Nessie lay on a shore
where she swore she never laid before.
Cackling with insane glee,
Captain Squint stood poised on the bow of the ship,
aiming his harpoon with the poison tip.
I raced from the cabin below to stop him.
“Nooooooo!”
Thoooft!
“Oopsie!”
I pretended to trip
and shoved McSquint just as he fired.
But I was too late.
He fired before I shoved him.
Or worse,
he would’ve missed her completely,
but then I shoved him on target.
Either way,
the poison-tipped harpoon pierced Nessie in the heart.
No amount of surgery can fix that.
A poison-tipped harpoon through the heart is
a doubly deadly double whammy!
I felt as if I’d been harpooned in the heart,
sorrowing to see the slaughter
of the last plesiosaur on Earth.
Mourning the murder of a dear friend.
Had I caused her death?
If I hadn’t gotten so fed up with Bigfoot
that I came to hang out with Nessie,
but then I met an attractive cocktail server,
would Nessie have not become so enraged,
so jealous as to commit such a heinous crime?
I mourned the loss and wept from guilt,
dropping to the deck, a blubbering mess.
Meanwhile,
Nessie herself faced her demise
far more courageously than I did.
I wept and wailed,
while Nessie, on the other hand,
merely deflated.
Merely what?
Deflated?!
That wasn’t Nessie after all!
Just a strangely accurate,
lifelike, life-sized, fast-deflating replica.
But why?
McBrody, McSquint, and I
rode the dinghy ashore to investigate.
“I told you she doesn’t exist!”
Grabbing me by the collar,
McSquint lifted me off the ground.
As my feet dangled, he snarled,
“You’ve got city wits Mack Pooper.
You’ve been writing stories all your life.”
I gulped.
Usually I come back with a clever quip.
But his vice-like grip encroached upon my windpipe.
McBrody nudged McSquint and said,
“Put him down.”
“With pleasure.”
Gazing into my eyes, McSquint sneered.
“You’re a whiny, cookie-hogging clown
who’s lost all tough with reality.”
I gulped again.
As best I could, given the circumstances.
McBrody snickered at what he considered
a highly accurate appraisal, but then said,
“I meant, on the ground.”
“Bah!”, growled McSquint who,
with a mere shrug, tossed me into the bay.
I gasped as I came up for air; and then,
with a bravado that can only lead to no good,
I shrieked as I ran at McSquint and tackled him.
McSquint flailed in such way that he grabbed McBrody,
so down went the three of us.
But only for a millisecond.
As soon as we plopped down,
we shot up!
Captured in a net.
McBrody and McSquint glared at me.
I shrugged,
but then gasped,
as I clutched my gut.
“Oh-oh.
Were those alfalfa sprouts in the garden salad?”
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Facing the Real Monster
Rita Rudner:
I want to have children, but my friends scare me.
One of my friends told me
she was in labor for thirty six hours.
I don’t even want to do anything that feels good
for thirty-six hours.
Phyllis Diller:
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.
Dean Burkey:
The details of the artist’s alibi are sketchy.
Mitch Hedberg:
A lollipop is a cross between hard candy and garbage.
Steven Wright:
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
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