The Prologue

I have a friend called Tom. Tom likes llamas. He has requested more llama-based posts. I think that by giving him what he wants, even with the best of intentions and the sincere hope that he will seek help for this very soon, I may be guilty of being an ‘enabler‘.

I fear I only made it worse when I threw him a story with ducks and stuff in my last post, just to try to take the edge off his terrible cravings. But, like an animal, he devoured the ducks and with blood still running down his chin, and the occasional spitting out of a feather, he was back in the comment box. It had just made him beg for more.

Here, then, is the story of ‘The Llama and The Damage Done’. (It is rated PG by the Motionless Pictureless* Blogs Society of America. Reader discretion is advised)

Story of A Sick Man

Tom’s is a classic tale which began innocently enough. First it was just a few holiday snaps of a sheep; Carol he’d called her. But Tom saw something others didn’t, something bewitchingly inane in her gormless gaze, the alluring way she chewed her buttercups.

Well from then on, it was the usual sad, sordid story of a life becoming slowly unravelled. He subscribed to both ‘Animal Husbandry’ and ‘Know Your Llama’ magazines. He got involved in a few internet llama chat-rooms and was eventually arrested for stalking one particular model llama (name withheld by request) living in the better part of Chelsea. His friends and family were, naturally, very shocked and, when the press got a hold of it, he lost his well-paying job as a computer whiz-fellow-me-type. With the loss of a daily routine and the responsibilities of a job, Tom’s life began to spin out of control.

Right now, he is living alone in a bedsit in Wopping; his long-suffering, gentle wife Gina, just couldn’t take the lies and the deception any more. His sick, disgusting depravity repelled her. Night after night he would come home with dried peanut dribble on his collar and try to pretend he just “had a llot on” what with the job-hunting, or he’d just been “out with the llamas lads – God, woman, lighten up would you, I can’t breathe, give me some damned space!”

He began going to secret Welsh evening-classes just to learn lots of words with double lls. Things came to a head when Gina confronted him, one night, with a misplaced irregular verbs test, and his shame was complete. He sobbed for a while in her arms and said he was sorry, but the llamas were calling him and their call was just too strong. Then packing up a few things, he walked out into the night, his last thread to the normal world broken and flapping behind him as he walked down the garden path, on his way to the hairier peep-shows of Soho.

Incidentally, he’d done quite well on the verb test. He may be an inveterate sicko and a sinister menace to herbivores everywhere but, he’s pretty sharp. At least he was. I bet I’d barely recognize Tom any more. Friends have told me that they’ve seen him wondering the streets at all hours of the day and night, now fully bearded and smelly, muttering “Furry, where are you my pretty furry ?”

I don’t believe he’ll stop at llamas; these things can only get worse, they say, as the cravings get harder to satisfy. I really think that now he’s on the slippery slope to under-age camelophillia (camels, on account of their ridiculous immaturity don’t reach the age of consent ’til they’re 40 and most of them only live ’til they’re 42 at best). He may be irretreivably lost to us soon if there isn’t an intervention. (I saw it on Dr. Phil, and Oprah has some excellent things to say on the subject too).

I know that what I’m about to do will, at best, only enmire him more in his desperate swamp of addiction but, people, I don’t have a heart of stone! I’ll be seeing him on 3 different trips to Britain in the coming months and, if I don’t do this, I just won’t be able to stand the hurt and accusation in his eyes. You were once a friend PCB, I thought I could rely on you. You’d do the same, you know you would.

If he even survives this, the last hit, I will give him, I swear, I will take him to a clinic somewhere far from any tempting children’s petting zoos and sit with him through the withdrawal and the dreadful nightmares until he gets better. But, it may just be a mercy, in the end, if he were to overdose on the Grade A Columbian llama-fest I’m about to give him, and go happily to be with the llamas beyond the veil. You wouldn’t keep a dog in the state Tom is in.

And so, keeping that thought firmly in mind, I set out, trawling the seedier corners of the internet with my collar up and the grim determination of a problem-child-bride who has made up her mind. I managed to find this. Here: http://www.frolic.org/

Ye Gods! The things I saw, that dark and rainy night. The experience still makes my skin crawl. Llamas and humans alike rolling in the gutters in their own vomit, their own do-do. Saggy-uddered old slapper-llamas, draped in doorways with cigarettes in one hoof and bottles of Mad-Dog in the other, mascara running and lipstick smudged. Sad fish-stockinged charicatures of their former selves living out their last days on llama skid row. Somebody’s mother, somellamas children drawn to that life like children to books with the word ’snot’ in them.

So, here goes Tom, old friend. This ones for you. You will find your sweet oblivion here at http://www.frolic.org/

For the curious, be careful and remember the lesson of Tom. The following is an excerpt of Llama wisdom from that very site designed to tempt you and draw you in, cult-like. It may look innocent and even sensible at first but check out the second last line. That’s where their real agenda’s at. Look, but don’t inhale.

“The Grand Master Llama speaks out on:
Frolicking

“To frolic, as a llama would, is to live.”

“You don’t learn to frolic, you release the frolic within.”

“They may say you cannot frolic. They may scorn you for frolicking in public places. I say, frolic by example, and others will follow suit.”

“Life is short. Frolic hard.”

“Don’t frolic in the wet spots.”

“We all frolic in the end.”

Peanuts

“Spit peanuts only at those you hate, or those you love.”

“Licking salt is no substitute for a good macadamia.”

Responsibility

“Control your frolicking, or your frolicking will control you.”

“Just because llamas don’t clean up after themselves doesn’t make it right.”

“Don’t lick something unless you really mean it.”

Procrastination

“Don’t just stand there, frolic!”

Love

“Always leave the doors to frolicking open.”

“Frolic slyly and they shall come to you.”

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, or you will look like a silly llama.” ”

*Can’t do pictures yet but the Magnificent Gordon will be on the case soon and ,sometime in April, picures there will be.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 18th, 2006 at 8:18 am and is filed under Fictionoids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.