Iceberg Lumberjack Cistern Woebegone

     In a dark corner of Lillian’s fundament lived a self-conscious sprite named Pipplemax. Pipplemax loved the darkness, for he had a pronounced deformity of the face, and felt that in the darkness it was less noticeable. This deformity appeared to be a second nose, nostrils and all, though it did not perform any of the functions normally associated with a nose. It did not allow air in or out, did not allow odors in or snot out. Pipplemax couldn’t blow it, or snort cocaine with it. It was a pointless appendage and an endless source of shame for him. And so he made his home in that seldom trafficked corner of Lillian’s posterior, where he planned to avoid the population.

     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.)