The targets were arranged in a line, wooden Ifs and Butts strung out along the grassy knoll. The violinists stood up with their violins poised cleverly beneath their chins, towing the line, pointing their bows in unison. The percussionists rattled their symbols and the choristers limbered up, climbing up and down some scales and harmonies.
The conductor, only in competition with herself, motioned the orchestra to rise, they bowed once and then they drove off. We should have seen that coming.
The Bassoons swung from the trees, trying to out tarzan each other, then dropped a scale or two to sit behind the trumpets, which were in flower.
Then the violinists released their bows, which sailed through the air like unusual swallows. At the end or beginning, but we couldn’t tell William.
Music, sheet music, music in the round, Orpheus and his zither, Beckstein and his piano, can you hear me?
The string quartets fought off the brass bands, whilst the rock groups drowned out the soloists who had lost their backing groups.
Eventually, when the Bows completed their strenuous arcs, they were received with a thud into the golden bullseyes, everyone was amazed and so they cheered. The Butts were cleverly made by hand, using twisted and bound bundles of golden straw, mounted on wooden trestles and faced in gaudy target material painted earlier by the stable lads and lasses.
The Ifs, a throwback to an earlier tradition, stood next to the Butts in pairs. The sides were dovetailed in smooth fruit wood with carvings and embellishments, not moulded in plastic, but cut with a shaped gouge. In front was a leaded glass awning, with capital hinges of an ingenious, which could easily be closed sharpish in a blustery storm. The If itself sat within on a bed of lettuce, occasionally rising and turning slightly to gain a more comfortable opposition.
Please don’t feed the Ifs, proclaimed a sign video taped to the casing. It only encourages them. Anyway, milk and white bread gives them an upset stomach.
On Wednesdays the Ifs had a day off and were herded into the spar for some R and R. Playing bridge and chess with the Do’s and Dont’s who had booked in to detox and recharge their batteries.
Back at the Butts, the bullseye materials were changed because there were too many holes, not today. You can only cover so many rips and tears in the fabric of fabric before it reverts to a confused skein of threads. It can’t always be rewoven, there are methods to try, patching with denim secured by random looking lines securing it in place or there’s darning of course, which is better exercised in the sock department. Leather patches normally used on the tweed jackets of professors can be re-purposed but would have to be painted over to disguise and provide suitably clear instruction for the acute accuracy of the vying violinists.
The Choristers, having warmed up on the asymmetric bars and rope slide, began the timed scales and harmonies ascent event, with a safety rope and white powdered hands, whilst the Brass section, including the trumpets, offered floral arrangements and flowered wreaths to foreign visitors who had arrived on small boats.
But then, when I have my plan and the road is clear, why should I care even if the landscape repeats and repeats its grim content?
Do’s,Don’ts, Ifs and Butts might come to nothing now that the way is clear. Finding a representative to persuade the Moral Compass to come home might seem frivolous or a joke to you, but those currently available are a joke.
All this cufuffle to determine the most suitable candidate. The Moral Compass was being wined and dined in a hospitality box high in the custerdome.
I’m not completely sold on the efficacy of this tournament system to discover the most suitable leader, said The MC, have you tried democracy or simple mob rule.
We tried democracy, said the Blue Knight swishing his glass of ginger ale about thoughtfully, but we discovered that however carefully you write the constitution, however independent you make the judiciary etc, it only takes one bad actor and a stupid electorate and the whole edifice comes crashing down without so much as an editorial. Hey presto, tyranny.
I see, said the MC, Well I haven’t got all day, so I’ll liaise with loser of the Piggy-back Joust which I believe is scheduled for tomorrow morning.
So be it, said the Blue Knight with a sigh, So be it.
The Guardians of the Cave 