Twerp Gizznick & The Great Fault: A Short Story

Twerp Gizznick wondered why his ship wouldn't do what he wanted it to. The thing it was doing was crashing and it absolutely refused to stop. His two 'companions' were far too pleased that it was all going wrong for Twerp to be of any help. But as it was, sparks were flying, flames were flaming, explosions, smoke and other indications of crashing filled the ship. Whether he liked it or not, the ground of the planet they were apparently going to die on, was exceptionally exicted to see the ship and was rushing to give it an almighty hug.

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If you haven't guessed, our story starts with Twerp. Despite his name, Twerp was not actually a twerp*, he was a regular guy who had the name Twerp. Now though the story starts here, lots of stuff happened long before the story started - but it wouldn't make much sense to tell you about the time RJ Miffy tripped on a slice of pizza and was suddenly, though not surprisingly, killed by a wayward piece of pepperoni, because it has nothing to do with the story - which is why we are starting with Twerp.

Twerp believed in the Great Fault. Now I know your next question: 'is there anything I can snack on right now?'. I don't blame you - I feel like snacking myself too, but instead I'll explain who the Great Fault is, while you get the snack.

Who's Fault?

The Great Fault is, many people believe, the one who created the Universe - or at least what we think is the Universe. The reason he is called the Great Fault is because the people in the Universe, being very annoyed to have come into existence, blamed the initiator of their existence for having started the whole bothersome problem commonly known as 'Life', and at some point during It (i.e. Life) they will say 'It's his fault!' or they will at least think and/or feel it. Generally, most if not all people, credit the Great Fault with all of Life's trouble. If you have a vague sense that someone apart from yourself is responsible for getting you drunk or somehow getting you into trouble with child services - it's the Great Fault that's, in theory, at fault. However you slice it, even if you are at fault, you never would have made any errors had you not come into existence - and that is really the Great Fault's fault. Or so the theory diddles. Now you may have noticed I have referred to the GF as 'he'. I honestly don't know if he is a he - but it makes the story shorter so just go with it.

At any rate, after eons of being blamed for stubbed toes, bad debt, ugly spouses and gastric acid, it only made sense to call him the Great Fault. Now quite a few people continued to be annoyed at having come into existence and spent inordinate amounts of time arguing with the Great Fault about the many things they would have preferred to do than exist (the fact the he never argued back - or at all only exacerbated their frustration). Oddly, they also complained about ceasing to exist and thought it was a bad idea to have to do that too, they thence created a lot of excitement whenever someone they knew ceased to exist. It was at points like this where they would say 'It's his fault' most of all. Ironically, while many young people complain to their parents that they should let them do this or that 'because everybody is doing it', they rarely said that about ceasing to exist - and everybody most certainly does that. But very few people stand in line to try it out for size. Nonetheless, at some time or another we are all behoved to give it go.

Twerp and the Kill Deaders

Now, where were we? Oh yes, we were 'here', where the story started. Now, 'here' is not here, nor is it now. It is some other where and some other when. And, who again? Yes, Twerp! Twerp thought the Great Fault was much nicer than most people did and spent lots of time trying to find him in order to straighten out the whole argument, and prove that it was all a huge misunderstanding. Twerp wasn't the only one who sought the GF for these reasons. There were a few who did, and inevitably they were called, yes, The Great Fault Finders. Now, it would have made more sense to have called them the Great Fault Seekers/Lookers/Trying-to-Finders or something like that, as they had not yet found the Great Fault. But, the Great Fault Finders was much easier to make jokes about and sold more magazines, so it stuck.

Twerp was very good at looking for the Great Fault, so good in fact, that he was followed by others who also wanted to find the GF, but for a different reason. They wanted to kill the GF. Now the odd thing about these 'others' is that they did not believe in the Great Fault at all. They believed that the Universe was created when Nothing exploded and became Everything. However, they were just as annoyed and inconvenienced, as everyone else, for having come into existence. It's just that they were very angry and annoyed at Nothing...for exploding.

These 'others' were two. One was named Princess Mi Mi and the other was Zag T Fenk. Princess Mi Mi, wasn't a princess - largely because he was not born from royalty and was a man. He liked to wear a pink tutu. This was strange because Mi Mi was large - about 10 feet tall and a good 4 feet across - and hairy. I know what you're thinking and it's not that at all - he just liked to wear that particular pink tutu. Pure and simple. The fact that he was so large and had a convincingly powerful and deadly weapon that swung from his side by a leather strap, prevented anyone, in their right mind, from telling Mi Mi to reconsider his fashion options. Indeed, he had suspected a few of having disapproved and assisted them into non-existence. Or at least reduced their existence to what can be called 'smithereens' where they could no longer think, breathe or play video games (the last undoubtedly being the worst of the three!). Mi Mi referred to his trusty weapon as his 'precious Thunder Blam' - it was a relationship that bordered on romantic.

Zag T Fenk will be examined some other time. But both he and Mi Mi were part of a loose association of people who didn't believe in the Great Fault but wanted him dead nonetheless. The loose association didn't have a name, but called themselves the Kill Deaders. At least someone somewhere called them the Kill Deaders, so we will too.

Nat Twakkling

The Kill Deaders didn't like Fault Finders - the feeling was generally mutual. When they saw each other on the street or in a restaurant - completely by chance - they would both begin to point** out how idiotic the other was for believing, or not believing, what they did about the Great Fault...or the Exploding Nothing, as the case may be. Both groups severely criticized each other for being cliquish, bigotted, foul mouthed and having annoying nasal voices. These constant conflicts caused both groups to become cliquish, bigotted and foul mouthed. The nasal voices was only an unfortunate coincidence and not a result of their view of the universe. Twerp, thankfully, did not have a nasal voice - neither did Mi Mi - but Fenk did. This made Fenk several times more disagreeable than he already was. You'll eventually see what I mean (to give you a little pripse, Zag always spoke like an over-enthusiatic radio jockey).

But, I've digressed far too long. This story is about a particular episode in both Twerp's and the Kill Deader's search for the Great Fault. Although Twerp found the two mildly (but incessantly) irritating, they ended up becoming reluctant travelling companions. It is how the three became travelling companions that is the potentially fascinating thing.

*twerp |twəːp| (also twirp)

noun informal

a silly or annoying person.

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: of unknown origin.

Source: Apple Mac Dictionary

**This exchange is known as Nat Twakkling. It can involve at least 1 participant from each side. The loser is the first participant to be reduced to tears or threaten to take legal action.