MiSTing: THE EYE OF ARGON 3/8

[a.ca...@genie.geis.com]

[Continued from Part 2]

[Back on the SOL]

Mike: Oh, hi. We were just trying to figure out why of all the possible
names Jim Theis could have picked for his protagonist, he chose "Grignr".
Tom: Maybe it's an anagram. "Grring"? "Ingrgr"? "Ggrrin?"
Crow: If you rearrange it just right you get an ethnic slur!
Mike: I don't think that's the answer, guys. I think he probably just
threw a bunch of Scrabble pieces up in the air.
Tom: But somehow I just can't shake the image of Jim Theis, pounding his
head against the desk in frustration--
Crow: I'd like to pound his head against the desk!
Tom: --trying to come up with the string of letters that would capture his
greatest literary creation, and then, suddenly, in a flash of light, jumping
up and crying, "Yes! I have Named him! Now and forever, the hero of my
tale shall be called... GRIGNR!"
Crow: Nah. I think it's political.
Mike: Political?
Crow: Yeah, you know. Like Newt Grignr.

[Lights flash]

All: We've got STORY SIGN!

[6...5...4...3...2...1...]

> -3-
>
> Consciousness returned to Grignr in stygmatic pools

Mike: He was bleeding from his palms and side.

>as his mind
>gradually cleared of the cobwebs cluttering its inner recesses,

Mike: So =that= explains his behavior up till now.

>yet the
>stygian cloud of charcoal ebony remained. An incompatible shield of
>blackness,

Tom: No, no, no. This shield of blackness is for the Mac! We've got a
PC!

>enhanced by the bleak abscense of sound.
> Grignr's muddled brain reeled from the shock of the blow he had
>recieved to the base of his skull. The events leading to his predicament
>were slow to filter back to him.

Crow: He tried to read the previous two chapters but that just made him
more confused.

>He dickered

Mike: I said watch the language!

>with the notion that he was
>dead and had descended or sunk, however it may be,

Mike: You tell me, you're the writer! Now did he descend, or did he sink?

>to the shadowed land
>beyond the the aperature

Tom: At the f-stop you're usin' you'll be wantin' to keep that aperature
open fer about an eighth of a second.

>of the grave, but rejected this hypothesis

Mike: Grignr is a firm believer in the scientific method.

>when his memory sifted back within his grips. This was not the land of
>the dead,

Crow: Thank God! Now there's still a hope that once Jim does kill him off
the story'll finally be over.

>it was something infinitely more precarious than anything the grave
>could offer. Death promised an infinity of peace,

Mike: Look, all we're saying is give death a chance.

>not the finite misery of
>an inactive life of confined torture, forever concealed from the life
>bearing shafts of the beloved rising sun.

Tom: Grignr's Japanese? I thought he was Ecordian!

>The orb that had been before
>taken for granted, yet now cherished above all else. To be forever refused
>further glimpses of the snow capped summits of the land of his birth, never
>again to witness the thrill of plundering unexplored lands beyond the crest
>of a bleeding horizon,

Mike: I--I feel his pain. [wipes away a tear]
Crow: I feel pain all right, but it's not his.

>and perhaps worst of all the denial to ever again
>encompass the lustful excitement of caressing the naked curves of the body
>of a trim yound wench.

Tom: This is the part of the story Bob Packwood can really relate to.

> This was indeed one of the buried chasms of Hell concealed within the
>inner depths of the palace's despised interior.

Mike: They keep Limbo in a closet up on the second floor.

>A fearful ebony chamber
>devised to drive to the brinks of insanity the minds of the unfortunately
>condemned, through the inapt solitude of a limbo of listless dreary
>silence.

Crow: If you're trying to drive them insane, why not just make them read
THE EYE OF ARGON? It'd be a lot quicker.

>
> -3 1/2-

Tom: 3 1/2? What is this, hide and seek?
Mike: This edition seems to have omitted Chapter Pi.

>
> A tightly rung elliptical circle

Crow: You mean an ellipse?
Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

>or torches

Tom: Make up your mind! Is it an elliptical circle or is it torches?

>cast their wavering shafts prancing morbidly

Mike: I'll never understand interpretive dance.

>over the smooth surface of a rectangular, ridged alter.
>Expertly chisled forms of grotesque gargoyles graced the oblique rim
>protruberating

Tom: This must be before the reduction surgery.

>the length of the grim orifice of death,

Mike: Never say "orifice" again.

>staring forever
>ahead into nothingness in complete ignorance of the bloody rites enacted in
>their prescence. Brown flaking stains

Mike: --were collected by Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola.

>decorated the golden surface of the
>ridge surrounding the alter, which banked to a small slit at the lower
>right hand corner of the altar.

Crow: The Temple of Jerusalem was described in less detail!

>The slit stood above a crudely pounded
>pail which had several silver meshed chalices hanging at its sides.
>Dangling at the rimof golden mallet, the handle of which was engraved with
>images of twisted faces and groved at its far end with slots designed for a

Mike: --man, but made for a woman.

>snug hand grip. The head of the mallet was slightly larger than

Tom: --the sun. Man, was it big.

>a clenched fist and shaped into a smooth oval mass.
> Encircling the marble altar was a congregation of

Tom: --kids from Brooklyn, circa 1951.
Mike: I'll trade ya two catseyes for yer shooter!

>leering shamen.
>Eerie chants of a bygone age, originating unknown eons before the memory of
>man,

Crow: Sorta like Strom Thurmond.

>were being uttered from the buried recesses of the acolytes' deep lings.

Mike: I'd rather not hear about their lings, thank you very much.

>Orange paint was smeared in generous globules over the tops of thw
>Priests' wrinkled shaven scalps,

Tom: They must be going for the Michael Stipe look.

>while golden rings projected from the
>lobes of their pink ears. Ornate robes of lusciour purple satin enclosed
>their bulging torsos, attached around their waists with silvered silk
>lashes

Crow: Their torsos are attached to their waists with =silk=?

>latched with ebony buckles in the shape of morose mis-shaped skulls.
>Dangling around their necks were

Tom: --albatrosses.

>oval fashoned medalions held by thin gold
>chains, featuring in their centers blood red rubys which resembled crimson
>fetish eyeballs.

Mike: They'd run out of Visine and kept forgetting to put it on the list
when they went to the drugstore.

>Cushoning their bare feet were plush red felt slippers
>with pointed golden spikes projecting from their tips.

Crow: They look like pumps, but feel like sneakers.

> Situated in front of the altar, and directly adjacent to the copper
>pail was a massive jade idol; a misshaped, hideous bust

Mike: My Aunt Ethel had one of those.

>of the shamens'
>pagan diety. The shimmering green idol was placed in a sitting posture on
>an ornately carved golden throne raised upon a round, dvory plated dias;

Mike: I've run out of dias jokes.

>it
>bulging arms and webbed hands resting on the padded arms of the seat. Its
>head was entwined in golden snake-like coils hanging over its oblong ears,
>which tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a bulging
>triangular mass,

Tom: And it made a little money on the side endorsing American Express
travelers' checks.

>sunken in at its sides with tow gaping nostrils. Dramatic
>beneath the nostrils was a twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the
>impression of a slovering sadistic grimace.

Mike: It also does a great Nicholson.
Tom: You can't handle the truth!

> At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale faced female, naked
>but for a golden, jeweled harness enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts,

Crow: She's really protruberating!
Tom [muttering]: I thought he just said she was slender...

>supporting long silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the
>pearl white field with noticable shivers traveling up and down the length
>of her exquisitely molded body.

Mike: She was covered with furry green patches.

>Her delicate lips trembled beneath soft
>narrow hands as she attemped to conceal herself from

Tom: --Clarence Thomas.

>the piercing stare of the ambivalent idol.
> Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic face of
>the bloated diety.

Crow: It really starts retaining water around this time of month.

>Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating,
>many fauceted

Mike: Sorta like the sink in the boys' room of my old elementary school.

>scarlet emerald,

Tom [singing]: Goooood-bye, scarlet emerald Tuesday!
Crow: He means a ruby, right?
Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

>a brilliant gem

Crow: --is truly outrageous! Truly truly truly outrageous!
Mike: The music's contagious.

>seeming to possess a life all of its own.

Mike: However, in reality Disney owns a controlling share.

>A priceless gleaming stone, capable of domineering the
>wealth of conquering empires...the eye of Argon.

Bots [singing]: It's the eye of the Argon, it's the thrill of the fight...
Mike: Way to go, guys. Now we have to pay a royalty.

>
> -4-
>
> All knowledge of measuring time had escaped Grignr.

Crow: And apparently Jim Theis as well, or else he would've known to start
wrapping it up.

>When a person is
>deprived of the sun, moon, and stars, he looses all conception of time as
>he had previously understood it.

Tom: Looks like Jim hired the narrator from GLEN OR GLENDA for this chapter.

>It seemed as if years had passed

Crow: --since the beginning of the story.

>if time
>were being measured by terms of misery and mental anguish,

Tom: My watch must've stopped. It says it's only ten till inner torment
but the clock says it's already half past major depressive episode.

>yet he estimated
>that his stay had only been a few days in length.

Crow: How about in width and height?

>He has slept three times
>and had been fed five times since his awakening in the crypt.

Tom: Or maybe he's been fed five times and slept three times. I always
get those mixed up.

>However,
>when the actions of the body are restricted its needs are also affected.

Mike: Here to explain is Channel Seven's own medical correspondent, Dr.
Dean Edell.

>The need for nourishmnet and slumber are directly proportional to the
>functions the body has performed,

Crow [Perot]: This chart here'll explain the whole thang.

>meaning that when free and active Grignr

Mike: If you want your Grignr to be free and active and have a shiny coat,
feed him Purina Grignr Chow.

>may become hungry every six hours and witness the desire for sleep

Crow: What did you see when you turned the corner?
Mike: I saw the desire for sleep, being stabbed by its ex-husband.
Tom: Objection, your honor! Counsel is leading the witness.

>every
>fifteen hours, whereas in his present condition he may encounter the need
>for food every ten hours, and the want for rest every twenty hours.

Tom: On the other hand, he may encounter the need for food every 14.5 hours,
and the want for rest every 17.2 hours. We don't really know. We're just
kind of making these numbers up as we go along.

>All methods he had before depended upon were extinct

Crow: Along with countless species of birds and insects every passing day.
Please send your check or money order to the Wildlife Preservation Fund,
PO Box--

>in the dismal pit. Hence,
>he may have been imprisoned for ten minutes or ten years, he did not know,

Tom: But he was pretty sure it was one of those two.

>resulting in a disheartened emotion deep within his being.

Mike: A little Prozac'll fix that right up.
Crow: I dunno, Mike. I think he has more issues than just these.

> The food, if you can honor the moldering lumps of fetid mush to that
>extent,

Crow: Why not? We're calling this moldering lump of fetid mush a story.

>was born to him by two guards who

Tom: --loved each other very very much, and then one day--

>opened a portal at the top of his
>enclosure and shoved it to him in wooden bowls, retrieving the food and
>water bowels

All: Eww!

>from his previous meal at the same time, after which they
>threw back the bolts on the iron latch and returned to

Mike: The Blue Lagoon.
Crow: Two Moon Junction.
Tom: Let's not wear out our Leonard Maltin guide here.

>their other duties.
>Since deprived of

Mike: --love.

>all other means of nourishment, Grignr was impelled to
>eat the tainted slop

Tom: What do you mean? It says "Fit for Institutional Use" right here on
the box!

>in order to ward off the paings of starvation,

Crow: Them paings of starvation kin be naisty, cain't they?

>though as he stuffed it into his mouth with his filthy fingers

Mike [falsetto]: Grignr, how many times have I told you to wash your hands
before coming to the table!

>and struggled to
>force it down his throat, he imagined it was

Crow: --delicious capellini primavera!

>that which had been spurned by the hounds

Mike: You mean you won't [sniff] go to the prom with me?

>stationed at various segments of the palace.
> There was little in the baren vault that could occupy his body or
>mind.

Tom: And we're talking about someone who can get hours upon hours of
amusement out of one of those magic eye puzzles.

>He had paced out the length and width of the enclosure time and time
>again

Crow: Damn! That wall's still there.

>and tested every granite slab which consisted the walls of the prison
>in hopes of finding a hidden passage to freedom, all of which was to no
>avail other than to keep him busy

Mike: Your teacher's sick today, but she left these worksheets for you...

>and distract his mind from wandering to
>thoughts of what he believed was his future.

Crow: But was actually someone else's.
Tom: Tycho's, maybe?
Mike: No, Tycho's futures are all green.

>He had memorized the number
>of strides from one end to the other of the cell,

Tom: Two.

>and knew the exact number
>of slabs which made up the bleak dungeon.

Tom: Four.

>Numorous schemes

Tom: Three.

>were introduced
>and alternately discarded in turn

Mike: Gin!

>as they succored to unravel to him no
>means of escape which stood the slightest chance of sucess.

Crow: Tragically, he had overlooked the door.

> Anguish continued to mount

Mike: Sinai!
Tom: Shut up.

>as

Crow: --he realized he was still only on Chapter Four.

>his means of occupation were rapidly exhausted.

Mike: They're automating down at the plant.

>Suddenly without no tive,

Tom: Blood, you ain't got no tive.

>he wasrouted from his contemplations
>as he detected a faint scratching sound at the end of the crypt opposite
>him.

Crow: [sniff] Smells like lemons!

>The sound seemed to be caused by something trying to scrape away at
>the grantite blocks the floor of the enclosure consisted of, the sandy
>scratching of something like an animal's claws.
> Grignr gradually groped

Tom: --a 17-year-old Senate page.

>his way to the other end of the vault
>carefully feeling his way along with his hands ahead of him. When a few
>inches from the wall, a loud, penetrating squeal,

Mike: Mariah Carey must be in there with him!

>and the scampering of small padded feet

Tom: Hey, Mike, when you were little did you ever have those jammies with
the padded feet?
Mike: Yeah. You'd wake up in the middle of the night up to your knees
in sweat.

>reverberated from the walls of the roughly hewn chamber.
> Grignr threw his hands up to shield his face,

Crow: He's a mobster?

>and flung himself backwards upon his buttocks.

Crow: Whee! It's fun!

>A fuzzy form bounded to his hairy chest,
>burying its talons in his flesh while gnashing toward his throat with its
>grinding white teeth;its sour, fetid breath scortching the sqirming
>barbarians dilating nostrils.

Mike: I'm guessing this is either some sort of rodent, or Barry Scheck.

>Grignr grappled with the lashing flexor
>muscles of the repugnant body of a garganuan brownhided rat, striving to
>hold its razor teeth from his juicy jugular,

Tom: Actually, according to the label on the back it's only 10% real juice.

>as its beady grey organs of sight

Crow: You mean its eyes?
Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

>glazed into the flaring emeralds

Tom: Which could be any color, really.

>of its prey.
> Taking hold of the rodent around its lean, growling stomach with both
>hands

Crow: Both hands? Is this thing a rat or a dachshund?

>Grignr pried it from his crimson rent breast, removing small patches
>of flayed flesh from his chest in the motion between the squalid black
>claws of the starving beast.

Mike: It's a motion for a 14-day continuance.
Tom: Let's not continue this any more than we have to.

>Holding the rodent at arms length, he cupped
>his righthand over its frothing face, contrcting his fingers into a
>vice-like fist over the quivering head. Retaining his grips on the rat,
>grignr flexed his outstretched arms while slowly twisting his right hand
>clockwise and his left hand counter clockwise motion.

Crow: I'm confused. Does that mean this is taking place in the Northern
or the Southern Hemisphere?

>The rodent let out a tortured squall,

Tom: Grignr hadn't heard such a tortured squall since the Alanis Morissette
concert.

>drawing scarlet as it violently dug its foam flecked fangs
>into the barbarians sweating palm, causing his face to contort to an ugly
>grimace

Mike: Oh, he always looks like that.

>as he cursed beneath his braeth.

Crow: Just like we've been doing throughout this entire story.

> With a loud crack the rodents head

Mike: --cleared the left-field wall and landed in the upper deck!

>parted from its squirming torso,
>sending out a sprinking shower

Tom: Just a sprinkle a day helps keep Grignr away!

>of crimson gore,

Mike: Albert's cousin from Massachusetts.

>and trailing a slimy string of disjointed

Crow: Prose?

>vertebrae, snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular,
>disjointed hyoid bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared
>muscles.

Tom: I see Jim took Anatomy 132 last semester.

> Flinging the broken body to the floor, Grignr shook his blood streaked
>hands and wiped them against his thigh until dry,

Mike: But then his thigh was wet, so he wiped it on his hands and was right
back where he started.

>then wiped the blood that
>had showered his face and from his eyes. Again sitting himself upon the
>jagged floor, he prepared to once more revamp his

Crow: --kitchen. We'll put in some nice enamel cabinets, and tear out all
this linoleum, and--

>glum meditations. He
>told himself that as long as he still breathed the gust of life through his
>lungs, hope was not lost;

Mike: But if he breathed it through his spleen he was pretty much done for.

>he told himself this, but found it hard to comprehend

Crow: Much like this story.

>in his gloomy surroundings. Yet he was still alive,

Tom: Just like Eddie Vedder!

>his bulging
>sinews at their peak of marvel, his struggling mind

Mike: We'll just let this one go, okay, guys?

>floating in a miral of

Crow: --delicious bouillon.

>impressed excellence of thought.

Tom: Somehow, I find this =really= hard to believe.

>Plot after plot sifted through his mind

Crow: Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Jim Theis.
Tom: Maybe Grignr should have written the story.

>in energetic contemplations.
> Then it hit him.

Mike: Ow!

>Minutes may have passed in silent thought or days,

Tom: Or maybe weeks, or months, or years...

>he could not tell,

Mike: Aw, come on, you can tell =me=.

>but he stumbled at last upon a plan that he considered
>as holding a slight margin of plausibility.

Crow: Unlike this story.

>He might die in the attempt,
>but he knew he would not submit without a final bloody struggle.

Tom: Oh, good. Another bloody struggle. I've been waiting for another
bloody struggle.

>It was not a foolproof plan,

Mike: The part about getting a helicopter being particularly problematic.

>yet it built up a store

Tom: Oh, that reminds me! Have you seen the new Wal-Mart they're building
down by the post office?

>of renewed vortexed energy in his overwroughtsoul,

Crow: "Overwroughtsoul"... that sounds familiar. I want to say Orson
Scott Card for some reason.

>though he might perish in the execution

Mike: Someone usually does perish in an execution.

>of the escape,
>he would still be escaping the life of infinite torture in store forhim.
>Either way he would still cheat the gloating prince of the succored revenge
>his sadistic mind craved so dearly.

Tom: But it wouldn't cheat him of the pickles and ice cream he craved even
more dearly.

> The guards would soon come to bear him off to the prince's buried
>mines of dread,

Crow: Why would they want to dig for dread?

>giving him the sought after opportunity to execute his
>newly formulated plan.

Mike: Maybe he should consider a new career as an executive.

>Groping

Tom: --a 17-year-old Senate page.

>his way along the rough floor Grignr
>finally found his tool

Crow: Eww!

>in a pool of congealed gore;

Mike: Albert's cousin from South Carolina.

>the carcass of the
>decapitated rodent; the tool that the very filth he had been sentenced too,
>spawned.

Tom: Jim, do you really think you're ready for the semicolon? Maybe when
you're older.

>When the time came for action he would have to be prepared, so he
>set himself to rending the sticky hulk

Mike: Can he do that without Peter David's permission?

>in grim silence, searching by the
>touch of his fingertips for the lever to freedom.

Crow: You mean all this time he could've just pulled a lever? Noooo!
Tom: Let's take a hint from Grignr and get out of here, guys.

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[Continued in Part 4]