Tales of Slud: Prologue, Part 5 - Of the Great Tournament at Spirit Stalls

Tales of Slud: Prologue, Part 5 - "Of the Great Tournament at Spirit Stalls"

     At about roughly this time, the ill-fated Grand Conclave of Politicians having met with a supermassive bolt of lightning from the D.M., which brought their political careers to an electrifying end in a single terrible moment, and the world having been, as a consequence of the D.M.'s unfortunate and entirely avoidable pyrotechnics display, thrown into even more chaos than it normally experienced (if that is at all possible), the legendary hero known as Sam the Unintentional is thought by many Historians to have more or less started his career far away, within the Unaligned City-States of Qaestion. However, as the story of Sam the Unintentional is largely considered an epic saga in its own right, the author finds it perhaps prudent to reserve that story for another section of this volume, which can be fully devoted to divulging its details, so as to do the story full justice, and thus, the author will leave off the story of Sam the Unintentional for the time being, and instead continue with this ongoing (and ongoing and ongoing) prologue to his work.

Sam the Unintentional (center) pictured here with Goldie the Cow (left) and some random guy who totally just wandered into the shot and ruined the whole photograph like some sort of jackass. Photo courtesy of the Alienated Press.The people of human Society, that is to say the Peasants, had long ago agreed, perhaps very much without realizing that they were indeed agreeing, to accept the utterly preposterous assumption that they were not fit to rule themselves, so when their various government officers, that is to say all the politicians in the world suddenly found themselves fried to a deep, crispy golden-brown not unlike some variety of chicken, the peoples of the world despaired, particularly the peasants, and they thought that the end of the world and the end of human society had come. For how on Slud could they even think to rule themselves? They believed that peasants like themselves were stupid and ignorant and completely unable to be entrusted with the heavy burdens of rulership, and precisely because they believed this about themselves and their fellow peasants, they ended up most often proving themselves correct on that score.

They decided, naturally, that

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Tales of Slud: Prologue, Part 4 - The Tragedy at the Grand Conclave of Swizarrine

Tales of Slud: Prologue, Part 4 - "The Tragedy at the Grand Conclave of Swizarrine"

     Now, after (or before) Joshua Calendar went freaking nuts, and the incredibly complicated count of Time started among human beings, the various peoples of the human species established in many parts of the world vast, centralized States, called “Empires”, where a few people ruled over a great many other people in a more or less hierarchical way, and the citizens of these Empires, like they usually do, innovated many technologies, and carried through those innovations with all the sorts of inventions and institutions that one might well expect to encounter within a civilized Society.

     At the urging of hirelings(often armed with a whip) under the employ of the aristocrats, theIn the centuries following (or preceding) the departure of Joshua Calendar, the Humans of Slud set to work building the works of civilization, the houses, the palaces, the public places, the parks and gardens and government offices. Vast amounts of backbreaking labor was required to build all these things. Naturally, the Peasants "volunteered". And, of course, they were all too happy to do so for free, without any sort of real compensation for their labors. Because they're peasants, and they just don't believe such nonsense like the heretical notion that they somehow deserve more. peasants of Slud built roads and they built schools and they built hospitals and post offices and universities and temples and concert halls. They built shops and houses and palaces and temples. They built farms and parks and harbors and ports. The peasants, of course, thought that it was really rather nice of their aristocratic overlords to allow them to help build all these things for the aristocrats and churchmen to own, and some among them were made particularly ecstatic when their turn came to be whipped by the taskmasters for not moving fast enough, or not lifting a heavy enough load. That is, the author has observed from time to time, precisely how peasants appear to react to the pains inflicted upon them by those who work far less for the betterment of society, but whom society tolerates and even embraces because they at least make a claim that they are “creating jobs”.

     It had been hoped (mainly by aristocrats, for peasants are, as all humans know, barely able to survive, much less have any leisure for such an abstract thing as a “hope”) that by the building of such societal infrastructure, the operation of society would be made more effective, but the

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Tales of Slud: Prologue, Part 1 - How the Entire Universe of Slud was created. And how both a planet and a man also got that name

Tales of Slud, Prologue, Part 1 - "How the entire Universe of Slud was created. And how both a planet and a man also got that name."

     In the Beginning, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. You would not believe how empty the place was. Like, think of something. Anything you choose. An apple. A cute little puppy. The 3rd law of thermodynamics...That didn't exist. It wasn't there. Because there was nothing. Quite literally nothing.      

     And then, the Universe came to Be, for much the same reason, many wise people throughout countless centuries have been driven to confess, perhaps somewhat ruefully, that any universe is created; that is to say, a dry and very poignant boredom. That, and also because there was a consciousness to perceive it. But mostly it was just the boredom...and by the use of that particular term, the author of this book intends to convey a general picture of the most dreadful tedium, as if that of a bad dream which never really seems to end until at one time, for one reason or another, it does. Such, the author has noticed, can be called "life" by many, many tongues, and many more fingertips. Such a terrible, wearisome boredom exerts a certain pressure upon many individuals to create as a means of at least temporary escape, and that attempt to escape from the horrendous tedium of mundane existence, it is thought by many of the scientists of our world, provided the impetus for the very existence of our Universe. 

     For Behold! Upon one Thursday night in the world of a creator, there appeared a being known only as The D.M., shapeless and formless, and as small and yet as vast as a single thought, and for the first time, there was something. For The D.M. had come forth with a Will to create, and thus the Universe was no longer empty, nor was it Void, nor meaningless, nor uninhabited, but it had a population of one, and that one was He who had come forth to create. 

     And the Thought of The D.M. called forth into being the Universe in all its potential, as if it were a great Mansion, whose outer walls had been fashioned as a sort of boundary to everything, although the inside remained as yet unfilled. And The D.M. looked upon the boundaries of the Universe that He had created, and He thought that It was good...enough. Sort of an underachiever, that D.M.

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