Manny Bianco's The Meaning Of Life: Black Books With A Song By Monty Python's Flying Circus
Rating: G
Author: Ozza, you crazy fool.
Manny cheers Bernard up with song (or at least, tries to...).
I've been singing this darn song all day so I decided to put it to some kind of use. Well, any kind of use. Obviously, not a good one. Oh, well. All my writing's a pile of poo anyway.
Well, carry on, then...
"Come on, Bernard! Try to cheer up."
Bernard's head rested on the desk.
"Come on... Let me see that smile..." Cooed Manny, as if addressing a sad little child.
Bernard lifted his head to give him the world's filthiest look, like a tramp in a mud bath.
Manny's smile fell away instantly. No-one could look happy if Bernard gave them his 'smile if you want to peel your flesh from the ceiling and glue it back onto your body' look.
"Bernard, it's not all that bad."
"Shut up. The world is a torture chamber." Bernard growled, before replacing his head on the desk.
Manny stood in silent thought for a minute, then left the room and came back.
"Right, Bernard, I've got something to cheer you up."
"Go away."
"Come on, Bernard..."
Bernard reluctantly looked up to see Manny in a pink suit.
"What are you doing?"
"Cheering you up," said Manny with a grin. Music picked up for nowhere.
"Whenever life's looking slack, Mr Black,
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft," he grabbed the Irishman by his elbow and pulled him up out of his seat with some difficulty,
"And you feel that you'd had quite ennnooouuugh..."
The wall at the far side of the shop collapsed, but instead of leading through to Goliath Books, it lead through to what seemed to be floating space.
Manny led him out into it, still gripping him by the elbow.
"Just remember that you're standing
On a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second,
So it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power."
Bernard yanked his arm away and scowled.
"The sun and you and me
And all the stars that we can see," he indicated the galaxy around them,
"Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way."
They continued to stroll through the galaxy, Bernard with his hands in his pockets, sulking.
"Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side," continued Manny.
"It bulges in the middle,
Sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from galactic central-point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe."
He dared to put an arm around Bernard's shoulders (who threw him another one of his magnificent dirty looks) and attempted to steer him off in another direction. Bernard yanked himself away.
"Get away from me!" He yelled. "I've had enough. I humoured you the first verse, but now you're just taking the Michael Palin! I'm going back." He made to walk away, but Manny tugged the back of his jacket, causing him to lash out an arm, missing him by a good few inches.
"Come on, Bernard, there's only one verse left... and a punch-line!"
Bernard sighed and decided to put up with him for one last verse.
"The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz." Manny tugged his sleeve to keep him close and headed back to the hole back into the shop.
"As fast as it can go,
The speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is." He poked Bernard in the chest as if to say 'didn't know that, did you?' and they stepped back through into the shop.
"So, remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth!"
Silence fell.
"... Was that it?" Said Bernard, unimpressed.
"Well, yes... What did you think? Do you feel like your quality of life has been improved in anyway?"
Bernard looked thoughtful, then hit him on the head with an empty wine bottle, which shattered on contact, and knocked him out cold.
"What do you know, Manny, I'm feeling a lot better! Thanks for that."
He sat down and lit a cigarette.
Fran entered and was just about to speak to him, when she saw Manny's unconscious body on the floor and half of the shop destroyed to reveal open space. She looked around in awe.
"Wh-what happened...?"
"Oh, Fran, you know," Bernard sighed, "I've just got him to shut up, now you're starting going on, what is this? I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, you know..."
Suddenly, the door burst open and three priests in scarlet robes ran in.
The smallest, Fang, tripped over the hem of his robe, causing him to stumble and knock some books from the table by the window.
"Nooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Shouted their leader.
Bernard and Fran stared at them, frozen in shock.
Bernard inhaled deeply and all of his cigarette burnt up, causing a long line of ash to fall off into his lap.
Ozza: How was that? Did you love it? No? Oh, phooey.
Adding the Spanish Inquisition was a last minute idea that I just stuck in there for good measure. It was gonna end after Bernard lit his cigarette, but I like this ending more, anyway.
The Galaxy Song by Eric Idle
Black Books property of Dylan Moran (well, mainly... ;)
The Spanish Inquisition property of Monty Python's Flying Circus
LoL- That Terry Jones is reight silleh.