A/N- That's it, my exams are over. One very busy year is at my back and a busier one lies ahead of me. But that does not change the fact that I have a three month holiday. This story will obviously end soon now!
Portia opened a map.
'Okay,' she said, 'how do we get to hell?'
'Um,' said Casca, 'if they didn't manage to get out yet, do you think we will?'
'I suppose so,' said Portia.
'And how?'
'We are intelligent people,' she explained, 'luck shall favour us. That's what happens to the heroes on T.V, right?'
'We are not on T.V.,' Casca reminded her. It was a fact that greatly saddened him. He sometimes thought about, while lying alone at bed at night, crying his heart out. His eyes were already starting to water, as the great truth started to dawn upon him once more.
'Any ideas people?' said Portia, ignoring Casca.
'Titinius,' said Brutus suddenly.
'And how will he help us?' asked Caius, 'he's a busy busy businessman.'
'No, why didn't he reach hell?' said Brutus. He scratched his head, hoping that it would stimulate his brain and make an answer appear out of nowhere. Unsurprisingly enough, nothing happened.
'Probably wasn't important enough,' said Caius, with a half-smile on his face, 'like dear Portia here.'
'Hey!' said Portia, 'just because Shakespeare hates me…'
'He doesn't hate you,' said Brutus at once, 'how could anyone?' he was trying to be nice, which is more than what most husbands care to do. But no one listened to him.
'Then why wasn't I important enough?,' shrieked Portia, 'he never answers my questions in class either. He…err…forget it.'
'I think,' said Caius, 'that we need my fairy godmom right now. FAIRY GODMOTHER!!'
Nothing happened.
'Fairy Godmother!' Caius called out again. Again, nothing.
'Um,' said Portia, 'I guess we'll have to do this ourselves then.'
'But my godmother! She exists for a reason,' said Caius sadly, 'all right, don't look at me like that…fine, show us that map.'
The map was large and pretty. It showed various places of heaven like the shopping mall, the movie theatre, the bookshop, the elementary school (which was where Caius and the rest went to study), the coffee shop, the pet shop, the airport, the very, very expensive restaurant which served ultra-miniscule food which had no apparent taste for thousands of hundreds of rupees, PizzaHut, McDonalds, a flower, and a tree. The foursome studied it for half an hour.
'I want that flower,' said Caius, after a deep study of the map.
'This place shows no exit,' Portia murmured sadly.
'Maybe we can jump over a wall or something,' said Casca, who was eyeing the PizzaHut very greedily. The pizza he was dreaming about was rapidly removing his ideas of not being on T.V. He allowed himself a small smile.
'Or,' said Caius, 'we can learn how to fly. Maybe Professor Robo-Dude can teach us. He told us he could fly, remember?'
'He was only bragging,' said Portia with such immense distaste, that it made her look like she was about to vomit, 'he's such a liar.'
'I thought Portia could fly,' said Caius, 'she had super powers, right?'
'Yeah, but what about you guys,' said Portia, 'I can't carry you all on my back, now can I?' she pictured in her head, Caius, Mark, and Casca all on her back, while she flew from one end of the universe to the other. She shuddered.
'You can teach us how to fly,' suggested Brutus. Flying had been his lifelong ambition. He imagined that he was flying whenever he was bored, or whenever he was doing something he didn't want to, like, for instance, killing Caesar. He had stabbed him while visualizing clouds of various shapes and sizes in his head. One of the clouds had looked like an awfully cute fluffy bunny. Brutus had loved that particular bunny-cloud. He wanted to name it Fluff-ball, but was unable to do so since the cloud had slowly drifted away, leaving him cold and lonely, with a blood stained dagger in his hand, and a man who was perhaps his father, lying dead, in front of him. Uh-oh.
'Uhh…' repeated Brutus, 'Ah, you would teach us how to fly.'
'Flying isn't an art that can be taught, Mark,' said Portia. She said this in her best wise-old-man accent.
'Then why don't you catch a plane?' asked the fairy godmother.
'Where did you come from?' asked Portia.
'Why didn't you come when I called?' demanded Caius.
'Who are you?' said Casca.
'I shall answer you all,' said the godmother, 'Firstly, I came from my house. Secondly, I didn't come when called since I was in the shower. And thirdly, I am Cassius' fairy godmother, and you dear, who are you?'
'I'm Casca,' said Casca.
'Very well,' said the godmother, 'we can catch a plane to hell.'
'The only plane here is Heaven Airlines, and it only travels from the bookstore to PizzaHut,' said Portia, 'and it doesn't even fly.'
'Ah, then we'll ask dear Tity how he escaped. Tity dear!'
'My name is not Tity!' said Tity, or, as he would like to be called, Titinius. The name 'Tity' sounds a hundred times cooler, but our dear friend here chooses to disagree.
'Where did you come from?' asked Portia.
'Where is your tie?' demanded Caius.
'Who are you?' said Casca.
'I am not here to answer your silly questions,' said Titinius bossily, 'I am here to tell you how I escaped the burning walls of hell.'
'And how did you escape the burning walls of hell?' asked Portia.
'My sweet Portia, it is a long long story,' said Titinius.
'Then get on with it!' snapped Caius.
'That I will,' said Titinius, stretching leisurely on Caius' puffy pink sofa, 'but first, I shall drink a glass of water. Who shall volunteer to fetch me one?'
No one volunteered.
'Oh, c'mon,' said Titinius, 'someone get me water!'
'Go get it yourself,' said Caius.
'Fine,' said Titinius, crossing his hands and sighing loudly, 'no story for you, then.'
'Someone get the man some water!' ordered Portia.
'Make Brutus do it!' cried Caius.
'Make Casca do it!' said Brutus.
'Make Cassius do it!' shrieked Casca.
'Hmph,' said Portia, and went to get the water herself.
Shameful men, she thought, making the lady do all the work! Look at their manners…society is sexist.
But she got the water anyway. She handed it to Titinius.
'Thank you, dear Portia,' he said, and bowed so low that the goggles he had worn in a pathetic attempt to look cool fell off. Those goggles had been horribly expensive and were lined with platinum, diamond, and gold. The price of gold was coming up due to inflation, and Titinius had planned to sell them a hundred years from the present moment. (Sadly enough, a hundred years later, gold went out of fashion and was treated like dirt. Titinius had a hard time getting over the shock. He was finally forced to sell them to an antique museum that no one ever visited for a very minimal fee.)
'My goggles are on the floor. Someone pick them up!' he said.
'Someone,' ordered Portia, 'pick up the man's glasses!'
No one did, and hence, once again, she was forced to do the menial task herself.
'The story,' Caius reminded Titinius.
'Ah, yes,' sighed Titinius, 'it was a long, long ago, when men who beat up their wives were not punished-,'
'They still aren't,' Portia told him, 'in fact, in some parts of the world-,'
'Yes, but then it was more common,' said Titinius, 'Ah! The good old days, for men, at least-,'
Portia hit him really hard on the head with a heavy encyclopaedia which was created solely for the purpose of damaging things due to its size. The matter written inside it was also sometimes interesting to read.
'Forget it,' said Caius, 'we cannot speak on the condition of women without hurting religious sentiments and thousand year old traditions…oh damn! I think I hurt someone's sentiments just by saying this! Please don't throw me in jail…argh!'
Somewhere far far away, the author is wondering whether what she has just written is OK. Ah, anyway, she's going to hell for reading Harry Potter and for creating gay characters. Well, it's not like she's making money out of this.
As Caius started screaming and running around the table in fright, Titinius winced, while Brutus wondered whether Caius was running for the entertainment of everyone else, and whether he should applaud.
'Calm down, Cas,' said Portia, 'or I shall hit you with the encyclopaedia.'
'No! Not the encyclopaedia!' Caius' eyes opened in shock, 'anything but the encyclopaedia! ANYTHING ELSE! I'M BEGGING YOU!' and he ran around some more.
Brutus started to clap, but stopped immediately at the sight of Portia's encyclopaedia.
Half-an-hour later, Caius started to feel terrible, painful stitches all over his chest. He sat down and begged for a glass of water.
'Absolutely not,' said Portia, wagging her finger at him angrily, 'I told you not to run! This is what you get from not listening to me!' and indeed, not listening to Portia was the greatest sin one could dare to commit. At least, according to Portia, it was.
'It wasn't my fault,' protested Caius, 'despite the fact that I forgot why I was running, I am sure I ran for a perfectly sane reason.'
'To amuse us?' asked Brutus, for the entire scene had amused him greatly, to the point that orange juice (with pulp) was streaming out of his nose in an extremely disgusting fashion.
'You did not run for a sane reason!' said Portia angrily, ignoring Brutus completely (which was not an easy task, due to the pulpy orange juice), 'you were running because you felt you were hurting delicate religious sentiments. That is no excuse for running around a table.'
'She has a point,' said Titinius/Tity, 'you must think of a better excuse immediately.'
'I felt like doing so and I needn't explain myself,' said Caius.
'Good enough,' said Titinius, 'and now, for my story.' He was desperate to tell his story as it would increase his importance. The fact that he wasn't being given the opportunity to do so annoyed him.
'What story?' said Brutus.
'About how I escaped the burning walls of hell!' said Titinius irately.
Brutus was happy that he had not been ignored and decided to use the golden opportunity to speak on, 'would that also explain why Pindarius had come to the meeting that had been organized a few months back and had been spotted hiding under a chair?'
'He, um,' Titinius paused for a moment, and then continued after some rethinking, 'my story shall clear all doubts in your mind, and shall tie up any loose ends to this story.'
'That's nice to hear,' said Portia, who was reaching out for the remote-control.
'Once upon a time,' began Titinius in a low voice. Unfortunately, his dramatic beginning was interrupted by the sound coming from the television which Portia had just turned on. Everyone glared at Portia.
'What?' she said, putting popcorn which had come from god-knows-where into her mouth, 'I love this movie.'
They were all forced to watch the movie which was extremely soppy, and involved the tragic love between a handsome man with a square jaw and brown hair and a beautiful woman with many plastic surgeries and wavy brown hair which was dyed blond. There was a lot of rain, some guns and a tank or two that killed some people, and injured some more. Everyone thought the handsome man was dead, but he wasn't ('Nice plot,' Titinius said very seriously.). This led to some kissing and a lot of something a little more than kissing.
'This is disgusting,' Brutus finally decided. He had shut his eyes tight with his hands in fear of seeing something that would give him nightmares.
'Is there anything more than this in the movie?' asked Caius, who was getting bored. He liked dramatic speeches, not sex scenes. They had no clever use of language. And anything without clever use of language sucked. That's what they should put in movies. A moment later, Caius realized why such things were not put in movies. Everyone but him and Brutus was deeply engrossed in the scene, and Caius was pretty sure that Brutus was peeking through his fingers.
By the time the movie had ended, Titinius said that it was late and he had to go home and Brutus had already fallen asleep.
'I guess we'll postpone the story a bit,' said Portia, 'there goes all our planning-,'
'The movie was your idea,' said Caius accusingly.
Saying this, he took a last bite of popcorn, and fell asleep too. Portia looked at him, shrugged, and fell asleep. The fairy godmother went to the bathroom, came out in a pink frilly nightdress, and fell asleep. Casca followed procedure.
'Well, uh, I'll get going then,' said Titinius.
No one answered, and Titinius stepped out of the door wondering how they all managed to fit in a single sofa.
Five minutes later, he came back, took some popcorn, and left again.
A/N- Okay, I know I don't update this story much. But I will from now on, so please review. I do need encouragement. The last time no one reviewed, I didn't update for half a year.