It was a dark and stormy night...
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 1:58AM An exercise (similar to Consequences) set for the group by Mhairi. It reveals the group's pre-occupation with cheese...
It was a dark and stormy night
Not the sort of fairy tales, the sort of rainstorm designed to annoy – nasty, get-you-wet-quick, miserable half-arsed rain. Guaca stood under a stereotypical street light, the eerie glow making him look all set for a night out in Middlesbrough, fake tan included. He dragged on his cigarette.
The puff of smoke blew out into the dark night. He looked at his watch. She was late. It wasn't a surprise. Of course she might have forgotten. It wouldn't be the first time she'd let him down of course.
She was used to men doing the same to her, having spent many years as a battered wife. She eventually turned into a radical feminist after so long, but that has nothing to do with why he was meeting her
In fact, he wasn't too keen on radical feminists. Eventually she rolled up, nonchalant, seemingly ignorant of the anxiety she had caused. 'Let's go to the Purple Hippopotamus' she said. They had a date to keep with the Town Crier, the loudest man in the whole world.
She had a sudden revelation. 'I've been a feminist for so long. I've been using the excuse of being a feminist when in fact I've just been a bitch'. The Purple Hippo was packed, but they managed to squeeze up the back passage. The town crier turned out to be an emo shoegazing band crying about something or other.
She fitted right in, what with the short hair and the big boots. She even did the emo dance – glare at feet, shuffle left, shuffle right, more glaring, shuffle left, drag on cigarette. She was only a decoy, anyway. As long as she could look 'like an individual, just like everyone else' he would be fine. He quickly sought out his mark, another Goth in an Emo club ('Amateur' Guaca thought to himself). With a few entirely naff and pointless handshakes, the deal was done.
***
I was a dark and stormy night.
Bethany knew she had to get the cheese wheel over the border before daylight. Their hawk eyes could see everything that moved during the day, and their acute sense of smell could track down a cheese at 3 miles in still air
Still, there was a good few hours before daybreak. She pulled her hood up, partially obscuring her vision as well as her identity – which didn't help. Once again, she placed both arms against the solid weight of cheese, like a huge grindstone and shoved forwards.
It wasn't easy being a cheese smuggler. It wasn't an easy choice, but a necessary one – the government had banned cheese in 1982, making it very valuable on the black market. A good edam could get you millions of pounds. Not that she'd ever retire -
She enjoyed her job too much. The thrill of the rolling, the smells, the sights, cheese smuggling was an addictive pursuit to many, and it had her with its stinky hooks. Of course, they never noticed when she had sneaky nibbles of the delicious contraband – they assumed it just added character.
'Halt!' shouted the Black Bird. 'This cheese is MINE! I demand that you surrender it immediately! ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! SCHELL! DU HAST MEIN KASE GESTOLLEN!'. Black Bird farted
Years of cheese swinging practise came to the fore. Tensing her body she used her momentum to hurl the cheese at the blackbird. It hit square in the beak and hit the ground rolling down and down, right across the border. She ran after it, into the breaking dawn to start a new life in a new world where she would not be ostracised for her love of cheese.
***
It was a dark and stormy night
when a black wolf prowled the gloomy, mist laden forest. It was hunting, the same as every journey it made to the woods. Its prey, a young, lonely looking girl with a red cloak on her head
'Hello, Little Red Riding Hood' said the foul and evil wolf to the young girl. 'Can I interest you in buying some pegs?' 'Oh, I really don't have any need for any pegs at the moment' she said.
'They're lucky', she said 'and you need all the luck you can get'. She reached into her picnic basket and pulled out a handgun. 'I didn't have any lead. Will silver do?' She fired all six shots into the wolf and then blew the smoke from the gunbarrel with an impish grin. 'That'll teach you to mess with the Cheese Police'.
Yep, she was moonlighting again. These days, just being the heroine in an age-old fairy tale wasn't enough, the royalties just didn't cover the bills. So she'd started a part time job as a Community Outreach Officer, employed by the Guild of Mice, and protecting the cheese supplies. This kingdom was short on dairy herds, so cheese eas in short supply. I mean, how many fairy tales can you think of that feature cows? Plenty of wolves, pigs, evil stepsisters, witches and grandmothers aplenty, but nothing actually useful.
Yes – it was cheese that would make this country great again. If only Red Riding Hood could get help from her friends sleeping beauty and cinderella. But sleeping beauty was no use as she was always asleep and cinderella was currently on a two week package holiday to Ibiza.
So it fell upon Red's shoulders to complete her rounds. With that blasted Wolf out of the way though, Red didn't come up with any resistance. Red saved the cheese economy, but the praise meant nothing to her; only the glorious wage packet. The end.
***
It was a dark and stormy night
a cat was walking down the road on it's way home. It had been out all night hunting and had successfully caught some mice. Suddenly it heard the sound of a large van. It turned and look as the huge van came thunder(?) down the road. The cat quickly
leapt out of the van's path, only to find itself falling down a storm drain due to it's painful lack in sense of direction. The poor cat started floating in the muck and sewage, rather distressed at its situation.
Down in the sewers, it was even gloomier than it was above ground. The cat was frantic with panic, trying to swim, but it had never swum before. Little paws padded at the water's surface.
Its claws found purchase on the smooth red skin of an edam cheese as it floated past. What was that doing in the sewer? Thought the cat. It climbed aboard the edam. 'Cheeses saves' thought the cat. The storm water was rising in the drain, further diluting the stream of filth.
There were RATS in sewers, weren't there? This cat was not as stupid as it looked! (given it was soaked to the skin, stinking of sewer contents and floating on a block of Edam and STILL trying to look dignified, it couldn't possibly be as stupid as it looked). Anyways, Rats lived in sewers, rats ate cheese, and here was he, a cat, a hungry cat even, floating on BAIT. Saved! Only then did he see two large, yellow eyes glowing in the darkness...
'Dad?' said the cat.
'Yes son. It's me'
'Where have you been all this time?'
'Down here of course'
'But what about mum? She's had to raise the kittens all on her own'
'But son, it's much better down here. Down here, there is always plenty of cheese'
'Oh, ok I'll stay then' said the cat. The end.
***
It was a dark and stormy night
and all the cattle were lowing, whatever lowing is. Making some kind of noise, I should think. Suddenly, a man wearing a huge yellow sou'wester burst into the stable
'This is the cheese police! Everyone freeze' The cows looked at him quizzically. Or they tried to. He knew their secret, their evil malign intelligence as they plotted to overthrow the world. Bio-weaponry delivered in the perfect receptacle. The cheese wheel.
They had the perfect alibi, too. People were so Dumb. They saw cows, though, 'mobile milk bars' or worse, 'burgers with legs'. The vaguely intelligent ones saw the cows ruminating, and occasionally remarked on their SEVEN stomachs. But they were so naïve! None ever questioned WHY cows have 7 stomachs – what were they for?
It was the aliens. They were really who controlled the cheese police. Ever since they crash landed in 1952, they had a fascination with cheese. People mistakenly thought that aliens wanted to study plant life, water, humans – but no, they were only interested in the cheese section of Sainsbury's.
Of course, if they tried to explain any of this, it wouldn't exactly be taken seriously. And those cows, they wouldn't take cheese-obsessed extra terrestrials seriously with their battle-ready stomachs filled with methane, acid and other lethal chemical war contents.
Cows are not as stupid as one might suppose. They had trained for years to repel the cheese police when they finally came to call and rumble their malign plot. Together, they emptied the contents of their 7 stomachs and the man keeled over dead.