The Ding

The Ding

It was a typical south Australian bar, one that looked as if it had been carved out of the landscape, or possibly a dump. And it was hot. Swelteringly hot. (Those who wanted to check the temperature on the radio were referred to a sticky pile of melted plastic and wires.) But it was always hot, which was why, despite the bar's remoteness from anything resembling civilization, it was always full. The clientèle, if that's what they could be called, epitomized the term 'beer-swilling pigs' (Indeed, several *were* pigs.) If they tidied up their act, stopped selling their grandmothers, and in general improved beyond anything possible, they might aspire to become the utter dregs of humanity. In short, they were typical Australians. (Not that I have anything against australians; wonderful people, generous as anything, it's those white bastards you have to look out for!)

Now, the reason for this little ramble is merely to set the scene. (Good scenes, like good pudding and concrete, need a nice bout of setting, though scenes are, as a rule not very tasty, and bad to build your house on. You can build on scenery; but this is a different kettle of fish entirely. [Ok, actually it's landscape and views, not fish give me a break here!]) Where our story starts (Or where it would if we hadn't done all that setting, I wonder if my pudding is done?) is the moment a strange noise was heard down the road from said bar.

It started off low and started to grow, like an oak from an acorn (One that didn't have to worry about sonic squirrels, especially since sonicsquirrel.com went offline last year.) it had a deep guttural resonance, like a car clearing its throat, the sound of heavy machinery. And this is exactly what it was, coming up the road in a cloud of dust and gravel, burning red in paint and dusty brown in dried mud, a lightweight but especially powerful bulldozer, a Dingo Australia K9-3 earthmover. The patrons inside didn't need to know this, they didn't even need to shift from their seats, the sound itself was enough to electrify their spines and crank the tension up a notch or two. (The Notch scale, named after Professor Henri Notch measures stress levels in the environment, like the decibel scale it is logarithmic, the baseline of 1 notch being the stress felt by one person when someone sneaks up and taps them on the shoulder when they're not expecting it.)

There was only one person, or rather, canine (They say dogs are people too, but you try getting one to pick you up some stamps at the post office on the way home.) who drove a vehicle that sounded like that; many of the patrons had heard of him, some had been fortunate enough to meet him, why he'd chosen this particular bar out of all the others in the state, who knew? Whatever the rhyme or reason, (Do you get that saying? I mean, I can have a reason to do something, but I've never had a rhyme as far as I know.) there was bound to be some fireworks today. Some of the braver (Or more sozzled.) of the drinkers risked a look outside as The Ding pulled up.

He didn't bother to park, the parking spaces being little more than lines scratched in the gravel, simply stopping his transport in a spray of gravel. He was dressed top to toe in dusty black, the kind of shade clothing gets after being worn unwashed for months on end under the burning sun, and an outfit that would've had any normal man panting from heatstroke, but this was the Ding. With him, quite literally riding bitch was some young thing he'd evidently picked up along his travels; she was wearing a swimsuit complete with snorkel and was nibbling her own hair, oddly enough, nobody wanted to point this out as the Ding dismounted, taking long strides towards the bar, his worn steel-capped boots crunching the gravel like a starving kid eating cornflakes.

He was an impressive figure, almost six feet nose to tail, (Including his somewhat oversized snozz actually.) expression hidden by cheap sunglasses and with a five pound baby under each arm he gave off a definite air of malice, or possibly antagonized introspection. (The two are very easy to confuse, but the first is more likely.) He scanned the bar silently, taking in everyone present at a glance. Most of those present kept their eyes firmly on their drinks, some walked out mumbling about business elsewhere, one man threw himself through a window. The Ding took no notice, calmly tossing his babies at the nearest patron who nimbly caught them before calmly picking up another drinker and tossing him aside, taking his seat at the bar. He didn't need to order, a drink was before him before he'd even sat down.

The drink was downed in a single swig and another was before him without request, there were certain people who were served quickly in any establishment. (Notably anyone whose name started with 'Don', 'Lord' or 'Your majesty') After this was repeated a few dozen times The Ding arose and promptly made for the door, nobody attempting to tell him he hadn't paid. The clientèle breathed a collective sigh of relief (Except for one who was dutch and hadn't quite got the hang of the language yet, he breath a sigh of relief instead.) as he exited only to reappear a second later, a look of slight puzzlement on his face.

*sniff sniff*

It was a small sniff by Ding standards, but the sheer size of his nose (Comparable to a Buick and one that had actually been used to bludgeon several people to death after they'd commented on it.) meant that several patron were jerked across the room by the breeze. The Ding gave sudden glance to the right, knocking out a man three feet away with his snozz before slowly advancing on the shady distant corner of the bar. Had he not been wearing dark glasses they would have seen him glance briefly out the window at a battered red doghouse outside. As it was people fled before him in the manner of people who though they could knock a hole in a wall, don't wish to be hospitalized. Finally there was only one man left at the bar, hunched over his root beer, sipping it quietly. The Ding walked up until he was right behind him before yelling and ducking under a stool.

"Look out! It's the Red Baron!"

The figure moved as if electrified, whipping out a machine gun and blasting the bar in a wide arc (Remarkably few were injured.) before looking about in a confused and shortsighted daze. Eventually his gaze landed on The Ding who had picked himself up and was laughing heartily as he flicked the dust from his shirt.

"Well well, the spannish mongrel, still hanging out with you usual esteemed company I see."

The Ding turned at this comment, sometime during the previous ruckus his girl had entered the bar and was standing behind him expectantly, stick in mouth.

"Dinga good girl! Yip! Yip!"

"Go back outside, I have business to attend to."

"Wanna fetch! Yip!"

"Later, there's a good girl."

"Yip! Good! Yip!"

With that she bounded eagerly out, where, after a few seconds the sound of furious tail chasing could be heard. (This is no mean feat [Well, it's not a foot at all, it's a tail, but I digress.] dingoes loathe their tails as they believe them to be a fuzzy vampire caterpillar with a death grip on their butts.) The Ding eyed his opponent, who stared back at him, both wearing expression of unbridled hatred.

"Dingo."

"Snoopy."

The tension was thick enough (4") to cut with a knife. (Though why anyone would want to do this I don't know, people are always going around doing things to perfectly innocent emotions, falling in love, going green with envy, purple with rage and yellow with typhoid.) Both dogs were old rivals, (In Snoopy's case, very old, almost a century, and in dog years he was practically a fossil.) The Ding had trained under Snoopy after the war and they'd both fought in Vietnam dropping agent lemon. (Like agent orange, however this defoliated the enemies scalps, thus ruining morale and forcing them into surrender.) before they'd both fallen out over a bird. (Quite literally, a rather strange character called Woodstock whom after a long relationship Snoopy had finally moved in with, the conflict was quite simply that while both dogs thought he was tasty, only Dingo wanted to eat him.) Their animosity had only grown over the years, even faster than their noses. By now both were emitting that lovely angry dog growl that reminds even the most dewy eyed puppy lover that all canines are but two missed meals from wolfhood, and many not even that.

"Why don't you go back to your kennel you old coot?"

"The Sopwith is not a kennel!"

"You're right, it's a nuthouse, I'm amazed they didn't put you away for your stupid antics."

"I've done more than you, flying around in your hi-tech junkheaps, you haven't fought a day in your life!"

"Better than filling my head with fantasies, mind, you evidently have nothing else in there to take up space!"

"I don't need to listen to this impertinence, don't you ever take a break?"

"I'll break alright," said Dingo. "My friend, you're bloody gone!"
And the canine featherbrain championship was on.
It was the canine featherbrain, non-title fight;
Two dogs the size of alsations, big but not too bright.
And no-one gave a flying gnat's wing who was in the right,
At the-

Snoopy stepped deftly behind the small brown bird who was attempting to rhyme in a deviation categorized as prose, hit her with a frying pan emitting a resonant 'clannngggg!' and tossed her out the window. (Pity it was shut at the time.) He was in a very bad mood, the comment about 'old coot' had ruffled him. (He was an old dog after all, a coot being another kettle of fish, quite literally as 'alde kute' means 'kettle of salmon' in the Ikari dialect.) There was some muttering thana  voice saying "No Ding dong is gonna stop my poeming!'

Where either one had come from, well that nobody knew,
But Rambo would've wet himself if they had told him to.
The breeze near knocked me over as Ding threw the opening punch,
It seemed to come from nowhere, the was just a sickening crunch.

But Snoopy simply simply got up and whacked him round the head,
If his brain weren't so well padded he'd be dead.
Dingo shook his snout and blinked a bit and slowly came around,
Then threw a right that would've knocked a war memorial down.

The force of it sent Snoopy crashing straight out through the 'door',
(It was a wall at the time, but isn't anymore.)
There were teeth among the wreckage, whose they were you couldn't tell,
But Dingo lost an inch of nose as well.

There was a pause in the beating as The Ding picked up a chair, headed outside and hit something with it repeatedly. When the squawking had ceased he came back in, plucking small brown feathers from where they'd stuck on his shirt sleeves. "Damn commentary, wasn't even original!" he complained as the fight resumed. Most of the patrons by this time were trying to get. (Specifically, either, out, away or even.) While the publican sat behind his bar, stuffing the days earnings into his pockets and wondering whether to clean the place up after or burn it down. Eventually, after many a furious bite and loud bark, (Honestly, bark louder than bite? What do you expect? If there's a sound during a bite, it's from the person getting bitten? What? You should bite through a megaphone or something?) the fight quietened down, helped by the somewhat frazzled noise coming from outside.

Well, most fights you see turn out to be, a win or loss or drawn,
But damned if I've seen both opponents lose a fight before!
And-

There was another squawk and some thumping before The Ding reentered. "Well, that takes care of lunch, to hell with this."

"Yeah, lets go back to my place and play a game of snooker."

"How do you afford all that?"

"Hey, my creator's been dead for almost a decade now, but merchandi$e keeps coming out, ever wonder about that?"

END