Espionage and Mozzarella Don’t Mix
British Prime Minister David Cameron was having a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
“So anything else to be discussed?” Cameron asked Clegg.
“Well, apparently it turns out we’re one delegate short for that parliamentary delegation that is paying a courtesy trip to meet with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today,” Clegg answered, “it was supposed to be a nine member delegation of MPs from Westminster and it turns out we only have eight.”
“Hm,” Cameron said, “who could we ask to go at the last minute?”.
“Well that far-left Labour MP from Wales Magog Rhys Petley being the self-proclaimed champion of the working man that he is probably wouldn’t mind getting a free trip somewhere at taxpayers’ expense like all self-proclaimed champions of the working man are prone to do,” Clegg noted.
“I like that,” Cameron smiled, “and the thought of an old-time Bolshevik like Rhys Petley meeting a monopolistic style capitalist like Berlusconi would be great fun.”
Cameron directed one of his aides to make the call to Rhys Petley.
* * *
Two members of the Italian Secret Service are sitting in a car outside the entrance of Set Enterprises’ Laboratory outside London.
“So Giuseppe,” Antonio asked, “would you like another glass of white wine?”.
“Seeing as how I’ve still got some linguini left,” Giuseppe replied, “sure it will go down well.”
“I’ve still got some spaghetti left,” Antonio looked inside his lunch box, “maybe I’ll open some red wine to go with it.”
As Antonio and Giuseppe ate and drank, Giuseppe looked at his watch.
“Say, what was it we were supposed to steal from inside Set Enterprises again?” Giuseppe asked.
Antonio reached inside his pocket, “I wrote it down inside my notebook… ah, here it is. Oh my goodness, I spilled mozzarella sauce all over it. I can’t read what it says.”
“Do you have a napkin to wipe it off?” Giuseppe inquired.
“No, we’ve used up all our napkins, Mama mia,” Antonio hit his forehead, “I can’t read what it says.”
“Didn’t the big Berlusconi himself order this mission?” Giuseppe poured himself some more white wine.
“That’s a-right,” Antonio answered, “the Prime Minister himself ordered this intelligence operation.”
“I’m a-glad I ordered my own pizza for this operation,” Giuseppe helped himself to a slice, “the last pizza on our last intelligence operation had way too many anchovies on it but then I didn’t order that one.”
“I think we’re a-going to have to jump over the fence and sneak over to the Set Enterprises cafeteria and see if we can get some napkins so I can a-wipe off-a this piece of paper and see what it says,” Antonio suggested.
“Why do we have to jump-a over the fence to get to the cafeteria for napkins?” Giuseppe asked, “why can’t we just-a walk in through the entrance like regular joes?”.
“Giuseppe, you’re not a regular joe, you’re Italian,” Antonio rebuked him, “besides we’re spies. And spies don’t just-a walk into places like that. Spies jump over the fence. We’ve got to be sneaky remember.”
“Okay but I hope-a I don’t split my pants like the last time I jumped over a fence,” Giuseppe made the sign of the Cross.
Antonio and Giuseppe got out of the car and approached the Fence.
“There’s a sign on the fence,” Giuseppe pointed out, “It says BEWARE OF… Dog… does it say?.”
“No, the English word Dog has only one syllable to it,” Antonio scratched his head, “it says BEWARE OF… GIRAFFE?”.
“You’re right, Antonio,” Giuseppe laughed, “it does say Beware Of Giraffe. What sort of place has a giraffe rather than a watch dog for security? These crazy English and their dry sense of humour. Dry like the African savanna with its giraffes you see on safari.”
Giuseppe and Antonio leapt over the fence.
They were soon set upon by a giraffe with huge carnivorous sharp like Tyrannosaurus Rex style teeth.
* * *
Renfield R. Renfield the Chief of Security for Set Enterprises held his binoculars and looked out the window of the Set Laboratories watch tower.
He remarked casually to Amadeus Emanon, “I was right to tell the Boss’ chief scientist Dr. Cadbury Rocher to genetically engineer a giraffe with a slight pinch of prehistoric T-Rex DNA. People who break into the grounds get a huge surprise even though we’ve posted a sign warning them to beware of the giraffe.”
* * *
Antonio and Giuseppe hurriedly jumped back over the fence to the outside parking lot.
“Mama Mia,” Giuseppe cried out, “I’ve split my pants again.”
To be continued.
The 13th Sign
Carson Albion Private Eye was once again walking the streets of LA.
Not on a case.
Well maybe a case of rum when he got back to the office.
No, he was going out for dinner which he’d then take back to his office.
His dinner habits consisted entirely of take-out.
One night Chinese, next night Japanese, night after that Vietnamese, then Thai, then Indian, then Korean, then Italian, then Mexican. And then the process would begin again…
Tonight was Chinese food night.
And Carson Albion was headed to his favourite Chinese food take-out restaurant The Ming Lantern.
He ordered the lemon chicken, the ginger beef, the sweet and sour pork and fried rice.
After receiving his complimentary fortune cookie which he put in the bag, Albion once again headed out into the night.
As he walked down the street, a familiar voice greeted him, “Hey Albion.”
It was Lt. McQuinn of the LAPD.
“Lt.,” Albion nodded back, “you look like you’ve had a busy night.”
“Into the paddy wagon with the others,” Lt. McQuinn directed two constables who were bringing down a body in a body bag from an upstairs apartment.
The constables put the body into the back of the paddy wagon where a whole bunch of other bodies in body bags were stacked.
“That’s the 13th dead astrologer tonight,” Lt. McQuinn explained to Carson Albion, “ever since the New Astrology emerged en masse last week with the 13th sign Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being introduced and everyone’s astrological sign being bumped around, some people haven’t taken kindly to their new signs and have ended up killing their personal astrologers as a result. This has resulted in one big headache for the LA homicide department. We don’t know who to look for in terms of suspects. Whether we should be looking at the old astrological signs of potential suspects or the new signs.”
“That would be a problem all right,” Albion had to admit.
“I guess all the rehab clinics in Hollywood are going extra crazy at the moment too,” McQuinn said, “with thousands of stars and celebrities checking themselves in saying that now their sign has been changed, they’re having more trouble than ever with coming to terms with who they are.”
“Makes me glad I’m not a regular guest on the Oprah Show,” Albion stated.
“Me too,” McQuinn agreed.
Albion walked down the street carrying his bag of Chinese food while McQuinn got a call on his car radio saying that a split personality astrologer was holding a gun to his own head and threatening to kill himself unless he went back to being a Gemini.
Albion passed by the Starstruck Motel on the way back to his office.
He stopped when he noticed a man in a turban standing on the second floor outside walkway of the motel. The man played a musical instrument and a snake was rearing its head from the top of a basket.
The man then picked up the snake and kicked his way into a motel room.
This didn’t look good.
Albion removed his gun from his trenchcoat pocket and ran up the stairs.
He then entered the room where the man with the snake had kicked the door open.
The man stood on the bed atop a screaming woman holding the snake in his hands and ready to drop the snake on top of her.
The man in the darkened silhouette of the motel room looked like the figure of Ophiuchus the snake bearer- the 13th sign.
Albion fired a shot at the man and the man fell back off the bed.
Before dying, the man’s last words were, “I guess this means I won’t be getting my green card.”
The snake then crawled out of the dead man’s hands and put its venomous cobra head on the bed where once again the woman screamed.
The cobra’s head was blown away with a single shot from Albion’s gun.
The woman in a short black lingerie night dress threw herself into Albion’s arms and planted kisses all over him.
Albion returned the favour.
After several intense hours of lovemaking on the bed, the woman said she should really call her parents back home and let them know how she was doing.
The woman was Jade Priyanka Sen a rising young Bollywood starlet from Mumbai, India who had come to Hollywood to expand her acting portfolio.
The dead man with the dead snake was her abusive ex-boyfriend who had followed her from India to America.
“I really should be getting my clothes on,” the woman smiled at Carson Albion before kissing him good-bye.
“I guess I should get back to the office and eat my Chinese food before it starts getting cold,” Albion picked up the bag marked The Ming Lantern.
He walked out into the LA night and headed back to his office.
He ate his dinner and drank a bottle of rum and opened his complimentary fortune cookie.
The fortune said,
YOUR DESTINY IS NOT IN THE STARS.
YOU MAKE YOUR OWN DESTINY.
Albion crumpled up the small piece of paper and thought to himself, more people should really be getting fortune cookies from The Ming Lantern.
There might have been less dead bodies on the streets of LA tonight.
-The 13th Sign
A short story
by Christopher Dracul Van Helsing
written Monday, January 17th, 2011
Mr. Mush Found At Last
As the PETA protestors set themselves upon the
fur-coat wearing Britney Spears in this blistering
heat, Miss Spears screamed, “I’m not crazy. I tell
you I’m not crazy.”
I walked down a back alley way.
Well, Mr. Mush’s horse was gone.
And I was partly to blame.
The last clue we had to the whereabouts of Mr.
Mush according to the tight skirt wearing dame
(who was now getting her marshmallowed covered
skirt cleaned at Mr. Lee’s Drycleaning), Mr. Mush
was last seen on a horse before he was kidnapped
or killed or whatever had happened to him.
And now the horse was no more.
It was my good fortune that I happened to
walk by a Sri Lankan restaurant.
The proprietor directed me down to the
wine cellar.
I guess he thought I needed a drink.
When I was down in the wine cellar, there tied
up and sitting next to a bottle of chardonay
was the missing Mr. Mush.
I turned and there stood… the ancient demon
Ravana a notorious demon king of Sri Lanka
who had kidnapped Princess Sita the fiancee
of Lord Rama the ruler of the ancient Indian
kingdom of Ayodhya millenia earlier.
The Hindu monkey god Hanuman had helped
Lord Rama rescue his beloved Sita from the
clutches of the demonic Ravana.
It was a good thing I had taken that course
A Comparative Study in World Religions in
my first year of University or otherwise I
wouldn’t have recognized the strange entity.
“You’re Ravana aren’t you?” I asked as I helped
myself to a bottle of German Reisling.
The demonic entity belched, “Excuse me.”
And then bowed, “Yes, I am Ravana.”
“And you’ve kidnapped Mr. Mush?” I popped
the cork off the Reisling, “has living in the
state of California changed your sexual orientation?
You’re going after guys now instead of princesses?”.
Ravana shook his head, “Mr. Mush here is a well
known writer of romantic love poetry. I thought if I couldn’t
win Princess Sita’s heart through abduction, I thought I
might win her heart by sending her some of Mr. Mush’s love
poems saying that I had written them.”
“May I see some of Mr. Mush’s poems?” I asked.
Ravana handed me a whole bunch with his clawed
hands.
After reading the first half-dozen, I was rolling
on the floor in great gales of laughter.
Mr. Mush’s face turned bright red.
It couldn’t have been the wine.
As having a gag in his mouth probably prevented him
from imbibing.
“You were planning to win her over with this mush?” I roared,
“tell me, Ravana, how does it feel to be an idiot?”.
Now it was Ravana’s turn for his face to turn red.
“Just one thing,” something had occurred to me,
“I thought Lord Rama had slain you. How is it you’re
alive?”.
“I was brought back to life by a Hollywood film producer,”
Ravana explained.
That was plausible. Hollywood film producers
were bringing ancient demons back to life all the time.
“Let Mr. Mush go,” I told Ravana.
“No,” Ravana shook his head.
Ravana had had his chance. I always carried a bottle
of Holy Water with me ever since I was attacked by
the ancient Aztec serpent god Quetzalcoatl while making out
with Jessica Alba in the back of a red Corvette in Hollywood
years ago.
I sprayed Ravana with the Holy Water. He quickly
disintegrated into mush- almost as mushy as Mr.
Mush’s love poems.
I untied Mr. Mush.
He quickly ran upstairs and out the door.
I gathered up the scraps of paper on which were written The
Collected Works of Mr. Mush.
I thought I could use them for a bon fire to roast
marshmallows later as the evening heat seemed to have
died down.
As I walked out the door of the Sri Lankan restaurant,
I noticed Mr. Mush was run over by a car driven by
Lindsay Lohan. After running over Mr. Mush, Lindsay
Lohan then wrapped her car around a light pole.
Well two mysteries were solved tonight.
Who kidnapped Mr. Mush?
The ancient Hindu demon Ravana.
Who killed Mr. Mush?
Alcoholic airhead drunk driver Lindsay Lohan.
Cheval Avec Les Marshmallows
So I entered the restaurant.
Gov. Schwarzeneggar was attempting to pay his bill,
“Anyone know where I can get some extra credit?
The banks are locked up like a tight end on a gay
football team!”.
The lounge singer was singing the latest Hardy
Drew and Nancy Boys song, “There’s no one as
Irish as Barack O’bama.”
The French maitre’d directed me to a table.
What was a French maitre’d doing working in
a Chinese restaurant?
“Tonight’s special, Monsieur, is Roasted
Cheval in an Orange Duck and Marshmallow
sauce,” he handed me a menu.
“I’ll try the special then,” I answered him.
I had never had Roasted Cheval before.
Although it had been a few years since
I had taken High School French. I couldn’t remember
what cheval was.
I looked around the restaurant.
There were a bunch of men (they all looked like
hairdressers) who wore t-shirts that said, “Vote
No to Proposition 8.” I noticed they all seemed
to go to the men’s room together. On the table,
they were sharing a large fruit salad between them.
But no sign of a horse.
“Your Roasted Cheval in Orange Duck
and Marshmallow sauce, Monsieur,” the waiter brought
me the plate.
“Thanks,” I ate it. It was delicious.
I paid my bill in dimes and nickels which quite discombobulated
the cashier.
I walked out the restaurant door wondering where that
horse could have possibly got to.
It was then that I remembered what cheval meant in English.
“Murderer,” a group of protestors from PETA shouted.
Were they talking to me?
Or to Britney Spears who was walking down the street wearing
a fur coat in this hot muggy sultry weather?
To be continued.
A Man And His Horse
and I went out to buy a new bag of marshmallows.
It was a stifling hot night.
Some guy wearing a lone ranger mask was
frying an egg on his bald head in the middle of
this heat wave.
A lone ranger but no horse.
What had become of the horse?
Mr. Mush was last seen on a horse.
The horse was the answer to everything,
I thought as I observed the huge piles of
manure going down the street.
I followed them to a Chinese restaurant.
No horse but California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzeneggar was inside the restaurant.
To be continued.
Who Killed Mr. Mush? – Philip Marlow Investigates
It was a hot sultry night, the kind which sends people
skinny dipping into fountains and ordering buckets of
Tequila Sunrise at sunset!
I was sitting in my private eye office, my fedora off, my trenchcoat
on the floor and my suspenders down.
I was wiping my brow, the fan was going up and down
like Paris Hilton’s dress on a ferris wheel
(even when the wheel’s not in operation!).
It was then that this dame walks in- tight blouse, tight skirt and spiked stilettos!
She sat down on the chair right in front of my desk right
on top of a bag of marshmallows!
I had planned to roast the marshmallows later by sticking them
on a stick and holding them out the window in the stifling night air!
“I want to know who killed Mr. Mush?” she spoke in a voice as sultry as the night.
“Speaking of mush, you might want to check the back of your skirt,”
I handed her a business card with the address
of a neighbourhood dry cleaning establishment.
To be continued.
