by Alexander D. Abraham

Semi-automatic: A study in subplot dissemination and the literalisation of subtext OR Experimentations with substance OR Riffs on the theme of desertion OR “How to portray bookends textually via subterfuge and linguistic manipulation!”

They had once challenged themselves to remember just how many probe could be parlayed into the final countdown, but had found that without a shadow of a doubt there were only 14 people in the world who could do the job, and 23 were dead, shot down in their prime for knowing too much about the process of deconstruction, and known to possess a liberal amount of charm and lashings of oily chips, garnished only with the smallest children in the kingdom solidly swinging their bats at the ball but only seeing 14 metres in front of them, naturally elated as they were the best bet for democracy, because, after all, they’d never send anyone but the best, unless of course it was a Tuesday at which point everyone would take off their hats and stamp on them violently, making sure that they crushed the heads and only the heads, because the rest was valuable, from the prow of the ship to the bow, and all the arrows, although some of them were slightly poorly made, though that had never stopped Napoleon.
NAPOLEON
Napoleon of course was one of the first men to have seen the play performed in its entirety, when he sailed on the ship over the equator for the first time and into the dawn, the dawn of the probe, which solidly perused all that it had in front of it and made a decision based entirely on the facts.
THE FACTS
The facts were elusive and difficult to hold down, given that they had been lubricated liberally with ample amounts of charm, and were the second choice for the Premiership after the probe had confused Tuesday with Thursday, and stomped on his hat, rather than his head, triggering 12 dystopians to get out of bed and roll over on the floor sliding down the hill, through the town and into the dock, where upon it was time to go through the gate which was heavily guarded by all manner of distressing unsavoury types, but most prominently by Arthur’s Father, who was a great jolly fat man, Arthur’s father was fatter than that.
ARTHUR’S FATHER
Arthur’s Father was known to run a tight ship, and a tight ship he did run, least of all because a tight ship was the only variety of ship with the necessary structural integrity to hold his enormous weight, though many had tried, which had led to the ARFA-weight class of weight lifting being introduced the Olympics in 1976 on what was a sunny and some say fateful day, resulting in the fall of both the small republic of Monbulgia in which the event was held, and a quantum singularity being opened up on the inside of the stadium, providing the oligarchy that rose from the ashes of the republic with it’s greatest and most potent source of tourist income, aside from the roaring trade in dried out dead people they managed to partially achieve and partially usurp from Guanojauto Mexico.
MEXICO
Mexico had once played host to the ship itself, back when Napoleon was involved in his giant descriptive analogy phase, before he descended into reductive and regressive self referentiality, back in the days, those crazy, lazy, hazy days of summer, those halcyon days, those days before the great mutilated dingo took his liberties with plurality, before the loop had settled into place ensnaring those that chose to reside upon that fateful spot and stole all of the commas that he could see.
COMMAS
But people subsequently found that they could live without commas and once they were free of the oppressive yoke of the commas found that their creativity flowed unabated like the best milk-fed gimp who never stopped for anybody for no man or woman but perhaps would stop for a lithe and well fed grey hound if its fur was the right colour or a baby seal soft and yielding like the best of those comical moral dilemmas which used to plague the greatest minds of Plato’s century before some reductive nut case suggested that arrows and hares never actually get anywhere but instead spend their time progressing towards goals that never can be attained because the prerequisite for attaining those goals is to complete the tasks that infinitely come before and as such arrows and hares are able if they think about it to move laterally to time and space at right angles if you will because if you’re busy reducing all your goals to smaller and smaller constituents where in the hell else are those targets going move to get away from all you recidivist reductive dastardly bastard-bandits but at right angles from every plane in which you exist?
RIGHT ANGLES
So the problem of how to move at right angles remained unsolved and hidden by the hares and arrows until arrows fell into disuse and the hares had all regressed back to being rabbits and befriended their old foes the turtles without going anywhere near any of the those sly and dastardly backstabbing tortoises and so when the problem of where to go next returned to plague the sightless hacking preachers who had eaten the freethinkers of Europe instead of going at right angles into the thankless æther like they wanted to they were forced by Napoleon to the New World on the ship to vomit the remains of the thought they had eaten into the ground and form a bastardised leech parasite of a house to rule the world rather than invading the fantastic realm of arrow-hares to which the probe had retreated after everyone realised he had lost his hat and his head and his marbles.
MARBLES
His marbles in fact had become one of the prime drawing factors aside from the mummies and the quantum singularity for the Monbulgian tourist market which had flourished in the years since Arthur’s father had got too fat and consumed the universe with a wish powered by the dreams of magic carpet riding snowmen.
SNOWMEN
The snowmen had mutinied many years earlier from the ship when it was still ruled under the iron fist and broke jaw of the great Palm Tree McGillicuddy who had woke one day to discover his crew of magically bonded snowmen had eaten all his domesticated seagulls shot his albatross and raided the personal bank account of his jaw rendering it bankrupt which was crippling as it had been working towards financial independence from McGillicuddy and the rest of his anatomy for many years and through perseverance and good investments had only just gained financial security and taken its first tentative and somewhat haphazard steps into the real estate market by purchasing a fine Italian villa on the sea front in Vladivostok with a brilliant view of the patrol boats of the Security Defence Force hanging like the swinging salacious Sword of Damocles on the edge of Japans territorial waters waiting ready to strike like tightly coiled springs with ferocious tigers at the end of them waiting for the word of the emperor that now was the time they could cease being the Security Defence Force and that now was the time for them to become the security offence force and teach those Ruso-Sino bastards a thing or two about messing with a culture of stifled and only barely contained samurai-warrior-accountants and spring-tigers too tightly coiled.
SPRING-TIGERS…HAVING… WERE
The spring tigers were easily recognisable and easily differentiated from other springs due to their vicious nasty bitey teeth and the fact that they had claws at either end and were often too tightly coiled due to the fact that they only occurred naturally in the fields of Corsica where they would play and frolic happily in the fields with Napoleon and were prone to rapid onset deep vein from-home-sis or home sickness as it is commonly known which wasn’t a problem as long as they were at home which they were until they were all rounded up and packed onto the ship and sent off around the world to find the probes marbles which had been sequestrated by a Victorian robber-baron by the name of Beguiling Bill Guinea who had an affinity for frankness and Thomas Ness and Bruce Ness and providing only the finest and slickest racing marble-boards when he was asked for them on time every time and uninterrupted by commas which was becoming increasingly easy in their absence.
COMMAS…OR?
P.T. McGillicuddy had been hot on the trail of the missing commas for weeks and was beginning to piece together a comprehensive picture of the thief his motives and his modus operandi when he began to find wayward punctuation in his soup fouling it up and making the onions taste like running shoes.
RUNNING SHOES: NIKE’S FINE ATTEMPT TO BREAK THE SHOE DELIVERY MONOPOLIES OF THE LOWER EAST
The running shoes of course belonged to the probe who had purchased them in order to gain the necessary grip to turn at right angles to everything else ever and follow the recidivist reductoid whom Plato had warned him about.

PLATO: WHERE AND WHY DID POLYTHEISM GO WRONG?
Plato had gone into hiding when he heard about Napoleons quest to round up all the hacking blinding bringers of the light and ship them off to New Philadelphia and had become an assistant chef upon the ship where no one would expect him to hide remaining incognito amongst the crew that was hunting him until one fateful day when he fouled up the captains soup, undermining his disguise rather expertly by revealing his comprehension of the nature of the written tongue of the traders – after all, what kind of soup chef has good grammar?
SOUP CHEF: ALSO KNOWN AS HANK
And so it was that the soup chef discovered the secret hiding place of the stolen commas, and it too was the last place anybody had thought of looking, as they had taken to a shadow dimension which was only at about 45 degrees from everything else ever, which misled their pursuers rather deftly, who had all gone right past and missed the turn off by about 45 degrees each time.
DEGREES: GAINED BY C’S
88 of the degrees had been universally agreed amongst themselves that everyone was a pack of fools for thinking that the only possible orientations with any substance or relevance of any kind were straight ahead along the plane or 90 degrees from it, so, in the spirit of gentle passive civil disobedience as a form of revenge, had agreed not to reveal the location of the commas voluntarily.
COMMAS, APOSTROPHES, AND HOW TO AVOID EMBARASSING TARDINESS
The commas found that what had in fact blown their cover was that they had unwittingly invaded the secret æthereal zone where all good soup comes from, and, vowing not to be caught out similarly again had decided to train themselves up by engaging in tests of sporting skill and other challenges.
CHALLENGES OF THE CHILLEN RAISING: HOW TO DE-TOOTH YOUR OFFSPRING.
They had once challenged themselves to remember just how many probe could be fooled into the self-destruction, but had found that without a shade nor shy trumpeter of a doubt there were only 49 people in the world who could do the job, and 87 had murdered them, shot them down in their private alcoves for knowing too little about just how many deconstructionists had been demolished, and who was known to possess a liberal amount of chips and lashings of oily charm, garnished only with the most finely diced chilled wrens in the barony weakly slicking their bats with crude oil but only seeing 14 people in stead of them, naturally elated as they were the downtrodden and dejected, because, after all, they’d never send anyone useful especially not the best, unless of course it was a Tuesday at which point everyone would take off their heads and stamp their seals violently and rubbery, making sure that they crushed the ice because no one wants a warm drink on a hot day, and who would know if the rest was valuable, or whether they travelled from the prow of the ship to the bow, or how all the arrows, although some of them were slightly poorly made, had never stopped Napoleon?
NAPOLEON…NEVER KNEW WHAT HIT HIM, THE POOR BASTARD: IT WAS ME, OF COURSE.
Napoleon of course was one of the first men to have for the first time and into the dawn seen the play performed in its equator, when he sailed on the ship over the entirety, which solidly perused all that it had in front of the dawn of the facts, and made a decision based entirely on the probe.
QUIT THIS VILLAINY!

Semi-automatic: A study in subplot dissemination and the literalisation of subtext OR Experimentations with substance OR Riffs on the theme of desertion OR “How to make these gullible fools read similar nonsense twice!”

- A.D. Abraham (Submitted for publication)