- six - The Joker
Ebert's Office. Our dimension : 10 days after the creation of Kemen Yäve Ar Ruth Lhach. Middle Earth :
1000 years after creation, 6 months after rising, and 2 months since leaving Mordor.
Figwit sits in Ebert's office chair, waiting for his boss to enter. Figwit's sudden urge to cut his
hair and wear an unnassuming, contented expression makes him look similar to Mr Bean. He
begins to spin around on the chair.
[ Enter Mr. Ebert, wearing a grey suit, and the deeply stressed face of a man who has just jumped off a
bridge, learnt of his wife's act of adultery with his mother, jumped off another bridge, and come home to see
that his mansion has been demolished to make way for a puddle of rainwater that environmentalists claim
will one day be the origin of all of mankind's cheese products and eventually the center of galactic civilization.
Of course, none of these things have happened to Ebert, yet, but the author finds them interesting to
imagine. ]
As soon as Ebert appears, Figwit stops spinning on the chair and begins to blubber something
about being sorry.
Ebert dismisses his apologies with a wave of his hand, and commands Figwit to go back to
Middle Earth and get back to his orginal task - the destruction of Middle Earth. However, Ebert
reveals that the success of this mission relies on its secrecy - the other Academy members think
that the problem is already solved, and Middle Earth has gone forever. Never again will there be a
Lord of the Rings film, and never again will its fans complain when it does not win 'Best Picture'.
Apparently.
With a sharp order and a reminder about secrecy, again Ebert sends Figwit off to his filing
cabinet, and on to Mordor.
Kemen Yäve peered cautiously around the glass vase. She had appeared quite suddenly onto a shiny
mahogany desk, and wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. So she decided to hide behind some flowers.
"Hello," said the flowers cheerfully, speaking together as one.
The scone froze, and then stared rigidly up at the flowers, who were gazing down at her inquisitively --
if a flower can ever be described as inquisitive. She hesitated.
"Hello?" she asked quietly after a ten minute silence.
"Hello."
"Hi."
"Hello."
"Er..."
"Hello."
Here Kemen Yäve was, lost and not to mention a little scared, on a strange desk, about to meet some
strange being whom Gandalf had abrubtly sent her to, and the only remotely intelligent beings within hearing
range were a group of flowers who spoke repetetively, in unison. She could not help but feel a little irritated.
"Is that all you say?" she snapped.
"No."
"Would you like to tell me where I am, then?"
Pause.
"No."
Kemen Yäve sighed and let herself collapse down the side of the vase.
After about an hour she heard the sound of a bell. It sounded suspiciously like a bicycle bell. Sure
enough, a bicycle rode into view.
Kemen Yäve knew enough about the world to understand that bicycles are not rode indoors, and those
who do that usually have a remarkably good excuse. However, the man who was on the bicycle looked as
though this excuse was not going to be offered by him within the next decade.
The man appeared to be elderly. His flowing white beard was of an extremely fine and well-tended
quality, if you avoided looking at the multicoloured ribbons of various sizes that adorned it. He wore robes
that were obviously expensive and in pristine condition, if one ignored the fact that they were of a sky blue
and fiery orange colour scheme. His eyes were bright and blue, almost unnaturally so. In his right hand he
wielded a majestic looking staff. His left hand was occupied with the two tasks of directing the bicycle around
the room in circles whilst avoiding the antiques, and honking the bell as much as possible.
After a while the man found it necessary to desist in this (although entertaining) not terribly productive
past-time.
He leapt off his seat and strode towards the desk.
"Hello," said the flowers.
"Hellooooo," the man cooed.
Kemen Yäve stared.
The man must have sensed this, because he shot out a hand and slided the vase to the edge of a desk so
that Kemen Yäve was finally exposed from her hiding place.
"Er.. hello?" she offered, hoping that she didn't sound too flower-like.
He grinned.
With a startlingly acrobatic jump, he was standing on top of the desk chair.
"Do you know what time it is...? Of course you don't! You are new to Isengard, how can you be
expected to know what time -" He cut himself off and smacked his forehead. "Welcome to my wonderland of
fun and chocolate snowmen. Oooh, those trees, their colours give me quite the headache! But I am glad, for no
other land on this side of Middle Earth has trees of such a purple as they are here! Oh no, sir!"
The man spun around in circles, making car noises.
"Vrooooom, vrrooom, VROOOOOOOOM! Oh, around the socks we go! Around the ducks we flow!
Vrooom!" He began to opera sing.
"Erm..." Kemen Yäve started to speak quietly. She was incredibly unsure of the whole situation. The
man spun around and looked the scone straight in her jam blob eyes.
"I am Saruman! The White! Saruman of the Snow - oh, it'll be a jolly fine winter! And... you! You...! You
are...!"
"Erm..." she repeated, this time even more quietly, as though she were toying with the idea that how
oddly the man behaved depended on how loud her voice was.
"Oh, I know! You are Gandalf's little helper!"
"That's not exactly the correct term, but if you insist, then, yes. I do try to help," she said, finally finding
her courage -- although admitttedly, not a lot of it.
"AHHHH... I see! Well, in that case, tell me about Gondor!" He pulled up the chair and sat at the desk,
looking eagerly at the poor scone.
Kemen Yäve was not to be fooled. She still held enough faith in Gandalf's reputation to know that the
wizard he had sent her to could not usually be as odd as this. She silently wondered what had happened to
him, but decided to save questions for later. For now, she could take advantage of this fortunate situation and
use the man's temperory idiocy to get herself out of trouble, and out of Isengard.
"Well," she began, "It's interesting that you asked me this, because I find that Gondor has improved
muchly since my revolution."
"Yours, you say?" asked Saruman, wide eyed with child-like curiosity.
"Yes. I wrote a book, and I feel it has changed Gondor, possibly forever. In fact, I believe that it changed
all of Middle Earth. Or, rather, it could have. If only Gandalf hadn't decided to reverse its effects."
"How rude!"
"Indeed," Kemen Yäve nodded with enthusiasm.
"You must do something about this!" cried Saruman.
"Well, that's not really my plan. I don't really want to do all that stuff to Gondor again, because I admit
that Gandalf does actually have a point. I just like complaining about it."
"NO! What he did was UNFORGIVABLE! You cannot change an entire city and then have him barge in
like a musk ox and reverse all your wondorous magic! It's not just rude! It's like stamping on freshly baked
cookies! It's like dropping a mountain onto custard pies just because they're more yellow! It's like telling fish
that they should become crocodiles and then not even arranging their pension schemes! It is, I REPEAT,
unforgivable!"
The little scone was a little worried at this point. This conversation wasn't going at all how she intended.
Panicking a little for fear of complete failure, she tried to divert the conversation back to her original plan.
When she looked back at Saruman she found that he was now swatting flies.
"Um," she began. Saruman continued to swat the flies, and then started on the nearest window. "Eh..."
"Yes?!" raged the old wizard, sitting on the floor and nodding his head.
"Beh..." explained Kemen Yäve.
"Would it make you more comfortable if I stopped cooking dinner?"
"Is that what you were doing?" asked Kemen Yäve faintly, close to insanity.
"No. But I can, if you like."
The scone coughed. Saruman took this as an invite, and Kemen Yäve found herself attempting to speak
above his voluntary sound effects of whisking egg white.
"And you go like this..." He began to hum. "And then... voila!"
After he demonstrated the imaginary frying of chilli peppers and then the baking of donuts, all with
more voluntary sound effects, the scone thought it necessary to restrain him from play-cooking any longer.
"I have some information for you!" she yelled to attract his attention, whilst mentally searching for some
information to tell him.
"Oh really? What's that?"
"I have realised that... uh... your apron is BLUE!"
Of course, this was a complete and utter lie. Saruman was not wearing an apron at all, but Kemen Yäve
realised it would be best to pretend as though he were.
"I do?! Schmeck, you're right! I'm wearing an apron!"
The scone grinned patiently and encouragingly. She spoke again.
"Well, now that I've told you some useful information, may I now leave Isengard?"
"Of course! You may have the power of speed!" With a "Zap!" and an equally unnecessary "Kerrrrow!",
Saruman cast upon Kemen Yäve the gift of speed. This was more than she had ever hoped for. The scone
would have been perfectly content to thank Saruman and then zoom out of the door right at that instant, had
not Saruman suddenly called for more useful information.
"Uh..." she started. "The Royal Duck of Mordor is on the loose!"
"Most excellent!" cried Saruman, apparently ignoring the fact that there was no such duck, and even if
there was, it would not be Royal as Mordor does not have a monarchy, which is an extremely sensible idea
and one that other countries would do well to copy. Particularly that place called Britain.
"I think I'll make you water-proof!" Saruman yelled out enthusiastically. And with a 'Shazaaam!',
Kemen Yäve was waterproof.
"Thank you!" cried the scone in delight. "Then I'll just be going now, yeah?" Without waiting for an
answer, she jumped off the table and made for the door, waving to the flowers as she went.
"Hello," said the flowers. Kemen Yäve smiled patiently, and was almost out of the door when she heard
Saruman speak again.
"Off to find Figwit, eh? I hear he was last seen in Gondor."
The scone turned around. "Who?"
"Figwit. I have no doubt that you plan to ask him why he didn't give you the gift of speed!" Saruman
laughed, a little more than was needed.
"Uh..."
"Run along!" cried the wizard, and with a 'POOOF!', she had been zapped out of the castle stright onto
the fields of Rohan, wondering who the hell Figwit was and, more importantly, how quickly her new powers
allowed her to run.
Later that day in Isengard, Gandalf made his way up to Saruman's tower. There he found the old
wizard leaning back calmly in a chair, smoking a pipe. Gandalf looked around the room. It was unbelievably
immaculate. If, at that moment, Gandalf had been looking for a bicycle - which he wouldn't - he would not
have found one. And if Gandalf had expected Saruman's white beard to be adorned with multi-coloured
ribbons of varying sizes - which he wouldn't - he would have been disappointed.
"Greetings," murmured Saruman quietly, lost in thought.
"Hail," Gandalf replied.
The flowers were silent.
"So..." began Gandalf, after an awkward silence, "Did you keep that scone out of trouble? I've just spent
the entire day clearing up that mess in Gondor. Underwater baskets everywhere... pffft, and the Steward
completely entranced with them... I'll tell you, it was a damn troublesome thing to sort out. I also had to
convince half the bakeries of Gondor that it is not acceptable to eat baskets. It was quite the - "
"Silence!" boomed Saruman. "I will not have any more talk of Gondor's state, nor the abomination of a
scone that you sent to me!"
"Okeday," Gandalf said cheerfully, who was in fact quite glad about this. "I'll just, er, let myself out
then..."
"Yes."
"Farewell." Gandalf stood at the door for a few minutes, and when Saruman still did not respond, he
turned to the flowers.
"Farewell," he repeated.
The flowers said nothing.
Gandalf shuffled out of the door.
Once he was out of the tower, Saruman got up wearily and sat down again, next to the flowers.
"Ugh... if he found out what happened earlier on, I'd be in serious shit."
"It'd be an outrage. Saruman the White, smoking weed," the flowers cooed in unison. "I can think of
several puns for that that would make for rather catching newspaper headlines."
"I'm sure you can... as long as he doesn't find out what I did to that scone, I'm out of trouble, I guess."
"Ah, but you also set the name 'Figwit' in Kemen Yäve's mind. As well as the rumour of his location.
That wasn't extremely intelligent either..."
Saruman shrugged. "I was high. Besides, I think it's for the best."
The flowers sighed. After a few minutes silence, they offered a leaf to the wizard. "You'll get to ride the
bicycle again... " the flowers grinned in a flower-like manner, and Saruman found himself taking the leaf and
putting it in his pipe.
"Sure, why the hell not?"
Ebert's Office. Our dimension : 10 days after the creation of Kemen Yäve Ar Ruth Lhach. Middle Earth :
1000 years after creation, 6 months after rising, and 2 months since leaving Mordor.
Figwit sits in Ebert's office chair, waiting for his boss to enter. Figwit's sudden urge to cut his
hair and wear an unnassuming, contented expression makes him look similar to Mr Bean. He
begins to spin around on the chair.
[ Enter Mr. Ebert, wearing a grey suit, and the deeply stressed face of a man who has just jumped off a
bridge, learnt of his wife's act of adultery with his mother, jumped off another bridge, and come home to see
that his mansion has been demolished to make way for a puddle of rainwater that environmentalists claim
will one day be the origin of all of mankind's cheese products and eventually the center of galactic civilization.
Of course, none of these things have happened to Ebert, yet, but the author finds them interesting to
imagine. ]
As soon as Ebert appears, Figwit stops spinning on the chair and begins to blubber something
about being sorry.
Ebert dismisses his apologies with a wave of his hand, and commands Figwit to go back to
Middle Earth and get back to his orginal task - the destruction of Middle Earth. However, Ebert
reveals that the success of this mission relies on its secrecy - the other Academy members think
that the problem is already solved, and Middle Earth has gone forever. Never again will there be a
Lord of the Rings film, and never again will its fans complain when it does not win 'Best Picture'.
Apparently.
With a sharp order and a reminder about secrecy, again Ebert sends Figwit off to his filing
cabinet, and on to Mordor.
Kemen Yäve peered cautiously around the glass vase. She had appeared quite suddenly onto a shiny
mahogany desk, and wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. So she decided to hide behind some flowers.
"Hello," said the flowers cheerfully, speaking together as one.
The scone froze, and then stared rigidly up at the flowers, who were gazing down at her inquisitively --
if a flower can ever be described as inquisitive. She hesitated.
"Hello?" she asked quietly after a ten minute silence.
"Hello."
"Hi."
"Hello."
"Er..."
"Hello."
Here Kemen Yäve was, lost and not to mention a little scared, on a strange desk, about to meet some
strange being whom Gandalf had abrubtly sent her to, and the only remotely intelligent beings within hearing
range were a group of flowers who spoke repetetively, in unison. She could not help but feel a little irritated.
"Is that all you say?" she snapped.
"No."
"Would you like to tell me where I am, then?"
Pause.
"No."
Kemen Yäve sighed and let herself collapse down the side of the vase.
After about an hour she heard the sound of a bell. It sounded suspiciously like a bicycle bell. Sure
enough, a bicycle rode into view.
Kemen Yäve knew enough about the world to understand that bicycles are not rode indoors, and those
who do that usually have a remarkably good excuse. However, the man who was on the bicycle looked as
though this excuse was not going to be offered by him within the next decade.
The man appeared to be elderly. His flowing white beard was of an extremely fine and well-tended
quality, if you avoided looking at the multicoloured ribbons of various sizes that adorned it. He wore robes
that were obviously expensive and in pristine condition, if one ignored the fact that they were of a sky blue
and fiery orange colour scheme. His eyes were bright and blue, almost unnaturally so. In his right hand he
wielded a majestic looking staff. His left hand was occupied with the two tasks of directing the bicycle around
the room in circles whilst avoiding the antiques, and honking the bell as much as possible.
After a while the man found it necessary to desist in this (although entertaining) not terribly productive
past-time.
He leapt off his seat and strode towards the desk.
"Hello," said the flowers.
"Hellooooo," the man cooed.
Kemen Yäve stared.
The man must have sensed this, because he shot out a hand and slided the vase to the edge of a desk so
that Kemen Yäve was finally exposed from her hiding place.
"Er.. hello?" she offered, hoping that she didn't sound too flower-like.
He grinned.
With a startlingly acrobatic jump, he was standing on top of the desk chair.
"Do you know what time it is...? Of course you don't! You are new to Isengard, how can you be
expected to know what time -" He cut himself off and smacked his forehead. "Welcome to my wonderland of
fun and chocolate snowmen. Oooh, those trees, their colours give me quite the headache! But I am glad, for no
other land on this side of Middle Earth has trees of such a purple as they are here! Oh no, sir!"
The man spun around in circles, making car noises.
"Vrooooom, vrrooom, VROOOOOOOOM! Oh, around the socks we go! Around the ducks we flow!
Vrooom!" He began to opera sing.
"Erm..." Kemen Yäve started to speak quietly. She was incredibly unsure of the whole situation. The
man spun around and looked the scone straight in her jam blob eyes.
"I am Saruman! The White! Saruman of the Snow - oh, it'll be a jolly fine winter! And... you! You...! You
are...!"
"Erm..." she repeated, this time even more quietly, as though she were toying with the idea that how
oddly the man behaved depended on how loud her voice was.
"Oh, I know! You are Gandalf's little helper!"
"That's not exactly the correct term, but if you insist, then, yes. I do try to help," she said, finally finding
her courage -- although admitttedly, not a lot of it.
"AHHHH... I see! Well, in that case, tell me about Gondor!" He pulled up the chair and sat at the desk,
looking eagerly at the poor scone.
Kemen Yäve was not to be fooled. She still held enough faith in Gandalf's reputation to know that the
wizard he had sent her to could not usually be as odd as this. She silently wondered what had happened to
him, but decided to save questions for later. For now, she could take advantage of this fortunate situation and
use the man's temperory idiocy to get herself out of trouble, and out of Isengard.
"Well," she began, "It's interesting that you asked me this, because I find that Gondor has improved
muchly since my revolution."
"Yours, you say?" asked Saruman, wide eyed with child-like curiosity.
"Yes. I wrote a book, and I feel it has changed Gondor, possibly forever. In fact, I believe that it changed
all of Middle Earth. Or, rather, it could have. If only Gandalf hadn't decided to reverse its effects."
"How rude!"
"Indeed," Kemen Yäve nodded with enthusiasm.
"You must do something about this!" cried Saruman.
"Well, that's not really my plan. I don't really want to do all that stuff to Gondor again, because I admit
that Gandalf does actually have a point. I just like complaining about it."
"NO! What he did was UNFORGIVABLE! You cannot change an entire city and then have him barge in
like a musk ox and reverse all your wondorous magic! It's not just rude! It's like stamping on freshly baked
cookies! It's like dropping a mountain onto custard pies just because they're more yellow! It's like telling fish
that they should become crocodiles and then not even arranging their pension schemes! It is, I REPEAT,
unforgivable!"
The little scone was a little worried at this point. This conversation wasn't going at all how she intended.
Panicking a little for fear of complete failure, she tried to divert the conversation back to her original plan.
When she looked back at Saruman she found that he was now swatting flies.
"Um," she began. Saruman continued to swat the flies, and then started on the nearest window. "Eh..."
"Yes?!" raged the old wizard, sitting on the floor and nodding his head.
"Beh..." explained Kemen Yäve.
"Would it make you more comfortable if I stopped cooking dinner?"
"Is that what you were doing?" asked Kemen Yäve faintly, close to insanity.
"No. But I can, if you like."
The scone coughed. Saruman took this as an invite, and Kemen Yäve found herself attempting to speak
above his voluntary sound effects of whisking egg white.
"And you go like this..." He began to hum. "And then... voila!"
After he demonstrated the imaginary frying of chilli peppers and then the baking of donuts, all with
more voluntary sound effects, the scone thought it necessary to restrain him from play-cooking any longer.
"I have some information for you!" she yelled to attract his attention, whilst mentally searching for some
information to tell him.
"Oh really? What's that?"
"I have realised that... uh... your apron is BLUE!"
Of course, this was a complete and utter lie. Saruman was not wearing an apron at all, but Kemen Yäve
realised it would be best to pretend as though he were.
"I do?! Schmeck, you're right! I'm wearing an apron!"
The scone grinned patiently and encouragingly. She spoke again.
"Well, now that I've told you some useful information, may I now leave Isengard?"
"Of course! You may have the power of speed!" With a "Zap!" and an equally unnecessary "Kerrrrow!",
Saruman cast upon Kemen Yäve the gift of speed. This was more than she had ever hoped for. The scone
would have been perfectly content to thank Saruman and then zoom out of the door right at that instant, had
not Saruman suddenly called for more useful information.
"Uh..." she started. "The Royal Duck of Mordor is on the loose!"
"Most excellent!" cried Saruman, apparently ignoring the fact that there was no such duck, and even if
there was, it would not be Royal as Mordor does not have a monarchy, which is an extremely sensible idea
and one that other countries would do well to copy. Particularly that place called Britain.
"I think I'll make you water-proof!" Saruman yelled out enthusiastically. And with a 'Shazaaam!',
Kemen Yäve was waterproof.
"Thank you!" cried the scone in delight. "Then I'll just be going now, yeah?" Without waiting for an
answer, she jumped off the table and made for the door, waving to the flowers as she went.
"Hello," said the flowers. Kemen Yäve smiled patiently, and was almost out of the door when she heard
Saruman speak again.
"Off to find Figwit, eh? I hear he was last seen in Gondor."
The scone turned around. "Who?"
"Figwit. I have no doubt that you plan to ask him why he didn't give you the gift of speed!" Saruman
laughed, a little more than was needed.
"Uh..."
"Run along!" cried the wizard, and with a 'POOOF!', she had been zapped out of the castle stright onto
the fields of Rohan, wondering who the hell Figwit was and, more importantly, how quickly her new powers
allowed her to run.
Later that day in Isengard, Gandalf made his way up to Saruman's tower. There he found the old
wizard leaning back calmly in a chair, smoking a pipe. Gandalf looked around the room. It was unbelievably
immaculate. If, at that moment, Gandalf had been looking for a bicycle - which he wouldn't - he would not
have found one. And if Gandalf had expected Saruman's white beard to be adorned with multi-coloured
ribbons of varying sizes - which he wouldn't - he would have been disappointed.
"Greetings," murmured Saruman quietly, lost in thought.
"Hail," Gandalf replied.
The flowers were silent.
"So..." began Gandalf, after an awkward silence, "Did you keep that scone out of trouble? I've just spent
the entire day clearing up that mess in Gondor. Underwater baskets everywhere... pffft, and the Steward
completely entranced with them... I'll tell you, it was a damn troublesome thing to sort out. I also had to
convince half the bakeries of Gondor that it is not acceptable to eat baskets. It was quite the - "
"Silence!" boomed Saruman. "I will not have any more talk of Gondor's state, nor the abomination of a
scone that you sent to me!"
"Okeday," Gandalf said cheerfully, who was in fact quite glad about this. "I'll just, er, let myself out
then..."
"Yes."
"Farewell." Gandalf stood at the door for a few minutes, and when Saruman still did not respond, he
turned to the flowers.
"Farewell," he repeated.
The flowers said nothing.
Gandalf shuffled out of the door.
Once he was out of the tower, Saruman got up wearily and sat down again, next to the flowers.
"Ugh... if he found out what happened earlier on, I'd be in serious shit."
"It'd be an outrage. Saruman the White, smoking weed," the flowers cooed in unison. "I can think of
several puns for that that would make for rather catching newspaper headlines."
"I'm sure you can... as long as he doesn't find out what I did to that scone, I'm out of trouble, I guess."
"Ah, but you also set the name 'Figwit' in Kemen Yäve's mind. As well as the rumour of his location.
That wasn't extremely intelligent either..."
Saruman shrugged. "I was high. Besides, I think it's for the best."
The flowers sighed. After a few minutes silence, they offered a leaf to the wizard. "You'll get to ride the
bicycle again... " the flowers grinned in a flower-like manner, and Saruman found himself taking the leaf and
putting it in his pipe.
"Sure, why the hell not?"