A Cautionary Tale

by Hunt N. Peck

I was deeply touched when Tod Davies asked me to contribute a piece to the ‘Importance of Stories’ issue of Exterminating Angel Press. It is true that the world has forgotten me, if indeed I ever came properly to the notice of that many-headed babbling beast, and it it true also that I encourage that amnesia – why else would I live in this tiny village, so remote from that world –   but it is nice to be reminded that a few intelligent people know of me yet, and still respect my knowledge and my skills. And knowledge and skills I have aplenty, for I am the world’s only Consulting General Specialist. I am the only scholar in these modern times who has the courage to specialise exclusively in the general. I focus myself narrowly as a laser-beam on the widest possible range of subjects, thus allowing the microscope of my intellect to roam freely over the whole cosmos. There are many stories that I could tell to entertain and to educate, but I feel it is my duty here, here in this ‘Importance of Stories’ issue, to tell a cautionary tale, a tale to warn of the dangers of tales, for it is important to know that stories can be dangerous. They may sometimes impart knowledge that one wishes later that one could forget. I speak from personal experience. Read on, gentle reader, and perhaps you too will understand.

 To begin this story I must confess that once I worked for The Government Men. I was coerced, but that does not lessen the burden of guilt that I bear. Long had they sought to engage me in their depressing schemes of legalised oppression, but I had eluded their snares. However, it so happened that, after a surfeit of rough cider and Gin Rickys, I violated the Laws of Cause and Effect in the public bar of the Beelzebub Inn in Barton-upon-Bumble, and thus The Government Men had the goods on me. I had no choice but to obey them and so found myself working at a secret government research center; the Royal Establishment for Military Poetry and Lyrics. Working in the top-secret Lethal Limericks Laboratory, known to insiders as "3L", it was my good fortune to work under the direction of Doctor Octavian McGonagle, the grandson of the famous Scottish bard and a legend in the military-verse business. In his youth he had headed the elite team that produced the nuclear bomb of rhyme that won the war for England. You may have heard it in old war movies, sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey:

"Hitler has only got one ball,

Goering has two but they are very small,

Himmler has something similar,

but Goebbels has no balls at all."

 

These lyrics were used only on the authority of  Winston Churchill himself, as they risked revealing that the Fuehrer's pox-doctor was a British agent. A correct decision, as the morale of the Nazis crumbled, and all that their own 'Amt fur der Dichtkunst vom Krieg' could produce in response was Lilli Marlene. The rest is history.

During my enforced servitude at the REMPL I was able to smuggle out some military limericks in my lunchbox, and now I shall tell one to you:

 

"Tumpelty tumpelty tumpelty tum,

Diddly diddly diddly diddly dum,

Pickledy tickle,

Hickledy wickle,

Bumbelty bumbelty bumbelty bum!"

 

This is a de-activated training limerick (in fact, "Limerick, Drill, Type IV"). As you can see, the explosive charge has been removed and replaced with mere gibberish. Even so, it should be handled with care, as the residual charge in the metre still has considerable power. I will give you an example of this: Not far from where I live is one of the last remaining looney-bins in England, the St Badger's Institute for the Mentally Incontinent. Known locally as the 'old asylum on the hill' it is housed in a gloomy Norman castle on a rocky crag overlooking the sluggish brown River Bumble and contains the nut-jobs who were too unhinged to be released even on modern medications and even under the pressure of Thatcherite fiscal policy.

It is almost certain that sometime this summer, when the air is hot, humid and oppressive and the heat-lightning flickers over the turbid river-waters, the howls of the incarcerated dingbats will grow until they are audible in the village, audible even over the throb of naff Metallica tribute-bands in the local pub. Then, in the dead of night, one of the Men In White Coats will mount his bicycle and freewheel madly down into the village and knock furtively at my door. He will thrust an envelope full of fivers into my hands and I will give him in return a folded sheet of paper inscribed with one of my diminishing stock of 'Limericks, Drill, Type IV'.

Pedalling frantically back up the hill, white coat flapping, after only a couple or three in the village boozer, he will hand the folded paper to the Chief Psychiatrist, who will pass it to the boilerman, a tone-deaf man with no feeling for verse, who will take it to the catatonics' ward and whisper it in the ear of the oldest catatonic. Catatonics will mindlessly repeat what they hear, so the limerick will be repeated out loud:

 

"Tumpelty tumpelty tumpelty tum!"

 

And the other catatonics will in turn repeat it:

 

"Diddly diddly diddly diddly dum!"

 

Thus creating a self-reinforcing resonance as each catatonic picks up the rhythm. As the repeated limerick permeates the feverish air of the asylum the paranoid schizophrenics will pick it up next, muttering under their breath as they wander the halls:

 

"Pickledy tickle!"

 

The ordinary hebephrenics, obsessive-compulsives and pinheads will catch the infection of the meme:

 

"Hickledy wickle!"

 

Until the limerick even penetrates to the lycanthropes, sex perverts, serial killers, frantic masturbators and howling maniacs chained-up in the whitewashed cellars that used to be the torture-chambers of the castle in olden days:

 

"Bumbelty bumbelty bumbelty bum!"

 

When all the inmates are chanting the limerick the intensity and volume will slowly build, rising until the schizos are dancing wildly and even the depressives are bouncing up and down on their shit-stained beds. The chanting will build to a shrieking crescendo:

 

"Tumpelty tumpelty tumpelty TUM!

Diddly diddly diddly diddly DUM!

Pickledy TICKLE!

Hickledy WICKLE!

BUMBELTY BUMBELTY BUMBELTY BUM!"

 

Then, their psychic rage and angst vented, the loonies will subside into a deep and dreamless sleep, with only a faint and fading echo coming from the catatonics' ward as they wind down, like the sound of an army singing as it marches off into the distance. The Emergency Squad will deal with any recalcritant howling maniacs with fire-hoses, tear-gas, clonapin and thorazine, and peace will reign once more in the old asylum on the hill.

Except that I've been lying and it isn't a de-activated training limerick! No! It is a fully-armed and functional Type VIIb Combat Mindworm! And now you've got it! Those terrible diddley-diddley-dum rhymes will clunk over and over in your head through the days and haunt your dreams at night … for ever! So you see, gentle reader, that stories can be dangerous! Enjoy your psychotic fugues, you sucker!    

 

 (for Hunt N. Peck's semi-stirring sort of epoch making  first chapter of GREENBEARD…)