Titi and the Earwax Uprising

After considering the matter carefully, Tititarius decided that the best place to place Nate Goiterhead would be next to the entrance to the garbage dump. So he started to carry his man there but found him rather awkward to handle. However, a love of mischief and tomfoolery urged him on. But just then he discovered the man’s tube arm had fallen off in the journey so he went back to find it, and afterward, added more hot glue so that the arm was stronger than before. When, at last, the dummy was set up facing the road where old Gonorrena was to appear, he looked natural enough to be a fair imitation of a Plotz farmer- and unnatural enough to startle anyone that came on him unawares.

As it was yet too early in the day to expect the old woman to return home, Titi went down into the valley below the garbage dump and began to gather balnuts from the bushes that grew there.

However, old Gonorrena returned earlier than expected, wearing her beat-up old backpack and holding her beat-up old bumbershoot. She had been studying alchemy in attempt to regain some of her stolen thaumaturgic knowledge. The trip to buy “groceries” was really a trip to visit a couple called the Wankensteins who resided in a transparent inflatable dome on Mount Whole in Schling Quadrant. Gonorrena had made a fake Perpetual Youth Concoction and presented them to the couple to be traded. In this way she secured a slew of new black market ingredients and bootleg concoctions, including a liquid that could transform a blotter into an otter. She also got four blobfish eyelids, a plastic container full of irkberries, an envelope of antlerean fungus flakes, and a keychain in the shape of a kneeling bream. Gonorrena hobbled home as fast as she could, in order to test her new booty.

So intent was Gonorrena on the treasures she had gained that when she got to the entrance of the garbage dump and caught a glimpse of the man, she merely nodded and said:

“Good evening, sir.”

But, a moment after, noting that the person did not move or reply, she did a double take and discovered his goiter head with it’s smashed hole eyes and ghoulish grin.

“Bah!” ejaculated Gonorrena. “That dork-butt tween has been playing tricks again! Oh, very good! I’ll beat the krud out of him for trying to scare me in this fashion!”

Angrily she raised her bumbershoot to smash in the grinning goiter head of the dummy; but a sudden thought made her pause, the uplifted bumbershoot left motionless in the air.

“Why, here is a good chance to try one of my new concoctions!” said she, eagerly. “And then I can tell whether the Wankensteins have fairly traded secrets, or whether they have dorked me as wickedly as I dorked them.”

So she set down her backpack and began fumbling in it for one of the precious concoctions she had obtained.

While Gonorrena was thus occupied Titi strolled back, with his pockets full of balnuts, and discovered the old woman standing beside his dummy and apparently not the least bit frightened by it.

At first he was disappointed; but the next moment he became curious to know what his master was going to do. So he hid behind a pile of festering garbage bags by the side of the road, where he could see without being seen. He had to constantly wave away the zipperflies, baby dung beetles, and flying scaterpillars that swarmed around the bags.

After some search Gonorrena drew from her backpack an old snuff box, upon the faded label of which the Chimpanzee Alchemist had written with a lead-pencil:

“Make Living Concoction.”

“Ah- here it is!” she cried, joyfully. “And now let us see if it is potent.”

Titi saw old Gonorrena raise her arm and sprinkle the concoction from the box over the goiter head of his dummy. She did this in the same way one would salt a bowl of alien feces stew, and the powder sifted down from Nate’s head and scattered over the red-and-black flannel shirt and blue jeans Titi had dressed him in, and a portion even fell upon the worn work boots. Then she put the snuff box back into her backpack.

For a moment the dummy remained motionless. Then it’s head began to twitch and slightly pulsate. Then Nate Goiterhead suddenly took a stiff awkward step forward, and threw his mismatched arms up in the air.

“I can walk!” he exclaimed.

“I can talk!” he exclaimed.

“I can listen and learn as the wheels in my mind begin to turn!” he exclaimed.

Old Gonorrena danced around him, frantic with delight. Then she threw her bumbershoot into the air and caught it as it came down; and she hugged herself with both arms, and tried to break dance; and all the time she repeated, rapturously:

“It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!”

Nate Goiterhead stepped back a pace. He was alarmed by Gonorrena’s antics but calmly said:

“I’ll never forget what you’ve given to me: The power to touch, feel, hear, and see.”

Gonorrena calmed down. Then, after staring at the goiter-headed man intently, she asked:

“What do you know?”

“Well, that is hard to tell,” replied Nate. “For although I feel that I know a tremendous lot, I am not yet aware how much there is in the world to find out about. It will take me a little time to discover whether I am very wise or very stupid.”

“To be sure,” said Gonorrena, thoughtfully.

At first Titi was so frightened that he wanted to run away, but his legs trembled and shook so badly that he couldn’t. Then it struck him as a very funny thing for Nate to come to life, especially as the expression on his goiter face was so droll and comical it excited laughter on the instant. So, recovering from his first fear, Titi began to laugh; and the merry peals reached old Gonorrena’s ears and made her hobble quickly to the pile of garbage bags, where she seized Titi’s ear and dragged him back to the goiter-headed man.

“You naughty, nasty, nefarious, nitwitted nincompoop!” she exclaimed, furiously: “I’ll teach you to spy on my secrets and to make fun of me!”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” protested Titi. “I was laughing at old Nate Goiterhead! Look at him!”

“I hope you are not reflecting on my personal appearance,” said Nate; and it was so funny to hear his serious voice, while his face continued to wear its zany smile, that Titi again burst into a peal of laughter. Then the tween said:

“What are you going to do with him, now he is alive?”

“I must think it over,” answered Gonorrena, looking Nate Goiterhead up and down. “But we must get home at once, for it is growing dark.”

So they started for their shack, and Nate stiffly walked behind them. But when they reached the front yard old Gonorrena seemed to be bored already with the goiter-headed man and led him to the iguana stable and shut him up, fastening the door securely on the outside.

“I’ve got to attend to you, first,” she said, nodding her head at Titi.

Hearing this, the tween became uneasy; for he knew Gonorrena had a bad and revengeful heart, and would not hesitate to do any nefarious thing.

They entered the rundown shack. Gonorrena bade the boy turn on the lights, while she put her backpack in a cupboard. Titi obeyed quickly, for he was afraid of her.

After the lights were on Gonorrena ordered him to build a fire in the hearth, and while Titi was thus engaged the old woman ate some jackpeaches and alien feces from her backpack. When the blue flames began to crackle the boy came to her and asked a share of the goodies; but Gonorrena refused him.

“But I’m famished!” said Titi, in a sulky tone.

“You won’t be hungry long,” replied Gonorrena, with a queer look.

The boy didn’t like this, for it sounded like a threat; but he happened to remember he had balnuts in his pocket, so he cracked some of those and ate them while the woman rose and hung above the fire a small molybdenum kettle filled with sarsaparilla.

Once the sarsaparilla was boiling she measured out equal parts of dandruff and saliva and poured them into the kettle. Next she produced several packets of green herbs and azure berries and began adding a portion of each. Occasionally she would read from a wrinkled yellow paper the recipe of the mess she was concocting, and frequently she would hack up a loogie and spit it into the kettle.

As Titi watched her his uneasiness increased.

“What is that for?” he asked.

“For you,” returned Gonorrena.

“What’ll that stuff do to me?” asked Titi.

“If it’s properly made,” replied Gonorrena, “it will thaumaturgically transform you into a bucket of delicious scabs.”

Titi groaned, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve.

“I don’t want to be a bucket of scabs!” he protested.

“That doesn’t matter. I want you to be,” said the old woman, looking at him severely. “For too long have you been a bother to me.”

“But if you turn me into a bucket of scabs who will do your chores?” asked Titi. “At least I do some of them.”

“I’ll make the goiter head work for me,” said Gonorrena.

At this Titi felt the beads of perspiration starting all over his body, but he sat still and shivered and looked anxiously at the kettle.

“Perhaps it won’t work,” he muttered, in a voice that sounded weak and discouraged.

“Oh, I think it will,” answered Gonorrena, cheerfully. “I seldom make a mistake.”

Again there was a period of silence (except for Gonorrena’s flatulence), a silence so long and gloomy that when she finally lifted the kettle from the fire it was close to midnight.

“I cannot use this concoction until it has become quite cold,” announced the old crone. “At daybreak I will call you and at once complete your transformation into a scab bucket. But first, to the bathroom! I feel a bout of my trademark diarrhea coming on.”

With this she locked the steaming kettle in her bedroom and hobbled into the bathroom.

The boy did not go to bed after cleaning Gonorrena's toilet, but sat glaring at the embers of the dying blue fire.