image [https://i.ibb.co/PFFMzf3/Titi-Chapter15.jpg]
“The scenic effect, from this altitude, is splendiferous,” commented B.M. Foulfinger, the educated emancipated finger. They had brought a boombox and slowburn progressive rock was playing softly from one corner of the flying dumpster.
“Never mind the scenery,” said the Ratsack Golem. “Hold on tight, or you may get a tumble. The Humpty Hump Dumpster seems to rock badly.”
“It’ll probably stop rocking if we get up to 80, 85 miles an hour,” said Cydroidobot.
The Humpty Hump Dumpster flew steadily on, and for some reason the huge dumpster-body rocked more and more dizzily every hour. Titi and B.M. Foulfinger both got airsick and vomited over all down the side of the dumpster, all over the ironing boards. Nate Goiterhead, Cydroidobot, the Ratsack Golem and the Chainsaw Raccoon didn’t seem to mind the motion as long as they were not tipped out.
“It will be dark soon,” said Tititarius, observing that the pinkish peach-shaped sun was low on a blueish-purple horizon.
“We should stop for today and find a place to spend the night,” said the Ratsack Golem.
“Capital idea,” said B.M. Foulfinger. “I could use a trip to the land of Nod.”
Titi yelled to the Humpty Hump Dumpster’s head:
“Humpty Hump Dumpster! We need you to land somewhere before it gets dark!”
“PPHHHFFFFRRRRRTTTTT,” answered the Humpty Hump Dumpster’s head out it’s wriggling snout. They were over a range of high mountains with many deep gorges and steep cliffs showing plainly. The Humpty Hump Dumpster immediately started plummeting towards a table of rock that stood between two cliffs. Our friends all held on as tight as they could. Some of them screamed. The prog rock on the boombox had become more frantic and intense.
Not being experienced in such matters, the Humpty Hump Dumpster did not judge his speed correctly; and instead of coming to a stop upon the flat rock he missed it by half the width of his body, breaking off both his right wings against the sharp edge of the rock and then tumbling over and over down the cliff. Their boombox fell to the ground and shattered.
Our friends held on as long as they could, but when the Humpty Hump Dumpster caught on a projecting rock it stopped suddenly- bottom side up- and all were immediately dumped out.
By good fortune they fell only a few feet; for underneath them was a giant nest, built by a colony of tufted titmice in a hollow ledge of rock; so none of them was injured by the fall. For Nate found his precious head resting on the soft breast of the Ratsack Golem, which made an excellent if wiggly cushion; and Titi fell on a mass of used toilet paper and currency, which saved him from injury. B.M. Foulfinger had bumped his head against the Chainsaw Raccoon and chipped his nail.
Cydroidobot landed with a clatter and was at first much alarmed; but finding he had escaped without even a scratch upon his beautiful molybdenum structure he at once regained his accustomed cheerfulness and after double checking for marring he turned to address his comrades.
“Our journey had ended rather suddenly,” said he; “and we cannot justly blame our friend the Humpty Hump Dumpster for our accident, because he did the best he could under the circumstances. But how we are ever to escape from this nest I don’t know.”
Titi crawled to the edge of the nest and looked over. Below them was a sheer precipice several hundred feet in depth. Above them was a smooth cliff unbroken save by the point of rock where the wrecked body of the Humpty Hump Dumpster still hung suspended. There really seemed to be no means of escape, and as they realized their helpless plight the little band of adventurers gave way to their bewilderment.
“I’m afraid the mountain air isn’t good for goiters,” moaned the garbage golem.
“It won’t be when the titmice come back,” growled the Chainsaw Raccoon, who lay on the floor of the nest on their side. “Titmice are especially fond of goiters.”
“Do you think the birds will come here?” asked Nate, much distressed.
“Of course they will,” said the living chainsaw sculpture; “for this is their nest. And there must be a lot of them,” he continued, “for see what a lot of things they have brought here!”
Indeed, the nest was half filled with a most curious collection of articles for which the birds could have no use, but which the thieving giant tufted titmice had stolen during many years from the homes of people: Collectible molybdenum lunch boxes and glassware and dusted diamonds and dishtowels and videotapes and audiotapes and designer diapers and fireworks and streetlights and aquariums and sauce pots and a kitchen island and plastic containers and fro pics and rubber novelty items and whiffle balls and bumbershoots and wigs and buckets and bottles and birdcages and bubblegum wrappers and boots and buttons and tubes and tubs and demijohns and cotton underpants and pins and zines and ham and pamphlets and lots of toilet paper and a fiberglass phantom wheel and at least three fire hydrants and piles of solidified salad dressing. As the nest was safely hidden where no one could reach it, this lost property would never be recovered.
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But now they heard a great jabbering and flopping of wings, and as the sound grew nearer to them Titi exclaimed:
“The giant tufted titmice are coming!” Each ferocious avian menace was about the size of a largish cow.
“I’ve never seen titmice so huge,” said the Ratsack Golem, “And so tufted!”
“If they find us here they will surely kill us in their anger,” shouted Titi.
“I was afraid of this!” moaned Nate. “My time has come!”
“And mine, also!” said B.M. Foulfinger the emancipated finger; “for tufted titmice are one of the greatest enemies of my race, second only to non-tufted titmice!”
Cydroidobot stared at the distant swarm of blood-thirsty birds and his vision became wavy and then he had a flashback:
He was walking through Spew Spew Forest, and came to a clearing in which was gathered hundreds of strange looking wild yokai of every variety. There were wool-less mammoths and a nard with a scroat’s head and two red jackalopes with diarrhea and a seven-foot-tall veiny woodchuck and snakes with dozens of legs and a ton of others. Cydroidobot judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. The biggest of the legged snakes came up to the travelers and greeted them. After introductions were made (the tekhelet-colored snake’s name was Erik) Cydroidobot asked:
“What is your trouble?”
“We are all threatened,” answered Erik, “by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as a mammoth and legs as long as a fleshtree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a violet widower does a coffin fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us.”
The robot thought for a moment.
“I’ll put an end to your enemy. Where is this great spider of yours now?” asked Cydroidobot.
“Yonder, among the oak fleshtrees,” said Erik the Belegged Snake, pointing with one of his feet.
“I will go at once to fight the monster.”
He bade his new comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle with the enemy.
The great spider thing was lying asleep when Cydroidobot found him. Its legs were quite as long as the wild yokai had said, and its body covered with oily black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as slender as a sewer rat’s waist. This gave the android a hint of the best way to attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the monster’s back. Then he activated his buzzsaw extension and sawed the spider’s head from its body. When he got about a quarter of the way through the neck the creature awoke and started screaming and sobbing. The head became silent when it finally fell to the ground with a wet thump. Jumping down off its back, the robot watched until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was quite dead. He retracted his buzzsaw extension.
Then the creature’s neck stump began pulsating and puckering and suddenly it swelled up and then a huge terd was expelled in a torrent of pudding-like goo. The terd writhed and pulsated, then cracked open and a baby spider thing lept at Cydroidobot. He popped his machete out of his wrist and stabbed it in the stomach.
Cydroidobot had killed an awful lot of things but this one really got to him. He’d never forget the sound of the baby’s pathetic squeals as it died a slow painful death impaled on his machete.
He pledged to never kill anything ever again, and he had kept that promise.
Until tonight, in the titmouse nest.
Perceiving the intruders in their nest the monstrous titmice flew down upon them with screams of rage. The Robotic Emperor commanded his friends to go hide under the piles of booty. Titi grabbed Nate’s head off his neck, shoved the golem’s body to the ground, and dove into the booty, followed quickly by Foulfinger and the Ratsack Golem.
When the giant tufted titmice nearly knocked Cydroidobot down in their rush of wings, and their sharp beaks, fangs and claws threatened to damage his brilliant molybdenum alloys, the android popped his machete out of one wrist and his buzzsaw extension out of the other and whirled them swiftly around his head, slicing off huge chunks of the birds and spraying gore everywhere.
But although many were beaten off in this way, the birds were so numerous and so brave that they continued the attack as furiously as before. Some of them pecked at the eyes of the Humpty Hump Dumpster, which hung over the nest in a helpless condition; but the taxidermied creature’s eyes were marbles and could not be injured. Other titmice rushed at the Chainsaw Raccoon; but that bench, being still upon his side, kicked out viciously with his wooden legs and frightened them away.
“PPHHHFFFFRRRRRTTTTT,” fart-screamed the Humpty Hump Dumpster. It began wildly waving the two ironing board wings remaining on the left side of its body. The flutter of these great wings filled the titmice with terror, and when the Humpty Hump Dumpster by its exertions freed itself from the peg of rock on which it hung, and noisily clattered down into the nest, the alarm of the birds knew no bounds and they fled screeching and pooping white-and-black poop over the mountains.
image [https://i.ibb.co/1RGpCj9/122small.jpg]