Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Elgar - The SNAIL OF RETRIBUTION

As a great admirer of Edward Monkton, I decided that there needed to be a story about a SNAIL OF RETRIBUTION. The title was easy - the rest of it was the problem!


Elgar hadn’t always been the SNAIL OF RETRIBUTION although he rather liked the title. It made him feel important having capital letters: rather like UNESCO, STD or MOT. He also rather liked his somewhat cultured name although, had he been told that this was a tribute by his dyslexic parents to their favourite drink, he might have been less proud. His retributive role had been thrust upon him by the Goddess, Helixa following the Great Salt Wars and he devoted his life to wreaking vengeance upon all enemies of the snail world - his slime-green shell a symbol to snails everywhere.

One day, he was leafing through ‘Nude Slugs’ (motto: Ditch that shell and what the Hell), when the SnailPhone rang. His trusty assistant, Biran, slid to answer it.

"Elgar, there's trouble in Patio Area 5! It's..........." he gulped, ".......Beer!"

"To the SnailMobile." cried Elgar as he slid down the SnailPole and hit the ground with an earth-shattering bump. "Sometimes," he complained ruefully, "you can have too much lubrication."

Pausing only to plug in his GastroPod and listen to his favourite Shell McManus track, they were soon on their way.

"What's our ETA, Biran? he asked. Biran computed their course and speed and immediately replied "It's a short one, Boss. Only 3 days and 7 hours.". Elgar settled back and passed the journey reading his latest book, a biography of his favourite French model, Jardin called 'A Snail of Two Titties'. Biran navigated through the dark territory of Compostia, skirted the grasslands of.....erm.... Grassland and the great desert of Playpit before turning to face Elgar.

"You're looking forlorn." said the SNAIL OF RETRIBUTION. "Oh no, Boss, We passed that ages ago - it was the green bit with the dog-turds"

Elgar gave Biran the full force of his personality. "I meant you're looking sad" he said patiently.

"I was just thinking about Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men. Bill came to me for some marital advice. Apparently his wife doesn't understand him.

Elgar reminded him of the task ahead, their role as protectors and his sacred duty to dispense vengeance on the perpetrators of this assult on the snail world and prepared to do battle as he saw the jar of amber liquid ahead.

Biran looked at the beer. "Watneys?" he guessed.

"Waddya mean, what knees? I'm a bleeding sn............ah, yes, I see what you mean. Right, how shall we do this?"

They struggled to push over the container but to no avail and finally, after much effort, Elgar looked at Biran. "It's no good, we'll have to drink it - for the good of the community we must make sacrifice."

Biran got the short straw (which of course, didn't reach) so the task fell upon Elgar. He wriggled his way to the top of the beer and gazed at the lake of amber liquid. "Oh, suck this." he thought, took a deep breath and away he went. Slowly, oh so slowly, the level of the liquid fell until, finally, Elgar tumbled to the ground; his task complete.

Biran rushed (relatively speaking) over to him. "Boss, you OK? Say something."

Elgar opened one rather bleary eye..............."I love you. I really bloody love you, hic!" and promply passed out.

Some hours later, his horns throbbing, our hero plotted revenge upon the human perpetrators. Sadly, being a snail, the choices were limited so, in the end he decided to go for the ultimate sanction - cabbage nibbling!!!

They travelled to the vegetable patch and were immediately beset by difficulties. First of all, a large green cylinder almost crushed them. "That was a marrow escape" gasped Biran. As they passed the potato patch Biran wondered at all the varieties. Elgar explained about how one cross-bred different types.

"See that one there" he said, "that's a cross between a Jodie Marsh and a John Motson."

"Ah," said Biran "a common-tater."

After stopping off to download some corn on his Blackberry, Elgar, feeling the effects of the beer, went off for a leek whilst Biran detoured via the mange tout when, suddenly, there was a cry of pain! Poor Biran had got himself trapped and suffered a ruptured squidgy bit.

Elgar watched helplessly as the life left Biran's eyes.

He gazed at the lifeless body. "Lettuce hope he rests in peas" he murmured.

Of course, vengeance was not the same without his buddy but he still managed a nice munch and finally, returned home - a sadder, wiser mollusc.

The snail community welcomed him with open......The snail community welcomed him home but looked puzzled when a young lady snail climbed on his back. Someone shouted out "Who's that?" "Oh, that's Michelle!" replied Elgar.

The Chief Snail wanted to honour Elgar and bought him a really flash car with a big S for SuperSnail on the side. "That's terrific" said Elgar, gratefully "Now everybody will see me roar past and say 'Gosh, look at that S car go!'"


The End

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Crikey Bassett, just how many snail gags, jokes and puns do you know?

That was a quite splendidly silly post - I enjoyed it enormously. Good to see you blogging.

Take care :-) x

Anonymous said...

I found your blog while looking for illustrations for an online class journal on biotechnology. The term that led me to you? "Look at that S car go." I liked your intro and am going to bookmark your blog to read more later. Homework deadline prevents present time reading. Looks like fun. BBL.

snail farming said...

First picture of snails is very beautiful. I have seen many colorful snails. But among those it absolutely very beautiful! What's the name of the species?