Hello there! Come on. Closer, yes that's it. Sit down and abandon all hopes of a serious face. We advise you not to eat or drink too much while reading this; you could create a mess all over the keyboard. Now, remember to review. That's right, REVIEW! If you are confused as to why you should, refer to Death and Destruction Co.'s "General Vengeance Act". Sadness at having no reviews is a bad feeling so if you like your body just the way it is, intact and in no harm with your soul still occupying it, review. It's that simple. By the way this is a one shot.
Disclaimer: Ownership is an illusion. Didn't you know that we're just a galaxy in a marble and giant green aliens are playing with us so we technically don't own anything? No? Well, just for the record we don't own Phantom of the Opera. We did, however, invent cheese. No, actually we lie. We only invented cheese in the shape of skulls. So ha!
Erm…GENERAL BASHING! Most characters from the film mentioned in this story will be bashed. We are fair and unbiased. No one is treated with respect. Everyone is oppressed equally. .
This one-shot is called,
Ooh, Cheese!But may also be known as,
In Which We Discover That the Phantom Likes Cheese, a Tour is Going on through the Depths of the Opera Populaire, an Old Woman Carries Bricks around in Her Bag…okay stop, cut, stop the Music…This would Be So Much Easier if You Just Went and Read The Damn Story…It's much more Interesting Than This Alternative Title…Ooh, Cheese!
The tour guide was about halfway through the tour so his sophisticated speech had faded into a bad French accent, much like Madame Giry's. He walked with a slight sway to his hips, a hand on one of those swaying hips and another daintily pointing at various paintings, mousetraps and rotting skeletons. Sometimes he mentioned a statue or two that they were passing. It was astonishing that the tourists understood even half of what he said due to his accent. It was quite appalling to say the least.
Many of the tourists felt like grabbing a chair, breaking it over his head and saying, "That there. That's pain! Now suck it up you pansy! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" in outrageous French accents like his. Actually that last bit was just us, but who's to say we aren't common faces or scary auras around the Opera Populaire – that's right, no one!
The tourists were pretty hungry, bored and tired by now due to the sheer number of stairs they had climbed up and climbed down and because they couldn't really understand what the tour guide was saying and it therefore wasn't very interesting. As expected, their thoughts had turned somewhat morbid towards Bob.
"This," the tour guide Bob said exuberantly as he stood beside an otherwise uninteresting and commonplace stairwell, "is the stairwell that leads to the cellars, which leads to the crypt, which leads to the lake and finally leads to the lair, so understandably it has been roped off."
He then began to describe a nearby painting's history and while he was occupied an eager young buck leant over the rope.
"Erm, I don't think you should…" But it was too late. The aforementioned young buck fell down the stairs. There was a scream and some sickening thumps that made the rest of the tour wince. Far below, they heard an evil amused laugh as the Phantom found the splattered remains of a tourist before they heard, quite distinctly, "Ooh, cheese!"
Then there was silence.
The tour guide turned to his audience, announcing, "Yes, my friends, it's true. The Phantom is eating cheese."
A second later a half-eaten lump of cheese hurtled up the stairs and smacked Bob right in the middle of the head.
"And it appears he has thrown a half-eaten lump of cheese at me." He continued undeterred.
The tourists oohed and aahed respectively and more munching echoed up the stairs. They edged away slightly.
"Let's continue with the tour, shall we?" Bob invited, so the tourists took some pictures of the stairwell; disappointed at not having seen the Phantom or been mauled, assaulted, threatened, sung to or killed by him. It was a shame really. They deserved any of those and more.
They continued on down the corridor muttering about luring the Phantom out of his lair with cheese, comparing brands and tastes. In short, they were plotting to steal away from the oblivious Bob and go back to the stairwell. If they were on a ship it would have been called mutiny!
But they weren't, so it wasn't.
An old woman used her large handbag, which happened to be filled with bricks to knock him over and from all appearances out, just as he was explaining the tricks behind the Phantom's Magic Mirror-
(Oooh! Magic Mirror! Is it one of those mirrors that make you fat or thin or tall or short?)
- in Christine's room, which happened to be where they were standing. She cackled, as old ladies tend to do and slung her bag over her shoulder again.
"Hey," said someone, "wasn't he just telling us how to get through the Phantom's Magic Mirror that inevitably leads to his lair?"
There was a brief contemplative silence.
"Nah!" they said and trooped off.
They trooped in ordered lines to the conveniently placed cheese shop in the souvenir store. Deciding against crèmebule, they opted for cheese in the shape of skulls. Gertrude, the old lady with bricks in her bag, slipped a piece of cheddar and a signed Phantom poster by the cashier. They somehow found their way into her large brick-filled bag, though no one was ever sure how.
The Phantom, being unbelievably unaware of the situation, practised his cape swirling and Punjab lasso twirling while repeating words like 'swirling' and 'twirling'. So really it sounded something like this…
"Swirly, twirly, swirly, whirly, twirly, swirl, twirl, swirl, twirl, swirl, twirl."
Perhaps it was a secret language only he knew. But most likely he was saying the words 'swirl' and 'twirl'.
He stopped suddenly, his cloak fluttering down to lay still over his back and his Punjab lasso lying motionless in his hand. His nose was in the air and he sniffed loudly through his mask.
"Cheese." He sniffed again, "Cheese!" and rushed off.
((THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: A PARODY. In your cinemas…some time in the distant future…but it sounds cool, doesn't it!))
He stood still at the top of the stairs and saw it! A piece of delicious cheese sitting alone and defenceless! He advanced forward, knelt down and plucked the piece of cheese off the floor more concerned about getting the string off the cheese than the sudden darkness. The cheese was gone in a single mouthful though because of his mask he had to eat it at the side of his mouth and consequently got quite a lot of it on his face. He swayed and dropped to the floor, snoring loudly. All in all, it was quite sudden. As was the cardboard box put neatly over the top, effectively capturing him.
(Did they even HAVE cardboard boxes back there? Do we really care? Why am I asking myself rehtorical questions?)
It appears our dear Phantom has been poisoned! (Dum, dum, duuuuum!) Who poisoned him? Was it the man who always seemed to know what the tour guide said, the old woman with bricks in her bag, Bob, the splattered remains of the young buck or perhaps the Phantom himself? After all, it was well known that the Phantom did his best to interrupt the business of cheese businesses with poison and ibises...
(Disgusting scavengers! I thrust this clipboard in your general direction, wave it about and yell! Flee! Flee before me!)
It all started because of the managers' stubborn and foolish refusal to pay his salary. Aah, revenge is sweet. Unless you eat the revenge, at which point it becomes a little sour and loses some of its taste…But not to worry! Our concern is the occupant of the cardboard box.
The tourists somehow managed to drag the cardboard box and its unconscious occupant to a hastily constructed photo studio, which consisted of one tourist's digital camera and a sheet for a blank backdrop. By now the Phantom was awake and was thrashing about quite madly in the manner of an eel about to be deep-fried. The tourists tipped him out onto the floor, with difficulty, and rushed to barricade the doors and windows.
The Phantom was utterly confused, though you couldn't really tell because the white mask hid any definite expression on his face. All of a sudden the camera started flashing and the Phantom covered his face screaming, "Aah! My eyes! My eyes!" Nevertheless, after a while he started to get into it and began posing. The photographer began shouting phrases like, "Look through me! Look through the camera! You're a tiger! A tiger! You're the Phantom! Be the Phantom! Be the…"
At the words, "Be the Phantom!" the overexcited Phantom took out his Punjab lasso and began advancing on the photographer. Terrified he ran and the Phantom chased after him all the way to the door outside the cheese shop. At this moment Christine passed by with her usual vacant expression humming "Think Of Me" and trying to remember the words to the song because well, her memory wasn't what it used to be. Raoul the Fop who carried a small mirror, at which he gazed every few seconds and a piece of cheese from the cheese shop, closely followed her.
The Phantom, noticing what he carried, said, "Ooh, cheese!" and gave the tourist a chance to push him into the cheese shop and bolt the door. Nobody noticed when Raoul dropped suddenly and began snoring loudly, his mirror shattering on the floor. That's seven years bad luck right there!
The tourist breathed hard. Working with psychotic, obsessive Phantoms were always dangerous. You only had a limited amount of time before they went psycho on you and tried to kill or marry you.
"Let me out!" shouted the Phantom dangerously, banging on the door with his fists, "You can't do this to me! I'm the Phantom! You can't do this!"
After a while of that the Phantom, exhausted and defeated, turned around to survey the room. Forgetting his downfall at the hands of tourists he noticed where he was and stepped up to the nearest display.
"Ooh, cheese!"
The cheese in question looked up at the drooling Phantom and uttered one pathetic "Meep?" before being swallowed and chomped and eaten and digested.
Within the space of half an hour there was no cheese left in the cheese shop. Therefore it becomes simply a 'shop' whose origin is unknown and reason for being there forgotten. In this half an hour the Phantom meandered over to the door and twisted the doorknob, not expecting it to open, because obviously he'd checked it before.
It opened.
So much for that theory.
So the Phantom swept from the cheese shop and stood in the middle of the corridor, which you could say wasn't subtle of him. And it wasn't.
But luckily for him it was night time. There were no tourists, no tour guides, no fops, no singers, no bad French accents. Night. His element. His empire.
He swept dramatically forward, bounced off a wall, got tangled in a tapestry, was nearly strangled by his cloak, became blinded by his mask and then tripped over a large inanimate object that let out a muffled groan as he fell over it. Now inanimate objects don't often make muffled groans, as the Phantom was well aware. And as he swept dramatically back to his feet, he noticed it was Raoul, who, if we remember correctly, was knocked out a few chapters ago.
Raoul, woken by the Phantom's feverish footsies, sat up and swirled his hair around and stroked it as he stretched luxuriously and got to his feet. He didn't notice the Phantom and the Phantom sadly enough, because we do so wish to say he is observant, did not notice him. But that is only because he has his unwavering half mask- covered concentration on the piece of cheese from the ex-cheese shopclutched delicately in Raoul's hand.
Raoul looked up and saw the Phantom step out of the shadows, his cloak swirling impressively and his eyes flaming. Thinking he was about to die a horrible and painful death, he turned and ran, his hair floating behind him in the breeze. The Phantom followed and tackled him after about two steps.
(I know, a long chase scene would have been far more exciting but, well, fops aren't that athletic.)
Raoul screamed and flung both hands across his face, eyelashes fluttering in terror. Why eyelashes need to flutter to express terror is beyond me, but fops are different from other…normal….people. Instead of feeling the icy grip of Death (or, indeed, Destruction) he felt something wrenched from his hands. Then there was silence, of course if you didn't count the sound of boots running away as noise.
Raoul sat up.
His cheese was gone.
A random yet strangely familiartune was being played from a very conveniently placed toy monkey in Persian robes playing the cymbals, whose eyes gleamed demonically red.
And from down the corridor, as the Phantom found his next victim, Raoul heard the gut-wrenching sound, hair-raising, pant-wetting sound of…..
"Ooh, cheese!"
The End
This was just a random story we thought up one day while enduring something about tour guides…..NEMESIS!
Go check out our site(found on our profile in the Homepage section) and sign up as minions. Oh and REVIEW!
Death and Destruction, Mistresses of the Dark, Dugongs, Meese and Bazookas Disguised as Poles.