Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, opens Chapter DXXV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, with these grim words.
Doom. Extinction. Ruin. Phosphate.
“Okay, that’s enough grim words,” she concludes. “On with the story!”
Scurveyshire, deluded into thinking the rhinoceros has gone away when really all it’s doing is sleeping behind Dr. Weezle’s chicken coop, this year celebrated New Year’s Eve with a colossal explosion at Tony Pow’s Fireworks Emporium. It was so loud, in fact… that it woke the legendary Seven Sleepers in the heart of Scurvey Forest.
The what? The who?
“This goes back to the Dawn Of Time,” Ms. Crepuscular explains–“before King Arthur first wore pants, before Julius Caesar ever tasted prunes. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Seven Sleepers fell asleep listening to Merlin’s rival, Hyman Diddlewits, give a lecture on ‘Fallacies of Pictish Architectural Theory.’ It is said that if the Sleepers ever wake, the land will suffer a catastrophe.”
Legend also has it that the Sleepers will turn into dust the moment they wake up.
Oops.
“I will describe that distressing scene for you once I have my loins properly girded,” our author promises.
Quick, take away Violet’s loin girdle! Oh, wait, I thought she said … oh, never mind. The fireworks must have dulled my perception. Too much phosphate in them.
Almost as loud as the fireworks happening in my neighborhood, last night. I can think of more advised activities than setting off fireworks, at night during the driest of the dry season, in the desert.