Short Story(group)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Kid...You don't tug on Superman's cape,
and you don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask from the old Lone Ranger,
and you don't splash on the t-shirts from Jim.

[Griff]

The kid, now revealed as the young Jim Croce, decides its time to contact smoothmoniker for some career advice. But where to find the smooth one?

[Elspode]

Somewhere, far off in a distant land, Smoothmoniker suddenly sits bolt upright in bed, struck by a powerful psychic wave. The teenage prostitue who had been passed out across his chest fell to the floor, but continued snoring without a break.

"Someone needs me!", he shouted, and reached for the phone.

[Slartibartfast]

*4* *1* *1*

"Hello, what city please?"

"SOMEONE NEEDS MY HELP, WHO IS IT?"

"What city please?"

"I SAID, SOMEONE IS CALLING ME, CAN YOU TELL ME WHO IT IS"

"Sir, is this some kind of joke?"

Smoothmoniker's bed partner rolls over and mumbles that he should stop shouting.

Suddenly, a second psychic wave hits Smoothmoniker, and he becomes aware of who is in trouble. He quickly dons his spandex costume, and takes a running leap at the open window.

[lumberjim]

He had gotten quite good at leaping out windows, he realized. He sailed effortlessly through the window, not touching any of the sides, clearing even this smaller window in his new place that he had just moved to on the 24th floor, after having lived in his mom's garage. He realized all at once, but too late, that he had just moved to a 24th floor apartment after having lived on ground level in his mom's garage.

He had yet to sort out the dramtic exit through the open window reflex bit. As he realized this, he began to lose altitude, and start his descent. Time expanded, slowing, details became pronounced, and he reached for his belt.

[russotto]

It was a dark and stormy night, and the clock had just struck thirteen, when the last man on earth heard a knock at the door.

[Griff]

It being 4:30 and time being relative, sm cooly draws a nickel bag from his utility belt and rolls a lovely fatty. Torch of freedom dangling from his lip, our hero gives quiet thanks to Bruce Gordon and fires his grappling hook across the street to the poolside bar of one T. S. Undertoad.

[Torrere]

Edit: Erm, I guess that I missed the clock.

Meanwhile, in an alternate dimension untouched by Griff...

Just outside the 23rd floor, smoothmoniker fastened his belt. Then, in part because his arms were flailing and in part because he was expelling the pressured air from his lungs in a skyward direction, but mostly because of gravity, smoothmoniker descended very rapidly.

Near the 22nd story, our smooth super hero's left arm contracted very rapidly. Smoothmoniker swayed to and fro for a moment, but quickly stabilized, dangling from an arm in a long black sleeve. The arm was, of course, attached to a woman who clung to a silver string with the other hand.

In the shadow of a large black helicopter, the woman's wolfish eyes narrowed sharply.

[Griff]

Slang parks a 1986 Econoline van in the ajoining alley. 20,000 fully trained, heavily armed, jackbooted, field mice breath as one, waiting for their master to free them on an unsuspecting city.

[Elspode]

Suddenly, a psychic wave strikes 20,000 field mice en masse, a horrifying image of a captive rodent held at Fort Slang before meeting an unspeakable demise.

As one, the Mouseketroopers turn on Slang, with fire in their eyes...

[wolf]

The mysterious woman sights carefully, letting the downdraft of the chopper blades swing her this way and that.

"Ahhhh, just so," she says breathily as she opens her gloved hand, releasing Smoothmoniker.

He pauses a moment in the air, like Wile E. Coyote recalling the laws of gravity, and plummets toward the alleyway below.

He has moments only to reflect upon the many varieties of fire escape decor, when he hits the roof of the 1986 Ford Econoline van, bounces and in a credible swan dive, lands a squarely upon the menacing mouse military massed below.

[lumberjim]

ok, i'm lost. can we start over?

[Slartibartfast]

Lumberjim turns the street corner holding a map upside down. He mumbles to himself something about being lost. Bloody mouse guts spray all over him.

[Griff]

Momentarily freed from life's troubles, in this case finding a decent cheese steak, Jim takes the opportunity to do a short Fred Astair number splashing through the puddles of gore and swinging on a lamppost like a man lost in love.

[Clodfobble]

Smoothmoniker lumbers up off his cushion of mice, dusting himself off, and only a little the worse for wear. Whoa, that was lucky, he thought to himself. Then he sees slang, who is slackjawed, but nonetheless thrilled that his mouseketeer army is no longer about to attack him.

They shake hands, grinning at their coincidental symbiosis, and say simultaneously, "I owe ya one."

Smoothmoniker then follows with, "Slang, there's a kid named Jim Croce far off who needs my help with his career, but what he doesn't know is that success is waiting at his doorstep--someone has found his lost bearded clam, and that clam is a singing, dancing wonder that will take the world by storm, if only he can be reunited with the person who found it. You have to help me."

During this long exposition, Lumberjim had ceased his gut-covered frolicking to listen, being, as he was, very partial to long expositions. "Can I come too?" he asked shyly.

"YES! Yes, that's perfect. You will both come with me, to help me reunite the young boy with the clam. But FIRST... first there's something far more important."

"What's that?" asked slang, leery of important things when it was, after all, his day off.

"We need to eat at this fine pub here, which belongs to T.S. Undertoad. He's a good buddy of mine--LJ, I bet he'd give you a good deal on a cheesesteak."

So arm in arm, like Dorothy's crew on their way to meet the wizard (but before they'd met the lion,) the three of them skipped into the pub together.