To celebrate, I’m enlisting you all to assist me in this groundbreaking literary endeavor. Please take a moment to add your contribution to this chain novel in the comments. Here are the rules:
1. One sentence per comment. That’s all. It can be a long, twisty, semicolon-laden monstrosity, but one sentence is the limit.
2. You may only post once every ten comments. So if you added a sentence at #2, you can’t add another until #12. (Also, comments lie where they fall. This should make for added fun.)
3. This is a family establishment. Keep it clean. Also, any mockery of BCC or Steve should be subtle and tasteful.
3a. “subtle and tasteful” is to be construed broadly.
That’s it. Go! Write!
It was a dark and stormy night.
The devil walked abroad.
As lightning flashed and the devil howled outside, young Heber took his dark felt hat down from the closet shelf.
He sat down to post at Times and Seasons.
She would have preferred to ride.
Just as Heber clicked on “submit post” on the most soul-searching, cynic-defying, bias-revealing post in Bloggernacle history, his son set a frog on his keyboard.
His son then turned the old fairy tale on its head and kissed the frog only to find that the frog was…
How long would it take an infinite number of frogs to write a post on the socioeconomic implications of polyandry, Heber wondered.
…A Danite!
Well, actually, it was a Dane named Bjork, replete with iconic Gotterdammerung headgear.
The Danite, a shifty-looking fellow with red wiskers named LaRue, had survived since the time of Joseph Smith, eventually becoming a bodyguard for one of the Three Nephites in the mid 1860s.
He began singing “Come, Come Ye Saints” to the tune of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
Unfrotunately, he was being shipped off to Gitmo in a few days.
While Heber was singing and LaRue — or was it really his evil Danish twin Bjork? — sat on the keyboard wondering why he had been thus kissed into this sitting room on the upper east side of Salt Lake City, Heber’s mad aunt Clarissa escaped from the attic and slid down the banister.
Heber decided that if Bjorn was a Dane, he probably like cheese, so it would be OK to invite him to Fondue with the Tanners, providing Lou didn’t show up first, and that the chupacabra didn’t overtake them on the way there.
Keep commenting–only a little over fifty visitors to go!!, interrupted the voice of the omniscient Times and Seasons narrator from beyond.
“Recent events around here have been as senseless as a chain novel,” typed Heber as the first sentence of a new post.
Bjork/LaRue appeared to have a split personality.
Suddenly, a shot was heard. Phyllis knew the meaning. It had to be Bob and his petunias…again.
The slurp associated with the shot made it sound more like orange juice than bourbon, which was a relief to Phyllis, who had recently been appointed to monitor WOW compliance in her neighborhood.
bob meanwhile found the “tin foil” for the hat that he needed,in hopes that it would block out the thoughts from bad anti blog people
As Heber pondered the meaning of these recent strange events, suddenly the Devil sauntered into the room and challenged him to a high-stakes Riverdance contest.
If Heber were to win the danceoff, he could have anything he wished for; However the penalty for losing was insufferable, he’d have to start a mormon blog.
He thought about what he would call his blog if he were to lose.
He decided to call it By Common Consent.
But changed his mind when the spirit whispered to him that a blog by that name had already been taken up with the city of Enoch.
Soon Heber found himself in the finals of So You Think You Can Dance? pitted against Lucifer.
He felt good, he felt confident, but he still regretted that the city of Enoch’s sanitation department had preempted his name for a blog if he lost.
To boost his own confidence, Heber whispered his own name to himself, but backwards:
“rebeh, rebeh, rebeh”
[[[NOT PART OF THE STORY, BUT COMMENTARY THEREON:
Bjorn/Bjork/LaRue’s identity is still in doubt and the looming threat of Gitmo is still unresolved. Actually, its possible enough time has passed between #26 and #27 that he’s already been deported. Why he was a frog in the possession of the offspring of a Times and Seasons blogger is still unclear. Perhaps this will be revealed in Gitmo interrogations.
The Bob, Phyllis sideplot remains unexplored. Bob appears to be a troubled man, slurping OJ among his petunias. How Phyllis role as WoW monitor ties in with the Danites remains to be seen. Is she allied or in competition?]]]
Heber then slipped into the form fitting tights, sparkling gold and green in the stage lights, glad that his shirt was not sleeveless, and recalled that he was missing his good luck charm.
Not knowing a Riverdance from a Tango, Heber launched himself with great gusto into a Tarantella.
Now if he could just picture the celebrity judges in their underwear he would have no prob….KATHY BATES – NOOOOOOOOO!
Meanwhile, halfway across the Caribbean, an erstwhile Frog was being processed into his cell at the end of the island, when a guard flipped on the television, giving the new prisoner a glimpse of dashing young Mormon hoofing a jig as the devil laughed behind him- a glimpse that gave LaRue just enough time to . . .
…jump on the guard’s hand, knocking the guard unconscious, for LaRue is a poisonous tree frog.
With that pesky prisoner guard out of the way, LaRue quickly hopped (get it?) a plane and managed to make it in time to see Heber…
…attempting to shake Lucifer’s insubstantial hand on national TV in order to verify his identity.
Heber was relieved to see that Terryl Givens was hosting the show and providing commnetary, certainly he would be a sympathetic voice.
The preliminary dancing clips over, the lights dimmed, a lone spotlight highlighted Heber on the stage, and the sounds of Heber’s special theme, “Brother Brigham Brought It On” from September Dawn, started to play, softly at first, as the cheering audience slowly quieted to a hush.
At which point Heber took out his official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle ….
Bob took another slurp of his orange juice, crushed his tin foil hat into a ball, hit the waste can with a three point shot, and wondered if mounting a denial of service attack against anti bloggers would be considered a righteous act or not, as he said aloud, “Phyllis, let’s watch some TV.”
As Phyllis searched under the couch cushions to find the remote, Heber’s mad aunt Clarissa started pounding on the front door, yelling that Heber had been kidnapped by Lucifer and forced to learn country line dancing.
Phyllis however gone, she sprinted top speed down the street to put an end to Heber’s immodestly dressed devil-music (and devil involved) dance competition– he was going to burn in outer darkness for this infraction!
As Phyllis sprinted toward the studio, Lucifer reappeared on stage, took Heber by the hand, and led him in an amazing Argentine tango, during which Heber inquired softly into Lucifer’s ear, “I’ve always wondered…. was the Adam–God Theory your idea, or Brother Brigham’s?”
(er, that was Clarissa running down the street, not Phyllis…)
phyllis meanwhile while trying to save heber and his dance style called “creaping” hence the term “THE HEBER CREAPER” bob who remembered that he and heber had served a mission togather trying to save a group “ites” moab or logan- ites that he had invented the concept of multi-level companys and could get rich as so many others selling “The American Way” but what to sell THEN the mental fog lifted and he said “This company will be called “VAPOR WARE” and we will be the largest multi-level company in the world or at least in the west or my name isnt BOB
“That was my idea, of course,” laughed Lucifer, “just like correlation, singles wards, and Halestorm Entertainment; but for sheer evilness, none of those can compare to my latest project, which is a little venture that I like to call By … Common … Con–“
“Don’t say it!” he urged fiercely; “Have you no idea of the evil that lurks in the heart of The Blog that Must Not Be Named?” he muttered cryptically as he looked furtively and grimaced angrily.
Lucifer continued, “What’s so bad about saying By Common Concerto Violin School?”
Nervous laughter erupted from Heber, who quit violin lessons years ago in favor of the much-maligned tenor accordion that proved to be somewhat less than the babe-magnet its shiny packaging promised.
Steve Evans shouted back: “I forbid it, for in the day thou sayest it, thou shalt surely die.”
Then, the plant in the corner yelled “Feed Me, Steve! Feed Me Now!”
Steve, a force to be reckoned with, came after the talking plant, and with what happened next– well, let’s just say that even Lucifer started to cry.
“Steve! Steve, my son! Would that I had died for thee!” Cried Lucifer.
“Silence, Luci, ye fiend of the eternal pit!” screamed Steve from behind the plant, after sticking his head in it and lighting it on fire, “for I am the Burning Bush, and thou art a washed-up, overweight dancer with last season’s Prada shoes and a bad comb-over.”
“Bad comb-over!” Cried Luci. “D’all right! That does it! No more mister nice guy! You’re goin’ down!” He advanced toward Steve. “Down! Down! Down!” He thrust his knarly claw through the fire and clutched Steve by the throat. “You were like a son to me!” He cried. His conviction waivered at the thought of thrusting down poor Steve. And then, all at once, Luci felt a searing pain in his hand. He jerked his arm away from Steve–and howling in agony, coddled his hand against his chest. He sank to his knees, balled up in pain. Then he sprang up crazily, his eyes flashing with a fire of their own. “My Ring!” he shouted in horror as he looked upon the bloody stump that was once his ring finger.
& that April the young men of the Church were warned that Lucifer would tempt them to talk to their plant and become friends with it but they should NEVER talk to such a sacred, evil friend as their tender plant on a daily basis no matter how fun it was because there is a time to bloom and a time for not blooming constantly you young men.
Kingsley has spoken; the story has reached a natural conclusion; only a few (dozen) unresolved subplots remain (for a sequel?); there has been (almost) no rule violation; and since all’s well that ends well, at this point it is probably time to say:
THE END.
(And a big thanks to everyone for participating!)