The 168th Greatest Story in the Universe - A Tribute
Created | Updated Jan 5, 2004
Part Five
As Terry walked through the door he realised something was wrong. More wrong than anything else that had happened today. He was in a pub.
On a normal day this would be considered normal, even ritual. But today it was odd.
He had fallen through his closed bathroom door (which had disturbingly remained intact), been knocked out by a cricketer, woken up in an abandoned underground train station, and then been verbally abused by a tramp who happened to live there. He had fallen through the Earth to some demented activity room, where his ex-girl friend was quite happily eating her way through a literal mountain of oranges to hear a story. Terry was then only allowed out of the room if he could tell some jobsworth of a receptionist his name (which she already knew), which led him to a waiting room. This continuous absurdity had become the norm, and so it was just a little unsettling that while looking for the toilet he found himself in a pub.
He went outside to see if he could get back again, but all he found was a car park and a man who started screaming ‘I’ve gone mad!’ and ran away as soon as Terry tried to ask him where he was.
He went back in. Everything was calm. The jukebox was playing, people were chatting away and drinking their drinks, oblivious to the fact that he was there.
His head ached. He felt as though he had just got off a rollercoaster and was trying to get used to not moving again. He walked forward, almost in a daze. It wasn’t until the attractive barmaid walked through him carrying a tray of glasses that he realised why no one was looking at him.
He looked around and stared at her in amazement. She didn’t even flinch. Terry just stood there in a state of shock. He had been violated. This woman had maliciously walked right through the space that he occupied. Actually, on reflection, Terry thought that ‘malicious’ was a bit strong.
However the next two people to walk through him were just as malicious. ‘That’s right! Go on, walk right through me why don’t you!’ Terry yelled. No one moved.
A sudden wave of depression hit Terry. He briefly wished the ground would open and swallow him up, but then he remembered the last time that had happened and instead decided to sit down and watch the 7 foot green beast with horns on its head walk through the room and straight through the bar without leaving a mark. The beast carried on and went straight through the opposing wall. It occurred to Terry that this was a very strange thing to happen.
The first thing that struck Terry as odd was that no one noticed it, in a similar way to how no one had noticed him. The second strange thing was that it walked straight through a wooden bar and a wall without leaving a mark. However, as strange as these things were, they were certainly no stranger than anything else that Terry had been doing on a regular basis recently. No, the thing that really pushed it over the edge for Terry was the combination of these things with the fact that the thing which had done them was a muscular, green, beer bellied, red eyed creature with horns. That was definitely a new one.
Terry got up and walked around the other side of the bar (avoiding the potential pain that would usually be caused by walking in to it), and felt the wall that the creature had just walked through. It was solid, which wasn’t particularly significant except for the fact that he couldn’t walk right through it. He turned around to look at the bar. There wasn’t anything very significant about it either until the green creature barged through the wall again knocking Terry into it. Someone sleeping on the bar stirred briefly, then nodded off again as everything went on as if nothing unusual was going on. The creature, however, was obviously not expecting Terry to be there.
‘Who are you?!’ it demanded in a deep, gruff voice. Terry tried to regain some of his bearings and picked himself up off the bar. This took longer than Terry had hoped, as the imposing beast moved towards him.
It asked him again: ‘Who are you?!!!’ By now it was close enough for Terry to smell its’ foul breath.
Taken aback by the stench and the size of the creature, Terry still struggled to say anything. The creature was about to grab him by the throat, when a man stood up from the bar.
He addressed the creature ‘Wait Recma!’
It stopped and looked up. ‘What do you want, Turk?’
The man at the bar continued. ‘I don’t think he means us any harm Recma. I’ve been watching him since he walked in, he doesn’t seem to have a clue what is going on.’
The creature looked back down at Terry, who nodded enthusiastically in agreement.
It looked back up again at the man at the Bar. ‘Well, what do we do with him, then?’
In the background the pub went into a fit of cheers and applause as the barmaid dropped some glasses.
Turk carried on regardless. ‘I’ll look after him.’
The creature eyed Turk and then Terry suspiciously. ‘Well, the boss wants to see you anyway, so I guess we’ll have to take him with us.’
Turk nodded. ‘No problem.’
Turk jumped over the bar with one hand on it (Terry suspected for effect more than anything else), and walked through the wall. With one arm the creature grabbed hold of Terry round the waist, much to Terry’s distress, and followed him. The rest of the pub carried on as normal, in blissful ignorance of the most bizarre day of Terry Horowitz’s life.
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