

“We're underwater, in case you hadn't noticed,” retorted the Boss, opening a bottle of brandy and pouring it into his coffee. “So that settles the bath. As for food, we'll let you take care of girly stuff like that. But not now! We need to get ourselves organized, first.” He used the coffee-brandy combination as an ashtray.

“I vill be in chargze of zecurity,” said Sir Fmat, choking slightly. (We didn't have talking canons in those days.) “On my noble czhargzher. Getz it? /Chargze – czargzer/. Hza hza hza!” He took out a handkerchief and blew into it.

“Drop the fake foreign accent! It reminds me of a traumatic period in my past that I would rather forget,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR, killing a flea and smoking it.

“Very well,” said the knight, scratching his vizor. “Mayeth I speaken fake-chivalrick?”

“If you must,” said the Decider grudgingly. He puffed on the flea in a thoughtful way, and then continued, “All right. You can do security, so long as you don't tell any more puns. At least until we find someone better. What about you, weird cyborgue thingie?” He blew a smoke-ring over Brzeznski's head, and sipped the coffee-brandy-ashtray combination with a magisterial air.

“Possum do-ere propagandam et intellectualem stuffum?” enquired Harold Marx Brzeznski. He had sat motionless through the meeting, occasionally typing a note on his screen-face, but otherwise seeming inert. This apparent inertia was but the passionate crouchedness of the tiger waiting to spring.

“Sure, whatever,” quoth Mr. UDUNVAGOR, with a shrug. “And Armand's in charge of the army, where with any luck he will die gloriously.”

“Hic!” said Armand, who had been plugging away doggedly at the brandy, not uttering a sound beyond those normally involved with bibulence.

“Haec hoc huius huius huius ...” began Brzeznski, finally pouring himself some brandy.

“Right,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR, who had finished smoking the flea and moved on to an enormous water-pipe. “You three can go now. You'll also have to teach the boring courses none of us want to teach. Now, be off before I kick you downstairs!”

“Wunneriftheresanymoreboozearounere,” was Armand's parting shot.

“Now listen, you others, now that those idiots are gone,” said MORAMBAR, munching on a catfish sandwich. “We're going to train our cadres in this castle, biding our time until we're ready to take over the world and force its masses to learn TOLKIEN's truth. Of course, we'll all get our personal satrapies, although the dumber students will only get loser places like Mount Erebus. How do you think you're best suited to contribute to this goal?” There was a pregnant pause, during which I chewed nervously at my cigar-leaves and tried to light my espresso. The Decider smiled and danced a waltz with himself.

“I could manage our finances, Lord Decider,” I proposed, trying to sip my espresso, finding that it had evaporated, and pouring some more in a flustered manner.

“Good,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR. “But I also want thou to train our students in élite fighting techniques, since you hath experience from Blog Wars.” He coughed.

“Thy will is my glory unto the Bank of Sammath Naur,” I replicated, shifting nervously on my tentacles. He seemed pleased, and in my relief I was actually able to light my cigar properly.

“Excellent,” said the Decider, nibbling at his caviar appreciatively. “Now, Heckie, we know you can do girl stuff like cooking. What else?”

“Well, you're going to need a student secretary to keep those fellows happy and able to concentrate on their studies, and to manage administrative stuff that's too boring for you to bother about” said Heckie. My cigar exploded. MORAMBAR seemed amused, and his water-pipe burbled away like a babbling brook in Sarehole.

“Right,” said MORAMBAR. “Now, Horus, that leaves you with the task of endoctrinating the students in TOLKIEN's sacred Writings.” I lit a meerschaum pipe curiously.

“Wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a world without mendacious control freaks?” said Horus, narrowing his eyes with irritation. He had been sipping embalming-fluid and nibbling something that looked disgusting, and glaring in a humourless but profound manner. He died briefly.

“I think you mean, Yes, sir,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR fervently.

“If that's the case, then so be it. What I just wrote sorely needed to be written,” replied Horus, trying some coffee and choking on it.

“tHAT'S BETTER,” said the Boss, putting away the brandy with his accustomed passion. “NOW WE NEED TO Get BOOKS AND OTHER SUPPLIES FROM THE HUMAN VERMIN.”

“Stealing's not nice,” said Heckie, pouting. The muffin she was eating appeared not to agree with her.

“Raiding is a legitimate part of warfare,” said Mr. UDUNVAGOR, lighting another cigar. “We're on a world under the control of TOLKIEN's enemies, and any measure we take in order to wrest control from them is licit. Never question my will again! Understand? Dismissed!” He stamped his feet and left the room, taking the rest of the brandy with him. The three of us looked at each other a little disconsolately, pulverized as we were by the Decider's great wisdom.

 

 

A Long-expected Battle

After our meeting, the castle became very busy, for all of us. In those early days, before we had built up a decent staff, let alone a major educational institution, Mr. UDUNVAGOR set me many tasks. Sometimes he had me sing advertising jingles whilst he ate sloppily. But usually I had more important tasks to tentacle, in concert with Heckie, who was deputed, as the least threatening member of our group from the point of view of the ordinary human, to spy, get stuff, and convey me to where I could carry out various financial transactia. Sometimes she would insinuate herself into Dungeons&Dragons games and enlist students to our underwater school, while I cunningly procured books and bank account numbers. I also had the very dangerous task of buying nuclear warheads from Third-World lunatics.

(On one occasion, I disguised myself as a human and personally joined a D&D club; but that ended in near-disaster.

“Hail dudeth!” I thaid. “You art cool.”

“Er, hi, dude,” they said dubiously.

“Can I likely join ye and stuff,” I asked. My English was still not very good.

“Uh, OK. You played D&D before?”

“Yeah, I'm a past master,” I lied. This was my first mistake. My only previous exposure to it had been a couple of pages from a Basic manual that had somehow made it to the ocean's abyss.

“OK, what's your character.”

“Jellinor, the Jellyfish warrior, 45 points charisma, 67 strength, 89 wisdom, um ...”

“Are you playin' the same game, dude, you gottas roll for that stuff.”

“I am the descendant of the ancient jellyfish masters of the world before vertebrates crawledeth out of the ocean onto dry land, and am the right-hand jellyfish of MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR, expert on TOLKIEN, the great and powerful!” I cried. “Your rules do not apply to me!”

“Um, you're gettin' way too much in character, dude.”

“OK, I'll roll,” I said. So I did, but unfortunately my efforts to hide my tentacles were in vain.

“Whoah, dude, we haven't even had any beers yet. Not for an hour, anyway,” said a player.

“Like, I think we'd better call security,” said the DM.

It took quite a lot of stinging to get myself out of that mess.)

Despite such setbacks, our student body gradually increased. For some time, we had a bit of a problem with the shortage of females, which the students found sucky. We tried drafting Heckie to visit pyjama parties, but she kept getting sidetracked. Then we appointed Armand as ambassador to girls, but they adjudged him a gross-out of the first order. No more successful were Brzeznski and Sir Fmat, who freaked the girls out, sometimes emptying entire dormitories on sight. We didn't dare try to lure them with Horus or me; it might have ruined all. And students clearly could not be entrusted with such a sensitive task.

In the end, we were reduced to relying on main force. Aunt Heckie brought me to another pyjama party disguised as a birthday cake; I stung them unconscious and Heckie put them into her shopping bags and ran off. This worked a few times, but eventually Heckie ended up on too many wanted posters, and had to retire. The girl problem remained pretty bad for several years.

Every now and then, however, people actually turned up at our castle more or less of their own free will. Most of these students were pufferfish and nematodes and the like, although these didn't have much of an understanding of TOLKIEN. (Nematodes tend to be big NASCAR fans.) We did attract the occasional human, like Jacques Cousteau; Nigel Van Quiffle (sp?), who had given a talk on TOLKIEN on a radio program about wackos; the Beatles, who were too stoned to understand anything, although we inspired one or two of their songs; etc.

Our curriculum gradually fell into place. For my part, I did continuous improvement to my freedom-fighting courses, as we approached the time of our crusade, adding weapons and stratego-tactical manoeuvres; many of the latter simply entailed transferring my business practices to a different arena. It must, of course, be admitted that we never attained quite the level of competence on TOLKIEN's home world that we were to achieve in Fredonia. But I think the key problem was that we had no idea how outnumbered we would be: we thought that after one or two victories the inhabitants would see the superiority of our ideas, and surrender. Our training techniques themselves, however, were nonpareil. (Noel von Schuffly, who had obtained an indecent stash of money from Germany's generous welfare payments, did fairly well in underwater ninja training, although when it came to the point of using this training in a real-life situation, he came rather short.)

Meanwhile, Dr. Engels became our expert on theory. His mind was full of the most startling and incomprehensible TOLKIEN truths, and he needed only the slightest textual hook whereon to hang the effusions of his ineffable genius. This was very useful, the more so in that we did not then possess the riches of TOLKIEN historical source realia that have since entered our grasp, largely through the scholarship of Baron Mörön Bogusz. In those days, the principal (involuntary) source of our supply of books was public libraries.

Robbing libraries was a job. Literally, since we entered an advertisement in the newspapers – although we had to conceal the actual job description and call the job title “biblio-obtention expert.” Stephen Carrie Blumberg signed up for the position, and was actually quite successful at it until he first got sidetracked into sharing his loot with inner-city poors (an absolute waste), and then got arrested. We had to have his memories removed, as the police had forgotten about us, and we wanted to keep it that way. Best that no one be prepared for what was going to hit them.

For our plans had continued apace, and we had even made a deal with an arms trader named Joe, who ran an outfit called Joe's Rent-a-Fleet. It seemed slightly shady, but none of the other arms traders we contacted would have anything to do with us. They will all rot in Hogwarts. So will Joe, for the fleet came with a guarantee of world conquest or our money back, and I had carefully inspected the fine print to ensure that none of the exceptions and caveats applied to us. Joe's fleet also supposedly came with three genuine naval officers, but it later turned out that their naval experience consisted in making model warships out of legos and then smashing them against the wall. We had to  kill them and replace them with officers who had been unjustly court-martialled for incompetence in their native lands, though of course no one told us that.

The flagship was a thing of beauty; the Decider graciously allowed me to give it a name, so I chose the name U-fat after the Middle Elvish for “big deal.” Then the great day arrived, Friday the 13th of Bloggust; and we unleashed war on the enemies of TOLKIEN. Armand was placed in command of our troops, as it was intended that I should be engaged in planning behind the scenes.

Incidentally, there are certain elements in Noel Quagmire Schovel's account of the war that need to be corrected. Firstly, although Armand in most respects seemed to be a drunken idiot, he was a superb strategist. An invasion of Mongolia was perfectly feasible with the proper equipment to exploit the groundwater. Unfortunately, Joe had cheated us and the necessary equipment had not been included. Secondly, he presents the invasion of Belgium as his own idea, whereas in fact it had been our Plan B all along, since, as MORAMBAR UDUNVAGOR hath revealed, TOLKIEN “stated that the Eye of Sauron was originally inspired by the sight of neverending no-smoking signs He was confronted with on His visit to Belgium.” Therefore, this country was hateful to all true lovers of TOLKIEN, and should be destroyed. 

Thirdly, while it's true that Heckie burst in on Morrie ... on MORAMBAR's staff meeting and began heckling (so to speak) us about something, the dénouement didn't go quite as Von Schniffle's account might lead one to think. (And of course, one has to realise that, although Heckie has many gifts, an understanding of strategy isn't one of them. She is, however, a superb tactician.) For, although Noah may have been in the room polishing something, and may have babbled something or other, he played no role in the deciding process – naturally, since we didn't involve students in that sort of thing. And I really have to defend Aunt Heckie: when she “kicked a chair so violently that if flew through the room” and flew a few kilometres, it didn't run into just any fishing ship: it ran into Edmund Wilson's fishing boat and killed him along with several of his TOLKIEN-hating fiends. She justly received a medal for this feat.

But frankly, I don't want to talk about the war; it's a depressing subject. All I'll say is that we would have won it if Joe hadn't stabbed us in the back. But he had evidently been bought by anti-TOLKIEN scoundrels, since the contract absolutely forbade returns, so he had no right to demand we return the fleet. (The ragtag adventurers who interfered in our conquest of Belgium and of Cape Verde would have made no difference in the long run.) We actually did succeed in conquering Kerguélen Island in the Antarctic seas, but the penguins wouldn't listen to our wisdom. It was little to show for such an expenditure in money and effort.

In the end, of course, Joe requisitioned the fleet, making our liberation of Tellus from the anti-TOLKIEN Commie-complainers impossible. It was a sad voyage back to the castle in the lifeboats that Joe “let” us take (and which got punctured on the way).

“Why didst Thou allow this, TOLKIEN?” I wailed.

“Shut thee up,” said MORAMBAR.