A little bit of spam never hurts! Just ask Monty Python!
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Somewhere in Nepal, biting winds sweep shards of packed snow across
the jagged peaks in towering white cascades that roar and rumble like
sorrowful ghosts. Nestled into one craggy cliff face, veiled by bitter
streams of ice and snow, the mouth of a great cave moans in sympathy
with the wind, black and forbidding. Inside, the whine of the wind
lessens. Strange grunts are heard, along with the crackle of fire, the
plip-plip of dripping water . . . and a quiet conversation.
"Hey, Ryouga?"
"Yeah?"
"You ever wonder, sometimes . . ."
"Yeah?"
"What life would be like without all these stupid quests and wacky
hijinks and stuff? It would boring as hell, but, like, we'd sure get
alot more relaxin' done."
"Yeah . . ."
"Yeah, I could really go for a nice night by the pond, y'know, just
kickin' back. You 'n' me could trade a couple shots in the dojo, then
the whole crew would sit down for a nice hot meal . . . sounds nice,
right?"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah . . ."
" . . ."
"You figure he meant it, when he said they was gonna tear our flesh
from our bones with blades of ice, and then make flutes out of our
thigh-bones and dance around the bonfire while we got made inta stew?"
"What, that Yeti shaman guy? Naw, must have been speaking,
whatchacallit, figuratively. They can't play a flute for nothin'."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Ryouga?"
"Yeah?"
"We get outta this, you 'n' me, we gotta look into a new line of
business."
"Yeah."
"Are you still stuck neck-deep in ice, hangin' upside-down from the
ceiling?"
"Yep!"
"Me too."
"Shoot."
"Lemme know if you think of anything."
"Yeah."
And so it came to pass, on the first year of the first century of
the third millenium, Common Era, that Ranma Saotome and Ryouga Hibiki
gave up the life of the wanderer and settled down. Way down.
"Ranma?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't Yeti chew their food?"
"I dunno, why don't Yeti chew their food?"
"Idiot, I'm asking! It's not some dumb joke!"
"Oh. Well, I still don't know, so what can ya do?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Hey, Ryouga . . ."
"Yeah?"
"Are you still neck-deep in Yeti sewage, half a mile down a frozen
icy gorge in the middle of the Himalayas with no hope of rescue?"
"Lemme check . . . yeah, looks like."
"Shoot. That makes two of us. Well, at least we can say that we
now know Yetis from the inside out. Not everybody can say that, ya
know."
"Right. That's true. Thanks."
"Hey, ya gotta look on the bright side."
And then they began to whistle a jaunty Monty Python tune, and
there was much rejoicing.
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Honestly, I don't _remember_ writing this. I was searching my linux
partition for something entirely different when I found this. Musta
been a great day at work for me, is all I can figure :) I do, however,
remember that the origina concept was going to be about that final
quest, that most horrifying of experiences, that caused Ranma and
Ryouga to give up the search for a cure once and for all. What, I
thought, could possibly be so bad that they'd just learn to live with
their curses rather than going through that ordeal again? Yetis,
that's what! As everyone from Washington and B.C. knows, once you've
been through a Yeti, you're never gonna be the same again.
Really.
Thanks for reading!
Martin
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Martin L. Metke
Exaxxion@balista.com
Sleet01@hotmail.com
"I laughed, I cried, I fell down, it changed my life... it was good!"