home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ORM STORY: HIGHUPONAHILL
- ========================
-
- The wind was howling around the houses in Highuponahill and the
- people were wisely staying indoors. It was the eve of the 'infection', so
- called because somebody in the village would be infected with a certain
- disease which caused the inflicted to gibber wildly for four whole days. In
- these four days the person would not be allowed to eat. This was because
- people feared that if he/she ate the same sort of food as the infected they
- too would be infected with the disease. (This however is completely untrue,
- you only got the disease if you ate a certain food at a certain time of day
- in a certain public house out of a certain bowl.) The wind rattled the roof
- tiles, got bored and started to bang the gates. It got bored of that too,
- so gave up blowing and thought that it would be a good idea if it left the
- village and went onto Higheruponthehill. (Unknown to the villagers who were
- quite enjoying the small amount of yearly sunshine that they got.)
- After a few minutes the villagers of Highuponahill dared to leave
- their houses. They were quite surprised at what they saw. Instead of the
- devastation that they were expecting, everything was perfect, better in
- fact, than things had been before the storm started. Clearly the wind had a
- guilty mind. It had destroyed the village and then replaced everything it
- had moved. Strange things happen in Highuponahill, strange things indeed.
- A day passed and the infection had really taken hold. It had
- managed to infect the village fool (Not as good as a town fool, who in turn
- was not as good as a city fool, and who was not as good as a fool's fool.
- They were usually classed as the best. And occasionally got a fool's fool's
- fool, but only very rare occasions.) As it had infected the village fool,
- nobody paid much attention until the second day. He started to act normal.
- Instead of doing the fools trick of dribbling on the floor, showering
- spittle towards the first row, shouting parts of unknown phrases and
- slouching around he started to talk sense, walk with the airs and graces of
- a man who's just be appointed a very prestigious job. And he managed to get
- a shave. He looked quite respectable.
- In Higheruponthehill things were getting worse. The wind was really
- enjoying itself, it was having great fun ripping up trees and bushes, and
- took great delight in throwing roof tiles and the odd foolhardy villager
- that ventured out of the house. One such 'foolhardy' villager was Anfra
- Jelia. Anfra was a big lad. To say he obscured the sun was a little bit of
- an exaggeration, but you wouldn't meet him in the street and say words to
- the effect of 'small git'. Well, you could, but it is advisable not too.
- Anfra was heading towards the village square, which was an oval shape but
- that doesn't matter too much, he was currently being pushed against the
- wall of the village hall. The wall was pushing back (The wall had been
- built by 'Brothers Briken' whose speciality was 'walls and other unmoveable
- things', but had been opened by the village witch, who beforehand had put
- a curse on the wall, it went along the lines of 'If you are pushed upon by
- a large being, you will push back otherwise you will be destroyed, and
- you're mum too', now I don't know if you know this, but walls have feelings
- and if you upset a wall he will be depressed beyond belief, but this has
- nothing to do with the story, it serves as a distraction.) Anfra decided
- enough was enough and that not even the wind was going to stop him reach
- his destination. He left and walked into the village square. Something
- flashed and Anfra fell down. The earth didn't shake but it didn't stay
- still either.
- When Anfra awoke, the storm had stopped (It must have got bored
- again) and he was not in Higheruponthehill's village square. In fact he
- didn't know where he was until he read the sign that he was slumped
- against. It said 'Highuponahill' and somebody had drawn a rather good
- likeness of the village mayor next to the 'High', the fact that the Mayor
- seemed to have a male genital hanging off his forehead was surely just a
- coincidence. Anfra stood up, fell down, stood up, fell down and decided
- that it would be best if he crawled into the village. After a few hours of
- crawling he stood up, fell down, stood up, fell down and muttered to
- himself. A rather smart gentleman walked past him, looked at him, looked at
- him a bit more, threw Anfra some money and carried on walking. Something in
- Anfra's brain clicked. He could make a living out of this. And why not here
- were he was not known? It seemed like a very good idea. It beat getting up
- at four clicks past 8 in the morning to walk 6 miles to the local mine. He
- could stumble around all day long and earn money by looking ill. It seemed
- like a very good idea indeed.
- In Highuponahill the ex-village fool was the man that passed the
- new village fool. The ex-village fool was fully cured of the infection and
- was currently enjoying his new found life as the tax inspector for
- Highuponahill. He was doing a roaring trade. Everybody trusted the fool,
- even if he was an ex-fool, he still did a better job than the last one. The
- last one could add for starters, not a good sign.
- A few weeks passed and Anfra seemed to be doing OK. He had enough
- money now to afford a new set of shoes. He had enough money to eat
- regularly and he had perfected a new technique to attract the villagers to
- give him money. It was :- Shouting phrases from unknown books, showering
- people with spittle, dribbling on the floor and waving his arms around his
- head and a rather dangerous manner.
- The infection had done its job. The infection was in fact a god by
- the name of Nasta, who's main purpose in his existence was to change the
- roles of people around and generally get on peoples nerves. He was on a
- roll this week. Four new fools created and some more havoc happening by the
- minute. He was on form. Any minute now he was expecting a slap on the back
- from the big boss himself.
- The moral of this story? 'Do not mock the fool, for the fool takes
- your money anyway' or something like that.
-
- (C) Ormolu of Digi Tallis 1993
-