Max surveyed the scenery around him through dark Italian sunglasses. He paused in thought. What he knew in his head was enough to topple champion foosball players from glory to ignominy in an instant, or cause Jesus to cry. Max is a chauffeur who has acquired precious knowledge of his boss's diabolical intentions to conquer the world. The powerful Herr McCoffee of Eglicata will squash anyone in his path and has surrounded himself with a colorful staff that includes Sylvia Smitharomance who has slept her way straight into his cabinet, Manual McGetitdone who has ridden McCoffee's coattails to prominence and is not to be crossed, and Norbert Nodahead a "yes" man worthy of distrust and scrutiny. When McCoffee learns about a disadvantageous plant growing like a noxious weed on the distant island of Dalilennon that has the ability to keep his beautiful fowlawarfare alive, nothing will stop him from harvesting the crop. As McCoffee attempts to create his own defiant brand of world peace, he and his cabinet clash with the likes of Roger Rightjet, Priest Precious, Julian Knotsofoolista, and King Nocturnal in a humorous, allegorical journey where good-as it must-wins in the end.

An Isle of Fancy

Where Good Trumps EvilBy Rocky Wilson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Rocky Wilson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-1419-3

Contents

Inside the Palace..........................................9Blokehead's Gambit.........................................17The Nose Pickers...........................................21A Tetherball Pole Subdues Julian K.........................26Ms Prissy the Midwife......................................37Invasion by Night..........................................41Love, and Blokehead's Gambit, Part 2.......................45Dalilennonian Motorcade and a Hot Fan......................49A Disadvantageous Night....................................59Roger Tries To Retreat.....................................68Dreams.....................................................76Broken Protocol............................................78Roger K's Reminisce........................................92Queens on the Mend.........................................102JK's Near Demise...........................................119Strolling and Pacing.......................................128A Grisly Nighttime Harvest Goes To Sea.....................131Hotline to Heaven..........................................142A Coming-Home Party........................................146Sextants and Baggy Britches................................149Drafting a Priest..........................................164Officer Ogilvie Stops a Grapefruit.........................167Julian's Biography.........................................173Time Passes the SlipSparrow................................180McTea to the Caves.........................................188Instant Prison.............................................192Expedience Sloshes On......................................205Turning In a Villain.......................................215"Why You Old Witch!".......................................222"Galatians 6:18"...........................................230

Chapter One

Inside the Palace

After advisors Smitharomance and McGetitdone were dispatched to interrogate McView at his seaside cottage, Herr McCoffee turned to watch the door close behind them, then paused in thought. Another step was being taken to realize his plan for world supremacy; world supremacy for Herr McCoffee, not for Eglicata.

He glanced over his left shoulder to his own five-foot-high portrait, pompously placed above the finely carved acacia wood table near where he stood. The scowling personage in the portrait, with penetrating eyes, peered over McCoffee whenever Eglicata's finest minds gathered to meet at his decree. Members of McCoffee's cabinet, such as fisheries experts, the nation's economic brain trust, defense specialists, and national chess players not only were conditioned, but programmed to see a second Herr McCoffee, one larger-than-life, peering down at them during every minute of every meeting.

A few feet stage-right of the Herr's virtual throne under the portrait was a closed door that led to the ruler's private study. That door afforded the international leader an opportunity to remove himself from the outside world, gave him license to cry for more personal wealth, pray for more power to achieve his carefully detailed goals or, most commonly, lust after the black widow of his cabinet who wouldn't consent to marriage ... or even any more sex.

Long ago, practically at the eve of his vault into power and fame, Herr McCoffee had stolen at night to her quarters, made passionate love mindless of the lady's own marriage intent, and proposed a marriage union of their own.

She'd laughed.

"Do you think you could satisfy me and millions of Eglicatans as well?" she'd cajoled mincingly. McCoffee, in disbelief, had groped for more physical pleasure that night, only to have the woman titter his intent away.

"But I love you," he'd gasped well into the night, and she'd laughed seductively from the back of her throat. She knew the powers he had to conquer the world were useless in her bed.

"I will be on your cabinet and very valuable to you," she'd concluded near daylight the following morning as she'd buttoned up his silk Hawaiian shirt. "We must always treat each other respectfully with the best interests of Eglicata in our hearts." She'd offered the final statement with a smile, a gentle slap on his weary butt, and nudged him toward the door.

True to her word, Ms. Sylvia Smitharomance was in Herr McCoffee's cabinet when next they'd met-in the same room McCoffee now occupied. And their compact, at her insistence, never had been violated. She was, indeed, a "very valuable asset" to a young government.

But that compact had been made nine years earlier when McCoffee's Eglicata had been tottering on stilts, threatening at any moment to stumble and crash into oblivion with another ruler or two scrambling to replace McCoffee's government with one of their own. Ms. Sylvia Smitharomance had been as valuable an ally in the early days as now.

But not, much to Herr McCoffee's chagrin, sexually.

A man of wisdom himself, the Herr repeatedly had denied personal desires to try and augment their professional relationship. He ached inside when McGetitdone, Norbert Nodahead, and other key advisors looked at her lustfully. He ached even more when he'd see her look back at them, smile seductively, and wink.

Much had changed in those nine years. A fledgling government-blessed with vast resources, agreeable people, and a unifying leader-practically had bolted into the world's consciousness. Almost any school child anywhere now could approach a world map with a push pin and tag Eglicata's location with confidence.

But, as the world and the Eglicatanese people had begun to think of Eglicata as a progressive nation, Herr McCoffee, behind symbolic waves and smiles, began harboring that vile ambition that felled both Alexander and Hitler ... total conquest.

And he was close.

Still alone, Herr McCoffee ventured through the arched doorway stage-right of his throne and into his private study. His eyes raced to the photo and charts along the nonwindowed interior wall to the right of that inner door.

"The leaders of Darius would love to see this," he articulated for only his ears to hear.

"My beautiful fowlawarfare," he said soothingly, like a televised game-show host talking to children, "you will take me to paradise."

McCoffee's eyes, filled with adoration, focused on the wall-sized photograph of a bigger, much bigger than life bird.

"Sweet fowlawarfare," he said, "you must stay alive until Darius is mine. You must be the one that carries out my plan, the attack that will end all wars."

The photo on the wall depicted a gigantic cassowary, or ostrich-looking creature with serviceable wings, rippling sinewy muscles, and a leathery coat of armor that, theoretically, could withstand and accurately, like a boomerang, slingshot back at sources any firepower generated from conventional or unconventional weapons.

"I don't know precisely why your mate chose to die," said the Herr with a level of compassion in his voice normally reserved for emotional, public speeches made during halftimes of soccer matches when scheduled women's mud-wrestling matches, replete with giant-screen televisions equally spaced around the national stadium, were cancelled because of low-hanging fog. It was the same type of compassion McCoffee sometimes voiced when unexpected lulls arose during thrilling chess competitions.

"But...