The Curious Saga of Captain Turdo

4 Meditations on the Tyranny of Materialism

• Satire

								
The Curious Saga of Captain Turdo
By Herbert T Roch 

Episode IV
Captain Turdo was king of the Land to the North and a great and noble hero in his own eyes. He spent one third of each day peering at himself in the mirror, whispering softly to his reflection about how handsome he was, while grasping himself. The other two thirds of Captain Turdo’s day were spent grasping things other than himself, namely anything and anyone he could get his hands on. Captain Turdo surely loved to grasp things! How great it felt to have things in his hands! All the citizens of the Land to the North loved Captain Turdo. They sang songs about his greatness as he routinely grasped them. Man, woman, child, dog, vehicle, hamster, goose; he grasped them all. Everybody loved Captain Turdo, except two young men named Norm and Gordie. You see, these two young men did not want to be grasped by the Captain. 
	Captain Turdo had had a plan to make it impossible to leave the Land to the North, so he could grasp all of his citizens as much as he saw fit. But he was waiting for Old Joe, the king of the Land to the South, to close off his side of the border. The two kings were close allies and had grasped each other several times. But Old Joe was slow in the head and very, very old.  At this moment in time, we find our Captain distraught because the two subjects had escaped into the Land to the South before Captain Turdo could grasp them. He was oh so very distraught that they had escaped his grasp. “Oh, how I love to grasp things! If only I could grasp those two! My heart would be so happy and full! ”  
Captain Turdo had given himself the title of Captain, because he considered himself to be the most important figure in the War on Thoughts. For you see, he was not able to grasp thoughts, and he wanted to grasp everything. Also, any talk about the past was banned, for things in the past could not be grasped;  anyone who reflected on or talked about things from the past were routinely grasped and then thrown out into utter darkness. Any thought or idea that went beyond the raw urge to clutch and grasp was entirely forbidden. What a noble hero he was! He had succeeded in leading the Land to the North in a victory march away from a shaky incorporeal foundation towards an all consuming present, where every thought and action was focused on grasping and clutching. All the day long the citizens of the Land to the North did nothing but clutch and grasp each other and each others’ things. But the Captain was ever vigilant, knowing that enemy forces could always arise with their profound thoughts, ideas and ruminations on the past. 
Norm and Gordie had fled their homeland, their family, their friends, their houses, their animals and all of their material possessions in order to avoid the advances of Captain Turdo. They were living in the Land to the South, and Old Joe had no idea. He couldn’t tell a turtle from next Tuesday. Norm and Gordie were having a great old time in the Land to the South, ruminating on the past and having profound thoughts. Captain Turdo knew that Norm and Gordie were in the Land to the South, and the thought of grasping them consumed him. He repeatedly urged Old Joe to deliver them into his clutches. “You have two of my possessions and I must grasp them! My hands are empty and passion is bursting from my loins! GIVE THEM TO ME!” “Look here, Wally,” Old Joe replied to Turdo, “I’m sick of these flashy cars and bright lights! And y’a know, I think there might be little gnomes hiding in the bushes! I’m not kidding around here! What can I do about it?” Having no one else to turn to, Turdo cried to his reflection, “That old fart won’t give me what is mine! He has betrayed me! Fetch me a lollipop, for I am distraught.” He sat in his room for days sobbing and brooding and grasping himself for comfort.
One day, while Norm and Gordie were having a particularly profound conversation about the past and bouncing really interesting ideas back and forth between each other, a strong wind began to blow and a bright light shone around them and a Man with a Shiny golden wildly flowing Mullet appeared to them. He wore neither shirt nor shoes, but he wore cargo shorts with countless pockets, in which he carried the Mysteries of the Ages. “Norm. Gordie. You must return to the Land to the North,” He said in a booming voice filled with authority. “It is time.” “OK,” replied Norm and Gordie. So they did as he commanded, and booked a flight to the Land to the North. 
Captain Turdo caught wind that this was happening and happiness returned to him. How happy he was!  “Ahah!” he gleefully cried,  “The prodigal sons are returning home! They have finally realized who their daddy is! At long last, I shall grasp them!”  Norm and Gordie’s flight brought them straight to the palace of Turdo. He was eagerly awaiting their arrival and had run to the front of his driveway to greet them. As they descended from the airplane, Turdo eyed them hungrily. “They are even juicier and sweeter than I could have ever imagined,” he remarked to himself. But when he reached out to grasp them, his hands came up empty. “What is this wizardry?” He cried. He ran at them with open arms and clutching hands, but he ran right through them, for Norm and Gordie’s bodies had been transformed into heavenly bodies that transcended flesh and bone. Again, Turdo rushed at Norm with his hands ready to clutch and grasp. As Turdo rushed towards him with blazing speed, Norm stared him down with boldness and declared with authority, “Not today, Captain.” He snapped his fingers and Turdo flew back forcefully into a brick wall and died. His flesh was instantly consumed by worms, scorpions and every sort of creepy crawly (From that moment onwards, all who passed by that place hissed loudly and heaped scorn upon it. That location remains forever desolate; no grass or flowers ever grow upon it). 
As Norm and Gordie slapped each other five, suddenly a sparkling Golden Volvo station wagon swooped down from the sky, piloted by the Man that Norm and Gordie had seen in their vision. “Come Norm. Come Gordie.” and he beckoned them into the Noble Vessel. When they had entered the Volvo, he flew them up to the Blessed Realm of Profound Thoughts and Ruminations that forever lays beyond the clutches of men.  

 Episode III
          Norm and Gordie were lying beneath a large shady maple tree on a warm summer day. Neither said a word as they rested on the soft grass. Norm had dozed off, but for the past hour,  Gordie’s interest had been fixed upon a small caterpillar grasping very tightly to a big juicy maple leaf. Since Gordie had been watching, the caterpillar had grasped leaf after leaf with his countless little hands and had crammed each one into its small mouth. Gordie looked over to Norm to see if he was still asleep, but Norm had vanished. 
As Gordie turned his attention back to the caterpillar, its head had transformed into Norm’s head. Gordie watched the Norm headed caterpillar grasp each leaf and tear it to shreds. Suddenly a strong cold wind began to blow, the sun disappeared and the sky turned a deep dark purple. Gordie looked away from the tree to see what had caused the eclipse and saw, sailing on the wind, an uncountably large swarm of locusts. The locusts consumed everything in their path and they were headed directly towards the large maple tree. As the swarm grew closer, Gordie could see that the locusts had human faces and massive hands at the end of each of their six legs. He recognized several of the faces that flew amongst the swarm; he could see his mom and dad, his school teachers, and some of his friends. He also saw Norm’s wife. The one who led the swarm had two heads; upon one head was an army helmet and upon the other, a crown. Each was placed carefully so that not one of its carefully manicured hairs was ruffled. Half of its body was cloaked in a rich purple robe and the other a military uniform. Its hands were twice the size of all the others and at the end of each of his four wings was a hand. It cried out in a high pitched voice: “Seize everything, my pretties! Bring it to me! Bring everything to me!  Seize it all! Let nothing escape our grasp!”  The swarm grasped everything it came upon: benches, dogs, young children at play, and handed everything they grasped to their leader. They all flew swiftly towards the large maple tree. Gordie could see that the Norm headed caterpillar was paying no attention to the swarm, as it continued to devour leaf after leaf. Gordie cried out to warn it, but his voice failed him. The swarm soon arrived at the tree and began to grasp its trunk and suck dry its sweet sap. The tree began to wither because it did not have deep roots and could not endure the grasping of the locust swarm. Then the swarm grasped the Norm headed caterpillar and he joined their swarm. Then the swarm turned upon Gordie and he felt thousands of iron grips tearing his body apart. 

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