Dedicated to: KimBob whose "gentlemanly" airs make me want to dance. To Mernda-chan also, whose boundless energy & unsurpassable joy has caused me to see the light... Last, and certainly not least, is Sparrow, whose undying faith is simultaneously comical and endearing.
Memoirs of a Casablancan Fool
"Up yours, Casablanca!" And that was how it all began. Well, not really. But it did start something. This phrase paved the way for the start of his memoirs; it had nothing to do with the course of his life. Yet he treasured it for its simplicity and the seamless genius behind it.
He led a happy, carefree life, his thoughts mostly being of food. He said, "Up yours, Casablanca!" every chance he got, whether it was relevant to the matter at hand or not. That is, until the one day he hoped he would live to reflect upon. The day when his English teacher assigned the tremendous task of writing a collection of memoirs.
"We live life moment by moment. Don't let them pass you by. Write them down, so that one day when you are as frail and as old as I am, you'll remember what mattered most." Those were the exact words his sensei had spoken.
He was to write twenty different memoirs, and for each he had to explain why those particular events made a lasting impression upon him. "This is hard! I can only think of one thing, sensei!" he wailed when it was time to write.
"Perhaps you are thinking too hard," his English teacher said, examining the boy's head banging upon the surface of a hard classroom desk. "Think about...the first time you learned how to write your name. Or the time you learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. The first time you got a—"
"Okay, I get it!" Horo said, cutting in. He had to stop his teacher before the man went to far and talked his short attention span to death. His professor walked back to his desk and took a seat, smiling toothily at his students.
"Up yours, Casablanca!" Horo said giddily, causing his fellow classmates to survey him as though he were some lunatic taken off the streets and placed in their classroom for mere entertainment.
He settled down and started writing when inspiration came. Although he wrote slowly and worked until the end of class, he produced a memoir that should merit, at the very least, a parade and national holiday in his name.
As the bell rang and signified the end of the day, the students hurriedly gathered their possessions and left. Horo trailed behind in their wake, papers flying every which way.
It was late at night, and darkness crept around everything like a shadow endowed with its own, eerie legs that were able to glide without being attached to a master. Horo, with the lure of sleep imminent, could not resist re-reading his memoir. It was calling to him, groveling, begging to be read...
The Origin of My Favorite Phrase
by Horo Horo Usui
I like stupid phrases, especially ones that no one understands but me. One that should be a classic is "Up yours, Casablanca!" As I am writing this, I have been seized by giggles. It's just that funny. The origin of my favorite phrase came to be on a night engulfed by a documentary of Casablanca.
The forbidding skies of Japan signified the start of a depressing day as I made my way towards school. I was none too happy for my sister had decided to add additional training to my already tiring regime. "You're pitiful, Horo-nii!" she said, watching me with the utmost disgust earlier that morning. "You can't even lift a barbell with two stuffed animals on either side!"
I told her that I could lift a bag of marshmallows, which was true. That only made herreign of terror more frightening than before. Her eyes were blazing and she forced me to carry her to school, piggyback style. Only I kept on dropping her. She told me that if I dropped her one more time, it would be the end of Horo Horo Usui as I knew him, which could only mean toilet duty for me. Eternal toilet duty without breaks, not even for breathing.
I shuddered at the thought of having my head shoved down a toilet. I could almost feel the toilet water washing over my head repetitively... When we had made it to school, delightful, grinding, school, I deposited Pirka carefully on the ground and ran into several pedestrians before entering the building.
When I made my grand entrance, there it was. In the middle of the hustle and bustle known as the student body, there stood the most wonderful thing I had ever seen—an artificial squirrel, who was cheerily throwing paper towards the sky. In several motions, the squirrel threw the paper up, watched it fall down, picked up the papers, and repeated the same process over and over again.
I ran up to my former hero and gave him a nice, swift, hard kick in the bum. How could this artificial being impersonate the almighty nature of a squirrel? I told him, "Up yours, Casablanca!" and ran away without the slightest idea of where I was going.
And when I got there, my vision was obscured by pink. Everything was so pink, it occurred to me that I might be in the female portion of the world, the place where they apply war paint and take a dump. It was strange, really, how it was deserted and stunningly quiet. I chose a random stall and kicked the door aside.
As I sat on a toilet seat, not actually taking a dump, in that secluded stall, I pondered the mysteries of life and what I had just said. Where did that phrase come from? It was then that it occurred to me. Last night, Pirka made me watch some stupid documentary on Casablanca, a city in Morocco.
I had drawn nothing from that documentary, though at the end of it, I had concluded that one day, I should like to journey to Casablanca and hug the scenery.
The only thing I could think of when watching people ride donkeys off into the sunset was the phrase "Up yours, Casablanca!" I said that single phrase so often during the course of the night that it drove my sister became partially insane and stated that she would never let me watch anything educational ever again.
It's good to have an imaginative mind, enabling you to say things that no one else comprehends.
I love the phrase "Up yours, Casablanca!" By far, it's the best phrase ever known by mankind. It has changed the way I live and will continue doing so. Not only by its whimsical nature but also by the way it allows for more stupidity in the world. It is puzzling and is the source of unforeseen laughter. It is an enigma.
Each time I said that phrase, I remember thinking: I will be the vessel of flesh where this phrase can inhabit. I will spread its infectious power so that laughter's reign will never die out.
(end memoir)
"That's probably the single most profound thing I have ever written," Horo said, suppressing a yawn. "I just..." But he never finished what he was about to say, for sleep had come, and it was lifting all traces of thought. He slept with a self satisfied expression on his face, his beloved memoir clutched tightly in one hand.
AN: I wanted to write something that's from a different perspective, because different is fun! Hooray for things that squeak and prance!