Page 9 - Contrast1971Fall

HACK FANTASY or, BJORN WORKS UP A SWEAT

Once upon a time, there was a little old man who lived in a large oak tree

situated in a small stand of wood near the town of Glerfl. This man had very

strange habits: he raised and ate bats, and occasionally stray children; he did

nothing all day but work old crossword puzzles; and at night, he locked himself

securely in his house and read old cowboy comics by the dim light of the radium

dial on his ancient grandmother clock. His name was Bjorn Kthongdin, after his

father, his grandfather, and his mother, whose names were, Bjorn, Kthong, and Din

respectively.

On this particular day it was raining, and thus too wet to attend to the bats.

Bjorn was sitting in the parlor of his tree reading an old Roy Rogers comic, when a

strange noise shook him from the stupor induced by trying to read by the light of

a grandmother clock.

A clanging sound was coming from the kitchen. He ran to the sink in time to

see the evil face of an orange-blue pygmy staring out the garbage disposal. Several

other faces leered from behind. Triumphantly, Bjorn flicked the switch, chortling

at the terrified creatures. GGZZZRRBLE!! He turned on the spicket to wash the'

remains away; but suddenly, orange-blue filth erupted from the drain, and spilled

over everything. The drain had backed up. Cursing loudly, the old man reached for

the Drano, poured several capfuls into a glass, and gulped it down to calm his

shattered nerves.

He then set about cleaning up, feeling quite smug that he had dealt with the

little bastards so effectively. Not to be caught unprepared again, he armed himself

with a cooking-pot as a helmet and a nine inch switch-blade. He had just settled

down with a Hopalong Cassidy comic book when eight orange-blue pygmies

crawled out of a picture on the wall. Bjorn jumped up, thrust his helmet down on

his head, and whipped out his switchblade. Snick! Snick! and he cut down two of

the pygmies with one blow. The other six, not expecting such a show of force,

jumped behind the TV. Bjorn quickly turned it on, which immediately electro-

cuted all but two of them. These two dove into the wall plug and reappeared in the

bedroom. Brandishing rotten bananas they hacked down the bedroom door and

ran into the parlor, temporarily gaining the drop on Bjorn. But remembering that

he was wearing his Buck Rogers De-Molecularizing Ring, Bjorn promptly de-mole-

cularized them into a pile of dust. Suspecting that a full-scale pygmy invasion was

imminent, he jumped on his water buffalo and galloped into town to warn the

townspeople. He had no special love for them, but when he ran out of bats their

children could be tasty. .