Anthology
- 1995, Vol. 1
- 1996, Vol. 2
- 1997, Vol. 3
- 1998, Vol. 4
- 1999, Vol. 5
- 2000, Vol. 6
- 2001, Vol. 7
- 2002, Vol. 8
- 2003, Vol. 9
- 2004, Vol. 10
- 2005, Vol. 11
- 2006, Vol. 12
- 2007, Vol. 13
- 2008, Vol. 14
- 2009, Vol. 15
- 2010, Vol. 16
- 2011, Vol. 17
- 2012, Vol. 18
- 2013, Vol. 19
- 2014, Vol. 20
- 2015, Vol 21
- 2016, Vol 22
- 2017, Vol 23
- 2018, Vol 24
- 2019, Vol 25
- Anthology Home
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Education, O my brothers, would be the key. After gaining permission from the grahzny bureaucraties of the State, I made my way to the land of the brave and the home of the free all on my oddy knocky. I was to be Alex the Student for a while and as if in one last show of gratitude or recompense, the Minister of the Interior or Inferior made arrangements for Your Humble Narrator to become a learned chelloveck in the great bolshy etat of the wild west. And O my brothers and only friends, I knew of this place from countless trips to the sinny in which I viddied steely-eyed stare downs, and flip horrorshow scenes of a real like grahzny vonny veck, entering a bar and tolchocking some young malchik, which in turn, my brothers, sent the whole bar into a like frenzy of savage drunken old chellovecks tolchocking each other with like bar stools and any other vesche on hand. A real horrorshow type sinny for Your Humble Narrator back in the starry days when I preferred laughs and lashes of the old twenty-to-one to very near anything.
However, being a malchik possessing a certain amount of knowledge about the wide world, I knew that I would not be exposed to such vesches, because the days of gunfighting and like bar room brawls are in the starry starry past and even this last outpost of such comportment had been like tamed. This being so, I would be in a university environment which would encourage academic freedom and mutual respect for ideas and thoughts of others. An institution of higher learning in which the primary reason for its existence was to educate. This is what I sought and desired with every malenkey cell in my being, O my brothers, but what I would come to find is that not one single solitary slovo of this was like Bog or God’s honest truth.
Viddy it now as a quest. A quest in which my final goal was knowledge, education, and the like understanding of this bolshy starry planet and all the jeeznies that were ever lived hereon. And viddy now the goal of sorts which stood mounted atop a like hill and, O my brothers, there were obstacles on that hill, multitudes of grahzny vonny obstacles, trying to distract Your Humble Narrator from realizing the institution’s primary reason for being. This goal standing erect-like atop the hill was immense and shiny as if Bog or God had himself placed it there, and in such a form as could be shared with any who reached the top to partake of its like immeasurable glory. Therefore, they were not obstacles in the sense of competition against me for the goal. Hindrances merely.
I was surprised real horrorshow by the fact that the first obstacles I encountered were my like peers. These young nadsats were in no way whatever attempting to like make it to the top of the hill. So I steadied on my sloping path and observed for a while the behavior of my likenesses. And O my brothers, I noticed that all of these malchiks and ptitsas acted and looked more or less alike, but no uniform was enforced outright by the institution of higher knowledge.
The malchiks were clad in terra-toned knickers, with like bolshy treated straps of hide criss-criss-cross-crossing their nogas, or like even bolshier sides of vache which resembled much the boties of the milicents back home. A select group of malchiks, in place of the brown knickers, wore thick azure ones which seemed to be worn uncomfortably tight leaving only a malenkey bit of room for the yarbles. On top, they wore the standard violets, or covered their pletchoes with Scotchy prints. Some puff-puffed away on cancers filling the clean country air with like toxies and carcies, which really was a shame, thought I.
The ptitsas were little different. They wore also the brown or azure knickers, but much less of them. Their plotts, or bodies as it might be, next to nagoy really, left little to the imagination, and therefore revealed much of their sickly like orange-hued hides. Their luscious glories flowing from atop their gullivers were all similar as well, mostly brown with streaks of fair here and there, often times pushed behind the hearing-holes, and most puffed away on their cancers as well.
These young devotchkas were all adrip with juices and vino for young malchiks such as YHN, and attempted to divert me from my path to the goal in this way. And along with the malchiks, described above, they presented great steely barrels of barley juice, and offered clothes as they wore which were, at times, like Hellenistically marked, and which I took to be the height of American fashion.
Fashion, however, was no longer the goal for this young malchik, and on up the path I continued, again all on my oddy-knocky. Once I was in like safe distance from these bezoomny folk (crazy that is), I turned to look down on them and something hit me real clear--sheep, thought I. Standing around grazing and govoreeting, wandering ‘bout like domeless wonderboys with no real desire whatever for the goal.
"Onward!" I exclaimed, and offed up the path. But all the while, O my brothers, I was being pursued by this starry prestoopnik with a like pitiful portable punchpad and these like oktoong-yellow envelopies. For no reason I could viddy, he kept like dipping his filthy pickers&stealers into my carmans and like exchanging his envelopies for all my deng. This proved to be an obstacle in itself for this quest on which I had embarked was in no way an inexpensive one to begin with.
Eventually I took evasive action and whats not and onward and upward I pursued until I came upon another peery group, who resembled the last very little. These volks were dressed like rogues, lickdishes, and various other type mallechos, but seemed to be rather more interesting to converse with than the earlier crew. However, the more I viddied them the more my glazballs revealed to me the truth that they were not much different in structure and pattern than their counterparts down the hill. This being the case, I refused their hand-crafted rolls of chai, as well as their constitution of some sort of common appy pathy and ittied upward once more.
Soon, O my brothers, the goal was at last at hand. I viddied it with my own glazzies. But just then, a great eerie darkness purloined the azure sky, and a dense obscure fog descended upon the hill. I was lost in nochy-like darkness, brothers, and a real like poogly feeling crawled up and down my spiny-wine, as I slooshied from somewhere in the darkness, the sound of air being forcefully exhaled from some bolshy big set of nostrils. And as the float subsided a bit Your Humble Narrator found himself confronted face-to-face with nothing less gruesome than the Lone Texan Rider of the Apocalypse. The Rider protruded from its beast as if it were some imperial appendage and then stood upright like some fantastic chimera and let loose from its horsy gape of a goober a disgusting roar. This was followed by a rumbling of the labes in a second of bipedal hope and glory, before coming back down and returning as an animal to the lower orders.
And O my brothers and only friends I had never been more frightened in all of my puff, and to add to this great moment of fear, from behind the great beast, materializing from silhouettes in the wet fog, marched a score of violet-robed wraiths smecking and squealing like a ghastly legion at the Rider’s fancy. The vision alone, I thought, was enough to send Your Humble Narrator to his craving grave, but again it occurred to me that just thinking in a moment such as this was for the gloopy ones, and the real like derf chellovecks of the world use like inspiration and what Bog sends.
"Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards," I creeched, so as to send some of the fainty fear them wise. The heavenly hosts halted as I had hoped, and in that million millionth of one minoota of doubt, in that single solitary moment of silence, I disappeared into the obscurity and reappeared armed and with gnashing teeth. I charged with a manly yalp, of which this land hadn’t heard since the wars of old, and drew my vorpel sword and it went snicker snack snicker snack.
The wraiths positioned themselves to give scrap but one by one fled before my britva, not really wanting to confront the war-like litso that had contorted on my gulliver. Then all as remained was YHN and the snuffling beast. The top appendage, in control of the lower beast by like reins and spurries, sent an unsure glance up the hill as if to receive council from some higher rein or spur, hidden somewhere in the fog, then reared up in a diabolischitzocal fit of rage. The goober (mouth that is) at the bottom of the long dark face once again gave roar, before submitting to reins and spurries and trotting off in defeat painted majestic.
All in a minoota the spheres drank the ground-cloud and the sky opened up again unblemished, and there was the goal before me. And O my brothers and only friends it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity, but before I pondered long on it I remembered the upward glance given by the poogly glazzies of the Rider. Real skorry, or quick like, I looked about me and slooshied for the presence of any others ‘round ‘bout, but there was no sound to be slooshied nor no one to be viddied.
And then I looked back out over the expanse of the path I had taken and saw the large herd at the bottom of the hill, the pitiful parking prestoopnik, the smaller roguish group, and the wraiths hovering in the barrow-grots. Sheep, thought I, all.
It resembled much a violet sea…or an orchard of plums all alive and juicy sweet on the inside but more or menos uniform plotwise. Then it hit me, brothers, as clear as an unmuddied lake, like an azure sky of deepest summer, friends, that these poor malchiks and ptitsas were like the victims of the most horrid, bolshiest of schemes. A scheme, brothers, decreed and enforced by some invisible hand. By some unviddied but finite entity, they had been tricked into being a self-destructive secret police, ensuring the growing power of the hand by imposing such laws and conditions as were suited not for those as juicy and full of jeezny as Old Bog Himself, such as these on the hill were, but fit only for some mechanized creature incapable of growth and sweetness. I thought further that it weren’t the administrators at fault, or even their uppers, but it was something much deeper and much much grander, all were plums fueling a much larger machine—an inevitable machine which could only thrive on such fruit.
A clearer thought never thought had I. So this I made into slovos and creeched it out over the hill in the loudest goloss I could muster, but sadly, friends, no one seemed to slooshy me.
So here we are, Your Ever Humble Narrator, with you my brothers and only friends, to partake of the immeasurable glory of the goal, to which I have brought you. And to the others in the story, profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr, and to some a kiss-my-sharries; but to you O my brothers, remember thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.
Clockwork Plums
What’s it going to be then, eh? Now that I had been cured. Cured from the cure, and then O my brothers I was really cured, by my own like free will from my ways of old. I had lost interest in the ultra-violent and savage-style in-out, and replaced them with like thoughts of creating and getting on in life real horrorshow. Yes the adolescent stage of my jeezny was in the shameful past, and the life of rabbit-of-the-state with like every vesche, or thing, laid out for me, denied me proper use of the gulliver so I viddied clear what I must do. I would make my own way out from the like wing of my kind and loving pee and em, and even out from beneath the stinky rubber-soled nogas of the State of England.
Education, O my brothers, would be the key. After gaining permission from the grahzny bureaucraties of the State, I made my way to the land of the brave and the home of the free all on my oddy knocky. I was to be Alex the Student for a while and as if in one last show of gratitude or recompense, the Minister of the Interior or Inferior made arrangements for Your Humble Narrator to become a learned chelloveck in the great bolshy etat of the wild west. And O my brothers and only friends, I knew of this place from countless trips to the sinny in which I viddied steely-eyed stare downs, and flip horrorshow scenes of a real like grahzny vonny veck, entering a bar and tolchocking some young malchik, which in turn, my brothers, sent the whole bar into a like frenzy of savage drunken old chellovecks tolchocking each other with like bar stools and any other vesche on hand. A real horrorshow type sinny for Your Humble Narrator back in the starry days when I preferred laughs and lashes of the old twenty-to-one to very near anything.
However, being a malchik possessing a certain amount of knowledge about the wide world, I knew that I would not be exposed to such vesches, because the days of gunfighting and like bar room brawls are in the starry starry past and even this last outpost of such comportment had been like tamed. This being so, I would be in a university environment which would encourage academic freedom and mutual respect for ideas and thoughts of others. An institution of higher learning in which the primary reason for its existence was to educate. This is what I sought and desired with every malenkey cell in my being, O my brothers, but what I would come to find is that not one single solitary slovo of this was like Bog or God’s honest truth.
Viddy it now as a quest. A quest in which my final goal was knowledge, education, and the like understanding of this bolshy starry planet and all the jeeznies that were ever lived hereon. And viddy now the goal of sorts which stood mounted atop a like hill and, O my brothers, there were obstacles on that hill, multitudes of grahzny vonny obstacles, trying to distract Your Humble Narrator from realizing the institution’s primary reason for being. This goal standing erect-like atop the hill was immense and shiny as if Bog or God had himself placed it there, and in such a form as could be shared with any who reached the top to partake of its like immeasurable glory. Therefore, they were not obstacles in the sense of competition against me for the goal. Hindrances merely.
I was surprised real horrorshow by the fact that the first obstacles I encountered were my like peers. These young nadsats were in no way whatever attempting to like make it to the top of the hill. So I steadied on my sloping path and observed for a while the behavior of my likenesses. And O my brothers, I noticed that all of these malchiks and ptitsas acted and looked more or less alike, but no uniform was enforced outright by the institution of higher knowledge.
The malchiks were clad in terra-toned knickers, with like bolshy treated straps of hide criss-criss-cross-crossing their nogas, or like even bolshier sides of vache which resembled much the boties of the milicents back home. A select group of malchiks, in place of the brown knickers, wore thick azure ones which seemed to be worn uncomfortably tight leaving only a malenkey bit of room for the yarbles. On top, they wore the standard violets, or covered their pletchoes with Scotchy prints. Some puff-puffed away on cancers filling the clean country air with like toxies and carcies, which really was a shame, thought I.
The ptitsas were little different. They wore also the brown or azure knickers, but much less of them. Their plotts, or bodies as it might be, next to nagoy really, left little to the imagination, and therefore revealed much of their sickly like orange-hued hides. Their luscious glories flowing from atop their gullivers were all similar as well, mostly brown with streaks of fair here and there, often times pushed behind the hearing-holes, and most puffed away on their cancers as well.
These young devotchkas were all adrip with juices and vino for young malchiks such as YHN, and attempted to divert me from my path to the goal in this way. And along with the malchiks, described above, they presented great steely barrels of barley juice, and offered clothes as they wore which were, at times, like Hellenistically marked, and which I took to be the height of American fashion.
Fashion, however, was no longer the goal for this young malchik, and on up the path I continued, again all on my oddy-knocky. Once I was in like safe distance from these bezoomny folk (crazy that is), I turned to look down on them and something hit me real clear--sheep, thought I. Standing around grazing and govoreeting, wandering ‘bout like domeless wonderboys with no real desire whatever for the goal.
"Onward!" I exclaimed, and offed up the path. But all the while, O my brothers, I was being pursued by this starry prestoopnik with a like pitiful portable punchpad and these like oktoong-yellow envelopies. For no reason I could viddy, he kept like dipping his filthy pickers&stealers into my carmans and like exchanging his envelopies for all my deng. This proved to be an obstacle in itself for this quest on which I had embarked was in no way an inexpensive one to begin with.
Eventually I took evasive action and whats not and onward and upward I pursued until I came upon another peery group, who resembled the last very little. These volks were dressed like rogues, lickdishes, and various other type mallechos, but seemed to be rather more interesting to converse with than the earlier crew. However, the more I viddied them the more my glazballs revealed to me the truth that they were not much different in structure and pattern than their counterparts down the hill. This being the case, I refused their hand-crafted rolls of chai, as well as their constitution of some sort of common appy pathy and ittied upward once more.
Soon, O my brothers, the goal was at last at hand. I viddied it with my own glazzies. But just then, a great eerie darkness purloined the azure sky, and a dense obscure fog descended upon the hill. I was lost in nochy-like darkness, brothers, and a real like poogly feeling crawled up and down my spiny-wine, as I slooshied from somewhere in the darkness, the sound of air being forcefully exhaled from some bolshy big set of nostrils. And as the float subsided a bit Your Humble Narrator found himself confronted face-to-face with nothing less gruesome than the Lone Texan Rider of the Apocalypse. The Rider protruded from its beast as if it were some imperial appendage and then stood upright like some fantastic chimera and let loose from its horsy gape of a goober a disgusting roar. This was followed by a rumbling of the labes in a second of bipedal hope and glory, before coming back down and returning as an animal to the lower orders.
And O my brothers and only friends I had never been more frightened in all of my puff, and to add to this great moment of fear, from behind the great beast, materializing from silhouettes in the wet fog, marched a score of violet-robed wraiths smecking and squealing like a ghastly legion at the Rider’s fancy. The vision alone, I thought, was enough to send Your Humble Narrator to his craving grave, but again it occurred to me that just thinking in a moment such as this was for the gloopy ones, and the real like derf chellovecks of the world use like inspiration and what Bog sends.
"Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards," I creeched, so as to send some of the fainty fear them wise. The heavenly hosts halted as I had hoped, and in that million millionth of one minoota of doubt, in that single solitary moment of silence, I disappeared into the obscurity and reappeared armed and with gnashing teeth. I charged with a manly yalp, of which this land hadn’t heard since the wars of old, and drew my vorpel sword and it went snicker snack snicker snack.
The wraiths positioned themselves to give scrap but one by one fled before my britva, not really wanting to confront the war-like litso that had contorted on my gulliver. Then all as remained was YHN and the snuffling beast. The top appendage, in control of the lower beast by like reins and spurries, sent an unsure glance up the hill as if to receive council from some higher rein or spur, hidden somewhere in the fog, then reared up in a diabolischitzocal fit of rage. The goober (mouth that is) at the bottom of the long dark face once again gave roar, before submitting to reins and spurries and trotting off in defeat painted majestic.
All in a minoota the spheres drank the ground-cloud and the sky opened up again unblemished, and there was the goal before me. And O my brothers and only friends it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity, but before I pondered long on it I remembered the upward glance given by the poogly glazzies of the Rider. Real skorry, or quick like, I looked about me and slooshied for the presence of any others ‘round ‘bout, but there was no sound to be slooshied nor no one to be viddied.
And then I looked back out over the expanse of the path I had taken and saw the large herd at the bottom of the hill, the pitiful parking prestoopnik, the smaller roguish group, and the wraiths hovering in the barrow-grots. Sheep, thought I, all.
It resembled much a violet sea…or an orchard of plums all alive and juicy sweet on the inside but more or menos uniform plotwise. Then it hit me, brothers, as clear as an unmuddied lake, like an azure sky of deepest summer, friends, that these poor malchiks and ptitsas were like the victims of the most horrid, bolshiest of schemes. A scheme, brothers, decreed and enforced by some invisible hand. By some unviddied but finite entity, they had been tricked into being a self-destructive secret police, ensuring the growing power of the hand by imposing such laws and conditions as were suited not for those as juicy and full of jeezny as Old Bog Himself, such as these on the hill were, but fit only for some mechanized creature incapable of growth and sweetness. I thought further that it weren’t the administrators at fault, or even their uppers, but it was something much deeper and much much grander, all were plums fueling a much larger machine—an inevitable machine which could only thrive on such fruit.
A clearer thought never thought had I. So this I made into slovos and creeched it out over the hill in the loudest goloss I could muster, but sadly, friends, no one seemed to slooshy me.
So here we are, Your Ever Humble Narrator, with you my brothers and only friends, to partake of the immeasurable glory of the goal, to which I have brought you. And to the others in the story, profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr, and to some a kiss-my-sharries; but to you O my brothers, remember thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.