A tall ogre sat grimly in the internet bar around the corner from the 24 hour copy centre where I worked. I was employee to the Man but I was also ogre slayer in my spare time. I had killed 15 ogres in May alone and it was not the end of the month yet. Indeed I was hoping to collect a bonus. I went to my boss and asked for more money explaining my good work in killing ogres, but my boss Jonas Hogmass said “You are nor paid to kill ogre, my friend - you are required to sit at the till and deal with customers.” Clearly my talents were being wasted, and so I quit the copy centre that day, exited onto the sidewalk with my dagger to find ogres to feast on.
There was one at the internet cafe, bar CyberNutz, and he was a big ogre. The ogre was downloading new software into his memory stick and I thought it a good opportunity to disembowel him. I entered the cafe and attempted to plonk a dagger into his buttocks. But his ass was too sturdy, and the metal of my shiv clattered into bits. I was agog at this ogre’s buns of steel, and in order to survive I hastily apologized. "My man, there has been a mistake,” I said, “for I have tried to insert my dagger into your rear, but you still sit happily and download your shareware.” And he looked at me crossly. I continued, “You must be a great man, or an ogre at least.”
The ogre was magna cum laude, or so said his laurel that read ‘Harvard Ogres 2004.’ This was no ordinary stupid cave ogre. The ogre was eventually forgiving as he looked at my broken dagger and recommended a good metalsmith - in the central business district. “There is a lore passed down since the centuries,” the ogre said, “right at the corner of Dundas and King." I nodded but inwardly thought him a fool - those two streets did not intersect. Although perhaps this ogre possessed a greater wisdom: His ass had already proven to be tough and turgid.
Towad the central business district I discovered a whoring parlour. I thought it politic to ingress and fetch myself a wench. I needed help fluffing my daggers. As a freelance ogreslayer I had many weapons and I need help carrying them all. But the parlour was vacant of wenches; it was filled only with radio broadcasters and advertising executives. Hmm, I thought, perhaps one of these could carry my standard, and also give me advice for jazzing up my CV. It was employment I also needed having quit the copy centre. So I approached a marketing vp. “You there, you shall be my metal-wench” I said to her, but she talked about quarterly earnings. I was frustrated at her insouciance and so tried to disembowel her. Alas my dagger was still in pieces. She scoffed and said “There are metalsmiths at Dundas and King!” Now, that intersection again! This wisdom from the Harvard ogre was proving a bit pedestrian.
On my way to the promised intersection I alighted at a meadow. A long meadow filled with gigantic trees and also video games from the bygone Epoch. There was Super Mario Bros and Bubble Bobble and even Excitebike, blinking at full squeal. I was filled with a sweeping nostalgia at the glories of a bygone age, and how bittersweet were the times knowing the peak of VideoGame Genius had been achieved and real-time first person shooter could never be more stunning than it was right now. But enough head-in-the-cloudery I thought and I continue to search out my wayward metalsmith.
At Dundas and King stood a wizard, robed in velvet, blue velvet, and covered with enchanted symbols such as the legends have described. The wizard was selling instrumental cds out of a case and asking for change. This wizard’s name was Dirkwald the Dirigible; he was of a blimpish countenance, for which reason I nicknamed him Zassy the Zeppelin. I asked Zassy the whereabouts of my metalsmith, and showed him the pieces of my dagger. He said, “Son, put down that weapon and enter my trailer.” For he had a trailer on the roadside; it looked welcoming and emitted the aroma of 100 per cent angus frozen beef patties wafting off his easy-clean George Foreman Grill. I stared at the wizened wizardly face and he began to incant, “uhmah, laga, the shazakl and the threwr” This man possessed secrets from the beyond the mists of centuries, I thought, and I should acquiesce. This was not the result of a narcotic hallucinogen, I assured myself, being stuck with a wizard in his trailer in the business district of a great North American city. No, it was not drugs. In fact everything was all too ordinary.
It has been 17 months since I had been given my charge: to rid the world of ogres and cleanse the universe of all overbearing ghoulishness. I was sent on my mission by the great sage Margot the Mad who had entrusted to me his silver shiny shimmering shiv. I was the Knavish Knight who would call down the wrath of the righteous and deliver justice to the arms of the innocent, or so it was written on my email signature. I was honoured to be chosen but I also desired some sort of pamphlet, online tutorial, or primer to explain which enemies exactly I was to disembowel and which innocents I was to spare. For I was a recent graduate of an east coast school and was nowhere accustomed to plunging daggermetal into the obstreperous buttocks of a loathsome ogre.
[unfinished of course]
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