A horrible noise, loud enough to wake up a deaf, dead man buried in a
distant country, suddenly started to develop in the the little pink
house located in the small village north of Wagga Wagga.
The noise originated from an ultra
powerful home made alarm-clock. Fifteen minutes after the clock had
started to emit powerful sound waves, the constructor of the clock, a
man called Jesper, woke up.
The reason why he woke up wasn't that he had heard the noise (he had
slept very hard), but that his night working neighbor, that just
had gone off to sleep, had heard it.
The somewhat moody neighbor did, after he had been noise tortured for
fifteen minutes, a desperate attempt to silence the horrible sound.
He climbed up from bed and walked outside with a brick in his hand.
He then threw the brick in through the bedroom window of the pink
house. The brick landed on, and damaged, the central regions of
Jesper's body, who woke up accompanied by his own shrill, and
unusually soprano like, scream of pain. Jesper then, still with a
grin of pain on his face, turned off the alarm. When he noticed that
the alarm had sounded for 15 minutes, he murmured the same words that
he had done so many times before:
"I better add another amplifier to the signal."
He then climbed up from bed. Since Jesper hadn't reserved more than 15
minutes for getting dressed, eating breakfast, visiting the bathroom
and reading the morning paper, he now was in a bit of hurry. To avoid
getting too late for work, he skipped all morning tasks, except
'getting dressed'.
He then ran towards the train station, carrying the morning paper, a
blue toothbrush and a ham sandwich. He couldn't understand why he
always had this problem waking up on Mondays. Why just Mondays, when
his work begun the same time all weekdays?
Could the reason be that he went to bed five hours later on weekends,
or could the reason be that his weekend house was a two hours trip
away from work, while his weekdays house was in the same block as his
working site? He didn't have an answer to that question, since the time
it took for him to come up with this complicated question was equal to
the time it had taken him to run to the train station, buy a ticket and
climb into a coupé, and when the end of the question finally was
formulated the beginning was long time forgotten.
He sat down in an empty coupé
feeling convinced that this was just going
to be another of all those ordinary days in his very dull life.
A few minutes later
a woman with a familiar looking face came into the coupé.
Jesper desperately tried to remember were he had
seen her, but even if he frowned so hard
that he squashed the blood-sucking mosquito in
his forehead, he couldn't. The woman seemed nervous and
lightened a cigarette. They sat in silence for the rest of the
trip. Every now and then he cast her looks of wonder. Who was
this woman with that big nose?
This question puzzled Jesper so much during the rest of the train
trip, that he forgot to read his morning paper. This was very
unfortunate since he then didn't notice the sale on his favorite bacon
that his local supermarket had.
But let's not focus too much on that right now.
At last the journey ended. Just
as he was leaving the coupé the woman with the over dimensioned
smelling organ turned to him and said in a low voice:
"Honey don't move, you are under arrest."
Then she finished her cigarette.
"Who? Me?", Jesper said and looked surprised.
"Yeah, you Jesper. I see you don't recognize me?
It's me, Big-Nose-Sally."
"Bi... Sally, why scare me, you aren't going to arrest me, are you?"
"No, I'm just checking if the police are after you, gangster boy."
"You are the first one in ages to call me by that name.
How could you remember?"
He desperately wanted to know the answer.
He had a feeling that this woman was dangerous. (The feeling was
partly based on the fact that
she had lighted another cigarette and dropped the match on his
right arm.) Suddenly, he realized a way to find out what
Big-Nose-Sally was up to.
Jesper turned to her and said with a strange foreign accent:
"Pixy bataf ay neaporue Alasky."
Without thinking she replied with a monotonic voice, like a talking
computer after someone pushed the 'enter' button:
"Peanuts in Siberia are also nice this year."
Then, after realizing that she just had revealed the most secret of
codes, she put both her hands before her mouth and her
face started to turn red.
"So, you are still the same lousy spy. I thought you
changed profession years ago", said Jesper condescending and smiled.
"I tried", Sally whispered.
"You didn't manage so well, did you", Jesper said sounding sad.
As they started to walk away from the train together,
Jesper looked at Sally's red face, and could feel how
all the memories came back to him.
Many years ago he and Sally were going to get married, but
Sally fell in love with his father Jonas, and ran away to
Ethiopia with him. Jesper had felt shattered. He had loved Sally so
much, and now seeing her again after all these years, Jesper just
felt sad. He put his hand (the one with only three fingers) on
Sally's arm and looked at her:
"Why, why did you do it to me? Why did you marry Jonas?"
"Well, I couldn't marry you, because then I would get a really
spookie father-in-law."
She looked at the ground and continued:
"Your grandpa is, on the other hand, what I call a very nice
father-in-law, and at that time I, for some mysterious reason that I
can't see now, was very anxious to find the perfect father-in-law."
"I see, Big-Nose, but it still hurts me to look at you as my
stepmother."
"But that's all history now. I've left him."
"Why?", Jesper asked.
"Well, it's a long story, and I think you will not like me ever
again, if I tell you."
Jesper put his arm around her shoulders and said quietly:
"Sal, honey, I've got to know. Did he do anything bad to you,
that sleazy old bastard. If he did anything to hurt you I'll kill
him."
"No, it's nothing like that", Sally said, "It's nothing he did,
but it's kind of hard to tell you this but... I've had it with
men. I have fallen in love with Christine. She is the leader
of a big spy organization. Women are so much nicer. Do you have a
spare cigarette?"
"No, I'm sorry I don't.
By the way it's a coincidence that your
girl friends name is Christine because I once knew a girl called
Christine too.
"Well", said Sally laughing, "but 'your' Christine hasn't as
silly last name as mine I bet,
because her name is Christine Frog."
"Oh! Does she have a birthmark shaped like a mitten on her left cheek,
and three freckles in the shape of a pentagon on her left groin?"
"Well,.... Yes, how did you know?"
"I don't, I was just guessing.", Jesper said as he quickly
changed subject and continued, "Listen Sal I've got something to
tell you, that I haven't told anyone before. I want you to keep this
as a secret. You must not tell anyone."
"What is it?" Big-Nose-Sally said breathlessly.
Jesper looked into her eyes and then at the ground.
"You are not going to believe me but..."
"But what?"
"Well, I have a pet mouse and, well, it talks."
"It talks!?"
"Yes but that's not important... (a long pause)... It claims to
be God, and says it knows the secret of immortality; how to live
forever."
"Really, that mouse I want to see! Do you live far away?"
Sally said, talking with a really loud voice.
"Quiet! No it's not far to the house with the talking mouse!!",
Jesper almost yelled since their conversation mysteriously had been
louder and louder for every alternation.
Suddenly his little brain understood that he had
told all persons, who now where watching them, about his amazing
mouse. So, he yelled even louder:
"Did I say talking mouse, I meant walking mouse!!",
and then he whispered:
"Ha, now I really fooled them."
But he didn't notice the man in
the black glasses who wasn't fooled............
The mysterious man in the black glasses walked up to Jesper and
announced:
"My name is Darth Sader. I'm evil, nasty and deaf on one ear."
He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Jesper.
"What do you want?", Jesper whispered.
Darth said:
"I'm an encyclopedian salesman. If you don't buy the
new 24 volume edition on Russian butterflies, you'll regret it for
the rest of your life."
"Do you mean you'll shoot me, or cut my head off and throw rocks at
it?"
"No, I mean I'll knock on your front door every single day until you get
a nervous breakdown", Darth smiled nastily and added, "and if you
don't show me your flying horse
I'll kill the girl."
Big-Nose-Sally looked at Jesper with her big yellow eyes and said:
"Don't show him your horse. I'll rather die."
Darth smiled even nastier and shot a bullet so close to Big-Nose's
ear that her earring was blown away.
"I suddenly remembered that it might not be such a bad
idea to show this nice gentleman your little flying horse.
By the way, you ought to, if you haven't already, call the horse
Pegasus.", said Sally, sounding a bit dizzy, and fainted.
"She called me nice! Do you think I'm nice?", said Darth with a
voice that could turn blood into ice, or at least into red sorbet like
substance.
"Well, Noo,.... I mean Yes.. or.. should I say quite... What I'm
trying to say is.... What you want me to say I say it.... But if you
really want to know I really can't tell because.... we just met", said
Jesper and looked a little bit terrified.
Darth kicked Sally's head and blood
started pissing out everywhere.
"Now, do you think I'm nice?"
Darth asked looking at Jesper.
"I think you are .....", Jesper flipped an imaginary coin in his head
and continued, "lovely."
At that moment Sally sat up and started screaming because she
couldn't find her earring. Jesper started crying because he didn't
want to show Darth his talking mouse, and Darth started jumping up
and down because there was blood on his imported Italian shoes.
Then something incredible happened. Sally's earring,
(the one that Darth just had shot off), had flown
50 yards and ended up in a bus driver's ear. In order to get rid of
the earring, the bus driver lost control over the bus and
in 50 km/h he drove up on the pavement.
A very athletic man on his way to his first bowls lesson was almost
scared to death and threw his skittle-ball 30 yards up in the air.
What goes up must come down, and so also the skittle-ball, which
landed on Darth's head. Dart gave a funny smile and then he fell
backwards.
"I knew this was going to happen when he shot your earring off
Sally-dear", Jesper said, "But strange that it took such a long
time."
Sally smiled and gave Jesper a long tender kiss.
The athletic man walked up and said:
"Excuse me, have you seen my ball? I'm going to be very late."
They all started searching but the ball had
disappeared.
So, Jesper being a practical sort of guy suggested that they should
rip off Darth's head and that the athletic could use it as a
skittle-ball substitute.
The athletic man stared at Jesper, looked a little bit
shocked, murmured something about that he could try another sport,
that didn't need a ball, instead. Then he hurried away.