“The village idiot always believed the preacher, for he was treated kindly by the man of God, so that is exactly what he did. When dusk fell, like this permanent dusk you see around you, all the dwarves were dashed to pieces on the rocks below and no one ever heard of them again. Both of them were idiots; they have never been anywhere but here.
“The preacher knew they would be seen in broad daylight, and in total darkness, the preacher and the ape would not have the satisfaction of seeing the dwarves destroyed on the rocks. They listened with glee to their screams and watched them flail as their broken bodies washed out in the ocean. The preacher and the ape laughed until their sides ached.”
“My kind of people, Father. But the preacher does not make sound as he-”
“It is true that they have been punching him in the eyes nonstop for many millennia, and they have been tearing off his privates with their teeth, and they grow back instantly, but this is not so for the tongue. They have torn the tongue out with their teeth and swallowed it many lifetimes ago. He does not have the satisfaction of begging them to stop, or of them hearing him screaming. It is funny, isn’t it?
“Have you ever seen anyone struck that hard in the eyes before, my son? And when one dwarf becomes tired, another takes his place. He doesn’t remember any time before this where his genitals weren’t being chewed. His poor sick mind constructed this fantasy to try to make sense of the complete senselessness of this. Nothing less. Pathetic, really. I have stood here many lifetimes completely silent, listening to their hungry munching and loud punching. Just wistfully watching.”
“Surely it is of a romantic nature, Father.”
“If you loved pleasing me, my son, you would drive your hooves into the ape’s eyes for many a lifetime.”
And the son did. In the dim, orange light, they went to their work, the father and son kicking energetically, repeatedly, into the head that sat above the ground. It cursed and screamed and begged, and they laughed so hard it soon made standing impossible.
The preacher shuddered, shivering in his pain, but could do nothing else, which made them laugh harder. The dwarves sped up their punching and munching, pleased but never laughing. They were much too serious and intent on their job for that.
A good time was had by all.
Thus ends the episode entitled “The Cliffs At Hintz-Balzer.”
They came to an open space and saw a man’s behind. The front part of his jerking body was lost within a fiercely glowing furnace. The heat was so intense that the son wondered if he had ever felt anything so wild in his life. It caused the machine to expand and retract without cease; probably intensifying the temperature to unimaginable heights the whole while. The son felt an internal giggle-fest coming on and satisfaction seethed within his shrieking chest.
A child-sized skeleton was whacking the bottom with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. Red drew near and asked him to hold still for one moment. A strangely adult voice came forth from somewhere within the bones as it stopped whacking the pulped gray bottom.
“I will only hold for a moment. I must be about my eternal pleasure-quest.”
“Quick, son, read what is on the paddle. Quick, now, approach softly.”
The son did so and saw right before the skeleton began swinging again. “’Fathers, love your children and do not exasperate them.’ You mean-”
“Yes, my son. This creature dreamed of a world where he was a dogma deliverer and he had a woman who bore him this son. Foolish dreamer; he was only remembering his future. He only dreamed he killed the son so that he might feel better about being treated thusly here. He stripped the son of all his flesh in that other world, then poured salt on the wounds. What he really did was serve his ego and play like he was one of the gods. He thought, ‘If I kill the son in the dream state, maybe he will cease to exist in reality.’ How foolish.”
“Shall we find paddles and swing to our purpose, Father?”
“Yes, let’s.”
They found many paddles resting on the wall on the other side of the oven. The son chose one that said, “If you have love for another, they will know you!” The father snatched one that was covered with teeny writing. “Take the log out of your own eye first, then you will see the microscopic speck in your brother’s eye!” There the vampiric satyr son also found settings on the oven to increase the heat, and did so to an impossible level, then laughed. The father was already swinging the paddle with blurring speed against the man’s belly and exposed genitals. The son joined in and began applying the paddle to his backside. They enjoyed millennia doing this. It never grew tiring or boring. It was indeed a pleasure-quest.
“Is there anything that can be done,” the son asked, “to make this machine glow white-hot for many lifetimes?” He was smiling with a foot-wide grin.
The child-sized skeleton approached them and spoke matter-of-factly. “If you fill the iron beast’s stomach with metal ingots from that pile, I trust it will test the metal’s ability to endure for thousands of lifetimes.”
“Will the piglet squeal?” the son asked, his smile widening.
The child-skeleton grandly waved his arm around the room. “See. See.”
So the father and son filled the iron beast with metal bars until they were forced to withdraw from the roaring heat. The room instantly burned a violent gold as the heat could be felt, even in their bones.
The piglet within, if it was possible, screamed even louder and more earnestly than before. His golden legs pumped furiously but futilely. This had happened many millions of times before, the father explained between belly laughs. And it was always greeted with exactly the same response.
The son saw radiant amber fissures ripping along the surface of the machine, thick golden veins running down the metal cylinder, pulsing, threatening to burst its seams, and nearly firing liquid ore upon the pleased observers.
All within the room burned glittering gold, but the broiling creature locked deep within the embrace of the iron beast shrieked and shrieked, and the father and son laughed louder and longer. Longer and louder.
“My son, look at this stupid woman. She thought she was doing her gods a great service by having other people put to death because they did not believe in her dogma church.”
“Oh, Father, this is almost hideous, if it weren’t so funny. Look!”
“What do you see, my golden son; for behold, that is what you are becoming!” It was true. The son’s skin was becoming shiny and gold. “It is from supping on the buttocks of the golden demon. It sets you up to be great in size and the most powerful of the demons here in the real world.”
“My father, it is of no consequence to me. What I see is this: the wench is revolving over heated rocks on a spit that has pierced her anus and protrudes from her mouth. Oh, how slowly she turns. Many bruised and broken bodies are gathered around her, and they are shoving long metal poles in all of her openings.”
“Yes,” Red said, stifling a snigger, “and making new ones.”