The Sad Tale of Balthazar

A GRAMMAR GAMES BACK STORY

[Somewhere in a pre-dream back story so I don’t know how this fits in the book, a Grammar Games exclusive.]

(with apologies to Elizabeth Hughes)

[Somewhere in Great Britain, 5 minutes ago]

Horses galloped into the dawn sun, heading for the Colosseum…

Balthazar rushed along on his chariot, trying desperately to find a parking space. If he didn’t get to his seat on the dais in time, the Emperor would get quite cranky. The slipstream knocked a young boy over, landing on his ice cream, so that he burst into noisy sobs.

‘There, there, dear,’ a kindly lady patted him soothingly.

‘They’re where? They’re there?’ His frazzled parents stomped back from their tour of the local shops (in search of coin change to feed the parking meter) now looking for the bad man who upset their little pookums.

Balthazar, secretly glad for a chance to use his disguise as a traffic cone, snuck past. He shook his conehead in horror at their inelegant rage.

Suddenly, a city construction truck driver approached, swore at the sloppy work done by his crew, and, in a single elegant motion, grabbed Balthazar, tossed him onto a vertically stacked pile of cones (oh… the butt hurt) and drove off to a construction site far off in the deadlands between the Medium empire and sister city Quorapolis.

Needless to say, his ticket was non-refundable.

Everything you never wanted to know about…

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As always, “Will write for donuts.”