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A Jungle which part of the Land that Common Sense forgot which is in Comic Book Limbo.

There is a small encampment of people. There was various Lair Legion Members, various SPUD agents, a few Villains, some Archeologists with some natives mixed in. There was a man who wasn't like the others. He didn't fit into any of those groups. He was Chadwick L. Swiss & was mourning a loss. He was sitting off to the side, cradling his fallen friend in his arms. He would have cried but he had already cried & there wasn't anything left. He then thought that it was time.

He got up & walked away from the group, he had a lay his friend to rest. He began to finding the best place for a friend that meant so much to him. He got this friend from his parents' years & years ago. It's almost the only thing he has left from them. Everything else has either been taken from him or lost in some fashion. Chad walks into a small clearing. The sun filtered on down through the canopy. The place looked almost magical. Chad's laid down his friend on the ground, as he did it's made a ghostly echo of the sounds it use to make when it was alive. Then as Chad set about looking for something to use as a shovel, he began to think over how he got to this point.

It all started with that Mr. Spooky coming to his & Ronnie's apartment. Chad knew from that moment what was going to happen was something that he wouldn't like & it wasn't. Temporally transporting along the mystic veins of energies that lace the Earth's crust always ties Chad's stomach into knots. So when they did get to their destination: throwing up was in order & he did so. There they were, in a cell in the Lair Legion's basement among the other incarcerated: The son of a long dead master planner & an evil englishmen. The rest of the cells around them were empty. Everyone had seem to forgotten about the englishmen, but Chad knew he was there. But no beyond Ronnie ever listens to him. It's probably do to the fact that he doesn't speak like everyone else: why speak when no one's listening? When Chad meet up with the main group, he has thought that these people might now how to speak his "language" but alas no. That dog companion of Mr. Epitome has some of the basics down but is still not proficient enough to hold anything beyond a simple conversation with. Chad's tries to get his mind back on track, there they were in the Legion's dungeon & then through a series of events that he still can't quite piece together happen during which Chad, his accordion & friend had all become separated from each other.

As he thought, he was having no such luck in finding anything shovel like. As he searched, He made sure to always have his falling friend in sight, He don't want to loose it again.

If he had it when he woke up in this strange place, his meeting with the man he traveled around here might of been a bit easier. Maybe it wouldn't have but at least he would have had something to fill the silence that accompanied them. Chad had found it was pointless to try & talk to Sir Mumphrey Wilton since every time he tried, Sir Mumphrey immediately went to the assumption that Chad had had some sort of run in with the Squid like Druid that roamed that area & that Chad need to be taken to some sort of Mental Hospital. Of course Chad wasn't up for that. He's never been up for it. Who would be? Chad also found it was almost impossible to speak to Sir Mumphrey since the englishmen spoke in a heavy accent with was peppered with slang words that Chad was unfamiliar with. What was it with that guy & French Sailors?

He thinks he had found it, or something close to it: it was a fallen tree. If he could get a sizable chunk of the bark off he could use that a digging tool. As he began to think about how to peel the bark off, He looked over at his squeezebox & saw that it would soon be in peril. A few feet from it there prowled an animal that looked to be made of the result of a Grizzly Bear, a Wolverine, a Tiger & a Panther all getting together to make one heck of an ugly offspring. Without thinking Chad leapt into action, picking up the closest thing that he could use as a weapon & began to scream, yell, make all sorts of noise. He also began wildly swing his chosen weapon about. His main goal was to protect his instrument from being eaten once more. The animal sensing that this was not as easy a meal as it had thought, it ran off. As soon as it was out of sight, Chad sat down near his fallen friend to rest. As he sat there, he could see the smoke from from the fire of the encampment a little ways off.

He thought about how Sir Mumphrey & Him came to the encampment: that same purple smoke. They followed the smoke for what seemed like days, hardly speaking & nothing happen beyond lots of walking with scattered bouts of fighting with local flora & fauna wanting to eat us. Once they were at the site of the fire, Sir Mumphrey had a joyous reunion since many of his friends were there. Chad didn't get any sort of reunion, neither Ronnie nor his Accordion was there at that time. During all this was again the annoying chore of trying to get someone to understand him but again he wasn't getting anywhere. He mostly got strange looks from people & again people miss interrupting has movement as uncontrolled spasms. People don't think Tai Chi are spasms, then why do his movements get that label? There was a few fine few days, more people showed up & none that Chad knew. He knew of them but none knew him.

Chad got up & walked back over to the fallen tree he had found. He began to try & pull off the bark. As he did he though of how he did get his friend back.

It wasn't until at least a week or so being at the encampment did they show up. A small roving band of natives wondered through the camp. They had also seen the smoke. Amongst the group, a few were carrying Chad's accordion all trusted up like some sort of animal. There was a strange few minutes trying to convene messages between two sets of people who don't speak your native tongue but it was eventually figured out & surprisingly to Chad that these native had an easier time understanding Chad's manor of speaking then anyone else he had meet so far. Chad had many an interesting conversation with the tribal elders over the next hours & days. Chad came to find out about the history of the tribe, their many wins & loses, their customs & traditions. This brought them to the topic of the Accordion which that had come to know as The Beast who howls like a Million Babies. Chad was disheartened when he saw the condition it was but it was the tribe's custom to eat any thing they didn't understand. Chad had found that they hadn't eaten it all since the material the instrument was made of proved to be very useful in everything from clothing to weapon making to, of course, food. Chad bartered with them: He got the Accordion, they got a few paperclips, 55 cents all in pennies & a half eaten candy bar. Chad has tried for a few days to repair his instrument but there were too many parts missing & the main bag was too badly damaged. He spent the next few days mourning the loss. During this the tribe had to move on. They all said their goodbyes & Chad was once again alone.

Chad finally got a big enough piece that he thought would work for digging. He took the piece over to where he laid down his friend in the grass. He fondly looked at then began to dig. The ground was quite soft once you broke through the thin top coating. He dug a few feet deep hole & then laid his friend down into it.

As he did that he thought if he had some sort of instrument to play Taps on it would be great right now.

Chad stood up & looked down into the hole at his friend. He started to cry once more.

He thought back on all they had gone through. He wondered if or when he would leave this place if he would find an Accordion as good as the one before him.

Before the tears started to really flow, he took his make shift shovel & piled the dirty back into the whole. Once the hole was filed, Chad looked at his shovel & then began to look around for something to write with. He found a nice thick piece of dirt & began to write on the piece of bark his Accordion's name & how long it had lived. He also added that it was a good friend. Chad then shoved the piece of wood into the ground at the head of the grave. He then walked on back to the group.

As he did, Chad wondered if he would have to do this for Ronnie. He then quickly thought of other things because that thought was something he really didn't want to do or think about.

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THE END.

This story took some thought.

I knew kind of what I wanted to say but I wasn't sure how I was going to say it non verbally in a text based way. Not sure If I pulled it off. Not sure if I'll do it again in this way. But it was an experiment & was a story that needed to be done: major characters need funerals! Minor ones': it's a toss up.

Someone's going to have to buy him a hand-made accordion as a present.

.

"Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . .
Alas! your dancing days are nearly done.

...

Oh I know you're cheap and vulgar, you're an instrumental crime.
In drawing-rooms you haven't got a show.
You're a musical abortion, you're the voice of grit and grime,
You're the spokesman of the lowly and the low.
You're a democratic devil, you're the darling of the mob;
You're a wheezy, breezy blasted bit of glee.
You're the headache of the high-bow, you're the horror of the snob,
but you're worth your weight in ruddy gold to me.

For you've chided me in weakness and you've cheered me in defeat;
You've been an anodyne in hours of pain;
And when the slugging jolts of life have jarred me off my feet,
You've ragged me back into the ring again.
I'll never go to Heaven, for I know I am not fit,
The golden harps of harmony to swell;
But with asbestos bellows, if the devil will permit,
I'll swing you to the fork-tailed imps of Hell.

Yes, I'll hank you, and I'll spank you,
And I'll everlasting yank you
To the cinder-swinging satellites of Hell."

--Robert William Service "Accordion"

Full poem: http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Robert_William_Service/3922

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