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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 20. September 3, 1968

The Return Of The Triboldies

page 8

The Return Of The Triboldies

Part 20

The ancient tunnels have been found. Surprising to us that they are full of scratched, square, white stones, identical with those that used to grow in our ground, and the same as those (with scratches hidden) that the Ocarina-building is now being constructed from. Also in the tunnels were some old bones, too large to be of our ancestors. Perhaps they are the bones of Grombix, the constant enemies of our ancestors, (just as well for us that all Grombix were annihilated during the Great Fiasco of Elephant-Giraffes Crossing Rivers.)

Today Fandango was taking a walk through one of our newly discovered tunnels. He saw a shaft of lignt and climbed through it. finding himself in a hole at the top of a chimney somewhere in Gnisu. (Behind him he could see the cedar trees of this country.) He saw a few pale people below the chimney, so he let-out an unearthly cry:

sketch of a wavy line

and the people fled. If more tunnels prove to travel far under Gnisu we may use them to harass the enemy citizens.

Ocarina was found to be missing today; he was not to be found anywhere in his usual habitat, but, finally, instead, in the northwest peninsula, where Oerlikon was searching in vain for more new colours. Ocarina no longer exists. It seems that the dog of tragedy has been much with us, that our leaders are so short-lived in recent years: Ockeghem. Sparadrap ( ). and now Ocarina (the late) have unwillingly left us. I find myself not very distressed that Ocarina is no longer. Perhaps 1 shall even be suspected of provoking his demise*, by those who know of his recent conduct towards Mazinta. After a decent time has passed. and Ocarina's head has been separated from his body for preservation, we shall be able to read his chronicle. I expect to find a lot of untruths in it.

* Up till now I have avoided commenting on the texts, but the fear that Whirligig expresses here is totally unfounded; no instance of murder has ever been recorded among our people [K.K.]

Proud shame forces me to admit that I have been unable to resist temptation: I went to Ocarina's wagon. Nobody was there I took his chronical and have been reading it. What will happen when I am discovered? I hope to be forgiven. What cunning Ocarina had! He omits anything that might discredit him. Why did he not mention what happened at the top of the hill before we descended into Ytinutroppo? He noted that the Troppoes laughed at him; he did not say why Why. a little further on. was he so scornful of the Triumph of Cuckoldry? Perhaps I should answer these questions, to help our descendants to understand what happened to us. Or perhaps I should not; it cannot make much difference to the future. Here is Mazinta's account of the incident at the pass:

Ocarina was too friendly with my young brother Nenuphar. My mother disliked Ocarina, so she asked me to watch them and listen to them while they were conversing. Ocarina talked to Nenuphar of his young days: Nenuphar usually did not bother to listen. One night I could not sleep. Before dawn I got up and walked to the nearest hilltop I found some stones there and began to build a wall around myself. When the wall was above my neck I sat down inside it, removed a stone, and looked into the distance. Then I heard somebody come galloping up the hill; it was Ocarina. He looked over the top of my wall and saw me sitting inside. He reached into my pit and tickled me mercilessly under my arms Then he went on his way.

Ocarina does not mention that we left Troppo because Peccadillo and Cumulonimbus were kidnapped, and that the Troppo women came with us not willingly but as hostages. nor does he mention that he purposefully lost the Troppo women in Aggabug (one of his most shameful acts) His account of what happened in Aggabug is riddled with subtle inaccuracies that most of us will not notice. Luckily I have noticed them and here I Tell Everybody Of The Future That Ocarina Was A Liar! Much of his so-called history is nothing but fiction. There were no soft sticky rocks in the desert we encountered after leaving Troppo. (Nor was it a desert.) What a preposterous story! Who could he expect to believe it? Surely he must have realised that his falsity would be discovered by all those who survived him. What a fool! Perhaps he thought he would outlive all who accompanied him ... but as early as his first encounter with Mazinta he realised that he was ill. Phenylketonuria has been meditating over Ocarina's skull; he has perceived in the outline of the left nostril unmistakable signs of the Splaunge in its most advanced stages. Now we-have even more proof that this disease is caused by perverted reasoning. It must have been his prolonged proximity to water in the recent flood that brought his life to an end.

I wonder who the new leader will be. A meeting of elders is arranged for tonight, immediately after the gegenschein, in the new Ocarina-house—only the tunnel, the floor, one wall, another wall (partly), and some of the roof are complete. The builders have seized the lifeless body of Ocarina as an excuse for not going on with the building. I tend to agree with them that this plan was something of pretension and folly on Ocarina's parts. I am going to suggest that we name the building Ocarinas Folly. Tonight the elders will decide how our new leader shall be chosen.

My cave has at last been constructed. A giant mole came to the upper clearing and dug a large cave under a tree (not the tree I wanted—I wanted the gingko tree—but it does not matter much; Anaxagoras, who drives the mole, must have misunderstood my instructions). As the mole left, it tunneled a tunnel from the back of the cave to somewhere below Ocarina's Folly. Only one tunnel! Below the lower clearing, and in Gnisu. our tunnels are so long and complex that already Popocatapetl, Chattanooga, Necrophilia, Epiglottis, Pikestaff, Hocus Pocus, Holus Bolus, Harum Searum, Necti, Catalectric, Bdellious, and Hotchkiss have been lost in them for more than a week. I expect they will reappear somewhere. sometime in the future. Perhaps there could be art extremely long tunnel from my cave leading to a mysterious grotto in the visible mountains behind our wall, so far away that Netragrednik could not be seen. A good place to think about Enur. As for Enur, my prisoners are helping me to attain it. My wagon is removed to under a dark tree, in case it might ever be needed, so I have put the prisoners in a natural cage formed by the roots of a cedar tree; I am trying to teach them our language. I point to an object: "Timothy" (timothy). "Juniperus bermudiana" (sedentary). And so on. The prisoners are either stupid or reluctant—I am likely to learn their language before they learn ours—they fail to grasp the simplest correspondences. Perhaps I shall have them surrounded by Narani, to see what effects occur—no; too good for them—perhaps I shall have myself surrounded instead.

Photograph Robert W. Joiner

Photograph Robert W. Joiner