Tag: Indie Publishing
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When he had finished laughing, Falcon Boy started explaining the joke to Ellis.
‘Goldfish have really short memories,’ he said, ‘so every time the goldfish swam past the frog, it forgot that it had already asked the question. This is why it asked the same question again and again.’ Falcon Boy paused to let the ‘profundity’ of his joke sink in.
‘This is also why,’ he continued, ‘when the frog asked the goldfish why did it keep asking the same question over and over again, the goldfish said that it didn’t. It couldn’t remember that it had.’
‘But it’s not funny,’ protested Ellis accurately.
‘You didn’t say you wanted a funny joke,’ said Falcon Boy with equal accuracy. ‘You asked for a joke. You didn’t say it had to be funny.’
‘And it wasn’t,’ replied Ellis, wishing she had kept her silly mouth shut.
‘Don’t worry,’ declared Falcon Boy, delighted to have an audience. ‘There’s plenty more where that came from. Do you want another one?’
‘No, thank you very much,’ said Ellis rather too quickly. ‘I don’t think I need you to say anything else just now.’ She stopped. ‘I think I know where you are.’
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero
She couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwell
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Falcon Boy laughed triumphantly and Ellis suddenly wished that she had just kept quiet. Falcon Boy interpreted Ellis’s response as a desire for more.
‘Perhaps you’ll get this one,’ he said excitedly. ‘What cheese do you use to hide a horse? Mascarpone. Why did the fish cry? Because the seaweed. How many women do you find in a monastery? Nun.’Falcon Boy was warming to the task. ‘What about a riddle?’ he asked. ‘If it takes a week to walk a fortnight, how many apples in a barrel of pears? I have three legs standing and four legs sitting. How many legs do I have when I go to sleep?
A green bean, a red ball and a yellow bicycle are in a blue bucket. Which one is broken? When I went to bed, I was the oldest man in the world. When I woke up, I wasn’t. What happened? Three men. One spade. Two holes. Discuss. I’m equal to, but not less than. I’m in and around, but not under. I’m about and between, but not nearly enough. How close am I?’
‘Enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ cried Ellis, echoing the thoughts of the entire planet, past, present and future. ‘I don’t need to hear any more.’
You probably feel the same way as Ellis. People say that laughter is the best medicine but these people haven’t heard what we have just heard. Jokes as bad as these are likely to make people ill, not make them feel better.
Falcon Boy laughed loud, long and heartily. The kind of laugh that is just so infuriating that anyone laughing this way should be fired into space strapped to a rocket, marooned on a desert island, forced to knock on every door in Panic Town to apologise in person, or be sprayed bright red with irremovable paint as a permanent reminder of how irritating their laugh really is.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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I warn you in advance that Falcon Boy may be reasonably good at some things, reasonable at other things and useless at other other things, but he is neither reasonably good nor reasonable at making up jokes, concocting riddles or telling them. He is simply useless.
Falcon Boy cleared his throat and though no one could see him, he still felt self-conscious enough to make sure that he was smiling. Presentation is always everything.‘There was a frog sitting on a stone, washing his trousers in the pond. A goldfish swam by.’
Falcon Boy paused. This would normally be the point when whoever he was telling the joke to would start shifting uncomfortably, looking at their watch and mumble something about catching a bus. When none of these things happened, Falcon Boy continued.
‘‘What are you doing, Mr Frog?’ asked the goldfish.
‘What does it look like?’ answered the frog.
A little later on, the same goldfish swam by again.
‘What are you doing, Mr Frog?’ asked the goldfish.
‘What does it look like?’ answered the frog.
The goldfish swam past several more times and each time, he asked the same question. Each time, the frog gave the same answer.
Eventually the frog got so annoyed that he stopped doing what he was doing and waited for the goldfish to swim past again. Sure enough, he didn’t have to wait long and this time it was the frog who asked the question.
‘Why do you keep asking me the same question each time you swim past?’ asked the frog.
‘I don’t,’ said the goldfish and swam away.’
All the while Falcon Boy had been telling his joke, Ellis tried to use the sound of his voice to tell her where he was hidden but the joke and its punchline made her stop still in her tracks.
‘I don’t get it,’ she told Falcon Boy. ‘I don’t get the joke.’
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Falcon Boy, as if he suddenly knew that he needed to reach out to Ellis and reassure her at this particular moment in time. ‘Why are you worrying about where you stand in relation to a seemingly indifferent world?’ He paused reassuringly. ‘You do know that none of this is your fault?’
Ellis was about to reply when she stopped herself. Aside from the indifferent world thing – which hadn’t really occurred to her – she was very impressed that Falcon Boy knew exactly how she was feeling even though he didn’t know anything about her.
Somehow, and she wasn’t really sure how (but perhaps it was directly related to a gift for ‘empathy’ that Falcon Boy believed he had suddenly and mysteriously acquired), it felt like Falcon Boy was much closer to Ellis than when he had been speaking to her earlier. She thought for a second.‘You sound like you are bit closer to me than when we were speaking earlier,’ she said.
‘I’m like that,’ said Falcon Boy proudly but mistakenly. ‘I seem to have suddenly and wonderfully acquired a real knack for feeling how people are really feeling.’
Ellis shook her head.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said.
Falcon Boy suddenly felt less proud.
‘Oh,’ he said, feeling slightly deflated. ‘You mean you don’t think I’m somehow closer to you emotionally now?’
Ellis wasn’t really sure what Falcon Boy was talking about. She thought he sounded confused.
‘Say something else but say something different,’ she said, looking up.
‘Why?’ asked Falcon Boy
Ellis looked around.
‘Keep talking,’ she told the superhero. Ellis had the feeling that Falcon Boy was very close.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ellis replied. ‘Just keep talking.’
‘Should I tell a joke?’ asked Falcon Boy hopefully.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Ellis recklessly. ‘Do whatever you like. Just keep talking.’
And so Falcon Boy cleared his throat and told Ellis one of his favourite made-up jokes of all time
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Sometimes this uncertainty can make us feel uncertain for far longer than a simple while, and this was exactly how Ellis was feeling right now. As many of you have perhaps also experienced, feeling uncertain also colours how we feel about the future.
‘What is going to happen to Panic Town if I don’t find Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird?’ Ellis said to herself. ‘Will everyone blame me if things turn out really badly for everyone?’ Her poor small heart began to sink.Ellis wasn’t the only one feeling worried right now. I am very concerned about putting a young girl in such a terrible position. I’m also making her feel these really big and bad-feeling feelings.
Perhaps I should have left her happily at home? Are people going to start blaming me for how she is feeling? Now I’m starting to worry. It’s getting contagious.
What do I really matter to a world that might be too busy to really care about me? Should I be feeling these bad-feeling feelings? Is there anybody out there even reading this? Is there anybody out there who will ever read this?
With both of us now overwhelmed by a glimpse of our smallness in the vastness of such a giant world, I feel really bad.
I thought that this would just be a lovely adventure for Ellis. I thought she would see some funny things and meet some lovely people, before going home to her lovely life. But now look what has happened. There isn’t much that’s lovely about having to save the world from impending doom.
Instead of evil super-criminals and angry robots, perhaps Ellis should be having great fun with talking ducklings and cuddly kittens before going for a small walk down a country lane with an overly-protective sheepdog called Wayne, and then heading home for a jolly tea of apples, cake and milk, lovingly prepared by a kindly farmer’s wife called Mrs Bess.
What do you think?
I think we need someone to do something very quickly to dispel all this doom and gloom and make Ellis feel better about herself, her situation and her position in relation to the world. But not just for Ellis. I would like to feel better about things as well.
If this is going to happen, then it had better happen straight away before we are all too depressed to continue reading (or writing).
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Despite her usual self-assurance, a similar thing once happened to Pearly Stockwell in Pearly and the Harvest Moon. A mysterious meteor shower just happens to brainwash the whole of Fallstown. Pearly wakes the next morning to find that she was the only person who hadn’t been turned into an emotionless shell of her former self.
Pearly walks through the streets of Fallstown, desperately trying not to show emotion as she seeks to determine the cause of the shower. She feels alone in the world and it isn’t a nice feeling. Everyone looks so blank and dull. They smile, but Pearly can’t see anything behind their eyes.Even despite the fact that the blank dullness that now confronts Pearly is not too much different from how the town had been before, Pearly still realises that things need to be returned to how they used to be.
Eventually, as always, Pearly triumphs, by remembering that the autumnal equinox was rapidly approaching. This allows her to realise that the rays of the next harvest moon would be strong enough to reverse the effects of the meteor shower and as she does so, her feelings of complete and utter aloneness are banished once again.
‘I’m not alone anymore,’ says Pearly as the moon’s rays begin to work their magic on the townsfolk of Fallstown and they return to the people that they had been before.
As she remembered this story, Ellis was able to take some comfort from it but what did she know about rays from the moon and meteor showers? More importantly, how would any of this help her find Falcon Boy?
We have all felt occasionally, or more regularly than that, that the world is full of more questions than answers. Indeed, if Dr Don’t Know gets his way, then this is exactly what the future is going to look like for all of us.
Uncertainty is an uncertain thing and causes us all to be unsure about how we feel about things sometimes. We start to worry about who we are, and what we really mean and matter to a world that seems too busy to really care about us at all.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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The pass that Ellis found gave her unlimited access to all areas of the stadium. Showtime was rapidly approaching and everyone was so busy that no one really paid too much attention to a young girl wandering around on her own.
Hundreds of people swarmed backstage, some pushing boxes on wheels, others telling those pushing the boxes where to push them. Other people were up ladders, fixing things.
Up on the stage, she could see technicians straightening microphone stands and taping their cables safely to the floor. Ellis saw that most people were walking normally but every now and then, someone would be limping as they went about their business.
Television crews were also setting up, and Ellis could see large cameras being moved into position, ready to transmit tonight’s concert all around the world. Ellis walked past a giant mixing desk with more buttons and dials than she had ever seen before in her life.There was so much going on that Ellis began to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of her task. When you don’t know where to start looking for something you know you really need to find, it can be a very overwhelming thing. Everything seems too much and nowhere seems like the right place to begin. This is how Ellis was beginning to feel.
‘Mind out, kid,’ someone shouted as they dragged a trolley past.
‘Go home to your Mum and Dad,’ said a long-haired man wearing a baseball cap and carrying a clipboard. ‘This is adult pop stuff.’
‘If you are not part of the crew or one of the acts, I need you to vacate this area immediately,’ said a big, broad man with ‘Security’ written on his t-shirt.
‘If you want an autograph, you need to apply via the website,’ said a harassed-looking lady with a telephone in each hand.
Tired, scared, and beginning to wish she hadn’t been quite so brave in the first place, Ellis found a quiet corner backstage and sat down next to a massive lorry. She felt like crying.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Conveniently for Ellis, and especially conveniently for me, Panic Town Municipal Stadium is right next to the park and, conveniently again for all concerned, the entrance can be found just behind Falcon Boy’s house.
This means that Ellis was already in the vicinity and irrespective of which option you chose to get her to the park in the first place, it at least allowed her the opportunity to look for Falcon Boy without me, or you, needing to rely upon another creaky plot device.
‘You need to get to into the stadium and try to find out what is going on,’ said Falcon Boy. ‘I fear that Dr Don’t Know is planning something rotten for the concert this evening.’
‘Okay,’ said Ellis, ‘I’m on my way.’
Ellis walked with the confidence of a child who has suddenly acquired a special purpose for the day, and she felt just like Pearly Stockwell in When Toyshops Attack.
Much to the delight of everyone, a new toyshop had opened in Fallstown.
‘I can’t wait,’ says Windy to his brothers. ‘I can’t think of anything better than spending some time browsing in a toyshop.’
‘Better than catching a criminal?’ Wes snorts. ‘The only toy I like is a cricket bat and that is only because they are good for whacking crooks.’
‘I once disguised myself as a giant teddy bear and hid in a toyshop for two weeks,’ says Wanderley.
‘We know,’ say Wes and Windy, laughing together. ‘We were the poor fools who had to try and find you.’
‘I’ll think you’ll find it was me who actually found him,’ Pearly corrects the brothers. ‘It was also me who revealed the truth about Blinko the Balloon Magician and his plot to flood the magic accessories market with cheap foreign imports.’
‘We know,’ sigh all three of the Interesting Twins together.
All of this happens, of course, in Pearly Squares the Magic Circle. Blinko turns out to be in the pay of Export International, a nefarious multinational company intent on dominating global markets through skulduggery, lies and blackmail.
One of their shadowy operatives had convinced poor old gullible Worcester Knudsen, a retired civil servant now barely scraping a living as Blinko the Balloon Magician, that his bookings would treble if he used a new brand of super-modelling inflatables.
Needless to say, Pearly eventually gets to the bottom of the goings-on and Worcester receives a four-year prison sentence for his part in the plot. As always happens, in real life and in stories like this, Export International could not be sufficiently implicated in the scandal and is allowed to continue its financial finagling for another day.
On the day of the toyshop opening, Fallstown is stunned to discover that the only things on its shelves are thousands and thousands of tiny toy helicopters.
After some clumsy plot exposition involving a new employee at the Fallstown Telephone Exchange and a pair of open windows, it is eventually revealed that the shop’s proprietors, Kurt and Irena Flue, are a husband and wife spy team, hell-bent on using Fallstown as a launch pad for their hundred-thousand-strong toy helicopter fleet.
During a daring raid on the warehouse at the back of the shop, the Interesting Twins are captured and Pearly has to rely upon her native wit and big city sense to free them and save the country from being destroyed by the fleet of tiny toys. Needless to say, she succeeds. Ellis felt sure that she was going to do something similar.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Remember the Queue? All that gloomy-sounding stuff you read about in the first few pages? About things not working? About the world not spinning properly anymore? That stuff that sounded like the beginning of the best film that has never been made (yet)? Now is the time for you to know more about what has been going on.
In case you haven’t guessed by now – and even if you have – Dr Don’t Know is planning to use Doodah’s homecoming concert to cause a whole world of trouble for the world. Disguised Troublebots have joined the hundreds of people who are helping to set up the concert, and even as we speak are putting the finishing touches to Dr Don’t Know’s terrible plan.Here is the plan in full:
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Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and hidden them in a special soundproof and lightproof container lorry parked in the stadium. He has left them enough food and drink for a week. Working on the principle that stolen letters are probably best hidden in plain sight, Dr Don’t Know feels very confident that nobody will think to look for them so close to the scene of the big crime he is about to commit. (Obviously, he’s not so confident now.)
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Disguised Troublebots have infiltrated all aspects of the preparations for Doodah’s concert, including some disguised as backing dancers. They’ve filled the stadium with special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs connected to the stadium’s sound system.
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Four Troublebots will kidnap Doodah, tie them up and keep them somewhere out of the way. With the band out of the way, the four Troublebots will then go on stage disguised as Doodah.
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As the show reaches its finale and the introduction to One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good begins, Dr Don’t Know will appear on stage via a hidden trapdoor and use a secret code word to activate the special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs.
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The special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs will detonate and paralyze everyone in the stadium, as well as the rest of the world as it watches via satellite and the Internet. The whole world will be paralyzed for exactly nineteen hours, forty-three minutes and thirteen seconds.
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With the whole world unable to move, Dr Don’t Know’s army of Troublebots will then steal the answer to every single question that has ever been asked in every single language around the world. Answers to questions that have yet to be asked will also be stolen.
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The stolen answers will be encrypted and filed away on a special miniature planet hidden just behind the Moon. Dr Don’t Know has had this planet built especially for this purpose, and even though the building of this planet was one of the many reasons why his criminal empire has now been drastically downsized, once the world reawakens, no one, not even scientists and people with telescopes, will be able to find it.
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When the world wakes up, it will be a very different place. Nobody will remember the answer to any of the questions that have been asked since the world began.
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From then on until the end of infinity, the only way to find the answer to anything will be via a new ticketing and appointment service overseen by Dr Don’t Know. This will make him the most important person in the Universe, full stop. Exclamation mark!
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The new rules are self-explanatory. You fill out the required form in triplicate, ensuring that you adhere to the one question per person guidelines. Any question containing six words or more will be instantly deleted by the system. Each family member must fill out a separate form. Only one question per application is admissible. Should you wish to know the answer to something else, you will need to make a separate application.
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Once submitted, your application will be processed and provided that all the appropriate criteria are met, you will eventually be allocated an appointment. You are advised to arrive well ahead of your allocated appointment time as you can expect significant delays due to lengthy queuing times and probable staff shortages due to inevitable cost-cutting activities.
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You arrive at your designated queuing station and begin to queue. You queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue.
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An extremely significant and lengthy period of time later, in some cases whole lifetimes, you are stunned to find yourself at the front of the queue. A small sealed booth with a single door is there. The door opens automatically and you step inside. You see a three-legged stool and a speaking tube attached to the wall.
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Your moment has finally arrived. You sit on the stool. You lean forward. You ask your question into the tube. You make sure that you speak slowly and clearly because any inaudible questions will not be answered. You can expect a small delay following the asking of your question. Eventually, a badly-recorded voice will simply say ‘Don’t Know’.
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At no point during this process will any discussion be entered into regarding any elements of the process. If you wish to discuss your concerns in relation to the process, or any part of it herein, then you should do so in writing via a separate online system.
It doesn’t take a doctor, dentist or dinner lady to tell you that the world is well and truly doomed.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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BARNABY TAYLOR 