Post by Schmergo on May 9, 2007 16:51:08 GMT -5
THE REAPER AND MR. JENKINS
(Written in Round Robin format by Schmerg_The_Impaler and Emily_The_Poet.)
Mister Uther Jenkins was strolling down the street one sunshiny day when a scabby, scaly hand grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him into the alleyway. He started in suprise thinking it a tax collector, but calmed down when he saw that it was simply the grim reaper. "Hey, Reaper Man!" he greeted the cloaked figure jovially, "Give me some palm, Tom!"
"I'm rarely confused, and yet I am now..." said the reaper. He shook his head and said, "Normally, when I tell people their time's coming, they go all hysterical on me... what's the deal with you?"
"Well, my girlfriend just broke my heart, I am about to be enlisted and the army and the government took my house," said the man looking rather depressed and frantic.
"Wow," said the reaper, "I think I have the wrong guy, no one that unhappy goes dies before becoming an old wrinkled miserable bat, unless of course, they helped themself along... Did you break the rules?
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," stammered Uther. "If you mean that time when I was fifteen at Jerry Blenkinsopp's house when I drank that Midnight Surprise Fruit Wine, Carpet Cleaner, and Dessert Topping and vomited in the fish tank, killing all of his exotic tropical fish, then I'm really sorry, but..."
The reaper scratched his head casually with his scythe. He didn't know what to make of this man.
Usually they were on there knees begging him to leave them here, but as usual once in a while there was a man that threw him...
After a long, contemplative pause (the Reaper had plenty of time on his bony hands, being immortal and all), the Reaper announced, "Well, Mister Jenkins, I was about to let you experience Death By Dropped Anvil, but you're just a bit too eager to die, and we can't have these things tarnishing my reputation. So I have no choice but to allow you to become my sidekick. Henchman. Crony, minion, assistant, whatever you want to call it. Welcome to the death trade."
"And how much does that pay exactly? Can I use it as a tax write off?" asked the inquisitive Jenkins," And what sort of benefits do you receive?"
"Well, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmm," said the Reaper, stalling for time by holding down the 'r' key as he desperately tried to think of something, "You, uh, get to live forever and make a living off of schadenfreude. And you won't have to pay taxes, either. You know, that whole saying about the only things certain in life are death and taxes? Now that you're exempt from death, you don't have to pay taxes, either. Kind of a package deal."
Jenkins's eyes lit up.
"Dude," remarked the Reaper in a very American accent, clearly astonished by this biological phenomenon. "Your eyes just lit up."
Jenkins rolled said eyes. "It's just a figure of speech."
"So what is my first resposibility as- "the deadly finger"!" cried Jenkins. The reaper stared confusedly at the strange little man for a moment before Jenkins cried, "A sidekick has to have a cool name!"
"Yeah, but the deadly finger?" Asked Reaperman.
"Well, why not?" demanded Jenkins, folding his arms and pouting. In this position, he looked uncannily like the Reaper's little sister, Tiffany, only with a mustache and a bad suit.
The Reaper would have rolled his eyes, had his eye sockets not been empty pits of flame. Instead, he exhaled loudly. "Whatever. Your first responsibility is to visit Mrs. Nancy Nitswiggler of Number Nine, Lungflook Lane in Auckland, New Zealand. She has to die of herniated toenails."
Jenkins stopped in his tracks and gasped. He knew Mrs. Nitswiggler only too well...
The woman had ran over his pet bunny Wugglesworth III when he was seven! She had been the start of his bad luck!
His eyes narrowed to angry slits. "Oh, I will do that with relish," he whispered darkly.
The Reaper gave him a skeletal smile. "Ooh! Okay! Want ketchup and/or mustard while you're at it?"
Jenkins shook his head. "You really don't get figures of speech, do you?"
TWO DAYS AND A FEW METAPHORS LATER, AT NUMBER NINE, LUNGFLOOK LANE, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND!
"No! Please! Don't take me!" screeched Mrs. Nitswiggler as Jenkins took her soul and put it in his back pocket.
Jenkins looked her straight in the eye. "Hmmm.... let me think about it..." he stroked his chin in thought. "Er... NO!" he cackled malevolently. He knew all about sociopathic soul-stealing, having been a telemarketer before the Reaper had recruited him, so he had very little sympathy.
However, a rather brilliant idea came to his mind just about then. "Tell you what, Mrs. Nitswiggler. You'll be spared... if you can bring back Wugglesworth III! And believe me, this better be good. I work in the death trade, and even I haven't found a way to resurrect my rabbit."
Mrs. Nitswiggler's obscenely over-lipsticked mouth trembled. Her beady eyes darted from side to side, and her curly blonde wig slid down the side of her head as she shook in fear. "Well..." she said slowly. "I... I never really ran over Wugglesworth III. It was all a hoax. You see, I... I..." She broke down in shuddering sobs.
"Myesss?" prompted Jenkins.
"I'm breaking about a hundred laws by telling you this, but... I'm not really a cosmetic saleslady. I run the Nitswiggler Academy for Holiday Symbols. You know, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Cupid, leprechauns, Punxatawney Phil?"
Jenkins nodded, not really seeing where this was going.
"Well," continued Mrs. Nitswiggler, "The Easter Bunny got fired. Nasty business with drugs... he was always sugar-high. So I... I kidnapped Wugglesworth III and put him through training to make him the new Easter Bunny. The only way to retrieve him is to walk down that back alleyway near the eraser shop and knock three times on the lid of the most putrid trash can, and you'll find the secret entrance to the Nitswiggler Academy."
You stole my bunny?" Jenkins asked, his chin quivering slightly, "Do you realise how emotionally scarring that was for my fragile soul? I mean, taking a fish would have been one thing, but my bunny?"
Mrs. Nitswiggler peered at him over her rhinestone-bedecked glasses, squinting suspiciously. "Surely your soul can't be too fragile," she noted, "Seeing as you're immortal and all..."
"Does no one around here understand figures of speech?!" shouted Jenkins, throwing up his hands in defeat.
ONE BACK ALLEY WAY LATER...
"Oh, good lord," said squeemish Jenkins as he picked his way through the rubbish that cluttered the alley. He felt himself gagging, but he was determined. Mr. Wugglesworth III would finally go free!
After tripping over a squalid hobo who bore an uncanny resemblance to a garbage bag and stepping in a large pile of something he hoped was chocolate mousse, he finally reached what obviously had to be the most putrid trash can. It absolutely gave out RAYS of rancidness, and the horrible stench it emitted swirled around Jenkin's head in a disgusting miasma as he bent over and knocked on the lid three times.
What happened next was enough to make his jaw threaten to become friendly with the floor.
Why, the elves! They were dancing! And singing. And a lot of other things that would be censored on television.
"Welcome to this school,
What a perfect place!
Here we have some rules
To shove in your face.
Don't tell Muggles, you hairy git,
Or you'll be deep in... excrement...
Nitswiggler Academy, Nitswiggler A-CAD-EM-EEEEEE!"
They finished with an extraordinary high-pitched note, and Jenkins could have sworn he felt his eardrums threaten to go on strike.
"Um, right." He said. "Now that we've had that... lovely introduction, how do I get inside the school? This suit is new, and I'm definitely not getting inside that slimy trash can."
"Why, sir," giggled the littlest elf, "All you have to do is believe! And your heart will take you to your fondest desire..."
"Mr. Wugglesworth III!" Jenkins cried diving head first into the slime infested rat hole.
And amazingly, he landed in the foyeur of a bright, clean, and sparkling building. But as he looked around, he knew something was wrong. The halls were strangely empty, and surely the Nitswiggler Academy would not have a design motif best described as 'lots of skulls.' Clearly, he had come to the wrong place.
Suddenly, the hooded form of the Grim Reaper materialized in front of him. "Uther, Uther," sighed the Reaper, shaking his head grimly, a great adverb to describe the actions of a Grim Reaper. "I can't believe you failed that simple test."
"Test?"
"Well, yeah! I asked Mrs. Nitswiggler to volunteer for your first job. I wanted to make sure there was nothing that would keep you from carrying out your job, and Mrs. Nitswiggler said she bet you would want your rabbit back. Don't you see? I go to the Nitswiggler Academy, and this is not it-- this is Death, Incorporated, my office. I'm a symbol of the holiday of Your Funeral." He shook his head with irritation.
Jenkins squinted. "So you're in cohorts with those annoying elves?"
"Yeah, it was pretty funny to watch you dive into the trash can with that nice suit," replied the Reaper with a smirk.
Jenkins squinted even more, which completely obscured his vision allowing a wandering death minion to pick his pocket. "Well, since I failed, are you going to kill me now?"
The Reaper stroked his skeletal chin. "Uhhh... wow, just realized, I can't do that because of the reasons I stated earlier. So there's only one thing to do with you..."
...Take you to the Dancing with the Stars finale and an Italian dinner!"
Jenkins froze! A look of utter fear crossed his face. "No! You wouldn't! I have Chorophobia- fear of dancing! It's an acute symptom of my Arachibutyrophobia- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of my mouth. (Unfortunately other fears are associated with it such as Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- my horrible fear of long words, Ostraconophobia I've battled my fear of shellfish all my life just like my Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic.) With all of those fears acting on me I could be sent into paralytic shock!"
"Exactly!" smirked the Reaper. "And as the famous saying goes, dudes in paralytic shock tell no tales!"
"I don't think I've heard that saying," said Jenkins.
It was then that he was struck with a sudden bolt of inspiration.
"Ow," said Jenkins.
No, but seriously, he got a fantastic idea! "Er, Reaper Man? Didn't you say that I had to be punished because I let someone get out of dying?"
The Reaper nodded. "That would be about right."
"And isn't that exactly what you did with me?"
"That would be about right, too."
"Soooo... doesn't that mean you should get fired?"
"Oh, pooperscoopers, you have me with that one... but wait... If I kill you now, then that point is null and void." Reaperman said maliciously. "I think you were about to experience death by dropped anvil when this began!"
Things looked grim for our hero... but suddenly, a sinister figure dropped from the sky.
It was the Grim Reaper's mother!
"Now, now, Edwin, what are you up to now?" she demanded naggingly.
"Mummmm!" groaned the Reaper. "I told you not to call me that in front of my friends!"
His mother crossed her arms. "And I told you not to pretend to be the Grim Reaper anymore!" She gestured toward Jenkins. "Is this another one of your innocent targets? You should be ashamed of yourself, Edwin. And take off that ridiculous costume."
The Reaper-- who was apparently named Edwin and not the Grim Reaper-- sputtered incoherently, but at the prompting of his mother's stern glance, sighed and took off his cloak and skull mask to reveal...
"OH. MY. GOSH," Jenkins said, blinking nineteen times consecutively. "You're... a Cupid?"
Edwin the Cherub hung his head. "Yes. Yes, I am."
"And he's been a very BAD BOY," added his mother. "He got into this school on a Cherub Scholarship, but he had his heart set on being the Reaper. Something about those little diapers he wears not being in fashion lately or something. I'm Venus, by the way. Sorry my son put you through all this... now, is there anything I can do for you?"
A cunning smile crossed Jenkins' face. "I believe I mentioned that my girlfriend broke my heart at the beginning of this story...?"
THE END
