A friend of mine and I swapped a sentence each to make a story out of said sentence. He gave me "Molly and the Caterer." Take a few liberties with conjunctions and whatnot, this was the result:
There comes an hour when every man, every woman, every child and every dog must make an important decision. A great crossroads lies before them, a diverging of paths, a separation of ways. All their future prospects hang on this single moment. Some choose wisely and are met with success. Others choose more poorly and everything that follows thereafter is a disaster spiraling into a decent of unmitigated failure. Such a choice was now before Edmund Dotteridge. There it lay on the counter. Steak or Mince? True, Steak was nicer, but undoubtedly it would be mainly gravy with the few gaps filled in with one or two shavings of meat. Mince, on the other hand, might be fairly solidly filled with good meat, but who knew where the meat had come from, or what it was? And they always tried to sneak bits of veggies in: peas, carrots, corn, that sort of thing. It was a hard call. He chose poorly. Another thing about mince pies is the small white fragments of something that defies description that one occasionally finds in ones’ mouthful of pastry and butchered animal (presumably cow). Is it paper? Or plastic? Or the digestive tract of the animal? In the present case under the rigours of our examination, it was definitely paper. It was the first of the consequences of a bad choice, the first step in that downward spiral. As Edmund pulled it from his mouth, this truth began to dawn on him. But the second step was about to reveal itself. Something about the fragment caught his eye. He unscrunched it and saw written there in bold capital letters one word; one word of fate.
“Egad!”
He rose from his seat with the wrath of a man denied his full sustenance, muttering complains under his breath. This wouldn’t do. A chap doesn’t unearth what might be considered by some as practically a novel from among the ingredients of his midday meal and just let the thing drop. Some one was about to get an earful. As I say, he rose and, carefully selecting the strongest words of reproof from his mental store, strode off in the direction of the bakery whence came his pie. But he had hardly gone two paces when fate, if you go in for that sort of thing, once more intervened. His gaze was cast heavenward, as if to seek inspiration from the clouds (cumulonimbus) for a more grilling turn of phrase with which to finish off his coming assault on the bakery, when his eye was arrested by a sight which made his jaw sag open an inch or two, his feet to falter, his breath to come in short, rapid gasps. In brief, his whole body was stricken with sudden paralysis. There had been a building going up in the area lately, no one really knew what it was for or who owned it, but there it was; and it was to this structure that Edmund now turned his face. It had finally been completed, and was having its signage painted. Across the front of the building was blazoned in bright, cheerful letters one word:
“Ho!” cried one snazzy jacket.
“Hoi!” roared the other.
It has been observed by a certain humorous author that words such as “Ho” and “Hoi” are never really very easy to find a reply to, not that Edmund worried over much about making conversation. With the pair of snazzy jackets on his heels, he covered the remaining two blocks at a pace that would have left any selected cheetah standing. The building stood before him, its doors yawning wide. Edmund halted the doubt of fear bearing down upon him – dare he enter in? But as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the snazzy jackets were also bearing down on him. He plunged through the doors, and took his fate into his hands. There were plush carpets, mahogany wall panels, and rows of pictures on the wall of long gone executives dating, by the looks of them, from the mid 1700’s. A deep, imposing stair-case disappeared into the darkness of the floors above, and semi-clad works of art clustered around the foyer. Not that Edmund had the time then to notice any of these things, as he was too preoccupied in the task of disengaging himself from the broad waistcoat belonging the gentleman who had rudely obstructed his flight. For a moment neither person spoke a word, both having had the breath knocked soundly from them.
“Here, what’s all this?” exclaimed Broad Waistcoat, as Edmund’s two pursuers burst through the door.
“My pie! Paper,” gasped Edmund.
“What? Speak sense man!”
Edmund hastened to collect himself. He drew himself up, and eyed Broad Waistcoat with a frosty glare. “Paper! My pie.” He said, and he meant it to sting.
Turning to the Snazzy Jackets who stood panting at the door, Broad Waistcoat raised his eyebrows in cold inquiry. “I don’t suppose either of you two goons would care to shed some light on this lunatic’s drivel?” he said.
“Sorry boss,” stuttered one.
“We never meant…” stammered the other. “But we think he’s the One.”
“You think he’s the One? He’s the One, is he? And that being so, you have chased him the length and breadth of the city?” snapped Broad Waistcoat
“Well, I wouldn’t have exactly said the whole…”
“That’s enough!” Broad Waistcoat growled, “It remains that you did chase him.”
“Yes boss.”
“Is this how we treat our customers?”
“No boss”
At this point Edmund had sufficiently recovered. “Here, I say,” he said. But his comment earned no reply.
“The customer is king!”
“Yes boss.”
“And would you hound a king down dark alleyways and dim backstreets?”
“No boss. Sorry boss. But we thought.”
“I don’t suppose…” interrupted Edmund.
“No buts!”
“Yes boss, but...”
“Ahem!”
“Could I please get something cleared up?” said Edmund.
“Right then, be off with you,” said Broad Waistcoat.
“I do beg your pardon?” said Edmund, with a touch of offended incredulity.
“Oh, terribly sorry, I didn’t mean you,” said Broad Waistcoat, coming over all politeness, and laying on the honeyed tongue. “I meant these two goats here. You must forgive them; they’re just a touch exuberant in their methods, what with you being the One, and all.”
“Ah, yes, I was hoping you’d get back to that,” said Edmund, “What exactly is this One you keep mentioning, if you don’t think it too rude in my asking?”
“Why, you’re it.”
“Ah yes? But I mean what I am I then?”
“My dear old horse, you, and I know it would make your mother proud, are our very first customer.”
“Oh? Yes? I think you must have crossed the wires somewhere, you see I came here because there was paper in my pie.”
“Yes?” Broad Waistcoat said, as thought this were no extraordinary thing, an everyday occurrence.
This stumped Edmund a bit. “Don’t you find that a tad bit disturbing?” he said, flapping his arms about for emphasis.
“Should I?” asked Broad Waistcoat.
“Well, yes, dash it all. It’s disgusting”
“Ah, but you came,” said Broad Waistcoat with a knowing smile, like a father who smiles upon the innocence of his child.
“Eh? I'm afaid I don't exactly follow.”
“My dear, valued customer, it was an advertisement.”
“What!”
“Yes, we put our name where people are sure to find it, and require our services.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, your first pie was spoiled, so you came here to find another, more superior pie, or any other dainty you may desire, for you and your family and every special event.”
“Good grief! What on earth are you on about?”
“My dear chap, you are at Molly Catering Services. We cater for you. I’m Molly. Octavian Tiberius Herbert Molly. Mr. Molly. How many pies will that be?”
There comes an hour when every man, every woman, every child and every dog must make an important decision. A great crossroads lies before them, a diverging of paths, a separation of ways. All their future prospects hang on this single moment. Some choose wisely and are met with success. Others choose more poorly and everything that follows thereafter is a disaster spiraling into a decent of unmitigated failure. Such a choice was now before Edmund Dotteridge. There it lay on the counter. Steak or Mince? True, Steak was nicer, but undoubtedly it would be mainly gravy with the few gaps filled in with one or two shavings of meat. Mince, on the other hand, might be fairly solidly filled with good meat, but who knew where the meat had come from, or what it was? And they always tried to sneak bits of veggies in: peas, carrots, corn, that sort of thing. It was a hard call. He chose poorly. Another thing about mince pies is the small white fragments of something that defies description that one occasionally finds in ones’ mouthful of pastry and butchered animal (presumably cow). Is it paper? Or plastic? Or the digestive tract of the animal? In the present case under the rigours of our examination, it was definitely paper. It was the first of the consequences of a bad choice, the first step in that downward spiral. As Edmund pulled it from his mouth, this truth began to dawn on him. But the second step was about to reveal itself. Something about the fragment caught his eye. He unscrunched it and saw written there in bold capital letters one word; one word of fate.
MOLLY
One word messages are always the most enigmatic, I find. Though I’ve never found one in my pie, I believe that distinction belongs to Edmund alone. Another thing that I’ve never found in my pie is that golf ball of fat I’m repeatedly told is in each and every one. However, I stray from my topic. Not unsurprisingly, Edmund was perturbed. “Eh, what?” quoth he. A feeling of cold nausea swept over him, like the time I found a fly peaceably doing the backstroke in my coffee.“Egad!”
He rose from his seat with the wrath of a man denied his full sustenance, muttering complains under his breath. This wouldn’t do. A chap doesn’t unearth what might be considered by some as practically a novel from among the ingredients of his midday meal and just let the thing drop. Some one was about to get an earful. As I say, he rose and, carefully selecting the strongest words of reproof from his mental store, strode off in the direction of the bakery whence came his pie. But he had hardly gone two paces when fate, if you go in for that sort of thing, once more intervened. His gaze was cast heavenward, as if to seek inspiration from the clouds (cumulonimbus) for a more grilling turn of phrase with which to finish off his coming assault on the bakery, when his eye was arrested by a sight which made his jaw sag open an inch or two, his feet to falter, his breath to come in short, rapid gasps. In brief, his whole body was stricken with sudden paralysis. There had been a building going up in the area lately, no one really knew what it was for or who owned it, but there it was; and it was to this structure that Edmund now turned his face. It had finally been completed, and was having its signage painted. Across the front of the building was blazoned in bright, cheerful letters one word:
MOLLY
With the sudden perception of a sleuth, Edmund knew that this building was his destination, and not the bakery. What was the bakery, when there were buildings declaring their mollishness to the world? The bakery, one might say, was a mere footling waste of time Uttering a triumphant “Aha, aha,” Edmund changed tack, and hove off in the direction of said building. Five blocks away, he reckoned the building to be, seemingly so very close, yet that small distance was only to be crossed at his diremost, if that is even a word, peril. But such men, filled with the indomitable fire of adventure, mock at peril. A man I once knew told me a story of how he was eating a quiche, and enjoying it too, when he found within a message that filled him with fear. Along with detailed instructions, the message came with a nail file, a flashlight, a small crowbar and a tube of Colgate toothpaste. But upon setting out, my friend had come to the first busy road that came between him and his goal, and, observing the velocity at which the cars travelled and calculating the comparative speed at which he would need to weave between their fenders, his nerve failed, fear took him, and he collapsed in a blubbering heap on the footpath. Such is the fate of chaps who think they can get by on quiche. And to my knowledge, his beloved Molly is still locked in the tower from where she sent out a secret plea for help and rescue. But Edmund experienced no such weakening of the spine as he encountered a similar such road. With nimbleness that any given deer leaping about in the hills could have picked up hints from, he bounded across the street, scattering cars left and right. It was not until he had won across to the far side did an icy hand of fear grip his heart, a sensation somewhat like brain freeze, only not quite, as it deals with quite a different organ. A stray car careened toward him, swerved at the very last moment, narrowly missed a passing lamppost, and ended its wild dash in the river. It was not the close encounter with old man death that had Edmund thoroughly shaken, but what he had seen before the vehicle had plunged off the road and disappeared into the depths, its moistened driver swimming ashore with a lingering look in his eye that bespoke evil thought. As it had ripped past, Edmund had caught in the blur a word painted on the side of the car. Only one word. MOLLY
He shook. He quailed. He dash well near fainted on the spot. But it was not quiche that feed this man, no, it was pie that filled his stomach, lubricating his mind and sinews. Edmund turned in the direction of the building, and raising his fist and shaking it with vigour, he cried out with all the fiery passion mustered in his soul: “Curse thee, O thou lady of despair! Verily, I say, even though the quest lead to my death, I shall pursue thee and uncover the secrets of thy mind!” Having lightened his soul, Edmund proceeded on his way, more wary now, and wiser. Determination was in his every step, and the blocks fell away. Four blocks to go. Three. Two. The building now took up nearly all the skyline, its many eyed windows frowning out across the city, its brazen signage still bellowing forth its monodeclarive – and that I know not to be a word – message. There are people whom I have met who would consider being only two blocks away from their destination as being as good as having arrived. “Two blocks?” they’d say, “Tchah! Nothing to it.” But this is not the soundest of philosophies. A veritable menagerie of things might happen to a person between here and there, no matter how close there may be. They might fall into a sudden hole. They might be mugged by a cucumber wielding bandit. They might be chased by a savage dog. The government might suddenly declare themselves a dictatorship; oil might be discovered in your backyard; you might be followed by an agent of a secret organization even as you read this; a member of the press might pounce on you from behind an unassuming billboard and demand an opinion on current events, and so immortalize your statement forevermore, but the appearance of your name and photo in the paper would let your enemies you have been avoiding for ten years know your whereabouts – a bittersweet situation. What I’m driving at is this: never assume the unassumable. And while we’re at it, don’t jump to conclusions. But I never intended to come over all moralistic. Here was Edmund, the light of fierce resolve burning bright in his eyes, his goal less distant than it had ever been, but did he assume safety? Did he allow his to shoulders sag and his feet to scuff, careless of his surroundings? Did he so soon forget his lesson at the road? Well, yes, I’m sorry to say he did. And that explains why he never saw the two men following him until they were nearly upon him. Now generally speaking, there is nothing unusually alarming about two men on the footpath behind you, unless they are policemen and you have recently committed a miscellaneous felony of one kind or another, which I trust you haven’t, or if the men are both wearing snazzy business jackets with one word embroidered on the left side of each. MOLLY
Forgive me if I am becoming a shade repetitive, but as a matter of integrity I am bound to relate events exactly as they happened, I can’t just knock about fabricating a purely imaginary narrative. It must be the truth or nothing. Suffice to say, Edmund ran. Like the dickens.“Ho!” cried one snazzy jacket.
“Hoi!” roared the other.
It has been observed by a certain humorous author that words such as “Ho” and “Hoi” are never really very easy to find a reply to, not that Edmund worried over much about making conversation. With the pair of snazzy jackets on his heels, he covered the remaining two blocks at a pace that would have left any selected cheetah standing. The building stood before him, its doors yawning wide. Edmund halted the doubt of fear bearing down upon him – dare he enter in? But as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the snazzy jackets were also bearing down on him. He plunged through the doors, and took his fate into his hands. There were plush carpets, mahogany wall panels, and rows of pictures on the wall of long gone executives dating, by the looks of them, from the mid 1700’s. A deep, imposing stair-case disappeared into the darkness of the floors above, and semi-clad works of art clustered around the foyer. Not that Edmund had the time then to notice any of these things, as he was too preoccupied in the task of disengaging himself from the broad waistcoat belonging the gentleman who had rudely obstructed his flight. For a moment neither person spoke a word, both having had the breath knocked soundly from them.
“Here, what’s all this?” exclaimed Broad Waistcoat, as Edmund’s two pursuers burst through the door.
“My pie! Paper,” gasped Edmund.
“What? Speak sense man!”
Edmund hastened to collect himself. He drew himself up, and eyed Broad Waistcoat with a frosty glare. “Paper! My pie.” He said, and he meant it to sting.
Turning to the Snazzy Jackets who stood panting at the door, Broad Waistcoat raised his eyebrows in cold inquiry. “I don’t suppose either of you two goons would care to shed some light on this lunatic’s drivel?” he said.
“Sorry boss,” stuttered one.
“We never meant…” stammered the other. “But we think he’s the One.”
“You think he’s the One? He’s the One, is he? And that being so, you have chased him the length and breadth of the city?” snapped Broad Waistcoat
“Well, I wouldn’t have exactly said the whole…”
“That’s enough!” Broad Waistcoat growled, “It remains that you did chase him.”
“Yes boss.”
“Is this how we treat our customers?”
“No boss”
At this point Edmund had sufficiently recovered. “Here, I say,” he said. But his comment earned no reply.
“The customer is king!”
“Yes boss.”
“And would you hound a king down dark alleyways and dim backstreets?”
“No boss. Sorry boss. But we thought.”
“I don’t suppose…” interrupted Edmund.
“No buts!”
“Yes boss, but...”
“Ahem!”
“Could I please get something cleared up?” said Edmund.
“Right then, be off with you,” said Broad Waistcoat.
“I do beg your pardon?” said Edmund, with a touch of offended incredulity.
“Oh, terribly sorry, I didn’t mean you,” said Broad Waistcoat, coming over all politeness, and laying on the honeyed tongue. “I meant these two goats here. You must forgive them; they’re just a touch exuberant in their methods, what with you being the One, and all.”
“Ah, yes, I was hoping you’d get back to that,” said Edmund, “What exactly is this One you keep mentioning, if you don’t think it too rude in my asking?”
“Why, you’re it.”
“Ah yes? But I mean what I am I then?”
“My dear old horse, you, and I know it would make your mother proud, are our very first customer.”
“Oh? Yes? I think you must have crossed the wires somewhere, you see I came here because there was paper in my pie.”
“Yes?” Broad Waistcoat said, as thought this were no extraordinary thing, an everyday occurrence.
This stumped Edmund a bit. “Don’t you find that a tad bit disturbing?” he said, flapping his arms about for emphasis.
“Should I?” asked Broad Waistcoat.
“Well, yes, dash it all. It’s disgusting”
“Ah, but you came,” said Broad Waistcoat with a knowing smile, like a father who smiles upon the innocence of his child.
“Eh? I'm afaid I don't exactly follow.”
“My dear, valued customer, it was an advertisement.”
“What!”
“Yes, we put our name where people are sure to find it, and require our services.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, your first pie was spoiled, so you came here to find another, more superior pie, or any other dainty you may desire, for you and your family and every special event.”
“Good grief! What on earth are you on about?”
“My dear chap, you are at Molly Catering Services. We cater for you. I’m Molly. Octavian Tiberius Herbert Molly. Mr. Molly. How many pies will that be?”
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