The Legend of the Geek Philosophers: Chapter 1

 

You know us as the Geek Philosophers. A group who fill the internet with rants, rambles and reviews. We have been united by our love for many, many things. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Cheesecake.

But in truth, we were thrown together purely by chance.

Or so we thought. Do you remember the times before…. All of this? When a group of geeks could safely and merrily meet up in a bowling alley to throw heavy spheres at pieces of wood while eating fried food?

Well, on one such occasion, after finishing our game, as we were binning all of our greasy food wrappers… we found something. A sheet of paper, in ancient Greek.

Luckily, I have an entry level qualification in ancient Greek, which allowed me to…

Well, allowed me to load up google translate, and begin to read the story. Much to my surprise, I found our names written there. The Berserker Bard. Judge Bookman. The Space Cadet. The Lady in the Hat. And me. The Muddled Medic.

Intrigued, we emptied the bin out completely, and found other sheets of old, cracked parchment. After we’d removed the food crumps, grease and other assorted bin juices, we tried to decipher the writing. Before we could, however, we were kicked out by the bowling alley employees. Somewhat unreasonably, I thought.

Anyway, it fell to me to take the papers home. Obviously, I set to studying them immediately, working late into the night translating, sorting, and deciphering…

Um…. Well, actually I didn’t. Sorry. I kind of put them all into a draw, and forgot about them.

Until the recent changes in the way the world works left me with a lot of spare time. So I began… shudder…. Tidying my room.

And I found them again. Just as old. Just as wrinkled. Slightly less smelly.

Once I started unravelling the stories contained in these pages, I came to a stunning realisation. The Geek Philosophers, we lucky few, we band of geeks… we had come together before. Time and time again, throughout history, there we were. Bard. Judge. Cadet. Lady. And me.

The tales of our ancestors, and we, the newest generation to take up the mantle of “Geek Philosophers”, we decided to share these stories.

Because we didn’t know what the hell to make of them.

So, here it is. The oldest, as far as we can tall, the first.

 

The legend of the Geek Philosophers: The Ancient Geeks

Chapter 1: A very muddled beginning.

This story begins on an island. I mean, technically all land masses are islands, they’re all surrounded by oceans, after all. Or perhaps all oceans are surrounded by land masses. I suppose it depends on your outlook, really. To a fish, a lake is an island. To a human, an island is an island.

Which leads to a very real, and very serious question. What would a half fish, half human call an island?

Anyway, deep and meaningful though this discussion is, it really isn’t going to further the plot, so we’d better get started.

This island was, in fact, a small piece of dry land in the middle of an ocean. There was a rocky part, a sandy part, exactly seventeen trees, and a secret cave system. But you don’t need to know about that. It’s highly unlikely to be relevant to anything.

What is relevant, is that, one day, someone washed up on the island. She was a young girl of about nine years. She wore a tatty dress which might have been white once, and had long, messy hair.

A casual observer might have assumed that she was dead. Judge Bookman, in fact, who was a casual observer, assumed exactly that. He sat and looked at her for a while, before finally walking over. He nudged her head with his sandal, then jumped back with a yelp when she sat up, yawned and stretched.

“Hello!” The girl said, turning to look at Judge Bookman. He cowered, froze, and stared at her. “Is there anyone in there?” she asked, tilting her head on one side.

“Um…” the Judge shook himself, straightened up his robe, and ran his hands through his hair. “A very many felicitations to you, good Lady. Might I enquire who you are, and what brings you to this island upon this day?”

“Do you have any food?” The girl asked, hopping to her feet. The Judge frowned.

“This is a deserted island. Of course there’s plenty of food, and of course I, an intelligent, hard working survivor of this island, will be more than willing to share it with a strange little creature that claims to be a human, that has washed up on my beach.”

Unfortunately, no-one had invented sarcasm yet. Judge Bookman was very much ahead of his time in that regard. The little girl smiled happily, took the Judge’s hand, and the Judge felt obliged to invite her over to his shack for dinner.

The Judge’s idea of “dinner” was rather disappointing. It consisted of some seaweed that had washed up on the beach, and had slightly rotted. The girl, however, ate happily. Once her belly was less empty, she leaned back against a tree trunk and sighed happily. The Judge, who had been seething internally throughout, finally had an opportunity to ask her some questions.

“Who exactly are you?” he hissed.

“I’m Muddles! Who are you?” the girl chirped.

“I am Judge Bookman, the foremost legal scholar in the land!” he proclaimed.

“Wow!” Muddles said, her eyes wide. “that’s amazing! How many other legal schoalrs are there on this island?”

Judge Bookman coughed, and spooned some more seaweed onto her plate. This proved an adequate distraction.

“What year is this?” Muddles asked when she had finished.

“What, you don’t know?” Judge Bookman exclaimed. “It’s 400BC, of course!”

“BC?” Muddles said doubtfully. “Judge, are you sure that’s wise?”

“Wise?” Bookman thundered.

“Well, do you know what BC stands for?”

“BC? Well it stands for…. It stands for….” At this point, the pair of them realised that they were a few words away from creating an anachronism, and quickly decided to discuss Muddle’s life story instead.

“I was born in Athens, nine years ago” she said, nibbling on a piece of sand. “My parents wanted to teach me independence, so they took me outside the city and left me to walk home, to the island of Kos. I mean, it was a little mean of them not to teach me how to walk first, but I picked it up fairly quickly. Anyway, I got to Kos after a few years, but unfortunately Mum and Dad had forgotten to leave me a note with their address, but I suppose that was just another lesson in how to be independent. Anyway, I decided that at five, I was old enough to start earning a living, so I decided to become a pearl diver!”
“Um…” Judge Bookman frowned. “That’s….”

“I know, great idea!” Muddles said enthusiastically. “I wasn’t very good at it though, didn’t find any pearls at all! I think the oysters must have scared them all away! Anyway, one day I was diving for pearls, and a storm came and swept me all the way here! So I arrived, and washed up on the beach, and I had a little nap, and then you came and woke me up, and then you gave me dinner, and then you asked me to tell you my life story, and then I did, and then I finished!”

Judge Bookman stared at her for a moment. He wasn’t quite sure whether the girl was mocking him or not, and whether she was genuinely that chirpy or not, he certainly didn’t like the prospect of sharing his tiny island with her.

Unfortunately for the Judge, his day was about to get quite a lot worse.

“Hello!” A quiet voice said, and a moment later there was someone else in the clearing. The Judge sighed, and Muddles smiled. “I’m the Beserker Bard. Nice to meet you!”

The Bard was dressed in green, with a leather belt, brown cloak, and was clutching a shattered lyre.

“Oh no, another one” The Judge groaned quietly. Muddles ran over and shook the Bard’s hand.

“My dear young thing, might I ask where the wind has carried me?” the Bard asked.

“I’m not a young thing!” Muddles replied, baffled.

“Oh, alright then. My mistake. My dear old thing, where has the wind carried me?

“You’re on my island.” Judge Bookman sighed. “Because all this island needs is a bard.”

“Alas, a bard no longer” the Bard said confusingly, her face falling. “For my lyre is as broken as a broken thing”

“You mean there isn’t going to be any music?” The Judge smiled broadly. “I can see us getting on well after all!”

“Hey!” the Bard said, stamping her foot.

“Hay? Where?” Muddles asked, looking around in case there was a chance of a snack.

“Oh gods, save me from these idiots” Judge said, rubbing his temples. “Bard, I suppose you need to tell us how you ended up here.”

“Tell you?” Bard said, her eyes brightening. “Why tell you, when I could…. Sing it to you?”

And so the Bard began to sing.

Before she’d got through more than a few bars, the Judge screamed loudly in her ear. She stopped abruptly. “Well, I thought it was rather good” she said sadly.

“I’m sorry” Judge Bookman said. He wasn’t sorry. “I think we’ve spent quite long enough on complex backstories this chapter. I’m pretty sure that we can leave it for the author to fill in, and then we can move on with the plot, OK?”

The other characters reluctantly agreed, so I suppose it’s down to me. I’ll keep it brief. The Bard grew up in a group of travelling musicians. She had a beautiful voice, and played a lyre with so much grave and style that Apollo himself would have often dipped down from the skies to listen.

Would have, if he’d existed. The Bard had eventually split off to travel on her own, and had been on a ship travelling to Kos when a storm hit it. Everyone had survived, but they had suspected that The Bard had been responsible in some way, and had summoned the great wind with her singing. So they threw her overboard, and she had been carried to the tiny island.

There. All up to date.

“So, what are we going to do?” Muddles said.

“Well, I would quite like to get you two off my island” Judge Bookman grumbled. “I was having a very happy, peaceful year, here on my own. No-one irritating for hundreds of miles around.”

“I would love to go” the Bard said sadly, “but how can we?”

“Well, how about that distant ship?” Muddles said, pointing.

Everyone looked around.

There was, indeed, a shape on the water, but it was barely visible.

“Well, that’s sorted then!” Judge Bookman said cheerfully. “We’ll wave the boat down, and you two can go off who-knows where. And leave me alone.”

“Yes, that would be…” Bard began, then stopped. She had noticed a dark grey cloud in the otherwise bright blue sky. Just above the ship.

“Isn’t that pretty!” Muddles said brightly. A moment later, there was a flash of bright light. When the three watchers had blinked the light away, the ship appeared to have vanished.

They ran to the beach, and peered out over the waves.

“Look! Smoke on the horizon!” Muddles said after a good few minutes.

“Struck by lightning?” The Judge growled. He shook a fist at the sky for a moment. “Damn you, storm clouds!”

“What a tragedy” The Bard said. “I shall sing a lament for them.” She cleared her throat, but was interrupted by Muddles’ yelling.

“Look! There’s people in the water!”

A short while later, there was a lady on the shore. She took off her smart hat, and wrung it out, then stepped forward to introduce herself.

“Good afternoon. I am The Lady in the Hat. It is lovely to meet you…”

Muddles and the Bard introduced themselves, the Bard bowing theatrically as she did so. they turned around to look for Judge Bookman, so that he could introduce himself too.

He had… walked off in a huff.

But obviously I couldn’t allow that, so I turned him around, and forced him back to the beach. He was a little bamboozled by the experience, and he had to sit down for a few minutes until he stopped feeling dizzy.

Finally, he stood up and walked back to the group now explaining their backstories to each other.

“When…” he seethed, “are you lot going to get off my island and leave me alone?”

Three surprised faces turned to him.

No-one had an answer.

“Should I sing something?” The Bard suggested.

“That would be lovely, dear Bard” the Lady said happily.

“Or you could tell us where you were sailing too, and why?” Muddles suggested cheerfully

“It’s a very boring story” the Lady dismissed her with a wave, her face falling a little. “I want to hear some music.”

“No time for that, we need to work out how you’re going to leave” Judge Bookman said.

“Why don’t we just swim to the next island?” Muddles suggested airily. “That’s how I got to Kos from the mainland, when I was a child.”

“You still are a child, you little nit” Bookman sneered. “But please, if you want to all go off and drown…”

“Judge!” the Lady exclaimed. “I would expect better from you.”

“We met, like, two minutes ago!” the Judge protested.

Obviously, this went on for quite some time. The Bard tried to sing, the Judge sulked, the Lady Ladied it over everyone.

Meanwhile, Muddles was building a boat.

Well, she meant it to be a boat, but she was a nine year old child, and not actually sure what a boat was, never having been on one. In her defence, her building materials consisted of seaweed and sand.

Fortunately, though, for the sake of this story progressing, there was a sea-monster nearby that lived exclusively on a diet of seaweed and sand. Also fortunately, this sea monster had a massive shell on it’s back. And even more fortunately, in order to get to the seaweed/sand construction that Muddles had made, it had to beach itself.

Our heroes stared at the monster, and at the shell on its back.

Judge Bookman spoke first.

“Well then, climb on!”

And so they did. Apart from the Judge, obviously, who stood off to one side and smirked. “Nice knowing all of you. Not!” he gloated, turning to walk away.

But as he set off back to his shack…

A piece of seaweed caught on the underside of his sandal. Which would have been fine, of course….

If a piece of sand hadn’t caught onto the sandal just a moment later.

The sea monster had just about finished eating the seaweed/sand boat, and was looking around for its next snack.

And there it was. A piece of seaweed, and a piece of sand, stuck onto the bottom of a sandal, which was attached to a grumpy foot, which was held onto a disgruntled hip by an irritated knee. And that disgruntled hip was joined, through various complex means, to a spine that frankly was having a very bad day, and thusly to a head which was positively furious, and bore a face that was negatively furious.

In short, attached to Judge Bookman.

The sea monster, which wasn’t too bright, as these things go, lunged for him.

Finally, Judge Bookman had a bit of luck. The sand/seaweed diet was very good at wearing down the teeth of the sea monster, and so rather than being chomped in half, he was instead picked up, and held bi his middle.

The monster didn’t really know what to do next. Instead of a delicious, smelly, crunchy mouthful, it had a soft, strange creature stuck in its teeth. It did the only thing it’s small brain could think of…

It dove back into the water.

And so the next stage of our heroes journey began. The Judge, the Lady, The Bard and Muddles had a great many adventures ahead of them.

If they didn’t drown. Or get accidentally swallowed by a vegan sea monster.

But that wouldn’t happen. Would it?