Dedicated to Francis, without whom I should be as unhappy as a rhinoceros not in a pumpkin-patch

Once upon a story beginning with “Once upon a story beginning with ‘Once upon a story beginning with “Once upon a story beginning with ‘Once upon a purple papaya,’”’” there was a bright and peaceful day. On this bright and peaceful day, Footmonster and Mel Mar were relaxing in their castle, Footmonster reading a book (How to Read by I. M. Ridiculouslystupid) and Mel Mar demolishing the kitchen. She had decided that redecoration was pointless and had taken on the new task of destroying anything which could not say the alphabet. Having ridden the world of the Evil Toaster of Doom, she then turned to Footmonster.

“Can you say the alphabet?” asked Mel Mar of Footmonster.

“Does it begin with a q, like my name?”

Mel Mar shook her head and raised the gleaming ax high above her head.

“Wait,” said Footmonster, closing her book with a strange calmness. “Before you destroy me in your righteous cause, answer me this: what happened to your brain?”

Mel Mar lowered her ax. “What makes you think that I know what happened?”

“Well, I noticed that Bregans, whom you’ve been borrowing, had run off with his mistress last night, and I know that he would not have left you unless your brain had returned.”

“Huh, I’d thought that something felt different. Well, I guess that I’d better ask him how the opera was. Hang on a moment.” Mel Mar climbed into her skull and disappeared. She reappeared a few years later to find Footmonster crocheting a hat for her imaginary friend and humming off-key. Removing her new pet goldfish from her mouth, Footmonster greeted Mel Mar with a bolt of lightning. “How was it?”

“The mind is a terrifying place. Don’t ever go thither.”

“I won’t. I don’t have one; it lost me yonks ago.”

“Yes, we know.”

“‘We’?”

“Oui.”

“I had an interesting dream last night. I walked into this restroom, and it was crowded, of course, but the funny thing was--”

“I thought that you were wanting to hear about my brain.”

“What about varicose veins?”

“What?”

“Mr. Hume dropped his fork; will you lend him one?”

“Will a spork do?”

“I’ll ask him. …Huh, he says that the spork doesn’t really exist.”

“Well, that’s loony.”

“Yeah, let’s worship him!”

“Okay, but not right now--I haven’t gotten to tell you about my brain yet.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Pardon?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Black Vegetable?”

“What?”

“Pardon?”

“Look, Footmonster--if you can’t say anything that makes sense, don’t say anything at all.”

Footmonster stared at Mel Mar, her mouth hanging open, unable to speak. Three days later, when Footmonster’s open mouth had captured all the insects in the neighborhood, Mel Mar broke the silence with a sledgehammer and said, “Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best advice that I’ve ever given you.”

“So I needn’t follow it?”

“No, not this time.”

“Good, I’d already lost it; it moves too fast.”

“On second thought--or third--maybe you--”

“So tell me about your brain.”

Mel Mar glared at Footmonster, who grinned stupidly back and then muttered something to Francis about pink ribbon-scars and vacant stares.

“Well…all right,” began Mel Mar.

“Yes, that’s a good song.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Footmonster, will you please shut up?”

Footmonster burst into tears. Wait--scratch that; that happened in the last story. So Footmonster ceased the crying which she had never begun, and the Earth stood still.

“Please continue,” she said, sitting down on a giant mushroom and sticking the spork which they had offered to Hume into her ear.

“Well, you were right that my brain had returned.”

“Hang on, Mel. Let me point out to the reader that I have finally renamed the brain which I had lent to Mel Mar; his name is Bregans. Mel Mar’s brain doesn’t have a name yet, and Francis is the stitch in my stomach.”

“It’s a sign of a bad writer to speak directly to the reader.”

“Yes, well, that’s no surprise. Laundry-time!” Footmonster flew away to do the laundry; a few minutes passed, and she returned triumphant. “The laundry’s on fire.”

“Oh, good.”

“You know what I hate? It’s almost impossible to find jeans which don’t have stupid designs on the pockets or which don’t make you look as if you’ve been rolling around in the mud or as if you’ve been mauled by a rabid badger. What’s next in the world of fashion? Jeans which make it look as if you’ve forgotten how to dress yourself? Jeans which make it look as if you didn’t make it to the restroom in time? And then there’s the pant. I saw a sign advertising a ‘pant’ on sale. What in orbe is a ‘pant’? I guess that it’s just one leg. So now women can show off those twenty-dollar-thongs that they’ve bought. Twenty dollars…for a thong. There’s more material in my left sock than there is in three thongs, and I got two socks for less than two bucks. Vacca sacra, are they insane?”

“Well, yes,” said Mel Mar, “they are, but when will I get to tell you about my brain?”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“So my brain finally came home from the opera. Guess where he’s been.”

“At the opera?”

“Well, yes, but after that.”

“Revolutionary France?”

“Close--ancient Rome.”

“Oh, yes, he invented the time-machine, didn’t he?”

“Yes, so he came home, wearing a toga and saying, ‘Grumio est coquus.’”

“He met Grumio? Awesome.”

“Yes, well, he’s home now and seems to have enjoyed himself.”

“Wow. Would he let me borrow his time-machine? There are a few things which I’d like to fix. Besides that, I’d like to go back to the days before the Curses.”

“No, I’m sorry; the time-machine fell apart after his return--something to do with a mango getting lodged in the gears.”

“Bummer.”

“So Bregans has run off with his mistress, and you are still without a brain,” said Mel Mar.

“Well, no, I still have this head of cabbage, and then my second brain, Philolaches the Philosopher, dragged his feet back, hoping to be welcomed as the prodigal brain or something. He failed in his dream to start a rock-band that sings about fishmongers and pancakes. I’m still upset with him, though, because, well, he deserted me just to go to a concert, jeepers.”

“Is Philolaches the Philosopher the same guy as Phil the Philosopher?”

“No, Phil’s a turtle.”

“Oh.”

A comfortable silence fell between them. Mel Mar picked up Footmonster’s book and flipped through the pages absent-mindedly while Footmonster fed Francis some Yorkshire pudding and talked to him about the beauty of her favorite four chords.

“Ah, Francis,” said she with a tear in her eye, “no one understands me as you do…except maybe Mel, but, Francis, I can talk to you whenever I need to talk, and you always listen. You know what I mean?”

Francis said nothing.

“Do you really mean that?” asked Footmonster.

Still Francis said nothing.

Mel Mar looked up from the book, which she had set of fire, and said to Footmonster, “So how’s Francis doing?”

“He’s fine as you can see. Ha, he makes me laugh; he’s so funny.”

“Have you thought about having him removed?”

“Are you kidding? And deprive myself of his company? Never! I must say, though, that Doctor Travis keeps telling me to get rid of him.”

“And you trust the word of Doctor Travis?”

“Well, you know what he says: ‘Not even an apple a day can save you from Doctor Travis!’” Footmonster rose from the mushroom on which she had been sitting, pranced around the room three times, and sat in a chair by a random table.

“You’d better be careful, Footmonster,” said Mel Mar. “You’re not supposed to be exercising.”

“No, no, exercise is fine. The list from the hospital of things which I cannot do says that I’m not supposed to exorcise.”

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a typographical error. Maybe, instead of saying, ‘No exorcising,’ it was supposed to say, ‘No yodeling.’ I wish that I could yodel.”

“That’s quite a typo.”

“Yes, but what would you expect from someone who shortens the word ventriculoperitoneal to VP? Ventriculoperitoneal, ventriculoperitoneal--it’s just one of those words which, when you finally learn to say them and spell them right, you have to use several times in normal conversation--the entire thing and not just VP. Ventriculoperitoneal.”

“So what’s this other condition which you’ve developed? Syphilis?”

“No, no, it’s hydrocephalus. It’s interesting that, if I decided to rip this ventriculoperitoneal shunt out of my skull right now, I could eventually lose the ability to walk and--who knows?--maybe even the ability to live.”

“Wow, that’s cool!”

“Yeah, I’m special. All of this reminds me that we must be prepared for death. Just think: I may die at any moment; and I may never see the sun again; this shirt may never cover my back again; my buttocks may never grace this chair again; I may never make a fool of myself again. That would be nice.”

“No, even in death you would make a fool of yourself.”

“You’re right. I ought to lock myself in a closet for the rest of my life.”

“Good idea. There’s just one thing which I must ask first, though.”

“Ask away.”

“What is the cause of the Curses of Pseudotumor Cerebri and Hydrocephalus?”

Footmonster sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Really? Well….you’re suffering, aren’t you?”

“Yes…”

“And what’s the cause of all suffering?”

“Math! Gordon Bennett, you’ve done it, Mel! The solution to all my problems is to abolish math!”

“What can I say? I’m a genius.”

“To the Goatmobile!”

So Footmonster and Mel Mar raced through their castle to the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile and into which they leapt when they had reached the kitchen.

“This is my purpose in life, Francis!” shouted Footmonster happily over the roar of the engine as the two superheroines put on their seatbelts. Francis said nothing.

Into the city went the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile, Footmonster and Mel Mar singing a song which Philolaches the Philosopher had written.

All was good, and they were happy to be doing their duty to the world until suddenly the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile, exploded.

“Wow, that’s never happened before,” said Footmonster as she and Mel Mar floated around in another dimension. “What’s going on? Do you think that we’re dead?”

“No, remember when we died last time? It wasn’t like this.” Mel Mar scratched her head thoughtfully. “Maybe we’re in another dimension.”

“How do you figure that one out?”

“I just read it in the narration between your comments on the exploding of the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile, never having happened before and on what was going on.”

“Oh. So now what?”

Suddenly (Everything happens suddenly, doesn’t it?) they fell back to Earth and landed by the flaming Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile.

Mel Mar picked herself up from the ground and dusted off her clothes. “Well, I guess that that answers your question.”

Footmonster nodded and gazed mournfully at the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile. “This is all math’s fault. If we destroy math, we’ll get the Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile, back.”

“Yes, so let us destroy math.”

So Footmonster and Mel Mar destroyed math heroically, and everyone praised them; persons waved with fanatical enthusiasm when Footmonster and Mel Mar drove by in their resurrected Goatmobile, which really ought to be called the Devilrubberduckyonwheelsmobile, threw babies at their feet when they walked by, and named their roses after them…, or maybe it was the other way around that roses were thrown at their feet and that babies were named after them. Whatever it was, Footmonster and Mel Mar were respected everywhere as the greatest of all superheroes. After much celebration, the two returned home to their castle and ate much pizza.

“You know, Mel,” said Footmonster with her mouth full, spewing bits of anchovies and mushrooms all over the room; “there’s something which I don’t understand: we’ve abolished math a few times before, but no one praised us then, and, if we’ve already abolished math, then why do we have to keep doing it?”

“Well, if math were forever abolished, then there would be no plot for future stories about us.”

“I suppose that that makes sense. Well, cheers, Mel. We’re great, aren’t we?”

“Yeah!”

Life was good.

The End

Ventriculoperitoneal.