The Night when the onions attacked...

THE NIGHT WHEN THE ONIONS ATTACKED

DISCLAIMER:  ALL SPELLING MISTAKES IN THIS STORY ARE INTENTIONAL AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WRHITER.  THANK YOU.

My friend Shay and I lived on the coast of the Isle of Sni - east of the West Coast.
  We lived alone, taking care of the family estate.
  We owned a large library full of the oldest and most useless books anyone could imagine out of memory, full of stories about moons, and the breeding habits of dragons.
  As a botanist plants have always fascinated me, and it has long been my ambition to imbue plants with the consciousness of human beings, and grow flowers and hedges that might be willing to aid me in my day to day task of maintaining

the family library - for it is such a heavy task cleaning all those dusty old books of ours.
  Such a heavy task.
  And I am old, very old, and Shay is foolish and cares nothing for the books.
  The walls of the library are covered up and down by whole vine roots - thick they grow - great green webs, wild and free.
  Then the inspiration came to me...
  What if all those leaves could spring to life!
  And aid me in my troubled strife -
  At tidying all those dusty old books!
  So for forty years I studied the ancient arts - with Shay's help I collected and grew many ancient herbs.
  I brewed many potions.
  Apart from the final brew - that swam in a bottle labelled "Plants will speak" on the top of my workbench - I took my eye away from it for a minute and then it was gone!
  My life's work for naught!
  I was furious!
  I sent Shay to work!
  'Find the missing bottle!  Do not return without it!'
  My poor assistant Shay has been at my side since the beginning.
  I cannot describe the misery that silly man brought me...
  The mere thought of him made me feel weary.
  He strutted about, like some frivolous child, swinging his arms about like he was in dance, with a beaming grin on his face.
  he was permanently jolly even in the darkest times.
  I grew so tired of that foolish little witless man that I put together an old medieval contraption, a screw with a knot, and strapped it around his head so that whenever he annoyed me I tightened the screw and brought great pain upon

him.
  It is a cruel thing to do, I know, but the man must be controlled, and the crick and crack his skull makes always bring a very swarm glow to my heart!

And so life went on, very normally, stacking books, watering plants - turning the screw - looking at the ivy leaves and wishes so hard that they could walk and talk - when I was disturbed from my afternoon nap by a voice that was

whispering from under the crack of my door.
  'Tonight is the night we dine!'
  I was left a little shaken, but soon recovered my senses when i told myself I had only just imagined the whispery voice below my door.
  An hour later my friend Shay entered the room.
  'The onions are missing!'
  Onions, he said.
  Onions...
  Onions!
  I swiftly removed my hand from my pocket and lashed Shay around the face - and turned the crew a little more till I heard the crick and crack - that sound that so calmed my twitchy nerves.
  Shay knew better than to speak about Onions in my presence.
   Little swine.

  He knew that I had been born with a phobia of those wretched little rooty things.

  I loved many a thing that grew out of the ground, but onions no!

  For onions my love of growing things stopped...

  My hatred for that vegetable was rooted deeply in my soul - it was sowed into my DNA while I was growing myself within my mothers womb.

  Those bulbous things...

  They simply disgusted me!

  Beyond belief I could not tolerate them.

  I don't know what it was - whether it was the smell - or the feel of their flaky skin - or their offensively dull appearance.

  There was something about the onion that was foul to me - to my eye to my senses - it made me feel ill in my stomach.

  'Curse you Shay!' I cried.  'How many times have I told you never to speak of such things!'

  Shay realized his mistake and his knees started to quake, rightly so.  'Forgive me!  It was a slip of the tongue!  I will speak no more of onions!'
  'You said it again!  You will pay for making me suffer Shay!'
  Shay melted into a trembling wreck on the floor.  'No sir!  Please sir!  Do not turn the wheel!  Don't turn that thing!  I will mention the bulbs no more!  No sir!  NO more shall the word onion flow from my lips...'
  I heard him say it, and took action at once.
  I turned the wheel - twice it span round.  
  One more turn and the little man would of died.
  But I decided to spare him that day.
  I could see that he had learned his lesson and I dismissed him at once.
  And he did go, stumbling so, but he did go.

Night arrived, and the cold air outside was filled with a sound that was like hissing - hissing snakes?
  No!
  My imagination surely?
  I could only be nothing more than the winter wind caught up in a battle amid the ivy leafs of the library walls.
  That's all it was...
  Hush hush now...
  Time to close my eyelids.
  Try to shut down the brain, and remain, somewhat in control of my thoughts.
  But then I started to hear the rustling, outside my window peering beneath the midnight sky - I heard the rustling, growing louder, maybe moving nearer, to my body and soul.
  My eyelids would not fall.
  I lay down on my bed, and tried to think of other things.
  But inside my head, I could only dream of certain fiends - rolling around and around, inside my aching mind.
  Were I not so kind I would say it was a fever - but I knew that it was far more, something like a seizure, of all that was sane in my head.
  My conscience was not playing tricks.
  I was in a fix.
  And I knew something bad was on its way...
  Then I remembered the whispery voice from earlier, the memory sparked up and played again in that space between my ears - I heard the whispery voice again, it echoed it's old play again - 'We will dine tonight!'
  The rustling increased - and the doors around the library creaked.
  'Who goes there?' I cried.  
  I hoped it was Shay.
  Why if it was I would turn the wheel so tight his brain would be in delight of something more welcoming than death.
  The doors continued to creak.
  'Who goes there?'
  No voice returned.  
  I left for the door that was nearer, and reached my hand out to the handle.
  I had the key ready to unlock the unknown.
  'Whoever you are be warned!  I am not a man to be tried!  My Shay will tell you so.'
  The door, unlocked, now opened through the works of my hand, and then I saw it, in the darkness with the full moon on its flaky skin, I saw it, a thing from out of the deepest depths of my horror...
  An onion the size of a man!
  The foulest thing my eyes could ever lay upon - the gates of hell would of been a merrier sight, anything but that thing!
  It stood there, before the door, barring my way, rooted against my escape, a bulb of horror.  

  Such terror!

  I could barely contain the leaping dance of my heart as it threw itself into a stupor of the most horrific magnitude.
  That moment at the door, with the vegetable before me, was the most terrifying event of my whole life.
  I threw the door to, and instantaneous action any sane man would make in such a situation - but the massive bulb behind pressed hard on the wooden frame - pressed hard indeed before the oak of the hundred year old door snapped in many various ways - leaving a wide opening free for any fiend to happily roll in and assail me.
  My terror was high beyond belief.
  It was all I could do to hold my senses to prevent myself from collapsing with grief.
  I made at once for the steps that led up to the library tower.  
  Surely the rolling vegetable fiends would not be able to follow me there?
  I scarpered up the steps like a thief in the night.
  I spared a little look behind me as I ran - and I saw not one onion but three - maybe another fourth rolling up in the shadows behind.
  Was this my worst nightmare coming to life?
  O please wretched mercy o please let me awake!
  I made my way up the steps and closed the last door behind me verily.
  But I could still hear the rustling under the crack of the door.  
  Surely the fiends were not following?
  Surely they could not wade the many steps up the neck of the tower to here?
  No onion could do such a thing!
  But then...  What did I know of onions?  My fear had left me isolated from the vegetable?  How did I not know if an onion could walk the steps of the tower?
  Maybe I had doomed myself.
  Maybe this was my door all along?
  But there was no pressure on the door.
  The night went away, and I left the tower to explore.
  The onions had gone away.
  I was safe!  
  Or was I?
  I started to look around, look for food and water, but Shay was nowhere to be seen.
  It seemed I was alone against this thing.
  Had I just dreamed the events of the earlier night?
  Like they had heard my thoughts the onions came again!
  O yes!
  There they were...
  Fiends!
  They came bounding up the hillside from my east and west - I retreated at once for the library, but then this giant beast of an onion rose before me.
  'I am the onion king!' it cried.  'Now you will know my wrath!'
  The skin of the onion beast split, and after several of the layers behind opened its foul onion juice flowed forth.
  Intense was the heat of the horrible acid that leaked forth from its maw.
  How it burned my toes!
  How it made me yell in pain.
  It was time to run again.
  So run I did, up the steps, back into the tower.  I closed the door, locking myself maybe into a dream of safety.  
  More like a prison worse than death.
  But I dare not open that door again.
  The onions are outside, I know it, and I refuse to face them.
  Fort my own sanity I cannot!
  I shall hide.
  I shall hide!
  I shall make furtive steps while the shadows are drawn, but I will not go far - not while the onions are on watch.
  I see not their minds but I know that they watch - but they will not get me - not while I still have thew wits left to think and move.

  By the time you read this I will most likely be threw...

         tossed up and mixed in with an onion stew...
  So thank ye for reading, and fare thee well my friends.
  Far thee well.

  May thy onion-filled tears fill many a brew...

THE END

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