Wm says: I’m proud to bring you two more excellent entries from the Bedlamites contest.
Adam Greenwood’s entry:
Jibr Archaelogic Catalogue
Fragment XVIII, Menninger Expedition
Wo unto the mites of Bedla
And unto Ylum’s ass.
For in Bedla [there] is no people
And in Ylum no corn.
The mosquitos mourn that once sucked blood
in Bedla,
and in Ylum,
the locust hungers.
Wo also unto those who dwell in Sane,
For the Mighty One is angry,
Yea, He is mad, He rageth,
And their idols Sup and Erego, their Apy and their Putic,
He will smash, yeah, He will smash.
He is done with counselings,
let the men of Sane be afreud.
Comment: A post-exilic composition, perhaps originating in the Bin Luny cultic complex. The association with the god Talt, as suggested by the Vienna School, must now be dismissed as a guess.
Tony Allen’s entry:
From the diary of Glorfinda L. Jackson, Martian Mormon
18 Kumbha 2524 (Darian Calendar): Brother Keane and the elders came over today to clean up the mess left by the bedlamites last night. The ion capacitator was in a shambles, which left the air in the house all purple-tinged and tasting like burnt licorice. They’d somehow gotten into the ration pantry and ate nearly a month’s worth of lime gelatin compound, and what they didn’t eat, they spilled all over the kitchen. It looks like the snows of Olympus Mons in here.
* * *
15 Pisces 2524 (DC): The discovery of life on Mars was a big deal, so I’m told, but no one really figured the kind of nuissance [sic] the bedlamites would turn out to be. Everyone was expecting either some form of advanced “little green men” or some stupid germs stuck to some ice somewhere. Turns out, bedlamites are somewhere in between–little red men that are just smart enough to get into all sorts of things they shouldn’t, but stupid enough to make us settlers rue their very existence!!
* * *
4 Mina 2524 (DC): Brother Keane says this is the worst bedlamite infestation he’s ever seen, and he’s seen a few. Turns out they’ve built a colony in the basement–bored right through the cement foundation. I can’t even get down there without them throwing things at me and trying to trip me when I walk down the stairs. He said that if we don’t take care of them now, they’ll get into the life support. Not good.
The extermination of bedlamites is banned by law, unfortunately. Luckily, Brother Keane says there’s a non-violent means of getting rid of them: you can use loud music to flush them out. He says that something from the 1980s–a kind of music called a “hair band,” whatever that means–will usually get rid of them. I’ll see what I can drum up in the library archives.
* * *
26 Mina 2524 (DC): Well, it’s been three weeks, and this so-called “hair band” music has just about driven ME out of the house, not to mention the bedlamites. I don’t know how the old-timers could stand to listen to that stuff–it’s just noise! And the silly costumes “¦ good grief!
But it seems to have worked. I went down into the basement this morning and only saw one of the nasty boogers. It ran into a hole in the wall which I blocked up with Insta-crete. Hopefully that was the last of them.
Brother Keane told me how the music works. Bedlamites, it turns out, are terrified of earthquakes. They don’t actually hear the music–since they don’t have ears, not in the human sense, anyway–they feel it. The vibrations of this “hair band” music feel like an impending earthquake, and that sends them scurrying away like so many vermin. All I can say is GOOD RIDDANCE!
A Motley Vision 