The Ballad of Horace and Trixie


 Horace was his name. He arrived one evening on an unmanned rickshaw as 
 the townspeople were walking home from work. 


 As he rolled haughtily through the town, a most pungent odor wafted from
 betwixt Horace's naked toes, filling the night air, not to mention the 
 moist nostrils of the citizenry. 

 "FISHMONGER!" they cried lustily, their gleaming eyes turned heavenward, 
 "THE FISHMONGER IS HERE!" 


 And as the dew-infested bud of the daisy so patiently reveals its pollen-
 encrusted stamen of infinite joy, so too did the immeasurably small 
 follicles deep within Horace's toes burst forth, giving birth to wee 
 tadpoles which, before the townspeople's eyes, grew into middle-aged frog- 
 steeds and donned the rickshaw harness with great speed. And with much 
 pomp, the frog-steeds raised to their lips their perfect white trumpets,
 blaring forth a dazzling fanfare of everlasting beauty.

  
 Oafish grins of delight spread cheek to cheek across the faces of the 
 ignorant farmers and their illiterate children as Horace, now swathed in 
 a great gleaming cape by his butler, Frogmorton, rose to his majestic 
 fullness of height, and placing a great brass bullhorn to his trembling 
 lips cried: "A Rodeo! A Rodeo my children's children! Where Horace, the
 mightiest wrangler in the Urals will do battle with the most nefarious of 
 Mother Nature's evildoers! Come one, come all!" 

 
 "One fish for all who renounceth land meat!" bellowed Horace's fat face, 
 and once again, the feeble-minded citizenry erupted in confused joy. 

 "Oh, mighty Horace! Praise His name!" screeched the abyssmally uneducated
 villagers. "Show us the way, Grandfather!" 

 "This way, assholes! Tauraloo! Tauraloo!" Frogmorton chortled into the 
 great bullhorn. And at once, a crystal scepter appeared in his greasy 
 fist, and he led them down the filthy road towards the town stables, as 
 the Frog-steeds lifted Horace and his fanciful rickshaw into the air on  
 winged, webbed feet.
 
 And for each sheep, cow, and piglet murdered, each muttonloin, beefsteak 
 and porkchop discarded along the way, the heavens parted, and one perfect,
 fresh flounder descended towards Earth. Also, the enchanted bowtie of
 Frogmorton dazzled all who dared lay eyes upon it. 


 And so the fish rained heavy and Frogmorton's hearty chortles danced on 
 the air, causing a great happiness to to fill the otherwise completely 
 empty heads of the peasantry. But beneath the banner of such a strident
 warmonger as Horace, such things cannot last... 

 All at once a great darkness overcame the procession, casting a pall over 
 even Fair Frogmorton's festively magic neckwear. The pungently delectable 
 odor of soggy fur broke over the helpless fools and their charismatically
 insane leader like great, stinky tidal waves over helpless, incredibly 
 stupid rocks.
 
 A tremulous cry went up: "Trixie! Trixie is come! The Great Man-Faced Dog-
 Beast is upon us! All is lost! ALL IS LOST!" A frantic madness overcame 
 the exceptionally dim-witted, droolingly moronic dotards of the citizenry,
 sending them into a panic--stripping, urinating and lashing out with their
 fish like so many naked, peeing, fish-wielding cattle, hopelessly waiting 
 for merciful slaughter. 

 For there in the road stood mighty Trixie, beast of legend, dog with the 
 face of a man. Even proud Horace felt his chapped anus clench in horror at 
 the sound of each terrible dogfart that ripped from Trixie's bowels like a 
 furious gale, stinking of vengeance and polish sausage. 

 "Who here has dared renounceth Land-meat?" Trixie gowled between curiously
 human lips, shiny with sweet dog spittle. "SPEAK NOW!" 


 Porcelain screams were etched into faces and crickets were chirping in the
 spacious craniums of the catatonic, iron-rich peasants. With thick 
 eyebrows raised, Trixie turned to the hemorrhoidal fishmonger, whose face 
 now drooped bashfully to his unsavory, sagging breasts. The frog-steeds 
 looked on nervously.

 "What say you, Horace?" chortled the decadent, flatulent man-dog. Once 
 again, his muscular sphincter flexed, and a fresh, thick fog rolled through 
 the populace. For a moment, all was silent, and time slowed to a monotonous
 crawl.

 Many hours went by as a single ray of light patiently appeared on the 
 rolling moors. The clouds had spread once more.

 Years later, those whose synapses had not yet ceased to fire recalled with
 provincial zeal that it had fallen from the heavens like a bolshoi 
 ballerina.
 
 The Great Albino Flounder, its infared eyes bleeding in a technicolor 
 rainbow, hovered thrashing above their heads, drenching the hills in rich,
 pungent entrails of an unknown origin. And from under his dainty parasol, 
 a shellshocked Frogmorton screamed frantically into his blood-soaked 
 bullhorn: "The Final Battle has begun!"


 At the lusty call of Horace's apallingly entrail-smattered captain-of-arms, 
 a great howl erupted from Trixie's maw, mingling unpleasantly with the 
 flatulent roars of his mighty bowels. And on came his hordes, answering his
 beckons. 

 Perhaps from the very bones of the earth itself reared Trixie's massive 
 army, land meats of all kinds, thrust from the ground like shoots of corn,
 sending a tremor of fear through Horace and his unsupported bosoms. 
 Hamhocks arose from the turbid soil, weilding axes and maces, alongside the 
 craftier kielbasas with their short swords and knives. And here! a strip of
 bacon winging overhead screaming its symphony of doom! and there! a full 
 rack of lamb wheeling great constructs and war machines of infinite terror.
 And LO! all who looked upon this rising swell of protein-enriched troops 
 shook with fear, but rage also.

 Behind Horace, Frogmorton turned to his own horde, sending a rush of 
 jollity through his bowtie, dazzling the neanderthal peons of the 
 citizenry. In response, white kunckles tightened their clutch on slippery
 fishtails, toothless mouths blurted incomprehensible, but nevertheless 
 agressive, inanities, and many, many bowels and bladders were evacuated 
 into already heavily soiled slacks.

 "ONWARD MY MORONIC GRANDCHILDREN!" Cried Horace, finding his courage amidst 
 a sea of infirm flesh and painfully cracked anus, "Onward to great victory! 
 For the Flounder is above us! and rains its chum upon our heads! and the 
 sea comes! THE SEA COMES!"

 And surely enough, around the leg-warmer clad ankles of the citizenry, 
 water was gathering, and a great roar, a roar equalling the might of 
 Trixie's sphincter, a roar of angry water and unfocused idiocy was coursing
 through the soil. Deep, deep, but closer still and coming on quickly... 


 The musical chime of heavy steel colliding with hollow cranium rang out 
 over the hillocks as the meaty foot soldiers recited 4th century French
 poetry.  But the heart-warming, meat-loving melodies acquired a sorrowful
 twinge as the colossal, flounder-shaped tsunami rose far into the
 stratosphere, draping Trixie's fleshy minions in shadow. 

 Though a healthy half of the townsdunces had been mercilously slaughtered 
 by the armed land-meats, a wide and sinister grin now stretched across the
 snot-stained lips of mighty Horace. And tossing his waste-encrusted briefs
 into the air, he called out to one and all, "Oh Land Meats! May the scales 
 of justice surround your flaky new flesh! For the Sea Meats have risen 
 this day, and the Great Meat Jihad that decends upon us shall spill for 
 the last time the blood of the fallen ones, cow to squirrel, well-done to
 rare! Death to Trixie! DEATH to the legg'ed! The dining table of victory 
 shall be chock full-o-plankton this night!"
 
 And with that, the menacing wave decended, and tender land flesh was 
 eviscerated by the piercing tail of the ray, the sharp and crafty barnacle, 
 and the gnashing jaws of the irate barracuda.  

 Frogmorton, donning a new effeminate pink-and-yellow sash, approached the
 frantic Trixie with renewed agility, and taunted him laughingly with his
 mesmerizing bowtie at length. And much to the shock of his hordes, his 
 man-dog eyelids soon grew heavy, and he drifted out of consciousness with
 Earth-shattering flatulence which bubbled towards the surface of the 
 tumultuous Jihad-sea in a pea green air pocket, murdering each and every 
 wayward Sea Meat in its path. 

 EPILOGUE

 Amongst the meatfolk it is said that the silence of death is the silence 
 of a coffin. Rosewood. Or metal and plastic. Formaldehyde or Freon. It is
 thick, heavy, impenetrable and dense. It echoes and it is cold. Lowering
 across all, it cast an embracing stillness over the glowing garmentry of
 fallen Frogmorton, felled by flatulence--the Last and Greatest casualty 
 of Trixie's mighty methane arsenal. Creeping deftly, it calmed the
 warmongering anus of Trixie, smoothing the viscous puddles of saliva
 collecting where his mighty mandibles met the Earth, where his princely 
 man-dog head finally fell--everywhere, the silence.

 Silence follows victory. Silence follows defeat. The Landmeats had fallen 
 to their seafaring lords. But the silence did not whisper such things. 
 Mingling in the rotting earth were the waters of the sea the red blood of 
 the flesh. Lying still where they had fallen, the landmeats remained soggy 
 and unappetizing.

 Horace heaved himself up from where he had faltered, screaming terrified 
 at the riotous tumult of the battle's end. His thick torso tottered on 
 spindly, vericose riddled legs. His mouth agape, his tears ready, for Fair 
 Frogmorton, girlish and bold, lay at his feet--broken and beautiful.

 He turned, his attention drawn by the familiar incoherence of one of him 
 many iron-deficient followers. There, standing in a heap of human waste, 
 stood a slack-jawed serf, his meager attention held taught by the still
 pristine flounder he held in his booger-encrusted fingers. Horace, amazed,
 hitched up his man-bosoms and sat gingerly on a fallen log, the soggy bark
 nurturing and cradling his now naked and ravaged buttocks, as the flounder
 began to speak:

 "A Great Battle. A Great Victory. But to the Freezer we all must go! And to
 the Freezer we all shall! Sirloin and Sushi! Steak and Sturgeon! Lambchop 
 and Lobster, all! Death take all meats and make us her own! A Great Battle. 
 A Great Victory. But to the Freezer we all must go!"

 And as Horace looked skyward, he saw his beloved flounder retreating, 
 swimming for the sky as the Tsunami drained back into the Earth. And all
 Meats, land and sea alike, took to the air, heading fast for the Freezer 
 and the Cauldron, singing a song of lament as they leapt from grasping 
 fingers and emerged from the battle-torn mud.  
 
 And Silence fell. Heavy and vast. Waiting and lonely it came to every head.
 Peasants wept and Horace shook as the night came on, meatless and cold.

 THE END