Dennis Gets Derailed
or
The Woodbie Revolution
or
Why Dennis Daniels Dosen’t Dig Doorworms
or
All Trains and No Brains Sends Dennis Daniels Down the Drain
Dennis Daniels
Mrs. Fowler
Social Science
April 14, 6569
Dennis Daniels -
Immortal Master of the Railway
The commuters of the town of Woodbie are blessed with the remarkable
managment and leadership and ideas of Dennis Daniels, mechanical
genious, engineering genious of all times, invincible supreme milatary
commander, and immortal genious progressive of the new century.
Dennis Daniel’s theory of Railwayism is the correct perfect
Technocratic social mode formed by putting railway affairs at the
forefront of society to foster the building up of a great prosperous
powerful railway to serve as the backbone of the railway oriented
social and political system freely chosen by the commuters of Woodibe
town out of their own free will by electing Elected Director Dennis
Daniels as the Elected Director of the Supereme Technocratic
Communter’s Council of the Technocratic Commuter’s
Railpublic of Woodbie.
Having made Woodbie the railways commuter’s paradise of
freedom, peace, and justice with his Railwayist style policys that
represents the feelings of love and careing for the commuters, Dennis
Daniels makes Woodbie’s Railway Station a strong railway of
independant solidaridy and freedom will that no inferiors dare attack
molest sabatage or pervoke in any way shape or form, proving tha the
Technocratic Commuter’s Railpublic of Woodbie’s
Railway is the bestest and nicest railway in the world thanks to Dennis
Daniels.
Becuse of this, the people of the Woodbie and and forward peoples all
the world over feel a deep pride and longing in glorifying the great
immortal railvoutionary railway exploits of the great engineering
genious Dennis Daniels, who they can’t not wait to hold me in
high esteem.
This is becuse railways outside of Woodbie are in a sad state of
disrepair under the evil roadunist government, spawning fare wars,
monopoly, bad service, diezelisation, earthquakes, line closures, crime
and oviolence, privitization, confusion, and delays, opressions, train
crashes, and drunken conductors, making the commuter's lives miserable
and holding society to a stone age level of miserablness.
But in the Technocratic Commuter’s Railpublic of Woodbie,
under the wise flawless infallible managment of Elected Director Dennis
Daniels, none of these problems is of the slightest issue or concern in
Woodbie town, which is why all commuters of the town of Woodbie live
lives of complete absolute lively livelyness knowing the blissfull
happiness of a strong, powerful railway that is the pride of the nation
and mankind.
This is possable becuse Dennis Daniels is themost
importantcompassionate intelligent, greatestand friendlyperson inthe
world blessed byhis wiseflawlesssly calcalatedtedleadership having
madewoodbie therailways commuter’sparadise
offreedompeaceandjusticewithhisRailwayiststylepolicysthatrepresentsthfeelingsloveandcareingfor,DennisDanielsmakesWoodbie’sRailwayStationatrongrallyourbasearebelongtousailwayofindependantorformensuringlowerticketfaresfriendlyerservisesticewithhisRailwayiststylepolicys…
Dennis Daniels grew up with a toy train set, a mother that always said
“you’re the best”, and a fascination with
tabletop war gaming. These should have been an ordinary part of growing
up, but for Dennis Daniels, these created an obsession equally amusing
and sinister.
The worshipful affirmations from his mother had convinced Dennis that
he was the smartest, most important person in the world, and that
everyone was on his side. His love of toy trains and war gaming blended
into an insane, violent fantasy in which trains were war machines and
he was a world renowned military hero.
The opening sample was typical of the egotistical, unintelligible
garbage Dennis handed in to his teachers, regardless of what the
assignment actually called for. Dennis was so far gone by the time he
had reached 11th grade that he honestly began to think of himself as a
revolutionary philosopher whose ideas would benefit mankind.
Fortunately or not for Dennis, his father had given the Woodbie Academy
such a massive enema of donations and funding that the teachers put up
with the deranged student’s discordant banter. Papers with
names such as “Our Railway is the Star of the Nation and All
of Mankind” and “Dennis Daniels: The Sun of the
Railway” Earned top marks in classes ranging from Art to
Economics and even P.E.
Besides bribing his son’s way to the top of the class, Mr.
Daniels was otherwise completely absent from his son’s life,
and resided in Switzerland where he became a highly successful roller
skate repairman.
Dennis became the joke of the school, and the whole town, but of course
Dennis just thought he was becoming famous. The railway did everything
in it’s power to disassociate itself from him, though
nonetheless he became a fixture at the Woodbie train station, where he
stood atop an old tea crate and read to passers by his
“rail”volutionary essays about reforming the
nation’s railway for the new century.
Dennis was nicknamed Dennis Deranged by the townspeople, and his friend
Ozymandias Cragstan became Dennis’s chaperone, usually the
one to convince him that his “theories” needed more
revision before he acted on them and got himself into trouble.
Cragstan knew Dennis wasn't stupid, as deluded as he was. Behind closed
doors, in the secluded war gaming rituals that took place in
Cragstan’s basement, Dennis’s hidden intelligence
shone at the table. Unfortunately, these skills had yet to benefit him
outside of the fantasy world, and above ground Cragstan and
Dennis’s only interactions involved Cragstan being dissuaded
from trying to realize his fantasies of establishing a railway
dictatorship.
The sight of Dennis in the audience of the school play’s
dress rehearsal was unusual indeed. Shakespeare’s
“MacBeth”, when he had been forced to read it for
an assignment, was an interesting study for Dennis, as he took great
pleasure in perverting the great playwright's in such a way that it
could be seen as supportive of Railwayism.
However, “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” was so
frivolous to Dennis that not even seeing his own friend as Mercutio
dying on stage during Act 3 could pique his interest for long. Dennis
did note however, that the messenger could have made it to Mantua in
time to warn Romeo had he taken the train instead of walking.
Cragstan bribed Dennis into attending the rehearsal by promising to
lend his expertise in modifying his latest model train by mounting a
miniature machine gun turret to the roof. Dennis was talented with
electronics, but making models look nice was beyond his skill level.
The curtain had barely dropped before Dennis accosted Cragstan.
"Come on, lets come to my house and get those guns mounted.”
He begged.
“Gee wiz Dennis, can you at least let me get out of my
costume first? Besides, I can’t go over to your house
tonight. I’ve got to practice my lines, and plus
I’ve got homework to do, and I’ve got a sack full
of bottles to bring back to the store. I’ll need some nickels
for the carnival on Saturday, I’m taking Jennifer, remember?
It’s my first date.”
“Jennifer is all you ever talk about lately. It’s
like you don’t care about me or Railwayism
anymore.” He pouted.
“Now you know how I feel when you talk about trains and
incendiary bombs all the time. Now, if you’re willing to help
me practice by reading to me and maybe helping me take the bottles back
to the fountain, I can get maybe ten or twenty minutes of work in.
“Fine then, I’ll just have to do it myself! Thanks
for nothing Nikita Khrushchev!” Dennis snatched up his
suitcase filled with combat locomotive blueprints his new copy of How
to Throw a Molotov Cocktail and stomped off offended.
Cragstan was used to Dennis’s pouty outbursts. Dennis surely
would vanish for a few days during which he would lock himself in his
room writing treatises, but at least for those days Cragstan knew
Dennis wouldn't be getting himself into trouble. That is unless he
attempted to build a nuclear reactor out of smoke detectors. Again.
Saturday came, and after melting his new model train by attempting to
attach the machine gun by means of a welding torch, Dennis decided to
drown his sorrows by engaging in his only out-of-home activity besides
war gaming, which was to stand on his tea crate in front of the Woodbie
train station and deliver speeches about Railwayism.
Cragstan was walking happily to the fair when he came across Dennis at
the train station handing out typewritten Railwayist pamphlets filled
with typographical errors and random tangents. Cragstan found a tuxedo
at the thrift shop and bought a bouquet of plastic roses to present to
Jessica at the carnival. Dennis was dressed like an oily tramp, but
Cragstan was still desperate to get him to come along.
"Dennis, come on, everyone’s going to the carnival, today is
the last day too. Lets go!”
“No Cragstan, the homeward rush will come soon, the people
will be disappointed if I’m not here to share my newest
calculations on the eventuality of railway warfare.”
“Railway warfare? Are you daft? Just because I let you build
an electric train across my war game table and we incorporated it into
the scenario doesn't mean thats a plausible situation. Railwayism is
just for pretend, not for real.”
“Railwayism is not pretend! Railwayism is the most perfect,
most cleanest best mode of economic, political and social thought in
mankind history!” Dennis shouted. “Think about it
Cragstan, what is a steam locomotive but a bomb on wheels?
It’s only a matter of time before the first engines are
equipped with steam cannons and armed conflict erupts for control of
our nations railways. If the we don’t pioneer this
technology, we could be liable for invasion by rail at any
time!” Dennis dramatically threw his arms in the air and
tossed his pamphlets all over the sidewalk.
“Okay Dennis. I don’t want to go on my first date
alone, but I promised Jennifer I’d take her to the fair
before it closed.”
“The fair is stinky and pedestrian. They aught to stop using
trucks and upgrade to a respectable form of transportation, like a
train. If the train is good enough for the circus, I’m sure
its good enough for that dinky carnival. Besides, those rides are death
traps, you should take her on a train ride instead. It’s much
more respectable and romantic. You should forget that silly fair and
help me pass out pamphlets.”
“Dennis, you sound like a communist, only with trains. No one
is taking you seriously when you stand out here ranting about mounting
guns to the trains. I’m heading to the park to meet Jennifer.
I’ll probably be out late at the fair, so don’t
bother knocking on my door. Besides, my mom says she’s
starting to become frightened of you.”
“You mome! Railwayism is the complete opposite of communism!
You proletarian Pol Pothead! After all the military simulations we
carried out together in preparation of advancing mankind to a railway
based society, for you to just leave me out in the cold like this! How
could you Cragstan? You stupid Stalinist Judas-head!
I don’t know about you Cragstan, but I won’t just
be a passenger on the train of thought, I must command! I must take
charge! I must take the throttle and drive the world into the 21st
century!”
"Well, have fun then. Bye. I’ll see you later.”
Cragstan stepped over the strewn papers and set off to collect his date
and hopefully win her a stuffed animal, or perhaps even a stuffed plant.
Dennis went back to preaching to no one about his idea for a
combination military base and train station as Woodbie’s
station manager stomped from the station with a broom in one hand and a
dirt pan in the other.
“Kid, I let you stand out here and make an ass of yourself,
but don’t scare our passengers away by littering,
we’ve got it bad enough as it is.” The manager
grumbled.
“Bad? What do you mean bad? My latest mathematical models
have proved that ticket sales have not only doubled thanks to the
addition of more comfortable seating, but traffic the Woodbie terminal
in particular is astonishingly high due to the influx of dignitaries
who have come to admire my stanch faith in our nation’s rail
network. This is the Age of the Train!”
“Ticket sales don’t matter now kid. The rail board
director is in bed with the bus company, they’re closing this
line and replacing it with a bus route soon. It was on page four of the
newspaper, didn’t you see it?”
“What? Close the railway?” Dennis shouted at the
top of his lungs. “Scandal! Bastardy! Communism! All this, on
page four? This news should be front page, not on the god-forsaken
fourth page between the funnies and the obituaries! In fact, there
should have been a special edition printed the moment this became known
to call the commuters of Woodbie to arms!
This town will never allow these low life environmentalists and
communists to use the roadways to ensnare us in a hellenistic bott of
high bus fares, traffic jams, public corruption, traffic jams, and
jaywalking! We’re not going to let Karl Marx and his commie
bus company damn us to long travel times with their deliberately
circuitous routes, causing the commuters to be late for work and
bringing the economy and culture to its knees!”
The manager laughed shallowly.
“Okay kid, what are you going to do then? Blow up the bus
terminal?” The station manager swept away Dennis’s
papers like the trash they truly were and went back into his office
where he planned his post-railway career, in which he aspired to attain
fame, wealth, and glory by becoming a star athlete in the high-risk
underground sport of Extreme Potato Racing.
Unfortunately, this was the dumbest possible thing the station master
could have suggested to Dennis, as he took this as actual endorsement
of an attack against the bus depot.
Despite his talk of armed revolution, Dennis himself was far too mild
to actually try to hurt anybody, so he made a slingshot out of a rubber
band and a forked tree branch and fired gelatin-free marshmallows at
the busses coming in and out of the town bus depot while shouting
anti-bus propaganda at the drivers and passengers.
Cragstan had an unforgettable first date at the carnival. Jennifer
kissed him on top of the Ferris Wheel, and he won her so many stuffed
plants and animals that Cragstan had to spend the last of his money on
a cab ride to carry Jennifer and her spoils home.
Of course, the best prize of all was an exotic, snake-like animal
Cragstan had won after emerging victorious in a musical chairs
championship. The creature had a colorful segmented body and big
adorable eyes that weren’t attached to it’s body
and hovered above it’s head segment.
The giant worm was draped over Cragstan’s shoulders and he
stroked his new pet gingerly as he strolled contentedly through the
evening streets of Woodbie after his successful first date. He checked
his pocket watch, the bus that would take him home wouldn’t
leave for a few minutes yet, and he had plenty of time to make it to
the bus stop.
“Gee, there sure are a lot of people waiting for the bus
today.” Cragstan thought as he approached the bus terminal.
As he came closer, he realized that the people he saw from down the
street weren’t waiting passengers, but a gang of angry
uniformed bus drivers who had cornered Dennis up against the wall of
the bus depot and were pelting him with marshmallows.
“How do you like getting hit with marshmallows huh
kid?“ One of the bus drivers sneered.
“This kid is pretty heard headed. Maybe we should get out
some heavy ammunition to help the lesson sink in. Any of you guys got
walnuts or peanuts?”
Cragstan came just in time and slipped through the crowd to diffuse the
situation before they turned to fisticuffs.
“Guys, guys, calm down please. Whatever he did I’m
sure he’s very sorry.” Cragstan lifted Dennis,
shaken, but untouched (not counting marshmallows).
“No he isn’t sorry. When we asked him to stop
throwing marshmallows at the busses, he started saying mean things
about our moms!” Said the bus driver who was leading the riot.
“I didn’t say anything about your mom, I called you
a mome you Leninist idiot-face!” Dennis said,
hoping to re-instigate the fight now that he had his ally Cragstan by
his side.
“See now he’s calling my mom an idiot.”
The leader said and pulled up his sleeves. ready to give
Dennis what he was asking for. Cragstan was becoming concerned for his
safety, so he just grabbed Dennis by the sleeve and quickly retreated.
“Do you think we should go after him and beat him
down?” The leader asked his cronies.
“Nah, the kid was obviously psychologically disturbed.
Besides, the other kid had a doorworm with him. It’s not
worth getting stung over.” Another driver dismissed as
Cragstan forced Dennis across the street, around a corner, and as far
away from the bus depot as he could.
“Let’s get you home Dennis, I think it’s
time for your medication.”
“Railwayism is my only medication! It’s my food and
water! Don’t try to stop the commuter’s
railvolution Cragstan, I’ll kill you.” Dennis
threatened darkly as he broke from Cragstan’s grip.
“You? Kill me? You went after your so called worst enemies by
throwing marshmallows at them. What are you going to do to me huh?
You’re a huge wimp Dennis, a wimp who can’t
separate fantasy from reality. You need help bad man, I’m
serious.”
“You say I’m crazy, well at least I don’t
have a… fruit-striped… snake thingie around my
neck.”
“It’s not a snake, it’s a doorworm. They
came from the moon, the Lunarians keep them like pets and wear them on
their tails. Don’t you ever pay attention in Social Science
Dennis?”
“Well, you aren’t from the moon and you
don’t have a tail, so what are you keeping that thing around
your neck for? To strangle you?”
“No, I won it at the fair in a musical chairs tournament, so
I was going to name it Tempo, but they told me it was a girl worm, so
I’m naming her Tempa instead.”
“Earthworms don’t have genders, even I know that.
Besides, your mom would never let bring that slimy thing into your
house.”
"Well smarty-pants Tempa isn’t an earthworm, she’s
a moon worm, so there. Besides, Mom let me bring you you into our the
basement nearly every day last summer, so I don’t see why she
wouldn’t let me keep a small pet my own bedroom.”
Tempa purred as Cragstan stroked her body.
“Listen Dennis, we’ve been friends for a long time,
but lately you’ve been a lot more trouble then
you’re worth quite frankly. I’m not saying I
don’t like you, but you almost caused me to get my ass kicked
today.
My mom’s always used to warn me about hanging out with kids
who go wild on drugs and beer and to just use my own imagination to
have fun, but you’re seriously starting to scare me and my
mom because you’re the exact opposite, it’s like
your imagination has no off switch and you’re permanently
stuck in la-la land where your some kind socialist dictator with a
train fetish.
I’m not saying I’m not your friend anymore, but I
really think it would be for your own good if you stopped coming over
to my house for war games and stopped writing your papers and focused
on something positive, like volunteering at a soup kitchen or getting a
job doing something you like. Why don’t you get a job at the
train station? You’d like that wouldn’t
you? I’m sure you’re old enough now
aren’t you?”
"Shut up! Shut up Cragstan! Just shut the hell up! There
isn’t going to be a train station anymore because the bus
company under the evil influence of the Roadunist government is going
to shut down the railway! I was about to stop the bastards and make the
world safe for Railwayism when you and your limp barber pole came and
ruined everything at the last moment and now we’re all
totally screwed!
Thanks a lot for stabbing me in the back you dumb Judas. You and your
new girlfriend can kiss my ass, and so can Jennifer! Screw you Mao
Zedong! Go to hell Kim Il Sung! I’m going home to plan my
next military raid against the Roadunists!” And with that
Dennis stomped angrily down a random street, not caring to notice that
his house was in the complete opposite direction.
Cragstan stood on the darkening corner petting Tempa, his mind
staggering in frustration and disappointment. Moths and June bugs had
gathered by the gumdrop lamp at the corner where a green wooden bench
sat. With his other hand Cragstan checked his pocket watch. A bus would
come in a while. It would be a long wait, but it would surely be easier
than walking. He sat on the bench and put the watch away, noticing with
some irony as he closed the cover that there was a train engraved upon
it.
“As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his
folly. Proverbs Twenty-Six Eleven. I’ve done all that I
can.” Cragstan sighed as he slumped into the bench.
“I can’t help him anymore than I’ve
tried. That kid is seriously nuts. And berries, and apples, and all
those other fruits too. You like fruits and berries and stuff
don’t you girl?” Tempa smiled and nuzzled
Cragstan’s chest and he instantly felt much better.
Dennis found his way home and immediately cracked open his many
notebooks he filled with the doctrines of Technocratic Railwayism. He
kept them in a fireproof safe when he was not studying from them, as he
knew they would be treasured by future generations as the constitution
of the coming Technocratic Commuter’s Railpublic of Woodbie
and had to be preserved at all costs.
********************
Elected
Director Dennis Daniels’ Dieary
Friday, April 16th, 6560
The assalt of the Woodbie Commuter’s Army against the hostile
reactionary Roadunist imperialists that have tryed unsucessfully to
crush the will of the commuters of of the peaceful Technocratic
Commuters Railpublic of woodbie with their tyrany of the roads to make
the people lives miserable has been an unpresedented total victory for
the people of the Technocratic Commuter’s Railpublic of
Woodbie the likes of which has never seen before by man.
Despite suffering the betratoring and desertion of the insane cowboy
bastard face criminal despot Judas playboy General Cragstan who partyed
irresponsably with his illegal harem of underage girls at the so called
“carn evil” of roadunist opression while the enemy
tried to make the commuters lifes misrable with jaywalking, traffic
jams, and eating peas with a knife, the the Technocratic
Commuter’s Railpublic of Woodbie’s Technocratic
Commuter’s Army beated the enemy in one clean sweap with out
a single casualty.
Having carefuly considered all aspects of societies past and present
and the significance of the railway in the national affairs and
structure and impliminting simulation combat data gathered with the
help of the formerly sanely General Cragstan, Ive implimented the final
phase of the Commuter’s revoltuion to make Woodbie a perfect
Railwayist society…
********************
The next forty pages of the plot Dennis formulated were so severely
indecipherable that only Dennis himself could have possibly made any
sense of them, however, based on the small shreds of legible and
coherent writing in Dennis’ manifesto, and knowledge of the
events which unfolded the following day, it was determined that
Dennis’ warped logic went as follows:
Point 1 -
Most people in Woodbie take the train to work.
Point 2 -
Before catching the train, everyone goes to the bakery to buy coffee, a
donut, and a newspaper.
Point 3 -
Thusly, whoever controls the bakery controls the railway, and in turn,
the nation, and the world.
And so, Dennis Daniels armed himself with a weapon and an old vinyl
record, and on Saturday morning shortly before rush hour showed up at
the bakery, where hip teenagers and white collar wage slaves came for
their morning snack.
Business for Mrs. Avon had been going smoothly. With weekends came the
patronage of many school kids looking for a bite to eat, and Mrs. Avon
got up long before sunrise to get her batches of lovingly fresh bread,
donuts, cookies and muffins ready in time for the rush. The air of the
shop was also filled with the comforting aroma of freshly brewing
coffee.
Relaxing music was playing on an old phonograph player that had been in
the shop since Mrs. Avon was just a little girl, and the singer was one
of her mother’s favorite crooners. Unfortunately one of her
customers had a different musical selection in mind for the
morning’s proceedings.
Dennis moved to the front of the line and presented Mrs. Avon with a
small vinyl disk. The label on the record appeared to have been crudely
removed. In place of whatever the album once said, the record was now
identified with sloppy penmanship as being “The Theme of the
Great Genious”.
Mrs. Avon looked at the boy skeptically. He was wearing a warn out
conductor’s uniform that appeared at least a three sizes too
large for him. He looked nervous, and was shivering so that he nearly
dropped the record as he handed it to her. Dennis discretely opened up
his jacket enough for Mrs. Avon to see the antiquated pistol he was
hiding in an inside coat pocket.
“I have a Thomas submashotgun. Put the record on and no one
gets hurt.” Dennis whispered. Whether or not Dennis had any
intention of harming anyone that day, the threat nearly gave poor Mrs.
Avon a heart attack. At great haste, and with much difficulty steadying
her hands, she removed her mother’s music and dropped the
needle onto Dennis’s record, and a scratchy, ancient
recording of a militaristic march filled the shop, much to
everyone’s surprise.
While Mrs. Avon slipped unseen into the kitchen to escape into the back
alley and find a policeman, Dennis climbed onto the counter and blew a
conductor’s whistle to draw all attention to himself.
“Commuters of Woodbie! The Technocratic Commuter’s
Railpublic of Woodbie’s revolution is finally taking place
under the perfect leadership of me, Elected Director Dennis Daniels.
For those of you living under the dark cloud of line closures, never
fear, for these problems are no longer of the slightest concern or
worry to the commuters of Woodbie.
This is because the new world order of Railwayism is the correct
perfect social mode of putting railway affairs at the forefront of
society to foster the building up of the great prosperous powerful
railway to serve as the backbone of the railway oriented social and
political system freely chosen by the people by electing me, Elected
Director Dennis Daniels as the new rail board director!”
The customers were flabbergasted, but not in the least impressed.
“Hey kid, didn’t your mother ever tell you not to
stand on tables? Get out of here and take that commie trash somewhere
else.” One man shouted and stood up appearing fit to throw
Dennis out of the shop while everyone watched not yet knowing what to
say or do.
"How dare you compare scientifically perfect and flawless Railwayism
with that scam they call communism! Don’t you come near me
you dog-faced Judas! Damn you you pavid varmint! Just stop it Friedrich
Engels!” Dennis whipped out the antique pistol and brandished
it wildly it in the air, grazing the paperboard ceiling with
it’s muzzle.
“Nobody better stand in the way of the commuter’s
revolution, I’ve got a Thomas submashotgun and I’m
not afraid to make use of it!” Dennis shouted over the
screams and panicked shuffling of chairs and tables as people either
ducked to the floor, made a run for the door, or just froze in their
seats staring at the deranged, oddly dressed armed delinquent and not
knowing what to think or do.
The one person in the room with the confidence and guts to do neither
of the above was Cragstan. He had brought Jennifer to the bakery for
hot milk and cookies and had brought Tempa along draped around his neck
to enjoy some of Mrs. Avon’s famous dried apple slices. He
approached Dennis as he loomed above him on the counter with seemingly
suicidal confidence.
“Dennis, you freaking nincompoop, get down here this
instant.” Cragstan commanded loudly, raising the tension of
the frightened customers who remained frozen with fear.
“No you stupid Judas butt-face bastard man! I wont let you or
the Roadunist imperialist fascists swallow up the young
Commuter’s Railpublic in it’s cradle!”
From his perch Dennis pointed the gun directly at his former
friend’s forehead. “I have a Thomas submashotgun!
I’m not afraid to use it! I’ll do it Cragstan! Try
me!”
Cragstan grabbed the muzzle of the gun and pulled Dennis from the
counter. Dennis still held the other end in his hand and started
flailing to free his weapon. Cragstan thrust it back into
Dennis’s grip and sniggered.
“You really are out of your freaking mind aren’t
you Dennis? You stole that from the prop room at school after the
rehearsal. It shoots tiny potato pellets. It’s completely
harmless.”
“Well see how harmless it is when I knock you upside your
head with it!”
It happened so fast nobody was quite sure what had happened at first.
One moment Dennis was winding up to strike Cragstan with the wooden
butt of the replica gun, the next Dennis was writhing on the floor
dazed, confused, and writhing in the worst pain he had ever known. No
gunshot went off. Cragstan hadn’t laid a finger on him.
It wasn't until Tempa leapt from her perch upon Cragstan’s
shoulder and took aim for a second attack that anyone could figure out
what was going on. By the time Cragstan pulled the doorworm from away,
she had stung Dennis five times, three times near his ampit, and twice
in his cheek.
The second volley missed only because Cragstan had grabbed Tempa before
she could aim properly. The stinger was about as long as
Cragstan’s pinky finger, spiked with tiny barbs, and curled
like a fleshy fish hook. It had retracted back into Tempa’s
tail segment once Cragstan had calmed her down enough that she stopped
lunging at Dennis.
“Aaaaaagh!” Dennis wailed as he flopped around on
the bakery floor like a beached fish amongst the mess of fallen tables
and chairs. The tailor Mr. Riche heard the commotion from his shop next
door and tied up Dennis’s hands and feet with a tape measure
to keep him still until the police came, but he was in so much pain a
getaway was most out of the question for him.
Ironically, self-selected Dennis’s theme music was still
playing all the while as he shouted obscenities and damnations at
everyone he saw as responsible for his predicament. The list was quite
extensive.
“I’m
suing the bakery! I’m suing the townspeople! I’m
suing city hall! I’m suing the railway! I’m suing
God! I’m suing Judas! I’m suing all twelve
apostles! I’m suing Jesus! I’m suing the
marshmallow factory! I’m suing Railwayism! I’m
suing the president! I’m suing the bus company! I’m
suing the bakery! I’m suing the Communist Party!
I’m suing the mayor! I’m suing the chair factory!
I’m suing the carnival! I’m suing the
Tailor’s Union! I’m suing Cragstan! I’m
suing the country! I’m suing the floor! I’m suing
the Baker’s Guild! I’m suing doorworms!
I’m suing the conductor I stole this uniform from!
I’m suing the school! I’m suing myself! I'm suing
the Pecan Farmer's Board! I’m suing the government!
I’m suing the tape measure company! I’m suing my
mom! I’m suing the guy who invented cars! I’m suing
cupcakes! I’m suing the author of this story! I’m
suing everyone! I hate all of you! You all have ruined my life and my
country! I hope you all catch holy hell! Aaaaaaaaah!”
Dennis had finally exhausted his breath by the time Mrs. Avon returned
with the police. As Dennis’s adrenaline wore off the pain of
the stings intensified, and Dennis was just laying there seething in
baffled fury as he was put into proper handcuffs and tossed into the
Patty Wagon, quite literally so as the police borrowed a
butcher’s van to transport Dennis to the Woodbie Precinct.
The incident made newspaper headlines the following morning.
DENNIS
GETS DERAILED!
Hero boy and worm stand up to Woodbie robber!
Both to receive Keys to the City!
When Dennis was removed form jail and relocated to County Court for
trial, an officer found a folded up piece of toilet paper left behind
in Dennis’s jail cell. Scribbled on it was a strange journal
entry.
********************
Dear Toilet Paper, my dear and only friend in the world.
The Technocratic Commuter’s Railpublic of Woodibe has
collapsed. The worm infested train hater Ozymandias Cragstan has
sabotaged the commuter’s railvolution. I’m being
healed as a political prisiner in some unknown location. The prisin
camp garuds have have tried to dishearten me from my cause by showing
me today’s newspaper.
The headline says that I, Dennis Daniels, have been derailed, but
I’ll show them, this war is only the beginning and in the
end, it will be them who will be derailed.
After I execute my cunning getaway, I’ll escape to a
progressive nation where I can hide out until the time is right.
I’m not sure how entrenched the enemy has become, it may be
the case that the entire world is in it's grasp.
I’ll hide anywhere where I can bide my time while I earn my
doctorate in mechanical engineering. Then I will finally be able to
realize the construction of the my armada of combat locomotives and
return to Nineva to crush the roadunist imperalist fascists and win my
fellow Commuters the freedom they deserve.
In defiance of the newspaper article, I have decided to change my name
to Dennis Derail.
Once my doctoratorial education is complete, I am become Doctor Derail.
Then those Roadunists will see who’s really off track.
Signed,
Dr. Dennis Derail.
Sunday, April 17th, 6560
THE END...?
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