February 28, 2006

• Brevity is the Soul of Wit

  (and this is not brief)

  What began as a dumb joke idea mutated into something much more
  malign.  Is it a romantic vision of the past?  A bold vision
  of the future?  Or simply an epic vision of the who cares? 
  You decide:

  

  The Interminable Story of Blake and Thea, Installment #1
  

  A tall, dark-haired man leads his
  blindfolded wife through a maze of tables in the dimly lit
  restaurant.  She hits her shin on a chair.

  Thea:  Ow!  I’m going to kill you, Blake!

  Blake:  Don’t worry honey, we’re almost there. 

  Thea:  Breathless anticipation has long given way to seething resentment, dear.  This better be good!

  Blake: (He seats her at a chair) Voila! (removing blindfold).

  
  Thea’s eyes pop open and she looks in wonder upon the scene. 
  
  Odd-looking moss-covered trees serve as pillars for the ceiling. 
  A small landscaped waterfall and burbling stream lay not far from their
  table.  Giant ferns and bromeliads adorn the cavernous hall and
  torches light walls decorated with cave paintings of wooly mammoths and
  saber tooth tigers.  Oversized dragonflies and other insects hang
  from the ceiling.  The cry of pterodactyls pierces the air. 
  The couple’s table appears to be constructed of the bones of some
  enormous animal.  A few other such tables are interspersed
  throughout the room between museum-piece style displays of prehistoric
  animals.  Directly in front of the couple stands a waiter;
  muscular, dressed in filthy animal skins, cummerbund and bow tie, with
  an unruly mass of hair. 
   

  Waiter:  Madamoiselle,
  welcalm to Pappy’s Prehistoric Café, zee rest-air-aunt of zee
  few-chair!  You may call me Ook.  I vill be your vait-air
  tonight, and vut a nicht it is!  Zee menu, si? (Hands menus to
  them) Gracias, por favor.  Should you be need anything, only
  haul-air.  (He bows and slips away through a curtain of reeds
  forming a doorway in the back wall).

  Thea:  Oh, Blake, you shouldn’t have!  How can you afford this?

  Blake: It’s our anniversary, Thea.  How can I not afford it?

  Thea (smiles): Hmm...maybe I won’t kill you just yet. 

  Blake smiles back.

  Thea: That waiter sure had an extremely prominent brow.  Quite striking, in fact.

  

  
  Two loud thuds from behind the reed curtain.  Waiter comes back
  through the reeds dragging two dead feathery-lizard creatures in one
  hand and a big bloody club in the other.  He slaps the animals
  abruptly down on the table of an adjacent couple who, unperturbed,
  smile and prepare to dig in.

  Thea: (Screams):   Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

  Ook: (approaches their table) Ready to ore-dair, Madamoiselle? 

  Thea:  Eep.

  Blake:  Could you give us just a few minutes?

  Ook:  Soytenly, sir.  Oll be bok soon to take yer arder.  Arrr! (Once again, he slips behind the curtain)

  Thea (horrified):  Get me out of here, Blake!  That man is a neanderthal.

  Blake:  Honey, it’s
  Pappy’s Prehistoric Café!  Of course he’s a neanderthal. 
  This is a high-class restaurant!  Everything here has been
  reconstructed and cloned from DNA retrieved by paleontologists. 
  That’s what makes it the restaurant of the future!

  Thea:  Oh...I thought he said "the restaurant of few chairs”.

  Blake:  Well, that
  too.  This is an exclusive café, dear.  Now don’t go and ruin
  things by getting all queasy over a little blood. 

  Thea (protesting):  But it’s barbaric!  There’s no excuse for not cooking food.  Not since the invention of fire!

  Blake: Honey, these upscale
  restaurants are always offering uncooked food.  It’s a
  delicacy!  Remember that scrumptious prime rib we had at Snobbo’s
  last fall?  It was drenched in blood!

  Thea: (somewhat placated) Well...

  
  They peruse the menu for a moment, sipping from their drinks.  Ook returns, sans club.

  Ook: May I take your or-dair, now, gentleman and gentlelady?

  Blake: Yes.  I’ll have the...omni...ombif...omnibifer (points to it) That one!

  Ook: Omnebiferogapterosilesiosaurus, sir?

  Blake: Sure.

  Ook: Very well.  And you, madamoiselle?

  Thea: I’ll have the ichthyosaur salad, please.

  Ook: May I interest you in our soup of the day?

  Blake: What is it?

  Ook: Primordial.

  Blake: I’ll have some.  Thea?

  Thea: No thanks.

  Ook (smiling): I’ll be right oot vith yer entrees, me laddies. (Leaves through reed door)

  Thea (leaning forward): Just what kind of accent is that?

  Blake: I’ve been trying to place it myself.  Must be some special neanderthal dialect.

  
  There is a loud splashing noise.  Ook’s voice rings out from the back:

  Ook:  “Schnell, schnell!  Achtung!  Vamonos!” 

  
  There is a great commotion with more splashing, growling, shouts of urgency and/or pain, and the sound of wood striking flesh.
  
  
  
  Thea and Blake stare at each other. 
  
  
  
  The battle sounds continue.  Soon a tiny, portly little fellow with hairy
  feet and pointy ears runs out and places a bowl of unappetizing gunk
  in front of Blake. 
  
  
  H (with bad British accent):
  Your soup, m’lord.  Ook says to tell you that your salad is
  forthcoming, m’lady.  We’re just ‘avin a little trouble subduing
  it.

  Thea:  Oh!  And you are?

  H:  Homo floresiensis, m'lady.

  Thea:  What?  (The little fellow darts away).

  Blake:  Homo floresiensis,
  dear.  Discovered in 2003, when the popular Lord of the Rings™ movies came out.  Quite a serendipitous coincidence.

  Thea:  Well, he certainly was a cute little fellow. (Alarmed) Eww, what’s that black clump floating in your soup?

  Blake:  Oh, probably just
  some roughage.  (Fishes it out with his spoon and peers at
  it.  Gasps) My word, it’s a fly!  Waiter, waiter!

  
  From behind the doorway comes a trumpeting sound of a great beast in
  pain, one final huge splash, and then silence.  Ook stumbles
  through and turns to call back through the door:

  Ook (menacingly):  Adios, ichthyosaurus! (Blows kiss)

  
  Breathing heavily, he manages to limp to the table despite the gash in his right leg and side.
   
  Ook (still breathing heavily):  My profuse apologees.  Zee madomoiselles’ salad is on zee way.  How can I help yoo?

  Blake:  Waiter, there’s a fly in my primordial soup!

  Ook (recovering now, curious):  Yes, and so there is!  Most observant, sir.

  Blake (impatient):  Well?  What are you going to do about it?

  Ook (notices his irritation):  Do?  Mmm...I see.  Zis is no small matter, it requires a most especial celebration.

  Blake (disbelief): Celebration?  A fly contaminating my soup requires a special celebration?

  Ook:  But of course, sir, but of course!  For it could only have come about through
  ayvolution!  Here vee have an especial proof of zee theory,
  vanderflea vitnessed vif our vairy own ice!

  

  Blake:  Evolution? 
  What a crock!  Looks more like spontaneous generation to me, which
  we all know simply does not occur.  Evolution takes billions of
  years!

  Ook:  Begging your
  pardone, sir, you do not know how old this soup is.  And of your
  low opinion of spontaneous generation I vociferously disagree! 
  Ay-volution is naught but spontaneous generation occurring over
  beellions of years!  And we at Pappy’s Prehistoric Café have now
  apparently developed zee technology to speed up zees process as your
  fly has clearly appeared in zee soup and gives now most appropriate
  raison de celebration, no?

  Blake (sternly):  No, it does not!  I demand to see the manager.

  Ook:  I am zee mana-jair, me laddie.

  Blake:  Well, then I
  demand fresh soup this instant or we’ll tell everyone we know and more
  all about your very rude and atrocious service!

  Ook (disappointed): 
  So sorry, sir.  Please accept my further humble apologees. (Takes
  the soup and hurls the bowl and contents against a nearby tree. 
  He yells back through curtain:) Frilbo!  Anozzer primordial soup
  pronto, por favor!  (Then leans forward to the couple).  I
  now have urgent business to attend to, but I promeese, vee vill make it
  op to yoo.  Au revoir, kemosabe!

  
  He limps back through the reed curtain, bleeding.

  Thea: (exasperated) What now?

  Blake: (sighing) I’m sorry honey, I’d so hoped this would be a romantic dinner together.

  Thea:  (turns away,
  clearly not meaning what she’s about to say) It’s all right,
  dear.  It’s the thought that counts.  At least we’ll make a
  memory.

  

  A bandaged Ook returns hauling a huge stone bowl of exotic greenery and
  ichthyosaur parts.  He is accompanied by several Homo floriensis carrying primordial soup and steaming trays piled
  with breaded meat.

  Thea:  So they do have fire here!

  Ook:  Banzai!  Your
  foods are here, gentlepeoples!  Please allow me to apologuys for
  your inconweniencees.  Zee meal is, how you say, on zee
  house!  Please also to enjoy zee complimentary crunchy fried
  velociraptor strips delivered to you by these good little hobbitses.

  Blake and Thea:  Wow!

  Ook:  I hope you vill find
  eet all satisfactorial.  And now, I leave you to enjoy your meal!
  (To the Homo floresiensis   Vamoose! (He herds them out the back
  and hurries to serve a different table where a new couple has just sat
  down).               

  
  Blake and Thea begin to eat and their expressions show pleasant
  surprise at the tastiness of the food.  They smile at each other,
  listening to the burbling stream and other ambient sounds of the
  prehistoric jungle.  Thea breaks into a strip of the crunchy
  breaded meat and regards her husband with starry eyes:

  Thea:  Oh, Blake!

  Blake:  Oh, Thea!  It’s turned out to be romantic, after all! 

  Thea:  (Gulping down some
  meat) Oh, Blake, you fill my heart with raptor.  Or my stomach, at
  least. (Puts arm around Blake) It’s all the same to me!

  Blake:  Well, you did fail anatomy.  But I love you anyway!

  Thea:  Me too!

  
  (They kiss, or perhaps embrace for audiences unaccustomed to such raciness.)

  

  
  

  • 4:42 pm
  • 2 Comments