Once
upon a time (and I'm talking way back, when that green stuff in
my refrigerator still looked like a dairy product), there was a
little sheep-herding township on the Transylvanian coast called
Drakuul. It was a happy little village, where the lighthearted shepherds
had a uniquely close relationship with their livestock. Very close.
I'm saying there was a provision in the town charter where you could
marry one of the wooly beasts if you wanted.
But the citizens
of Drakuul had become downcast of last. The old legends of vampires
had sprung up in recent months, after some lambs had wandered off
the trail just before Halloween and been found the next day: all
of the blood sucked out of their bodies, leaving their owners widowed
and eying their neighbors' sheep tensely.
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"It's
a plot to drum up tourism," said Olaf the Satisfied.
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"It's a
plot to drum up tourism cooked up by the Transylvania Chamber of
Commerce," assured Olaf the Satisfied, whose own great flock
was so massive that all of the shepherds around knew that he would
never go lonely. But most of them had only one or two lambs to get
them through the long winter nights. What were they to do?
"`Tis no
joke," pronounced Old Boris the Gypsy, who could remember when
monsters roamed the countryside, and whose own hand had been ripped
off as a boy by a wandering zombie selling Amway products. "This
vampire is real! And with all of the bloodshed and mayhem that he's
sure to inflict, we'll all need to stay locked up in our shacks
with our sheep. Christmas will have to be cancelled!"
The solitary
shepherds looked at each other in despair. Cancel Christmas? The
favorite time of the year in Drakuul, when the shepherds and their
worn-out livestock would gather around the town tree and sing all
the old carols, followed by a spirited show starring Olaf the Satisfied
and his most agile sheep.
"We'll
have to forget the show," grieved Boris to the disappointed
shepherds, "and all of the other joys of the season as well.
Let's face it, boys; there's just no one around here who's stupid
enough to try and hunt down that vampire by Christmas!"
At about this
time, a young muse named Jonny M. was being fired from his job as
a department store Santa at the Budapest Wal-Mart. The muse had
been dipping imto the Seagrams display ion the liquor department
and had just puked on a seven year old who was asking him for matching
Beavis and Butthead dolls. Ruefully, the muse looked in the European
edition of Drama-Logue for a new job, and found his eyes sailing
to an ad picturing a frustrated Olaf the Satisfied holding a well-oiled
sheep. The ad read "Earn good money while you practice your
craft! Vampire hunter wanted!"
Jonny had remembered
Olaf from when the muse played a bondage slave in the holiday show
two years before. It had been a degrading experience, but residuals
from the super-eight film version saw Jonny through a very disappointing
pilot season that year. Remembering what he had to go through during
rehearsals, he grabbed a jar of Vaseline and made his way to Drakuul.
It was Christmas
Eve when Jonny entered the tiny township's gates following the arduous
journey from Budapest, but the muse was surprised to find that none
of the usual trappings of the season that usually decorated the
town square. He wandered through what looked like a ghost town,
finally coming across a very dispirited Olaf holding tightly on
to a very nervous looking sheep.
"Hi. Olaf,"
said Jonny, his stomach turning slightly as he remembered the presentation
from two years before. "I hear we're doing a monster-themed
show this year. Is this our star?"
The corpulent
shepherd looked up mournfully at the muse.
"Christmas?"
asked Olaf. "With that vampire lurking about, we can't celebrate
Christmas. Christmas has been cancelled!"
Jonny was aghast.
Cancel Christmas? The muse had never heard of such a thing. Granted,
the way the sickos around here celebrated Yuletide, it might not
be such a bad idea, but still
no! The holiday must continue,
thought the noble muse. The vampire must be stopped!"
"I will
stop the fiend," declared the pompous muse as Olaf the Satisfied
sat amorously massaging the sheep's back. "I will wander out
onto the moors tonight, and let the monster have at me. Then, I
shall vanquish it into the dust!"
With that, Jonny
grabbed a bottle of moonshine that Olaf had at his side to keep
the sheep sluggish, and sped off into the forbidding Transylvanian
night.
The muse wandered
on the intimidating moors for hours, nervously searching for the
demonic nosferatu. He was about to admit defeat when he sensed an
evil haze envelope the fog. He spun around to behold an aristocratic-looking
guy in evening clothes staring maliciously at him.
"Good evening,"
smiled the intruder to the startled muse. "I am Count Chocula."
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Jonny
stood face-to-face with Count Chocula.
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Terror overcame
the muse. It was the legendary vampire of yore, who would not only
suck your blood out, but make your milk turn brown at breakfast
as well! The fiend began slowly advancing on Jonny. The muse searched
for something to say, when the night's calm was broken by the far-off
screams of Olaf the Satisfied sodomizing his livestock.
"Creatures
of the night," smirked the Count, "Vhat music they make."
Jonny stood
frozen in fear as the vampire drew his face towards the muse's shivering
neck. Jonny closed his eyes tightly, certain that the end was here,
when the silence was shattered by the alarm of the muse's digital
Sanyo wrist watch signaling midnight. Jonny tightened his jaw, and
desperately muttered the last words he would ever say:
"Merry
Christmas."
The vampire
stopped, just as he was about to sink his fangs into the underdeveloped
muse's pencil-neck.
"Vhat did
you say?" asked the Count.
Jonny's eyes
opened slightly, surprised that he didn't number among the undead.
"I said
Merry Christmas," said our hero, shaking out some liquid from
his pant leg that he hoped was some of Olaf's moonshine from the
bottle he was carrying, but frankly doubted it. "It's midnight,
which means it's Christmas Day. Happy Holidays to ya."
"Christmas?"
asked the vampire with a quizzical look. "Vhat's that?'
The muse gave
the monster an astonished gaze. Surely this was a joke. But when
the vampire persisted in having the doltishly confused expression
on his face, Jonny knew that the villain was serious.
"Christmas,"
said Jonny, slowly taking a gulp from the moonshine bottle. "The
day people set aside each year to celebrate life and love and good
fellowship."
The vampire
continued his stare.
"People
celebrate the day in different ways," said the muse, now pouring
the hooch down his larynx. "Many people consider it a sacred
holy day observed as the birth of the Son of God. Some see it as
a secular celebration of friendship and family. There are as many
ways to celebrate Christmas as there are people celebrating it.
Personally, I think the shepherds of Drakuul take things a bit far.
But the important thing is to spend the holiday with the people
who mean the most to you.
A tear welled
in the vampire's eye.
"It sounds
like a great holiday," said the Count, dabbing his eyes with
the hem of his black cape, "but I don't have any friends. Once
I meet somebody, I suck the blood out of them and that's it."
A dangerous
hobby," warned the muse.
"Oh, I
always wear a condom on my tongue," assured the Count as Jonny
grimaced, lamenting the reaction of the people who are reading this
stupid story at that joke. "But thanks for the concern."
The two enemies
stared at each other in silence, the stillness being broken only
by the orgiastic howls of Olaf the Satisfied in the distance.
"Why
don't you come and celebrate Christmas with me?" asked Jonny
with gulp. "The holidays are for sharing with friends, and
I'm guessing a friend is something you could use."
Daybreak
found the shepherds worried for Jonny's safety. They gathered at
the edge of the forbidding moor armed with torches and crosses to
smoke out the villainous vampire when they were astounded to see
Jonny emerge from the fog being bashfully followed by Count Chocula.
"He's the
one!" screamed Friedrich the Solitary as the mob rustled in
anger. "He's the one who sucked the blood out of my ram Bubba,
leaving my nights cold and lonely!"
"Let's
get him," yelled Olaf the Satisfied.
But just as
the rabble was about to pounce on the startled Count, they were
instantly halted into submission by an indignant cream from Jonny
M.
"Stooooooooooooooooooppppppp!!!"
shrieked the muse, who had finished off the entire bottle of kerosene-based
moonshine by himself. "So you guys are going to beat up my
buddy Bela here on Christmas day. On Christmas day! Just because
he sucked the blood out of some of your sheep. Sure, it was a weird
thing to do, but it's a lot less weird than what some of you perverts
get away with! This is a day of forgiveness. Of rebirth. A day when
we can overlook the misdeeds that our enemies have done to us and
love them as brothers and sisters in the human family."
With that, Jonny
passed out in a pile of sheep shit.
The vampire
and the shepherds looked timidly at each other. Old Boris the Gypsy
glanced up at the rising sun.
"Aren't
you going to turn into a pile of shriveled bones if you stay out
here?' asked the shepherd.
"No,"
answered the vampire with a grin. "That's just movie fiction.
We vampires stay out of the sun because it dries out our alabaster
skin."
With that, the
throng broke into cheers.
"By gum,"
said Olaf the Satisfied, "this'll be the best Christmas ever.
Let me get my ram Dionysus and I'll put on a sheep show that'll
knock you fella's eyes out!"
"What is
it with you guys and the sheep?" asked Jonny as he spit out
as clump of manure. "Why don't you get girlfriends like everybody
else?"
The shepherds
looked at each other in confusion.
"Girls?"
asked a bewildered Olaf. "What are they?"
Jonny and the
Count looked at each other in astonishment. Within seconds, Chocula
was on his cell phone to his castle, summoning his priestesses to
the little township for the biggest Christmas blowout since the
Bronze Age.
So all was happiness
in the small village of Drakuul. The shepherds married the priestesses
and gave up their addiction to sheep, allowing the happy animals
to graze at the roadside with no fear of bending over to get the
really choice clover. Count Chocula gave up his vampire career and
made a fortune as the host of a late night horror movie show, And
Olaf the Satisfied gained worldwide fame after an appearance on
a two-part Rikki Lake Show.
But happiest
of all was young Jonny. M. He looked around at the joy and prosperity
around him and felt a special glow in knowing that he had contributed
to it. So, with a final tip of a mug of egg nog to Count Chocula
and the rest of his friends, the muse jumped on the back of Dionysus
the friendly sheep and rode into the Christmas sunset, happy that
he had finally found a date for New Year's Eve.
And happy holidays
to you, my friend. Whether you are celebrating Christmas with family
and friends, Hanukkah with loved ones, or just watching some perverted
shepherds get it on, know that you always have a devoted friend
in Jonny M.
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