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The Eye Scream of the World, Part Two by Larry Homer Page 4 Panel 1. Establishing shot of Rant, still tugging his daddy's stretcher, coming into view of the village. Half of the buildings appear to have burned down and there are ashes, dead TourBlocks, dead villagers, etc., scattered all over the area. RANT: Good heavens! I've never seen such a scene of unparalleled devastation and horror! No one told me a Guns'N'Roses concert was scheduled to be held in the center of town last night! Panel 2. Master all'Them'on, the Village Mayor, has appeared to explain things. MAYOR: Worse than that, Rant. The TourBlocks raided the town! It was terrible! They were looking for you, Peering, and Mad (heaven knows why anyone, even a TourBlock, would want Mad, but there's no accounting for taste!). Morphine Sedate says it's because they think at least one of you three, or maybe the whole trio, are ta'verners! RANT: Ta'verners? MAYOR: Yes, ta'verners! That's a walking, talking plot device in the shape of a man, one which makes the normal laws of probability sneak away into the shadows and take a long nap while things occur that you wouldn't otherwise see happen unless you had been guzzling wine in my ta'vern for the last fifteen hours nonstop! Panel 3. RANT: Sounds awful! Did the TourBlocks get Mad and Peering? MAYOR: No, fortunately they tried to eat Nighteve al'Mare's homemade Winternight fruitcake, and you know what kind of cook old "Night'mare" is! RANT (looking sick and clutching at his stomach): Well, better them than me. MAYOR: While they were all howling and groaning and flailing about looking for syrup of ipecac, the Ice Sedate and her Guarder, Lean Meanfightingmachine, managed to rally us to battle and we wiped out a few dozen of the critters before their Moredrawl leader sounded the retreat! RANT: Moredrawl? MAYOR: Yes, I heard him myself, as he shouted, "You-all may have defeated us fer now, Ice Sedate, but we shall not falter! Ah do declare, we shall persecute you-all on the land, we shall persecute you-all on the sea, we shall persecute you-all in the Air! Come Shayol Ghul or high water . . . the Shadow shall rise again! In at least ten more volumes, to be precise!" [NOTE: in case you didn't guess, to properly appreciate a Moredrawl's
remarks, it is necessary to imagine them in a thick Dixie accent (southeastern
portion of the USA) such as one might hear in the old TV show, the Dukes
of Hazzard). Also, please note that the Moredrawl's assurance that the
Shadow will continue to haunt our heroes in volumes to come is a classic
example of foreshadowing. Your guide to quality literature!]
Page 5. Panel 1. Morphine is coming out of Spam's sickroom, looking tired. Rand is greeting her. MORPHINE: All right, Rant, I healed your daddy of his nasty wound, just because you asked me to! RANT: That's great! MORPHINE: And I even let you off the hook when you offered to promise to do anything I wanted in return for the service! RANT: I appreciate that! MORPHINE: But for crying out loud, farmboy, don't EVER let anyone at the Off-White Tower know I refused to squeeze every possible ounce of advantage out of a classic opportunity to manipulate someone! They'd take away my union card and disown me forever! RANT: Scout's honor, Morphine Sedate! I won't say a word!
Panel 2. Lean is holding up a selection of garments taken from the bodies of the dead attackers. LEAN: I must advise you, Morphine Sedate, that I've been examining the bodies of the dead TourBlocks. MORPHINE: And? LEAN: I found specimens of at least five different clans of their evil race! I have here "Trek'kee" T-shirts, "Ecchs-Files" T-shirts, "Tol'ki'en" T-Shirts, "Doon" T-Shirts, and "Stare Wars" T- Shirts. Do you realize what that means? MORPHINE: Yes, it means they anticipate a major Tour coming to this area to celebrate the discovery of You-Know-Who, and they intend to Block it by burning this place to ashes so that all the dissatisfied fans who might have come to this village will have to attend Science Fiction conventions hosted in the Bloat instead! Where the weak-minded fools who think those other crazes are the greatest things since sliced bread will be at their most vulnerable to mental suggestion! Diabolical! Panel 3. We are now in the stable of the all'Them'on inn. Rant is saddling Lugosi (the faithful steed of the all'Star family) as Egging appears onstage. RANT: Egging? What are you doing here? EGGING: I'm coming with you, Rant! Morphine Sedate says I might be able to learn to be just like her at the Off-White Tower! RANT: Oh, that's swell. EGGING: Yes! She says I too can learn to *sniff* at uppity males at every opportunity, to tie them up in knots in verbal debate without actually lying, to keep vital secrets from my best friends no matter how much danger their ignorance could create, and to . . . to . . . let's see now, what was the LAST requirement for becoming an Ice Sedate? RANT: Channeling the Fun Power? EGGING: I knew that! It was on the tip of my tongue! Panel 4. Everybody (meaning Rant, Egging, Morphine, Lan, Peering, Mat, Tom-tom, and the mysterious, unnamed villager who only appeared on the cover of the first book) is now perched on a horse and riding out of town. Tom-tom the gleeclubman (whom we failed to show onstage previously, because he hadn't done anything important so far), has just joined up with their little expedition. TOM-TOM: Yessiree, boys and girls, you sure are lucky to have old Tom-Tom along with you! As a veteran gleeclubman, my harping and singing can charm the birds from the trees! And what I don't know about women hasn't been figured out yet anyway! Why, back when I was younger and even more handsome than I am now, I had a beautiful young Queen eating out of my hand! PEERING: Really? You understand women? But what happened to the Queen? Why didn't you stay with her? TOM-TOM: Well, she got tired of eating Saltines out of my hand, said they were too bland. Give me some Doritos for a change, she said! No ma'am, I said! This pen in my hand is about to sign a death warrant with your name on it, she said! Please excuse my dust, I said! That was the end of THAT torrid affair . . . MAT (in a whisper to Rant): You know, Rant, I have a nasty suspicion that even *I* know more about handling women than this old gleeclubman ever did. Not that I'll ever get a chance to practice on a real live QUEEN, of course . . . [NOTE: Once again, Gentle Reader, we bring you a lovely example of irony, your guide to quality liter - no wait, I think this time it was foreshadowing! No, irony! Foreshadowing! Irony! Whatever! The point is, this particular piece of literature has accumulated so much Quality recently that it's positively frightening! And more to come!] Page 6. Panel 1. In the village of Trying Ferry, we see our heroes are stopped near the riverbank while Morphine looks up and sees a strange winged symbol (very much like the emblem Batman wears on his chest) against the light of the moon. In the background, Lean is dumping money into the hands of the owner of the local ferry. MORPHINE: Hmm, a Draghkar just flew overhead and will soon be giving our current location to the Moredrawl that will be coming up the road behind us! We have to get across the river, but we also have to confuse our trail! After we get across, I'll create a screen of fog stretching for several miles down the river, and the Moredrawl will think we're sailing south under its protective shield, where the Dragcar can't see us! RANT: Let me get this straight - you couldn't just use the Fun Power to blast the Dragkar out of the sky when you saw it a couple of hundred feet above us, silhouetted against the moon, but you CAN use the Fun Power to create a dense fog that will stretch for miles and miles beyond your current position? MORPHINE: Precisely! What's your point? RANT: Oh, nothing, I guess. Just trying to understand how the author's mind works on the subject of "maximum range of a channeler's power in an emergency." MORPHINE: Try to make too much sense of the way I use the Fun Power in this book and you're liable to drive yourself stark raving MAD! As crazy as old Loose Tooth Tell'a'Man himself! RANT: Gulp! [NOTE: Yes, Gentle Reader,we have here a classic example of . . . well,
whatever high mark of Quality this sort of dialogue serves to exemplify!
Irony? Foreshadowing? It's one or the other! Your guess is as good as mine!]
Panel 2. The ferryboat is disappearing under the surface of the river, with numerous bubbles rising to mark its passing, as well as a steamer trunk (belonging to one Jonah) with baggage stickers on the side showing this trunk has also sailed on ships known as "Pequod," "Nautilus," and "Titanic." EGGING: Morphine Sedate, I don't quite understand. If you were going to sink the ferry and there's not another boat available in the village on the south side of the river, why in blazes did it MATTER whether or not the Moredrawl thought we had gone east along the river, or were continuing north along the road? By the time he finds a way to get a bunch of clumsy Tourblocks (who can't swim) over the river, we'll have a huge head start any way you look at it! MORPHINE: Shush, child. You have to shed that unladylike logical thinking you have sadly acquired if you're ever going to fit in at the Off-White Tower! I created the fog and sunk the ferry for the simple reason that so far, the Author hadn't let me do ANY really obvious and colorful magic in this narrative - except in descriptions of what I did offstage last night -, and he belatedly decided it was time to start spending some of the cash earmarked for our special effects budget before the magic-loving audience fell asleep! EGGING: Ah, I see . . . Panel 3.
TOM-TOM: You think this is a city?! Lad, I forget - how big was the main street in your village? Peering: Last year they went for broke! They widened it to one full lane, PLUS a sidewalk! TOM-TOM: Oh, of course.
Panel 4.
RANT: Ready! BABBLES'ON: I am Babbles'on, the evil genius who masterminded the War of Power! I was never truly bound in all this time! I always end up on top! RANT: I don't believe you! Babbles'on: All the Phony Dragons of the Ages have been carefully chosen and manipulated by the Ice Sedate for their own fell purposes! RANT: That doesn't make any sense! BABBLES'ON: Politicians are always sincere when they say they just want to help you commoners live better lives, and wouldn't dream of raising taxes merely to enrich themselves or their friends! Nor do they ever pass a legion of unnecessary laws just to confuse you and make it literally impossible to NOT be a criminal in some way! RANT: That . . . that OUGHT to be true . . . I might accept that much of your teachings . . . NO! WHAT AM I SAYING? BABBLES'ON: CURSES! I almost ensnared you that time!
Page 7. Panel 1. Minx, the beautiful, dark-haired girl who works in the inn, is approaching Rant. In contrast to the other ladies we have seen in this narrative so far, who all wear feminine attire such as dresses, or skirts and blouses, Minx is wearing a tight sweater and even tighter blue jeans! The THEORY is that she dresses this way to just be like "one of the boys" and obviously NOT someone who cares about being alluring and feminine and getting men to chase after her, like SOME girls! That's what she swears whenever anyone asks, anyway . . . draw your own conclusions. MINX: Hello, handsome! I have a talent for having visions of things that are going to come to pass in the future! For instance, I can see you and me, standing side by side at a religious ceremony, wearing our best clothes, and I'm looking radiant and you're looking very grim but resigned to what is occurring, and there are flowers all over the place, and all our friends and relatives are standing in the background . . . RANT: Oh no! You're saying that we're going to attend a funeral together, of someone you disliked and I loved and will miss deeply? Who could it be? Mat? Peering? Or even (sob) my favorite horse, Lugosi? MINX (under her breath): This sheepherder is as dumb as a turnip, isn't he? I don't know what I'm destined to see in him, but there's no getting out of it now! Panel 2. Tom-Tom is trying to drag Rant away from Minx, who already has one arm draped around Rant's neck for some odd reason that Rant can't understand for the life of him. TOM-TOM: Come along, young Rant! We don't have time for you to chat up every pretty girl in sight the way you always do! You're the most shameless flirt I ever met, you know that? RANT (sputtering): But - but - but - MINX: We'll have plenty of time to, er, ‘chat', Rant! I'll come with you! If I'm lucky, maybe we'll get cut off from the rest of this group in some daring escape and be stuck all along for a while on a desert isle! No witnesses, no chaperones . . . . RANT (immediately spotting the crucial flaw in her argument): How on earth are we going to find a desert isle anytime soon when there's a huge mountain range between us and the nearest ocean, and we're headed further INLAND anyway? MINX: Okay, so I'll settle for being trapped with you in a cozy little
cave after an avalanche! I'm willing to try anything once!
Panel 3. This is a large panel, nearly every established important character is now standing in it, filling up the common room of the Inn, it would appear. MORPHINE: Sorry, Minx! For no apparent reason, the Almighty Script (which I can't show Rant, of course) insists that now that we've established your existence to justify your appearing in every subsequent volume of this series, you don't actually get to DO anything exciting yet! you simply stay right here at this boring Inn for no apparent reason for the remainder of the first volume, while your dear Rant and all his friends rush back and forth across the map having wild adventures! Be sure to send her a postcard, Rant, it's the civil thing to do! MINX: Couldn't we deviate from the Script just ONCE and simply have me do the LOGICAL thing? MORPHINE: Absolutely not! If we set a bad precedent now, then the fans will expect us to continue to behave ‘logically' for the rest of the 11 Books and that would throw the Script out the window and ruin a LOT of surprises! How many times must I say that channeling the Fun Power and behaving intelligently are mutually exclusive? MAT (counting on his fingers): Well, considering that you never said it BEFORE, I'm not sure the word ‘many' really applies to your having finally said it just now - LEAN: Shut up, you young whippersnapper! Good arithmetic is perilously close to logical thinking, and as Morphine just said, she ain't having any of that! TOM-TOM: Excuse me, but does anyone know why we are so urgently congregating in this overcrowded panel? Was there some sort of emergency? PEERING: This meeting was all Morphine's idea, anyway . . . I don't think there's any reason to get upset. I'm the calm, quiet, type and I figure if we just all keep our heads and talk reasonably, we can figure out what to do next, as a team! NIGHT'MARE (poking in her head through the door at the far right): HELLO,
everyone! I finally caught up with you! And as a special treat, I brought
along fifty pounds of my homemade Winternight Fruitcake for you to devour!
Panel 4. Lean Meanfightingmachine is grabbing Perrin by the collar and effortlessly holding him in place as the apprentice blacksmith's legs form a blur of motion as he attempts to escape Night'mare's fruitcakes. PEERING: ARRRRGH! LET ME OUT OF HERE! Tom-tom, hold her off! I'm too young to die! Stand clear, Mad, you're blocking the window and I'm in a HURRY! LEAN: Hold on there, blacksmith! There are worse things to worry about than Night'mare's sudden appearance here! Like the Moredrawl I chased off a few minutes ago when it was threatening Rant! PEERING: That's entirely a matter of opinion! Have you ever tasted her fruitcake? LEAN: As a matter of fact, son, I'm rather PARTIAL to fruitcake! May I have a generous portion of that concoction, Mistress al'Mare? Panel 5. Closeup of Lean's face as Night'mare holds out a slice of fruitcake to him. Panel 5. Closeup as he chews vigorously. SOUND EFFECTS (from the conflict of his teeth with the fruitcake inside his now-closed mouth): KLUNK CRASH GRIND CHOMP SMASH BANG THUNK SLAM Panel 6. Closeup of Lean's face as he speaks. LEAN: Now, that's what I call a real MAN'S fruitcake! None of this namby-pamby stuff that you can cut with a dull knife! Mistress al'Mare, you ought to open up a bakery in the Borderlands where we have hard, tough men who appreciate hard, tough food! You're wasted on these southerners! NIGHT'MARE: That's what I've always told them!
WHERE will our heroes go from here? WHEN will Rand finally stand up for himself instead of being bossed around by women? WHY is logical thinking anathema to any Ice Sedate? HOW long will it be before the next installment? The answers to these questions of global importance will be long in the coming, but surely are worth the wait until the author of this parody is next overcome by the spastic fits which are vital to the production of these riveting episodes! Raina's Hold / Raina's
Library / Other People's Humour / The
Eye Scream of the World
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