The Unethical Adventures of Kamahoosh McKack

Granny's Gnashers

The hero of our tale is a somewhat dubious gent.  As a boy, he was well known for forcing sheep to eat Sheppherd's pie, making the younger children eat Parma Violets untill they were sick, teaching his pet hawk to hunt for toupes at the lawyers' emporium and various other misdeeds.

As he grew to be a man, his adventures grew to be more and more unethical and it is for this reason, my dears, that they are chronicled here, for you to learn from(or at least, be entertained by) his dastardly actions.

This particular tale has to do with a set of rather glorious false teeth and the avaricious lust which they inspired in Kamahoosh.  Let us begin our tale...

*****

It was a hazy beginning to the day, in Fartgatch.  The mist hung low over the streets and the sewers were emitting a sour and delightfully pungent odour, like cabbages and sick.  The dung sellers were out selling their goods and there was urine dripping from the eaves of the houses.  It was a glorious beginning to what would prove to be an adventurous day.

The hero of our tale was at this moment in time sittin up in his bed drinking whiskey from a tea cup and eating last night's fish and chips.

"Gripmug! Gripmug!"  he roared.  "Gripmug, where are you, you worthless little louse?"

A slimy, pitiful man entered the bodouir of Kamahoosh.  He bowed and scraped, dribbling a viscous yellow fluid as he did so.

"You bellowed, my most wonderful master?"

"Yes i did, you little gut-wart," sulked McKack though a mouthfull of sodden chips, "where's my spam sandwitches? I'm going out today and I want my packed lunch."

"I shall procure them immediately, my lord."

Gripmug oozed away, leaving the daily paper on a silver tray that lay at the side of his master's bed.

Kamahoosh sat up quickly, nearly choking on the piece of elderly, leathery Cod he was chewing.  The newspaper headline read:  "Granny Chomphazard leaves nasty gnashers to grandson."

Granny Chomphazard was renowned throughout Fartgatch for her false teeth, made entirely of precious metals and gemstones.  The small fortune which these incredible man made mandibles represented could easily keep Kamahoosh living comfortably for a month, which was considerable, if one were to take into account his lascivious and ostentatious lifestyle.  For any normal gentleman, it would last close to a year.

"Gripmug!  Forget my spam snadwitches!  Bring me my most dashing atire, including my silver topped cane and shiniest Tophat.  Oh! And don't forget my best knickers!"

Kamahoosh leapt from bed and proceeded to wax his glorious black moustaches into deadly points.

*****

Walking down the street to a nearby delicatessen, Kamahoosh decided to procure for himself a little tipple to set the tone for his day of mischief. 

They stopped at the Grotty Bottle, a tavern frequented by a certain kind of Lady and a certain kind of Gent.  Upon arrival at the bar, Kamahoosh ordered a bottle of red wine for himself and some deer milk for Gripmug.

Around fifteen minutes passed, when a rather attractive, buxom young lady sat herself near to our hero's table.

"My, my Gripmug! How the clientelle has improved in this establishment!"

"Hello there, my handsome friend," she purred, "would you oblige me by buying me a drink?"

"Only if you oblige me with your company," he smarmed.

The young lady joined them and Kamahoosh kissed her hand, which smelled faintly of toothpaste.  A suspicion niggled at his brain, as he helped her to her seat. 

Kamahooshs' eyes took in the whole of her lovely body and deided at once that he would manage to involve this innocent young thin in his day of vexome antics.

"A tree sap for the lady."

As the tree sap was glopped into a tin mug, Kamahoosh excused himself briefly to the water closet.  It was more of a rancid cess cupboard at the back of the tavern, but it would serve his purpose.  He rifled through the young ladies' purse, which he had procured expertly from her person.  Her name was Grendalscab Chunkthigh Chomphazard. 

Kamahoosh grinned a most mischieveous grin and twiddled his long, slick, black moustaches.  A devious plan was conncocting within his brain, like a drum of industrial waste.

He exited the pissoir buttoning up his flies and whistling the tune to "Madam Trumpet has lost her rag", to find Gripmug and Grendalscab deep in conversation. 

"Well, you see ma'am, my father was the most respected carp farmer for miles, but he married my mother, the daughter of a Biscuit chewer and Nanny Fishguts always said that Daddy had married beneath him.  That's why he was cut out of the inheritance.  Because he mixed Fishguts with Biscuits.  So here I am, the manservant to the heir of the McKack fortune.  It's tough, but it has its' rewards."

Kamahoosh was greeted with silence upon his return, and looked down in mock embarassement.  He had left his Younger Gentleman peeping from its' cave.  Grendalscab blushed and looked away.  Little did she know, that the dirty and distasteful McKack had done this on purpose, in order to slip her purse back into her bag.  Less a few coins, of course.

"My dear, how embarassing!  Please, allow me to put him back to bed," said the mucky bugger, tucking in the sleeping policeman.

As Grendalscab began to mutter and stutter her feelings of embarassed benediction, she grunted as Kamahoosh gave her bonce a sharp rap.

From behind, Gripmug caught her under her arms and escorted her outside as the two laughed loudly and announced the youn ladies' inability to handle her tree sap.

*****

It was a good while before the poor, unsuspecting girl opened her eyes.  She was disoriented and found herself propped up in the corner of a flannel merchants' warehouse.

Upon taking in a deep breath, she felt a curious sensation at the opening of her mouth.  Her lips flapped loosely with each breath.  She screamed in horror.  Kamahoosh McKack, the clandestine cad had stolen her teeth.

*****   

The novella

For as long as I can remeber, I've been an avid reader.  I'm not trying to say thatI'd read Tolstoy at age three or Wilde at age four, but I've always loved books.

Perhaps it would be more accurate eo say that I love stories and ideas.  There's something wonderful and magical about capturing a story or idea in words, afixing meaning to the symbols which represent the sounds and then pressing those symbols to the page indefinately. 

Poetry, novels, plays; I find them all fascinating. 

There's something that I find inexplicably graceful about a piece of well written literature.  It's not always about plot lines and twists, although I'm not saying that these aren't important (far from it!) it's about the skill with which the afore mentioned literary techniques are executed.  A well written piece of literature can provoke equally strong emotions in me even on the third, fourth and fifth reading.  I remeber that the first book to ever do this was "The B.F.G", by Roal Dahl.  I loved it as a child and even now, as an adult.  Not the most complex of pieces, I'll grant you, but it is gripping in its' own way, nonetheless.  There are a number of novels which still make me marvel at the ingenuity of the author whenever I read them.

One of my favourite novels is "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand.  The sheer scale of the piece is awe inspiring (it's one of the longest novels ever written in a European language) and does count toward a great deal of my admiration. 

Why write such a long piece?  It is indeed a gruelling thing to read at times, not light reading by any means.  So why write in such vast and grand proportions?

The answer is this:  for what Rand aimed to achieve, it was necessary.  To present such a complex and rich philosophy, it was necessary to write a piece which explored every avenue of its' application, without leaving one question unanswered.  That is why I love this book so much, because it issuch a thorough piece in achieving the authors's aim. 

There are other novels for which I feel a similar level of love and admiration, some of near equal proportions, some which are far from it. 

Howeever, I'm writing this to think of a particular form of literature; the novella.  Not quite a short story, not quite a novel, it is, I would say,  the middle ground of the literary world. 

Althought with any piece of literature there is a reat deal of room for subjective interpretation of language and of themes, there seems to be something unique about novellas.  There is enough room to recount a story, or present an idea, but there is also plenty of intelectual space for the reader to make their own decisions and expansions (more than a novel, by any means). 

When reading a novella, it seems that it's an opportunity for the author to make the reader do a great deal more imaginative though than with a novel.  there is a great deal of information not being said and to me this is part of the genius of this particular literary form.  It's almost as if the reader is responsible for turning the novella into a novel. 

Some people may see it as laziness on the part of the author, but personally, I think that this level of restraint requires as much literary skill as the full and complete picture formed in a novel.  A novella is, to me, the blue prints of what we as readers then create for ourselves.