The God of Fried Chicken Drippings

“POULET Tout Puissant”

~ André Breton

The insidious god of fried chicken drippings stood slowly, relishing the fervour of the moment and not at all wanting to get up off the couch. However, duty called. A landlubber mermaid, probably the one who had been bothering him last week, was abusing that of which he was deity – again. He knew this because, being a god, he was all-knowing. Okay, not really: in actuality, his annoying manservant had procured yet another over-the-top water gun and had soaked him with it whilst simultaneously relaying the news.

Irritatedly, he lumbered over to the manservant and wrenched the water-gun off the guy's back, nearly collapsing from the weight. Then, with a final heave, he toppled out the door and down the ornately decorated, if somewhat littered by beer cans, stairs, landing in an ungainly heap at the bottom and shattering the water gun.

The insidious god of fried chicken drippings' head hurt. It did that a lot lately, but this was a different sort of hurting, as in, it was an indirect result of drunkenness instead of a direct. Proving that, if it were a direct, his head wouldn't be bleeding. But, sadly and depressingly, gods cannot give up. He stood up suddenly, and would have returned to kiss the ground with his brain as existence reeled around him, had not that persistent manservant been looming just behind his current position.

"Sir, you forgot your banana," the annoying servant said tonelessly.

The god slowly and agonizingly turned to glare at his manservant, although the effect was mostly ruined by the fact that he was soaking wet and also still had to rely on the guy in order to remain upright. "Odwall, don't you think that if I left without my banana, I probably meant to leave without it?"

"I don't know," the manservant replied in the same toneless voice. "You told me before not to think. So I don't."

Glaring, the insidious god finally got his balance and stumbled a few steps down the plant-encrusted street, before whirling back to the motionless servant. "Odwall, my steed!" he ordered, wiping slightly dissolved, crusty splotches of vomit off his ornate robe.

"I'll get the Flamingo, sir," Odwall replied crisply, and then smoothly turned and glided toward the stables, floating a few inches above the ground.

The god of fried chicken drippings glared after him and tried to look godly as he waited, but naturally failed miserably. So he went back to glaring since he was better at athat. Then, as the god's brain was beginning to shut down from all that exertion, Odwall returned with the prised Giant Undead Flamingo From Hell.

A few moments passed while the god contemplated his Flamingo, but when it became obviously apparent that he had no idea what to do with it, Odwall hoisted him into the saddle, strapped him in, and turned the bird in the right direction. Then it ambled off, and as the figure of his god slowly diminished in the distance, Odwall was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and make a series of seriously demeaning faces at the retreating figure.

A few meters away, a manhole cover slowly raised itself a few centimetres and a pair of curiously orange eyes peered out.

"What is this world coming to?" the owner of the eyes muttered.

Inside the manhole, another pair of eyes turned to regard the first owner impassively. "Don't try to convince me that you even know what world this is," the second owner said. "Face it. We're lost."

The manhole cover eased down once more, shrouding the two figures in complete darkness.

"Lost? Of course we're not lost. I know exactly where we were and exactly where we're going. Therefore, we're simply between there and there!"

"Thats what you said on the last planet we went to. If you'd care to recall what happened there, we were very nearly eaten by a giant fanged steak, and it didn't help that there were several vampires of the normal kind chasing after us as well, coincidentally also trying to get their sustenance from us."

"I still don't understand what was wrong with my idea to use that steak on them... and besides, its not like we didn't find a way off that jungled hell–"

"Shh!"

"Although I do find it kind of odd that that god guy would use one of the native flamingos from there as a steed–"

"Shut up!"

Amazingly, the chatterbox did, and after a few moments of lightless silence, they heard a rustling noise.

The one previously too busy talking to hear the noise shrieked.

"Oh, for the sake of serenity..." the other muttered and produced a ball of light, revealing the culprit: an animated glob of partially congealed newspaper. "Well, I admit, that wasn't quite what I expected. But still..." the figure trailed off, noticing her companion. "Was your hair that colour when we left?"

"What?" the other, a Wielder of Giant Broccoli dressed in an oddly shaped tunic and really baggy black trousers, asked. Her hair was a soft blue-white, contrasting oddly with her violently flame-coloured wings and matching eyes.

The magician, a short gnome-like creature in an acid-green sequinned dress that overwhelmed the damp ground beneath her feet, replied blankly, "Never mind."

There was a long silence. Then the winged one said, "I still don't think we're lost. After all, its as they say: 'You're not lost until you see a hiphopolatamus.'"

The light went out. "What?" asked the magician blankly. "What illegal narcotic substances have you managed to procure this time?"

But the other remained silent for a change and simply raised the manhole cover to look out again. "Oh crap." The orange eyes winced. Then she hoisted her companion up to the level of the street, while still holding the manhole cover up with her wings. "Okay, fine. We're lost."

Outside the manhole a bizarre creature consisting of a unicorn's head, a mer-person's tail, a lion's paws, an avariel's wings, and many other miscellaneous parts too obscure to name lolled on the roots of a nearby tree that had broken the road nearby to to it to pieces. Muffled laughter matching the voice of the gnome-like creature echoed from the manhole as the cover slammed shut.

Little Billy Jiyas stood on his mother's ornate porch sucking a lollipop as he watched all this come to pass. His eyes widened alarmingly until it seemed that they would pop out of his skull. Finally, he wet his pants.

"...Mommy?"