NOTE: I guess the majority of the readers who have started to set their small eyes on this tale have by now - even if for a fleeting glimpse - considered to take a break. So it is AT THIS POINT, my fellow, beloved, dearest and faithful Reader, that I encourage you to fetch your esteemed cup of tea, coffee or any other beverage you may be fond of... whatever tangible thingies you may find appropriate to accomodate in the inner depths of your stomach so that your reading experience can be maximized! Because we're HERE at last, aboard that moment when triggers start floating rapidly and shooting all sorts of happenings which will eventually culminate in something. Or so we hope. Sit tight, dear Reader, sit tight, and forward we go!
Barfondaal had what could be called a job. Not a job as we perceived it during our own aeon. It was more like an occupation for which he was responsible in the dispersed, relatively uninformed-about-the-rest-of-existence community of creatures out there. He knew how those responsibilities had been distributed: centuries ago, from father to son, from big monkey to small monkey, and that it was the only way of doing things properly. It should be passed from one generation to the next. But the astute Reader must ask: "why did the creatures accept this unconditionally?" Very simple: they all dreaded the mysterious House of Responsibility. This was a place where, in very simple terms, one simply did NOT want to get in. It was there that all matters had to be presented, waited for (while being discussed within those feared walls), and finally solved - if you were still alive. The House was morbidly bureaucratic, and its infinite chains of organizational procedures resulted in all sorts of horrible tales of unimaginably exaggerated formalities and monstruous quantities of various types of reports yet to sign and rapidly accumulating, not to mention the endless meetings which were necessary to follow-up any simple case. Their motto was "A task can only be one of three: difficult, complicated or impossible. And we solve them all." I hope it became obvious to you, Reader, that no one had ever complained about their inherited duties... so there was no reason at all to think about it. Therefore, the need to go to the House of Responsibility was basically null, and things were just very fine exactly as they were and had always been.
In the land where Barfondaal had built his rocky lair there lived the Creatures such as the aforementioned. There were humans (who were - among other things - naturally prepared to be devoured at any time without any moral and/or ethical concerns), and then an extremely random, ever-changing and always mindboggling variety of fauna which no one really cared to know where it originally came from. So, the Creatures could tear a human to pieces, or crush a small little bird (a most yummy snack!) just like that... but some of them could also belong of a wide variety of harmless, often silly creatures. It was the order of things, and it was all very how-it-should-be.
Barfondaal had what could be called a job. Not a job as we perceived it during our own aeon. It was more like an occupation for which he was responsible in the dispersed, relatively uninformed-about-the-rest-of-existence community of creatures out there. He knew how those responsibilities had been distributed: centuries ago, from father to son, from big monkey to small monkey, and that it was the only way of doing things properly. It should be passed from one generation to the next. But the astute Reader must ask: "why did the creatures accept this unconditionally?" Very simple: they all dreaded the mysterious House of Responsibility. This was a place where, in very simple terms, one simply did NOT want to get in. It was there that all matters had to be presented, waited for (while being discussed within those feared walls), and finally solved - if you were still alive. The House was morbidly bureaucratic, and its infinite chains of organizational procedures resulted in all sorts of horrible tales of unimaginably exaggerated formalities and monstruous quantities of various types of reports yet to sign and rapidly accumulating, not to mention the endless meetings which were necessary to follow-up any simple case. Their motto was "A task can only be one of three: difficult, complicated or impossible. And we solve them all." I hope it became obvious to you, Reader, that no one had ever complained about their inherited duties... so there was no reason at all to think about it. Therefore, the need to go to the House of Responsibility was basically null, and things were just very fine exactly as they were and had always been.
In the land where Barfondaal had built his rocky lair there lived the Creatures such as the aforementioned. There were humans (who were - among other things - naturally prepared to be devoured at any time without any moral and/or ethical concerns), and then an extremely random, ever-changing and always mindboggling variety of fauna which no one really cared to know where it originally came from. So, the Creatures could tear a human to pieces, or crush a small little bird (a most yummy snack!) just like that... but some of them could also belong of a wide variety of harmless, often silly creatures. It was the order of things, and it was all very how-it-should-be.
