So it turns out the whole Y2K thing was somethin’ to get your panties in a twist over, they just got the date wrong. It was Y2K+7. Chaos ensued; my teeth were flossed with a hearty dosage of destruction.
This is another one of those stories that didn’t actually happen. It should be obvious as I’m going to write about the upcoming New Years celebration and today’s only…let…me…see… the 30th. That and I’m thinking it’s gonna be pretty well distinguished bullshit.
An associate and I were standing at one of the classic fried cheese sandwich stands trying to decide what we were going to do for New Years Eve.
“I’ve heard that Old Town Square gets pretty rowdy,” Clementine revealed as she took a ravenous bite of her cheesy concoction. “A_arently _eo_le just run around shooting fireworks at ea_ other,” she finished in a half intelligible, food-filled mumble.
“Sexy…Ya I heard the same about Wenchesler (‘fraid I don’t know if that’s how it’s spelled or not) Square,” I added. “Sounds like a blast, though, huh?” I said, lightly nudging her in the ribs.
“Ya, we’ll have to get drunk, though,” she decreed.
“Naturally,” I supplemented.
8 o’clock, New Years Eve rolled around, so I decided to text Oh My Darlin’ Clementine. “Wanna meet at Nam Miru in an hour and get som firewrks?” it read.
Upon meeting we entered a small potraviny close by. I zeroed in on the fireworks display right quick and got to work deciding which would supply the most concentrated fun for my money. I wound up getting a sizable batch of Roman Candles. Good range, lots of color, noise option: all good qualities.
After stocking an adequate arsenal we went about filling our bellies in a place called “The Whale.” I can’t seem to recall the Czech title, but it’s “Whale” in English. Gnarly joint I must say. Really rockin’ paint patterns clinging to the walls. And I think they were playing Metallica as we munched on our crepes. Quaint in a heavy metal kinda way.
From there we strolled on over to Old Town Square to see what festivities were brewing. There was some music and sh*it. As always it was bustling. People milling and chilling left and right. There was the occasional release of a bottle rocket or firecracker, but nothing major. I decided the time was ripe for some booze, so I pulled out one of the wine bottles I had stashed in my jacket pocket. With the pocketknife my pocket supplied I coerced the bottle into spilling its secrets.
One thing led to another and it seemed the first bottle’s friend wanted to join its companion’s kamikaze fate. So be it. I wasn’t about to argue. Just as we were about to finish that bottle we noticed-
“Hey look it’s almost midnight,” Clementine declared, nodding to the clock flanking the astronomical clock on the same tower.
The square was fuc*king packed to the brim, so it was a struggle to get into a better vantage point of the astro clock, but we managed.
“Alright, it’s almost midnight,” revealed Clementine.
A community countdown began, “10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…Happy New Y”-Kkkkkkeeeewwwww Ba Boooooom.
Just as Clementine and I were going in for the New Year kiss a large explosion sounded from a nondistinct direction. It was such a potent blast that it was difficult to tell where it came from specifically. All the electric lights around the square had burst, so it was hard to see, but it looked like the tower’s peak was f*ucking gone.
“Gggggggsssssshhhhh” we heard at our right.
“Holy fuc*kin’ shi*t. I think that’s the top o’ the tower,” I exclaimed. A little light was emanating from torches littering the square at restaurants and the like, so generality could be seen.
“Where?” Clementine asked squinting hard and leaning in the direction I was pointing. “I can’t really tell,” she confessed.
I pulled out my pack of Roman Candles and lit one up. As launch sequence commenced I pointed them in the direction I thought the destruction to be. The first shot sailed out and arced over the crumbled clock tower top. As the following shots illuminated the scene, dozens of crushed comrades could be counted. The tower top had landed in the pedestrian portion of the square, flattening a few people in the process.
“Good lord. Do you see that?” I asked Clementine without turning in her direction. It was difficult to peel my attention from the catastrophe not but 40 feet in front of us.
“Uuuuuuuhhhuuu,” she managed to wring out of her petrified being.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.” A set of ear piercing screams floated over to us. Our eyes had acclimated to the weak lighting, so when we turned in the direction of the scream’s origination we saw a disbelievable sight. The 3 foot tall figurines, that sandwich the astrological clock and ring bells/dance around whenever the hour strikes, had escaped their sedentary prisons and were wreaking havoc on the party goers below.
In the dim gloom I could see the little skeleton with the bell terrorizing a woman by rapping her on the head with its illicit instrument. I cracked. I broke into a sprint, sprung myself from the back of a crouching individual, caught hold of a chandelier that was only there for the purpose of my swinging on it, released, did a few backflips for effect while lighting a Roman Candle, and landed with a forward somersault. As I exploded from the somersault I locked the skeleton in my sights and proceeded to unleash a barrage of fairly Roman candles. As I ran towards that little sh*it, I flung my lighter up to my mouth and lit a cherry bomb I was saving for the combustion of some sort of food product bought in the square. Once I reached the skeleton I plopped the bomb in its open mouth and pulled out one of the golf clubs I’d been carrying around. I took aim, waited for the right moment and drove that son of a bitch’s skull into the whole of the sky.
When it reached the peak of its trajectory an impressive fireworks display ensued. Loud cheering greeted my ears. In the midst of my glorious moment I felt an explosion of pain at the crown of my head. I slowly sank into the depths of unconsciousness…To be continued…
The second installment of my New Year’s adventure. I rock a recently revived statue’s socks off, but the favor is returned with cunning diabolicability.
I was awoken from my unconscious state by a blast of funky, warm water. Sufficiently doused, I looked up and saw that someone’s cigarette smoke cloud had taken to raining once positioned above my head. It wasn’t the most pleasant wake up call, but it got the job done. I stood up, shoved my hair out of my face, and took a 360 look around. Things were still in a hectic state. I could see hordes of shadowed figures scurrying about in the faint lighting.
I cruised over to the spot I’d last seen Clementine, but she was not to be found. As I scanned the area, I could hear and just barely see a good deal of commotion coming from the northern end of the square. Things in my sector had started to simmer down. I think those 3 foot tall statuettes had captured the gaze of some pretty foxy string puppets across the avenue and were humping them with the vigor only several centuries of stifled sexual energy could produce.
With that situation collared I decided to mosey over to where the action was. It seemed I was going the wrong way down a one way street; I had to fight the flow of packs of people. I managed to part the sea of pedestrians to my immediate distaste. Once I’d gotten close enough to see what all the hubbub was about, I regretted it. For some strange reason, as the bell tolled twelve on that fatefull night the statue at that end of the square favored life. The Hussites and Protestants were actually working as a team. Putting religious differences aside to f*uck some sh*it up. Good for them…but…bad for us.
The old woman on the east side of the statue had dragged her frail frame from its stony nest and was slowly but surely “chasing” people. She was more just facing the masses and scraping along in their general direction, so that wasn’t much of a problem. Some of the, who I guessed to be the Protestants, were in destruct mode. They had extreme prejudice against the imprisonment of stone that’d kept them stable for decades so they were unleashing upon the already crumbled framework of the statue.
The only real problem was Mr. Jan Hus himself. I’m guessing he was a bit bitter about being burned at the stake, so he was in the mood for mayhem.
As I was approaching the scene he sprinted over to the Church of Our Lady before Tyn and began scaling the face to the top. He reached the crest just above the likeness of the Virgin Mary and started ripping hunks of coppery flesh from his being to hurl them on the panicking party people below. It was a chilling display of self debasement and sadism all wrapped into one tight little package. The only way it could’ve been worse was if he started peeing on people. Surprise surprise, right as that thought passed through my brain case, he unfurled his archaic trousers and went about sprinkling the crowds with his primeval peepee: a role reversal in the realm of defacement. A statue was taking to disrespecting passersby as opposed to the other way around.
That was the straw that broke the enamel in my teeth. I spun around several times muttering, “Come on, come on,” looking for something to trigger an idea. I caught sight of a large basin used by birds to bath at the base of the statue, and rushed over to it. I thanked my lucky stars it’d been dislodged by the recent commotion. I hoisted it above my head and staggered to a good launch zone.
“You know what they say Jan, ‘you are what you eat,’ and you’re about to eat shi*t,” I said more to myself than the defecating statue.
Satisfied with my cheesy one-liner I began the revolution. Slow at first, but after a couple spins I felt I was picking up a good amount of momentum. Content with the amount of centrifugal force I’d gathered at about the twentieth turn, I unleashed the ultimate frisbee. It hurled through the air with a slightly audible hum, and hit the bullseye with lethal accuracy. Ol’ Jan was caught unawares as the disk caught him under the chin. He flew backwards from his perch, landing on the slanted roof of the church. A great scraping, followed by a loud thud could be heard.
I brushed off my hands, congratulating myself for a job well done. With that, the sound of copper pounding rock rang in my ears. I turned around to see what the noise was about and saw Jan barreling through the stragglers remaining in the square. He breezed past me as I got into my Kuk Sool stance. Thank jeebus, ‘cause he would’ve rocked my fu*cking socks off. He was a freight train of fury.
He reached the base of the bell tower and did a directly vertical leap about sixty feet high. I followed his progress to see what he was up to and noticed that he was gathering something at the top of the tower. I squinted, trying to get a better view and realized the object he was throwing over his shoulder was a person. Whoever it was, seemed to be roused by the stir and began shouting something I couldn’t quite make out. It was definitely a woman’s voice but I couldn’t distinguish what she was screaming. It didn’t really sound like “help.”
Jan flung his body over the edge and landed on the ground with an earth shaking thud. Upon landing, the proximity of the screaming made it a bit more clear. “Mmelia, mmelia.” I still couldn’t tell what was being said so I sprinted towards the duo, seeking a better vantage point. As I ran the words rang true. “Mmelias…mmrnelius…ornelius…Cornelius”
“Oh my shi*t, that’s Clementine, “ I revealed to myself , picking up my stride. It was no use, my rival had a much wider girth and a much more pronounced source of energy. He leapt over the row of structures defining the boundary of Old Town Square and my Clementine was gone.
…to be continued…
The killer conclusion to my mighty triumvirate. It ends swell. Hmmm, that sounds quite like “It ends well,” making it difficult to decide which one my internal wordsmith prescribed. Eh, whatever…
There I stood, shoes on and all. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. I just kind of stared at the building Jan had sans-pole vaulted, confused by the angle of the sloping roof.
“Is thirty one percent really enough? I like the sound of thirty five. That’s a good number,” I educated myself with.
Snapping into the issue at hand I looked around for ways of finding out where Clementine had been kidnapped to. I took stock of a fair bit of calamity, but something caught my eye; the broken figure of a bedraggled old maid carrying her copper composition over to the KFC in Old Town East. I hot footed it over to her shifting layabouts and started riding her like a camel.
“This is definitely more like a Bactrian Camel than a Dromedary,” I said to myself.
“Chicken, chicken, chicken, oh…chicken,” was the only reply.
“Hmmm,” I thought. “Headin’ to KFC?” I asked after leaning down to her ear level.
“You f*uckin’ know it,” she answered.
“What’re you gonna get.”
“Not sure yet. I’ve gotta see how much cash I’ve got,” she said.
“Aha I see…what kind of cash did they use when you were made?” I questioned her.
“The _y__či_.”
“Ohhhh, interesting. Do you happen to have any of the current currency, the Koruny?” I said, digging into my pocket to give her a display.
“Uh,” she said, stopping to look at the items in my hand. “No, no I don’t think so.
I don’t think my pockets even open.”
“That’s a shame. How about I get you whatever chicken fancies a tickling by you, and you tell me where our mutual friend Jan went to. Is that cool with you?”
“Jan…why do you wanna know where he went?” she asked with squinting eyes.
“Uh…he lent me his camera so I could take a picture of this really cool poster, and he took off before I had the chance to give it back.”
“Oh well shi*t, sure. He likes to chill up at the castle.”
“Naturally,” I replied.
The old woman wanted a basket of popcorn chicken and a coke, so I did the deed of delivering the deserved delicacies. After catching the christening of her antique teeth, I put on my PF Flyers and ran all the way to the castle without stopping. It took me close to an hour. I wasn’t in the best shape.
When I got there, I noticed the guard that usually stares down the mortar between the cracks of the stone building across the street wasn’t there but was replaced by a pretty gnarly looking gargoyle. It was pacing back and forth with what looked to be pretty heavy intent. I thought about how I could surpass the demonic figure and settled on the oldest trick in the book. I picked up a stone and threw it up and over the beast, landing on its opposite side. In its momentary distraction I bolted past it like the wind, not looking back. I sprinted through the initial courtyard stooping, unsure of what I might find.
At the arched opening of the building segregating the main courtyard from the enterary courtyard, there sat a huddled figure, hugging his knees tightly and lightly rocking back and forth. I walked up and softly rested my fingertips on the man’s shoulder.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
He jerked his head back so his face locked eyes with mine only inches away. No reply was given, just a cold expressionless stare.
I asked “Are you alright?” again, just in case the man had been steeped in an impenetrable daydream.
No answer. “He must not speak English,” I mumbled to myself while turning my head to the side. “Aha,” I revealed with gusto as I stuck my hand in my right pocket and fished around. I pulled out a vile filled with pills of different shapes and colors. I dumped the lot into my hand and plucked one with a lion’s roaring head etched on the surface. “The tablet of tongues,” I told the pill in my left fingers. With that I tossed it in my mouth and performed an exaggerated swallowing motion. Pills don’t go down very easy without a chaser to lubricate the pipes.
The beauty of the tablet of tongues is that when swallowed, the recipient only has to speak in their most natural form and everyone within earshot hears a flawless translation in their strongest language and vise versa.
“Are you alright?” I asked again, hoping the third time would be the charm.
“Ooooh, I don’t know. I’ve been molested,” he admitted.
“Molested…by who?”
“More like by what. It was a towering giant of a statue that was holding a young woman hostage.”
“What did he do to you?” I asked.
His face turned red. “He gave me a wedgy,” he revealed, holding up the tattered remains of his underwear’s elastic band. “I’m a man of god damnit,” the clergyman added.
“Sh*it, that’s rough,” I consoled, lifting both eyebrows and taking a breath between my teeth. “And it’s atomic at that.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Well, I’m here to stop him. Do you know where he went to?” I questioned.
“Yes, he retired to the cathedral with his victim.”
“His victim…how did she look?” hearing about Clementine send me into a frantic state. “Do you think she was alright.”
“Yes, she looked distressed, but physically fine…yes very fine indeed…mmmm,” he mumbled, getting lost in his imagination.
“Good. I’m here to rescue her and put an end to Jan forever.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’m not exactly sure yet. I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“He has only one weakness. There is only one way to destroy him,” I was told.
“Oh ya? How’s that?”
“You must clip the toenail of the sixth toe on his left foot,” he said pulling off some sort of charm from around his neck.
“He has a sixth toe…weird,” I said, accepting the item held out to me.
I inspected a delicately decorated gold plated nail clipper. “Classy,” I noted.
“You must sever the toenail, only then will he be defeated.”
“Thanks a million, Cheech,” I said patting the man on the shoulder and lifting myself to my feet. “Let’s do this thing,” I said to myself, tightly grasping the utensil.
“May god be with you,” I heard call to me.
As I walked to the entrance of the cathedral I could hear music pouring through the cracks under the door. It sounded like old Jan was brushing up on his organ playing skills. I slipped past the door with the stealth of a slithering snake. There was Jan, facing the opposite direction whilst playing the organ. I scanned the room for Clementine. I found her a few feet to the left of the ancient instrument, curled into the fetal position and wrapped with rope.
I crawled across the floor, making certain not the slightest sound spilled from my movements. I pulled up to Clementine and stared at her delicate features, transfixed by her beauty. Once satiated, I put my finger to her mouth. Her eyes opened slowly and I followed my finger with my lips. After being lost in nirvana for an indeterminate amount of time, I pulled away raising my left hand gently to her right jaw/neck and swung my head around to her left ear. “It’ll be alright, I’m gonna go rock Jans world, right quick.” I heard the slightest utterance in reply. I swung back to face her, eyes deep in hers. I kissed her once more and pulled away mouthing, “I’ll be right back.”
I inched toward the musical statue on elbows. I situated myself directly below the bench it was sitting on and searched its feet for the sixth toe in question. I pinned its location and took the nail clippers off from around my neck. Jans feet were working the pedals, so I was going to have to be a fuc*king marksman. I ever so slowly brought the clipper to within striking distance. There was a pause in the foot action, so I stole the opportunity with haste and nipped the tip of the sixth nail. The music stopped abruptly. I scrambled from under the bench and checked the status of my nemesis. Jan was petrified with a smooth look of serenity strapped to his face. “Kind of anticlimactic,” I said to myself. “Oh well, can’t argue with that.”
I scurried over to Clementine and freed her from her bonds with the nail clippers I still clutched. We embraced tightly, locking lips and bodies like puzzle pieces. I stroked her hair as I whispered sweet nothings between kisses. Delightful.