MiSTed: Stolen Memories (22/29)
Rottweiler
> *********************************
BOTS: (singing) Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh...
>
> When Alis awoke she was overjoyed to find him
> sitting up on the litter, clean and dressed in the clothes
> she had made for him.
CROW: (Alis) I can't STAND the sight of his naked body!
> She ruslted through the last sack and
> produced the snake skin Julian had puzzled over and made
> him remove the tunic before pulling the pair with thongs on
> both ends up his arms, tying them in place over his
> shoulder and wrists.
TOM: Oh, an Insty-Straitjacket!
> She informed him they were for
> protecting his arm from insects and branches along the
> way.
CROW: Not having the heart to tell him he was going to Bellevue for
"observation".
> The other snake skins were produced and these she
> pulled up his legs.
TOM: Pretty soon, he'll be some very attractive luggage.
(MIKE stumbles in and collapses in his seat)
CROW: Where've you been?
MIKE: Thirteen down was a real killer.
> Julian was delighted to discover the
> skins had been stretched to fit his legs from toe to thigh
> like a second skin.
MIKE: (Alis) That's why I like you. I can give you socks for Christmas,
and you'll actually get excited about them.
> Alis bound the skins in place with the
> long thongs by wrapping them around his waist, and then dug
CROW: Rock 'n' roll music.
> around in the sack to produce a pair of fur and hide
> moccasins to place on his feet.
MIKE: (Julian) Mom, I can dress myself for school. I'm not a baby.
> She returned the tunic,
TOM: (Alis) It's one size too small.
> and Julian tugged it on, and
> she handed him the stick she had carved out for him to use
> as an aide to balance.
CROW: (Julian) Can this thing turn water into blood?
> When Julian tottered to the
> riverside the aide of the stick,
MIKE: Julian Bashir, aide to Stick Stickley.
> he was delighted to see
> in his reflection that combining the tunic with the snake
> skin had covered him completely from the neck down.
TOM: Unfortunately, his face was still visible.
> Only
> his hands and head were unprotected now.
CROW: Neither of them realized that poisonous creatures only bite heads
and
hands.
TOM: Sad, really.
> When he returned to the litter,
MIKE: (Julian) Whew! Alis, you need to get some Johnny Cat in here.
> he found Alis had
> collected a large amount of wood, leaves and rocks that
> she used to encircle the two litters.
CROW: She used to collect action figures, but found that the secondary
market took all the fun out of it.
> In the centre of this
> circle she piled more branches and leaves, then she
> departed, only to return dragging bundles of branches and
> twigs behind her, again and again.
TOM: The only cat in the world that builds a nest.
> He fell asleep, and woke to find two holes in the
> ground,
MIKE: (Julian) Now, which one of these is my ass?
> one lined with rocks and leaves contained Alis'
> litter,
CROW: Of kittens.
> the other contained rocks, branches and leaves
> which during the course of the day soon over flowed from
> it.
TOM: I think I'm going to imagine that I'm reading _Treasure Island_
right
now. Anyone care to join me?
> Every time he asked her what she was doing, she would
> ignore him, and tell him to hush and rest, to busy to take
> the time to explain, and he was still too weak to follow
> her around.
MIKE: Now she's less his girlfriend than she is his babysitter.
> By the third day, the hole her litter was in had been
> extended to the size of a small hut, lined with rocks, with
> a stone and mud fire place and chimney in the making.
CROW: Oh goody! Now Santa can visit them!
> Rocks
> were piled up near the hut to be,
TOM: Wow, where'd she find all those Alcatrazes?
> and Alis returned to the
> camp dragging the skin of the snake she'd killed to save
> Julian, it was bulging with mud that she used to finish
> building the chimney.
MIKE: Alis joins Habitat for Humanity.
> Julian dragged his litter over to the huts
> foundations and assisted her by passing down rocks.
CROW: Which, by the way, was the best Aerosmith album ever.
> He came
> to the conclusion that she was constructing a little home
> for them,
TOM: When Julian told Alis he wanted her to be a homemaker, she took him
literally.
> a home where no one would find them and he'd be
> safe.
MIKE: Mud roof, rock walls. State of the Art security here.
CROW: It should be sufficient protection against the Big Bad Wolf,
though.
> By the end of the week, the fire place was complete
> and Julian was put to work, scouting around to find more
> large stones for the hut.
TOM: I have trouble picturing Julian as a guy with large stones, if you
know what I mean.
> Leaving Julian to his work, Alis
MIKE: Had an affair with the milkman.
CROW: What's a milkman?
> disappeared into the wilderness again,
TOM: Courtesy of The Amazing Rando!
> returning at first
> with a cluster of long thick straight branches that she
> instructed Julian to carve tips on when he was tired out
> from hauling rocks. He assumed they would become spears.
CROW: They would become Ruby-Spears.
> When she disappeared and returned time and again with more
> of the long thick branches he soon worked out there was
> another reason, but didn't have the slightest idea what
> that could be.
TOM: They're a homemade Lincoln Log set.
> Eventually, Alis stopped bringing the branches, and
> returned with thin reedy branches and twigs,
MIKE: Instead of bringing branches, she's bringing... different
branches.
What a plot twist.
> and then
> carried off the snake skin to return with it bulging with
> big thick leaves which she dumped by the hut to be.
CROW: Apparently, the snakes on Felistia are made from burlap.
> That night, Julian's litter and the food supplies
> were transferred to the hut, but Julian slept in it alone.
TOM: So Kafkaesque. Yet so ridiculous.
> He awoke in the morning to find the collection of
> twigs had grown ten fold,
CROW: OH MY GOD, WE'RE BEING INVADED BY TWIGS!!!
> and that there was a clutch of
> dead snakes and furred creatures set near the camp fire,
> with Alis' knife.
MIKE: (Julian) Good little furred creatures... just put the knife
down...
> He knew she expected him to skin them, but he was
> squeamish,
MIKE: After everything that's happened, skinning a snake still bothers
him.
> and covered the animals with the leaves,
TOM: I bet he also sweeps dust under the rug and expects nobody to
notice.
> before
> returning to his rock hunting expedition,
MIKE: (Julian) Hey, David Lee Roth, where are you? I know you're around
here somewhere. Come out, come out, wherever you are...
> each time he
> returned dragging rocks back to the campsite he'd find the
> number of leaves or twigs had grown.
CROW: (Julian) Our credit card bill is going to be through the roof this
month. These leaves and twigs are costing us a fortune.
> When the sun reached
> it's zenith,
TOM: With the moon in Magnavox and Jupiter in RCA.
> he returned to his litter, to rest in the
> shade the ditch offered.
MIKE: So he's lying in a ditch full of refuse. What is he, the town
drunk?
> Alis returned and dumped a stack of long thick
> branches into the pit with her knife,
TOM: (Crocodile Dundee) That's not a knife... no, wait, it is a knife.
Sorry. Need to have me glasses fixed.
> telling Julian to get
> back to carving.
MIKE: I wonder how long Julian will put up with this.
CROW: (Julian) One of these days, Alis, one of these days... POW! To
the
moon!
> He did so.
TOM: (Julian) Yes, dear. I'm doing it, dear.
> An hour later Alis returned to the camp with the
> snake skin full of water which she used to soak the ground
> around the pit,
MIKE: (Alis) We can't afford a security system, so I'm going to build a
moat.
> then as Julian watched, she drove the
> carved branches into the ground so they stood upright.
CROW: Then she instructed Julian to sit on one of them.
> When
> she'd made a virtual wall of branches she began winding
> thin flexible twigs through.
TOM: Say what you will about Alis, but she's good with a computer.
> He watched fascinated,
MIKE: Of course, he's also fascinated by watching the washing machine
spin
the clothes around and around.
> as she
> wove a wall, five feet high this way and then she looked
> at him.
CROW: A house fit for Danny DeVito.
> I trust, that now you've seen me do it you can do
> it too."
TOM: (singing) I can do anything you can do better,
I can do anything better than you!
> Julian nodded and then returned to his carving
> chores with a new enthusiasm now he knew what the purpose
> of his endeavours were.
MIKE: (Julian) I feel so motivated now that I know we're going to turn a
temporary shelter into a sprawling estate.
> Alis left, returning with more of
> the thick branches dumping them into the pit. Then she
> wandered off to the riverside,
CROW: Isn't that where Archie lives?
> to bathe, and when she
> returned to the camp, it was with yet another collection of
> twigs.
TOM: By this time, all the trees have been stripped bare.
CROW: And every animal within a hundred mile radius has been
slaughtered!
> By night fall the frame of the hut was complete.
MIKE: Jabba would be completed by Wednesday.
> All
> of the next day, Julian and Alis worked together winding
> twigs through the branches building the walls up and
> connecting them.
TOM: (singing) The long and winding twigs.
MIKE: (singing) Felistan wood - isn't it good?
CROW: (singing) I wanna hold your pa-a-a-a-a-aw!
> When the sun began to set,
TOM: On the British Empire.
> Alis removed
> some of the rocks from the side of the foundation
CROW: Which allowed her to predict the future, using Psychohistory.
> and began
> digging in the dirt,
MIKE: Peter Gabriel's lawyers, you've been put on alert.
> using a stick to break up the dirt.
MIKE: And a couple of barfights.
TOM: Thanks, Mike. Now I'll always picture Alis as the Joe Don Baker of
cat people.
> She dug through the night until she had broken through
> outside the walls and created a tunnel that
CROW: Would allow them to escape Stalag 17.
> lead into the
> hut.
MIKE: They turned lead into a hut? That's some weird alchemy.
> She instructed Julian to line the walls with the rocks
> and stones she'd set him to collecting while she slept
> through the day.
TOM: Instead, Julian spent the whole day eating Mallomars and watching
_Benson_ reruns.
MIKE: (Julian) What the devil is Odo doing in that mansion?
> Alis awoke to find the passage way lined,
CROW: With guacamole.
> and Julian
> sitting on a bed of leaves in the sun weaving a roof from
> the left over branches and twigs.
MIKE: Can't they just get a Sukkah kit, like everyone else does?
> He waved to a bundle of
> leaves that insects were swarming around,
TOM: (singing) Hello bundle, whatcha knowin'?
I've come to watch your insects flowin'.
> and when she
> investigated she found the animals she had left behind.
CROW: When she escaped from the island of Doctor Moreau.
> Muttering about men in general,
MIKE: And Lee Van Cleef in particular.
> she quickly skinned the
> rotting animal corpses and cleaned their hides and skins in
> the river before hanging them to dry on the walls of the
> hut.
TOM: C'mon down to Carrion Hut, America's number one carrion retailer!
> The meat she used to create snares in the wilderness
> surrounding their campsite.
CROW: But all she caught were a couple of right-wing survivalists.
>
> When Alis joined Julian in the weaving and talked
> of making him another set of clothes if she could catch
> sufficient prey,
MIKE: (Julian) Do you suppose you could make me some flare-leg jeans?
> he told her, he'd quite happily do it
> himself, if she skinned the animals for him.
TOM: (Julian) Do the gross part for me, Mommy.
> And so, when
> the weaving was done, she disappeared off into the
> wilderness, returning with a clutch of furred creatures,
CROW: Now they're building a car out of things they find in the
wilderness!
> he prepared the fire pit on her instructions
MIKE: (Alis) Where are the house blueprints?
TOM: (Julian) Under the fire. Why do you ask?
> while she
> skinned them, and watched carefully as she showed him how
> to prepare the meat for roasting in the pit.
CROW: She told him about her secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices.
> She left him to tend to the cooking of the meal,
> while she returned to the wilderness,
MIKE: Oh great, Gloria Steinam found a magic lamp.
> returning some hours
> later with vines and long extra thick branches, these she
> carved the points on,
TOM: She carved the number of points she'd scored on Tetris that day.
> then soaked the ground to dig post
> holes, and set them into place one on each corner, then she
> lashed the frame of a roof in place.
CROW: Then she checked the OSHA regulations. Then she scratched herself
and made rude comments at passing women.
> Their days work was
> raised to cover their hut, and they celebrated what Julian
> thought was the completion of the hut over roast and fruit.
MIKE: What exactly did they roast? I mean, how could you leave a
crucial
detail like that out of the story? I think the writers are
getting
just a tad sloppy.
> When she went to her bed, she stripped,
MIKE: Well, I guess she's just following ancient history.
TOM: Say, Mike, If I stipped for her, would she strip for me?
MIKE: Uh-huh-huh.
> carefully
> folding her clothes and setting her armour where she would
> not trip over it.
CROW: Life in the SCA.
> She caught him watching her,
TOM: Ooooh. I bet Julian likes to watch. Heh-heh.
MIKE: Tom, what the hell are you talking about? Julian's slept with
someone
in every chapter so far! You've been reading the same story I
have!
Given that evidence, what on earth makes you think that he likes
to
watch?!?
TOM: Geez Mike, it was just a joke...
MIKE: Sorry. This story is getting to me.
> looking away
> each time she gazed his way, turning red, then she climbed
> into bed,
CROW: You're a poet, and you don't know it.
> and curled up facing him, her tail moving up and
> down her leg in a highly suggestive fashion.
CROW: (Alis) I want to play Parcheesi, NOW.
> He saw it, and
> the blush deepened, then the turned away, to strip for the
> night
TOM: And for the money.
CROW: If Elizabeth Berkley shows up, I'm leaving.
> leaving his clothes in a heap, and when he glanced
> around and saw her watching from her bed, a clear
> invitation in her eyes.
MIKE: "Come to Susie's birthday party with me" they said.
> His hands hovered over the breach clouts ties, then he
> climbed into his bed, facing the wall of rock and began to
> tell her of the terrors and abuse he'd suffered at her
> sisters hands,
CROW: (Julian) She called me mean names, and then she teased me about my
haircut, and then...
TOM: (Alis) Geez! What did I see in this clod?!?
> of his meeting with her father about life in
> the harems, the sensualist, of his escape.
CROW: Of cabbages and kings.
MIKE: Julian needs to take Remedial Pillow Talk.
> Alis slept badly that night.
TOM: Julian wouldn't shut up.
> And when she did sleep
> it was to dream of finding and repaying tenfold the bitch
> who'd stolen her lovers innocence so brutally with equal
> brutality.
CROW: (Alis) I WILL KILL HER!
MIKE: The bitch? Lassie?
(TOM hovers onto MIKE's lap. MIKE picks TOM up and ALL leave the
theater.)
[Planet Bumper]