A tribute to a living legend
Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 1:43 am
Danloaf wandered disconsolately into the grubby kitchenette of his small apartment. Viciously brewing some coffee, he glared at his unwanted visitor.
“I dont kno whay you thnk i can do abuot it! Damm!” Danloaf exclaimed, waving his fist in fury.
With consummate patience, the nondescript, somewhat androgynous man of uncertain age adjusted the lapels of his nondescript, middle-of-the-range suit and explained again, in nondescript monotone, exactly the same information as the three previous times.
A man calling himself Zedflufferlar, he indicated, had been ruthlessly making up implausible stories in an obscure East European country, thereby posing an imminent threat to the global population. As a representative of the International Admin Council, the nondescript man had been given instructions – by joint High Commissioners Mr Heh-Jay, Mr Garfield Boxers and Miss Busby themselves – to track down former deep-cover moderator Danloaf, now working unconvincingly as a teacher, to thwart Zedflufferlar’s plans for global clique-removal.
“#@~&%$!£#~@!” Danloaf fumed, exercising his gift for languages. “i cant acept w/o reawknign mu long-supresed kllier insinct! Damm!”
After a thoughtful pause, he added “but its iether that or orgnize th next elohmifset.”
Within twenty-four hours, Danloaf was on the grim and chilly streets of Eastern Europe, shivering beneath his insubstantial American clothing, and warmed only by the thick layers of the All-Purpose Survival Mullet that had saved his life many times over the dangerous years of operations in hostile territory.
His painstaking covert observation of Zedflufferlar’s headquarters in an office block belonging to local government yielded a nugget of vital information that would surely enable Danloaf to penetrate the stronghold. He noticed that all the various personnel moving in and out of the building by the reinforced glass doors wore an identical uniform, consisting of jeans, sturdy boots and a ‘Hellfire! I missed Elohimfest’ t-shirt. Fortunately, Danloaf always carried such a shirt stuffed into his copious back pocket, in case he should bump into someone who needed it. Well now Danloaf was the one in need, and all that stood between him and the forces of darkness was a 12% cotton shirt.
The guards at the door eyed the burly figure suspiciously as he strode imperiously toward them. Upon glancing at his ‘Hellfire!’ shirt, it seemed they would allow Danloaf to pass unchallenged, but at the last moment one guard stopped him with a jab of his carbine.
“I don’t know your face,” the guard snarled, squinting faux-myopically at Danloaf’s features. The American tugged gently at his moustache, preparing to employ its lethal edge at a moment’s notice should the situation turn sour. But the other guard intervened with a murmured comment that sounded suspiciously like “Don’t be a fool, he’s huge” to Danloaf’s ears, and waved him through into the interior of the building.
A seasoned undercover operative of Danloaf’s exemplary record would have little difficulty finding a route through any villainous hideout; they all have much the same layout in any case. “Seen oen, sene em al,” he thought to himself as he took the second corridor on the left, past the public toilets, to avoid the guardroom ahead.
As he expected, the passage emerged at the foot of the emergency staircase which led right to the director’s office – where he suspected he would find Zedflufferlar.
Aspiring dictator Keith Zedflufferlar was playing with an abacus on his desk and muttering a subdued tirade in which the careful listener could perhaps discern snatches of coherence that might sound like “clique,” “teach them a lesson” and “ban me, eh?”
He was just beginning to lose patience with the abacus, noticing that the beads were forming cliques against him, when Danloaf burst in through the fire doors like an explosion of unnecessary profanity.
“Damm! Zedflufferlar, I presmue! You @~#%$& bastard!”
As the two men stood rooted by mutual loathing and exchanged vitriolic glares, Zedflufferlar surreptitiously sneaked a desk drawer open and produced his new Controversy Launcher. Danloaf’s face broke into a slow, wicked grin as Zedflufferlar took aim and prepared to trample the American agent under an onslaught of Tasteless Remark Rockets. At the sight of the chilling visage that has reduced countless tyrants to trembling vegetative wrecks, Zedflufferlar hesitated; Danloaf marvelled at the man’s strength of will, but that brief heartbeat of hesitation was all he required.
With a final furious shake of his huge fist, Danloaf fell back on his years of moderation training. His moustache flexed, his mullet streamed like a majestic mane of black seaweed, and Zedflufferlar was no more, extinguished by the best moderator in the long history of the Admin Council.
Danloaf turned to leave – hesistated – turned back a fraction and, ever the professional, solemnly intoned, “Clique that, bitch!”
Then, with a final cry of “%&£~@! I stretched this damm shirt!” Danloaf descended the stairs and returned home to his teaching.
Epilogue:
Over the next two years, Danloaf accepted 782 more missions from the International Admin Council, thereby surpassing in retirement his entire previous career. Eventually, Heh-Jay, Boxers and Busby ceased their requests for his assistance; several weeks later, they also stopped answering Danloaf’s incessant calls.
One fateful day, Garfield Boxers decided to bite the bullet and answered the phone, knowing whose voice he would hear. He sat patiently through the desperate pleading that issued from the earpiece, then responded sadly, “No, old friend. I can’t offer you any more assignments. You have other duties to fulfil. Sooner or later you will have to organise the next Elohimfest.” The line went dead, and Boxers ruefully set down the receiver, waited a respectful moment, then returned to putting photos of his legs on the internet.
Deep-cover specialist Aristotle Danloaf vanished from his home that afternoon, and was never heard from again.
Some years later, over lunch, Miss Busby read an article in a local newspaper documenting reports from several sherpas that high in the Alps, in the most extreme of blizzard, glimpses could occasionally be caught of a huge, uncharacteristically irritable yeti. The yeti’s luxurious pelt was considered immensely valuable, but despite determined pursuit, it was never caught.
(I'm a damm good teacher! 
) 
