There was, once upon a time—
“A pedophile!” my readers will shout.
No, my friends, you are mistaken. Once there lived a normal man named Zorng. He occupied a unique position in the town where he lived. Zorng was a—
“Public defender!” my eager readers will rudely interject.
But no, you are wrong again. Zorng was a puppet vendor. And if all you hyper cocksuckers will kindly restrain yourselves, we shall proceed with the tale...
Now Zorng was a very sick man. He suffered from a disease, not of the body, but of the mind. Doctors of Zorng’s day called it demons, and the only known cure was for the Church to burn them out. But Zorng didn’t believe that demons were real, though he often felt as though he had one inside his head. His disease made him say rude things at odd moments.
When he was only six, his mother gave him a penny to buy some magic beans with. “Now run along, and if you come back in less than five minutes, I’ll give you half-a-crown!”
“Go piss off a pier,” Zorng replied.
After his mother had pulled him by his ear to the yard where his father was chopping wood, poor Zorng was at a loss. He didn’t know where the words he’d shouted came from, and he hadn’t meant to shout at his mother at all. Now his father would almost certainly chop off one of his hands, or a nipple at the very least. First his father’s face grew red, then his ears extended and the grain of his scalp shifted. “Well son,” his father boomed, “what have ye to say for yourself?”
Zorng had no explanation for what he’d done, for his illness wouldn’t be discovered for another six centuries. And to lay blame on demons, though allowed in those days, was nonetheless risky. Just then he had an idea. He had no siblings to accuse, but he suddenly remembered...
“My puppet!” Zorng pulled out his little wooden-headed, hook-nosed hand-puppet that he kept in his pocket. He thrust his hand inside and in his coarsest little growl said, “The Virgin’s hairy bum!”
His father’s face whitened and the pipe fell from his teeth. Never had such words been uttered in his presence, especially by his precious six-year-old boy. “W-what say y-ye...?”
“I said ‘Virgin’s bleedin’ hairy bum,’ Papa!”
And giving a deep roar, the father grabbed Zorng’s suspenders in his tight grip and slammed his son to his chest, laughing and shouting, “That’s a lad, Zorng! That’s me lad!” Soon his mother blushed and joined in, for well both parents knew how little Zorng would do for them come next harvest festival.
Zorng’s pubescent phase was quite a happy time for him – his puppet theatres were stationed all about the town, and he made daily rounds giving shows at regular intervals, weather permitting. His favorite puppet was an ill-mannered, wife-assaulting old codger that he’d taken to calling Punch, for the fellow was always whopping some unfortunate puppet with a stick, or even with its bare little puppet hand. Zorng was so popular an entertainer, he often discovered little girls hidden underneath his puppet theatres who would administer oral affections while Zorng cursed and gesticulated for the appreciative crowds.
Poor Zorng could never just be himself. Even when he wasn’t performing, those malignant voices would erupt, necessitating the constant companionship of one or other of his beloved puppets. For if Zorng had dared to speak such filth without his puppets’ alibi, he very likely would’ve been jailed or worse. The only relief for him was to laugh at every opportunity: only then could he rest assured that no obscenity would involuntarily leap from his innocent lips.
The puppets greatly enjoyed their laughter, for it was such a welcome from the monotony of constant verbal assault. Their delirious audiences hardly detected the increased laughter between the marital bouts, and believed that the puppets were laughing at each others’ misfortunes. One day Zorng’s puppets took the stage and before saying a word – even before throwing the first punch – turned toward the audience and commenced laughing. They persisted in their laughter until it seemed to the quieted observers that those tiny wooden faces turned red. They laughed for the duration of the show, until the spectators silently slipped away, and Zorng stumbled home, dazed. It wasn’t long before all Zorng’s puppets could manage was unbridled laughter, until his devoted public ran in panic from the possessed puppets. Sometimes they didn’t stop laughing even after the crowd was gone.
Zorng passed his long adult life as a puppet vendor on the corners of his town’s busiest intersections. No one had the nerve to be the object of his puppets’ derision, so his performances ceased. But they still laughed at passers-by, and with such deep, mindless hilarity as would often induce the needy purchaser to procure the puppet at hand. In such a manner did Zorng’s insanity spread even to the bleakest habitations of that damned place, borne on the tongues of the blessed.
