Home | Literature Index | Movies & Broadway Index | Television Index | Music Index | Miscellaneous Index | Submit Your Own
For the better part of my childhood, my professional
aspirations were
simple - I wanted to be a Disturber of the Peace. I
didn't really care about
letting off fireworks, or killing werd creatures. Mostly
I wanted to wear the
cape and hat, and carry a cool weapon.
As it happens, the Disturber thing didn't work out,
so I conned my
adventurer uncle Bilbo into giving me a job as a Ring
Bearer. I still didn't
get to wear the cape or hat, but I did get to carry
a pretty cool weapon,
right?
However, being a Ring Bearer isn't always bagels and
cream cheese. You
have to deal with orcs and dorks trying to kll you all
the time, and until
you've stood at the Cracks of Doom, with brimstone and
lava filling the air,
you've never had a bad hair day.
"I need for you to carry this ring to Mordor, and drop
it off in a
volcano there." I had been told. Problem was, I was
currently in the Shire,
and Mordor was clear across Middle Earth. This wouldn't
normally be a problem,
but my giant eagle had been incinerated last week in
a case of mistaken
identity, and the oversized albatross I had borrowed
from my parents wouldn't
make it past Bree.
So instead of riding an eagle, we were walking. Now
my idea of walking is
from the fridge to the TV, so I was quite surprised
to find out that some
people do it outdoors. For days at a time. Like, they
do it for so long, they
even have special shoes for doing it. They offered me
special shoes too,
but they looked dorky with my skin-tight jeans, so I
lost the shoes.
So here I was, standing, barefoot, with a lot of dwarves
in a cave in
the Mines of Moria. The only problem was that all but
one of the dwarves were
very, very, dead, and the only live one was one we had
brought with us.
Part of being a Ring Bearer is that you get to solve
mysteries, but this
time there was no mystery to solve. We knew that the
dwarves had been killed
by orcs, partly from the orcish teeth-marks in their
armour, but mostly by
the horde of orcs outside the door trying to get in
to add us to the pile of
bodies. Oh, and the sword that my uncle had given me
had just turned blue.
I'm really not good in these situations. I hate swords,
especially when
they glow. I'd much rather someone else took care of
the orcs,
while I looked after the jelly donuts. And if my mother
ever saw me wearing a
blue neon sword in public, she'd probably have to move
out of the Shire.
"The other mothers don't have children who walk around
with glowing swords."
she'd say.
That's why I was so glad I had the others with me. Legolas
is an elf, who
looks like a movie star, and shoots arrows like an olympic
star. I like
Legolas a lot. Gandalf is a wizard who doesn't carry
a sword at all anymore,
on account of his eyesight. Last time he drew a sword,
our sunday roast ended
up skewered to the ceiling. But even though he's a couple
of centuries older
than the rest of us, Gandalf somehow keeps up with all
that young-people
stuff, and keeps doing this complicated finger handshake
thing with Legolas.
And then there's Strider. Strider has long black hair,
black clothes, and
very black sunglasses. He always rides a gleaming black
horse, and I think
I'm probably happier not knowing where he gets them.
Strider is like Superman,
Batman, and the King of Gondor, all rolled into one.
And we're pretty sure his
name isn't really Strider either.
Gandalf seemed a bit bummed at the sight of all those
dead dwarves.
"Well, that's a pisser.", he said. "Not that I knew
any of them personally,
mind. It's just that I prefer my dead bodies to be laid
out nice in a
coffin, with free tea and cookies - and a viewing."
But all this was nothing compared to my real problem.
You see, my real
problem with being a Ring Bearer is that I lose things.
Anything, anywhere.
And not just small things either. I've lost giant eagles,
at least one
previous Ring Bearer, and even the odd wizard to boot.
So I figure the simplest thing would be if I wear the
ring. That way
I can't lose it without I lose the whole finger too.
But my mother would be
apoplectic if her spies ever rang to tell her that I
had been seen wearing a
ring without I had told her first, so I simply couldn't
wear it unless I
could somehow be invisible at the same time...