CHAPTER 11 - ZEMMY ESCAPES

Second Age, Echo Realm

In a charming little corner of cyprus there sits a silver-roofed chateau nested in barley covered hills. Locals are wary of it, the hints being that magazines depicting indecent quadratic formulas where once manufactured there. But that was never true, just a bit of flagrant gossip started by a door to door flounder salesman before buttering up his patrons. The flounder was rich in minerals like tropica-dominia and klassia, a means by which certain malleable divinations could be expunged. The flightless, mostly featherless sable-colored nerd-ostriches brayed to the sound of the chateau windowsills battering in the wind as their neighbors, the concept-emus looked on in contempt. Oceanic vapors crept over the hills, lulling those families that drove by the highway in their rocking-chair-cars into almost torpid complacency. On a nearby hill, a girl in a green veil chucked candy into a pond in exchange for the sweet music of the sugar laden ripples, then fell back into the grass, dreaming of wonton soup. Crossing the highway, a man standing in a soup-can in a phonebooth groaned, wondering about how he was going to pay his mortgage this quarter. Trans-dimensional molecules bumbled just over the geodesic windmill on the other side of the hill, some bumping into it and towards where a faint orange sky met the undersides of clouds. A gorilla stuck its face into a cherry pie

Deep within the inner workings of the chateau a rather arachnid looking woman, Zemmy from Suburbia used the long handle of a silver ladle to scoop out fruit punch from the swimming pool in the harem-chamber, accidently letting some drip down onto her body. "How long have you been so perfect?" Uffhill remarked after unlocking the seal on the door. "Just bored as usual, waiting for your return" she answered, slurping another ladle-full. "I've been planning about how we will make it work, it will just take a little time, and convincing for the others to accept. The war will be over soon, which is the first hurdle" he promised, taking her into his arms. "How noble of you, following your instincts …" she said while scratching his back with her arachnid legs, "by the way, I wanted to thank you for that gift you brought during my last visit". "The television remote? I know that's one of your favorites. I handpicked it at the Wolas Emporium" the patron recalled. "Good to know" she quipped, her rough lips pressed into his. A minute passed. Then Uffhill opened his eyes, realizing he was kissing a life-sized television remote and that the real Zemmy was long gone.