Suddenly

Suddenly, without warning, the Guild of Storymakers realized they’d been using too much Suddenly in their work.  By some oversight in the paperwork they’d far exceeded the normal quota of Suddenly. The stuff was everywhere now, and it would have to be cleaned up and rooted out before it caused an overload and stories began to collapse. But how to get rid of it?            Suddenly the doors of the Guild’s secret meeting chamber flew open and in strode Eric the Hedgehog Prince. He was a tall and muscular young man with a hedgehog’s snout and a great mane of quills.            “How dare you?” the Guild president shrieked. No storyfolk were ever allowed in the meeting chamber because it was the place where all the decisions about their lives were made, which meant that what went on there was none of their business.            “I dare because I have no choice,” the Prince declared. “My life, and the lives of everyone I know, have become plagued by unexpected, unlikely, perilous, abrupt and instantaneous occurrences. More than usual, I mean, and I demand to know what you’re going to do about it.”            The Guild members looked at one another sheepishly. They had just been discussing that very question and no one had any answers.            Suddenly the guildmember in charge of Complications burst in.            “I just received this letter by Gryphon Post,” she announced. “The Minotaurs of the Labyrinthine Desert have declared war on us. They say they’ve become plagued by unexpected, unlikely, perilous, abrupt and instantaneous occurrences, and they have no recourse but to take vengeance on us and destroy our Guild.”            “Wouldn’t you know it,” muttered the president. “What are we going to do?”            “There’s a postscript to the letter,” said the guildmember in charge of Complications. “It states that in order to avoid messy carnage, their champion is willing to meet a champion of ours in single combat to decide the issue.”            “We don’t have a champion,” moaned the Secretary of Dire Circumstance. “All the champions of Story are up to their necks in unexpected, unlikely, perilous, abrupt and instantaneous occurrences.”            “I will be your champion,” Eric the Hedgehog Prince declared.             And he strode forth from the chamber and through the Guild halls and out across the Plain of Plot Advancement, until he came to the hill of Rising Action and climbed to its top. From there he could see the Minotaur Army spread out upon the plain, their spears and armour glinting in the sun, and suddenly he knew fear. Then, just as suddenly, from among the assembled multitude came a Minotaur who was taller than all the rest. One of the very rare Minotaur Giants she was, from the Isle of Combinatory Tropes, and she was the Queen of all Minotaurs.             The Hedghog Prince drew his great bow of yesterwood, and plucked one of his own mighty quills from his back and fitted it to the bowstring.            Yet he saw that the Minotaur carried no weapon, and her eyes were gentle and sad. And she was smoking hot, as well.            Suddenly she was there in front of him.            “Noble prince,” she said, in a voice like a softly bubbling pool of lava. “I have marched my people here not with any intent of war, but only to find a solution to this problem. It occurred to me that if I marshaled a huge force and brought them across many miles of Story, we would probably encounter quite a lot of Suddenly along the way. And so it has proved. We’ve run into many unexpected, unlikely, perilous, abrupt and instantaneous occurrences on our journey, and used them up.”            Suddenly the Hedgehog Prince was smitten with love for the Minotaur Queen, and it was a hopeless love, for he knew she could never return his feelings. How could she ever love someone with the face of a small nocturnal mammal?            “You are very wise, Your Majesty,” he said with a bow. “But a great deal of Suddenly still remains.”            “We will ask the Guild to issue an immediate ban on the use of Suddenly,” the Queen said. “No Suddenly will be allowed in any story. There will be a moratorium on it, until such time as our world recovers.”            She held out her large but slender and graceful hand.            “I ask you, Prince,” she went on, “in the spirit of friendship, to join me in hunting and tracking down Suddenly wherever we find it.”            The Prince took the Minotaur Queen’s hand, and with an aching heart he vowed to join her in her quest, and all the Minotaurs cheered.            Meanwhile, in another part of the Realm of Story, the Society of Rival Storycrafters was meeting to decide what to do about the sudden and disastrous proliferation of Meanwhiles.