Lankan 1001 Nights Part 2 — Bill Reed

Sire? Sire! Over here in the boiling oils, supply the foul smell, Sire! Your Majesty, I know you think I speak drivel, but what can I do but say how flattered I am that you think so? Sure, this mightn't be the classic 1001 Arabian Nights, and these mightn't be its perfumed nights but your Lankan nights have their skies just as full of the starry-eyed, no? And so I mightn't be the beautiful Princess Scheherazade, but my oh-yeah-pull-this-ones still have to make you too tired in the day to trouble this bloody man of an axe man about me. I'm only speaking the truth, Your Bigness. That's not easy for a strolling reteller like me, Sire. I get my word sounds mixed up a lot, and spelling's never been one of my best motleys, but talk… always been about to talk And my hey-gag-on-this shaggy dogs mightn't be about Sinbad or Ali Baba, but they're just as yank-this-it-plays-Dixie about the wuzz Wi and his other merry no-hopers from Wattala. Who, you say? Surely you remember Wi, a name especially chosen in length to fit your court's span of attention, ha ha? The world-record kidnappee, nabbee, swipee, snatchee? (How about that three times in three minutes effort that time, Sire?) After all, how many of your own people have hired him out as White goods for their own useful ends? Not that he wouldn't prefer that to wiping plates in Dominic's Eatery... the place to get wiped off!... and it'd be better than eating Dominic's food. Me, I'd eat anything in my cell down there banked out by the sewer, Sire, even Dominic's gut-rot. At least being strung up by the feet would make that Dominic's food harder to work its way into my system.