Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother

By Headley Hauser

Sure, Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother is an outdated political satire written when a certain polarizing political personality was firing people on reality TV, but at least the story is good. It even has a stinky rat bird! Maybe good is overstating it, but it doesn’t suck. I mean my mother liked it... or she would have if she’d read it. Well, it’s free – what do you want?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Wright
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005778255

Book preview

Chapter One

Call Me Elmer

Idon’t know if I’m immortal.

I just know I’m not dead.

I’m Elmer McFarland. I’m also Dirk Destroyer’s older brother, so most people know me as Elmer Destroyer. I’ve lost track of exactly how old I am – seven thousand and some. I had a birthday – I might be eight thousand now.

I’ve watched a lot of people go through the transition of not alive, to alive, to dead. Each generation isn’t that much different from the one before it. Most believe that their time on the planet is the most important, the most stylish, the most heroic, or perhaps even the most cataclysmic time period in history. Many think that the world will end in their lifetimes – as if the planet will be so overcome by the prospect of their deaths that it won’t be able to go on. Some think that they’ve been put on the planet to solve the great mysteries of time and space – or even change history forever.

I don’t much like being around those people – maybe because these grand destinies get pretty old after you’ve heard them so many times. The rocks and mountains probably get tired of my self-delusions. If so, they’ve been too polite to mention it. I try to keep my delusions to a minimum. Except for its length, my life hasn’t been too noteworthy. Mostly it’s been a lot of the same stuff over and over again.

Last week was pretty eventful, though. It’s even changed the way I look at things, and that doesn’t happen most millennia.

So I’ll tell you how I thought about stuff a week ago before all this stuff happened. I believed that legends changed every five hundred years, history every two hundred, political ideology every century, music and art every decade, and fashion twice a month. I also believed that the finest piece of music ever was the Fassentinker Third Duet for Scratchwing and Bellow, and that legend, history, and political ideology were way overblown, and that even if fanny packs were out of style three hundred and eighty-seven out of every three hundred and eighty-eight fashion fads, they were still damn handy and surprisingly sturdy. The one I wear has held up well, seeing as it’s nearly as old as me.

Fanny packs are especially useful if you enjoy a good cigar.

I also believed that my brother Dirk would always be seen as the bad guy, and that it would forever complicate matters for me.

Did I agree that Dirk was a bad guy? Not really. Dirk just enjoyed making powerful enemies: in particular, Uriculous Wisehind, the last translator of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas.

What are the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas – just the foundation of everything.

We on the planet Two have lived by the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas long before any legends, history, political ideology, art movement, or fashion fad that I’ve ever heard of. The Thirty-Seven Ideas are so old that when I was born we only had three of them left – Ideas Seven, Nineteen, and Thirty-five.

Really Good Idea Number Seven: Thou shalt not start a land war in Phasia. Phasia is a large, heavily populated continent where much of the population is hard-working, polite, and good at math. Somewhere just shy of six thousand years ago, the people of planet Two lost track of Idea Number Seven. Dirk tried to tell them what it was, but Dirk, being a known prankster, was not believed. Within a few months, dozens of non-Phasian countries were invading more populous, hard-working, polite countries that were much better at math.

Turns out, Idea Number Seven was a pretty good idea. The invaders got creamed. Like I said, history is overblown. What’s the point if people won’t learn?

Really Good Idea Number Nineteen: Thou shalt not prevent a person from smoking cigars in their own home. The people of Planet Two lost that idea just over five thousand years ago, and that’s when tensions between Dirk and the rest of the world began to mount. Dirk and I are both fond of cigars, and we were each early on in our third millennium and feeling pretty secure about our long-term prognosis. Dirk didn’t have much patience for some forty-year-old infant halfway to her grave warning us how smoking would shorten our lives.

Dirk and I had picked up a few tricks by then – especially Dirk. I’m not talking about supernatural powers – just normal, natural abilities that any person who lives to four figures might know – especially if such a person discovered this school Dirk came upon that was just full of such stuff. As I mentioned, Dirk has always been a practical joker, and abilities like hypnosis and telekinesis are damn useful for practical joking. When the minister of smoking eradication went flying through the capitol stark naked and declaring that he was the chicken of divine succulence, a lot of people took it all wrong.

I thought it was funny, but I’ve never had a problem with Dirk. People started calling my brother Dirk the Evil Magician then, but it got changed to Dirk the Destroyer – I guess because it was shorter and people really like alliteration.

The trouble got more serious a century later when Uriculous Wisehind (now known as Uriculous the Great) became the head archivist, high priest, and translator of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas.

If you’re following my story, you may have figured out (especially if you’re Phasian and good at math) that we were down to just one idea – Number Thirty-Five. Now, in my early centuries I didn’t pay much attention to Idea Thirty-Five. Dirk thought Idea Thirty-Five was meant to be a joke and even told Uriculous Wisehind that he thought the entire Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas began as a put-on. When a high priest of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas is down to only one good idea, he’s usually not inclined to pass it off, but it did sound like… Well, you decide.

Idea Number Thirty-Five: Thou shalt not bugger the sheep.

Having the authority of translation, Uriculous Wisehind decided that the one remaining Really Good Idea had been garbled over time. He proclaimed that the true form of Idea Number Thirty-Five was (and now would be again), Thou shalt not bug the sheep.

The wool industry took a big hit that day. International Mutton had a convenient fire and collected a very lucrative insurance settlement that set the owners (but not the workers) up for life. Uriculous Wisehind, whose father sat on the board of Cotton and Linen Inc., made no apology to the thousands of displaced shepherds, spinners, weavers, and cleavers. A translator’s job, said Uriculous is to find the truth and not worry about the economic implications. Wisehind found his truth accompanied by three bags full of donations from Big Cattle, Big Fish, and Big Chicken.

Dirk figured that Big Pig must have stiffed Wisehind because there was talk of further translating Thirty-Five: Thou shalt not bug the sheep or the swine. People of any given generation will tolerate only so much revisionist translation. Wisehind wasn’t known for his discretion, but even he knew that people deprived of their morning bacon could get ugly. There was also pressure from politicians who were inordinately fond of their pork. Industrial animosity could possibly have been avoided by changing the imperative to, Thou shalt not pork the sheep, but the suggestion was vetoed, and The Idea remained: Thou shalt not bug the sheep.

Dirk didn’t like the new translation. For one thing, Idea Thirty-Five had always been (and always was starting to mean something for Dirk and me) his favorite idea to quote out loud at solemn occasions.

Wise-hiney’s translation is no fun, he told me.

Maybe if you said it in a funny voice.

Tried it – it’s just not the same.

Complications arose when the sheep wised up – at least as much as sheep can – sheep aren’t that bright. After a few years of human deference, sheep realized that the shepherd’s crook was in the other… appendage, and they got downright haughty.

Who would have thought sheep could be so arrogant? I asked Dirk.

What kind of people do arrogant best, he answered, intelligent, or stupid?

Good point.

Farmers started losing their homes by mistakenly leaving their doors open near sheep. The wooly beasts just flocked to open doors and helped themselves to whatever they found inside – grain, wine, lingerie. Women’s unmentionables became the preferred headgear for sheep planet-wide. Efforts to remove the invaders were met with stiff punishment by the Ministry Of Innocent Sheep Toleration (MOIST), a suddenly well-funded police organization with license to maim anyone who so much as giggled at a lamb with panties on its head. MOIST organized massive wolf hunts, and the lupine species was nearly eliminated. Those that survived remained in hiding, except during political conventions, when ravenous packs descended from the hills and tore apart the more obnoxious politicians to the cheers of a grateful public.

Dirk never worried about giving offence to man or ram. When he felt like laughing, he laughed, but in spite of MOIST’s efforts, he proved very difficult to maim. He took to roaming the country-side dressed in wool, wielding a shepherd’s crook and a pair of clippers. Of course, he had to wander the country-side because the sheep, seeking a better grade of both liquor and ladies’ unmentionables, had over-run many cities. Phasian cities were spared. The mathematically gifted inhabitants simply fenced off all urban areas where there were no sheep.

Dirk was making himself a menace, poking wooly behinds with his stick and teaching impressionable children to laugh when they heard the sound, Baah.

So MOIST and Dirk began a war. Dirk played pranks on MOIST, like sewing wool linings into their coats when they weren’t looking. (Dirk is a really fast sewer. It’s nothing magical, just a skill he picked up.) MOIST unsuccessfully but continually attempted to sever Dirk’s arms, legs, fingers, toes, and… Anyway, I tried to stay clear of it. Unlike my brother, I’ve never been one to make waves, but I could tell that all the conflict was wearing on Dirk. Then the ancient and venerable high priest (and honorary head of MOIST) Uriculous Wisehind made this prophesy on his deathbed.

There will come a man after me who will bring light to Planet Two. He will cast the Destroyer into oblivion for all time. You will know him by the light he brings. Flames will sprout from his fingers. Watch and follow the Light Bringer!

Sure enough, days, weeks, or years (when you live this long, you lose sense of time) after Uriculous’s death a Light Bringer arose. His name was Luxcurious Bidden. He had a great quantity of lovely flowing locks of hair, neatly trimmed, shampooed, highlighted, and stapled to his otherwise bald head. As the high priest/prophet predicted, flames, or rather a flame, two inches long sprang from his fingers – well, finger – his index finger to be exact, which he pointed continuously at Dirk, making confusing allegations.

I was relieved. I had feared what a Light Bringer might do to Dirk, but Luxcurious was obviously not a threat. Most of his accusations were garbled or downright inaccurate, and I just laughed in spite of the significantly vexed expression on my brother’s face. Finally Luxcurious said, I think I have the highest IQ in this room, in spite of the fact that we were outside at the time. I don’t know if it was the absurdity of his remark or what, but suddenly Dirk was seized into the air, spun several times, and disappeared.

There was much celebrating after that. Luxcurious was awarded several very expensive hair pieces by a grateful MOIST, and I might have been the only one to mourn Dirk’s passing into oblivion.

Then a couple hundred years later, there he was – my brother, in a new wool worsted coat and wool fedora, brandishing a new shepherd’s crook.

Hey, Elmer, he said.

He produced from his coat what he insisted were not magical shears, though when he pushed a button the shears made a buzzing sound and the blades clashed together repeatedly without any effort on Dirk’s part. Dirk brought his bellow, and I got out my scratchwing. The music of Fassentinker once again filled the air of Planet Two. A sheep came by to spoil the party, and Dirk used his non-magical shears to shave a creditable likeness of Uriculous on the animal’s behind. We had a fine few days together before a new Light Bringer showed up.

This Light Bringer was Lik’emall Busch. Lik’emall almost didn’t defeat Dirk. He seemed more interested in starting a land war in Phasia, but eventually a few of his aides put up a sign behind him that said, Mission Accomplished, and there went my brother back into oblivion.

I worried less this time, and sure enough, I saw Dirk a couple of centuries later. We had a nice couple of days until another Light Bringer – always with the initials LB – cast him back into oblivion.

It got pretty predictable. Sometimes my brother found me first; sometimes the Light Bringer did. Sometimes the LB tried to recruit me to the great cause. Sometimes he/she/it (I wasn’t sure with two of them) tried to cast me out first – either as a practice run, or maybe they were afraid I would team up with my destructive brother. I remained oblivion-free.

I always had mixed feelings about seeing a Light Bringer. I was happy because it meant I would be seeing Dirk soon, but by and large Light Bringers (and their MOIST hangers-on) were tedious people.

There was one exception. Lenny Bruise Light Bringer was alright. Dirk did his old trick of poking a cigar into the Light Bringer’s flame, only this time, he poked three cigars. He kept one himself, gave one to me, and the third to Lenny Bruise. They were funny smelling cigars. We all got to laughing after a while, and my brother and Lenny started exchanging the foulest insults imaginable. I don’t think the MOIST officials appreciated Lenny Bruise’s methods, though one woman leaned in a bit where she could inhale the funny smelling smoke, and I think she started getting into it.

I really gotta cast you out you… I’ll spare you what Lenny called my brother.

I could use a pizza anyway, said Dirk.

None of us knew what a pizza was, but Lenny said, Then go get one you dumb-flick. (I might have that wrong.)

There must have been power in that incantation, because my brother disappeared.

Lenny and I got together to smoke cigars a few times before he died. It was never the