The Dead Horse

By: Xaviere Posted on: September 28, 2004

In the middle of the 'Mho-jav-ee'
Festering with foul larvae
Is a feast of rotted flesh
Sloughing off a whitened mesh;
The monitor lizards do step around
This horrid mess that's on the ground -
How did this horse - now grossly deceased -
Neglect to renew the 'Long Life Lease'?

'Twas a swelt'ring day one Miraman
That this horse seem'd pale and wan,
Yet trudged across the desert high
With nary a neigh or an equine sigh,
Carrying a knave drinking too much brandy
Who had wand'ring eyes for female candy,
Looking for a motley quest
To show that he was quite the best.

After long night and day of travelling hard
The idiot knave was not a yard
From a gigantic structure raised up to the sky
Geometrically perfect to the untrained eye,
The Erisian Pyramid in all its glory
A shining staircase in front, not old or hoary.
But the knavish twerp went straight past
And the Pyramid was left quite aghast.

But the poor sick horse, so wanting to please,
Turned about, and with a hacking wheeze,
Canter'd towards the first step of sand
But tripped, and the brandy flew out the knave's hand
And crash'd with a clatter that sounded all over.
But deep inside, awoken by the rowdy rover,
The Goddess of Chaos grumbled, for She was resting some whiles
After having a Divine night partying out on the tiles.

So Her Enthrall lured the knave up Her stairs,
Leading the ailing horse, both quite unawares:
She had something planned to punish the fiend
Who (in her terms) were really quite mean,
That was relatively fatal (yet rather funny)
That involved a little quest in a Chaotic dunny,
For no one should wake a God, not even a trover,
Because there's *nothing* worse than a Divine hangover.

Up strode the knave, oblivious to the fact
That he was walking right into a trap,
For the sign read 'Tier of the Apocalypse', and he thought
That something 'rather good' was waiting to be bought.
The darkness await'd, but invisibly inside,
Eris was there, cackling in pride
As She position'd a large sign next to a dangling chain
That would prove to be the idiot's bane.

Suddenly, the knave saw the floating sign
And scampered up, with the horse not far behind,
To read what seem'd a good idea at the time,
For written in exqusitite Erisian rhyme:

"See this chain here, pull it to find
Riches and treasures quite out of your mind!
If you pull it now, seriously, it's really great!

• Seriously*. It's great. Dead great. Flat on a plate."
  

The horse was suspicious, and started shying away
But the knave held the rein and stopped the sway.
And stepping up, heart pumping with glee
And using the other hand that was free,
Grabbed the chain and bellow'd a cheer
That now he was the king and all would fear.
He gave the chain a hearty pull
And wait'd to see what would happen (in full).

From faraway on a granite brink
A young female Mhun, quite the worse for drink
Watch'd south with the Green Fairy right at side
And would have eaten her hat if she had tried
When in the desert pyramid, the knavish fool,
In a bout of trying to be cool,
Had flush'd himself in a tumult of Chaos
And when he met death, he was *rather* cross.

But what of the horse, I hear you say?
The equine beast was propelled away with a neigh,
The Mhun thought there was a pegasus gliding in the air
But it was the horse, looking rather scared;
It wasn't its fault its master was silly,
The horse closed its eyes and thought of a filly,
As it shot out of the Pyramid ten hundred furlongs above
And went 'SPLAT!' on the ground, having failed being a dove.

The final part came with a Divine brainwave,
As Eris decided it was time to bathe,
So She moved the Pyramid, as was usual
And She had no intention hearing anyone's refusal.
So when the horse recover'd from the initial blow,
It had no idea what was next in the show.
The Pyramid flickered out, slipped in like a cat,
And landed on the horse, squashing it quite flat.

So in the middle of the 'Mho-jav-ee'
Lies a flattened corpse buzzing with putrid fleas.
Whitened bones lie scattered in frame,
And though most believe it to be hunted game,
This poor horse had been through a scuffle,
And shown it's not wise to be in a Divine kerfuffle.
This is why creatures like the hyena and the desert rat,
Move around, for fear of getting geometrically squashed flat.