Tales of the Island Symphony

by Light Onthemayo

With Cunimincus and his demonic crew gone, the search is on again for Irleen's home. The following stories have NOTHING to do with that search. This is a series featuring the crew of the Island Symphony at their looniest (mostly), detailing events that may or may not have happened during and after Sky Lines.

20. Sello Talks

TOAST: By the light of twenty-five million three hundred fifty-seven thousand four hundred eighty-three belly buttons, I am the little toe of the universe. Slather me with your jelly; I am the smoking paddle!

…

Tale #20: Sello Talks

Sello stepped up to the podium. "Ma friendz, ma buddiez, ma… tenderwurst," he said, raising a confused eyebrow at that last word. "Dis makes me happier den wolfin' a turdle. Bud Ah'm juzd doin' a peep; diz iz yer tomado. An' I dink ya did squeezy. Da boiler makes da wooshy much bedder dan ma toasty. Da spinniez do da spinniez four-zeven-eight-eight-point-five-two timez. Dat's a woosh." He glanced down behind the podium. "OooOOOoooooh." He reached down and produced a bottle of beer. After giving the podium a nod, he took a long pull from the bottle. He smacked his lips together, gave the bottle a cross look, and tossed it over his shoulder. "Where wuz Ah? Uh… an' where am Ah?" He glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, yeah.

"Lezze… da boiler, da wooshy, ma toasty, da spinnies… four-zeven-eight-eight-point-five-two… da's a—dat's a woosh! Bud it's a woosh juzd a bigger bean dan ma zpank monkey. Ah believe dat ya ken spoodle da wingerz by buildin' da spinnies ta do zix-four-one-one-point-eight-zeven timez an' pudda burper muskles in da toasty. Ah wanna do dat voodoo in da tomado, if ya wanna do da kookie in ma shell." He paused again and glanced down under the podium. Then he reached in and pulled out a large bottle of sparkling wine, spilling some of it onto the floor. He took a drink. Then he threw the bottle over his shoulder. "I AM DA CAT DAT CAME BACK!" he hollered into the podium, eliciting a loud thud from underneath. "DO NOT TICKLE ME WITH YOUR SMELLY WATERZ!"

Sello then looked up as if realizing where he was. Well, relatively speaking; he was still clueless, but he stood up straight and resumed talking. "Bud Ah fly like a… scoop. Hmm. Ah dink Ah'm gettin' cheesy. Ah am a lemon. Dree cheeses, and Ah'll be in ma shortz. Bud Ah yoing. Uh…" Sello twisted his face as he tried to think. "Where wuz Ah? Uuuuuuh—oh, yeah! Ah wanna drink da tomado! Uh, waidda minute. Ah'll spank da tomado?" He glanced over his shoulder. "OooOOOoooh! I'mma be zpankin' dat!" He paused for a moment. "Oh, yeah! Ma bad! Ah wanna do ma voodoo! Pleeeeeease please lemme do voodoo!" Something under the podium caught his attention, and he reached down. There was a struggle, during which he shouted, "TWENTY-THREE COCONUTS, YOU WINDOW!" He kicked one foot under the podium, and something fell over under the stage. Producing a bottle of whiskey, he pointed into the podium and declared, "VICTORY IS IN THE MILK OF THE TOOFBRUSH! I AM SELLOOOOO!" He raised the bottle and struck the neck against the podium. Tonk. Sello held the bottle close to his face as if to determine whether the bottle really had not broken. Then he struck it again. Tonk. Sello gave a moment to think about the situation.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Tonktonktonktonktonktonk! Krsh! Whiskey spilled over the podium once the neck finally shattered. "AH-HAH!" Sello was at least aware enough to not put his lips directly on the jagged edge of the bottle as he took a drink, although this caused more whiskey to cascade down the front of his clothes. Only one third of the bottle's contents remained before he threw it over his shoulder. Then he leaned on the podium and hollered into it, "STOP NOT MA DIRSTY CANS, STINKY!"

Then he looked up at his audience. "Life iz like a box a' yellow. Seven carts in da moon serve ya a chocolate. An' den da baggiez broffle da liedershmozen 'til dree sons drow a pancake. Ma toez will eat yer jolly griffinz. Ma griffinz will eat yer haircut. Ma haircut will eat yer zpank! And I'm a cereal map!" He raised a fist into the air. "Break da curtinz, people! Break da filfy cheese!"

It was about this point where the entirety of Sello's audience had fallen silent. Most experienced a radical degree of bewilderment with the persistent impression that either Sello or they were suffering from some mental ailment. Those that were not confused were too busy stifling their laughter at Sello's deranged diction or his torment of the unfortunate errand boy working beneath the stage. The strain on the latter of these parties increased when a stick with a bottle lashed to it slowly crept out from behind the podium.

"Up on da ground iz a boof!" Sello continued to rant, his raised hand pointed at the shell-shaped amphitheater roof above him. "An' I am da egg! Two drough da shoe, an' you be da moose! Bud in da toof of a bean, da biggo-wat iz a melon soup! In da goolie! In da boolie! In da gaboolie! An' in da scooch!" He took note of the bottle and grabbed it. The stick sprang from the errand boy's hand and slipped through the twine holding it to the bottle. Sello ignored this as he clamped down on the bottle's cork with his teeth and pulled. The cork refused to budge, so Sello took a moment to gnaw on it. When he tasted a trickle of the bottle's contents, he decided to put the bottleneck in his mouth to drink. Keen-eyed observers noticed that, when he pulled the bottleneck back out, the cork was missing. He raised the bottle in the air and declared, "TURN DA SCOOTER INNA A HAIRY CHICKEN!"

What no one realized was that, by raising the bottle to the air, he caused sunlight to narrow into a beam that angled into the open firebox behind him. Being a clear bottle with half of its contents gone (and Sello basking in the uproar of an excited crowd, despite the actual crowd showing yet more confusion), it ignited the stick sitting just inside the firebox. This caused a flash in the firebox since the coal inside the box had been soaked in the alcohol Sello had been throwing over his shoulder.

Only a few people in the front row noticed that the tall, cylindrical steam engine behind Sello had come to life. While the engineers had had the foresight to install a relief valve on their prototype engine, no one had imagined that they would need to trigger it while there was a whole stage between it and them. The fact that the engine was being blocked by what appeared to be a raging lunatic obviously ignorant of the danger behind him left the engineers little option but to slowly rise and start warning colleagues as they themselves backed away from a lit pressure bomb with a short fuse.

Sello at least had enough awareness of his surroundings to realize that his crowd was slowly disappearing. Then he started to notice that his behind was substantially warmer than the rest of his body and decided to turn around.

PFOOOOOOOM! The boiler erupted upwards, sending the wrought-iron exterior shell straight up while the entire stage was flooded with a rapid outpouring of steam. WHAM! Kkk-KWOOOM! The iron shell crashed through the roof, snapping apart a beam in the center. The curved roof fell inward with a powerful roar on top of the engine and, somewhere in the rush of steam, Sello. The open-air seating of the amphitheater disappeared in the ensuing cloud of debris, causing the engineers attending the unveiling ceremony to cry into the afternoon air in panic as they ran for their lives.

…

Tale #20 of the Island Symphony – END

NOTICE: Sello might have died in that accident, so this is not canon. And speaks to the kind of chaos Sello causes when playing with others' toys.