Morty Glumph - Paranoid Creamsicle Salesman

Creamsicle salesman Morty Glumph never knew what hit him. Glumph was selling creamsicles in his usual way, out of a truck in the alley behind the King Edward Hotel, and there was a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and was struck with a fist of fury. It knocked Glumph cold, into a deep sleep.

He awoke in severe pain. He was yelping in fact, in a totally girly way, quite embarrassing if you were Glumph or knew Glumph or even had to watch him scream. But to be fair he had just taken a shot between the eyes, and that’s more than most creamsicle salesmen have to put up with. He was lying on a metal bed with a protractor down his throat and a large egg-collection sack up his rectum.

“They must think I’m some sort of chicken,” thought Glumph, who was lucid and attuned to the ludicrous, “for they are stealing my eggs.” Now if Glumph were actually a chicken he would have been offended, and worried. "Thankfully," he thought, "there has been some sort of mistake." He cried for water, for he was thirsty, and suddenly a nurse appeared before him, towering and disturbed.

“Who are you?" asked Glumph; "Where am I?” but the nurse stuck a thermometer down his throat. “WHfgte sadas you? Sfsdf am I?” he insisted, but the nurse shushed him and walked out the room, leaving a glass of water by the ledge of the windowsill, just beyond Glumph’s reach. "Stupid nurse," thought Glumph. She was a tall nurse, "at least taller than the table," he reckoned, but Glumph was prostrate and in no position to judge. Also he still had a protractor down his throat.

Glumph got out of bed, dislodged the probing instruments, spat out the thermometer and considered his options. Whoever had knocked him out had left him with his cell phone at least, and that was good. Nokia was a reliable phone service, and he was more than happy with their billing system. He would like to have worked with Nokia, even in a creamsicle-selling capacity, but first he wanted to figure out who had pummelled his face in. He phoned the pizza man and asked for a two-cheese with pepperoni to be delivered to his office. He just hoped he could reach his office in time to greet the delivery boy.

Glumph walked out the probing room and saw an auspicious-looking tunnel. He went down it and reached the surface of street. "Hmm," he hummed. They were just outside the King Eddy, so whoever had pummelled him had built up a lab underground quite close to his workplace. "Pretty strange," thought Glump. He pulled out a notepad and made a list of potential enemies:

There was Haggis Simpson Delacroix, a newt farmer who came down to St Lawrence Market every weekend and had on occasion threatened to eat Glumph’s brains and shoot out his eyes with a slingshot. But no, Glump had been pummelled with fists and not pierced with a sling, so that left Delacroix in the clear. There was also Jasmine Washburn Willowy-Frack, an egg farmer at the market; she was always hatching some practical joke or trickery - just the sort of pixie who'd be up for some rectal poaching. But no, Jasmie had just given Morty a box of free eggs the week before and so he tried not to be so suspicious. Glumph finally settled on Gibson Longknife Xavier-Hannibal Goatsmammoth, known as the Great Marmoset Peltsman of St. Lawrence Market aka the Pylon. The Pylon was just the sort to hatch a tremendous ruse and even to stoop to physical beatings in the back of an alleyway. Glumph believed the Pylon to be jealous of Glumph’s prowess with the creamsicle cart, and indeed it was the Pylon who had tried to murder Glumph on several non-consecutive occasions, at the clubs on College Street one night during a drag queen show, and even on the Toronto Islands by attempting to stick Glumph into the gears of a tandem bicycle and snapping his head off with the torsion force of the pedals. Luckily the Pylon was no physicist and Glump survived each of these assaults. But there was permanent bad blood.

Glump made it to his offices in time to collect his pizza, which was delicious. Feeling invigorated from the food, he decided to take a shower with all his clothes on. In the shower however there was an ominous sign: a big note, carved into the tile work, reading, "Your eggs are my eggs, if you were a big bunch of ovaries I’d be pretty worried right now." Glumph thought it was another practical joke, and he tried to distract his worrying mind by calling some of his creamsicles supplier and filling out the contract forms for the upcoming year in creamsiclery.

One of his suppliers, Toad McMurray, said something Glumph took as a clue: “I haven’t seen the Pylon for weeks," McMurray said, "it’s as though he’s fabricating a piece of devilry.” And so it was confirmed – the Pylon was up to trickery in the most devilish way! And Glumph had the eye-bruises to make that allegation most inflamatory.

Glumph decided to go sailing, for he owned a small rig at the harbour, and he thought it occasion to clear his mind and breath in healthy lake air. "Commercial air pollution will be the death of North America," he thought but his conspiracy theories had some length to go before being proved.

[unfinished of course]