Tag: Superhero
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As the two superheroes lay blinking in the light, Ellis thought they both looked slightly lost. Falcon Boy stood up, dusted himself down and offered a gauntleted hand for Ellis to shake.
‘Ellis, on behalf of ourselves, the town, the surrounding area, the country, the globe and the entire solar system, we would like to thank you very much for rescuing us.’
Falcon Boy thought that the time was right for him to sound dignified.‘Indeed,’ he continued gravely, ‘I would like to think that your rescuing us will somehow be pivotal in preventing the universe from losing its long-established and fundamental equilibrium, and thereby falling into apocryphal disarray.’
Ellis wasn’t really sure what he was talking about and hoped that he wasn’t about to tell another joke. Falcon Boy was on a roll now.
‘Bewilder Bird and I are both convinced that Dr Don’t Know is up to absolutely no good, and that our being kidnapped is just the start of some kind of cunning and despicably malevolent master-plan to cause extensive chaos, wreak real havoc and generally make everything not very nice.’
Falcon Boy finished speaking. Bewilder Bird nodded his agreement with Falcon Boy’s assessment of the situation.
Ellis wasn’t one for making snap judgements about people. She preferred to take her time and get to know them. Her initial impressions of the men were reasonably favourable but she did find herself feeling surprised at the sight of Falcon Boy suddenly standing stock-still like an old, wonky statue while Bewilder Bird flexed his biceps.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero
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First, you need to speak to someone and explain the problem. If they accept that the problem is one that they are prepared to deal with – and Bewilder Bird couldn’t be sure whether the mistake with the measurements was his or not – then you need to pack the product back up again and take it to the nearest post office.
Then, you then have to wait to see if the company are happy with the condition of the returned product and happy to issue a refund. If they aren’t, then you will need to enter into more correspondence and possibly eventually need to speak to an ombudsman and/or have the whole issue settled in the small claims court.The whole thing just seemed like too much trouble for Bewilder Bird to bother.
Furthermore, whilst he was deciding what sort of superhero he was going to be, Bewilder Bird took the decision to be the strong and silent type and vowed that no one would ever hear his voice. A vow of this magnitude would necessarily exclude making telephone calls to mail order companies so Bewilder Bird decided to keep the boots.
For some people, the fact that Bewilder Bird never speaks is seen as a sign of his strength. For others, myself included, this silence makes things very awkward when you bump into him on the streets of Panic Town.
Just like the boots, but with more success measurement-wise, Bewilder Bird’s outfit had also been custom-made and consists of a red superhero bodysuit with the letters ‘BB’ sewn onto a golden shield on his chest. This is worn with a long golden cloak that is tattered at the edges. A simple golden handkerchief covers half his face.
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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Where does this leave Bewilder Bird?
We should probably see Bewilder Bird as a bonus. He embodies the living, breathing realisation of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free principle that generates nine-tenths of all the transactions in the Panic Town Shopping Centre and Retail Park.
I’m not being cruel when I say this. The simple fact of these paragraphs is more than enough to demonstrate that just like his friend, but possibly for a slightly different reason, Bewilder Bird has still been imbued with the same kind of extraordinariness as his partner.If you need any more convincing then you have to consider the fact that were things any different here then this book would be called Falcon Boy versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of the Planets. And it isn’t.
Bewilder Bird suits his name perfectly. Take his boots, for example. They were designed to look like a bird’s foot but a simple error with the measurements he sent to the mail order company meant that when they arrived in the post, the talons were slightly too long. This makes it very hard for him to run properly whilst wearing them.
I know what you are thinking. He should have sent them back straight away. This is easy to say but Bewilder Bird, like a lot of us, found that the whole sending-things-back-thing can seem like too much trouble.
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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Having been stuck in the back of the lorry for some time, our two favourite superheroes looked even more crumpled than they normally do.
Falcon Boy was not much taller than Ellis. He was still wearing his beak-hat-mask and a yellow t-shirt with the feather logo surrounding his initials. His trousers were covered in dust and his stout hiking boots were in need of a polish. When Ellis looked closely, she could see the beginnings of a moustache growing on his top lip.There was nothing about Falcon Boy that would cause anyone to think that he was capable of much, really, let alone saving the world. As Falcon Boy would tell you himself, albeit rather too grandly, he was just an ordinary person who had taken it upon himself ‘to be doing extraordinary things’.
Actually, as we are all aware, Falcon Boy’s ‘extraordinary things’ so far don’t amount to much more than rescuing an elderly gardener from a tough of toughs. Since then, his career had been more of a matter of being seen than actually being seen to be doing things, extraordinary or otherwise.
This means that the sole justification for his continued existence is the perfect example of Panic Town’s fascination with celebrities. It is more a case of him being in the right place at the right time that created the whole mythology that now surrounds him than it was him dazzling the world with daring feats of derring-do.
If you follow the logic of this argument, then you might further consider the possibility that his subsequent kidnapping by Dr Don’t Know was actually because he was in the right place and the wrong place at both the right time and the wrong time, at the same time. However, you probably don’t need to follow the logic of this argument too closely. It will probably hurt your head.
Whether rightly or wrongly, it is a simple statement of fact that Falcon Boy, just like we decided with Ellis earlier, had been imbued with an extraordinariness that perhaps he might not have been imbued with, were he not central to this particular story.
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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And she did.
Ellis had stopped next to the lorry. It was an ordinary articulated lorry that had been parked up like all of the other ordinary articulated lorries that had been parked up backstage. Nothing about it was in any way suspicious, but somehow it still seemed different.
‘This is where Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird have been hidden,’ she suddenly realised.‘And – I – have – found –them!’
The relief flooded through her like a rush from the sort of sugary drink that she was never allowed to drink.
‘I – have – found –them!’
Ellis looked around, expecting something horrible to happen, like a booby-trapped spring with a boxing glove on it, a very loud and scary alarm complete with spinning, flashing lights, or an enormous arrow made of light bulbs pointing straight at her head. She waited but nothing happened.
‘I have found you,’ she whispered to Falcon Boy. ‘I know where you both are.’
‘Where?’ asked Falcon Boy excitedly. ‘Where have you found us?’
‘Here,’ exclaimed Ellis, excitedly. ‘I have found you both here.’
‘Where is ‘here’?’ asked Falcon Boy plaintively.
‘Here is where,’ replied Ellis triumphantly. ‘That is where here is.’
And then she realised that Falcon Boy didn’t know where here was. It was her turn to talk slowly and carefully.
‘You are both imprisoned inside an articulated lorry, backstage at the Doodah concert. I am standing outside the lorry talking to you.’
Ellis looked over her shoulder, still convinced that something bad was about to happen.
‘I need to get you out straight away,’ she said.
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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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 #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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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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