Run Through The Jungle

After the feast, it was time to watch the magma giant wrasslin. So we all climbed into our asbestos suits, drank some ice water and took our seats behind the heat shields. I won't bore ya with all the details. Not to say the match was borin or anything. Far from it. There was lava and fire flyin everywhere. Magma giants was risin out of the middle of the volcano, hurlin rocks and fireballs at one another, gettin each other into fiery bear hugs and explodin like beer cans filled with gasoline and then shot out of a water balloon sling shot. I ain't sayin I done that, or that I recommend doin that but I heard, from this guy I know (his name's Michael), that if you can do it and manage to keep your hands and face intact after a can of gasoline goes off five feet from you, singein off all your body hair and a good portion of your skin to go with it, requirin months of exhaustive plastic surgery, after which you look a little like Elizabeth Taylor melted and your skin's a hundred or so shades lighter than it used to be and you gotta put up with people all over the world tellin you that you're startin to look like a white woman instead of the black man you used to be and there's all this speculation about what happened and you can't tell em all the truth because there's kids worldwide that look up to you and you're afraid that, if you were to tell the truth, there'd be a worldwide rise in the number of kids hurt by explodin beer cans full of gasoline and you can't abide by that because you just love the children, then it can be a wicked good time. Like I says, Michael told me that. I ain't advocatin doin it, though. There's just too many risks.

I guess in that way, flaming cans fill of gasoline is a little like watchin a magma giant wrasslin match. They're both pretty risky in a gettin-plastic-surgery-to-replace-1/3-of-your-skin sorta way. I only says that because, just as I was gettin ready for Waldo and Jimmy to pay up on the bet we made, a splotch of magma broke off one of the giants, sailed over the heat shield and landed not three feet from us, ignitin our snacks. We jumped up and tried gettin out of the way, but then another blob landed not a foot on the other side of us. I turned to see what kinda accident it was and saw that the giants was makin balls of magma and INTENTIONALLY lobbin em our direction.

"Holy crow!" I yelled, "We best get up on out of here!"

And so we did. We started runnin away from the wrasslin ring just as fast as our ten legs could carry us, with fire fallin down all around us. Waldo was runnin so fast that his whole head started flappin backwards and hittin himself in the back. He kept reachin back and tryin to pull it back up, but it kept flyin backwards. He looked sorta like a pez dispenser with a broken spring in a wind tunnel. Only this must have been licorice flavored pez because it was black as night spent blindfolded under a velvet Elvis painting. I don't know which direction we'd headed, or even really how far, but by the time the blobs of fiery death stopped rainin around us, we was deep in the Hawaiian jungle. And believe you me, that ain't a place you want to end up when one of your unicorn friends has his head all floppin to the side, showin whole other head inside that one. I got to wonderin if maybe unicorns had heads like russian dolls, just head after head, gettin smaller and smaller until, way down inside, there's candy.

I didn't get to follow that train of thought because, before I could decided if it'd be more likely to be hard or chocolate candy, Jimmy looked around and shouted, "What was that all about?"

"I dunno," said Waldo, "but I heard some intelligence that said the magma giants were suspected of discovering our alliance with the ice giants and took poorly to it. It was all word-of-mouth stuff, so it wasn't actionable. But it now appears they're out to get us for some reason."

Jimmy turned to look at him, "You can say that again!" Then he saw the floppy head.

"Um, Waldo..." he gestured towards his head. "It's..it's off."

Waldo's inner head looked at his outer head. "Ah hell," he burst out. Then he looked at me.

This one time, I was at a family reunion. I was feelin right jovial and tellin some jokes. You know, keepin the party goin. Then I told this joke about a snake which I thought was hilarious, but my cousin Maureen thought was in bad taste. It turns out her sister Cynthia had found herself a snake by the side of the road in the winter and taken it home to nurse back to health. They lived pretty happily all winter but, when spring came, that snake bit her and then had the temerity to blame it on Cynthia's own ignorance. Well, turns out that Maureen had just come from the hospital, where she was visitin Cynthia and wasn't in a mood to hear no snake jokes. Had I known, and known that the funeral would be a week later, I prolly woulda just told my bear joke. But I didn't know and so I told the snake joke and the look that Maureen shot me when I finished the snake joke was, up until Waldo looked at me, the scariest look I'd ever seen.

Waldo's look was, I would estimate, eight and a half times worse that Maureen's, especially accompanied with the words, "Here's as good a place as any."

He and Jimmy unzipped their own bodies, which I was ready to chalk up to another unicorn talent, and stepped out. I got a good look at em in the light and figured it out.

"Wait just a cotton pickin minute!" I shouted, putting my hands out. "You boys ain't unicorns! You look like ninjas!" Then I saw the platypus embroidered on their suits and my heart sank.

Jimmy just nodded. "That's right, Pat, We're ninjas."

I sighed deeply. "Yeah, yeah you are. But how'd you know I'd be here?"

Waldo explained, "Our informants told us all about your new 'ability' Pat. We know you can split yourself to move through space and time. And we also know how much you love going to the various Mauis around. Our leadership, in their infinite wisdom, placed ninjas on every Maui we could find in order to ambush you. All we had to do was wear these stupid unicorn costumes for three weeks, learn how to vomit rainbows and wait. I must say, I'm glad you've chosen our world to be ambushed on. We will be rewarded handsomely when we return your head to the Great Clan Council."

It sounded almost air tight, but I found the flaw. "You seem to have me," I told em. "But what's to stop me from just teleportin my big fluffy beard on out of here?"

Jimmy looked at Waldo and winked. "If I may."

"Be my guest," responded the other ninja.

"That green stuff in the crystal skull? That destroyed all the supersymmetry in the elementary particles you were relying on to transport you from place to place. Now, with no particle association, your particles no longer share quantum spin with the other particles elsewhere in the universe."

"I understood very little of that," I admitted.

"It's no jump juice," he summarized.

"That I understood."

"Good," Waldo interrupted, drawin his sword. "I think you'll understand what this means as well."

He drew his sword back and swung. I was focusin on the sword, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jimmy throwin somethin shiny. I figured it was a ninja star aimed for my eye or my heart or somewhere else vital.

I've had a good run. And if I die anywhere, it might as well be on Maui. I mean, I'd prefer to have a little time to say good bye to Frank and the rest of my family, instead of just disappearin into nothingness. I would also like to have made a dent in Clan Platypus, but, like I said before, I ain't really cut out for fightnin ninjas, I'm just not fast enough. And my senses just aren't good enough. I spose I deserve to go like this for gettin tied up in this whole mess.

These were the things I was thinkin when I should have been noticin what was goin on around me. Like, first, I shoulda noticed that Jimmy and Waldo were frozen in place, Waldo's sword millimeters from my throat and Jimmy's ninja star nearly pokin me in the eye. I should also have been noticin there was a giant grey cigar-lookin thing covered in blinkenlights hoverin a hundred feet or so above me. But I didn't notice any of that until the blinding light hit me and I was lifted into the air, up into the belly of the cigar. But then, the only thing I noticed was Douggy and Alistair breathin a sigh of relief.

Douggy yelled, "Thank goodness, Pat! We got you in the nick of time!"

Alistair told me, "Welcome aboard the Deus Ex Machina Pat!"

Then I needed to sit down.