The king of Goblinia has gone crazy. Now usually such
an occurrence would not be unusual. Goblins being imps are often
susceptible to bouts of looniness. But with the case of King
Angoulafre the First and Last, insanity never came so painfully.
It was an usual unusual day of dining and merriment in
the king's banquet hall, filled with discordant music and
irrelevant conversation to while away the time it took to cook
and serve a twelve course meal. Roast pigs running off the table
didn't help serving the king and his guests any easier. But even
with such complications, dinner was still served and the guests'
bellies were still stuffed.
As the king lazily watched the antics of the local hangliders'
guild, waiting for his meal to digest so that he could start on the
next one, a sudden jolt of pain screamed through his chest. Actually
the scream was his, but at the moment all the king could think of was
the pain and it wasn't pretty. With each jolt, the king saw a bolt
of blue, a sickly blue often associated with toilet fresheners,
tinged with yellow and red dots. In truth, it was the scenery of
the sky filled with hangliders being extremely blurred each time
pain ensued, but that's laughable compared to the fact that the king
now felt like meat from a shishkabob without the need to eat any.
Suddenly, the pain stopped and the king turned around to look at his subjects. Only wide eyes greeted him. The king tried to say something to his faithful and presently bug-eyed subjects, anything to ease their minds and prevent future indigestion which wouldn't bode well for his future culinary reputation. He calmly opened his kingly orifice and solemnly said "OW!" A sledgehammer had just dropped on his head, shooting his crown into the air and blasting his senses into oblivion.
The king's subjects were stunned not so much by the noise as by the king's bad oral hygiene. The king had killer breath and his subjects often brought along gas masks whenever they called on him. As soon as the blast of fumes that gave a whole new meaning to "royal (bloody murder)" sprung forth from the king's cavernous orifice, the masks were donned in a flash with not a moment to spare. Fortunately, there were no casualties except for a few who lost consciousness due to leaky gas masks. Meanwhile, the king's breath fumed and roared down the stairwell to run down some other unsuspecting victims before it completely dissipated.
No one need report the casualties resulting from the kingly gas's romp through the castle for it is irrelevant to this story and quite commonplace so as to be un-newsworthy. Besides, the GSS (Goblin Secret Service) does not allow such figures to escape the castle grounds lest it ruin the king's image -- which is of no concern since it's ruined already, but appearances still have to be kept.
After suffering a number of senses-shattering blows to his noggin, the king lay still. One of his subjects approached warily, still not daring to take off his gas mask, and asked "Ah fay, yer ma'estee, are you a'right?" His voice was muffled behind his gas mask and barely audible, but the king must have heard or he might not have. In any case, he stirred and said weakly "Would someone get me some aspirin?"
No one knew the details of the king's medicine cabinet or even where it was located, but an untouched roast pig rose and hastily obliged, though it must have lost its way in the winding ways of the goblin castle for it was never heard from again. In the meantime, aspirin had already fled the king's mind and was replaced by an irrational, all-encompassing fear. A spider had appeared in front of the king's nose. Only visible to the king, this spider did a little jig on the end of its webline and threatened King A with its pulsating fangs.
Have you ever heard of Arachnophobia? Well, the king has it and he has it bad. He blubbered and cried like a baby, covering his eyes to shut out the sight and then checking to see whether it was still there. Seeing that it was, the pattern started anew.
The loyal subjects were flabbergasted as to the cause of
their king's present behavior. Some said magic was at work here.
Others voiced that the king had ate too many roast pigs at mealtime
and now the pigs were giving him a royal tummyache. "Bloody hell
is more like it, wouldn't you say?" quipped the young musicker.
"It's ghosts I tell ya!" screamed the wine-girl. "Yea, the ghosts
of those poor pigs," teased the urchin hiding under the table. At
which everybody glared at the boy and threw him out the castle window,
the boy hitting a hang-glider on the way down.
As the screams reigned, the king's blubbering began to subside. The spider had faded from view and the world finally returned to "normal." No spiders, no multi-colored blurs of pain, no screaming headaches. The king feebly rose to his feet.
"My people..." the subjects heard and spun around as one to see their king standing before them and laughing. Yes, laughing.
You see, the king was just about to assure his people that
all was now well when he suddenly got a rather annoying itch under
his nose. And, as he tried to speak, the itch became worse until
it threw the poor king into fits of laughter before he could even
spit out a whole sentence.
The subjects were dumbfounded. (Since their group was founded
by the dumb anyway, it was of no consequence.) But speechlessness
was soon replaced by hurt and anger. They didn't see any reason
for mirth especially when the laughter was directed at them. They
didn't like being taken for the fools that they were and felt the
king was doing them a great wrong.
The king didn't like the looks on his subjects' faces and
tried to stop laughing long enough to explain. He only managed to
make matters worse by spraying spit on them and guffawing even louder.
That was the proverbial "last straw" and the king's last
spit. The "loyal" subjects with a mighty wimpy roar, ganged up on
the king and threw His Royal Majesty out the Royal 32nd Floor Window
with the king laughing helplessly all the way down.
Sources later said that the king was found in the turkey
pen where he seemed to fit rather nicely, and was sent to the Royal
Clinic where he now resides suffering from massive melotrauma, fits
of maniacal laughter, and screaming-bloody-murder headaches. King
Angoulafre the First and Last had definitely lost his mind.
