It was a dark and stormy night (1055)

It was a dark and stormy night. It was darker than a randomly appropriate metaphor for a stygian depth and twice as stormy as any measure you might care to hold. And it was on this night that a madness was born. Given no name but recognized wherever it roamed, this madness took the form of random emotions, and even more random references - but one thing was constant ... it had no home.

It was a dark and stormy night. Matilda lifted up her head to reveal seven perfectly formed pimples. "I simply cannot go to the ball with these BALLOONS upon my face," screamed Matilda, as her cat screeched out the bathroom. The dark evening sky was angrily decrying it's various frustrations upon a sky of swift moisture and twisted electricity. "Besides, " pondered Matilda, as the lightning gently lit her harsh angles. "If Philip never sees me at the dance, perhaps he'll make the right decision tomorrow." A small twist of her skirt, and the bathroom light slid away from the light bulb.

It was a dark and stormy night. "I can't believe you used that intro again!" complained Frank, as he slammed the essay down. His English literature class was running long, and a bead of sweat joined the fifty thousand others on the desk. "I have given you the forty or so most common colloquialisms, clichés, and phrases that have no place in any kind of literary work! Don't you understand I'm trying to save you the volume of rejection letters that await these sordid and diminutive attempts at creative writing?!" His angry face grew even more twisted as the clock slowly ticked at it's maddening rate. "Go rewrite this and have it back to me by next Monday."

It was a dark and stormy night. Elmo the ninja had first arrived in America after a small scuffle with a meat cleaver, two pounds of freshly-squeezed lemonade, and a pink slip. His neighbor's livelihood would never be the same but he had mastered growing lemons! As he stepped off the boat, the well lit sky and salty air afforded him a glimpse of a stately presentation in the middle of the harbor. "The Statue of Liberty ... I'd recognize it anywhere!," exclaimed Elmo as he jumped over a wall, did a back-flip, and adjusted his nose ring. "Of course, I was brought here to solve this mystery. What is the Statue of Liberty doing in San Diego?"

It was a dark and stormy night. No, it was a dreary tepid night. No, actually it wasn't night at all, it was on a moon, circling a small planet neat the third star fifty degrees west of the Southern-most Constellation in the morning sky, if you were standing on Pluto and facing away from it's closest star. Yes, yes it was a beautiful day for a night. The chimes drew in the solar dolphins, and as those celestial mammals surfed the skies and collected the stones that would allow them to build their sky nests, the shrieking of the moon's companion filled even the dullest ears. And the band played on.

It was a dark and stormy night. Colonel Mustard stood up from the most recent incursion with Professor Plum. Elvira Nightingale III swept the broom closet as the candlestick proceeded to tell long, sweet tales about visiting camel herders and their penchant for beef stew. Apparently the camel's staple diet was horse meat, but in particularly rainy seasons, a bit of steak was called for; this had always confused the experts, as it was widely know that camels were herbivores. In a completely unrelated news conference, all biologists studying camels had suddenly been struck by an odd variation of the Mad Cow disease which attacked only their amygdala - the particular damage each incurred focused predominantly on their ability to draw conclusions. Government programs have been put into place to provide for these poor, poor souls. News at 11.

It was a dark and stormy night. Murphy sat down at his desk; his easel was covered with diagrams, postulates, and legal documents which purported to prove that he was responsible for a full third of all mishaps in society. He took a swig of coffee and proceeded to continue reviewing the documents. He chuckled as he got to the last document. "The wording on these last two not only completely invalidates the charges against me, but reverts blame to all future policy owners in Mirth, Incorporated. I guess my wife was wrong, after all. I don't always need the last ...."

It was a dark and stormy night. The rest of the nights were polite, courteous, and fully clothed in their bioluminescent stars, reminiscent of the constellations of yore. Ever since they repealed natural law and constellations needed to petition for locations in the night sky, aquatic navigation had never been the same. At least five hundred pirates had gotten lost when the stars comprising the reference points used by their sextants had actually dropped to their quarterdecks, asked for permission to come aboard and engaged the various captains in hours of policy discussion. Talks became particularly heated when the stars sat down in chairs - their bodies radiating millions of watts of pure nuclear energy. Pirates often lost their ship, their crew, their cargo, and their ability to father new children in the span of five minutes; however, it has been recorded that these talks have greatly prolonged life as we know it on Earth. So we should all thank pirates for saving lives.

It was a dark and stormy night. The night watchman grumbled, rotated in place, and continued his walk around the castle. Even at midnight, the walls had ears and could hear his complaints. "Surely this will be my last round!," the watchman proclaimed as he walked firmly, following the left wall. "It was a small slight, and the Princess does have large ears. How was I to know that her brother would be listening - he's the one who had plastic surgery done on her ears last Summer." As he made his way to the Northern-most wall, the fully-populated moat came closer and closer. "Perhaps I shouldn't have insulted my sister," the watchman thought, as he slowly swam across the moat. He was never seen again.

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