Botchi

Kluzens, carefully stroking the chin of the one opposite, paused to think. The message that had just been relayed by Cosatch had been more important than he let on. Insofar as fulcrums come but once a month, this was dinnertime. As he digested the confusing telepathic prose, a strange feeling swathed his sinuses, tickling the open follicles that remained after his habitual plucking. He knew that this was not the usual problematic of a weeping internal sore, nor a periodical reaction to nature’s powdery charms. Sulphur had been deployed. His nose was bright green. This, this was the time that Kluzens both feared and welcomed in equal spoonfuls. He closed his eyes. He drew breath. He waited.

“You are here, I have waited an eternity for this. It is time to redress the balance. You force my hand, yet I pluck a flush from the annals of cribbage. Meaningless? With your pair of kings you may feel as though you are the matriarch, but with a gender so incomplete the questions you pose yourself and your crew will ultimately cost you the board.” With this stinging soliloquy ringing fresh into the open atmosphere, Kluzens rose with purpose, almost taking the chin with him. To chase his cause, his people, Kluzens motioned through the biological stages of movement and speed, up through the shafts, negotiating the pulleys as he ventured. The stairwell was meat and veg to the sprinting Adonis of athletic notion, the sheer necessity of now the catalyst to many cream pies and shod-nuts, a Foe’s speciality that often entered his head at critical junctures.

Kluzens sprang from yawning orifice of the monastery then stopped dead in his tracks. He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes and let sweet salty tears flood forth, eschewing narrow societal expectation of masculine performance.
“Oh cruel time, vengeance is on the agenda of this bitter pawn. I hold you solely responsible for the sadness and decay which permeates this wretched existence.”
Kluzens felt a biting gust of wind against his face; it seemed to penetrate the very core of his dasein. He opened his eyes and absorbed the rich diversity of life spewing forth through the kaleidoscopic funnel of nature. The vast meanderings of spacetime seemed to be clinging to him in a conciliatory gesture of goodness. ‘KLUZENS WE LOVE YOU’ was etched on the fabric of existence.
“Ha Ha Ha. Time you wicked illusionist; sometimes your evil ways could almost be mistaken for beauty.” Kluzens suddenly fell to the floor in throes of chaotic movement clutching his midriff feverishly. Kluzens sometimes suffered spontaneous retrograde ejaculations when encased in the fever of deep contemplation.

Kluzens was just overcoming the first wave of burning agony when he felt sturdy biceps wrap around his malfunctioning body. Having been pulled to his feet, Kluzens turned and was confronted with a kindly face, the nose adorning it glowing bright green.
“Come Kluzens, let me assist. The other idealists will already be assembled at Niderost’s Plateau. We must venture forth, hasten bound. Do you have the ideal?”
“There is no time for idle chatter, let us make ground towards the Plateau.”

And so. The journey covered few hectares, but a richer tapestry of land distribution and multi-CBD’s could not have been perambulated. Down through the main square, past the requisite boutiques of any self-respecting market-town they fled, hand in hand, rhythmically mirroring their joyous strides into the haphazard unknown. Kluzens, having trouble with the pace of the physical onslaught uphill stumbled slightly, relying on the ethos of faceless teamwork that accompanied, no, defined the idealist movement. His reliance met with a favourable response, the soft drawl of his companion aurally stiffening the buckling joint of his left leg.
“Close one’’, smiled Kluzens, still sprinting.
His companion looked straight ahead without emotion.

The arduous task was complete. Niderost Plateau appeared ahead, featureless and barren, without a polite opening to welcome. Woody bracken bordered the vast plains, its jagged conversation paying lip-service to the soul. Muscular spasms of life were scarce, the Plateau now completely embedded in darkness. Kluzens and his partner met the rest of the group that huddled underneath the sycamore tree 30 yards west of a burnt-out armoured personnel carrier. A faint lamp served as illumination, its fuel source almost certainly solid.
“Sulphur is here, now is the time to retreat, Kluzens”, commented the newest and least experienced member of the group.
“I have made the journey; my wife is left in the drawing room of our modest detached abode, I left without care as she prepared corn. CORN! Do you realise how sacred her corn quiche shall be this eve? I believe not; now is the time to run…”

“Hold it right there.” Kluzens had not stumbled upon his position through chance.
“We leave in minutes, but towards, not away. If we run again the Psion cannon will pick off several. Those remaining will be dispersed and will have to tunnel in to hiding until the sulphur’s interaction has dissipated. The Ford’s Mounted Hounds will be hunting with precision and relish for the green noses.”
“But that’s suicide” piped up the newest member of the group again.
“There’s no such thing as suicide,” intervened an older and less irritating associate of the party. “If I die for the cause it will be a blissful transaction of utility.”
“That seems a mathematical certainty. There are only twelve of us against the cannon and the Ford’s armed patrol. And don’t forget that the people of the town are acquiescent to the materialist regime” continued the annoying shit.
“Silence my friends,” Kluzens unleashed his leadership over the crowd, “the people know only of a life of apathy; think not on them. The Psion cannon poses a problem certainly but we hold the trump card of surprise. With vim and vigour we can storm the Ford’s perimeter. What weapons have we?”
Pieways stepped forward, “I have turnips and hard brie from my grocery store.”
“Good, good. Distribute them freely. Nash I see you have your blunderbuss. Will you take point?”
“I would accept no other position sir. She’s getting on a bit but I’d bet no other weapon can speed a bolt with such linearity, euclidean precision and…”
“Huddle now my plucky idealists.” The gang closed in around Kluzens. “Nash will lead, the rest will follow in a diagonal genuflection. Gross, Estradon and Hempton will shore up the flanks with mid-range overlap push. Come now, let us make haste up the Rue L’Escargot and through the Place de la Plage and onwards to the prism of suppression. I wish you all godspeed.”
“Godspeed to us all” they chanted seven times before fashioning attack formation and marching from the relative safety of Niderost’s plateau.

Next chapter…