Larry and Mick go to Puddletown ... PART THREE

 

Amidst a veritable symphony of oral windypops, there was a swoosh, a roar, a scrape, a thud, a crunch and a great leathery flapping as of great leathery wings.

 

“It’s Ned!” said Mick.

 

“Your long lost cousin from the hills!” said Larry.

 

“Who, coincidently, is also your long lost cousin from the hills!” said Mick.

 

“But lo, what is Ned (of the hills) up to?” said Larry.

 

“It would appear,” said Mick, “that he is riding on the back of a dragon, along with Daenerys Targaryen, the ‘Mother of Dragons,’ from the popular TV show, Game of Thrones, who is riding on the back of another dragon, both scaly beasts having just plonked themselves on the roof of the dome, dug in their claws, and are now proceeding to lift said dome and, I might add, all its contents, including thee and me, from the gargantuan lemonade puddle, all by way of a convenient and dramatic deus ex machina.”

 

“Well hoorah to that, say I,” said Larry.

 

And “Hoorah!” said all the circumforaneous famous folk also.

 

...

 

And so the dome was plonked on a field near Puddletown, cracked open by the dragons, and out wandered all therein, bewildered and befuddled and battered of bonce.

 

“So what’s with the ‘Mother of Dragons,’?” said Mick to Ned.

 

“Funny story,” said Ned.

 

“Cut to the chase.”

 

“She’s friends with Titania.”

 

“Titania, Queen of the Fairyfolk?”

 

“The very same.”

 

“Since when was the ‘Breaker of Chains’ friends with the Queen of the Fairyfolk?”

 

“Since Daenerys Stormborn, from the popular TV show, Game of Thrones, was based on the real Daenerys Stormborn, who you see before you.”

 

“I thought she looked more Aldi Checkout Girl than Protector of the Seven Kingdoms,” interjected Larry.

 

“Do you dare to disrespect your queen?” queried the Unburnt (who had once put her hand on a grill pan and come away unscathed).

 

“I... um... you...” said Larry.

 

“Never mind,” said the Lady of Dragonstone. “Ned, are we done here?”

 

“Yes, Khaleesi,” said Ned.

 

“Good, coz I’ve a pile of washing to get on,” said the Rightful Ruler of Westeros (Westeros being a little village somewhere in Wales) - who then hopped on her dragon and took off, with the dragon Ned had been riding in tow.

 

“Well that was fun while it lasted,” said Ned.

 

Larry and Mick looked at Ned, raised their eyebrows and said, “Well...?”

 

“How do you do that?” said Ned.

 

“What?” said Larry and Mick simultaneously.

 

“Say and do things simultaneously...?” said Ned.

 

Larry and Mick shrugged simultaneously.

 

“Can you stop it?” said Ned. “It’s freaking me out!”

 

“OK,” said Larry and Mick simultaneously - then followed this with a gestural to-ing and fro-ing of After you - No, after you... which only reached a conclusion when Ned wrestled Mick to the ground.

 

Larry then said, “Well...?”

 

“Well what?” said Ned, as he held his forearm to Mick’s neck.

 

“How did you know that we were in trouble? And how did you know where we were? And how did you get the former Queen of Meereen (a small hamlet in Devon) to help you?”

 

“Funny story,” said Ned - and he related the tale thus:

 

...

 

I was partaking - said Ned - of a 2-for-1 all day breakfast deal at the restaurant in Aldi (do Aldi even have restaurants? I dunno, but in this world they do...), with my good friend Titania (Queen of the Fairyfolk), when an announcement was announced over the tannoy:

 

“Can Titania, Queen of the Fairyfolk, please come to Customer Services? Thank you.”

 

Since Titania was currently shovelling scrambled egg into her gob and washing it down with gallons of sweet tea, the announcement had to be made three times, accompanied by much poking and gesturing from Yours Truly, before she realised it was her they were talking about. Even then, she insisted on mopping up the remaining bits of egg with ketchup-smeared toast before picking some bits out of her teeth with a fork and begrudgingly making her way to Customer Services.

 

“What is it?” said Queen Titania to the Customer Services bod, in between licking a Rizla, in preparation for rolling.

 

“Urgent message from Professor Jebediah Simian of Simian’s Flying Monkeys,” said the Customer Services bod.

 

“Oh Christ, I hate those tumaceous, turd-tossing apes,” said Titania.

 

“Erm... anyway...” said the Customer Services bod; “he says that upon scouting the West Country for the best places to cause magical mischief and mayhem, some of his monkeys spotted Ned’s cousins, Larry and Mick, in a” - the Customer Services bod checked the receipt on the back of which he had scribbled the message - “fizzily perilous pickle.”

 

“A what?” said Titania.

 

“A fizz-”

 

“Never mind. Where are those two idiots?”

 

“It says here they are in a place called Puddletown.”

 

“Puddletown? Are you sure?”

 

“Well that’s what I wrote down, miss.”

 

“Never heard of it. Is it far?”

 

“No idea, miss.”

 

“Don’t you have one of those computer jobbies, you berk? Can’t you check?”

 

“OK, I’ll try, miss...”

 

The Customer Services bod did some tapping and clicking on his computer jobbie.

 

“It doesn’t exist on any Earthly map, miss.”

 

“Oh for f-” Queen Titania started, but then...

 

“I feel we may be in need of some magical form of navigation, my queen,” said I (Ned, that is).

 

“What in the name of Calvin Harris’s armpits are you on about?” said Titania.

 

“Dragons, my queen,” said I.

 

“What makes you think I have any dra-...? Ohh...” - and she turned slowly to see, halfway  down the shop, Daenerys Targaryen beeping the grizzly contents of a particularly ‘undesirable’ family’s weekly shop through her till, whilst simultaneously playing Candy Crush and  picking at bits of dirt from under her fingernails (and that’s no mean feat, let me tell you!).

 

“Can you make another announcement please?” said I to the Customer Services bod.

 

“Customer Services announcements are only really for emergencies and-”

 

“Queen Titania, if you would...?”

 

And her Royal Fairiness whipped out a particularly smelly wand from under her stained old vest, gave it a bit of a swish and a swoosh, and the Customer Services bod became a Customer Services frog (all without dropping the now-rolled Rizla from her other hand, which was pretty impressive, I thought).

 

“Much obliged, my queen,” said I, as I leaned over the counter and took hold of the microphone jobbie.

 

“Whatevs,” said Titania. “Just get on wivvit, I need to get down the bookies.”

 

So I made the following announcement:

 

“Could Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons, please come to Customer Services?”

 

And you kind of know the rest.

 

...

 

“I like the way you told the story,” said Larry.

 

“It’s as if we were actually there,” said Mick.

 

“Thank you,” said Ned.

 

“So Titania didn’t come, because of an urgent appointment with William Hill?” said Larry.

 

“Nah, that only took a minute,” said Ned; “she just couldn’t be arsed.”

 

“Fair enough,” said Larry. “So why did Dany agree to help?”

 

“Titania helped fix one of her dragons once.”

 

“I see. By the way...”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you think you could take your forearm off Mick’s neck?”

 

“Oh yes, sorry...” - and Ned did.

 

“Many thanks,” said Mick - but not before he did coughing and spluttering and the colour returned to his face.

 

...

 

AN EPILOGUE IN THREE PARTS

 

1.

 

And so there they all were, the celebrities and Larry and Mick, and Ned, their long lost cousin from the hills, wandering in a field near Puddletown, wondering what to do next. And it had transpired that the dragons had burnt all the human-sized illuminous orange daffodils to a crisp on their way to the dome in the gargantuan lemonade puddle, which meant that the humans who had gone all daffodilly had also been burnt to a crisp, which was alright (generally), because their clones, which were perfect replicas in every way, still existed... and wandered in a field near Puddletown.

 

“So what shall we do now?” said Larry and Mick and Ned and the paparazzi of celebrities (not all at the same time, because that would be ridiculous).

 

Ned then explained to all that before he and Dany had left, to mount a daring and fortuitous rescue, they had discerned, through the magical grapevine (partly - although also the internet), that the celebrities which Professor Simian’s flying monkeys had observed, trapped in the enormous dome under the gargantuan lemonade puddle (said monkeys having excellent eyesight, being magically enhanced and all), were, for the most part, also simultaneously extant (as it were) in the outside (extra-Puddletownian (so to speak)) world.

 

“So our clones are out there, living our lives for us?” queried Mr Schwarzenegger.

 

“It would seem so, yes,” said Ned. “Although it would seem also that you are all clones, the original... um... yous... having been transformed into giant, musically-inclined daffodils, which have subsequently been... erm... slightly... as it were... incinerated.”

 

Arnie’s face was approaching a purpleness of hue.

 

“Incinerated?” said that man. “By your dragons?!”

 

“Well... in a manner of speaking... that would be... eh... somewhat... um... correct.”

 

As the skin tone of the ex-Governor of California (although this particular version of Arnie would never know such an accolade) reached a heliotropic climax, said fellow ground his teeth, clenched his fists (and probably also his buttocks (although you didn’t really need to know that)) and came over all Homer Simpson, with the utterance:

 

“Why I oughta...”

 

“Come now, Mr S,” said Ned, with the utmost nervousness, as his facial hue started to acquire a quality that one could say was the opposite of that of the massively muscled man standing before him; “there’s no need to get angry...”

 

“I think there is every need...” declared the aforementioned, as he proceeded to do that thing which people do when they are approaching the decision to thump someone, involving punching one open hand with the fist of another.

 

“But with the greatest respect, um, sir,” said Ned, whilst trying, not altogether successfully,  not to wet himself; “I did just save all your lives.”

 

If this had been a cartoon, there would now be steam coming out of the Terminator’s ears and nose.

 

“YOU SAVED ALL OUR LIVES BY KILLING US ALL!”

 

“Not entirely true,” Ned didn’t say; “I could have saved all your lives without incinerating the daffodils.”

 

- but since he didn’t say this, Arnie didn’t turn into a human liquidiser.

 

Instead Mick got up off the floor and uttered some calming words to Kindergarten Cop, the specific nature of which we may never discover.

 

“Don’t come with me if you want to live...” murmured Conan the Barbarian, as he stomped grumpily off towards a nearby bush.

 

It turned out that no one else was really that bothered about being clones of their original selves (the latter now being nought but little wet piles of floral ash); they were just glad to be alive. The issue now arose, however, of what they were going to do with themselves, since if they returned to public life, the world would get very confused, if not by all the duplicates of famous folk, then by those who were not even meant to be alive.

 

“Perhaps we could all remain living in Puddletown,” suggested Taylor Swift.

 

“A most excellent idea!” agreed Baby Spice.

 

“But what kind of lives would they be?” said Salvador Dalí; “for surely we could not have any contact with the outside world.”

 

“Could that not be a good thing?” said the philosopher Bertrand Russell. “To be our own little community, excised from all the influences of our prior existences...?”

 

“Wow, what a wild thought, man,” said Jim Morrison of The Doors.

 

“But would the infrastructure of Puddletown support a self-sustaining lifestyle?” said Donald Trump.

 

When everyone had taken a moment to consider the implications of the official Worst United States President Ever saying something important and even slightly intelligent, Ned then piped up:

 

“Since the infrastructure of Puddletown has hitherto only been described in terms of puddles, daffodils and the dome in which we were all, until recently, incarcerated, and since Puddletown is but a mental construct of Larry and Mick, realised in literary form, perhaps we merely need to ask Larry and Mick to imagine an infrastructure which can support a self-sustaining lifestyle, and it will be so...?”

 

“Your question,” said the philosopher Bertrand Russell, “begs all manner of metaphysical and existential questions.”

 

“Which don’t need to be answered, as this is a work of fiction,” said Ned.

 

“True dat,” said Harrison Ford, which surprised everyone present, not least of all Harrison Ford.

 

“So what say ye, Larry and Mick?” said Ned to Larry and Mick.

 

“We’ll give it a try,” said Larry and Mick to Ned.

 

And thus it was so.

 

2.

 

But what of the hitherto unmentioned other clones/replicas of Larry and Mick, which had been created by the daffodils that had made the originals all daffodilly? Well... upon finding themselves bewildered and discombobulated in another field near Puddletown, they returned to their original lives, or rather those of, as it were, the Prime Larry and Mick, with a feeling of never wanting to visit Puddletown again.

 

“That was a good fishing trip,” said Larry.

 

“We didn’t catch anything though,” said Mick.

 

“And I don’t really like fishing,” said Larry.

 

“Shall we never go fishing again?” said Mick.

 

“Okay, friend Mick,” said Larry.

 

And so Larry and Mick never went ‘fishing’ again.

 

3.

 

Just to tie up another loose end, Ned being pals with Titania, Queen of the Fairyfolk, he got her to wave her stinky old wand and create a magical barrier around the newly reimagined Puddletown, such that it was now contained within another dimension, unvisitable by anyone outside, and, as previously, it did not exist on any Earthly map.

 

So that was, as they say, that.

 

[ fin ]