Out of the lightning appeared a dark figure hidden under a hood. Laughter echoed throughout the whole place. It was inhuman, coming from all directions and from no-where at all at the same time. It was something like this: "Muahahaha."
People played it cool, at first, thinking it was all part of the show. They cheered and clapped hands. Someone suggested it was an exotic exhibition organized by the royal guests from Kush. In turn, the king of Kush thought it to be a nice surprised played by his host and soon-to-be-family, the king of Warka.
The king of Warka, at the same time, was trying hard to recall if he had any breakfast that morning because he was already feeling kind of hungry, but his wife constantly annoyed him about eating too much.
The excitement ended quickly and abruptly when the dark figure, in everyone's good view in the center of the arena, removed his hood and revealed himself. As his features emerged from the shadows, people gasped in terror and disbelief.
Mothers quickly covered their children's eyes to spare the little ones from such atrocity. Even the mighty warriors had to coward away from the hideous sight. Someone left, "that's it, I'm out of here," unable to withstand the freak show any longer.
The dark stranger stared back at all of them, with a malicious grin and eager eyes. From the middle of his face, inspiring terror in all the presents' hearts, an awfully huge protuberance came out in the shape of a very big nose. And when we say: "a very big nose", we mean: "a really big nose".
After the initial commotion, the arena got quiet and the stranger spoke: "there's a foul smell coming from somewhere around here. My nose is very sensitive, you better..."
Someone from the crowd interrupted him with a shout: "with that nose of yours, you could smell what I ate yesterday!"
Nobody really laughed.
"My name is Vitruvius," said Vitruvius, the stranger. "I am about to get graduated in Evil Wizardry and Dark Artifices. I am here to kidnap your princess."
For a moment the whole world fell silent. Then, someone from the crowd yelled: "What a big magic stick he got. Wait, that's his nose!" Another one added up quickly: "Ain't a nose, it's a vacuum cleaner!"
"That's a snout!" Went on another from the crowd.
"How many fingers can you stick in there?"
"Don't sneeze! You're going to flood the town!"
"Hey Wizard, do you predict the future by smelling it?"
"Jimmy, Jimmy! Show Mr.Wizard that thing you do with the coin!"
"Alright!" Boomed Vitruvius. "Enough! Very funny! No need to show any coin tricks!"
"Ok, Jimmy. You've heard the wizard, he nose it already!"
The whole arena was bent by laughing.
"Me, me! My turn!" Screamed the king of Warka. "Your nose's so big you can eat a sandwich under the rain without wetting it!"
Someone chuckled at the joke but most of them just didn't get it.
"Enough!" Thundered Vitruvius. He cast a spell and princess Farfalla was trapped into a whitish bubble that floated up and towards the spellcaster. She didn't seem much aware of the happening, her eyes fixed on the little screen within her fingers.
"Hey wizard!" Screamed Puzu, "when you blow your nose, do you blow your mind?"
That was even worse than the king's joke.
Vitruvius, clearly offended, decided to punish them all. "Making fun of my nose? I'll turn you all into stone!" He traced some weird patterns into the air and said some ominous words. It looked rather nice and someone clapped hands at him. Then, a veil of gray light spread all around the arena and beyond, engulfing the whole city of Warka, turning all living things into polished statues.
With evil laughter that rang something like this: "muahahaha", Vitruvius disappeared in a bubble of smoke and with him, the princess.
The sky turned back to its harmonious hue as the clouds dissipated and all was quiet and peaceful as it had never been before.
Puzu looked around in confusion. Everyone had been immortalized in their last expression and posture. There were stony fingers stuck into stony noses. Stony hands scratching stony butts. Stony girlfriends about to slap, kick or punch their stony boyfriends for turning over to look at other stony girls. Stony mothers that somehow seemed way more at peace and relaxed now that their kids had been turned into stone garden gnomes.
A familiar sound breached the quietness of the arena. A toilet's flush.
Down in a corner of the dome, out of one of those mobile toilets you would find at a building site, came a young man. He was rather tall and pompous, beautiful like a woman, with biceps about to explode.
"Oh my gods!" Cried out loud the guy. "What's going on?"
From the patio, Puzu yelled back at him: "the wizard turned them all into stones!"
The young man screamed in panic, "what are you?"
"I'm Puzu."
"And what's a Puzu?"
"It's me, is I. I am a Puzu. I mean, I am Puzu!" The manure-dealer climbed down into the arena and went to greet the other survivor. Nothing better than a good face to face greeting, perhaps with a good old shake of hands. Puzu, straight forward, stretched out his prehensile, multi-fingered appendage which was situated at the end of his forelimb.
The beautiful young man grabbed him and gave him a firm shake. "I am Taddus, son of the king, heir of Warka."
"That's cool." Said Puzu. "I work in the manure field. I run my own business."
"What's that?" Askes the prince who was not accustomed to working and the whole earn-your-own-money thing.
"Well," Puzu began to explain. "Honestly, I mostly deal with shi..." Puzu was abruptly interrupted by a violent and ferocious growl coming right from the prince's tummy.
Taddus excused himself. "Sorry, the seafood... wasn't too fresh, I guess. I got to go."
He disappeared for a very good while into the mobile toilet, occasionally shouting a curse and blaming some fish merchant or the other.
Puzu waited outside, of course. Two people in a mobile toilet would have aroused suspicions, although there was nobody around to judge them. Do statues have eyes? Maybe, but not in this story anyway. However, it would have been a bit impractical to get together into the toilet because it wasn't so big after all.
Puzu decided to wait outside.
A/N: Hi there, if you liked this chapter and if I made you laugh, giggle or just chuckle a bit, please consider giving it a vote.Thank you!See you in the next Part.
