Fan fiction's fun, but here's THE BLACK ISLAND! (1/3)
Tarl Roger Kudrick
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents:
"The Black Island" (part 1 of 3)
"The Black Island" is (C) 1952 by August W. Derleth, and originally
appeared in "Weird Tales" magazine.
This MST3K Parody is (C) 2002 by Tarl Roger Kudrick
(tar...@comcast.net), with a couple of jokes added by Francis Heaney.
Disclaimers:
Any deviation from the original text of "The Black Island" is either the
result of Tarl's heavy editing, or a transcription error. Text which was
italicized in the original is _underscored_like_this_ in the Usenet
version.
Also, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K) is a registered trademark
of Best Brains, as are the MST3K characters and locations.
==============================================
Opening credits, then:
(Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow are not facing the audience, but each other,
and are embroiled in a vicious argument. Other than the usual
backgrounds, the only scenery is a small table in front of them. The
table has a small block of Roquefort on it, near the table's left edge.)
TOM: I didn't do it!
CROW: Well I certainly didn't do it.
TOM: Yes you did, I saw you.
MIKE: ONE of you did, that's for sure.
CROW: What makes you think one of US did it? Maybe you did it and you
just forgot!
MIKE: (Suddenly noticing the audience.) Oh, hello everyone and welcome
to the Satellite of Love. We're having a small problem here and we'll be
with you shortly.
CROW: I'm not having a problem. I didn't do it.
TOM: Well I sure didn't! Why would I want to...
MIKE: (to audience) You see, the problem is that I had this perfectly
wonderful piece of Roquefort cheese here, on the table in front of me...
CROW: And you still do...
MIKE: ...but a few minutes ago it was on the right-hand side of the
table.
CROW: And it still is.
TOM: Not your right, Mike's right.
MIKE: Oh, so now you agree with me!
TOM: Not that kind of right!
CROW: Now I'm all confused.
MIKE: Anyway, a few minutes ago, the cheese was over here. (Points to
one side of the table, the side with no cheese.) Now it's over here.
(Points to cheese.) And I know I didn't move it...
CROW: And neither did I.
TOM: Well I didn't!
CROW: Yes you did!
TOM: No, YOU did!
MIKE: Well, luckily for me, best-selling author Spencer Johnson, M.D.,
wrote a self-help book called "Who Moved My Cheese?" which, I believe,
is designed exactly for people who find themselves in this kind of
situation. (Holds up the book, showing it to audience.) It's a very thin
book with very few words per page, and lots of pictures and it's
available in hardcover, softcover, braille versions, audio tape, audio
CD, CD-ROM, and large print versions. (Holds up one of each.) And it's
all about dealing with the stress that comes from having people make
great changes in your environment that you have no control over.
CROW: You can put the cheese back, you know.
MIKE: Just like what's happened to me.
CROW: I mean it's right in front of you.
TOM: Yeah Mike, I really don't see the big deal here.
MIKE: Anyway, let's read the book and see what advice Dr. Spencer
Johnson has for me. (Opens book to first page.) Let's see, here's the
title page... "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Dr. Spencer Johnson, M.D.
(Turning pages) Then we have a list of other books by the same author,
then a table of contents, then some legal information like copyrights
and the ISBN number...
TOM: The 'N' in 'ISBN' stands for 'number', Mike. You don't have to say
"ISBN number"; it's redundant.
CROW: That reminds me, does anyone know where the nearest ATM machine
is?
MIKE: (Turning more pages) Okay, here we go. "Who Moved My Cheese?",
chapter one. (Clears throat, assumes lecturing stance.) Gypsy. (Then he
looks confused.)
CROW: I'm Crow, Mike.
MIKE: Uh, no, guys, that's the whole text of the book. (Shows book to
bots.) It just says "Gypsy". (Mike's eyes widen as he suddenly gets it,
and shouts to stage left:) Hey! Gypsy!
GYPSY: (Enters from stage left.) Yes?
MIKE: Did you move my cheese?
GYPSY: What? Why...no! Of course not...(begins to shake)...I'd
never...(now shaking uncontrollably)
MIKE: (Folds arms.) Gypsy...
GYPSY: Okay okay! I moved it! I'm sorry! But I couldn't help myself! It
was so cold, and sweet! And it looked awful sitting on that side of the
table! It looks much better over here!
CROW: I told you I didn't do it.
TOM: Why would Mike believe anything YOU say? You also denied pouring
oatmeal into his socks.
CROW: I didn't do that, either!
TOM: We have photographs.
CROW: They were faked.
TOM: You printed up commemorative T-shirts.
CROW: Well...uh...
MIKE: (Exasperated, to audience) Give us some time, folks. We'll
straighten this out, and then we'll be right back.
[commercial break]
(We're back at the SOL. The table and the cheese are gone. Crow is
wearing a T-shirt that says "I poured oatmeal into Mike's socks", but
the word "never" is now written in thick magic marker with an arrow
pointing to space between "I" and "poured". Tom and Mike are directing
annoyed looks at Crow.)
CROW: (Innocently) What?
(Suddenly the intercom flashes. Mike was about to say something to Crow,
but now turns his attention to the intercom and activates it.)
MIKE: Hello?
(It's Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy speaking from the interior of Castle
Forrester. The three of them can barely move because the whole castle is
filled to the ceiling with bananas.)
PEARL: Hello, my subjects.
MIKE, CROW, AND TOM: Hi Pearl.
MIKE: What's with all the bananas?
BRAIN GUY: Here Bobo, have a banana!
BOBO: But I'm getting full, and... (Brain Guy stuffs a mostly-unpeeled
banana into Bobo's mouth) ...uh...um...mmmm! Yum!
BRAIN GUY: (Disgusted) Eat up! There's plenty more where that came from!
PEARL: You see, my little experimental rats, last month I sent out my
final application for a very generous research grant, so I could afford
new high-tech devices and things to continue torturing you with. And I
got my grant, too! Every cent! But a certain APE whose name I won't
mention answered the mail that day and went to one of those
check-cashing places, and...
MIKE: Spent all the money on bananas.
PEARL: Wrong, smart guy! He had just enough money left over to buy this
little desk lamp. (Holds up little lamp.) Which is ALSO in the shape of
a banana. (It is, too.) Of course we had to move out the DESK to make
room for the BANANAS...
BRAIN GUY: Eat up, Bobo! (He stuffs another banana into Bobo's mouth.
Pearl tosses the banana lamp over her shoulder and it hits Bobo on the
head, making him spit out his banana, earning him a stern look from
Brain Guy.)
CROW: Um, exactly how many bananas are there...
BRAIN GUY: Two million, six hundred fifty-three thousand, four hundred
eighty-eight. Minus one. (Stuffs another banana into Bobo's mouth.)
BOBO: Mmmph mmmph umph!
PEARL: You can see the problem. Not only is there hardly any room to
even move around here, but now I don't have any money to fund the search
for new, horrible experiments to perform on all of you.
(Mike, Crow, and Tom exchange disbelieving and almost hopeful looks.
Could this be the end of their suffering?)
PEARL: Luckily, we worked so hard to find places to STORE all these
bananas that I discovered an old lab run by Professor Forrester himself,
and specifically, a couple of the old inventions he used to do the
invention exchanges with. I must stay that the discovery of the
"Texterizer" ALMOST makes up for...Yikes! (Pearl spins and falls on the
floor, below camera range.)
BRAIN GUY: (Looking down) For a floor covered with banana peels.
PEARL: (Climbs back to her feet and stares daggers at Brain Guy and
Bobo. Bobo munches on bananas and Brain Guy just shrugs. Pearl returns
her attention to the SOL.) Well...anyway. The "Texterizer" is a
fiendishly wonderful device, so we're changing the tone of the
experiment this time. You're not going to have to watch a hideous movie
today.
MIKE, CROW, AND TOM: Yeah!
PEARL: You're going to be converted into text characters, and be forced
to endure a really pretentious, overwrought, and entirely derivative
horror story instead.
MIKE, CROW, AND TOM: Awww...
CROW: Text? You mean we'll be described, instead of seen?
PEARL: That's the long and short of it.
CROW: But how will people know what I look like?
TOM: What are you afraid of, Crow?
CROW: My studly good looks are so much more impressive in person! No
words can do them justice! What can you say except, maybe...uh...(now in
theatrical voice) Crow, that massive Adonis-like hunk of pure manly
robotness...uh...
MIKE: You mean unless we're described, no one will see that I look
like...
TOM: A loser?
CROW: A nerd?
MIKE: No! A normal-looking, well-adjusted... uh... (Looks really
discouraged.)
CROW: Well I'm not normal-looking. I'm so sexy that women everywhere
fling themselves at me and I have to fight them off with sticks.
TOM: I don't like being described! Why can't we be characters in an Ann
Beattie story? She never describes HER characters.
PEARL: Because Ann Beattie is generally regarded as a good author and
would never write something like what you're about to suffer through.
It's called "The Black Island", and it's written by an H. P. Lovecraft
wannabe named August W. Derleth. It was written before "fan fiction"
even got that name, but it certainly qualifies. Brain Guy...
BRAIN GUY: Yes? (Stuffs another banana into Bobo's mouth.)
PEARL: Activate the "Texterizer".
BRAIN GUY: Right away.
(The famous movie-delivery special effect noise occurs. On the SOL, the
"movie sign" begins, but it's a slightly different obnoxious buzzer now.)
PEARL: Story time!
MIKE, TOM, AND CROW: AAUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
CROW: With apologies to Charles Schulz!
(Now they are inside the story.)
MIKE: Well. That wasn't so bad.
TOM: Of course the story hasn't started yet, either.
> THE BLACK ISLAND
> Copyright 1952 by August W. Derleth
CROW: Shouldn't that be "The African-American Island?"
> THAT SOME RECORD OF THE EVENTS leading up to the so-called "top
> secret experiment" conducted at an uncharted South Pacific
> island on a September day in 1947 ought to be made, I have no
> question.
TOM: But should I have written it in crayon?
> That it would be wise is a moot point.
CROW: Which I shall now debate at length.
> There are some things against which the human race, which has in
> any event but a brief moment to remain on this planet to add to
> the brief moment of its previous existence,
MIKE: One brief moment plus one brief moment equals, uh...
TOM: Half an interlude, I think.
> can only be inadequately forewarned and fore-armed; and, this
> being so, it is conceivable that it would be better to remain
> silent
CROW: Better for us anyway.
> and let one's fellow men wait upon events.
> In final analysis, however, there are judges far better
> qualified than I, and the progression of events both before and
> since that "experiment" has been so disturbing and so suggestive
TOM: Kind of like a lap dance from Nancy Reagan.
> of incredibly ancient evil
TOM: Kind of like a lap dance from...
MIKE: We got you the first time, Servo.
> almost beyond man's grasp that I am compelled to make this
> record before time dims these events--if it ever could--or
> before my obliteration, which is inevitable, and may, indeed,
> be nearer than I think.
TOM: It can't be near enough for me.
> The episode began prosaically enough in the most famous
> bar in the world, in Singapore.
MIKE: Oh yeah! THAT bar! The... (snaps fingers) the famous one!
CROW: With those things!
MIKE: Right, with the things!
> I saw the five gentlemen sitting together when I first came
> into the bar and sat down. I was not far from them, and alone,
> and I looked at them casually,
CROW: And spilled my drink down my pants.
> thinking that someone I knew might be among them.
TOM: Because the narrator has SO many friends.
> An elderly man with dark glasses and a strangely impressive
> countenance, and four young men, in late twenties or early
> thirties, intent upon some discussion conducted with
> considerable animation.
CROW: They were talking to Roger Rabbit.
> I recognized no one; so I looked away. I had sat there perhaps
> ten minutes, perhaps a little less; Henry Caravel had come up
> to me in passing, and we had taken note of the time together;
TOM: "It has been perhaps ten minutes," Henry said.
CROW: "Perhaps less," I said.
> he had just gone when I heard my name spoken.
CROW: Followed by gales of derisive laughter.
> "Perhaps Mr. Blayne could enlighten us?"
> The voice was cordial, well-modulated, with a peculiar
> carrying power.
MIKE: Just like Alvin the Chipmunk's.
> Looking up, I saw the five gentlemen at their table gazing
> towards me expectantly. At that instant, the old man stood.
> "Our discussion is archaeological in a sense, Mr. Blayne,"
> he said.
CROW: An old fossil like him ought to know.
> "If I may presume--
ALL: NO!
> I am Professor Laban Shrewsbury, a fellow American.
TOM: And NOT a Communist spy, despite the hammer and sickle on my big
furry hat.
> "Will you join us?"
> I thanked him and, moved by a lively curiosity, went over to
> his table.
> He introduced his companions--Andrew Phelan, Abel Keane,
> Claiborne Boyd, and Nayland Colum--
MIKE: Sound like perfectly ordinary American names to ME.
> and turned once more to me.
> "Of course, we all know Horvath Blayne.
ALL: Hi Horvath!
> "We have been following with keen interest your papers on
> Angkor-Vat
CROW: And his orchestra.
> "and the Khmer civilization, and, with even more interest, your
> studies among the ruins of Ponape.
TOM: The Perils of Ponape Pitstop.
> "It is no coincidence that we are at the moment discussing the
> pantheon of Polynesian deities. Tell us, in your opinion, does
> the Polynesian sea-god, Tangaroa, have the same origin as
> Neptune?
CROW: Yes!
TOM: No!
MIKE: Wait--which one's the planet?
> "Probably Hindu or Indo-Chinese in origin," I guessed.
> "These people are not primarily sea-farers," said the
> professor promptly. "There is a concept older than those civil-
> izations,
MIKE: Namely, "Fudge is good."
> even if we concede at once that the Polynesian civilization
> is much younger than those of the Asiatic continent which
> gave rise to them.
TOM: I REFUSE to concede that!
CROW: Sit down, Servo.
> No, we are not interested so much in their relation to
> other figures in the pantheon,
MIKE: Then why are you going on about it?
> as to the conceit which gave them being in the first place. And
> to its relation to so many batrachian or ichthyic figures and
> motifs
TOM: Wait, wait. Batrachian? Ichthyic?
CROW: Good thing we're text now, because I can't even pronounce that
last one.
> which occur and recur in the art work, ancient and modern, to be
> found in the South Pacific islands."
> I protested that I was not primarily an artist, and
> certainly could not presume to be a critic of art.
MIKE: When you PRESUME, you make a PRES out of U and ME both.
> The professor brushed this aside with courteous detachment.
> "But you are familiar with art.
TOM: Well, he scribbled on the walls when he was a kid.
> "And I wonder whether you can explain why the primitives of the
> South Pacific should emphasize the batrachian or ichthyic
MIKE: There's those words again!
> "in their artifacts and arts, while the primitives of the North
> Pacific, for example, emphasize characteristics which are
> clearly avian. There are exceptions, of course;
CROW: You can hardly do primitive art without being at least a LITTLE
batrachian or ichthyic.
> "you will recognize them. The lizard figures of Easter Island and
> the batrachian pieces of Melanesia and Micronesia are
TOM: On sale in the gift shop.
> "common to these areas; the avian masks and headdresses of the
> North Pacific Indian tribes are common the Canadian coast.
> But we find on occasion among those coastal Indian tribes
> disturbingly familiar motifs; consider, for instance, the
> markedly batrachian
CROW: He said it again!
TOM: I was going into withdrawal.
> "aspects of the shaman's headdress of the Haida tribe common to
> Prince of Wales Island and the ceremonial shark headdress of the
> Tlingit of Ketchikan, Alaska.
TOM: Now you're just making stuff up.
> "The totems of the North Pacific Indians are primarily avian in
> concept, whereas such things as the ancestor figures carved into
> the tree-ferns of the New Hebrides quite clearly suggest
CROW: Batrachian?
TOM: Ichthyic?
MIKE: Avian?
> aquatic dwellers.
ALL: Awwww!
> I remarked that ancestor-worship was common to the Asiatic
> continent.
> But this was not his principal thesis, which I recognized in
> the expectance with which his companions attended to him.
TOM: Was this published in "Weird Tales" or an erotic magazine?
MIKE: Quiet.
> He came to it presently: Apropos the sea-deities of primitive
> peoples, had I ever encountered in my archaeological inquiries of
> any of the legends pertaining to the mythological being,
> Cthulhu, whom he regarded as the progenitor of all sea-gods and
> the lesser deities connected with water as an element?
TOM: In other words, "Have you ever heard of Cthulhu?"
CROW: Were there editors in 1952?
> The comments he had made now fell into a distinct and well-
> knit pattern.
MIKE: A horsey!
> Cthulhu, as the ancient god of water, the seas, a water
> elemental in a sense, must be considered as the primal deity of
> the South Pacific,
TOM: He had the hottest babes AND Aquaman's home phone number.
> while the avian motifs expressed in the
> artifacts and works of art common to the North Pacific derived
> from a worship of an air elemental rather than one of the sea.
MIKE: Can you imagine the arguments the North and South Pacific must
have had? "Your god's all wet!" "Oh yeah? Yours is full of hot air!"
CROW: They were always fighting over who really owned the horizon, too.
> I was indeed familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos, with its
> remarkable lore in essence so similar to the Christian Mythos
TOM: That its authors were quickly sued by the Church.
> of the expulsion of Sathanus and his followers and their ever-
> ceaseless attempts to reconquer heaven.
> Moreover, the Cthulhu Mythos had sprung
ALL: Boing!
> from a collection of incredibly old manuscripts and similar
> sources purporting to be factual accounts,
CROW: Published by the same people who do the National Enquirer.
> though nothing was adduced to prove them anything other than
> fiction of a highly skilled order;
MIKE: Unlike the current piece.
> these manuscripts and books--the _Necronomicon_ of the mad Arab,
> Abdul Alhazred; the _Cultes_des_Goules_, the work of an
> eccentric French nobleman, the Count d'Erlette; the
> _Unaussprechlichen_Kulten_ of von Junzt, the _Celaeno_
> Fragments_; the _R'lyeh Text_; the _Pnakotic Manuscript_;
CROW: The _Weinerschitzen_Chronicles_, by Otto van Shnerfsveiner,
TOM: The _Handbook_of_All_Things_Gross_and_Disgusting_, as seen in
elementary school kitchens all across America,
MIKE: Do you realize that this whole thing, since "Moreover," is one
long sentence?
> and the like--had been seized upon by writers of contemporary
> fiction
MIKE: As a comforting reminder that ANYTHING will get published
eventually, if you lower your standards enough.
> and freely used as the source for incredible
CROW: Crap.
> tales of fantasy and the macabre, and these had given a kind of
> aura of authenticity to what, at best, was a collection of lore
> and legends perhaps unique in the annals of mankind but surely
> little more.
> "But you are skeptical, Mr. Blayne," observed the professor.
MIKE: "Nope! My mind's a blank slate!"
> "I'm afraid I have the scientific mind," I answered.
TOM: I hope it isn't contagious.
> "I rather think all of us here think similarly of
> ourselves," he said.
CROW: "Yes, we're all pretentious twits."
> "Am I to understand that you believe in this volume of
> lore?"
TOM: "Uh...how many lifelines do I have left?"
> He gazed at me disconcertingly from behind his dark
> spectacles.
> "Mr. Blayne, for more than three decades I have been on the
> trail of Cthulhu.
MIKE: And it led straight to this bar.
> "Time after time I have believed that I have closed his avenues
> of ingress into our time;
TOM: But what about his boulevards of influx?
CROW: And don't forget all those parkways of interjacence.
> "time after time
MIKE: Stop quoting Cyndi Lauper song titles!
> "I have been misled in thinking so.
TOM: And Peter Gabriel album titles!
> "Then if you believe one aspect of the pantheon, you must
> believe all the rest," I countered.
> "That is not necessarily so,"
CROW: And George Gerswhin...
MIKE: Okay, I think we can stop that now.
> he replied. "But there are
> wide areas of belief. I have seen and I know."
MIKE: That settles that.
> "I, too," said Phelan, and his supporting cry was echoed
> by the others.
CROW: You tell 'em, Phelan!
TOM: Woo-hoo!
> The truly scientific mind is as hesitant to deprecate as it
> is to lend support.
MIKE: Neither a deprecator nor a lender be.
> "Let us begin with the primal struggle between the Elder Gods
> and the Great Old Ones," I said cautiously. "What is the nature
> of your evidence?"
CROW: It's sticky.
> "The sources are almost infinite.
TOM: He must have a REALLY wide area of belief.
> "Consider almost all the ancient writings which speak of a
> great catastrophe which involved the earth. Look to the Old
> Testament, to the Battle of Beth-Horon, led by Joshua
MIKE: Against the world champion New England Patriots, led by Tom Brady.
TOM: In this story, shouldn't that be Tomhavath Bradyusesrach or
something?
MIKE: Sorry.
> 'And he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still
> upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the
> sun stood still, and the moon stayed ....' Look to the "Annals
> of Cuauhtitlan" of the lore of the Nahua Indians of Mexico,
> which speak of an endless
TOM: Paragraph?
> "night, a tale verified by the Spanish priest, Fra. Bernardino
> de Sahagun, who, coming to the New World a generation after
> Columbus,
CROW: Couldn't believe the mess Columbus had made.
> "told of the great catastrophe in which the sun rose but a little
> way over the horizon and then stood still, a catastrophe
> witnessed by the American Indians.
TOM: That's a catastrophe? A sun that took a little rest break one
morning?
MIKE: Hey, they had to reset all their clocks and everything.
> "There are parallel accounts in other ancient manuscripts--the
> _Popul_Vuh_ of the Mayas,
CROW: Here we go again.
> "the Egyptian _Papyrus_Ipuwer_, the Buddhist _Visuddhi-Magga_,
> the Persian _Zend-Avesta_, the Hindu _Vedas_,
TOM: And I expect book reports on all of these by Monday.
> "the curiously coincidental records left in ancient art--the
> Venus tablets of Babylon, found in the ruins of Ashurbanipal
> at Nineveh, certain of the panoplies at Angkor-Vat, which you
> must know--
CROW: Or at least you saw the movie version, right?
> "and there are the strangely altered clocks of ancient times--
> the water clock of the Temple of Amon at Karnak, now inaccurate
> for day and night;
MIKE: Which one's dark again?
> "the shadow clock of Fayum, Egypt, inaccurate too;
TOM: Darn thing just keeps flashing "12:00" over and over.
> "the astronomical panel in the tomb of Senmut, in which the
> stars are shown in an order they do not have.
CROW: The actors go first, THEN the director!
> "And these stars, I submit, are not just accidentally those of
> the Orion-Taurus group, held to be the seat of both of the
> Elder Gods--
TOM: Cthulhu always calls dibs on the Orion seat, it's not fair!
> "who are believed to exist at or near Betelgeuze--
ALL: Betelgeuze Betelgeuze Betelgeuze!
CROW: Darn it, nothing happened.
> "and at least one of the Ancient Ones, Hastur; and were
> presumably home to all the Ancient Ones.
MIKE: Where they sat around all day playing shuffleboard and
complaining about young people.
> So that the catastrophe duly recorded in the old documents may
> very well have been evidence of the titanic battle which was
> waged between the Elder Gods and the rebellious Ancient Ones.
CROW: Almost as titanic as Tonya Harding vs. Paula Jones.
> I pointed out that there was a current theory concerning
> erratic conduct on the part of the planet now called Venus.
MIKE: So there!
> Professor Shrewsbury shrugged this away almost with
> impatience. "The concept of Venus as a one-time comet can be
> disproved scientifically;
TOM: Nothing can be disproved scientifically! Haven't you read Karl
Popper?
> "the concept of the conflict between the Elder Gods and the
> Ancient Ones cannot. I submit, Mr. Blayne, that your actual
> conviction of disbelief is not as strong as your words."
CROW: Or your breath.
> "You see, it would be folly to pretend that this meeting was
> an accident. Your movements had been studied enough to make it
> occur.
MIKE: In other words, they're stalking him.
> "It is just possible that in your studies of ancient ruins and
> the drawings, hieroglyphs, and other remains found among them,
> you may have happened upon something which might afford us a
> clue to the place we seek."
> "And what is that?" I asked.
> "An island." So saying, he unfolded before me a crudely
> drawn map.
MIKE: Written in mustard on the back of his napkin.
> I examined the map with interest which was quickened
> appreciably when it dawned upon me that this was no ordinary map
> done by the hand of an ill-informed person,
TOM: ...but an EXTRAORDINARY map done by the hand of an ill-informed
person!
> but rather a map drawn by someone who clearly believed in the
> objects he drew; that these objects were not placed as he had
> placed them suggested an artist of centuries ago.
MIKE: Huh?
> "Java and Borneo," I said, identifying them.
TOM: What "them"?
CROW: The objects that were not placed as he had placed them! Pay
attention, will you?
> "These islands are apparently the Carolines and the marked place
> is northward, but the directions are not very clear."
TOM: What part of "Get bent" don't you understand?
> "Yes, that is its drawback," agreed Professor Shrewsbury
> dryly.
CROW: Ah, such wit.
> I looked at him sharply. "Where did you get this, Professor?"
> "From a very old man."
> "He must have been very old, indeed," I agreed.
> "Almost fifteen centuries," he answered, without a smile.
MIKE: But he didn't look a day over thirteen centuries.
> "But, come, do you recognize this place beyond the Carolines?"
CROW: Kentucky?
> I shook my head.
> "Then we fall back upon your own research, Mr. Blayne. You
> have been in the South Pacific ever since the end of the Second
> World War.
MIKE: Three-hour tour, my butt.
> "You have gone from island to island,
CROW: And got voted off every one of them.
> and you will have seen certainly that in some areas there is a
> marked emphasis on the batrachian motif,"
TOM: There he goes again!
> "or the ichthyic motif--it matters little, save that we have
> reason to believe one island at least to be either the focal
> point or near the focal point of the occurrence of artifacts and
> works of art stressing the batrachian."
> "Ponape," I said.
MIKE: There's no need to be rude.
> He nodded, and the others waited expectantly.
MIKE: For Blayne to finally sit on the whoopee cushion they'd planted
half an hour ago.
> "You see," he went on, "I have been to the Black Island which
> has no name
CROW: Yes it does! You just called it the Black Island.
TOM: Did Raymond Smullyan write this story?
> "and is uncharted
MIKE: Even though it's on this map...
> "because it is not always visible and rises to the surface only
> at rare intervals.
CROW: You mean, it's like your logic.
> "But my means of travel was somewhat unorthodox,
TOM: I only travel by skipping.
> "my attempt to blast the island and its horrible ruins was
> ineffective; we must find it again, and we shall find it most
> readily by picking up the trail of the batrachian motif in
> Polynesian art."
MIKE: There it goes!
CROW: Quick, after it!
> "There are certain legends," I put in, "which speak of a
> vanishing land. It would presumably be stationary?"
CROW: A paper island?
TOM: He means movement. It rises and sinks, it comes and goes...sounds
pretty stationary to me.
> "Yes, making its appearance only when upheavals of the ocean's
> bed thrust it up. And then evidently not for long.
CROW: So it definitely doesn't move at all.
MIKE: Glad we cleared THAT up.
> "I need not remind you that there have been recent tremblors
> recorded by seismographs for the region of the South Pacific;
> conditions are thus ideal for our quest.
MIKE: "Because I've always wanted to be swept overboard by a tidal
wave."
> "We are at liberty to suppose it to be part of a larger, submerged
> land area, quite possibly one of the legendary continents."
> "Mu," said Phelan.
TOM: Who was still under the Professor's hypnotic suggestion that he
was a pig with a species-identity problem.
> "If Mu existed," countered the professor gravely.
> "There is ample evidence to believe that it did," I said,
> "together with Atlantis. If you were to fall back upon your own
> kind of evidence,
MIKE: It would really hurt.
> "there is plenty of legendry to give the belief body--the Bible's
> story of the Deluge, for instance; the ancient books' accounts of
> catastrophes,
TOM: If he starts listing all those catastrophes again, I'm leaving.
> "the submerging of vast land areas depicted in the drawings found
> at the sites of so much archaeological discovery."
CROW: And those stories of crop circles!
TOM: And those rumors of cave drawings showing human-like figures
wearing things that might be space helmets!
MIKE: And the pyramids!
CROW: What about the pyramids?
MIKE: Well...uh... Hmm. They're pointy. Humans hadn't discovered points
yet, back then.
TOM: So...you're saying, pyramids...
MIKE: Must have come from Atlantis!
CROW: She's a witch! Burn her, burn her!
> One of the professor's companions grinned and said, "You're
> entering in to the spirit of it."
ALL: Thank you!
> The professor, however, gazed at me without smiling. "You
> believe in the existence of Mu, Mr. Blayne?"
> "I'm afraid I do."
MIKE: THIS marriage is off to a bad start.
> "And presumably also in the ancient civilizations said to have
> inhabited Mu and Atlantis," he went on. "There are certain legends
> attributable to some such lost civilizations, Mr. Blayne--
> particularly in relation to their sea deities--
TOM: The legend of the angry god and the city that kept saying "Betcha
can't make a really BIG typhoon!"
> and there are survivals of ancient worship in the Balearics, in
> the islands of the Carolines, at Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and in
> a few other widely separated areas.
CROW: Do you get the idea Professor Shrewsbury is a bit defensive about
all this?
> "If Atlantis lay off the coast of Spain, and Mu near the
> Marshalls,
MIKE: What if it's near the TJ Maxx?
> "presumably there might have been yet another land area at one
> time lying off the coast of Massachusetts. And the Black Island
> might be part of yet another land area;
MIKE: Like, um...an island?
TOM: Maybe the island was part of a peninsula.
> "we cannot know. But it is certain that the Bible's Deluge and
> other similar legendary catastrophes might well have resulted in
> the banishment of Cthulhu to one of the lost continents of this
> planet."
CROW: Obviously this is a meaning of the word "certain" that I'm not
familiar with.
> I nodded, aware for what seemed the first time of the intense
> scrutiny of the others.
TOM: My fly was open.
> "The Black Island
CROW: Which has no name.
> "is thus far the only known avenue directly to Cthulhu; all
> others are primarily in the possession of the Deep Ones.
MIKE: Those are the guys who used to skip all their classes, flash
peace signs, and say "Heavy, man."
> "We must therefore search for it by every means at our disposal."
TOM: "I'll look under the table, you look under the skirts of the
waitresses."
> It was at this point of our conversation that I became aware
CROW: That I was sitting at a table full of idiots.
> of a subtle force vying with my interest,
MIKE: Common sense, perhaps?
> which was far keener than I had permitted myself to show; it was
> a blind feeling of hostility,
TOM: We understand completely.
> and I looked from one to another of them, but there was nothing in
> their eyes save only an interest similar to my own. Yet the aura
> of fear, of enmity, was unmistakable, perhaps made all the more
> so by its very tenuousness.
CROW: So, because the fear was flimsy and slight, you were more certain
than ever that it was real.
TOM: At least he's consistent.
> I looked past my companions, allowing my glance to travel along
> the bar, among the tables;
CROW: ...chat with the ladies, order a drink, start singing off key...
> I saw no one who was even aware of us, though the bar, as always,
> was crowded with people of nationalities of all walks of life.
TOM: He's being ignored by every ethnicity on Earth.
> The conviction of hostility, the aura of fear, persisted,
MIKE: Until it was chased away by my glance, still wandering around the
bar looking for a fight.
> lying against my consciousness as were it a tangible thing.
CROW: "As were it?"
> I gave my attention again to Professor Shrewsbury. He talked
> now of the trail of Cthulhu through the arts and crafts of
> primitive peoples, and his words conjured up from my own memories
> a thousand corroborating details--
TOM: And you just feel compelled to list every one of them, don't you.
CROW: Hold me Mike, I'm scared!
MIKE: (Holding bots) Here we go!
> --of the curious figures found in the Sepik River valley of New
> Guinea; of the tapa cloth designs of the Tonga islanders; of the
> hideously suggestive Fisherman's God of the Cook Islanders, with
> its misshapen torso and its substitution of tentacles for arms and
> legs; of the stone tiki of the Marquesas, markedly batrachian in
> aspect; of the carvings of the New Zealand Maori, which depict
> creatures neither man nor octopus, neither fish nor frog, but
> something of all four; of the revolting war-shield design used by
> Queenslanders, a design of labyrinth under water with a tortuously
> malefic figure at the end of it, tentacles extended as if for
> prey; and the similar shell pendants of the Papuans; of the
> ceremonial music of the Indonesians, particularly the Batak dream
> music, and the Wayang shadow-play of leather puppets on the
> ancient themes dramatizing a legend of sea-beings.
ALL: (Gasping for breath.)
MIKE: We made it! (They all high-five each other.)
> All these pointed unmistakably to Ponape from one direction,
TOM: South by southeast,
> while the ceremonial figures used in some parts of the Hawaiian
> Islands and the great heads of Rano-raraku on Easter Island
> made a similar indication from the other.
CROW: Using only their middle fingers, no less.
> "You are thinking of Ponape," said Professor Shrewsbury
> quietly.
> "Yes--and what might lie beyond.
MIKE: Just, please, don't list all the possibilities.
> "If the Black Island is not between Ponape and Singapore, it must
> lie between that island and Easter Island.
MIKE: Doesn't the Bermuda Triangle come into play somewhere here?
> "What do you expect of me?"
CROW: At this point, nothing.
> "I submit that you are perhaps more qualified to speak with
> authority on the arts and artifacts of the South Pacific than
> anyone else within the entire region. We are satisfied that the
> primitive drawings and sculptures of these people will point
> unmistakably to the approximate location of the Black Island.
CROW: We're hoping for a sign that says, "It went thataway."
> "Specifically, we are interested in the occurrence of any work
> similar to the Fisherman's God of Cook Island, which, we have
> reason to believe, is a representation, as seen by the primitive
> mind, of Cthulhu himself. By narrowing the circle of its
> incidence, it is logical to suppose that we can box in the site
> of the island.
TOM: I'd like to box in his head.
> I nodded thoughtfully, certain that I could almost
> effortlessly construct the ring that Professor Shrewsbury
> visualized.
MIKE: What ring?
CROW: An engagement ring, I think.
TOM: No, the box.
MIKE: What box?
TOM: The box they want to put the island in!
CROW: You can't put an island in a box.
MIKE: Is the box going to be ring-shaped?
CROW: One Ring to Confuse Them All.
> "Can we count on you, Mr. Blayne?"
> "More than that. If you have room for me, I'll join your
> party."
(The text fades away; Mike and the bots feel themselves returning to
normal form aboard the Satellite of Love. They all stretch.)
MIKE: Oh, it's good to be three-dimensional again.
TOM: Mike, what magazine was this story published in again? "Weird
Tales?"
MIKE: That's what I was told.
TOM: Well with all the horribly suggestive statues, and rooms full of
men looking meaningfully at one another...
MIKE: Leave it alone, Servo.
CROW: It's a fair question, Mike.
MIKE: Well, I'll tell you what, with all the words like "batrachian"
and "ichthyic" flying around, I thought it might have gotten published
somewhere else, like...uh...
TOM: Like what?
CROW: Yeah, like where?
MIKE: Uh...
(Long pause.)
CROW: You don't even know what those words mean, do you.
MIKE: I do too!
TOM: Oh? So why don't you tell us?
CROW: Yeah Mike. What's "batrachian" mean?
MIKE: Well, uh...
TOM: Yes?
MIKE: Uh...
CROW: Dum de dum, hmmm hm hmmm...(taps foot)...doo de doo...
MIKE: (Standing tall and confident) It means "like Batman".
TOM: And "ichthyic"?
MIKE: Like Robin, of course! Why do you think "batrachian" and
"ichthyic" kept appearing together like that?
CROW: Makes sense to me.
TOM: I don't know, Mike.
MIKE: Well, if you don't believe me, go look it up in our on-board
dictionary.
TOM: Okay, I will! (Exits stage right.)
MIKE: We'll be right back, folks.
[Commercial break.]