Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

The Insolence of the Lambs: A Feckless Fable by Leila Allison

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Our cast

Re-education Story Lady………Dame Daisy Kloverleaf

Truant Officer Aye………………Beezer Baw

Truant Officer Nae…………… Barkevious Baw

The Lamb Sextuplets…………..Themselves

Principal …………………………Penrose the Flying Weasel

The Bogey-Sheep……………..Juan Gee

Superintendent Renfield………Herself (actually drunk, a method actress)

Feckless Prologue

A recent accidental acquisition of several thousand Scottish Blackface Sheep has had a peculiar impact on my fantasy realm of Saragun Springs. Although the Sheep that came through an errantly set interdimensional vortex that temporarily linked the Springs to Earth’s Scottish Highlands, have remained normal Sheep in every way since crossover, their offspring (those born in the Springs) are talking Lambs. This makes them full citizens of Saragun Springs–who shall never return to their homeland because we believe that a smart ass talking Lamb would not have much of a future in Scotland other than in a curry.

Yes, these are not sweet little lambs of the following Mary tradition. Our talking Lambs are mouthy little a-holes and are proud of it. We are surrounded by a generation of impudent talking Lambs because their parents could only teach them the basics of being a Sheep and nothing in the way of manners. It doesn’t take long to master grazing and crapping wherever and whenever. But the behavior bar is raised for those gifted with gab.

Naturally, the education of the Lambs became a hot topic, one which landed on me, the Chief Pen of the Springs. Thus a Lamb School was founded; its board contains myself; the second in command of the Springs, my Imaginary Friend, Miss Renfield as Superintendent; Penrose the Flying Weasel (who is the Principal); “Dame”* Daisy Kloverleaf (the head of the “Special Re-education” Department) and the Braw Brothers Baw, Beezer and Barkevious serve as our truancy officers.

(*Daisy insists that the Ghost of the late Liz II promoted her. Anything can happen in Saragun Springs, and usually does with Daisy; we just nod our heads and smile at the things Daisy says.)

We figured since the Lambs were brats, we should “teach ‘em a little respect.” No one here is for corporal punishment (save for the Bros. Baw, whose views on that topic will be made clear soon enough), but we have developed a wee bit of psychology perhaps best categorized as “educational child abuse.” Since we have no real way to punish them for their pert attitudes and disrespectful language, we invented a “Bogey-Sheep” myth. To clarify the ugsome situation and the steps we have taken to deal with it, we now present a Feckless (formerly Feeble) Fable of the Fantasmagorical called “The Insolence of the Lambs,” which I, Leila, now faithfully submit for your perusal.

Act One

“In here with your wee arses,” said Barkevious Baw to six Lambs named Hollyhock, Oleander, Buttercup, Ivy, Dandelion and Dave. Somehow the Braw Brothers Baw managed to gather the six unruly Scottish Blackface imps who were scheduled for “special storytime re-education” in the Saragun Springs Lamb School Library. Barkevious’ brother, Beezer, stood guard at the door in case anyone made a run for it.

“Storytime, ye micro-blighters–maybe you’ll learn something’ for a change,” Beezer called from his post.

The Lambs understood that they were going to get a story whether they wanted one or not. They petulantly formed a semi circle facing the Story Lady’s empty bean bag chair.

“How can you two be brothers, tubby?” Oleander asked Beezer, who is a British Bulldog–a fair enough question since Barkevious is a Scottish Terrier. But Beezer wasn’t in the mood to hear any more of the Lambs’ shit. “Say ‘tubby’ again and your mates will be callin’ you ‘loo-roll,’ if you catch my drift.”

Act Two

Principal Penrose the Flying Weasel flew into the room and immediately the Lambs began fake sneezing stuff like “blow job,” “eat me,” and various other examples of why they had been selected for secret storytime re-education.

“How charming,” the Principal said. “You kiss your foster Rams and Ewes with those mouths?”

The Lambs began sneezing in unison. “Ladyboy-ladyboy”; “He-She-Stoat.” Penrose has only Penrose to blame for that. The Weasel has appeared in several productions and refuses to “choose” a gender and won’t allow for the incorrect use of “they/them/their” in the singular to describe Penrose. In a very real way, Principal Penrose would make a fine Saragun Springs’ Lamb.

Flustered by the lack of respect, Penrose lost Penrose’s cool and made up a threat that had neither a basis in logic nor reality.

“Oh yeah, so that’s how it is, you little tampons? Well you can consider yourselves in double-secret special storytime re-education class.” Penrose really should have quit at tampons, because what followed had no snap and made the Lambs laugh out loud.

But that ceased when the Lambs sensed what Star Wars’ dorks call a “disturbance in the force.”

Act III

It’s hard to say how it came about, but there are two persons in the realm whom the Lambs, if not respect, but at least are intimidated by. One makes sense because she’s the Great Witch HeXopatha, who pretty much can scare the hell out of anybody when that is her objective; but the other is Dame Daisy Kloverleaf.

The beat of hooves in the hallway leading to the Library signaled the dread approach of the Pygmy Goatess.

“No cuds in storytime,**” said Daisy to the heavily pierced Buttercup, who had no choice but to swallow the offending item.

(**As those familiar with Daisy already know, she speaks an adverb heavy tongue of her own creation–so what she really said was “no cudly cuds in storyly storytime.” To keep her from pouting I told her that this is a translation for hammer-headed readers no more sophisticated than Shakespeare’s groundlings. Sorry about throwing you all under the turnip cart, but we never would have made the wordcount budget otherwise.)

Daisy sat on the bean bag chair placed at the opening of the semi-circle of Lambs. If it had been a “whoopie” bean bag chair there would be six fewer Lambs in Saragun Springs; but they had either missed a big chance or maybe they were smarter than they looked.

After a shriek of feedback, Superintendent Renfield’s voice sloshed out of the intercom speaker. She was supposed to have been there in person, but she had been drinking Tequila Sunrises since breakfast, and preferred the comfort and privacy of her office.

“Alright, you buddin’ felons, lissen up–anymore fuckery won’t be tolerated–I mean it! This time I sure fucking-a-doodle do–Anyhoo, I love you little fuckers–even though you piss me off! So just relax the fuckery and lissen to Dame Daisy–Be heroes not zeroes, goddammit.”

There was another blast of feedback followed by a loud clunk then, mercifully, silence.

“Listen, children,” Daisy said, affecting an eerie tone. “Do you hear that in the distance?”

And from outside came a steady thump of heavy feet, coming closer and closer. (Which was actually caused by a secret gizmo operated by rental Witch Rats and something akin to a Roman galley drum.)

Daisy smiled her evil-most smile, which mixed disturbingly with her strange Goat eyes. “What you hear is the Bogey-Sheep seeking foul mouthed little Lambs to dip in mint jelly.”

The steps drew nearer. Daisy then activated a large TV screen on the wall. And there he was the Bogey-Sheep, a thirty foot tall Allosaurus carrying an immense knife in one hand and a fork in the other. A huge bib was tied around his neck. On the bib was a cartoon Lamb with x’s for eyes, lying hooves up.

She turned to the Lambs who had clearly lost their bravado. Barkevious nudged a Lamb from behind and Dave nearly hit the roof.

“The choice is yours,” she said. “Shape up or I let the Bogey-Sheep get you!”

Although this was slathered in adverbs, like a sauce, the message got across, which leads us to…

The Amoral:

‘Tis Better to be a Polite Superhero than a Rude Super Gyro

Leila Allison

Header image by Patricia Jacinto Pixabay

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Published by ireneallison12

29 thoughts on “The Insolence of the Lambs: A Feckless Fable by Leila Allison”

  1. Hi Leila,

    I have been trying over the last couple of days or so to catch up but am still a mile away!!

    So instead of getting further behind, I’ll comment as I see. I still need to go back to Harrison’s story and then even further back. It’s amazing how quick this can all creep up on us!!

    It doesn’t help that the pub beckons today, but I will try and be good!!!

    …

    Hi Leila,
    – My only gripe with this was it was too short. But in saying that you have opened the door to a load more stories about the education of the lambs!
    – A talking lamb in Scotland could plead or in these lambs case, be sarcastic but that would only be answered with, ‘Tough titty wee man, you’re fucked!’ And depending on the intent and where the person was from this could mean a couple of things! Or more worryingly, both!
    – I see Diane has picked upon the Penrose gender line – I love when folks take a dig at all that shit.
    – I spotted a few nods to Animal House.
    – Not sure if this was what you were going for but the entrance of The Bogey Sheep reminded me of the baseball bat scene in ‘The Inglorious Bastards.’
    – Oh I did have one other wee gripe – No pished Peety!!!!
    – What I love about your imagination and the complexities of your stories is that every one you write can and will open the door to another. They evolve. And if that is natural then it shows the premise is growing and if it is thought out that is even more brilliant.

    All the very best my lovely friend.

    Hugh

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  3. hello Leila. Just popping in from a drizzly Wales. LOoks as though you are holding the fort at the minute. Sorry and thank you. I turned on the programme and what a lovely suprise to see this story this morning. You know I love these stories. Excellent stuff – Thanks – dd x

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  4. Dearest Leila
    I enjoyed reading Hugh’s comment about how all of your stories open the door onto the next story. That gives them a kind of One Thousand and One Nights quality that is deeply intriguing. You write in many modes, including the two perhaps widest modes, fantasy and realism, and are successful in all and in both. As I’ve said before, very few writers can do this consistently and with such wild artistic success as can you. Hemingway and Flannery O’Connor both only wrote one kind of story.
    Today’s tale has a manic inventiveness to it that = captivating! Your feeble or feckless fables outdo Aesop in inventiveness, and an “Amoral” has a wickedly good Jonathan Swiftian quality to it. Your inventiveness and manic humor can definitely be mentioned in the same breath with Swift, who Harold Bloom called the greatest writer of prose in English except Shakespeare when Falstaff speaks in prose, which is most of the time!
    More in a few minutes…
    An enthralled Dale just outside Chicago

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    1. Thank you Dale
      The inspiration for my fables traces to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, with their Fractured Fairy Tales.
      Shakespeare used Hollingshead, I gravitate more toward Mr Peabody and his boy, Sherman.
      Thank you again for your support!
      Leila

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      1. L.A.
        Yes, Bill the Magpie stole from everywhere and everyone…and Cervantes built DON QIXOTE, by far the greatest novel of all time, on the silly chivalric romances of the day, i.e. the cheap pop culture of the time…There’s something about the accessibility of the material as reinvented by a brilliant literary sensibility with amazing language skills that sets off fireworks!!
        “Genius is born, not paid.” – Oscar Wilde
        d.w.b.
        PS,
        Amazing Trivia (not so trivial):
        Cervantes started DQ in prison and was never paid a dime for his work (until he found a grudging patron years later)…
        Shakespeare read Don Quixote and even wrote a lost play, Cardenio, that was a take-off on it…
        Cervantes never heard of Shakespeare, died on the same day never having heard his name…
        Cervantes was a slave of the Turks for 4 years.
        Shakespeare was rich and not famous, Cervantes was poor and famous (as an old man)…wild.
        The Literary Life is a crazy one and unlike any other. But that’s a good thing!

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      2. L

        As Willie Nelson so rightly said, “I didn’t come here and I ain’t leavin’ – roll me up and smoke me when I die.”

        Thanks again!

        D

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      3. Hi Dale
        Ha, ol Willie (92 this year!) should book at date on the Grand Ol Opry for his 100th birthday. George Burns did that in his nineties (but not in Nashville of course) and kept it. Tommy Chong and Willie are living endorsements for the glory of THC.

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      4. L.A.
        I wish to make a small restitution to the quotation I employed yesterday; I dropped out a line; the full quotation runs thus:
        “I didn’t come here and I ain’t leavin’ / So don’t sit around and cry. / Just roll me up and smoke me when I die.”
        Willie rocked this one in September of ’24 when I saw him and Dylan very much alive in Illinois. I can state categorically that, these days, Willie’s stage persona is 1,000 times more social than Dylan’s is.
        Willie came out and waved to great happy cheers, sat up front in a chair, stayed there even when coughing his lungs out (more than once), talked a lot, laughed, and often smiled out at the audience clapping at it and giving it a thumbs up. Even Elvis or Sinatra could never be more charming.
        Dylan somehow emerged behind his keyboards with nary a word, and the only thing anyone ever saw of him was his hair sticking up over the instrument. Before anyone knew it, the show was over and he had vanished without a trace: during the show, far more boos than applause, very seriously. Just like in the mid 60s, or the early 80s, but in a new way, because he’s turned all his old songs into jazz. And he never said one word to the audience, not even hello or goodbye. Like Shakespeare hiding in the wings during a performance of The Tempest maybe getting ready to drown his book but not quite yet…
        D

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  5. Leila
    Last evening I spent time with two of your earlier stories (from 2020 I believe).
    “Mary and the Photobomb Fairy” and “Circles” are two more masterpieces from the pen and keyboard of L.A. and they should be studied by all who care about the art of the short story or fine writing in general. (Human Literature, not Robot.) (Robots can’t feel pain so can’t create beauty.)
    These stories are so good, as with all your work, one never wants to let it go. This makes one always end up lingering over the details for a long time. Each of them presents such a complete world with so many levels and layers and so much inherent wisdom and psychology being expressed, often with hilarious humor, that at some points all one can do is gape in amazement at how good all this is. The language itself, the prose style of it all, compels one to want to linger in the beauty.
    At the same time, your stories are always fast-paced, which creates an intoxicating blend in the reading experience where one wishes to go fast while also wanting to linger. Opioid pain-killers and medical marijuana can create this effect but if I had to pick those or your stories, I would take your stories any day. (And that’s saying a lot.)
    The real stories that we tell each other in life in oral culture (when people still speak to each other face to face) are never plotted in an artificial and formulaic way; this spontaneity is one of the elements that make them fascinating IF it’s a good story. Your written stories have the same kind of organic form. Tired and worn-out plots are never fallen back on by you, nor are tired and worn-out characters. You reinvent everything you touch! Thank you.
    Dale

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    1. Hi Dale
      Just saw this. Being able, in my meager way to help for the good is a wonder, an unexpected dividend because I basically waste most of my time worrying needlessly or wishing I was high.
      So what you say is greatly appreciated.
      I recall the fairy story coming to mind while reading about A. Conan Doyle’s struggle with grief that he was willing to believe in the strangest stuff for a measure of hope.
      And so it still goes.
      Leila

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  7. Great post (plus great title!).
    Confident that the Saragun Springs Community is fully committed to multi-culturalism, I would respectfully suggest that the talking lambs be taught the basics of their Scottish heritage. Namely: the paramount need for the daily consumption of large quantities of chips and Tennants lager; the committal to memory of the whole of Burns’ Tam o’ Shanter; and the need, whenever questioned, to claim to be a Partick Thistle FC supporter. Only advanced students of robust physique should be taught a comprehensive understanding of the arguments pro and anti the doctrine of papal infallibility.

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    1. Mick
      Thank you! Yes, this won’t be the “wee bestards” only appearance. They should know more about their homeland. I got Trainspotting on DVD, but they might view it as an infomercial.
      Thank you again, and Robbie Burns!
      Leila

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  8. Leila,
    While this is only the second Leila-tale of my so-called life, I have noticed a woesome commonality. Both are populated by real people of my acquaintance. Perhaps it just seems that way. But I do know, all too well, several people with Dame Daisey-like qualities of adverbidity. Because it is incurable, I just try to preserve what few verbs are left around us from being absorbed.
    Lot’s of fun! I just wish it wasn’t so true. — Gerry

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  9. Positively fizzles, crackles – pingshiningly so! Behold – lambs with attitude, mouthy little micro-blighters that they are. A whole other world here, its fables, parables, ugsome or otherwise, as heady as they are hilarious. Visionary, in fact. Yep.
    Geraint

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    1. Hi Doug
      Lincoln said that ancient wisemen invented “and this too shall pass” as a truthful catcall. For me “those damn hippies ” is just as accurate.
      Thank you for stopping by!
      Leila

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  11. Hi Leila

    This reminded me of Stephen King’s book, “The Institution,” but for lambs. I found it both humorous and sinister. Like “reeducation bordering on child abuse.” That Bogey Sheep at the end was downright scary! Wearing its bib and “the cartoon lamb with Xs on the eyes, lying hoofs up” and the huge knife.

    I liked the names like “Saragun Springs.” I think there are stories inside of stories here… They are still played out over and over in this life. This was a very human experience.

    Penrose lost respect and acted out. That is so true for people in authority.

    I found myself caring for those lambs I didn’t want them to step too far over the line, and get hurt.

    Great Story!

    Christopher

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    1. Hi Christopher
      Thank you, and rest assured no one ever gets hurt in Saragun Springs. An upcoming story somewhat deflates the myth of the bogey lamb. I just bought that King book finally, can’t wait to finally get around to it. It’s a lot like any used book store in my “office.”
      Thank you again!
      Leila

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  12. Brilliant as ever! I reckon a certain Mr. Cron must have had something to do with leaving a ‘interdimensional vortex’ open somewhere at his end. Amongst many other playful and wonderful items in your writing I like how you play with dividing up your stories into incongruous sections: the list of players, the first two Arabically numeraled acts, then the Roman, with a final Aesopian ‘moral’. Just brilliant!

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