A Clubbing Tale
Before the hedonistic days of my studenthood came the hedonistic days of my year out, a year I spent backpacking around Europe this is a tale from those days.

As people with a grasp of history will know, for a while after the demise of the soviet union the geography of eastern Europe changed more often than a student changes his socks (especially a backpacking student) as countries seceeded and rejoined before splintering off because one branch of the ruling party said something nasty about the other. It was during this time that I found myself in the tiny principality of Paronomatania on the west side of the Black Sea. If this was a western setting it would have been refered to as a one horse town but it had a bar and a dingy little hotel and one single solitary nightclub where the locals used to boogy down to the latest strains of polka. Not really my sort of thing but I was staying in the hotel for a couple of nights and got quite friendly with the barman Erik who promised to show me around.

Because this was quite literally the only place in town it was frequented by everybody, from the farmers who had never heard of deoderant, their wives who had never heard of razors to the local nobility (who had heard of both but distained using them), even the younger son of the King would turn up with his cronies once the night got swinging.

The young Prince (Edwardo Augustus Phillipe to give him his full name) was very much a party animal (not unlike our own Prince Harry) and if he took a shine to you while you were out clubbing you could well be set for life.

So we were in this club, Me, Erik and his wife Astra (nice girl but still had more hair under her arms than I could grow on my face at that point) while her sister was at home looking after their 6 year old daughter. Because I was moving on the next day I didn't partake of the local distilled potato juices as Erik (I had a bus to catch and didnt want to be stranged for 2 more days waiting for the next one) but was smiling along occasionally being dragged up to dance but mostly fairly content sitting back and discussing my travel plans and trip so far with anybody who would sit still and listen.

Erik though was the life and soul of the party, he downed shot after shot of the local vodka and was soon the centre of attention on the dance floor (or the centre of a circle at any rate as his flailing limbs defined a no go area at least 7ft across).

Unbeknownst to us Price Edwardo was in that night in his private gallery overlooking the main room enjoying the company of several local farmer's daughters and quite possibly excersizing his droit de signeur and observing the antics of our drunken barman.

The night finished at around 2am in the morning and we rolled our way back to the hotel to get some sleep, I still had to pack and Erik was working the breakfast shift and had to be up again in 3 hours to clean the bar.

As I strolled down to breakfast that morning (and viewing with distaste the storm that had rolled in from the mountains, I wasnt looking forward to hiking through that much rain to the bus stop)I was met with the sight of Erik beaming like a supermodel had snuck into his bed and pulled a winning lottery ticket out of her cleavage. Not only had his dancefloor antics been noticed by the price he had been summoned to a royal audience this very morning. Erik insisted that I go along to watch rather than miss this part of his country's culture so Erik, Astra and I set off hot foot to the Castle.

We were escorted into the throne room where Edwardo sat in all his ermine trimmed splendor. At his feet lounged the diggest dog I'ver ever seen (I'm no expert at dog breeds but it looked like the offspring of a great dane and a timberwolf) clutching a long wooden stick in its jaws.

We were lead to our seats and the Prince began to speak.
(The following dialog was translated for me as while I could get by I didnt speak russian that fluently so this may not be word for word accurate)
"Erik come here and kneel before your Price, It has come to my attention they you are well known for your ability to enjoy yourself and as such I have ordered your name enscribed on the rolls of the Paronomasian Order Chivalry"
(Yes my friend the barman had just become a Knight of the Realm).

All of a sudden there was a terrific boom of thunder outside that fair rattled the windows of the castle, while the humans in the room jumped then quickly calmed down the dog at Price Edwardo's feet went crazy, it leapt up and charged straight at the kneeling Erik, stick still held firmly in its jaws. There was a resounding crack and the stick connected with his jaw and snapped his head upwards, he crashed forwards head bent at a very unnatual angle. The dog charged up the aisle wreaking havoc as footmen tried to calm him down or at least retrain him, he struggled out of their grasp and ran back down the aisle towards the prince, this time he clipped Atra's arm as she knelt beside her husband sobbing, there was another audible snap as her arm broke and the dog fled yelping from the room.

Prince Edwardo was distraught and while the royal doctors arrived and pronounced Erik dead he had a word with his ministers who produced the deed to a large house in town so that Atra and her daughter would not be made homeless and a large stuffed animal in the shape of the same dog that had just killed Erik and broken Astra's arm (rather poor taste in my opinion but he was evidently some kind of royal mascot so they had plenty on hand to sell to the few tourists who passed through).

I helped Astra home carrying both the deed and the stuffed toy (which was surpringly heavy) that was presumably for her daughter but as it was still pouring with rain outside the dog got soaking wet and started to come apart at the seams, all of a sudden there was a loud ripping noise as the stiches on the underbelly of the dog gave way and solid gold coins started falling out of its stuffing! The Prince had evidently felt so bad that he had provided enough money for Astra to raise her daughter until she was old enough to marry, it wouldn't bring Erik back but would at least mean she wouldn't be destitute or have to sell herself into prostitution to care for her daughter.

I left Astra in the arms of her sister, picked up my bags and trudged through the rain towards the bus stop out of the country and as I did I thought about Erik and Astra and reflected on the fact that for the mourning after a knight's clubbing nothing beats the bear of the dog that hit you.
(Banjax, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:10, 8 replies)

*click*
You had me right up until the last bloody line.
( speedyballbangpots, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:22, closed)

I am so sorry.
I thought this was a pooflake. Have a very contrite click for your efforts.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 16 Apr 2009, 11:02, closed)

This is wicked!
Love it, cheers.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 11:30, closed)

Highly impressive
Well done, sir, well done. *click*
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 12:00, closed)

Well done
I thought this might have been one of those Lake-scribed re-hashes of some film I'm suppposed to have seen (Astra sounds very Disney) but then I got to the end and realised it was nothing less than a bloody marvellous pun. Click.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I love Poof's parodies.

Oh dear I should stop now.
( Scrumper, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 13:37, closed)

Heh
I had to wrack my brains for a name that sounded vaguely eastern European but wouldn't have blatently been a steriotype like Helga or Ingrid
(Banjax, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 14:30, closed)

for some reason I didn't begin to doubt
until the guy died....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 16:19, closed)

I suppose
I could have dragged it out and had the guy die of his injuries in hospital later but I was a little rushed
(Banjax, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 18:43, closed)