by Tyler Stoddard SMITH

KINSHASA (Reuters) — “Po­lice in Con­go have ar­rest­ed 13 sus­pect­ed sor­cer­ers ac­cused of us­ing black mag­ic to steal or shrink men’s penis­es af­ter a wave of pan­ic and at­tempt­ed lynch­ings trig­gered by the al­leged witch­craft.”  — 4/23/2008

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Fred: All right, all right. Every­one get in here! (ush­ers 12 sor­cer­ers in­to se­cret lair). Let’s see what we got, c’mon…everybody emp­ty your sacks! That was good work out there. Boris! What do you have there?

Boris: Uh, not much, ac­tu­al­ly. I got a cou­ple of penises.

Fred: Whoa! You’re not the on­ly one! Look at you guys (looks quizzi­cal­ly around un­der­ground lair, no­tices fel­low sor­cer­ers emp­ty­ing out their sacks con­tain­ing penis­es). Armel! Brice! You guys get any­thing be­sides penises?

Armel: I had a TV, but I dropped it.

Brice: Lis­ten boss, I just don’t have it anymore.

Fred: Huh? What do you mean?

Brice: I did­n’t even get a penis.

Fred: Not a one?

Brice: No…I think I may have shrunk one, though.

Fred: And what does that do for this out­fit? Noth­ing, Brice! Damnit. Look, fel­las, we’ve been at this a long time and I know we’re not as young as we used to be and maybe some of us are get­ting a lit­tle care­less. I’ve got­ta say, while I think we’ve got a whole lot of penis­es here, that’s not go­ing to trans­late in­to what I like to call “prof­its,” as it were. How do you guys sug­gest we move all these penis­es? Do we still have that pe­nis guy in Bumba?

Guy­chel: No, they hung him last month.

Fred: Great, just great. You know, guys, I love you all like broth­ers, but when I sug­gest we knock off a bank, the as­sump­tion is that we’re go­ing af­ter mon­ey. Armel, did you say you have a TV?

Armel: Had. I had a TV. I dropped it, sir.

Fred: That’s a shame. But I’ve got to ask, where did you get a TV?

Armel: It was on the wall, sir.

Fred: The se­cu­ri­ty TV? You took the se­cu­ri­ty TV?

Armel: Well, yeah. That and some penises.

Fred: Ay-yay-yay, Armel. You rec­og­nize that by tak­ing the TV, you don’t have the se­cu­ri­ty tape, right?

Armel: Huh?

Fred: They keep the video­tape in an­oth­er lo­ca­tion. Tak­ing the TV does­n’t do anything.

Armel: Well, I dropped it…so…

Fred: Nev­er­mind. Look, does any­body have any­thing of val­ue? Like, say, money?

Brice: I have three Francs Congolese.

Fred: That you stole from the bank?

Brice: Not re­al­ly. I brought it from home, for lunch.

Fred: Oh, man. What are the rest of you guys doing?

Olivi­er, Screve, Stanis­las, William, Reg­is, Lu­cien, Aris­tide and Oudry (to­geth­er): Count­ing penis­es, sir!

Fred: Okay, let’s take a step back here. We’re sor­cer­ers for cry­ing out loud. And what is it that we can do that oth­er peo­ple can’t?

Guy­chel: Steal penises?

Fred (ex­as­per­at­ed). No, Guy. Any­body can do that, tech­ni­cal­ly. The cor­rect an­swer would be to cast spells!

Guy­chel: I did. I cast ‘steal pe­nis.’ Look at these, boss — these are some great penises.

Fred: No­body is deny­ing that those are some top-notch penis­es, Guy. I’m just saying…

Brice: Yeah. I cast ‘shrink pe­nis.’ What are you get­ting at?

Fred: Right, right, right…those are all spells, but they aren’t the on­ly ones we have. What hap­pened to ‘in­vis­i­bil­i­ty,’ or “thun­der­bolt,’ or ‘au­ra of im­pen­e­tra­bil­i­ty?’ What’s hap­pened to us? We’re dead broke, we’re get­ting on in years and the on­ly spell any of us feel com­fort­able cast­ing is ‘steal,’ or in Brice’s case, ‘shrink pe­nis!’ Of all the lame witch­craft, I swear. Not to men­tion, I’m sure the gen­darmes are well on their way, as Armel was nice enough to give them a close-up of his stu­pid face.

Armel: You know, you’re not so great your­self, Fred. What did you cast? I don’t see you haul­ing around huge sacks of dough.

Fred: You don’t need to wor­ry about me.

Armel: Hey, Fred, I asked you a question!

Fred: I cast ‘steal pe­nis,’ okay! Does that make you hap­py? Is every­body hap­py now?

Boris: No, I’m not. I think I hear po­lice sirens.

(Pan­ic spreads through­out the lair. The sor­cer­ers scram­ble about wild­ly, look­ing for cover).

Fred: Look, every­body. I’m still the boss around here. We need to work to­geth­er on this, you hear?

ALL (less Boris): Yes, Fred.

Boris: Wait! Did some­one say to do some­thing? I can’t hear be­cause I’m hid­ing be­hind all these penises.

Fred: I said that we need to work to­geth­er, gang! Now look, the po­lice will be here any sec­ond, so we don’t have much time to lose. I want every­body to con­cen­trate, all right? ‘Once more in­to the breach’ and all that kind of stuff. Okay, I want you to sum­mon every last bit of sor­cery you have, reach deep in­side and cast ‘in­vis­i­bil­i­ty’ with ALL your might. Then maybe, just maybe we’ll have a chance to get out­ta this. Every­body ready…NOW

(The door to the lair bursts open and a cadre of well-armed po­lice­men rush in­side the hide­away, guns drawn.)

Po­lice­man #1: C’mere, chief. You’re not gonna be­lieve this (ges­tur­ing to­ward the sorcerers).

Chief of Po­lice: Good grief! Look at them! They’ve got in­fant penises!

Boris: Oh, wait…was I sup­posed to cast ‘steal penis?’

Filed under Fiction on May 5th, 2008

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