Wednesday 23 July 2014

Story: (The Adventures of Clomp 6) 'Clomp Squared'

Author's note:
A story featuring Clomp von Clomp, that I wrote myself as part of an anthology of odd things inspired by all the toys that used to be clustered around. You may re-post but not use for your own profit, or adapt or copy. 'Tis mine!


Introduction
Many historical tragedies have been ascribed to the malevolent Clomp: The leaning tower of Pisa, the death of Julius Caesar, Quasimodo's hump, and the sinking of the steamship Titanic. The hairy blue creature with a bright red nose caused them all. He has lived for a LONG time.

Selecting a small number of stories from the pantheon of tales surrounding the mythical little demon is virtually impossible. However, we have done it anyway. Why did Atlantis vanish under the waves? Did Mount Vesuvius really erupt naturally to bury Pompeii? And why did the Empire State Building mysteriously disappear for three hours? The answers are all here.

Lean back in your chair, and enjoy the legendary tales of `Clomp Von Clomp', as the Germans know him. Please be aware that nothing in this volume is in any way connected with our version of reality. Thank you.


Story
POOF!

The blue furry antagonist that we call Clomp once again appeared in a ball of blue fuzzy smoke. He appeared to be in a park clearing, surrounded by tall evergreens.

``Craak!'' One fit of smoke induced paroxysms later, Clompie looked around from his new prone position on a nearby treetop and wondered aloud, ``Was that worse than Vienna in 1724? No, no, but what about Mudd City in Otto's Century?'' He whipped out a tabulated list and pen from nothing, corrected it and then ate it, and then hopped down to the ground. The odd little being wheezed a little from the horribly pure air and lack of pollution.

``What a disgustingly beautiful place. Why ever would I have wanted to come 'ere?!''

A voice from the dark: ``Boredom, perhaps? Ennui? Hiding out from the traffic wardens? Or was it just to steal picnic baskets from the bandit bears?''

Unmoved by the mysterious voice, our Clompie exclaimed ``Good idea! Well done, you shadowy fiend!'' He then popped off for just over a minute and returned with a number of stolen picnic baskets. ``Lovely!'' He conjured up a worn down picnic table and hovered on its warped bench.

The voice from the dark chimed in again with ``Look, behind you, a storm of squid!''

``Oh, shut up!''

``Clomp! you 'ave no sense of humour...'' Clompie stared with a hammy shock as he saw himself emerge from the deeper shadow under the trees and hover over to the opposite bench. After a few minutes, he eyed himself cynically over the worn picnic table. ``You dare?!'' he asked, for once astonished.

``Of course I dare! When have we ever not dared, you dolt?''

``Oh, go snorkel on Mars!''

The second/alternate/future Clomp bristled. ``Why must we always be so argumentative?!''

``Because we are Clomps, and that is our gift from the cosmos.'' Our Clomp (Clomp I), continued, ``What are you doing here, anyway? It's not Clompish New Year yet, that's for sure!'' A moment, and then anger flared. ``Why did you get me that 'orrible tie?!''

* * *

Side note: Clomps are unique in the universe that they only give themselves presents, and then only to their younger selves. They are also quite sadistic gift givers, so the youngest Clomps get deluged with piles of terrible and awful gifts while the oldest get fewer. As Clomps are functionally immortal this means that all the gifts pile up, and are actually used to make car boot sales and flea markets across the universe viable, thus providing more places for Clomps to buy the terrible grot. Clomps are awful.

* * *

``Mwahahaha!'' chuckled the new Clomp (Clomp II), with some coughs mixed in and an odd sounding groan. ``I could not 'elp it! The little cheeses and the monkeys!''

``Urgh! How I loathe me.''

``Now listen, you inexperienced loon, for I 'ave news! News that I received from me when I was sitting on your side of the table.'' Clomp II was evidently a future version of Clomp. ``We don't 'ave much time...''

Our Clomp blew a derisive raspberry. Then he literally blew a real raspberry just to be annoying, if you can picture that.

Clomp II sighed, and rolled his eyes at the trees, fortunately not literally. ``If I could disown myself I would. Listen, Grimaldi's is reopening.''

A second burst of raspberries transitioned instead to a fruity splutter instead.

* * *

The Clomp Parallel - home of the Clomps - has exactly three places not called `Hole of Clomp'. The first one if the Clompfather's gaudy combination castle and slum, the second is the cacophany hall, and the third is Grimaldi's fine Italian restaurant and pizzaria, established in spite two Clompfathers ago, and then equally spitefully adopted by the Clomps at large as the premier venue for indulging in pretentious and erroneous criticism of fine cuisine.

Also, as the only species in the universe to adore anchovies on pizza, the Clomps were never going to let a pizza place fail in the Parallel. The great anchovy shortage that had caused the closing of Grimaldi's was still a sore point that no-one could bear to talk about. Clomps are strange.

* * *

``We must beat the queue!'' shouted our Clomp instantly. Grabbing himself, himself, and the picnic basket he poofed all three to the edge of Grimaldi's 'No Teleportation, PLEASE!' zone in the Parallel. Inside that zone, one of the very few of the Parallel's laws was in place, the infamous 'No queue barging' edict, punishable by extreme hygiene.

They were a bit late, despite Clomp II's getting to his earlier self. The queue of Clomps stretched for several Clompish leagues already, and Clomp II muttered something under his breath, something most wicked, ``Clomp! I don't remember what I or you or we or whoever did. The temporal twiddle factor has hidden my memory.'' He sulked.

``Yes, yes, be quiet, you old fogie. I'm thinking!'' Our Clomp looked moodily around and spotted a familiar face in the queue. ``Hey, you're me! How did you get here? And why aren't you with US?''

* * *

Side note: Clomps can travel indiscriminately in time and space, at their own peril, but whenever they return to the Parallel they return linearly in time. The Parallel is the only place where they can not be chronologically out of step unless they are `dragged' by someone who does belong there. Here ends the note.

* * *

Clomp III looked at them both in contempty. ``After that clog and the woolly cuckoo clock I got for New Year? You must be kidding! Even Flomp is preferable.'' He gestured at the jingly do gooder next to him and turned his back.

``Flomp! You're my nemesis, not theirs! Why did you tell that simpleton about Grimaldi's?'' Demanded Clompie.

``I'm sorry, Clompie, but I only had coupons for two. You weren't around, and you know that even one Clomp is more than enough.'' Jingle jingle.

``Bah!'' was the doubled response.

* * *

The two versions of Clomp struggled with the problem from their beginnings at places 2394 and 2396 in the queue, until they had moved up 2347 and 2348 after a few days. The comparatively timid Clomp who had been between them had been savaged so ferociously that he had snapped and gone berzerk and was currently being given a remedial session under the Lens of All Clomp.

``I can not take it! We will be here still when New Year rolls around again, and I want Grimaldi's special anchovy pizza before then! It is unique! We must scheme, we must plot, and if all that fails we must go insane!''

Clomp II was shuddering in empathy, and interrupted with ``Scheme how? Grimaldi has his methods for spotting Clomps impersonating his staff. How, I do not know, but they are infallible, and we can not use our magic on other Clomps.'' Clomps, being notoriously oblivious, had never spotted that their human impersonations always had big pink noses and ridiculous moustaches, and often even some quite ridiculous blue-ish tinges.

``And if we barge ahead in the queue we will break the only important law apart from 'Don't break the Clompfather's rules where someone can see you.' They would wash us and clean us and groom our moustaches!'' The mad pink-rimmed eyes contracted in horror.

``If we can not jump the queue then we must shorten it. Why don't you tell your boring story about Emperor Zurg again? That would drive them off in droves.'' Clomp II suggested insolently.

``OUR boring story, fluff for brains!'' Clompie grinned, ``You should give them all one of those ties. They would pile onto you with such anger that I would get my pizza!'' The two then argued endlessly until they moved up to 2283 and 2284 many, many days later.

* * *

There now follows a selection of the musings and mutterings during the next stretch of queueing.

``I should never have traded in that favour from the Clompfather for the radioactive chew sweets.''

``Do you think they'd believe I was Otto von Bismarck again? It did work once before...''

``The last time I ate at Grimaldi's my review was so cutting that they used it to cut cake for a week.''

``Hey we're gaining on us and Flomp! Get the slingshot ready! Oh, how I wish I hadn't traded in my Centauran boomerang for that book on tragic crochet blunders.''

* * *

All of a sudden a comparatively rapid burst of progress moved the two Clomps up two hundred spaces in a matter of a week, mainly due to their frenzied spoon duet in b-flat. No one was entirely certain why Brahms had written a spoon duet in his life but Clompie made good use of the quirky musical artefact. They were then at about place 2050.

Twenty places were skittled away sorting out the invitations for what purported to be a 'Grimaldi's Grand Reopening Queue Party', and by the end of the celebration three hundred Clomps were out for the count and either unconscious or locked up in post-party recriminations. Clomp III and flomp were now in bawling range, and a natural yogurt explosion put Clompie and Clomp II directly in their wake.

``Now, Clompie, you know none of those silly tricks will work on me, surely?'' Jingle jingle. There was no apprehension, only sincerity, and it was infuriating to the cynical blue fuzzies.

``Not now, Flomp, we are rehearsing!'' Savaged our Clomp. ``Once again with the slug balancing...'' The third and youngest version of our Clomp couldn't resist joining in and the group of four moved up to about 1400 over a squadron of hysterical supine blue fuzzies.

At this point in proceedings, the quartet's ideas began to run dry, especially as the formerly incapacitated Clomps behind them began to recover and grumpily re-queue far behind them. In contrast the Clomps ahead of them became ever more suspicious. There were even counter-offensives and Clomp III was almost knocked out of line by what would have been a crucial error in insult table tennis before being saved by the far wiser Clomp II, who successfully vollied a wicked lob with a zinging riposte of ``Ha ha! That sounds more like YOUR family reunion!''

A planned trapeze act to push them even further collapsed and our protagonists were suffering from level three dejection when Flompie finally showed some pity and advanced them in another burst for culinary glory by reciting selected treasured passages from the Book of Clomp until everyone within earshot except his prepared companions collapsed from the utmost tedium.

``You know, sometimes I almost - ALMOST, mark you - don't entirely loathe you, Flomp.'' Confessed Clomp III.

Jingle jingle.

``Urgh. This is now not of those times.''

``No, don't eat my little bell!''

* * *

The current diners were evidently taking their time. The queue didn't move for three days and rumours circulated down the line that the Clompfather had crashed in with a VIP squad and the line undulated in bitter discontent.

In the far distance the restaurant could now finally be seen, the great `G' standing high on its pole above the now ubiquitous pizza slice totem.

``It is almost within reach... We must be less than a thousand places away by now! We can do it! I will get to those awful anchovies at last! And the sauce, oh, the sauce!'' Clomp II was practically frothing at the moustaches, and our Clomp merely looked at him suspiciously before returning to his machinations.

The innate beauty of the Splamchian peace yodel made not a dent in the determined queuers ahead, although it did turn the stomachs of the the two Clomps performing it, and derailed some of the barely recovered queuers behind. The Clompfather's gala apparently continued undisturbed. Worries began to gnaw at them that he might exhaust all of Grimaldi's stores, even those in the extradimensional pantries set up by the builders after the last closure. Clompie ignored them all and continued his massive scale balloon modelling of the Great Wall of China, pushing each section out into the surrounding landscape as he completed, until a massive winding airy wall could be seen to stretch for miles beyond their horizon. The surrounding Clomps could not resist some ferocious critiquing of course, competitively, and soon formed a judging committee. Then they formed a second judging committee and a third and so on until the committees began to judge each other and reached critical opinionation mass. Unobtrusively our four moved up to about 800 in the queue.

Jingle jingle. ``I would like it noted that I disapprove very much.''

``Bah!'' was again the bored response, but this time in triplicate.

* * *

``Good grief!'' Exclaimed Clomp, ``Did you know that tomorrow is the Bank Working Day? And I've been here so long that I haven't managed to complete my faked expense accounts or the fraudulent tax audit. This is cataclysmic!'' After a panic they duly moved up another hundred spaces due to gullible eavesdroppers. It was however true that the Clompish bank only had one working day each year, when it was manned in five minute shifts so that each Clomp could submit his own paperwork and fudge the accounts appropriately.

Only approximately seven hundred Clomps now stood or hovered between them and their objective, the great culinary bastion of Grimaldi's. In the distance they finally saw the Clompfather's stretch limo take off and the food queue began to move naturally for the first time in weeks.

Flompie consulted his calendar, ``If I had known how long this would take... Ooooh, I might have to leave for my nephew's bell ceremony soon!''

``Oh, for crying out loud! We will make it! Even now I am hatching a scheme!'' Clomp III hiccuped the customary blue smoke and continued, ``All we need is a bathtub, some wheels and a gullible bystander...''

* * *

The tricks and schemes went on and on, and Flomp became ever more uncomfortable. The wishy washy bathtub pursuit moved them up to 650, the Toadstool Mesa Mardi Gras to 550, the standard Nine Tree Scam to 400, and regular queue movement to 350. This close to Grimaldi's they could even smell the pizza on the strongest breezes, appropriately burnt to Clompish taste.

``If only Clompish magic worked on other Clomps...'', mused Clompie III, ``We could have been there months ago.''

``Or the whole Parallel would have gone up in petty squabbles eons ago,'' uttered Flomp quietly, ``and this queue would have degenerated into a massive mystical mire.''

``However,'' Clomp II continued obliviously, ``we are in no such luck and at any moment the stress of being so near but so far may drive me totally berzerk'' As he uttered those words through his foul moustaches he realised the same must have been true of all the other Clomps ahead of them and sensed the tension in the turgid atmosphere. ``This lot could go off at any moment...'' The nearby eavesdroppers edged away nervously.

Our Clompie chuckled evilly, and then began to rave. What he lacked in malicious competence he more than made up for in melodramatic hammy intensity. He raved about the burnt cheese, the anchovies and chilli peppers, linguini, and rubbery squid in white sauce. The greatest over-actor of the whole ludicrous species, he let go with a performance unequalled in his recent history, and the effects rolled outward like a wave. Flomp's loud assertions of his fakery came to nothing, only adding to the emotion, as the Clomps ahead succumbed in turn and frenzied out of the line, all but the first twenty or so. Those first twenty or so seemed to be immune and so Clompie reined in his theatrics with a chuckle and Flompie finally vanished in mute disgust, his bell disappearing mid-jingle, and Clomp III vanishing with the departure of his temporal anchor.

``I wonder why I don't remember that?'' mused both the remaining versions of Clomp simultaneously, and then they moved naturally up to 15 and 16 in the queue respectively. The two Clomps fidgetted restlessly despite all their successes, but they held their nerves and their spaces with great dignity. The monumental egos of the Clomps inside Grimaldi's would require hours of opinionating on every count, so that they might spend a comparative eternity waiting still.

The minutes passes, then hours, and a day. The two moved up a grand total of two spaces. They could hear what seemed to be an outrageously epic speech persisting inside, something about tasty charcoal and cement and attempts to conquer the world. The two became resigned to a long wait, now exhausted of ideas.

* * *

Some time later, Clompie became suspicious of the Clomp immediately preceding them in the queue. Unlike all the others he had never glanced back even once, or so Clompie thought. He was very obviously hiding, but for what reason? As Clompie considered the suspicious Clomp's back it seemed ever more familiar. Suddenly he had it! ``You!'' he exclaimed, ``you despicable fiend!''

The suspicious seeming Clomp revealed himself and smiled diabolically. ``So, we meet again! And you will lose again, as you always do!'' Then, for form, he shouted ``Mwahaha!''

Swords flew in from nowhere, puncturing a section of the Great Balloon Wall in the process, and there then commenced one of the greatest standing sabre fights in history. Clompie was facing down his oldest enemy apart from himself, the Clomp who had cheated his way to the top of their graduating class at the Conservatory by thwarting Clompie's own cheats, the Clomp who had managed to get the Clow Noodles favour out of the Clompfather by sabotaging Clompie's own half-hearted efforts, the Clomp who had gone out of his way to be a nemesis when none was needed.

The exterior lights of the Grimaldi's splashed and splattered off the clashing blades of the two Clomps as they battled without moving a fraction from their spots, determined to not even hint at abdicating their places. The mental exertion in wielding the blades was virtually palpable, and several entrepreneurial Clomps were bottling it for later resale. As it continued, the duel became ever more controlled instead of frenzied and a chilliness eked out into the vicinity. Finally the rival Clomp missed the minutest of marks in a clinical parry and was knocked to the side.

``Curses on you, Clompie! Revenge shall be mine! And anchovies!'' The rival hovered off in a huff, presumably to the back of the line or to a sulking space.

``Ha! He hasn't changed! Still a rotten loser!'' Clompie looked at Clomp II, and got even louder, ``Hey, wake up, you missed all the fun!'' Clomp II had indeed slept upright through the whole thing. Clompie sighed and on they went in the queue, filling the now vacated space and then moving on again three as a party of three finally left after a few weeks of chair restaurant hogging. Time was viewed very differently in the Parallel. ``Aha! I'm finally in to the single digits!'' exclaimed our Clomp and stuck his (horrible) tongue out at his future self.

Clomp II mostly ignored him, and only commented on their maybe being able to make it in before the looming New Year after all.

In actuality they made it in as the Clompish New Year's Eve was chiming in. Once seated at a plush table for two they immediately turned to the waiter and demanded menus, but he hesitated. Finally, he made the following statement: ``Of course, sir and sir, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to order, the cook has run away for New Year's Eve.'' He then backed away uncertainly to fetch the lists.

Clomp II could not help but begin to chuckle as our Clompie stared at him balefully. The elder Clomp twinkled mischievously. ``Happy New Year, me. How is this for a gift?''

``You bounder! I think I preferred the tie! Get lost!''

``Maybe after the pizza...''

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