The others
knew of Pipplemax’s deformity, of course. But few were bothered by it. Some
found it an item of curiosity, and the youngest sprites would dare each other
to enter Lillian’s anus for a look. To Lillian’s relief, most of these challenges
were not answered. It was enough work to keep her current boyfriend out of
there, not to mention his inquisitive and affectionate German shepherd. But most
sprites were indifferent to Pipplemax’s second nose, particularly as many of
them had their own peculiar physical attributes. Hairy foreheads, barnacled
elbows, and forked tongues were not uncommon features, and extra toes and
fingers, even extra hands were not entirely unknown among the small folk. So no
one much cared about Pipplemax’s extra nose but Pipplemax.
Well, he and Trinquetta,
the woodland fairy who made her home inside that otherwise useless protuberance.
She had her own reasons for desiring solitude, mainly because of some trouble
stemming from tax evasion. You know how that goes. You think you’re coming out
ahead, and then suddenly you’re forced to reside in a false nose. But we won’t
let Trinquetta intrude too much upon on our tale. For it’s not really about
her, is it? Even if she’d like it to be, even though she has sent me letters
asking her story to be told, with her name changed of course, which I now
realize I failed to do. Oh well. Perhaps those letters will stop now, and I can
pay more attention to notices from the cable television companies that so
desperately want my business.
One morning
while Pipplemax was rearranging his furniture, which he did fairly regularly in
an effort to make Lillian’s rectum more aesthetically pleasing, for apart from
her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s dog, no one really saw the appeal to
Lillian’s distant regions, and none of the fourteen different diets she had
tried seemed to have any impact, there came a strange and unannounced visitor.
A being who called itself Boopetity Falleshick, and whose fingers danced upon
the side of his elongated noggin to create words. The first words he thus
created for Pipplemax’s benefit were: “iceberg,” “lumberjack,” “cistern” and “woebegone.”
Pipplemax stared at the creature, perplexed. Seeing the confusion, Boopetity
Falleshick switched hands and tried the other side of its head. This time the
words communicated to Pipplemax made a bit more sense: “Beware, the pine tree
is unstable.” Once it had fulfilled its mission to impart that message,
Boopetity Falleshick relaxed, taking a seat on Pipplemax’s recently shifted
ottoman, and letting out a sigh by pressing the back of his skull, a sigh that
lasted a good nine minutes. It might actually have gone on longer, were it not
interrupted by the sudden crushing of Pipplemax’s home by the large white pine
outside Lillian’s window.
For a moment,
there was confusion and filth and disarray, and Pipplemax was unsure of his own
cohesion. He felt a great and intense pain, unlike any he’d experienced before,
and he wondered if he might not be irreparably damaged, battered beyond
possibility of recognition, deformed in a way that would make his extra nose
seem but a trifle. The darkness was now absolute, and in that darkness he was
convinced of the reality of his altered form, and was determined to never leave
Lillian’s ass again. As he fumbled around, trying to right his toppled
furniture, he discovered that Boopetity Falleshick was gone. So was his
ottoman. And, if he’d examined himself a little, even a fraction as much as he
examined his furnishings, he’d have learned that so too was his extra nose. Severed
by a fallen shelving unit, it lay among the muck and muddle resulting from the
sudden disaster. This was the injury that caused his excruciating pain. Other
than that, Pipplemax suffered no serious damage. But he was terrified to
examine his form, figuring the horror he imagined to be less than the horror that
actually was.
But the horror
he was to suffer was worse than he’d imagined, for poor Lillian did not
survive, and soon she was transferred to a grave, sealed in a coffin and stored
beneath the ground. Pipplemax would be stored there as well, where no children
would dare each other to pay him a visit, where he would never be disturbed.
For a decade or so, it might be pleasant, but sooner or later Pipplemax would grow
lonely. And sooner or later, he would come to realize his deformity was gone,
that he was hiding himself away for no reason. That is when the real horror
would begin.
Trinquetta
wanted me to mention that at the time of the accident, she was out running an
errand, purchasing a new lock for her door. I have a feeling those letters won’t
stop after all, not until I agree to tell her tale.
(Copyright 2019 Michael Doherty)
(NOTE: I wrote this story while at work last Monday,
August 5th, 2019, and made just a few changes yesterday and today.)
