Splash by Spring 'Can You Just Leave the Pot?' McManus

Author's Note: Chicago was a lot of fun, because not only did I get to hang out with adults the entire weekend, they didn't expect me to act like one. Of course, being a naturally giving person (when it comes to altoids), I extended the same courtesy to my fellow Dwiggies and let them run wild. ;) And that's the reason (and I'm sticking to it) why, by the time Sunday rolled around, I was on permanent airhead mode. And that, as it's been pointed out to me the Saturday before, is something I'm reeeally good at. ;)
Pride and Prejudice has been written and rewritten from various perspectives; the dog's point of view (mostly in between sniffing and grooming periods), medieval, modern, time travel, space invaders, fairy tales, In a Bathroom!, cheeseburgers, silly songs and haikus galore. The obsessive-compulsive writing habits of our little community have spawned pseudo-credible newspaper articles that include such words as fan fic, phenomenon, freaks, weirdos, literature and aspirin. We'd like to think that they've also spawned movies but the appearance of anything in that genre is purely coincidental or so I've been told by irate lawyers, who for some reason are most offended when you ask for your fair share of the writing credits once box office receipts have reached over a certain point.
Or maybe that's just me.
So, with this one explanation, I will make Kathlyn go to work once more, archiving something that I've placed on the block, butchered, filleted, burnt to a crisp and placed in humble sacrifice upon the altar of Derbyshire Writers' Guild: This is the result of last weekend.

Prelude the First

Pemberley, that great and far out piece of prime real estate located as a pin prick in eastern Derbyshire is not so much a figment of our overactive imagination but a culture from which we can never hope to escape, like so many Dwiggies caught in its enthralling headlights, waiting to be broad-sided with cliffhangers and predictable endings. Never, in all of Jane Austen's writings, did any edifice stand so proudly against the backdrop of normality. Mansfield Park was too confining; Kellynch Hall was most depressing; Netherfield - a giddy sprite among the flowers of Meryton; Donwell Abbey - although the strawberries were a nice touch, was just too far from Hartfield to put the horses to; Delaford - nice in its many respects, was more of a starter house since it needed so much work done to it; Cleveland - a pleasure palace no decent woman would stoop to live in; and Northanger Abbey had a shocking lack of trap doors and murdered lovers.

Pemberley, however, has a lake.....

Part 1

"My mind has always been my Achilles' heel," stated < moron >Mr. Collins < /moron > mournfully to no one in particular. He had an astounding audience as no one in particular paid much attention to him as he rambled on. "I'm underappreciated here. No one understands me...." He looked around out of the corner of his eyes and saw that everyone was ignoring him. He slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

Wide startled eyes greeted this outburst, looking around wildly for the cause, then glazing over once more when they settled upon < moron >Mr. Collins' < /moron > apoplectic face. He breathed hard and fast, waiting for the threat of the aneurysm to fade then stalked out of the room.

A nice dip in the pond would cool him off. Yes, a dip would be good.

Elizabeth looked up from her daily dose of staring at her husband as he stalked past and muttered under her breath, "What a dip."

Darcy looked at Elizabeth during < moron >Mr. Collins' < /moron > little speech (what it was about, he had no idea since he hadn't been paying attention to it. To set the record straight, inviting the Collinses had been strictly for Elizabeth's sake. She longed to see Charlotte again after getting back from their missionary efforts in South East Asia - the Collinses, not the Darcys, I mean - that Darcy agreed to let the couple sleep on their fold out couch for a visit.). He sighed in deep contentment, if a modern man can do so without looking like he's taking an asthma test, but mostly he looked bored. He and Elizabeth had been married for a year and a half now, and still she struck a chord in him that just wouldn't die, like that last note in that Beatles song. Even now, whenever he looked at her his heart would skip and go bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggggggggg ..... on and on, reverberating forever. (*note: boonnnnnggggg is different from sproooiiinng) After a year and a half, it was getting aggravating and he hoped it would stop, but he still liked to look at her. He just had to remember to hum a tune when he did so to cover up the bonging sound otherwise he'd wind up with the screaming meemies.

So he looked at his wife and hummed something simple, a smile on his face and keeping time with his finger on the edge of the arm rest. A picture of contentment and that is why Anne De Bourgh was irritated with him. Irritated beyond belief.

For days now, ever since a certain story about a bathroom had been written (in a bathroom, no less! Who'd ever heard of such a place?) she had had the most alarming fear of clowns. Clowns! Everywhere she turned, she could see nothing but clowns staring at her from behind the shadows, ready to jump out at her with their big feet and threatening to make funny balloon hats against her will.

Scary stuff.

Anne walked through the doorway just as < moron >Mr. Collins < /moron > stormed out, deep purple circles under her eyes and stifling a yawn as her eyes darted every which way inspecting the curtains for clowns in disguise. (< moron >Mr. Collins< /moron > is really more of a buffoon than a clown when you think of it and he wasn't scary just baboony in a buffoony sort of way. Ba da bing ba da boom) The clowns were getting to her and she muttered to herself in much the same manner of insane people who don't get their daily dose of narcotics only the words were coherent: "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... Can't sleep, clowns will eat me..." And if Darcy thought his bonging was annoying he should try Anne's insanity du jour.

Darcy and Elizabeth looked up at her then resumed their favorite pastime of staring meaningfully at one another, the faint bonnnnnnnnnnggggggggg sounding when their eyes met as just made everything worse.

Anne gripped the window ledge with her fingers, digging her nails in and thought Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... a dip in the pond would set me to rights... Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... a dip in the pond would set me to rights.... Teeth chattering and trying to keep her composure from slipping to a stunning low cut dementia.

Elizabeth and Darcy looked up as she past them then bonnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggggggg...

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Anne cried in the gallery as she ran for it. "It's too sticky sweet and the clowns will eat it!"

"My dear," Elizabeth said, looking at her husband (bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg.....). She had gotten used to that slightly stunned look he had in his eyes lately, she secretly wondered if he had been watching instant millionaire game shows in an attempt to know who to avoid in the future at his club but dismissed it as snobbery. "Have you noticed that our pond has been attracting more and more visitors lately? Not just those loonies hanging around hoping you'd dive in, I mean but from ordinary people, like Anne, for instance. It's been rather busy, don't you think?"

"Mmmmm... yes, I see your point. But really, dearest, wouldn't you rather have them out there instead of in here?" He smiled and then Lizzy's heart jumped in a little kaleidoscope of electrical patterns that would send an EKG into SOS ASAP with a Q,R,S,T - her own special bout of nerves that she got whenever she looked at her husband so if you could actually hear the silent symphony of their sappiness it would go something like this: Stare... bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg.... bumpity bumpity..... bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg.... bumpity bumpity..... bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg.... bumpity bumpity bump bump bump.....

Everyone sing it with Anne now!
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right,
Here I am stuck in the middle with you....*

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" < heavily medicated >Anne< /heavily medicated > cried from hiding place in the willow tree.

Fade to that magical moment of just after twilight... a lonely howl can be heard as the full moon rises over the treetops, in the distance, a cello mournfully accompanies it. It is Barber's Duet for Werewolf and Cello in A Major.... I give you:

Part two, The Rant....

Elizabeth sat at her computer, disgusted with the connection speed. It never failed to download two emails at the speed of light and then stop halfway while downloading the third and she still had four more to go after that. And chances are they were from < moron >Mr. Collins< /moron >. He'd sent twelve today already. Mostly little cutesy motivational feel good things and pleas for help from ailing ten year olds suffering from monosclyiothyriticocus or something even sillier and if you sent that email out to as many people as you knew then two cents would be donated towards his recovery and if you don't then you're cursed with bad luck and tax audits for the rest of your life. One time she got a five page dissertation on how fascinated < moron >Collins< /moron > was to find that mangoes grew on actual trees instead of sprouting off vines like pumpkins. Finally the email downloaded and, of course, it was another inspirational gag me. Sighing, she clicked on REPLY and typed out UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject box hoping that he would take the hint because not responding to him sure didn't do the trick. She sent it off with the hope for something better.

Nearby, Mary, who considered herself to be the Marvin Hammlish of her time, kept playing the first bar to Fur Elise over and over and over again. (Chicago? Anyone? Anyone?)

(Can't get little dot things to go over U either...)

Caroline, who had a habit of making herself heard no matter where she was, was annoyed with the lack of attention and she intended to do something about it and do it loudly. Now, Caroline had a nice set yodeler's lungs in her that were insured for a million. They encased a heart made of cold hard steel but that's not part of the story. She once managed to be heard while she was in a sound proof booth at the mall during one of those radio station promotion where one person each hour gets to go in that booth and grab as much money as they could while an airplane prop blew it around them. (Marika, if you think tipping is a strange custom, wait until you hear our radio stations) She managed to stack up a nice tidy sum in the first minute, her fingers being as naturally attracted to cash as they were to diamonds. Her real break came when she broke the sound barrier after she lost her grip on a hundred-dollar bill. I won't say that glass shattered, but I will say that the listeners voted her the most obnoxious noise they've every heard, sounding something like a duck being sucked into a jet engine. The sound was so offensive and peculiar that the station immediately hired her to be their Daily Afternoon Atomic Jam DJ introducing death metal bands in between commercials for monster truck road rallies and traffic reports. Caroline became an instant success with motorists as they sat in their cars on I-40 as she screeched the titles of the songs out, speakers blaring way past the threshold of pain, hands on the ready to dive for their guns if someone dared merge with them. Bumper stickers circulated by the station read: Quackle Doodle Doo / QUAK 97.1 FM.

(It's so easy to pick on < duck >Caroline< /duck >...)

Where was I? Oh, right...

Caroline, who'd developed a twitch after her first week at work when the blind date callers started asking her out over the air, stalked over to Mary and informed her that playing Fur Elise was cruel and unusual and not politically correct (you know, fur? Only with the little dotty things over it) and if she didn't stop it right now, she'd organize a protest rally on the front lawn consisting of nothing but out of work men with tattoos and body piercings, vastly inadequate hygienic habits and with police records that total a combination of 3,982 years served. In other words, her loyal listeners.

Mary immediately changed keys and told her it was Faux Elise and went on pounding away, making words up to it with a smoky and yet perky kind of voice, in a Dusty Springfield singing Burt Baccarat kinda way.

*...readers immediately groan and tell Spring that she's asking for trouble*
*Spring is busy waiting for the questions asking who the heck Dusty Springfield and Burt Baccarat are...*

Elizabeth looked up at the two but missed eye contact and saw that < moron >Collins< /moron > had not taken the hint and sent her four new emails asking her to invest in an internet company (two from the same company), change her way of banking and to smile so the whole world will smile with you.

She hit DELETE four times, sighed once in a laconic sort of way and thought that Laconic or something similar would be an interesting name for a ship.

Caroline, a bit tone deaf anyway, twitched to the corner and waited for something to happen, a Colonel... an Earl... anything to get her mind off of those stupid bumper stickers and the wacky celebrity wake up calls that she just got talked into doing by her station manager. She took out a writing tablet and started making a list of people she wanted to badger at five a.m. and put her station manager at the top, followed by Darcy, Ivana Trump, then Sting.

Just then, Darcy walked by...

Bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.....

Elizabeth turned around and smiled as she saw Darcy standing in the doorway watching her.

Bumpity bumpity bumpity bump bump bump....

Bumpity bumpity bumpity bump bump bump.... Bonnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggity bumpity bong bong bong.....

Caroline twitched, tossed the tablet away and cried out, "You make me sick! Can't you, for once, get over it? I've had enough, I'm going for a swim." She left the room, to find her bathing suit and a pair of blinders (< moron >Collins< /moron > was out there, remember?).

"See there goes another one,": Elizabeth pointed out as Caroline left. "I don't understand it. The pond has never been so popular before."

Darcy sat down, staring at his feet because he couldn't hum and think at the same time. He also couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time but that's not important right now. "Well, I did fill it full of trout last season... But I can't see how that is attracting so much traffic.... Do you think it has anything to do with the Jacuzzi we had slide last month?"

Elizabeth pursed her lips in thought. "No..." she said hesitatingly. Then they glanced at each other and they were lost:

Bonnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggggg Bumpity Bonnnnggg bumpity bonnnnnnggggg bump bonnng bump bump bumpity booonnnngity......

Anne's mind cracked like the elastic snap of a pair of surgical gloves. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" She put her hands to her head, "Oh the inanity!"

"Do you?" Darcy asked.

"I think so," Elizabeth replied.

"Pond then?"

"Yes."

They wandered off towards the pond and so ends Part two.

We now start Part three. They didn't have to walk far. ;)

< scum >William Elliot< /scum > lived by the pond. He longed for the day when someone would walk by and notice him diving in and out of it. So far no one passed by except for a few clowns looking for a crazy lady and, occasionally, the owners of the estate. The fact that he was on someone else's property didn't bother him much. The fact that he was beginning to prune something dreadful did, however, and so he alternated between diving in and playing cards by the slide that was so recently installed and referenced above in Part two. Sliding wasn't as manly as diving, he thought, so he dispensed with all the hoo ha-ing and sliced the water cleanly like the big stiff that he was. Then he played cards. Basically, he just stuck around like the blackened edge of a Band-Aid on the scrape of life.

< moron >Collins< /moron > was also in attendance and he spent most of his time doing cannonballs at the south end of the pond. The pond was a lot lower that following fall.

< cuckoo >Anne< /cuckoo >? Well, Anne was still up in her tree but her fear of clowns was slowly fading into the steady thrum of denial. She climbed down when it got too hot for her in the squirrel hole.

< orange >Caroline< /orange > was getting < Colonel > Fitzwilliam < /Colonel > to teach her to swim and she took to it like a *cough* like a duck to erm... water.

There was a small sailing vessel out in the middle of the water and two people were lounging in it. < content >Anne Elliot< /content > and < hunk >Frederick Wentworth< /hunk > ignored the splashing and kept to themselves. They especially kept away from her sister < nag >Mary< /nag >. Anne Elliot murmured a low romantic lullaby to him but it was hard to hear over the werewolf and cello and bonging and bumpities but mosty the howling (she wasn't a great singer but Oh! Could she play the piano!).

(I'm so tired that < cutie >Olivia's< /cutie > stuffed camel is doing the hula. < odd >?< /odd >

There were other people, too many for < lazy >me< /lazy > to describe, all around the shoreline of the pond. < constant source of irritation >Lady Cat< constant source of irritation > was there, by the way, instructing the revelers the proper way to get down and boogie.

No, she's not wearing a bikini.

Neither is < moron>Collins< /moron > for that matter.

Oh heck, the hula dancing camel was there too, why not?

And any party that has livestock is a party just waiting for a search warrant.

Part four, the end

Darcy and Elizabeth stared, open mouthed like a gasping trout at the spectacle before them. They didn't remember asking all these people to come over and they certainly didn't feel up to the task. And they certainly didn't want to clean up after them but that's what < disgruntled >servants< /disgruntled > are for I guess.

When the baffled pair were spotted a great cheer erupted from the party.

< fine eyes >Elizabeth< /fine eyes > was dragged to the water's edge and shoved in. Everyone held their breath....

Darcy at first couldn't believe what he saw (bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggggggg.....) but he wiped his eyes and stared some more (bonnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggg......) and sure enough, there was his wife dripping wet in the pond. He put a hand against his wounded heart and staggered to the edge, where he collapsed like a lemming, "I'm a comin' 'Lizabeth! I'm a comin'!" He picked himself up and suddenly felt compelled to smoulder.... He took off his cravat and tossed it on the grass...

Being a democratic society, the Dwiggies held their collective breath...

He undid his cuffs and flicked his wrists like Mitch Gaylord going for the rings. Then he kicked off his boots, one by one. Because if he kicked them off at the same time he'd fall flat on his pride and joy.

The boots fell to the side.

He stood there. Smouldering. A lot.

Then he crouched down into a ball and then LEAPT into the air and into the pond with a splash that made ladies hearts go pitter patter (Elizabeth's still went bumpity bumpity bump bump bump).

< wet shirt >Darcy< /wet shirt > strode out of the water and took the offered towel from the pond boy standing nearby and toweled off. Then he turned towards the crowd, lifted his fists and pumped them into the air, The Annual Darcy Dive for Charity has ended successfully.

Cheers erupted... balloons dropped from the trees.... a band played... the wolves, I mean the < nuts >Dwiggies< /nuts > left the story happy and satisfied and Spring is going to bed.

The End. ;)

* By Gerry Rafferty.... Stuck in the middle with you......

No, those tags weren't supposed to do anything. They were just there for emphasis. Because you know how subtle I am. *looks away innocently*

(Teg, I would like a copy of that picture where I'm levitating across the street, pretty please?) :)