Granola Prose XII

“Of course it matters! If the Syndicate sent Bruce, then…they know---"

Becky's voice gave way to static as flames claimed the transmitter embedded in Bruce's mane.

"Clever Becky," Fartwing chuckled maliciously. "Disconnect." The monitor speakers in the Wingworth control room stopped broadcasting the static and gave way to their usual xylophone and wind chimes rendition of What a Wonderful World.

"I see clouds of smoke...bent wreckage too! I see 'em go boom..." tittered the fairy warlord, wringing his nasty little hands. He turned as a subordinate fairy pranced to his side.

"What is it, Jenkins?"

Jenkins performed an elegant salute with both sets of wings and one hand. When the cloud of fairy dust settled, he made his report.

"Confirmed destruction of the Battle Unicorn sir."

"Sir...what?" menaced Fartwing.

"Sir tee hee. Sorry sir. Tee hee."

"Dismissed."

Jenkins pranced from the room, strewing pansy petals in his wake.

Fartwing allowed his pointy little face to bend into a painful smile. His face didn't much like bending like that, and Fartwing rarely made it try. It was a twisted bit of irony, his spearheading a war on pessimism, but that's the way the brightly frosted gigglebread cookie crumbled, wasn't it? He was good at war. The reasons were irrelevant.

"The Council gave me the job, and I aim to do it, no matter utterly pointless the cause," he muttered into his mug of ammo fraggaccino. "Although Merbert being forced to destroy his own cyborg unicorn...that was deliciously hilarious. Ow." Before he relaxed the smile, he allowed a rusty little giggle to escape. Like in some kind of evil Disney movie, the giggle landed on some of the pansy petals and turned them brown.

The air in the sky city of Whimsidor thrummed with lavender-hued activity. Diligent fairies were at work in the forges, pounding out rainbows, kittens and bags of Skittles. Others sat at buzzing looms, churning out tickling feathers by the truckload. Still others worked the printing presses, stamping out bumper stickers for moron people who believe that being happy is a conscious decision, rather than an alignment of neurotransmitters brought on by external circumstance.

Lucky for Fartwing, this is a larger percentage of the population than most people think. The discovery of a "Happy Switch" would, of course, cause the rest of us to believe it too.

And yes, factory fairies were hard at work building thousands upon thousands of Happy Switches.

Crapulent Fartwing saw it all, and thought it was horrible. He launched into one of those monologue things that villains always launch into when confronted with the works of their evil hands.

"Yes. Horrible. Horrible for my enemies! Observe the great power of Whimsidor, her mighty manufacturing capacity! Her indefinite supply of weaponry!"

He launched a fitting antagonist laugh to go with it. He swirled his black cloak (another supervillain necessity) as he spun on his heels (something anyone can do) and strode farther out along the skywalk.

He may only be a pawn in this game, a useful misfit, but he also knew that the Syndicate Council needed him. They were too pastel-colored and fluttery to dirty their precious hands with war. Fartwing looked down at his own hands. They were already extremely dirty, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet.

"I try and try," he sighed, "to get the grit off, but it just won't go. Nasty, nasty grit."

A pretty, glowing fairy landed in front of him on the skywalk with a velveteen purr of wings. "Sir, tee hee sir!" she said, saluting. "The Call has been issued, and all are accounted for, except," she consulted a pink clipboard, "Becky Ratite, sir. Tee hee!"

"Figured as much," Fartwing muttered. He swept past the fairy.

"Is there anything else you'd like me to do sir?" she asked.

"Yes. Go find a large parking lot and steal all the wiper blades off the cars."

"Sir? Pardon me for saying, tee hee, but wouldn't that be mean?"

"Suppose it would. Okay. Steal all the wiper blades, and replace them with cookies. You know how people like cookies, right Chlorine?"

Chlorine nodded and grinned. "Tee hee! Yes sir!" She fluttered off.

"I hate them all," growled Fartwing as he stomped into the silo. Slamming the door shut behind him, he yelled to the workers in attendance.

"Our forces have mustered!"

"Yay! I love mustard! Go forces!" said a fat fairy in a hardhat.

"Shut up, Bob."

"Sir. Teehee sir."

"As you all know, the Syndicate has mustered its forces. They are poised to do battle with the army of pessimism, and the abhorrent figurehead at its front, the Dirty Forest Man."

Further propaganda was cut short by manic giggling and cheering from the massed fairies below.

"Yeah, yeah. Enough of it. I'm here to crack the whip on you all. We need the Neurobomb operational in two days! I want each and every one of you to put your glittery little wings into it! Make it happen, people!"

"Sir! Tee hee sir!" they shouted, and set to work with their candycane hammers and peanut-brittle saws.

Fartwing kicked the door shut behind him. How he loathed the whole giggling lot of them. He knew for a fact that most of the fairies were actually hard working and industrious folk with a wide range of emotions, but ever since the Syndicate had established a firm hold, that range had narrowed by law to a vacuous smile and thumbs that ached from being up so often. The fairy race had produced many great philosophers and inventors, but few brutal tacticians.

Yes. They needed him. Needed him like he needed a drink, the glittery bastards.


The Writer looked up from his screen. Wow, he thought. I'm not so sure if I altogether dislike this supposed antagonist. He figured that villains couldn't be properly villainous unless they were unlikable in some way. Who could properly wish for the quick and messy demise of a villain whose views one agreed with?

"Hon? How would one go about making one's self disliked?"

"Be a writer," she replied a bit too quickly from deep inside her SR-71.

"Seriously, darling," he said, showing extreme patience.

"Aww. So patient. Okay. Well, first you could be evil and manipulative."

"How about manupula-ted? Does that count?"

"If you're being manipulated by an evil cause, I suppose. And you know it. And..." she pulled herself out of the cockpit and looked at the Writer. "Is this all about the new bathe-every-day rule I'm holding you to now? Because if it is--"

"No no no. I've introduced readers to our main antagonist, and--"

"You mean Tony? Wasn't he--"

"Stop interrupting me, Wife!" the Writer interrupted.

"There! That's how you can be unlikable," she said, diving back into her aircraft. "Be a poop."

"Tony's sort of a running gag, you see. The main source of evil in this epic is the fairy warlord, Crapulent Fartwing."

"Odd name for a fairy to have," she muttered metallically.

"I know. And now he's stuck in a position that sort of makes him be evil, even though he may not be predisposed to it. Am I making any sense?"

"None whatsoever. But it's interesting."

"Maybe I should make Fartwing, like, a goblin or something. A handsome one who got co-opted into the Fairy Syndicate. Should he have wings?"

"It's already in his name," the Wife pointed out.

"I see," the Writer muttered. He hated it when she spotlighted the obvious. "Perhaps you are correct. But only perhapsly."


...To be continued...