Zorgamazoo (5 page)

 

It was then, to his horror, that Mortimer knew,
there was only one thing he could possibly do.
He couldn't just sit there, he couldn't just wait.
He'd been poked…by the ficklest finger of fate!

 

(But Morty and fate were like water and oil:
From the latter, the former would always recoil.)
So Morty did nothing. He slumped and he stared,
while firelight sizzled and fizzled and flared.

 

Why me?!
Morty thought.
I'm just a chump!
I'm a rube! I'm a clod! I'm a sap! I'm a frump!
Where are the sirens? Where are the lights?
On this, the most terrible night of all nights?!
And what if, perhaps, they just never came?
Would it burn to a crisp—The Hallway of Fame?!

 

The answer, of course, was a definite:
Yes!
There'd be nothing left but a smoldering mess.

And for even a chump that was easy to see.
Aw, crud,
Morty thought.
It's all up to me...

He got to his feet, his heart full of dread.
He pulled up his trench coat over his head.
He looked at a window that rippled with heat,
and willed himself forward on faltering feet.

 

Then faster and faster! A blundering dash!
He dove through the glass with a clattering

Inside of the building, the walls were ablaze.
The smoke in the air was a murderous haze.
Everything blossomed with yellows and reds,
braided together in fiery threads.

 

It felt like the heat was a million degrees!
So Morty got down on his hands and his knees.

 

Bewildered and aimless, he started to crawl
the length of that lofty, illustrious hall,
randomly grabbing whatever he could:
trinkets of plastic and metal and wood.

He wormed to the end, where the heat was the worst,
his mouth going dry as if dying of thirst.
There, behind glass, in an elegant chest,
was a relic more precious than all of the rest:

 

A zorgally ball that once had been flung
by Cyril “The Slinger” Zipzorgle DeYoung,
in the very first Underwood Champions Match,
when balls were still woven from ravels of thatch.

 

Morty opened the case and plucked up the ball,
as the fire was rising to swallow the Hall,
abruptly erupting in flashes and blooms,
imbuing the room with its poisonous fumes!

 

It was then Morty knew: The time was at hand
to blow this proverbial popsicle stand!

 

But he hardly could see! The smoke was too dense!
The heat all around him was more than intense!
He snaked on his belly and made for the door,
through inches of ashes that covered the floor.

He might well have made it, but started to choke,
inhaling a lungful of cindery smoke.

 

All at once he was weak, he was gasping for breath.
He was two or three breaths from the edges of death!

 

His stomach was churning. His vision was blurred.
If you said:
“He's a goner!”
I would've concurred.
But then he heard something: A series of
thwacks,
like the chopping of wood with the crack of an axe.
And then something else: the tromping of boots,
from zorgles in bulky, voluminous suits.

 

They stood around Morty, who lay like a log,
whose senses were fuzzy and lost in a fog.
But before passing out, he was never afraid,
for the boots…
they belonged to the fire brigade.

 

 

When Morty awoke, he was tucked in a bed,
an uncomfortable pillow supporting his head.

In the room where he was, the lighting was bright;
the walls and the ceiling were blindingly white.

 

He smiled to himself. He was hardly surprised.
How ironic,
he thought,
I've been hospitalized.
He looked down at himself and instinctively cringed.
He was covered in cuts. His hair had been singed.

 

I'm a loser,
he thought.
I'm a dough-headed klutz!
What was I thinking?! I must've been nuts!

 

“Welcome back!” said a voice. It was gruff, like his own,
and Mortimer realized he wasn't alone.
He rolled to his left and there was his Pop.
They were sharing a room at the Hospital Shop.

 

“Hi, Pop,” Morty said. “I screwed-up, I guess.
Just look at me here! I'm a terrible mess!”

 

“Screwed-up?” said his Pop. He was taken aback.
A part of him wished to give Morty a smack.
“But I
love
what you did! Sounds like it was fun!
And you know what they say—like father, like son!”

“Yeah, right.” Morty scoffed. “Maybe
you
think it's cool,
but I'm aching all over. I feel like a fool.
I haven't felt
this
bad since—I dunno when!
I'll never do something that stupid again!”

 

 

 

“Ssshhh!”
said his Pop, as he nodded his head
to the stranger who stood at the end of the bed:
A respectable zorgle, impeccably dressed
in a Chesterfield cloak and a cardigan vest.

 

“Who're you?” Morty squinted. “When'd you arrive?
I don't need an embalmer, 'cause I'm still alive.”

 

The stranger said nothing to Mortimer's joke.
He reached with a hand in the folds of his cloak.
He came out with a document wound in a roll,
an archaic and rather elaborate scroll.

 

The stranger unfurled it. It flapped to his feet.
The inscription was lush and exquisitely neat.

 

The stranger then paused, leaning over the bed.
He held out his fist and momentously said:
“To Mortimer Yorgle, of Rumbleton Road,
his
lottery ticket
is humbly bestowed!”

 

The ticket was crimson, its lettering blue,
saying:

When Mortimer read it, he said with a smile,
“I think that I'll pass. This isn't my style.

 

I know how this works. I know what you do.
You send people off to run errands for you.
But it's usually terrible, dangerous stuff.
And the both of us know—it's nothing but guff!
'Cause you make it seem noble and daring and cool.
But you're not duping me! I'm nobody's fool!

 

In this game the winner does nothing but
lose
.
They won't come back alive—whoever you choose!
So honestly, sir, I would
love
to comply.
But a ‘hero?' Not me. You got the wrong guy.”

 

“No! I think not!” the stranger replied.
“The selection is hardly for
you
to decide!
Why, this is an honor! A privilege, sir!
You cannot decline and you cannot defer!

You haven't a choice! You will come to Draw,
in accordance with Zorgledom Chivalry Law!”

 

The stranger gave Morty the shallowest bow.
“You hereby are hero material now.”
Then he turned on his heels and turned up his nose,
and he left with his scroll and his marvelous clothes.

 

“Fat chance!” Morty called. “Like I'm gonna go!
I won't be some stooge in a lottery show!”
But then, when he turned and he looked at his Pop,
the old guy was grinning—he just couldn't stop.

 

“Just imagine!” he said. “To be given the chance,
to rescue the world, by the seat of your pants!
That's what it means to be chosen, you see,
and if I was still young…they might've picked me.”
Old Bortlebee seemed to have stars in his eyes.
“Aw, Morty!” he mooned. “What a wonderful prize!”

 

“Well, sure,” Morty said. “Maybe for
you
.
But what if I won? I don't know what I'd do.”
From his pillow, old Bortlebee lifted his head.
“We're different. I know that,” he quietly said.

“But look at me here. I'm sick to the core.
Each morning I'm worse than the morning before.”

 

He gazed at his son, looked him right in the eye.
“It's true: Someday soon I will probably die.
Before then, I want you, my one only son,
to have
an adventure
…and maybe some fun!

 

I know your chances—well, they're not very good.
You likely won't win, but just maybe
you could
.
So think of this thing as my ultimate hope.
My one last request…at the end of my rope.”

 

For a moment, Morty said nothing at all.
He looked out the window, and then at the wall.
He looked at his Pop, who seemed thoroughly drained,
whose expression was hopeful, yet equally pained.

 

Then Morty looked down at the slip in his hand.
“I'll do it,” he nodded. “But I don't understand…
The
details
, they seem just a little bit thin.
Like the actual prize—what will I win?”

 

Old Bortlebee angled his mouth in a smile.
The answer, he said, would come in a while…

The following night, by the Underwood Mall, at the Zorgledom Central Community Hall,
a billboard was posted, inspiring awe:
Welcome,
it said,
to the Lottery Draw!

 

Hundreds of zorgles awaited inside.
They came from all points, from far and from wide.
Muscular zorgles, zorgles of might,
zorgles renowned to be good in a fight.

There was also a stage and an orchestra band—
who started to play! The show was at hand!

 

The curtains rose up and everyone cheered.
Before them was something stupendously weird:
A contraption like nothing that
you've ever seen:
An incredibly intricate marble machine!

It bristled with pulleys and spiraling tracks,
suspended with rivets and wire and wax;

 

with miniature bridges, with pillars and piers;
with levers and winches and clutches and gears;
with pedals and treadles and spinners and spars;
with pendulous pivots and balancing bars;
with motors and rotors and rollers and ramps;
with flickering bulbs and electrical lamps;
with flingers and swingers and hinges and hubs;
with grabbers and funnels and buckets and tubs;
with clockwork propellers, mechanical cranks,
and panels and chimneys and channels and planks!