Fujiology Archive/fujiology_archive_v1_0.iso/!MAGS/MEGA_4/MEGAFOUR.ZIP/MEGAFOUR.MSA/DOCS/05.DOC

Text File | 1985-11-20 | 6KB | 93 lines

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