Rooster Land — Dig Site

Recent Replies

10:06 PM 19 Aug 19
Rabbit replied to Tödderdämmerung
What can I say? This one really paints a picture.

10:04 PM 19 Aug 19
Bear replied to Tödderdämmerung
Splishing and splashing? Game changer.

10:48 PM 18 Aug 19
Bear replied to Todds of Future Past
Didn’t he? I thought he did. What makes Todd Todd and like every other red-blooded Earthling ...

4:57 PM 18 Aug 19
Elk replied to Todds of Future Past
Also, I was not a little disappointed Todd didn't nosh that residual nugget of balled meat ...

4:49 PM 18 Aug 19
Elk replied to Todds of Future Past
Concavity twice?

1:01 PM 05 Aug 19
Rabbit replied to General Store: In Attendance
Went into wilderness for a few days. Dead zones tend to have more life. Talk about ...

12:54 PM 05 Aug 19
Rabbit replied to Todds of Future Past
I've got a sneaking suspicion nothing didn't happen.

1:37 PM 04 Aug 19
Bear replied to General Store: In Attendance
Can’t believe I beat Rabbit to this implication reference. He must be in a dead zone ...

2:42 PM 03 Aug 19
Elk replied to General Store: In Attendance
What are the implications? Also, in TV-world, when people happen on circumstances such as these, they ...

Recently Revised

General Store: Frozen Food » 4:27 PM 22 Aug 19 » Horse ⟳ Horse

General Store: Al Dente » 3:03 PM 22 Aug 19 » Horse ⟳ Horse

Tödderdämmerung » 10:05 PM 19 Aug 19 » Rabbit ⟳ Rabbit

Todds of Future Past » 9:24 AM 04 Aug 19 » Bear ⟳ Bear

General Store: In Attendance » 2:02 PM 03 Aug 19 » Horse ⟳ Horse

General Store » 1:49 PM 03 Aug 19 » Elk ⟳ Horse

Leaving The Reluctance » 9:50 PM 22 Jul 19 » Bear ⟳ Bear

Todd Understands » 5:37 PM 22 Jul 19 » Bear ⟳ Bear

Todd Escapes » 1:25 PM 21 Jul 19 » Rabbit ⟳ Rabbit

Go With Todd » 10:57 AM 20 Jul 19 » Rabbit ⟳ Rabbit

Barks » 11:50 PM 12 Jul 19 » Elk ⟳ Horse

Chirp » 11:39 PM 12 Jul 19 » Elk ⟳ Falcon

VW Bug » 3:12 PM 12 Jul 19 » Horse ⟳ Horse

Shades of Black » 6:07 AM 05 Jul 19 » Bear ⟳ Bear

The End Is Not Written » 1:33 PM 01 Jul 19 » Horse ⟳ Horse

Recent Haiku

General Store: Frozen Food at 4:24 PM 22 Aug 19 by Horse

(Standard)

(The frozen food section. A woman in sensible slacks pushes an empty cart through the aisle, searching for something she hasn’t seen in the freezers and simultaneously looking around the aisles. A heavy set female clerk carrying a price check gun walks by, humming along to the elevator music.)

Excuse me.

Hi, can I help yooou? (exaggerated smile)

Yes, hi, I’m looking for frozen ravioli. And I seem to have lost my husband. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt.

Oh, sure, follow me.

(Together they walk aisle after aisle of assorted frozen boxes. Finally they turn to a freezer, heavily coated in ice. The heavy set clerk motions.)

The ravioli is in the next aisle, but here’s your husband. (Cut to man in freezer, fully in ice.)

Thank you. Now can you tell me where I can find space heaters?

Sure, follow me.

(Cut to moments before above scene)

Greg Brady wearing a blue flannel in hardware. A robust, chesty lumberjack of a clerk with a square pencil behind his ear is leaning back on a counter, arms crossed, eyeballing the customer.

Need anything?

Yes, in fact. I’m restoring a Lancia-Abarth Quadriflux and I’m having an issue.

Let me guess – the inlet valve port is caked up and you’re not getting consistency in your spark plug.

That’s it, essentially. They really crammed the plug in there.

I’ll say, but given the crossed cylinders I don’t know where else it would go.

Don’t get me started. Have any suggestions?

Well, we have a nanoparticulate requonometer that some guys will use to test the plug while it’s installed. Have you taken any heat readings?

I did two week’s worth, every fifteen minutes for five hours a day. Last week I used a warm salt bath as well.

And?

Everything checks out normal. By the way, I’m looking for my wife? Can you tell me where the frozen food section is?

General Store: Al Dente at 3:03 PM 22 Aug 19 by Horse

(Standard)

(Continue the sound of suction from automated doors. Cash register registering. The low hum of elevator music.)

(A narrow aisle, appearing all the more narrow due to the height of the shelves and the high fluorescent lighting, emanating from an unseen source. A middle-aged man, with an average yearly income of average proportions, of median intelligence and physical attribute, is standing nearly still and staring nearly straight up, craning his neck to see what there is to see in the upper reaches of the fully stocked toothbrush section.)

(A skinny side-burned clerk carrying a mop ambles by, whispering first into one of the man’s ears, then the other.)

Shhhhh…

(The man tries to adhere for a moment but is forced by the oddity to turn his head toward the clerk, who is mopping, or feigning mopping.)

Excuse me?

Okay. It’s okay. Totally cool, man. Everything’s totally cool.

What’s cool?

The situation, man, the situation. Cucumber, capisci?

Um, yes. Okay. Yes. Um, thanks.

(The clerk turns suddenly toward the man, pulls right up to his ear, whispering harshly.)

Yeah, it is okay. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Sarge. Eyes straight forward. Wait for my mark.

What are we talking about?

Like you don’t know. I saw the way you were looking at the toothbrushes. You know the deal.

Do I?

Listen, we both know. The whole thing’s a…

A what?

What? Who’s that now? (Steps away, looks around, eyes darting every which way, then sidles back, whispers more harshly)l

A scam!

(A moment passes)

Listen, why do you think there are 87 varieties of toothbrush here? Keep in mind, each and every one approved by the American Dental Association. It’s a SCAM!

(A moment passes)

I’m not sure I understand.

I’m sure you do. Here, take my card. (Hands a man a business card – it reads Leonard Njordian, Unlicensed Dentist.) I’m on break in fifteen for fifteen – meet me in books in twenty and I’ll lay it all out for you in ten. You’ll never look at a toothbrush or your teeth for that matter the same ever again.

(Leonard begins walking back down the aisle from whence he came. The customer watches him go.)

But I only came in for a toothbrush!

(Leonard speaking without turning around.)

So did I.

Tödderdämmerung at 9:54 PM 19 Aug 19 by Rabbit

(Standard)

Todd picked himself up from the mud and wiped clean his eyes. He scanned the horizon and saw little but molten rock and flaming trees. He wiped each length of his sword, the trusty Super Space Slicer 9000, never would it dull and never could it break, and freed the shining silvery alloy from its casing of blood-soiled earth. Few things were left alive in this realm, the living having perished over the deteriorating centuries, the inanimate broken and twisted and changed in nature and form. The Sugar Wars delivered exactly what was promised by the very first cave drawings, television programming, and other media onwards through time.

And now it was the Really Dark Time. Every star in every galaxy had been inhaled by the relentless Dr. Strangesnork’s Vacuum of Evil. It was the ultimate vacuum in The Universe, Incorporated, a machine built deep beneath the very foundations of The Universe’s World Headquarters, and no one knows its current whereabouts, though it is presumed switched off. The only light now is from the glowing magma, the awesome rivers of lava, the glint of the Super Space Slicer 9000 as it shone its own light as bright as day, as enchanted heroic swords are wont to do.

The earth shook and Todd spun round to see the mighty Wanda grappling and fighting and falling with none other than Dr. Strangesnork himself. They rolled and tumbled across valleys of fire and up over the mountains, smashing each peak as they tossed each other across The World. Todd steadied himself as the shattered pieces of mountaintop began to rain down, igniting even more fires and making Todd wish he was properly hydrated. He wasn’t expecting to be out this long. He wasn’t even supposed to be there today.

Wanda, Strangesnork, and he himself, Todd, he thought, might just be the only beings left alive. No sooner had Todd thought this thought when he heard a great splishing and splashing coming from behind him, in the direction he had been facing before he spun round to witness Wanda and the evil doctor. Todd spun round again, coming full circle since picking himself up from the bloody mud he was now standing in with once-waterproof boots.

And what Todd saw, out there where the ocean had been most frothed and disturbed by the grappling gods, was the rising and dripping visage of a figure he hadn’t seen in a long, long time, except for the occasional rerun. It was none other than The Great Snork Nork. The rocking of the ocean had evidently been enough for him to be able to fling loose his chains and be free once more. Whoever was in charge of guarding him must be long dead, thought Todd as he found himself generally annoyed at having to face The Great Snork Nork, the most powerful and most evil being in The Universe, especially since he was now quite thirsty and really didn’t feel like fighting.

The Great Snork Nork was the most fearsome of dastardly villains to have ever lived, and it was this fearsomeness and dastardliness that had resulted in him being bound in magical fetters to a rock at the bottom of the ocean. He had been chained there by his nemesis, Allstar Seaworthy, as punishment for trying to make all the ocean dark forever in Season 3, Episode 9 (“It’s Always Darkest Before the Snork”). He was defeated, of course, once Allstar Seaworthy discovered that The Great Snork Nork was, in fact, a vampire, and could be defeated with mere sunlight.

But there was no sunlight left, and Nork was free.

But then Todd swung round his Super Space Slicer 9000 sword and the light that came with it. The Great Snork Nork was ill-prepared for what was to come. The same could be said for me, Todd would later say, in retrospect.

Todds of Future Past at 9:23 AM 04 Aug 19 by Bear

(Standard)

In a remote corner of Todd’s coffee table sat Todd’s remote. Unlike many of the other items in Todd’s house – his exercise bicycle, his cloning machine, his writing pen – the remote was not dusty from disuse but displayed sharp and crisp lines of cleanliness via frequent activity. Even the inner concavities of the molded plastic body from which protruded the various soft rubber buttons were free from atmospheric debris.

Todd walked into his living quarters from the kitchen, where he’d prepared and consumed a meatball sandwich and microdosed an appropriate amount of military grade LSD to make the next six hours of Snorks watching a religiously transcendent experience. Todd had watched more than six hours of The Snorks in a row before – oh, he’d watched far more – but that watching was of inferior quality. Todd, Todd realized, had been watching The Snorks without really seeing. Today, though, that would change.

As Todd settled in, he began to think, though he knew he’d have to curtail thinking momentarily. Recently, Todd had been considering history, its application to life and vice versa. Todd knew that history was essentially a mop-up or brush-under-the-rug operation – that is, it made one of far more or far less import than had been perceived in the present. History, Todd knew, could be used to twist, modify, manipulate events to create new and even predetermined narratives based on a random assortment of only loosely connected happenstances. Remote control, meatball sub, LSD, Todd, Snorks – Todd knew this was the clay to be molded by history. All he had need do was plug in.

For Todd knew that the cable company, Lazenby Incorporated, Inc., recorded every instance of Todd’s day through his exercise bicycle, his cloning machine, his writing pen, even his remote. The data, Todd knew, would be compiled and eventually pored through – someone somewhere someday would see what Todd had done, watch the Todd-watching footage, understand its significance, and recreate it in a way that would crystallize an essence that Todd, sitting there watching, would be only peripherally aware of. And to the annals of history, Todd’s name would be added.

Everything was set – Todd tuned out his thoughts, then quieted his mind completely until it hummed slightly with a perceivable silence. He slowly picked up the remote, felt its reassuring weight, and sat back into his purple velour couch. He used his tongue to fish a small crumb of meatball from the inner concavity of his left second premolar, removed it from his tongue with his left forefinger, studied it momentarily, then put it back in his mouth and swallowed. He felt it glide on a bed of saliva down his throat, making its way toward Todd’s stomach where it would break into its constituents, each to find a place in the ecosystem of Todd.

Momentarily, Todd became still – a new life he could never conceive was about to find purchase in a future he would never know or even need to consider. All was as well as could be.

But when Todd hit the Power button, nothing happened.

The Workshop

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