Come to Life and Rampage!!!

Outside the library window, two statues stand, figures of the civil war, a bronzed embodiment of 400 years of history, where they fought for the right of Parliament, or the right of The King.

The sun has gone in and is no longer glinting off their patinated forms. One looks West, the other East, both poised for action. Like they could come to life and fight.

Oh how I wish they would.

The Riace Bronzes...

Riace Bronzes wikilink

...which I always think of when I look at these two chaps, are amongst the most culturally significant pieces of statuary ever found. The notorious Italian porno-comic Sukia featured them coming to life and, ahem, "seeing to" the eponymous heroine and her male friend on a trans-Atlantic liner voyage. I don't want these fellows to do that (too much), but it's easy to imagine them coming to life, in a time and culture alien to them, and reacting with fear and violence.

Watch a 400 year old sword plunge into the jugular of the abusive drinkers who congregate at their feet, scraping grimily off their calcifying cervical vertebrae, while the drummer boys beats them unmercifully with his lead stick.

They could pause to take in the forever green landscape, before espying bike thieves making their way about town with bolt-cutters they are too brazen to hide. Their Civil War justice is swift, and merited as they arrange for them to be hung drawn and quartered, dragged screaming into four wriggling bloody pieces by teams of cyclists, the modern day cavalry of our confused world.

"Draw them men! Quarter them so they might feel it, but not too fast!" they cry, facial hair stirred by the winter breeze. The smackheads who deal as children learn to read next to them, are forced to do cold turkey on the bear baiting post, tattoed necks enclosed in a spiked iron collar.

The sun sets, and now the moon lights their metallic forms with a cold glow. Now, they head for the ale-houses, taverns and hostelries, and lo! Shall the unworthy face their mighty come-uppance! The brain dead drinkers offer them out for a fight, and shot by musket are some, while others are piked through their orifices and hoisted 16 feet into the air to fly like flags, a warning for all!

Pike them well, my Civil War friends, pike them hard! And never stop acting as you do, a 17th Century cure for modern day social ills!

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 20.12.13

The Magic Book

In every library there is a magic book. You just have to find it.

It’s different in every library. It might be a book on new styles of management in one, a camping guide in a second and a large print copy of a Jackie Collins in another.

Its magic properties vary too. Sometimes nothing happens other than all the text in every other book in the library turning dark green. Sometimes it transports you to another library where the magic book begins with the same first letter as the one you touched. It could make you a Prince or even a King of the land that you live in, or it may turn you into a rat.

The method of magical activation is never constants. Touching the book’s spine may be enough to invoke the power of wizardry, but in other cases you may have to lick page 39. In general, the more powerful the magic invoked, the more extreme the method of initiating the spell. There is a book in the University of Ougadougou that makes 85 golden cows out of nothing if you slam your genitals between pages 283 and 284 of the manuscript – Volume 15 of the Encyclopaedia of Bacteria. All spells found in romance works are activated by pressing your nipple to every instance of the word “the” on the blurb on the inside cover.

It is always fun to watch people look for magic books. Especially the most dedicated of seekers.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 26/10/13