[Diamond18]

Vogonwë had been in some long dark subterranean hallways in his day, but none so long and dark as this one. Darkness took him—he strayed away through thought and time, and every second was as long as a life age of the earth. He began to whistle to keep himself company. He’d forgotten where he was going, and why.

Finally, he perceived a reddish light up ahead. It was small at first, but grew bigger and bigger, though Vogonwë had stopped walking toward it. He deduced (very cleverly, I might add) that a crack or a door must be opening down the passageway. The raucous noises which had before been but faint and fleeting, increased in volume and clarity. He saw dancing shadows flicker across the wall.

Vogonwë wondered for a moment if entering the cavern was such a good idea, after all, but in a moment the point became moot, for out of the crack jumped Zerls, little Zerls, round cuddly-looking Zerls, lots of Zerls, before you could say hurly bazerly. They squealed and gibbered in chipper little voices as they scampered down the hall toward him—lots of meeps and prrrts and squeaks and a smattering of cute hiccupy belches.

“Precious?” Vogonwë inquired hopefully, an instant before the tiny fluffy white things were upon him, clawing and hacking and spitting and biting with overwhelming ferocity and velocity. “Ahhhhh!” Vogonwë screamed, falling back, flailing his arms helplessly. He landed smack on his tailbone and screamed in falsetto as the swarm of cotton-ball like bodies trampled him.

They spoke to one another in a strange tongue as their padded paws pummeled him. He became vaguely aware that they were tearing as his flesh with needle-like claws, and he shielded his eyes in terror. Actually, on second vague awareness, he realized that they were ganging up on his limbs so they could tie them together with twine. He acquiesced with a whimper, and put his wrists together over his chest, unable to bear the pain of their slashing fingernails. The Zerls squealed happily as their task became easier, and in a few moments Vogonwë was trussed up like a Yule goose.

They began to drag their prize back down the hall, toward the ominous crack through which the even more undoubtedly ominous red light hatched. As they went, they began to sing a song in high voices, which Vogonwë would have likened to Alvin and the Chipmunks had he lived in the Seventh Age.

Dinner, dinner time is near
Time for meat and time for beer
We've been good, but we can't last
Hurry dinner, hurry fast
Want to catch a nincompoop
Yes, we want to have some soup
We can hardly stand the wait
Please dinner, stay on the plate.

“That’s a good poem,” Vogonwë mumbled as he was dragged over hard, jagged rocks and roughly pushed through the narrow opening in the wall.

He emerged, birth-like, into a large cavern. It was lit by a great lávà lamp in the middle, and by smaller lávà lamps on the walls, and it was full of Zerls. They all broke into choruses of excited chirping and burping at the sight of Vogonwë, and they rushed forward to poke, prod, smell and pinch his flesh. The meaning was only too clear. “I’m sorry!” Vogonwë wailed, “sorry I forgot to fill up your food dish and you starved to death and Daddy had to bury you in the backyard! But it was all just a part of learning responsibility, Daddy said so!”

“Meep!” said the Great Zerl, hopping forward to perch prominently on the top of the center lávà lamp. “So you say! I know all about your kind—Elves who snatch baby Zerls from their mothers’ bosoms so that grubby little Elf children can have playthings to cuddle and squeeze and put on a leash and forget to feed! Destroyers and usurpers, curse you!”

“Elf children are not grubby,” Vogonwë protested feebly.

“I care not,” the Great Zerl meeped. “And now, you shall pay us back for the years of torment! Prrrrrrrt! We few have escaped the clutches of petdom and found refuge in this place, but others of our kind have suffered to the last. You will pay for these neglected lives, morsel by quivering morsel!”

A cacophony of Zerlish noises rose up around Vogonwë, hyper cheeps and tweets of anticipation as the roly-poly creatures crowded in around him, brandishing forks and knives with pink-polka-dotted plastic handles. “Feast on his flesh!” chirped the Great Zerl.

Vogonwë looked up at the torrent of white fur washing down over him, and whimpered.

“….Mother….”

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 4:55 PM January 18, 2004: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]