Where to begin? Where to begin? I suppose I ought to give you the history of this curse, lest you become irritated with my recent misfortune. So sit back, kiddos, this will be a long one.
The year was Fourteen-Ninety-Two, and aside being when Columbus (that bastard) sailed the oceans blue it is also when everything of consequence happened in Spain. In the small city of Verín in southern Spain there was an unholy beast that stole young women from their vegetable gardens and planted them like one would a potato. Some thought the fiend who fed on human flesh was making the first attempts at a vegetarian lifestyle, while others presumed it to be a giant squirrel-like imp who wanted to store food for the winter. Regardless of what the creature was doing, it really irked the local towns folk, and so they vowed to rid their land of this pestilence.
It being the height of the Inquisition, the people sought the help of their Grand Inquisitor to lead the attack on this brute. And so, with religion at the helm of this miniature crusade, the people set out to slay the beast. They eventually caught up with the monster near the coast. Its rotting teeth and unkempt hair frightened the irate mob, but could not shake their resolution. With ire boiling in their stomachs they charged the creature and fell it thus. And there was much rejoicing.
Seal of the Inquisition
However, no party can last forever (no matter how much I wish they could), and the revelry of the villagers was cut short by their attempts to destroy the pestilence forever with fire. It would not burn. Despite their best efforts, they could not get the gremlin to ignite! This left the Grand Inquisitor with quite the dilemma. On one hand, he could not leave the monster where it lay; for fear that it would reincarnate and strike against the village with proliferating malice. However, on the other hand he could not take the monster back to Verín with him because it was unclean. Thus he made the choice to leave it with Isaac, a Jew who had managed to escape from the oppressive ghettos. (Please remember that 1492 was also the height of persecution against the Spanish Jews).
At first Isaac did not much mind the brute, as he was somewhat impish himself. He delighted himself with using it to play pranks on his neighbors. Every afternoon for months the monster was having tea with him, sitting in Senorita Estrella’s bathhouse, or doing giant summersaults down the hill into Senor Pantalones’ pasture. Isaac came to think of the monster as his best friend; however there was a problem with his playmate… He wasn’t very mobile. It really was exhausting to move the brute from Point A to Point B. And so, Isaac concocted a plan to make his accomplice a more transportable one.
Isaac shorn the brute and wove a wig out of its fur, he also tanned its hide and crafted a mask out of its leather. Donning the body of his partner, he set off about the countryside causing all kinds of mischief.
Eventually the Grand Inquisitor had quite enough of this and had Isaac's heads cut off, and Isaac’s blood cried out from the ground. He wasn’t a bad chap… being a Jew in Spain at the time of the Inquisition seems like a pretty good reason to be pissy to me. And so, a terrible curse came upon the mask, and it corrupted all who touched it unless they had the purity of a child. Thus it was taken in by a virtuous order of monks and stored within the confines of their cloister, safe from the prying eyes of the world.
The mask fell out of human memory.
Centuries later, a young priest in training by name of Stephen Akers caught word of this mask while pouring through tomes of church history. He discovered that the monastery that housed the mask had been destroyed by a brief Moorish incursion onto the Spanish shores. He was so fascinated by this unholy relic that he set seas (actually airs) for Spain. Upon arriving he hunted for this impure article of clothing and eventually found it at a street fair in Grenada being peddled by an innocent child, unawares of the evil he carried. Stephen took the burden of the mask upon his person and returned to the States.
Eventually Stephen could no longer bear the weight of the mask weighing upon his soul, and so after great deliberation he opted to lay the fardel upon the most pure person he knew…
Hey! Wait a minute! I don’t want to see those smirks. You can just take those snickers and throw them in the rubbish bin or you can stick them in unpleasant places – you hear me? I am plenty pure! However, it wasn’t me, Stephen thought to give the mask to. Stephen knew Alicia, my beloved roommate Paul’s girlfriend, to be the most virtuous woman alive. However, Stephen could not leave the mask at her house because his arch-nemesis lived there, and he would do anything to thwart Stephen’s purposes, even wear a cursed bird mask. Thus Stephen laid the mask in our house’s care. It was placed inside our coffee table’s (which was made from wood taken from the hull of Noah’s Ark) drawer and locked with a bolt that was crafted from the sword of King David. The mask was safe.
Almost…
One day in an epic, wrestling match, I collided into the coffee table and (miraculously?) knocked the lock free, opening the drawer. I lay face to face with the unholy mask, its blank eyes boring into mine. Before Johnny could stop me, I was completely seduced by the mask and placed it firmly against my face. Without a moments delay I was transformed into a great beast. However, while I thought it would be really cool to plant girls in our front yard, I was more interested in lokian misbehaving.
One time I waited outside of the bathroom for half an hour while Johnny was taking a shower. I didn’t even make a sound, I remained as still as a gargoyle perched atop a barstool. Johnny wouldn’t speak to me for a month after that little stunt.
On another occasion I tried to spook the Arlen kids by playing a Sounds of the Haunted House record and dancing around eerily amidst smoke. To quote Jesse: “I just really wanted it to end.”
Eventually I became really lonely as a Prehistoric Bird Monster. No one really liked me very much. I would often just perch in trees and let out melancholy howls at the moon. All alone.
However, in time I learned to control my curse and could shift back and forth between the suave Eric you have all come to love and the hideous beast that now lay within. It was actually pretty easy to take charge again once my favorite Greek restaurant accused me of being a Turk and denied me entry… That simply would not fly!
In later news, I can now bring out the Bird Monster when needed – it’s a regular party animal! Not to mention it’s quite popular with the ladies.
So, I now live my life as a Prehistoric-Bird-Monster-American, and while I may not enjoy all of the rights many other Americans do, I still know how to have a good time. So, next time you see someone like me, remember that Prehistoric Bird Monsters are people too.
0 comments:
Post a Comment