Corporations Winning

Corporations Winning
             by Dougl  Asreimer

LookingmcBride and Jagpreet Corporate Importers and Exporters, Ltd. the sign high above announced, Hamish Gerbrantov noticed. He snuck his way into the building, through some revolving glass doors, past a security desk, through another glass door into what he discovered was a pharmacy and out of it again immediately and through the next set of glass doors, still and steadily skulking and acting suspicious. He peered at the writing on the doors, and then furtivated about seeing if anyone had observed him. He ran a few steps and then stood still, and then ran slower and then walked. In this fashion he entered and exited again five or six doorways until he came to the elevator and he pressed the up button. He disappeared into the elevator and reappeared again at the 11th floor. He snuck, he sidled, he ducked, he poked his nose into places, and finally entered and stayed within the door marked Dr. Lookingmcbride and Dr. Jagpreet, Optometrists. Welcome. Hours: Monday through Saturday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Hamish Gerbrantov was a short man. At the counter he stood on tiptoes and and looked up over the arborite. The secretary finally noticed him.          “What do you want?” she barked. She glared at him and pulled down her skirt behind her desk. She wore purple, tuffed, taffeta blousing and pink, nubbly skirting. Her shoes, one smaller than the other since she had feet of uneven size, were polished black patents and they had open toes. The counter being a table-like affair with only a top on four legs, Hamish’s eyes were even with her knees. He tried to keep them on her face but the tabletop blocked that line of sight and his neck quickly hurt him. 
     “Hello,” he called, and then jumped up and down and talked to the secretary a word at a time as he came high, as his face cleared the height of the countertop. “My—name—is—Ham—ish,” he roared in separated words. He grew tired of jumping and rested. Then he started jumping again and continued. “I—am—here—to —see—doctor—Look—ing—Mc—Brrrride. He stopped for breath and then started jumping again. “For—an—eye—appointment.—At—three—thirty!”
     The secretary had stopped listening to him and now that he had finished jumping, she said, “What?” He stood there looking at her below the countertop. Then he ducked underneath and bit her. That made her start up and take notice. She pulled her knees up to her chest and called loudly for assistance. 
     “Doctor Lookingmcbride!” She screamed. “Doctor Lookingmcbride, I am being assaulted by a little asshole who just bit my thigh!” The Doctor emerged from the office at the word “thigh” and in an instant had the poor Gerbrantov gripped by the collar. 
     “What is the meaning of this?” he spoke to him without kindness. 
     “That little shit bit me,” she whimpered, with a couple of tears beginning to form on her cheeks at the sound of the doctor’s sympathetic voice. 
     “Are you mad,” he said, his words louder than need be. “You bit her? You scoundrel!” And so saying, Lookingmcbride lifted him above his head and twice dashed him against the wall with such forcefulness that the poor, short man collapsed and cried before he found the strength once more to rise and make his way to the good Samaritan’s side. 
     “Let me see,” the doctor said, pitying her. “I think this luckless woman needs our assistance. She is in grave pain, and in danger, I might add. Of infection! My poor dear! Lift your dress and show us exactly where this little pervert bit you!” The clock  ticked overhead. Nearby, the toilet water ran in its bowl. The rain on the windowpane made light tapping and trickling sounds. The air in the room already smelled almost of anesthetic. His secretary obeyed at once, after only a necessary hesitation, sniffling and with quivering teardrops. 
     “Oh, oh!” The Doctor intoned. “That is a flesh wound! It will require immediate attention! So high up the danger of infection is very, very grave! You! Little man! Help me carry her to my office where we may lay her down with less interference.” He paused and thought and added, “With less annoyance to the public.” 
     “That was a job well done, sir! “ the doctor said to the one who had bitten. “Now, What was it you wanted of me?” 
     “I wished you to have a look at my octicles,” that worthy said, peering up at a sharp angle at towards the white teeth above him. “I can hardly see a thing except from very close up. If you please, sir.” 
     The dctor said, “I noticed.” Then he did as asked. 
     Thus he added another patient to his corporation’s roster. He made a few recommendations to the little person. He charged him a small fee. Lookingmcbride Inc. was doing remarkably well, he said to himself, alone in his office, winning with his timely generosity and forethought, from his competitors, a great many such as the young Mr. Hamish Gerbrantov. Business, he surmised, was brisk and getting brisker. No need to expand at any faster rate. This speed was just fine for him. His wife was happy, too. And in this state he left the day’s thinking and went back to work, singing to himself, happy, feeling wonderfully lucky and successful. 

     They did that. The woman moaned with pain and hurt, even once she’d been laid on the large office desk that had been quickly cleared to accommodate a patient. The two men laboured for an hour, interceding. The corporation’s business would have to wait. Winning or losing mattered little in the hour of need. The welfare of this single anguished human surpassed in significance the acquisition of much money. What, really, was an hour more or less to this institution? Making money was not everything, surely! And so on and so forth the two reasoned among themselves as they bent over the luckless lady. She gratefully permitted them to minister to her person till they had bled her, sucked out the poisons, and finally thoroughly and painstakingly cleaned a large area around the wound to ensure full protection against infection. They cleaned and laboured over the mesmerized patient until, in a moment of realization, she had the new presence of mind to stand up suddenly, and briefly redistribute her habiliament before resuming her former place and duties at her desk. 

Gifted Beyond the Ordinary.

Gifted Beyond the Ordinary.
          by Doug (the Sultan) Swing

Gifted beyond the ordinary, Mycroft spent his off hours Wednesday toying with a mechanism that Monday night had restlessly imposed itself on him. Wednesday being Yipper Day, and all Horse Guards free to rest or drink or play at Niccers in the Grand Tent next to the Khan’s, he chose, however, not to go there but instead to set up his smaller tent outside the military compound and work in the relative peace of retreat. Permission requested and granted Tuesday night, he set off early next morning on his steed carrying both his temporary domicile and his tinker’s box, in which he kept his specialized tools: chisels, prods, callipers, twisties, sniplets, wangoes, spindles, nippers, slides, vrass, and durable’s. These would most likely serve him well if the idea he had begun to concretize were to be turned from it’s dross into gold. He sang as he mulled his way toward Garmeddon, as pretty a garden grove as any he’d encountered during any of his Sino-Russian campaigns.
     He had not gone far, nor had he sung that many songs, before his path through a narrow gorge was blocked by a form in the sunlight before him. He shielded his eyes to see better what obstructed him there and, low and behold, a man of extreme proportions and small stature step toward his mule and took it gently by the bridal. This dangerous maneuver startled Mycroft and he hissed a warning.
    “Do not, under pain of death, touch Ritlin’s bridal!” he shouted. His sharp warning spoke not of anger, or condescension but pity for anyone daring so much, since none had heretofore attempted and lived. Ritlin brooked no hand to touch him but his master’s. And that was as should be, trained as it was in the Khan’s time-honoured ways. Now, however, to Mycroft’s astonishment, the danger passed with little more then a shudder in the beast beneath him.
     “ Sir! Who are you?” Mycroft spoke when he regained his breath. The filly neither shied nor whinnied. It stood stock still under the steady hand of the newcomer. Mule of stone or equine of dumb and sudden obsequience Mycroft just now neither knew nor cared, though later on reflection, years later on recollection, he often wondered if some monstrous power of charming had passed first in front of and into the beast before either alien hand or eye had touched or even beheld it from such near distance. Now he spoke again.
     “Sir! Answer me! Or you shall have this to answer to!” He drew from his waistband a similam of great and dreadful structure, pointing it at the figure before him, who simply stood and moved not a mite. That smallish thing, however, stepped from beside the animal and laid his hand on Mycroft’s ankle. And instantly a steadiness of muscle and a slowness of speech and thought raced all through his flesh and bones and made him prisoner, if such a metaphor may successfully describe what was rather all benign and without violence attending whatsoever. The yellow sun beat on them; happy water gurgled somewhere, though not in the ditch to their right; blue sky and gray tree indicated no signs of life or movement; and the world smelled of new mown hay where grass nor verdure flourished in these high, hard climates. The taste of dulcet swishlick soured Mycroft’s tongue a moment and then left it feeling hungry and wanting more. 
     “Heart or soul?” he inquired. The intruder moved not one finger and stood statue in an artless, brazen world. 
     “Swell or broken?” the general asked, but still received no word of introduction. 
     “Then I shall have to take it upon myself to disturb your equilibrium somewhat,” he announced. Thus saying, he leapt from Ritlin’s back and lit with the grace of youth on the ground. In a trice he stood bent over the stranger in his ragged coat who held his long, pointed asper stem still, gripped firmly but without an air of challenge. Mycroft seized the lapels of this worthy, yanked him toward himself without mitigation, put his hand in that man’s thin locks, tore out an amount of it that would have forced painful cries from a corpse, and then sharply raised his knee into the hapless wanderer’s groin with such instant fury that the smallish person finally spoke. 
     “My name, sir, is Bandor,” he wheezed, tears starting from his eyes. “I am a beggar. I can neither hear nor see, and I wished to find if you might spare me a ride to the compound, since my feet are excessive sore from their long and distant journeying. Please advise.” He halted his introduction. Mycroft gave him back his handful of fine hair, lifted him up and stood him straight, then looked at him and sniffed. 
       “Why do you smell so sour?“ he inquired at length, taking a small degree of pain to bend away from the worthy before him. “Are you unaware of how roughly you grate on the nostrils?” Mycroft waited, patient, this his day off, wishing in his heart to get to his special work. Somehow the begger had understood.
     “I smell so because I taste so,” the small man intoned. “I have no water with which to wash. I eat only locusts and cattle dung, since nothing else suggests itself to me as I journey. I am hobo. My name is hobo. Blessed be the one who treats me well.”
     With that he disappeared as if taken instantly into the clouds by a hand above. Mycroft stood sore amazed, and when these things were revealed to him, he journeyed by a roundabout way to Garmeddon and worked there till the moon shone brightly into his tent door. When he had finished, he packed up his equipment and returned to the compound. The man who met him when he called on the Khan to let him know of  his return looked strangely like the hobo from the trail. Yet, this one was dressed in finery of the most exquisite sort, and he sported rings of gold upon his each his ten fingers. He smiled as he invited Mycroft in and stood there with his hand outstretched. 
     “Mimic,” he said and disappeared into the adjoining room. Mycroft waited an hour to no avail for no one appeared. Finally, furtively, and with a fair degree of anxious worry, he left without sight of the Khan. The moon shone wisely above and a beast howled in the mountains over the camp.

Piggies’ Revenge

 

The Revenge of the Pigs

          by Drywall Dougie Two-Studs

They built a house of straw and the Wolf said, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” and he did and he almost got to eat the little pigs. They built a house  of wood and he huffed and he puffed and nearly got to eat the residents. Finally, they built one of brick and he huffed and he puffed till he felt so tired that he laid down on the gorse and slept for a while to catch his breath. While he slept, the three pigs approached, tilted a bucket of morning toast over him and poured it out so that he was covered in filth and urine. Suddenly less tired, he leapt up and before they’d made it halfway to their door he’d caught two of them by their trotters and squeezed them squirming to his furry chest. He took one bite out of the smaller of the two and immediately regretted it, covered in excrement from off his own person, as it was, and tasting vile.

     “Phooey!” He yelled. “How horrible! How absolutely sickening!” He dropped both pigs and pursued the last one, which he caught just as it was trying to open the solid oak door. He took a tentative bite, careful not to clasp the squirming oinker to his fur, and announced to nobody in particular that it would do just fine. The third pig had only been tasted and did not instantly succumb to red Death’s flashing sickle, his wound not life-threatening. He squealed for help. His two beshatten brethren, demonstrating that some pigs occasionally act with nobility of purpose, rose up as one and, showing their true colours, came running just as quickly as their chubby little legs would carry them. Incensed to the point of rage, they both simultaneously and as one bit the wolf on his nethers with such piggy ferocity that he flung down his  catch and twirled round to snatch up the offenders. Oh! miscalculation! Oh! barbarous ill luck! With an alacrity that the porky flock as a species seldom show, and with next to no indication of a troubled conscience, the clean pig (with the bite out of him), finding himself momentarily free, turned in horrid rage on his enemy and clamped him an enormous set of bites on the soft parts at the backs of both knees. He actually wrenched out of that part of the wolf two pieces of flesh, each three or four cubic inches in size. Incensed now almost to madness, the beast whirled howling and frothy with humiliated pride and stupendous pain to assert his interests over his most recent attacker. Quick as a wink, the other two soiled animals, as if in a planned affront, fronged at the canine with such sharp and terrible purpose that both of his hind legs immediately quivered and became useless. Stunned, he shat himself. Then, his useless legs unable to balance him, he fell into the stinky pile and rolled back and forth in it trying to right himself and find his slippery way onto clean grass, resigned finally to pulling himself along inch by inch onto cleanliness with his front paws. 

     The three brothers had pierced his armour, so to speak. From that moment onward the wolf, who survived this episode and lived another two decades to lament this day, sauntered about on his wounded legs; not on his paws but on his knuckles, his arms and legs having been all four of them foreshortened by the biting. 

     The three pigs after that adventure became tired of the tedium of house-living and house-construction. They began to wander the world in search of violent types, and especially wolves. When they found one alone, they attacked him or her with such great vigour and persistence that the individual either succumbed and died, or left the spot with damaged limbs and a contrite heart.

     Now, one day—a fine sunny day without a cloud visible anywhere and the world rich with the perfume of lavender and lilac—the three sat in a small pub in Ireland, near the city of Belfast. Three men entered. The habiliment had few patrons and seemed as quiet as anyone could wish a small pub to be for the sake of peace and restful drink. Immediately, the youngest of the pigs whispered to the others that here were men who might make a proper mark. And, of course, from the ruffled look of them (the word “ruffian” etymologically depends from “ruffled”), clearly deserved a good roughing up to teach them civility of dress and manners (the pigs always in a state of exquisite dress). 

     “They do not appear to possess much capital, but they do look fierce and seem self-possessed as if they are accustomed to giving orders,” this little pig said.

      “True,“ the oldest agreed. “We may have to teach them a lesson, don’t you know?” With that he got up and asked two of the men to step outside for a word. They seemed surprised but did as he asked, for he appeared to them to be an individual with authority and rank. Once the doors closed on the two, the other pigs attacked the fellow left inside and made short work of him. He screamed in pain and ran toward the back door missing one hand and three fingers on the remaining one. The two men outside came rushing in at the sound of agony, but the two pigs were ready. They tripped the first at the doorway and, pouncing on him forthwith, bit him through the throat so that in a twink he lay nearly lifeless, just on the happy side of having no minutes left to amend his ways and prepare for an infant’s encounter with the world to come. The other man prayed and begged for his life to be spared and the pigs magnanimously forgave him and let him go. Little did they know that these three were notorious IRA soldiers and that they, the pigs, would now be on the most wanted list of that terrible organization.

     They did not mind. During the next months and even years, they foiled each and every attempt at their lives with the same dexterity with which they had defused Mr. Wolf. Within five years the entire Irish Republican Army lay in ruins. Not a man alive would accept an assignment to attack and take revenge on the pigs. With that a new age came to Europe, and the tourist industry began to flourish both on the island and on the continent. 

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The Life of the Beneficial Leach

The Life of the Beneficial Leach 

          By Stonewall Reimer

                          From: The Hamilton Spectator

                                    Reporter: Steve Milton

Brian Leetch of the New York Rangers put it well the other day when he said that the person who watches much hockey on television might well be called a hockey puck, but someone who pays to go to games in his hometown would be offended by such an appellation. A payer should be called a hero instead of a puck because he supports the business of hockey instead of just his rear end on the couch. He buys tickets. Which we know goes straight into the system, like I mean the loop of owner, player, infrastructure, and family in the end. He buys beer at arena vendors which pay the hockey associations a cut of the take, as well as supports the people owning the pubs and outlets even though the most goes to the arena. He orders food from a bunch of sellers and callers who make a small amount of money from each dog and Pepsi they get purchased and so earn a respectable wage instead of living off the street. He’s out of the home for these four or five hours of the travel to the game, time watching, travel to the pub afterwards, and travel home by taxi after that or most likely even taxi to the game. And so he’s saving the municipality a pile of money couple of times a month on nuisance charges and like that, from the police or other agencies who have to come in when there’s a domestic. No one calls in screaming, no one has to go out to the house, right? Bucks saved. Like, his marriage goes better, too. My marriage was helped by my playing hockey. The more I was away, the more Maybelle got done around the house, and the longer it kept clean, if you know what I mean. If a man is around the house it gets messy. If he isn’t then it doesn’t. It makes the wife and kids happier if the husband is gone a lot, on the road, or at the pub, or even especially at hockey games, because then he comes home drunk and too tired to watch any more television and haul out the chips and dips and beers and so on and make a mess of the basement she’s vacuumed. Everyone wins, no one loses. I would even come to watch my own hockey games if that would help, if you know what I mean. We should all do our best to help. The home needs all us men to do our part and to do the best we can since our wives bear the brunt. They have to do the grunt work. We sweat and strain, sure, when we have some heavy lifting to do, or work under the car or such, like the time the jack slipped on me when I was changing the oil and the car rested on top of me for over an hour until some of my buddies came to the rescue. They had come over for more beer and cleaned out my fridge and were on the way out of there when Ray said let’s go out back and see what old Derek’s up to and they lifted the car off me. Geez, was I glad they came! Anyway, we had a few beers outside then and that was good for our marriage, too. You see, I believe that any time a guy can stay out of the house as much as possible he has a chance to make the whole thing work a lot smoother. So, we had some beers in the garage while I finished changing the oil and somebody went for the two fours and then we went in in the end and watched a game for a few hours. The guys never did get that beer home! We got it all drank before they headed off and they said later they’d stopped at the Montcalm and picked up two more two fours there and gone to Jerry’s instead and drank till about three. So, anyway, so what I’m saying is stay away from the house so’s it doesn’t get messy, pay for hockey games, drink beer away from home and then you’ll make sure your wife is happy. The life of the hockey puck is no good.

 

when mermaids call us

 when mermaids call us
          by lucky loudmouth luciano

rivets falling from the sky
blasting out his nether eye
madness must in great ones go
marks of sadness marks of woe
sailors round the world may throw
lines of travel thick and slow
but none do there embrace I know
though ackerman has taught us how
we slide through this world and end
but then we see from whom we’re sent
He gives us very little hope
to go on when we lose the rope
the short end of the stick is fine
as long as there is cheery wine
made sweet as lemans kind as terns
far as hades fine as ferns
free me Lord to see the truth
that in a grain of wheat lie doth
the farmer’s daughter never yet
mermaids call lest we forget
we never hear them they call kind
we hear them when we wish to find
and not when we are called
grant me the wisdom Lord to hear
grow me the ears, Sir, and the cheer
to give them credit when it’s due
i have the worst time and that’s true
so if You should per chance to read
a book a month about the need
to send more cash to foreign lands
don’t blame the crazies they’re not bad
we wish to name the ones who fail
so we are laden with the grave
and dreadful burden of the bond
that children get

Wilma yelled at the neighbour to get out of her vegetable garden. He obliged with a tip of his hat and said, 
     “So how are you today, Miss Fundy? He had been walking past and noticed that the tomatoes looked pinkish. Normally, they spent much time in each other’s gardens helping to weed, to edge, to plant, to prune and in all ways keep the gardens spruce. Ronpick—odd though his christened name—seemed to Wilma in every way ordinary and normal. She appeared to him the same way. The two figured each other lucky to have the other for neighbour. 
    Ronpick had recently won a little money on a lottery and no longer needed a job to make his payments. He lived independently now of paying work and could do as he pleased (as we are want to say of those who grow up privileged). He gave generously to his family members less fortunate than himself. This largess spilled over into Wilma and George’s lives, too, and this very week he had purchased a section of lattice work for them and set it up in the far corner of the yard where the sun shone brightly and gave Wilma a spot to sit and read.
     Wilma voraciously read fiction. 
     “Ever read the story of Gilgamesh?” she asked Ronpick as he worked at the row of tomato plants. They were already high as his waist, though it was only mid June. They were hung with clusters of green fruit. Wilma often sat in her chair and read passages to Ronpick as he worked in her garden. He had not, and she proceeded to read the story of where Gilga  is assailed by those six sailors intent on robbing him of his sword and ring. When she had read several pages, she paused and asked Ronpick what he thought of the narrative style. He grunted, interested, but enjoying her reading. She began to read again and soon got to the place where the giant yells out to Gil that his (the giant’s) hunting dog has been found dead and someone must pay the penalty. Then she read also where the giant falls to the ground and Gilgamesh leaps forward and cuts off the giant’s head with that beast’s own sword. Then he kneels and thanks the gods for giving him the strength to vanquish his enemy.. Wilma put the book down and rose to fetch tea.
        Ronpick and she sat in the bower and partook of cinnamon buns and tea. They looked at each other fondly. Ronpick said, “Wilma, you are yourself a garden!!” And she blushed with pleasure and fear. 
     “What I mean is that pea vines and cucumber blossoms have nothing on you. You shine with new growth, and flowers are your ears and mouth. When you speak, gladiolus bud and open. I am your gardener and will behold you till you can be harvested.” She writhed under such great praise and stood to go, but he restrained her, gently putting his hand on her lithe arm. 
     “What you say is true,” she said. “I am a garden, and I do resemble flowers, as I can tell each morning when I look in the mirror after my shower. The scent of my hair and the look of my cheeks, pink from the hot water, are not easily parallelled in the natural world. Yes, I am not fearful. These are gifts I have been given for some reason. I only need somebody to discover what that reason is.” With that she bent and kissed her admirer on each cheek and left him, trailing the scent of apples in the air. Ronpick turned to the garden and worked another half hour before returning home. He would rest for a while. He did that, lieing on the couch till the clock called to him that it was time to get ready and make lunch. Outside he heard the sound of children shrieking and laughing in the school playground. They had finished their bag lunches already and were intent on enjoying the half hour of fun before having to go inside once more.     
     “Oh, children,” Ronpick said, and turned  on the television to watch the news.                              
       .
               



















          

Working That Old Mine Shaft

Love in the Old Mine Shaft 
     by Doggie Digs Doug

I’m working in the old mine shaft
Hauling it till morning turns to night
Gold shines in the ore
I haul it more and more
I’m working in that old mine shaft
Yeah I’m working in that old mine shaft
My back is bent and body broken down
For miles down here I crawl along the ground
The roof is low as sin
But the gold I’m hauling in
Sack up on my back to bring it in
Haul it haul it haul it haul it in
She’s likely back home somewhere in new york 
Her willow’s arms are gracing someone’s work
I shivered when she came
I shiver now she’s gone
Freezing at the thought of carrie’s name
The walls here echo carrie hardy’s name