Today I will endeavour to answer that question, as many of you no doubt are itching to see the man behind the mask. Please, hold all further questions until then end, when you will know more than you wish to.
Born on the 1st of January, 1900; to a chimney sweep and who would later become the first woman to give birth to one of the Cloakers, I struggled to find feet immediately due to the lack of hamstring strength and ability to walk.
Later, I would become the founder of the Cloaker Order; An organisation formed to preserve the ancient art of Cloaking. Quite unlike the modern use of the word "cloak", the act of cloaking used to refer to the practise of silently dispatching enemies and friends alike. Friends were generally only cloaked once reneging on a confirmed appointment of beer drinking, or if they were sacrilegious enough to violate the sacred pact of "dibs", or "shotgun".
I recall it vividly, as if it were yesterday. I was buying some Snake Oil from a travelling salesman. Snake Oil, for the uninitiated, was a miracle cure of all ills. Ironically, the magical serum that formed this mystical potion was actually made from babies, not snakes. It is my theory that this is misinterpretation is what lead to the eventual demise of Snake Oil, as actual Snake Oil does not actually have any medical purposes, barring euthanasia.
I'm sorry, I was sidetracked; I apologise.
So, here I am, buying my Snake Oil (gonna get my SNAKE ON baby, woooo!) when all of a sudden, a briefcase made of kittens fell from the sky. Both curious and a little bit hungry, I opened the case to see what wonderful things lie inside. Sadly, all it contained was a half-eaten sandwich, a pack of cards, and a signed Ricky Martin CD. Not yet knowing either who Ricky Martin was, or even what a "CD" is, I cast aside the foreign object and focused my attention on the sandwich.
It looked like a sandwich like any other, except; instead of filling between what should have been bread, it had only bread, and instead of being held together by bread it was encased in rashers of bacon. It was the most incredible thing.
It was an inverted sandwich. An invertewich, if you will.
 |
| What a sight to behold! The almightly INVERTEWICH! |
Before I could wrap my selfish fingers around the talisman of awesome, it immediately vanished into thin air. Gone, like dust in the wind. Without a trace. Of bacon.
At this point, I was a little bit shaken. After all, I'd only ever experienced the immediate disappearance of an object before my eyes; It was when I once parked my Penny-Farthling just outside a Cash Converters in an ethnic suburb. Not knowing what to do, I returned my attention to the empty briefcase. It appeared as though the kittens were actually still alive, joined to one another by kitten love apparently.
I dispersed the kittens as efficiently as I could. As chance would have it, I happened to have my kitten launcher on my person that day, so it made short work of the task. I began launching them like crazy, like a man on a mission... until only one remained. He was a cute little bugger; A black patch of fur covered his eye, otherwise permeated in white. He stumbled forward, slowly, revealing that one of his hind legs had suffered some sort of injury. As if to respond to the sympathy I was now feeling for him, he gave a small helpless mew.
When he looked up at me with those piercing blue eyes, my heart melted. I wiped away a solitary tear as I launched him as far north as I could muster. Good luck little buddy. I, of course, had no choice in the matter; It was by order of the King himself that all kittens should be fired from cannons. It was my small defiance to his rule that I customised my launcher to be spring loaded, to give them the best chance possible.
All that remained of the mysterious air drop was the pack of cards. I was no stranger to cards myself, not me: I'd been playing Solitaire for years and was considering going pro. I opened the pack, and let the cards fall to the ground. The next part of my memory is a little bit fuzzy; I recall waking up inside a cave with somebody dabbing my forehead with a moist fish.
"What are you doing?!" I demanded, pulling myself to my feet defensively. The old man, wielding cod, took a step back and raised his palm.
"Forgive me, friend. I was simply trying to make you smell like a fish, I didn't mean to intrude." With that, he mounted his daughter and galloped toward the light creeping through the opening of the tunnel.
I looked around, bewildered, at my dark surroundings. From what I could make out with limited light, it seemed as though this had once been a yacht club, judging by the monocles, canes and moustaches still lying around the place. They must have changed the location of the establishment once learning that there are few places a captain can tie up his boat in a cave. I notice that there is a door at the back of the cave wall, with the number 7 badged on in brass. I made my way forward tentatively, being careful not the disturb the sleeping badgers on the ground as I navigated to the rectangle of oak.
I knocked on the door and listened... no response. I knocked again; louder this time, and called out.
"Hello? Is there anybody there?"
I immediately regretted my decision. I hear a stirring behind me, and before I had time to swing around, I was surrounded by badgers armed with nunchaku.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" The voice came from the biggest one, standing at the back. He stepped forward and cracked his... well, I want to say knuckles but I'm not sure they have any. I will testify to hearing the sound of compressed gas escaping joint of some kind, at any rate.
Hoping that badgers were easy to intimidate, I took an aggressive step forward and bellowed.
"MY NAME IS CLOAKER JOSH. WHO THE FRAK ARE YOU?!"
As I was yelling, my voice began to echo of the walls and double up on itself, making the sentence unintelligible.
"Sorry mate, I didn't catch that. Would you mind lowering your voice a little bit, it's hard to hear in here."
The main badger held his paw to his hear and leaned forward.
"Oh... sorry about that. I'm Cloaker Josh, who are you guys?"
"Really? Oh, right. I thought you might have noticed that we're actually badgers."
"Ah, yes. Yes I did. Well, there you are then. I'm Cloaker Josh, and you're badgers. We're in agreement?"
A small murmur of assent came from the collective badgers. Badgii?
"Okay, great. I'll be on my way, then."
I pushed through the crowd, and made my way to the exit slowly. I forced myself not to start running, as I'd heard rumours that if you run from a badger, they make fun of you for it mercilessly.
Finally tasting the sweet mountain air as I emerge from the darkness, the sun stings my eyes. How long have I been here? The light starts to adjust, and my vision returns to me. I'm atop an epic mountain, with no way down but to traverse the steep cliffs. I began my steady decent down the jagged rocks.
I must have climbed for 3 hours before I'd reached the base of the mountain. As I neared the end of my journey, I saw a glittering object lying near a dead octopus. As I drew closer to the sparkle, a delicious scent wafted into my nostrils.
No, it isn't. It can't be! My curious steps gradually formed a jog, and before I knew it I'd broken into a run. I sprinted toward the glint using every last bit of energy I could muster, until it was before me.
I dropped to my knees, and snatched up my delicious prize.
MY INVERTEWICH!
I gazed upon the succulent bacon glistening in the sun, and I became overwhelmed with desire. I must eat this delicious bastard. I shoved it into my mouth, and began to chew like it a teriyaki toddler-jerky.A bouquet of flavours exploded in my mouth; The soft and juicy bacon, a hint of cheese, and the semi-stale bread tasted like heaven in a mouthful. As I wiped the bacon grease from my mouth with my sleeve, I tilted my head back and belched at the sky.
...oh really, crap! Is that the time?! Sorry I got sidetracked again guys, once I'm on a tangent... You should have stopped. I'm going to have to pick this up another time.
What, you still have questions? All in good time... all in good time. Soon you will know the legend of Cloaker Josh.
...to be cont'd.
Needs more bacon
ReplyDeleteI find that's true of everything.
DeleteBahahaha. This was just five minutes of literal LOLs. Your randomness knows no bounds.
ReplyDelete