Tuesday, February 6, 2018

A Curse Upon Our Toes



Many years ago, when I was just a boy, I noticed that my father had one bad toenail, on the big toe of his right foot, and I asked him why. He then told me a dark and terrible thing.

Many generations ago, his father’s father’s father lived in a small town in Poland, herding llamas and crafting artisanal beer mugs that said ‘I Heart Poland’ which he sold to tourists. It came to pass that one day, a sorcerer came to the village, frightening the villagers with displays of magic and a poorly tuned accordion. Now, my father’s father’s father’s father, a man grown hard from years of llama tending and hewing artisanal mugs from the very earth, would have none of it. When grandfather x4 heard of the sorcerer, he strode into town, a llama on his back and an artisanal mug in each hand, and confronted the evil-doer, threatening him with a sound llaming if the sorcerer did not leave.

The sorcerer just laughed and shot a bolt of lightning at grandfather x4, which struck the llama, frying it into a delicious smelling crisp and fusing grandfather x4s hands to the mugs. Furious, grandfather x4 kicked the sorcerer in the butt, forcing him to drop the accordion, the source of his power. The rest of the village, seeing the sorcerer disarmed, jumped him and beat him with potatoes, before taking his money and throwing him out of town. They then threw his accordion after him, after first stuffing it with bad sausages.

The sorcerer, however, before he ran off, made a terrible pronouncement in Polish, which I don’t speak, but went something like: ‘I will leave this day, but upon the power of my accordion, let the limb of he who struck my backside forever wither and decay! And let this curse pass down from father to son, forever, until the chosen one, who you will know by his writing of weird blogs about Godzilla and novels called ‘Art the Wanderer’ which is available as an e-book on Amazon, can lift the curse.’

I may be paraphrasing some of that.

And so my father’s father’s father’s father’s right big toenail did develop a terrible darkness and grew thick and itchy. And as foretold by the sorcerer, his sons and his sons after him would partake of this affliction, until the coming of the chosen one, who would find the descendent of the sorcerer and wrest his accordion from him.

Long story short, I have a bad toenail on the big toe of my right foot, just like my dad and brothers. I’ve tried to have it cured, but it laughs in the face of science and pills and lasers. Thus my only option is that which was foretold by the sorcerer: I must find his descendent and defeat him before my toe can be cured.

I believe this to be absolutely true, as my father never told me anything false. This is how I know I was found at the gorilla pen at the zoo, why holding in farts will make your eyeballs shoot out, and that gnomes will eat my feet if I get out of bed in the middle of the night.

So, yeah. I guess I need to find the descendent of a sorcerer who has a magic accordion. Anybody seen one?

Cheers,
-Jason

No comments: