The vicious pirates Peg Head Jones and his offspring Baby Face Barnacle were terrors from Costa Rica to the Caribbee and as far north as Cincinnati. In '98 they jumped the early-morning line at an inland Toys R' Us, making off with a swag of first edition Barbie dolls just ready to hit the shelves, worth more by this time than the combined income of the top ten supermodels. Their daring escape down the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi on a leaky raft dazzled the media, and their subsequent daylight disappearance into the Gulf was legend. Now they roamed the rain forest path in search of their stash, ears attuned to the myriad patterns of sound indigenous to South Sea islands: the tinkling waterfall, the exotic song of unseen birds, the hushed murmur of natives far off in the distance.
"Matey, be ya sure this were the spot?" Baby Face Barnacle looked up at the taller pirate.
"I'd swear on a keg o' potato rum!" Peg Head swaggered, rubbing the back of his head with a piece of sandpaper. "I lefts a sign by th' tree what says 'Schefflera actinophylla' and thar it be." He pointed to the inconspicuous, white marker in front of the tropical trunk.
"But we dug an' dug' an' nuthin' but a duster it were. I says we's goin' 'round in circles. I got more deja vooze than a skippin' gramophone." Baby Face shook his head, more puzzled than a parrot in Pittsburg.
"Har, me lad! Somethin' be wrong, but I'll be a pied Peter Pan if I kin get me 'ook in it," Peg Head answered, and glanced about from side to side, hoping to catch sight of something definitive.
"Ay, we be wanderin' for hours and ain't got nowheres. I says we--" The sound of footfalls on the path interrupted Baby Face. He looked up suddenly. "Argh! It be that crazed dog of an islander again. Let's you an' me scar him off!"
Baby Face Barnacle put on his mean look and Peg Head Jones snarled, but the approaching native seemed unconcerned. "Look here," he said, "you two are beginning to frighten the guests. I've told you already, no digging, and now you're making faces at everyone. This is your last warning. Remember that you're in a conservatory!"
Story #268
Note from Indeterminacy: Thanks for all the stories! They have been reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com. This is the anniversary post of Indeterminacy. I've been writing the stories now for exactly one year, the first story was on Friday, August 13th, 2004. And in case anyone hasn't guessed, that's me in the above photo, with my son.
26 comments:
happy happy blogiversary!
it's been a pleasure to find you!
WOW. a whole year...amazing.
so, is that an ARRRR! or a GRRRR! ?
After a merciless chase through an African jungle, fear would always become an unaffordable luxury. The safari director would create a new fake company each spring to attract unsuspecting tourists and feed them to his pets. The ill mind of the cold-blooded murderer could always organize his crimes to the very finest details, never leaving any tracks or possibility of an escape. He would enjoy the merciless chase of the pumas and tigers by watching his hidden cameras that were set in the whole jungle. He was always amused to witness the terror, fear and total degrade of the human nature and that made him the most powerful man in the world. “This is nothing more than a reality show” he repeated to himself rather often. This month had been generous to his pets. More than 3 people had been devoured by his favourite puma. “What fun to watch them tremble like mice, without any weapons deep in the jungle”. But today something unexpected had happened. Two of his “mice” had proved to be stronger than he would ever think. They had developed a technique that made the pumas and tigers run away with fear. Unable to believe what was going on, the criminal was sitting all day in front of his cameras trying to find out what was happening and how could 2 people intimidate his whole “army”. He didn’t have to wait for a long time to watch a father and his son stand fearless before a puma and making faces and noises that scared the poor beast almost to death. Then the tiger came, and again the same thing happened. The father and the son would concentrate so hard to control their fear, a technique that they had learned in a buddhistic monastery in their last vacation, and the wild animals would disappear within seconds! Not knowing what to do, the director of this “fun jungle park” went to meet the two heros and pretended that a great disaster had come upon their safari tour, attacked by wild animals most of the travelers had died. He also shouted out loud, trying to convince maybe himself that he was so happy that they had survived and they had better leave soon, lest another catastrophe would come upon them. Thus, father and son left the jungle, not silly enough to believe the jungle-murderer that they immediately called the police after they had survived another lion attack in the middle of the main road, on their way to the capital city. The police was able to arrest the director of that safari park, who was sentenced to life.
I ve been watching too much kommisar rex and sherlock holmes lately.. but I had to write something on this anniversary... I think its awful what I wrote. :))
Kuku the gorilla had learned sign language, developed mathematical skills, cared for a kitten, started his own blog, and took up photography as a hobby. His handler thought it was unusual that he'd express an interest in those latter two since she didn't figure he'd be aware of cyberspace or photography, but he signed that even simians are online nowadays and he couldn't help but know about photography since humans always point their cameras at him. Kuku turned out to have a good eye for photography, and he started a Photo.net page to share his pictures. It wasn't long before he'd taken so many pictures of humans making goofy faces at him and other zoo residents that he started a Blogspot page called Stupid Humans At The Zoo, which became highly popular with both humans and primate viewers.
Woof! That kid acts like he's afraid of me. Woof! But I am sure scared of that man! Anyway, *wag* we have enjoyed your stories and it seems like longer than a year. Time do fly. *wag-wag-wag* Keep up the great work!
Speaking of the anniversary.. I went back to read some of the first stories. This is I believe the first story of the blog?? It is really very very good, I enjoyed it so much.
http://indeterminacy.blogspot.com/2004/08/fairytale-for-elves-and-clouds-once.html#comments
Happy happy happy happy...
Happy Anniversary!!!!
(By the way....
who is the hot guy in the picture?)
Wolfgang had known something was off about his father for a whole week. First he had started pointing out every nubile girl they passed and saying weird things about her. Some were goddesses, others had telekinetic powers, and still others exercised a fascinating influence over the opposite sex. Naturally Wolfgang had been frightened by this, but when his father began making absurd statements about inanimate objects, the boy realized that none of it couldn't possibly be true.
Everything had come to a head on the way to the zoo this morning, when his father had accused his mother of letting the car seat get fresh with her. Annoyed, she had dropped them off at the zoo and gone off to visit her sisters on Mount Parnassus.
As they crossed the bridge over Gorilla Gorge Wolfgang's father began making faces at the largest male, obviously trying to communicate. When the boy tried to edge away, his father restrained him.
"Wait. Do some tricks! He says he'll buy us a hamburger if you do. You're one of their favorite attractions."
Enough was enough. Wolfgang gathered his courage. "Dad," he said. "Last year when you started your stories, we were all thrilled. But they're stories. Fiction. You have to get that girl's head out of the refrigerator. Mom doesn't want to wear long flowing robes and sing in your ear all the time. And we'd all like to eat strawberries again without having you cry and sing taps. Happy blogiversary, Dad, but please. Get real."
The boy had begged his daddy not to drink the water from the mysitcal waterfall, but he drank it anyway. Immediately, his daddy began acting very strangely and making animal noises. The boy knew his daddy would never be the same again. And he was right.
The boy decided to bottle the water, and he made quite a fortune selling the stuff to those who wanted to cause their enemies to go wacky. All the money in the world could not make his daddy normal again, so the boy decided to drink some of the water himself.
That was a TERRIBLE story!!!!! You Barbienapped and then never even said what happened to them, or seemed to CARE!!!!!!!
It's a miss carrage of justice that you have been aloud to operate you're insane raving's here for a hole YEAR!!!!!!!!!!
And your corrupting you're poor inocent child to!!!!!!
Alix: Thank you so much. I think it was an Arrrr! We were just making faces into the camera. And it really was at the Cincinnati Conservatory.
Elveshat: You can't watch or read too much Sherlock Holmes. Never watched any Kommisar Rex, so I can't comment on that. But I loved your story. The power of Buddha!
Mushroom: Great and ROTFL.
Tom & Icy: One human year is about seven dog years, so it might have seemed like a long time. Thanks, *pets* & *hugs*.
Elveshat: You're quite a hacker! That story you found was actually written a long time ago, and I posted it last year before going on vacation. Later I changed the post date to before the blog began, so that it wouldn't be mixed in with all the stories.
Cori: Clever girls like you always get me tongue-tied. I can't even think straight to answer now.
Mrs. Weirsdo: Thank you for that story. I'll tell it to my little sidekick. At bedtime, he's always wanting me to make up impromptu stories, which is very intimidating, but if they are bad, he never notices, not yet anyway ;-)
Jamie: That's a sweet story. Thank you so much! But it does have one flaw in it. I don't need to drink anything in order to be strange.
Pansi: My condolances about the missing Barbies. I'm sure they will turn up sometime, somewhere. I DID say that the pirates were vicious.
You came up with a goodie! You can't beat a pirate story, at least that's Courtney's opinion.
I'm sure your darling little son is thrilled to have a daddy who will goof around. My kids have that kind of daddy too.
It's the best kind to have! Arrrrrrrrrr!
Oh, Happy One Year of Writing!!
Great accomplishment!
Happy Anniversary. Great work, great art, great pictures. Looking forward to the next year.
Indy, is your real name Roger Waters. Great story, but I think Weirsdo fetched you a good comeuppance, Happy anniversary and thanks for a year of fantastic work.
oh they were all wonderful!
Happy Anniversary, I have so much catching up to do...
-It was really a nice story with the pirates, I wouldnt have guessed that it was just a game.
-Omg, a lot of people have started to call me hacker lately :)), I might start believing it. LOL.
-Wow, I d never guess that its you with your son!
-Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, did you know that he was the author of some esoteric books as well? I was shocked to see at the back of an esoteric book of mine, a book of his: The new revelation by Arthur Conan Doyle. It says that Arthur was a mystery writer and a spiritualist! I found that quite cool.
Cheers!
Happy Happy! I'm glad to have found your blog one day. I have you linked. I'm wishing big things for you!
You were right in what you wrote in Jamie's blog about your fangs scaring kids. :) That's cheating, putting in your own photos! But I can't say I'm entirely totally innocent myself, some of the pictures came from relatives. :)
Great story, and nice to get a glimpse of you and your matey.
Happy Anniversary and many more for our sake.
Jamie, my little pirate and I have great fun together. I read him this story last night and he loved it. He didn't even kill me for calling him "Baby Face", after I explained to him that some of the famous gangsters were called Baby Face something or other.
Sniff: Thanks, I know what the compliment means, coming from you.
Doug: Why Roger Waters? I should have answered touché to Mrs. Weirsdo's story.
Still Life: Thanks for saying that. If you click the link "Read a random story" under my photo in the sidebar you can catch up on the stories at random.
Elveshat: I knew that Doyle started writin Spiritualist works. I think I even read one, but it didn't impress me that much. I'd recommend the works of Gustav Meyrink, in German, as I know you can read it.
Princess Dominique: I'm glad you found my blog, too, and proud that you've stuck around. I will have to think of what goals I have for year two of blogging. I've started telling myself I'll stop at 360. stories, but I don't know what I will feel like at 360.
Mushroom: You're one of my most faithful readers. Thanks for sticking around and for all the support.
Alice: I'll do my best to keep the anniversaries coming. Many thanks for all your comments.
Everyone: If it wasn't for all of you, commenting on my stories, helping me with advice, feedback, etc. I probably would have abandoned the blog after a few months. One of my goals was to reach people with my stories. I don't think my blog appeals to a mass audience, because the stories are so offbeat and untypical. But I'm very proud of having found the readers I've found: I've sincerely enjoyed your company all these months, and look forward to a long time "hanging out" together here in the Internet.
Hi!!!! I knew who the heroes of thos "story to be" were!! They could be no other!!! LOL... Tuning in my wave length, are you?? :)**
And .. I forgot!! Congrats for the first blog aniversary! I hope many others will come!! **
Arrrr. Ye be havin a happy aniversay say I. Ye scurcy dog keep up te bloggin.
Courtney: It be all them comments from you an' Cap'n Jeff an' Queen Pirate Jamie what gives me th' idea ta do one o' them pirate stories.
Deb: Thanks for your kind words and observations. If the stories are improving, it's something I have trouble noticing, being right in the middle of them. I really have no time to think about the stories, because by the time one is finished, I have to concentrate on the next one. I generally like the latest stories best. If you asked me which stories I wrote last week, I'd have trouble telling you.
Great story, and that boy is the cutest! ^_^ The pyratey speak is all fine as far as I can tell... probably not completely historically accurate, but what pyrate story is? :)
Thanks Pizazz, ye pretty wench!
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