A Resurrected Story of Bunburyland — King Beak
Bunburyland, thoroughly buttered on its innards with pantomimicry, is of course not a real place in the way that New York, San Frandorania, Wonderful Wonderful Copenwagon, or the Martian outposts of the last Quaker-Bots are real.
It is an artificial fiction concocted by Illuminati Ganga Scientists in the late 19th century and kept alive in vast scientific treasure houses hidden beneath the quaint ruins of Napoli, Italy, ruins meant to obliterate further investigation by their integral fascination.
This was an early precursor to the current top secret Dream project that we cannot reveal the details of at this moment. Why you ask? It’s top secret I repeat as if speaking to a dullard.
Bunburyland exists in several great steaming cauldrons, originally formed via some chemical extracts of dream collected by IG Agent 164 Louise Hammarström and the scraps of pantomime plays gathered by agents around the city.
The stories emanating from this ever-brewing concoction are studied by Illuminati Ganga scientists, not just for the understanding of the links between story and dream, for a deeper understanding of the wellsprings of fantasy, but because fantasy and pantomime are indicators of reality and as such they reveal truths therein.
The following text was written down by IG Agent 137, various illustrations were added by other Agents of the time period, additions and notes to the initial text have been made by various scientists and these will be bold or in as longer quote sections breaking the main.
When King Beak (Also known as King Bill), Emperor of the Romans, having invited all the neighbouring Princes, Fairies, and Enchanters to the feast at which he celebrated the marriage of his only son, Prince Aquiline, unluckily gave the liver-wing of the fowl which he was carving to the Prince’s god-mother, the Fairy Bandanna, while he put the gizzard on the plate of the Enchanter Gorgibus (King of the Maraschino Mountains, and father of the Princess liosolia, to whom the Prince was affianced), the outraged Gorgibus rose from the table in a fury, smashed his plate of chicken over the head of King Beak’s Chamberlain, and wished that Prince Aquiline’s nose might grow on the instant as long as the sausage before him.
It did so; the screaming Princess rushed away from her bridegroom, and her father, breaking off the match with the House of Beak, ordered his daughter to be carried in his sedan by the two giant-porters, Gor and
Gogstay, to his castle in the Juniper Forest, by the side of the bitter waters of the Absinthine Lake, whither, after upsetting the marriage-tables, and flooring King Beak in a single combat, he himself repaired.
This was a very notable curse for the IG scientists of the time as it implied there was no direct link between foot size, nose size, and the size of any other protuberance of interest to the ladies.
The curse was also harvested and put in the repertoire of great curses and has been deployed against 3 people in our own reality, but they died shortly thereafter due to complications of such a large nose.
The latter monarch could not bear to see or even to hear his disfigured son.
When the Prince Aquiline blew his unfortunate and monstrous nose, the windows of his father’s palace broke, the locks of the door started; the dishes and glasses of the King’s banquet jingled and smashed as they do on
board a steamboat in a storm; the liquor turned sour; the Chancellor’s wig started off his head, and the Prince’s royal father, disgusted with his son’s appearance, drove him forth from his palace, and banished him the
kingdom.
Life was a burden to him on account of that nose. He fled from a world in which he was ashamed to show it, and would have preferred a perfect solitude, but that he was obliged to engage one faithful attendant to give him snuff (his only consolation) and to keep his odious nose
in order.
Note: a variant of this original story was attempted in which the Prince was given massive amounts of cocaine, at which point he went on a rampage and conquered three countries until killed by the the Fairy of the Bandanna Islands
But as he was wandering in a lonely forest, entangling his miserable trunk in the thickets, and causing the birds to fly scared from the branches, and the lions, stags, and foxes to sneak away in terror as they heard the tremendous booming which issued from the fated Prince whenever he had occasion to use his pocket-handkerchief, the Fairy of the Bandanna Islands took pity on him, and, descending in her car drawn by doves, gave him
a ‘kerchief which rendered him invisible whenever he placed it over his monstrous proboscis.
In yet another variation the curse was altered to make his penis enormously long and wide of girth, which interestingly it was scene by the thousands of scientists who gathered to watch this variation over and over again, wide-eyed and sweaty of hand, that the nose and feet did gain somewhat in size. Thus showing that there was some relation between the three but that the graph between the three vertices was all with the tails leaving the penis, and the heads entering the nose and feet.
Having occasion to blow his nose (which he was obliged to do pretty frequently, for he had taken cold while lying out among the rocks and morasses in the rainy miserable nights, so that the peasants, when they heard him snoring fitfully, thought that storms were abroad,) at the gates of the castle by which he was passing, the door burst open, and the Irish giant (afterwards Clown, indeed,[a very strange aside, evidently in reference to the emergent pantomimic properties that would become fully operant at the very end of this story, dreamlike swerving from one fantastic vision to another and delivering a happy ending]) came out, and wondering looked about, furious to see no one
The Prince entered into the castle, and whom should he find there but the Princess Rosolia, still plunged in despair. Her father snubbed her perpetually. “ I wish he would snub me! “ exclaimed the Prince, pointing to
his own monstrous deformity. In spite of his misfortune, she still remembered her Prince. ‘ Even with his nose,” the faithful Princess cried, “ I love him more than all the world beside! “
At this declaration of unalterable fidelity, the Prince flung away his handkerchief, and knelt in rapture at the Princess’s feet. She was a little scared at first by the hideousness of the distorted being before her — but what will not woman’s faith overcome? (and hopefulness that superstitions were true)
Hiding her head on his shoulder (and so losing sight of his misfortune), she vowed to love him still (in those broken verses which only Princesses in Pantomimes deliver).
At this instant King Gorgibus, the Giants, the King’s Household, with clubs and battle-axes, rushed in. Drawing his immense scimetar, and seizing the Prince by his too-prominent feature, he was just on the point
of sacrificing him, when —
when, I need not say, the Fairy Bandanna (Miss Bendigo), in her Amaranthine car drawn by Paphian doves, appeared and put a stop to the massacre.
King Gorgibus became Pantaloon, the two Giants first and second Clowns, and the Prince and Princess (who had been, all the time of the Fairy’s speech, and actually while under their father’s scimetar, unhooking their dresses) became the most elegant Harlequin and Columbine that I have seen for many a long day. The nose flew up to the ceiling, the music began a jig, and the two Clowns, after saying, “ How are you? “ went and knocked down Pantaloon.
THE END OF ALL THERE IS ALAS THE END THE END OF ALL THERE IS
Notes added by IG Agent 86 — This article was written by IG Agents 71 and 77 who are under investigation for having taken all of Agent 85’s psychedelic liquor out the fridge and leaving only a note saying “HAH HAH”
As an additional item of interest, the pantomime nature of this text made it perfect to shop around to various theaters in the world, It was attempted to sell to Tivoli Gardens in Denmark, which took offense to Prince Aquiline’s large nose, claiming that it was a definite insult aimed at H.C Andersen
Thus the play has never been performed at Tivoli Garden’s Peacock Theatre, even though it would be a great hit there and is a natural fit.
A Previous Excursion into Bunburyland can be found here
