InsaneJournal

Current mood:	creative
Current music:	Technohead--I Wanna Be a Hippie

i wanna be a hippie and i wanna get stoned on mari-marijuana
This is part 2 of a three-pack of snark. Check the last update for more!




What more can I say? Zeiss, this one's for you.

In true R.L. Stine style, the cliffhanger immediately devolves into a random hippie grabbing Darren's shoulder. Immediately regretting scaring the little pussy, he contritely offers our hero a nickel bag.


I sat up and rubbed my elbow. "I'm okay," I said.

"You're sure? It ain't broken, is it? I've got herbs that can help, if it is."

"Herbs can't fix broken bones," Sam said. He was now standing beside Evra.

"They sure can't," the stranger agreed, "but they can elevate you to planes of consciousness where
worldly concerns like broken bones are nothing but minor blips on the cosmic map." He paused and
stroked his beard. "Of course, they burn out your brain cells, too …"

Sam's blank face showed that even he</i> didn't understand that long sentence.</i>


Oh hey, it's my art teacher. Hi Joe!


"I'm okay," I said again. I stood up and rotated my arm. "I just twisted it. It'll be fine in a couple of
minutes."

"Man, that's good to hear," the stranger said. "I'd hate to be the cause of bodily harm. Hurt's a bad trip,
man."

I studied him in more detail. He was big and chubby, with a bushy black beard and long, scraggly hair.
His clothes were dirty and there was no way he'd had a bath recently, because he stank to high heaven.
That's what the strange smell had been. He was really friendly looking; it made me feel stupid thinking
about how afraid of him I'd been.


Oh, no, it's a /b/tard. Hi /b/tard! Darren, that fear was not as ill-founded as you think...

Potential suspense lazily dispersed, the man asks where the boys are from, and Sam tells him about the circus. Anonymous states that he never passes up "a chance to see clowns in action", proving that either he doesn't know what clowns are or that he is in fact about as human as the Tonberries, and is mildly disappointed when he's corrected. Once told about the freakshow, however, he proceeds to gawp at Evra like a family of Kentucky hillfolk on Washin' Machine Day.


The man stared at Sam, then at Evra, whose scales and color pretty much marked him
out as one of the performers. "Are you part of a freak show, man?" he asked.

Evra nodded shyly.

"They don't mistreat you, do they?" the man asked. "They don't whip you or under-feed you or make
you do things you don't want to?"

"No." Evra shook his head.

"You're there of your own free will?"

"Yes," Evra said. "All of us are. It's our home."


Anonymous: That's not sexy at all. MOAR POOPER.
Evra: You know, I get that a lot.

Anonymous introduces himself as R.V., which shall hereby be changed to Party Van. Why Party Va--er, R.V.?


He coughed with embarrassment. "Well," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "it's short for Reggie
Veggie."

"Reggie Veggie?" I laughed.

"Yeah," he said. "Reggie's my real name. Reggie Veggie's what they called me in school, because I'm a
vegetarian. Well, I never liked that, so I asked them to call me R.V. instead. Some did, but not many."
He looked miserable at the memory. "You can call me Reggie Veggie if you want," he told us.


Darren: Nah, that's okay.
Party Van: Oh, thank God! It affected me so badly, you don't even know, I still have crippling emotional trauma from--
Darren: We were planning on calling you "Dickweed McGraw" anyhow.
Party Van: :<


"Evra Von."

"Evra Von what?" R.V. asked, as I had when I first met Evra.

"Just plain Von," Evra said.


You know the trick with a running joke, author? It has to be funny the first time.

Unsurprisingly, Party Van turns out to be running with the ecowarriors, because hippies are exactly the same as they stereotypically were in the sixties, and haven't changed in style, creed, or general hygiene at all. There's about a page of Captain Planet dogma about "crappy things being done to Mother Nature" and "greedy, dangerous humans" and something about a road almost being built through an ancient burial ground. Hey, Party Van, wasn't that burial ground unspoiled nature before some greedy, dangerous humans were selfish enough to bury their dead in it?

The boys are remarkably receptive to Party Van's spiel, making me suspect he shared a particular green, leafy part of nature with them beforehand, and he takes them to tour his camp. It consists of filthy shrub huts with slightly less filthy inhabitants.


"How did you stop the road from being built?" Sam asked.

"We dug tunnels under the land," R.V. said. "And we sabotaged the machines they sent in. And we
alerted the media. Rich dudes hate having cameras pointed at them. One TV news crew is as good as
twenty active warriors."

Evra asked R.V. if they ever fought hand to hand. R.V. said NOP didn't believe in violent confrontation,
but we could see from the look on his face that he wasn't happy about that. "If I had my way," he said,
"we'd give as good as we got. We're too nice sometimes. Man, if I was in charge, we'd give those
turkeys a taste of hell!"




I'm sorry, I didn't realize that when I went to set the clocks back, I overshot by fifty years.

They stay for lunch, including "big, oddly colored" mushrooms which Party Van says they're too young to eat (no, seriously, it's in there) and then bid Green Peace Lite goodbye. The boys chat for a bit about how hardcore you have to be to be an ecowarrior, even if they do reek of stale grease and misplaced righteous indignation, then head back to the cirque, Darren first dashing behind a bush to dump a steaming load of cliffhanger:


None of us had any idea of the trouble the nice ecowarrior would soon create … or the tragedy he would
unintentionally cause.


Mr. T: Cheese it, guys! The fuzz just shook down the camp next door and they're headed this way!
Hans Hands: Oh fuck oh fuck we gotta get ridda this shit! Can Twobellies take it?
Gertha Teeth: No good, we managed to get 1,782 condoms down him and then they started snapping! It's a bad scene, dude, I never seen that much vomit ever in my life!
Evra: Guys, I think I AM a controlled substance!
Crepsley: IF ANYONE ASKS YOU'RE EIGHTEEN
Darren: OKAY VAMPIRE DADDAY

A few days pass uneventfully, with Darren trying unsuccessfully to talk to the Tonberries or tell them apart. Then Cormac Limbs shows up to great fanfare, because limb-based freaks are in such short supply.


There was already a large crowd around Cormac when we arrived at Mr. Tall's van (where he reported
in to). People were slapping him on the back and asking what he'd been up to and where he'd been. He
smiled at everybody, shook hands, and answered questions. He might have been a star, but he wasn't
big-headed.


No, that's Bobby Hydrocephaly's job. He, uh...he doesn't really have an act, per se, he just lies on the stage and wheezes and cries until people feel uncomfortable enough to throw large sums of money to make him leave.

He greets Evra warmly, and Evra promises his skin when he sheds it, supposedly because it's "worth more than gold in some countries", but actually because he likes to cry into it at night as he furtively masturbates and thinks of his mother. Surprised and pleased to see a new face, he decides to go through his act for Darren, and things get...well, I would say "weird", but we're used to this by now, aren't we?


He made his right hand into a fist, then stuck out his index finger. "Darren, will you put this finger in your
mouth?" he asked.

I glanced at Evra, who signaled for me to do what Cormac asked.

"Now," Cormac said, "bite down on it, please."

I bit softly.

"Harder," Cormac said.

I bit slightly harder.

"Come on, boy," Cormac shouted. "Put some backbone into it. Work those jaws. Are you a shark or a
mouse?"


Cormac: YOU ARE RUINING IT FOR ME! BITE IT HARD AND CALL ME A NAUGHTY LITTLE BOY!
Darren: BUT MR. CREPSLEY SAYS THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO GET FIVE ACROSS THE EYES!

Thankfully, all that happens is that Darren bites it clean off and it grows back...God, who'd have thought I'd ever put that down as a positive outcome? The discarded digit quickly dissolves into gray mold, simultaneously disqualifying him from a job as life-saving tissue donor and making those of us who immediately saw the disturbing lemon potential heave a sigh of relief.


"I should have learned by now to expect the unexpected around here. Can I
feel the new finger?" He nodded. It didn't feel different from any of the others. "How do you do it?" I
asked, amazed. "It is an illusion?"

"No illusion," he said. "It's why they call me Cormac Limbs. I've been able to grow new limbs —
fingers, toes, arms, legs — ever since I was a toddler. My parents discovered my talent when I had an
accident with a kitchen knife and cut off part of my nose.


Cormac: It was actually a very traumatic experience, so I am going to ask you to please, please not ask me if--
Darren: HURRRRRR DID YOU DO IT TO SPITE YOUR FACE?
Cormac: --yes thank you, I've never heard that before, hilarious. Why don't you bite on this finger next?


"Doesn't it hurt?" I asked.

"A little," he said, "but not much. When one of my limbs gets cut off, a new one starts to grow almost
immediately, so there's only a second or two of pain. It's a little like —"

"Come, come!" Mr. Tall bellowed, cutting him short. "We don't have time for detailed description. This
show has been idle far too long. It's time we entertained the public again, before they forget about us or
think we've retired.

"People," he shouted to the crowd, and clapped his hands together. "Spread the word. The lull is over.
The show goes on tonight!"


Cormac: Jeez, you kind of...you kind of, you know, shut me down there.
Mr. T: Yeah, so?
Cormac: So I was saying something. It was impolite.
Mr. T: Look, the only way the plot gets around in this series is if someone shoves a pregnant cue line up its arse and gives it a spin. It's nothing personal, you know that.
Cormac: Fine, whatever. I'll be in my room, sniffing Evra.
Evra: Being a controlled substance sucks :<


Next time: Excitement? Intrigue? More lovingly detailed vore scenes? Everything in possible at the midnight show!