As the metal door slammed shut, Dr. Krumbunculus took in the rank, musty odors of his cell. Then, he realized they easily might not have been as much from the cell itself as they were from his cellmate, a portly old man with a grey beard as long as a blanket. Dr. Krumbunculus suddenly felt envy welling deep inside himself. He remembered being old, having a nice, long beard…sure, maybe not one that unecessarily long, but a nice, long beard nonetheless. He suddenly became aware of his smooth, youthful face, nary a wrinkle or scar or blemish covering it. Disgusting.

It was at this envious realization that Dr. Krumbunculus, finally locked up in the choakie, realized that he may not have been arrested as a joke.

“Oh, cock hamnit,” he swore to himself.

“Cock hamn what?” spoke the old man with a mucusy warble, “What is there, really, to be cock hamned at all, and what must it mean when a thing becomes cock hamned? Is cock himself doing the hamning? And, if it is cock that is hamning the thing that one is requesting cock to hamn, then whence will cock hamn things that cock himself chooses to hamn? And does cock truly choose to hamn anything at all, or is the hamning a mechanism, a mechanism of deterministic will, whereupon what is spoken and wished upon to be cockhamned is indeed what cock himself hamns?”

“Sorry, what the cluck did you just say?” Dr. Krumbunculus scratched his head, cringing at his full head of hair as he looked upon this geezer’s thinning, frizzy whisps.

“What the cluck have any of us said, ever? What is it, to say a thing, and what is it to not say what remains unsaid? Is saying speaking, or can we speak without saying? Can we say without speaking? If I am to raise mine eyebrows, am I saying something, and if to say is to speak, then by cock do my eyebrows talk?”

Dr. Krumbunculus nodded slowly, pretending to understand what was being prognosticated to him. “So, um, who are you, exactly?”

“I am, I was, and I will foreverupon be the great Croutonius, also known therefore as Croutonius The Great.”

“Pleased to acquiesce your acquaintance. I am Dr. Krumbunculus.”

Coutonius cocked his head, “A bit young to be a doctor, methinks you appear. Then again, is appearance any more than a thing that is not static, impermanent, merely a ficture of falsehood and impunity that the foolish few idolize?”

“Yes, I agree, appearances can be deceiving.”

“Deceiveing? Why, that is the opposite of what I say! I say that appearances, if anything, are the only thing we can trust. This is, of course, why the blind trust nothing and therefore are themselves the most trustworthy of folks, for it is impossible for them to lie to others using their eyes. Instead, what I also posit, and what I intended to expand your mind upon with my earlier statements, is that appearances are transatory, ever changing, ever unfixed, like a portarit hung upon a wall that is just ever so slightly offcentered. Sure, you can try to straighten the portrait, and indeed you will. For a moment, it may indeed seem perfect. Only a moment, though, for the next time, the next angle you look upon said portrait with, it will once again look crooked, only in a different way. That is why, I say, you must purposely make the portrait as crooked as possible, to an aggressive degree! Then, and only then, will the portrait be straight and level.”

“…Or you could just cast a portrait straightening spell…” Dr. Krumbunculus murmured.

“Cast a spell? What does one mean, when one says, ‘cast a something something spell’? Why is the operative word for spellcasting, well, ‘to cast’? Is a spell like a fishing rod? Moreover, is a spell like the bait on a hook on a line on a fishing rod? Maybe the wizard casting the spell is the fishing rod. Then again, if the wizard is the fishing rod, then who still is using the wizard to cast? Is it cock himself?

“Regardless, my imprisoned compatriot, you must assuredly agree with me that, whereupon one finds themselves casting spells, they also find themselves entangled in all sorts of, for lack of a better phrase, magical nonsense.”

“Nonsense?” Krumbunculus quivered, “H-hey now, I love casting spells! Why, I used to know hundreds!”

“Methinketh you truly love the art of lying and deception, my youthful comrade, as surely there’s no way you’d know hundreds of spells at such an early age. I, however, have been around the block. And then some. As evidenced by my long, gray, facial adornment,” Croutonius stroked his beard proudly, stirring resentment in Krumbunculus’ heart.

“Actually, I’m quite old. I happen to be cursed. Cursed with youthfulness.”

Croutonius’ eyes gew wide and even more bloodshot than before, “By the chickens, young man, that’s just disrespectful! Have you read not the classics? Are you not aware of the musings of Chiptole?”

“Cha who now?”

“Hood cock, man! You believe to convince me that you are truly an old man, cursed with youth, and yet you know nothing of Chipotle?”

“…Yes?”

“Well, if you thought I thought you were full of it before, now I really think you’re full of it. Especially considering you told me you were a doctor. Bah! What hood is a doctorate if the person holding it knows nothing of Chipotle? Can it be called a doctorate at all?”

“Yes, it can! It was a Behemoth of Studying in Magic and Wizardry!”

It must be noted before continuing to those inexperienced with the ways of Caldonian Universities that their degree system was structured as thus:

There were, at first, Ass Social Its degrees, often earned at Communal Tea Colleges over the course of two years, which for some folks were a cakewalk (as in, literally walking on cake, if you could pay) and for others quite difficult (if you could not pay).

Mass Turds degrees, also known as ‘MTurds’ (for obvious reasons) and ‘overgraduates’ (for no apparent reason), were four year degrees, and most generally prosperous people, including even a hood deal of middle and upper-poors, had ‘opportunities’ to earn them (these opportunities included paying for them over time).

After your Mass Turds, if you were very proficient in the elitist institution that was so oft referred to as ‘macademia,’ you could try and get a Blundergraduate degree, also known as a Bachelorette Degree (though men usually stuck with calling it their Blundergraduate, not only because of their latent fear of femininity but also because it sounded more official and indeed more macademic).

And for all those real suck ups, those people that wanted their macademia on permanent tap and would gladly toss their entire life force whole hog into the pursuit of knowledge and excellence, there were the P.D.B.S., that is, there were the chosen few whom bore the title of Postmodernist Doctorial Behemoth of Studying.

“Postmodernist Doctorial Behemoth of Studying?” Croutonius nodded slowly, stroking his beard once again with a smug air of experience, “So, ‘doctor,’ the abbreviation for ‘Postmodernist Doctorial Behemoth of Studying’ is what, exactly?”

“Why, it’s P.D.B.S., of course,” Dr. Krumbunculus scoffed, puffing out his young, muscular chest with slightly less shame than usual. Though he still found himself wishing that the small tuft of chest hair poking out of the v-neck in his tunic was still gray instead of dark red, and indeed that his chest was far more freckled, wrinkled and liver-spotted than it currently was.

“So, you agree that your supposed degree is a P.D.B.S. degree?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Well then,” Croutonius nodded slowly, “Assuming that is the case, and that you truly do have this mysterious degree despite your obvious tendencies towards outright falsification of the verifiable reality, the PDBS acronym could clearly refer to a couple of things.”

“What? A couple? It stands for one thing! It stands for Postmodernist Doctorial Behemoth of Studying! Hen, we just established that like two or three sentences ago.”

“Yes, that is what it literally stands for. But, have you ever taken a moment to consider what it figuratively stands for?”

“What it figuratively stands for? It doesn’t figuratively stand for anything!”

“Humph. It figures that you’d figure that it doesn’t figuratively stand for anything. But I figure that it figuratively does.”

“Oh yea?”

“Oh, yeah. And, indeed, I figure that it stands for Poopy Dumb Bull Shit degree, which is what you have, and therefore what you are.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Dr. Krumbunculus scowled.

“You are, as I said and was saying, a figurative Poopy Dumb Bull Shit doctor with an advanced Poopy Dumb Bull Shit degree.”

KSHHHKSKKHKKK

They both jumped at the sound of shattering glass in the distance.

“Shit, what was that?” Dr. Krumbunculus quivered.

“Then why in the cluck did you say you were kidding me, you miserable little vitch?” echoed the brutish voice of Dorma.

“Ah,” Croutonius nodded slowly, “The interrogation chamber strikes again.”

“Interrogation chamber?”

“Oh, yes. Dorma brings all sorts of rabblerousers into the room adjacent to this one and gives them hen. It’s truly terrible. Then again, if justice is to be served, is it a dish best served cold, or toasty and hot as Dorma’s vitrol? The answer remains to be seen.”

WMPHHHH

They both jumped at the sound. Krumbunculus imagined Dorma slamming someone’s neck against the side of a table.

“Why are you staring into space like that?!”

Croutonius flinched this time, seemingly thinking for a moment that Dorma might’ve been referring to his philosophical musings before suddenly realizing his own folly and smirking self-consciously.

“Well, this is just lovely,” Dr. Krumbunculus sighed, “Just lovely.”

“You seem down, chup,” Croutonius started, “Hownowsabout I brighten your day up a tad with a story of old?”

“A story of old?”

“Yes. It is a story as old as infinity, as told as time, and as meaningless as it is banal.”

“Boy. You sure can sell it,” Krumbunculus sighed sardonically.

“Excrete me, sirrah?”

“Well, Croutonius, you’re not really selling me your story. Now I don’t want to hear your stupid story, in fact. You made it sound so awful that there’s no way on Gurth I could consent to listening to it!”

“Selling? I was not aware that my story, brimming full of value that it is, is something that you aim to purchase with chickensfeed, which is of itself a meaningless abstraction of a currency!” Croutonius scoffed, turning away from Dr. Krumbunculus to stare at the stone wall in a huff.

“I’ve still got to pay with my time, and with my attention, Croutonius. Come on, don’t you know anything about marketing? About listener engagement?”

“Disgusting buzzwords,” Croutonius hissed, “I speak truth of thought, not thoughtless untruths!”

“You say that, but…say, Croutonius, why’re you here in the choakie again?”

“They said, and I quote, that I ‘rot the minds and souls of those most vulnerable elderly and middle aged Caldonians’ through my ‘useless and corrupting masterclasses.’ Supposedly, the classes were indeed so ‘awful’ that offering them for free somehow counted as fraud. Indeed, I’m to be executed posthence. Not that I’m certain what posthence means, but that’s what the judge said.”

Krumbunculus whistled loudly and shook his head. “Oh, my, my, my. Croutonius, you poor, misguided soul. Listen. What if I told you that, with a little bit of a rebranding, you could not only get out of this mess you’ve found yourself in, but actually most likely make a metric shitton of dough?”

“Dough? What am I to you, young man, some sort of vile baker of overpriced wheat creations?”

“It was figurative language, Croutonius. I mean, you could make a whole lotta chickensfeed. Like, buckets of it. People would definitely eat up what you say, if you just…tweaked your act a little.”

“What need do I have for money? Money is a curse upon Caldonia! Society as a whole would twerk much better if there was no money at all, and indeed, no property, and indeed, no society! Houses? Why not simply live as nature intended, swinging from trees and hiding under rocks?”

“You’re not getting it, Croutonius. See, you’ll get arrested for saying that stuff in earnest,” Krumbunculus rolled his eyes, “But if you start selling people tickets to hear you say it, well then, you’re a performance artist. And then the hood nation of Caldonia can tax you. And if you’re paying your taxes, or at least pretending to pay your taxes through the established Caldonian system, then hen, nobody that matters will give a cluck what you say!”

“But I want nothing to do with chickensfeed! It is all corrupting, it is an affront to cock!”

“Well then, maybe we could go into business together. You do the talking, I collect the money. Keeping your hands clean.”

Croutonius turned around, to look at Krumbunculus is awe, “You would do that? You would take on such an uncockly burden?”

“Not for everyone, Croutonius, I’ll admit. But for you? Any day of the week.”

As Croutonius’ eyes watered, Dr. Krumbunculus held back an inward smile. Maybe he was indeed a figurative Poopy Dumb Bull Shit doctor with an advanced Poopy Dumb Bull Shit degree. But who said his advanced Poopy Dumb Bull Shit degree hadn’t taught him anything?