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The Borio Singaldi Writing Anthology


Borio Singaldi

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I'M BACK, YOU GUYS!!! IT'S TIME FOR MORIO OF BORIO!!!

(I asked if it was okay to necro a thread I made and they said it's okay.)

Dear me, it's good to be back.

I hoped more Borio Storios (yes, that is what they are called) would be written while I was gone on my two-year mission, and while there are but few, they are delightful and I love them. Thank you guys for participating in this fun little dream of mine. The longer it goes on and the more people we can bring into it, the better, I think.

I have several Borio Storios in the making that I look forward to posting when they're done. And I hope bringing this thread back to the front can get more people to join in again or for the first time. I don't want this mustachioed dream to die!

Fortunately, I have one thrilling tale ready to share. I'm only sorry I didn't share it with you all sooner. It has come far, far too late, but I now present (what may be) the conclusion to a Storio I posted the first part of precisely three years and one day ago. So now enjoy the thrilling life-or-death chase that ensues in...

Borio Singaldi and the Date That Goes West... PART 2!

Spoiler

Part 2…

The convertible getaway car continued driving eastward, leaving this old Wild West town behind to take the frantic Borio Singaldi and his disgruntled butler Earnestwise Tomatopatch back into the shelter of conformist modern civilization.

“How did the date go, sir?” Earnestwise asked as if Borio hadn’t leapt out the second story of a building into the waiting backseat based on their contingency plan to get out of there if things got too awkward.

“Things got, er… awkward,” said Borio, twisting his mustache to get it at just the right curl once again.

“Oh, really?” said Earnestwise in an attempt to sound surprised. “What, did she talk about her ex?”

“Uh…” Borio said. And said nothing further. Earnestwise was used to eliciting only “uh”s from Borio when talking to him. The bored Tomatopatch assumed Borio had just gotten cold feet due to inexperience and ineptitude.

In actuality, Borio was wracked with guilt and terror now that he knew the identity of the woman he’d gone on this blind date with. The past was coming back to haunt him, the shame of what he had done to that rude man twisting his gut like an employee of Twizzlers twisting a strawberry Twizzler stick. The cold winds of remembrance buffeted at his face, chilling him to the bone. Or maybe that was just the cold wind of the outside air buffeting away at him because the convertible’s roof hadn’t been closed.

Borio twisted his mustache back into its proper curl once again and leaned forward to tell Tomatopatch to close it. But as leaned forward, he saw movement in the rearview mirror. Glancing curiously at it, he saw a horse-drawn carriage moving toward the mirror, growing quickly closer.

“Tomatopatch,” he said without taking his eyes off the rearview mirror, “it seems others wish to travel on the same course as us. We should probably give them ample room to pass…”

The rest of the sentence died in his throat faster than a 23.95-hour-old fruit fly. The driver of the carriage was becoming clearer in the mirror’s view as the thundering of hooves noised behind the convertible.

A woman dressed in a dress of all black, her gray-blond hair flying out of place when minutes before it had looked so neatly fixed. And her eyes… they were wider than ever, her stare more disconcerting than at any moment during the date. She was close enough in the view of the mirror that he could see the fury and the murder in her eyes. So she knew.

The words “objects in mirror are closer than they appear” now read to Borio as a sign of doom.

“Tomatopatch, drive faster!” he cried out, forcing his gaze away from the wide eyes of fury.

Earnestwise looked in the front mirror to see it fast approaching. “I thought you wanted them to pass us, sir.”

“That was before I knew who it was.” Borio’s voice shook. “Hurry!”

“Is that the woman you went on your da—”

“IT WERE’S YOU!” a terrible voice shrieked out behind them. Borio closed his eyes, wincing.

“YOU MURDERED HIM, YOU TWO-BIT VENOMOUS VARMINT!” Ms. Hoskins screamed, her shrill voice piercing over the sounds of engines, hooves, and tires.

“Oh…” Earnestwise whispered, still not fully understanding the situation but having a better idea of it.

“I’M GONNA KILL YOU TOO!” the terrifying madwoman screeched. “YOUR DAY OF RECKONING IS UPON YOU, BORIO!”

Borio finally turned to look death in the eye. Well, that wasn’t very apt. Borio had faced Death multiple times before, and he was far less scary than Sally Hoskins. She looked Borio right in the eyes, and he knew the guilt on his face would affirm the truth to her further. Her eyes somehow widened even more, and a rage Borio had never seen grew greater upon her face as she reached to her side to grab something.

“Earnestwise, go!” Borio blustered. The butler complied, flooring the gas pedal. The chase was now on. Somehow, those horses were barely falling behind the convertible. Earnestwise realized with indignation that he’d overpaid to rent a car with a horsepower of only 5. Borio would have realized that too if he weren’t so terrified of the black-clad murder-widow right behind them. But they were pulling ahead, so the worry started to ebb away.

But their advancement was only a momentary victory. Tomatopatch looked into his rear window to see the carriage drawing ever closer, the movements of the madwoman within still hard to make out for him. She seemed to be holding something up with both hands…

“Duck!” Borio suddenly yelled.

Earnestwise immediately ducked down in his seat, fully expecting a bullet to sail right through where his head had been a second before. Instead, he heard a bumping sound as the car slightly raised itself for a second. He looked back up in confusion.

“Tomatopatch!” Borio said incredulously. “How could you?”

“Saywhatnow?” the frantic Earnestwise sputtered.

“I tried to warn you about the duck that was on the road right in front of us, and you just ran it over! Dear me, keep your eyes on the road!”

“I thought you were talk–”

BANG. There was a bang. This bang was followed shortly by the whooshing of a bullet right past Borio’s head and the shattering of glass on the right side of the front windshield. A hole was now in the window, surrounded by spreading cracks. Earnestwise ducked his head yet again, horrified. If this woman had a gun… he shuddered to think of what was going to happen to them next.

Borio looked at the hole in the window right in front of him, horrified. If the wind was blowing in his face now… he shuddered to think of what would happen to his mustache.

“Duck!” Tomatopatch yelled back at him.

Borio’s head swiveled around. “Where?”

Earnestwise let out a loud, exasperated sigh, reaching back to grab Borio by the hair of his head (he didn’t dare try to grab the mustache for fear of the future of his employment) and force his head back down. “Of all the things to happen on this…”

And when he uttered a curse word most vulgar to describe their trip out to the West, Borio gasped in terror, knowing of the immediate bad luck sure to follow such a word. He waited for a back tire to blow out or something like that any second now…

Only it didn’t. They just kept on driving with ducked heads. It was after a moment that Borio remembered that the curse tied to the use of foul language did not apply to Earnestwise as he was not of the Singaldi bloodline. He sighed in relief as…

There was another loud BANG, and the back tire blew out.

They had not counted on Ms. Hoskins being a deadeye with a rifle.

An intersection was coming up. Not thinking where to turn but desperate to escape, Earnestwise hurriedly drifted to the right (a feat he was too panicked to realize the total coolness of), almost tipping the car in the process, then slammed his foot on the gas pedal again, leading them southward. Borio looked at Tomatopatch’s phone map and saw the direction change. A funny feeling came over him.

“Is that what they mean when they say a date goes south?” Borio asked with genuine curiosity.

“Sir, this is not the time for this!” Earnestwise shouted, mistaking his question for an actual attempt at a pun. But it’s true, we don’t have time to get that meta.

The car hurried south into barren, empty desert, throwing dust up all around them. At this point, Earnestwise’s phone lost its cellular data, meaning his maps no longer worked and he didn’t know where they were. And since he hadn’t saved what he had written of his last blog post, that was lost too. But that’s a tragedy for another time.

The horse-drawn carriage drew ever nearer, doom emanating from them as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had been thrown off their steeds and replaced by just one apocalyptic horsewoman.

“This is for my husband!” Sally shrieked, the ever-wild glint in her eyes even wilder than ever. “You murdered my hubby, and now I’m gonna murder you too!” She cackled madly, cocking her rifle again and taking aim.

Her next shot rang out like a rifle blast, which it was. That one missed the car completely. The next one went through the windshield again, narrowly missing the heads of Borio and Earnestwise. The front window was now gone completely, flecks of glass sailing away and scratching the poor Tomatopatch butler across the face. Borio, fortunately, had ducked right behind him and had only gotten shards of glass in his hair. So long as none reached his mustache…

Earnestwise risked looking up again. The way was clear before them. Right in front of them was…

A canyon. That they were nearing the top of.

“Sir, we’re approaching the edge of a cliff!” Earnestwise shouted.

“Well, just keep driving,” Borio said, shrugging.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Earnestwise called back to him, ducking his head as another bullet crashed through the windshield from behind.

“Keep driving and pretend it’s not there, Tomatopatch!” Borio blustered.

“What are you talking about?” Earnestwise cried out, absently wondering if there was something Borio knew he didn’t and that the cliff’s edge must have been a holographic illusion of sorts, hence why his master would have been so flippant about the certain death now laid before them so plainly.

Borio rolled his eyes. “It’s simple. If we make ourselves unaware of the fact that there is a cliff we’re about to drive off of, we will continue driving as if all is normal until we realize we’ve gone off the edge of the cliff, in which case the gravity of the situation will literally reassert itself, but only once we realize that we’ve driven off the cliff!”

What?!” Earnestwise shouted incredulously. It was incredible how his master could speak such total idiocy so eloquently.

“Trust me, I’ve seen it all the time in movies.”

WHAT KIND OF MOVIES HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING, SIR?!”

“Just do it!” Borio yelled, diving forward over the seat to press the bottom of his cane firmly against the gas pedal and push it down all the way, screaming in determination as he did so. Likewise, Earnestwise slammed both feet against the brake pedal and pushed it down all the way, screaming in terror as he did so.

The car made a horrible screeching sound beneath them, the cliff’s edge drawing ever nearer. The wind blew into their wide-eyed, wide-mouthed, screaming faces, their hair tousling and tossing about their heads. That wind had undoubtedly completely messed up Borio’s once illustrious moustache, but he was deliberately unaware of that. In Borio’s mind, the state of his mustache was similar to that of the prospect of driving off the cliff. So long as he blocked the horrifying notion out of his mind, the problem was simply nonexistent. Simple.

The carriage driven by Sally Hoskins had gained on them, her front horses neck to neck with the front of the car. With a glint of triumphant glee radiating from her eyes, she held up her rifle, sights set on Borio and most definitely not the edge of the cliff she was now fast approaching as well.

As the edge drew ever nearer, Earnestwise wrenched the steering wheel to the left as far as he could, and the car skidded in a jerky turn to the left, drifting along the road and casting a plume of dust before their eyes. As Borio turned around in his seat, he could see the haunting image of Ms. Hoskins leaping headfirst off her carriage towards the car, her arms outstretched, her face leering.

Unfortunately for her, the distasteful black dress she insisted on wearing so often got caught on the carriage by its hem and her unsuccessful leap resulted in her holding sidelong onto the side of her carriage for dear life, little though the remainder of her dear life would be. The horses screamed and whinnied and ran, ran, ran over to the edge of the cliff, each breaking off in different directions and ripping free of their restraints to escape the edge in time.

The carriage and its vengeful occupant, however, fell over the edge of the thousands-of-feet cliff to a fate of certain death. The very same cliff Ms. Hoskins’ prospector husband whom Borio had encountered had fallen off, in fact. There’s probably some moral to be found in this, but I’m not sure what. Keep your eyes on the road? Don’t wear overlong dresses and jump? Don’t go into a blind rage and try to shoot up a car and its occupants? Don’t spank horses because you never know how it could come back to bite you in the future? Whatever the case, Ms. Sally Fortworth Hoskins had met her fate, one that Borio and Earnestwise had barely missed themselves.

Borio turned around to look through the smoke and dust in the back of the car at the cliff edge a few feet away from him. “Dear me,” he said, afraid to stroke his mustache for fear of what messed-up monstrosity he would feel if he did. “It seems there won’t be any second date.”

 

The End… of Part 2

To Be Continued…

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

And here is yet another one to be added to our anthology of questionable canon! As the first of many works in progress I'm finally finishing up, I proudly present to you...

Borio Singaldi is Not the Star of This Story About Death

Spoiler

This is the story of Halloween.

 

I mean, it’s not “the original” Halloween story, but it’s certainly a Halloween story.

 

I don’t care if this is the wrong time of year for this.

 

It needs to be told anyway.

 

Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve. A day historically associated with the dead, the undead, the grim, and the macabre. Yet somehow, it had become Death’s least favorite day of the year. You can thank commercialism for that.

 

But it was almost over. Once the trick-or-treating was done and the new day came, he’d be ready for La Dia De Los Muertos. Now there was a day he could appreciate, because it was a day he was actually appreciated. Plus, it was one of the only times he could go out looking like his normal self and everyone would be fine with it. On Halloween, it was all a joke. An excuse to dress up in ways you’d never be allowed to on any other day and kindly take candy from other people. No one appreciated or even feared him on this day anymore.

 

Death was exhausted. He’d had to put on a big shebang for this day all day around the world, and while he’d daresay he was killing it at the part, you can be sure he was, in fact, dead tired. He was practically a walking corpse at this point. He couldn’t live to see another trick-or-treater come knocking on his door again, but he was fatalistic enough to know that there was a dead zero chance of…

 

You know what, I’ll stop. I can’t keep this story alive with all these puns.

 

Death plopped onto his couch, fishing through the endless bowl of candies he’d bought in bulk. His sight was blurred, his hearing muffled. This day had just dragged on and on. He was sick of the toffees and there were way too many of them left over for him to finish off, but there had to be a few good bits of Milky Way inside. And so, he sifted through rocks in the river to find his gold, grinning wildly when he struck the jackpot. A gold rush of Milky Ways soon ended up inside him.

 

Now there was something to feel good about on a day like this. Being an unliving being to begin with, Death could devour as much candy as he wanted and it would never have any physical effects on him. Psychological effects, however… I have no idea. What do you think the knowledge of infinite candy never affecting your body would do to your sanity?

 

“Well,” Death said to nothing (except perhaps a Narrator he suspected was listening in), “I guess it’s not so bad right now if I can just munch on candy for the rest of the night until I wake up tomorrow morning with no memory of this day’s events. What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

I don’t get why people just say these things out loud, it’s like they’re asking for trouble. Of course, the worst thing that could happen did happen, as the universal laws of jinxing are just that cruel: the doorbell rang. Now, was Death’s utterance a causality, correlation, or coincidence? Some things we just don’t know. What we do know is that the doorbell rang and there could only be one reason for it.

 

Death cursed with such extremity that if he’d been cursed with the Curse Curse, he would have been immediately killed, which is a paradox we can’t afford to get into now. “Please, not another one, I can’t do another one. Please just let this be the last one.”

 

And so, Death trudged to the door and opened it, trying to suppress a growl, a yell, or an eldritch screech that would shake the world.

 

And someone familiar stood before him. Death blinked, realizing his eyes were still bleary from exhaustion. His mind was still in that hazy fog. He needed to focus in order to prove to his mind what his vision was telling him.

 

“Well, trick or treat,” the man said in a bland, unimpressed voice. It was a command, not a plea.

 

The attitude was tired and grumpy, but the figure remained ever-so-familiar, filling Death with a hope he’d dared not confirm.

 

Did his eyes – or whatever counts as eyes – deceive him? Was that the twirled mustache he knew so well, the gorgeous white cane, the garishly fancy clothes surrounding a considerable paunch? Did the one person he most desired the soul of happen to come to this very place at this very time? Were the laws of randomosity in the universe just as merciful as they were cruel? Did Borio Singaldi really stand before him now, saying trick or treat?

 

Well, then… “trick” it was.

 

Death now tried suppressing maniacal laughter, saying, “Oh, of course, my dear trick-or-treater, please step in and come out of this cold. I left my candy bowl on the sofa.”

 

It was 78 degrees outside (Farenheit), but Death’s sense of clarity should be… well, clear to you now. The clarity of the mustachioed man must also come into question, as he entered without question.

 

Schemes of old design sprang up in Death’s mind, intermingling with new plots towards success. There were so many ways Borio could be scammed out of his soul right now as he willingly entered Death’s abode, the hardest part of this would be to pick just one strategy. Ah, the illusion of choice. Like having ten ice cream flavors to choose from instead of three, it was more exhilarating but more difficult.

 

But today was Halloween. He needed to choose something that fit the occasion. Contracts and invasive dreams were out of the question here and now. But there was…

 

Candy. Halloween candy.

 

Borio Singaldi did love his sweets, didn’t he?

 

Ah, yes… That could only work today…

 

And finally, Death picked an ice cream flavor of deception as he picked up the candy bowl.

 

“Do you have a favorite candy type?” he asked, pretending to exert himself as he lifted the near-bottomless bowl of Borio bait up to the mustachioed man’s moist mouth. “There’s an enormous variety to choose from!”

 

Borio stared at the bowl with avarice. “Do you perchance have any Nutter Butters?”

 

“Let’s see…” Death said, making a grand show of shoving his arm down into the bowl to sift through the troves of corporate confectionaries. He knew they were in there, but he needed to keep up the suspense. Death could at least muster up enough energy to put on a show.

 

“AHA!” he exclaimed, lifting a full-sized pack of Nutter Butters out of the bowl. “I knew it had to be in here somewhere!”

 

Borio’s eyes were alight with desire. A desire Death understood very well.

 

So he pulled his hand back as Borio reached up to take it, crying, “Oh, but wait! I can’t just give this one to you! It’s the last one! And it’s my favorite as well! Oh, how will we ever resolve this?”

 

Borio’s shoulders slumped, and his expression turned sour. “Dude, I said trick or treat.”

 

Death grinned widely. Fires sprang up in all directions, lining every wall of the room. Shadow enshrouded Death as he began to chuckle. “If you want it so badly… you’ll need to give something up yourself.”

 

Borio stepped back, shocked by the spectacle surrounding him. “What would you have me give?”

 

“Do you love Nutter Butters?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Death tried to keep himself from squealing aloud as he said, “Would you be willing to give up your soul for them?”

 

“Oh, yes I would!” Borio shouted with pride, puffing up his chest and facing his doom with dignity.

 

If Death was human, he would have wetted himself with excitement by now. The solution was right in front of him all along. Forget the half-baked schemes, undercooked plots, and still-frozen fantasies. This was Halloween! It was time for Death’s ultimate victory to come… Halloween-style.

 

Will you sell your soul to me now in exchange for this pack of Nutter Butters?!” he bellowed in a terrifying voice.

 

“I will!” Borio bellowed with an equal amount of energy. He was too caught up in the moment to realize what he was doing.

 

“Signify it by saying, ‘trick, not treat’!”

 

Trick, not treat!” Borio shouted.

 

And the deal was sealed.

 

“YES!!!” Death screamed in exultation. The fires raged, the shadows danced, the ground shook, and his laughter shook the very air. There was a shift in the world as a soul was forcibly removed from one individual and placed in the hands of another. After all this time… it was done. The soul of Borio was now his. He could practically feel it in his hands, though the pitiful victim couldn’t tell just yet. The flames, shadows, and tremors dimmed as Death sighed in massive relief. This day was worth it after all.

 

“At last,” Death proclaimed, “The soul of the one and only Borio Singaldi now belongs… to me!”

 

“Right on, bro!” Borio said in a voice that… didn’t sound like his own. “I’m glad you think I pulled off the Borio look!”

 

If Death had a heart, it would have stopped. But he didn’t, which is close enough to a heart stopping anyway. “Wait, what?”

 

“Yeah, I’m not actually… wait, did you really believe it?”

 

“I, uh…” Death’s words died in his mouth. Quite unironic, really.

 

“You think it looks legit?” the man thought to be Borio exclaimed excitedly. “Thanks, bro! I was worried it wouldn’t look realistic enough, but you actually believed it! Dang, I gotta tell the guys about this. They thought dressing up as the famous billionaire Borio Singaldi was a stupid idea, but now I’m glad I did it!”

 

“No, no, that can’t be,” Death mumbled to himself.

 

“Your costume’s great too, by the way,” the not-Borio continued. “Grim Reaper all the way, man. Your VFX are sick.”

 

Death began to reel. He steadied himself against the wall. “Thanks, bro,” he wheezed.

 

“Hey, I’ve got to get home, man, my roommates are gonna be worried about me,” the not-Borio said, standing up off the couch. “That was a great scare and all, and I’ll be sure to tell them all about it, but I was already in a rush and now I really gotta bounce.”

 

He asserted his infuriatingly Borio-like posture once again and gave his mustache (probably glued on) a twirl. “Well, that was quite a show you put on. I hope the next trick-or-treater is just as terrified by your performance.”

 

Death nodded, numb.

 

“Is it cool if I leave with the Nutter Butters? I mean, I was trick or treating for them, ya know.”

 

“Yeah, whatever, man,” Death choked out, still looking away.

 

“Alright then, by good man,” the stupidly spot-on substitute said in a perfect imitation of Borio’s voice. “Tally ho, skidsawaddle and forthwith!”

 

And he walked out Death’s front door twirling the cane overhead. The Nutter Butters he took away with him just added insult to injury.

 

Death… had no choice but to promptly release the soul of this individual the second he walked out. What was the point? He would have taken him before his time, and he had no use for the soul of an individual skilled in cosplaying anyway. At least the innocent idiot of an impostor had no idea his soul was briefly taken from him.

 

Death immediately collapsed onto the couch and screamed into the pillow. How could he not see it? How could he have not known it immediately? Was he really so tired as to not be able to tell fact from fiction, one person from another person? How had he gotten so sloppy? That guy didn’t even look like Borio!

 

Borio Singaldi had escaped his clutches once again, this time by not even being in them to begin with. Death had outwitted himself. Or, shall we say… he had dimwitted himself.

 

“I HATE HALLOWEEEEEEEEN!” Death screamed upwards into the abyss. His harrowing cry rang hollow in the depths of the night. It was a cry so sour, only fuzzy green people living on snowflakes with similar feelings toward Christmas could hear it.

 

Death flopped onto his couch with a groan and curled up in a ball of black cloak. “I need a vacation,” he whispered to himself. But who in the world could cover Death’s job? Well, that’s a story for another time.


Until then… Happy Halloween!*

*I don’t care if there’s a one 1 in 365 chance of you reading this on the right day in order to make the statement true; it fits the story! Good day to you and good-bye!

This short story was inspired by a conversation/story idea a fellow missionary and I came up with that I finally took the effort to pen. Yes, even when I try to write flash fiction, it's still over 2000 words long. Tee hee!

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Brilliant @Firerust!

Another fine addition to the Chronicles of everyone's favorite irasicible rotund gourmand.

I'm currently working on a sticker sheet that is going to be a collection of famous mustaches that I'll post the print and cut silhouette studios file of here, and I would love it if you could do a quick sketch of Borio's famous mustache, or post a picture that most closely approximates it.

If you do, Borio's mustache will join Magnum PI's, Higgin's, Hercule Poirot's, Sam Elliot, Lord Yupa's, Rhett Butler's, and Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson mustaches on the famous mustaches sticker sheet.

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Ok, so I had some time to work on these, I just have the Magnum PI and Borio Singaldi mustaches so far, but they're pretty sweet, yep pretty sweet indeed.

So as to not derail the thread, the results are spoilered below, forgive me a self indulgent slightly sinister chuckle, mwahahaha.

Spoiler

Here's what they look like printed out on a half letter sticker sheet:

20220914_133234.thumb.jpg.b3631908c66892d32b17c897c44d21a7.jpg

And here's what they look like after the cutting robot has done its thing:

20220914_134109.thumb.jpg.56ebd97bb7c3d266d92593c302b3ace3.jpg

And here's the Borio Singaldi mustache modeled by some hippy in Eugene Oregon (I see him in the mirror sometimes):

20220914_134140.thumb.jpg.9d3bf77fe04d0ba9ed216920afae0ccc.jpg

Edited by Hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Qualifying the type of chuckle you are indulging me in
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I present to you all a new Borio Storio! This one serves as introduction to a new villain character because worldbuilding, yay!

And without further ado...

Borio Singaldi and the Cynical Perspective Garius Penskrower and the Wisdom of the World

Spoiler

Borio Singaldi sat in the backseat of a limousine, which was not an uncommon occurrence. But this time was different.

For one thing, Earnestwise Tomatopatch was not driving, which Borio was most used to. Not even his, um… coworker who had the same last name, Clemendine, was driving. It was a complete stranger, which already made Borio very unsettled. The limousine also had very little interior décor, unlike the ones Borio was used to. It was also uncomfortably cold in there, as if someone had intentionally turned the AC to its coldest setting and put it at full blast. Yet there was no sound of air blowing. It was as if that was just the natural temperature of the car. All in all, the drive alone was quite unsettling.

Adding to the unsettlement was the circumstance. This man had just stopped his limousine outside of the manor house front gates, parked perpendicular to them to keep Borio’s car from exiting. As Borio was leaving for his high-end massage located two cities over! The driver then stepped out to tell Borio that he was cordially invited to visit the home of a prestigious businessman who wished to speak to him.

Though normally when someone cordially invites you somewhere, they aren’t carrying a half-concealed gun as they are declaring the invitation. It kind of defeats the whole “cordiality” thing. Regardless, it was very helpful in convincing Borio to get in the car right away.

And so here Borio was, waiting in the backseat, being driven to a destination only one city away from where he lived. Could he still make the massage in time?

“My dear driver,” he said to the stoic old man in the driver’s seat, “This won’t take long will it? I’ve got a more important excursion to be about.”

The driver humphed softly. “Don’t think this to be some idle venture. If you’re missing something, it’s worth missing. You are about to have the lucky opportunity of having a conference with Garius Penskrower himself.”

The name sent a flicker of remembrance buffeting away at Borio’s face. Or maybe the AC was on after all and he was just feeling that. But the name sounded familiar. Like when someone you know appears in one of your dreams, but you completely forget the dream by the next morning, yet when you see that person you can’t help but feel like you remember something recent about them. Where and when had Borio heard a name like Gary Pencilscrubber?

“And who is this ‘Gary Pencilscrubber’?”

“Garius Penskrower,” the driver clarified with a growl.

Ah. Well, nevermind, Borio didn’t recognize that name.

As the car approached a set of tall, dark, imposing, twisted, wrought-iron gates leading up to the imposing destination, Borio wondered why they were even called wrought-iron gates. What was wrought of the iron? What did the iron… wring? Was that the word? Borio wasn’t sure. He didn’t understand why something as simple as a metal gate had to be personified like that, but there’s English for you. Suffice it to say the name “wrought-iron gates” perturbed Borio, and all his thoughts were taken up wondering over the term as the car rolled up the smoothly paved hill to reach an enormous, gloomy manor. It was as if Borio’s manor was placed in front of a monochrome fat mirror. Larger than Borio’s but dimmer in colors, with wrought-iron bars on many of the windows. Borio shuddered at the fact that there was more of the weirdly named metal bars for him to needlessly ponder over their meaning.

The limo stopped outside the front door. Borio tried to open his door and step out independently, only to find that it was locked from the inside. He was forced to wait for the driver to step out and open for him. Now, Borio was used to having the car door opened for him, but something felt wrong about it. He had wanted to declare a form of independence by doing this simple act himself, but this man had effectively controlled the situation to look like the one in power. Or was he overthinking it and this really was just a kindly gentleman who insisted on opening doors? Do kindly old gentlemen regularly make veiled threats with guns in their pockets? The chances of that seem to be low, but not zero.

Borio grudgingly followed the man up the marble front steps of the manor that led to a large double door set that Borio wanted to guess was mahogany because that sounded appropriately fancy. You wouldn’t have marble steps leading up to oak, now, would you?

Borio looked up, avoiding looking at the wrought-iron bars, to see a metallic sign posted above the doorway entrance, bearing the words Felicitas Est Ignorantia.

“What does that mean?” Borio asked, twirling his mustache again.

“It says ‘bliss is ignorance,’” the blank-faced old driver said as he opened the door for Borio and stood in place, waiting for him to enter.

“How’d he get it in Latin?” Borio asked, now wanting to do something like that.

The driver said nothing.

“I never got your name, my dear man.”

For the first time, the driver betrayed a hint of shock, but quickly covered it up with stone-cold impassiveness again. “Jeff.”

Borio was a bit surprised considering the names he’d grown up hearing. “Just Jeff?”

“He is expecting you inside. Continue on, sir.”

Jeff almost sounded like he was forcing that last word, pulling it reluctantly off his tongue like a pasta noodle that turned out to have a hair on it.

Borio entered, and Jeff the driver followed him in, closing the door behind him. He gave Borio a list of directions on where to find Mr. Penskrower, but it’s so long and detailed and convoluted that I’m not going to bother explaining it all to you. Especially since Borio had to ask for him to repeat it twice, much to Jeff’s exacerbation. But don’t blame Borio; it was a long list of instructions, and as it turned out, he just needed to clarify it a few times before memorizing it completely and walking right to his destination, cane clacking on the ground with every other step. See? Not everyone is as dull as they seem. Some of us just need more time. Normally, I’m not one to give Borio the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve got to hand it to him this time.

Finally, Borio reached another door that looked identical to the probably-mahogany front doors of the manor. That made it clear as night (you know, a cloudless night) that this was the right place. He rapped on the door with the butt of his cane.

The door opened on its own, and as Borio Singaldi stepped in, he finally came face to face with Garius Penskrower.

It was like looking into a fat mirror. A fat mirror wearing different clothes. A fat mirror with a twirlier, more finely gelled mustache. A fat mirror with a permanent angry scowl upon its pale, sickly face. A fat mirror clutching a pure white cane in a chubby hand rather than the ebony one in Borio’s. On second thought, there were enough differences that the fat mirror analogy seemed useless now on top of being beaten into the ground for overuse. Suffice it to say that this Penskrower fellow was very large and extremely portly. If Borio was overweight, this man was obese.

Borio walked warily into the room, feeling as if the angry fat man’s eyes were drilling into his soul.

“Sit down,” growled the angry fat man, jabbing a thick finger at the small wooden chair placed across from his desk. His voice was deep, guttural, and made his jowls and mustache quiver.

Borio, with his eyes still averted from Penskrower’s face, walked over and seated himself in the chair. It was rickety, uncomfortable, and low to the ground. Odd that there was so much well-cushioned furniture throughout the house, yet this one chair across from the desk was just plain, worn wood. Garius Penskrower now towered over him, his eyes still boring into Borio’s skull over his pale nose and waxy mustache.

“You know who I am?” Penskrower growled.

“Yes,” Borio said.

Garius waited for a moment, as if he expected Borio to say more, like maybe his name.

After an awkward pause, Garius pressed, “What do you know about me?”

“Your name,” Borio mumbled.

Garius rolled his eyes. “Is that all? Is your memory that poor?”

Borio just shrugged, inspecting the smoothness of his cane.

“Well, your inferiority complex must have eventually been overcome by repressed trauma, because I’m not the kind of childhood classmate one easily forgets.”

Sensing an opportunity for a quip, Borio blurted, “Oh no, forgetting you was actually quite hard, but definitely worth the effort!” Ooh, it’s so satisfying when you can make a good one-liner in time like that. He was, as you can see, in a sarcastic mood due to his massage being canceled. No, not canceled, postponed. He was still optimistic.

Mr. Penskrower’s frown somehow became more frowny. “I see you’ve still got quite a mouth on you, even if you’ve managed to bury it behind a fancy mustache.”

“You’ve got a pretty fancy one yourself, I must say,” Borio said with a tip of his… Well, he didn’t have a hat on, but he made a motion of tipping one.

“Shut up,” Garius snapped. “I don’t need your flattery. I just need you to see where I am and how far ahead of you I’ve finally gotten.”

He smiled smugly and sat up in his chair, readying himself for a grand monologue.

“Penskrower Proprietaries is one of the largest booming enterprises in the world, making profits in nations you can’t even pronounce the names of! The Singalditon Enterprises are nothing compared to the monetary success of my company, and there is no use in trying to compete.”

“I’ve literally never heard of it,” Borio said. “What am I competing against?”

“Me!” Penskrower roared. “You’re competing against me! You’re fighting a losing battle in the war of business that you didn’t even know you were losing!”

“Well,” Borio said, twirling his mustache, “we don’t seem to be in each other’s way unless we get in each other’s way, so we could just stay out of each other’s way!”

Garius twirled his larger mustache in a fancier manner than Borio. “I don’t want to ‘stay out of your way’, I want to remove you. And if I can’t remove you, I can still move you. I can push you down. I can’t stand to see you as high up as you are.”

Borio retwirled his mustache, now using both hands as he held his cane between his knees. “Why? What is your problem with me?”

“The problem is, I am now better than you in everything, yet you manage to stay happy! Happiness must be for idiots, since you are a fool who can’t see past the harsh realities of the real world. You aren’t even a good businessman; your own mother does more work for your company than you. You just sit around tapping your cane and eating your muffins and—”

“—Cupcakes—”

“I don’t care! You are still nothing to me! I built my company from scratch, laboring to make it the biggest business in the world with my own hands, doing as much as I could until I was able to pay others to do it for me with their hands. And now, I have thousands of employees who I work unceasingly to get me my profits. I am the one in power because I gained it on my own and then began to use those of lower value to do it for me. I work them hard in fierce work environments, and they are paid well for their work, well enough to keep them from leaving and getting employment elsewhere. I have them roped in and keep them to 12-hour schedules. Let me explain how this makes me better than you, little fool. Yours barely work 6 a day, including lunch breaks. You have fewer. And… since I make so much more, my employees are far better paid.”

Borio’s mustache held very still as he looked the chubby businessman sternly in the eyes. “The ones who survive, at least.”

A wicked smirk appeared on Penskrower’s face, causing his mustache to contort upwards in a devious manner. “Now, be careful there, Borio. It almost sounded as if you were saying something wise.”

“If I am a fool as you say I am, so be it,” Borio said, gripping his cane to keep his hand from shaking. “But at least I can tell the difference between ‘wisdom’ and… what’s the word… cyan. Cyanism. No, cynicism.” Obviously, a special shade of blue had nothing to do with this.

Garius grinned. “A fool indeed. Which makes you no different from all the other scum of the world.” The grin suddenly disappeared, Penskrower’s huge mustache drooping. “And yet… people seem to like you. That’s the one thing you have I don’t. Respect. People admire you, for crying out loud! You, the idiotic billionaire who just inherited it all from his father and leaves his servants to do the work for him! You aren’t even a good businessman! When was the last time you checked your figures or made sure your employees were being properly productive?”

Borio said nothing, curious as to where Garius was going with this.

“You’re pathetic, you are!”

Says the man who apparently has been actually trying to look like me, but more, Borio thought absently. It might have been better to say it out loud, but it's too late now. Borio didn’t want to take the time to remember what he thought word for word.

“What’s your secret? Charm? Do they find your blunderings charming? The only fair conclusion is that idiots like idiots. That’s why smart people like me are so… lonely. No one can understand their wisdom, so they avoid them. They fear them.” He sneered. “Oh, I do enjoy being feared. I just need respect to go with it. Wealth and profits can’t hurt either.”

“Did you just invite me here to gloat about how much better you are?” Borio asked impatiently. “I have a massage scheduled an hour from now in the next town over, and you don’t seem to have anything useful to tell me.”

“Nothing you would care to know, it would seem,” Garius said, fat fingers wrapping around his long ebony cane. “You’re too… dumb. Yes, I want to make sure you know how much better I am. I’ve waited years to finally tell you this to your face.”

“Why?” Borio said, unable to grasp Penskrower’s reasoning.

“Because I have gotten so sick of people liking you better than me! I obviously have proven to be superior in every way, so why should people like you more?”

“Because,” Borio said, jabbing a fat finger at him, “you are a bad man.”

Garius rolled his eyes. “Oh please, Borio, dispense with the moralities. Do you think they will do you any good in the hard, cynical, real world? You’ve been living in lavish ignorance, unaccepting of the harsh realities of life. You live a fancy, wealthy life, thinking all is wonderful and good, when it isn’t.”

“Well, you do too.”

Garius narrowed his eyes. “Shut up, you fat little twit.”

“Begging your pardon, but I’m pretty sure you’re fatter than me.”

“Which means I’m better than you!” Garius exploded, blubbering furiously. “I am more than you in every way! You may think me a foil, but I have grown beyond that. I’m better than you ever could have been. I have a greater girth, greater mustache, greater wealth, greater business and prestige, and most importantly… a greater mind. You are a deluded, cloudy-headed buffoon, and not just compared to me. You don’t know that, and you need to be humbled. And no one else is wise enough to understand this disparaging gap of wisdom and ignorance. But I… I have gained wisdom, little Borio. The wisdom of the world. I know how this world works. I know people. And I know how stupid so many are. I’ve seen it in all of my employees. I am one of the few who actually bears wisdom in a world of stupidity. I see through the fog of idiocy and know that I really do know better than everyone else. It took me years to see it, but logic has made it clear. Stupidity is like body odor. People hate it coming from other people, but they don’t notice it coming from themselves. And believe me, this Earth reeks of it. The wisest thing a man like me can do is exploit it to my own ends and flourish from it. Take advantage of any situation and put yourself on top, because humanity as a whole is stupid.”

“No, you are.” It was the first thing that came to Borio’s mind.

Garius’ mouth clamped shut, his next words dying with a squeak. That’s right, if you want to shut someone up, go for surprise and confusion. It should have been obvious by now that nothing Garius could say would get through to Borio. Master Penskrower may have been greatly desensitized by the world and his oh-so-wise perception of it, but Master Singaldi could not be pulled out of his cheery, innocent mindset.

And that is why these Borio Storios are always so lighthearted, cheery, and comical. Because that is an accurate description of Borio’s rose-colored glass lifestyle.

Garius now stared hard at Borio, no longer speaking. He’d come to the realization that it was hard to outwit someone who was too dimwitted to know they were outwitted. It took the fun out of it. You couldn’t make a dumb person know they were dumb.

Borio didn’t know what to do, so he looked right into his eyes, staring silently. It was as if they had silently declared a silent staring contest, with the outcome for the silent winner silently undetermined. It was very intense and dramatic. And silent.

Garius’ eyes bored into his. His eyes Borioed into Garius.’ That was a terrible excuse for a pun. It will remain anyway. Unfortunately, the pun ruined what should have been a dramatic moment, and soon thereafter, Garius blinked.

“Aha, I win!” Borio laughed.

Garius blinked again. “What?”

Unbeknownst to Master Penskrower, Master Singaldi had actually decided to make a staring contest out of it. “You blinked first, so what do I win?”

“That wasn’t… bah,” Garius snarled. He rolled his eyes and gaped at Borio, shaking his head. “You really are just proving yourself even further to be the childish idiot I already knew you to be.”

“I don’t care,” said Borio, twirling his mustache. “I won, and I think my prize should be the massage I should leave for right now. Farewell.”

And with that, he stood up straight with his head held high and chest pumped out, turned around and strutted out of the room.

Garius blinked again. Then chided himself for blinking because that meant he really would never be good at a staring contest. But regardless… Borio had just displayed… a smidgen of tact. He’d maneuvered the conversation (in a very forced way) into an excuse to leave. Garius was surprised at the cleverness. It seemed he had underestimated Borio.

Never again.

“Yes, yes, run away, little Singaldi!” Penskrower called after Borio. “Try to run from the truth – that I am better than you!” He grinned nastily, ready to have the last laugh. “I’m sure your father would have been ashamed of you.”

Now that was the kind of sentence that would strike a nerve with Borio.

But Borio was far enough away down the hall that he hadn’t heard Garius’ last sentence. Penskrower was therefore left thinking he’d hurt Borio when really no damage was done. That was his mistake for having so much cushioning in his house. It really swallowed up the sound and gave it little chance to travel.

It was also all horribly colored, Borio thought to himself, blissfully unaware of that last scathing comment. Time for a massage, he thought, smiling at the thought of it.

He passed Jeff the driver on the way out, tipping his imaginary hat to him. “Goodbye, Jeff!”

The man avoided eye contact, but gave a small wave. As Borio stepped out the door, he overheard Jeff whisper, “Google Translate.”

“Come again?”

Jeff didn’t look at Borio, and his lips barely moved as he whispered again, “He translated the sign from Latin with Google Translate.”

Borio wished he’d had a hat one to legitimately salute Jeff with. “Thank you, my good man. Tallyho!”

Jeff said nothing more, and Borio left, getting out his phone to call in Earnestwise Tomatopatch and take him to his real destination in his real limousine. It was time to leave this dark and dreary place behind for good.

“Dear me, I hope I never have to see that Garius guy again,” he said, twirling his mustache. “Such a bad person to be around. I would be glad to never encounter him in any way ever again.”

Well, you know what happens when someone says something as jinxbaiting as that…

 

The End… Of The Beginning…

I even made a theme song for Garius Penskrower a while back, might as well share it on here now. :P

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/21/2022 at 10:26 PM, Borio Singaldi said:

Garius Penskrower and the Wisdom of the World

Oh the Glory-o of another exquisite Storio! A truly villainous villain, with a polar opposite world view too boot, brilliant stuff. Also, Garius' theme is appropriately weighty and ponderous, with just the right touch of sinister. Well done all around!

I don't have my Borio story done yet, but I did want to give you a mustache update. I am in full production mode of Magnum PI and Borio Singaldi mustaches, one 8.5 x 11 piece of sticker paper yields 10 mustaches, and I carry 5 of each type in my wallet at all times to give to people because who doesn't want a mustache sticker? To date I have given out well over 50 Borio 'staches, so slowly we are approaching the quantum Singaldi-arity tipping point where we will be living in that most Storio-ed of parallel universes, the one where everyone sports a Borio 'stache.

Edited by Hoiditthroughthegrapevine
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On 10/12/2022 at 2:01 PM, Hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

To date I have given out well over 50 Borio 'staches, so slowly we are approaching the quantum Singaldi-arity tipping point where we will be living in that most Storio-ed of parallel universes, the one where everyone sports a Borio 'stache.

Dear me, you have no idea how much this excites me! We are bringing Borio's reality farther into our own! Soon an incursion will be upon us as the realities bleed into one another! Seriously, I'm really looking forward to your Storio and am excited to see how your sticker projects turn out!

 

Also, I have a couple new stories to share! These ones were written by a friend of mine with no access to this site, so I'm reposting them here with his permission so the rest of y'all can enjoy them! They've been revised and edited for spelling, grammar, and detail (with his permission), so I kind of co-authored them a bit, but they're still his story ideas. He's actually written tons of them, but here are the first two!

Borio Singaldi and Exhibit A

Spoiler

Due to a set of circumstances we don’t have time to elaborate on, Borio Singaldi found out that he was the new owner of a museum. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it. Actually, there probably isn’t. Anyway, Borio was now the owner of a museum.

 

The first exhibit in this museum to catch Borio’s eye was a device labeled as a time machine. The idea of a working time machine just ending up in a museum baffles me with all its implications, but we’ve learned to not question these happenings in Borio’s life.

 

Said time travel had a “Do Not Touch” plaque in front of it, as such things are wont to have, but Borio climbed inside the large device anyway. The curator of the museum spotted him and immediately cried out, “Uh, sir, you are not allowed to do that!”

 

Borio puffed his girth out and responded, “Employees are allowed to tinker with these trinkets and since I own the building I can do what I like.”

 

“Well, I can’t argue with that kind of logic,” the curator said, backing down immediately.

 

“Come, Tomatopatch,” Borio said, “We are off to the Triassic Period.”

 

Wait, what’s Earnestwise doing here? Earnestwise himself was wondering that, and with a sigh the ever loyal yet reluctant butler stepped into the vehicle.

 

“And away we go!” cried Singaldi, and they went across time with no problem at all. It was just that easy. They stopped in the midst of the Triassic Period, where Borio took out a camera, took a single picture, and set the controls back to 2022. After they came back to the present day, Borio got the picture published and made tons of royalties on it.

 

“Sir,” Earnestwise said, “if I may ask, why did you do it for the money if you are already rich?”

 

Borio sighed. “Well, the sad fact is some of my extended family think I quote unquote ‘spend too much money.’ Now with these royalties from this picture I took I more than made back the money I spend on mustache cream every week!”

 

And thus Borio prevailed from a predicament by putting a plan into play by privy letting a matter be discussed past its due to avoid panic. The end.

 

Borio and the Locked Janitor's Closet

Spoiler

Borio Singaldi decided it was overdue to actually just visit his family’s museum and after he had gone through the Neglected Brothers and Sisters of Great Artists wing, he saw Garius Penskrower in the janitor’s closet.

 

“What, pray tell,” Borio asked suspiciously, “are you doing here?”

 

“I saw something shiny and I picked it up,” Penskrower replied with a snort, ever the opportunist.

 

“Then give it back!” yelled Borio. “That’s mine because it belongs to the museum!”

 

“No, it’s nothing!” Penskrower insisted.

 

But Borio wouldn’t have it. He ran into the closet to take it back, whatever it was… then tripped on a poorly placed broom and fell, causing the broom to hit the door, which swung closed behind him, locking itself. It was like an accidental Rube Goldberg machine of inconvenience.

 

“Oh great,” Garius said with a growl. “Now we’re both trapped in here!”

 

“I know how to get out,” Borio said immediately upon standing up.

 

“How?” Garius asked.

 

“Don’t you see?” Borio said, retwirling his mustache back into place. “We make a competition of it; that’s how it’s done in the upper class.”

 

“Well, you do make a good point there,” Garius admitted. He smirked a wicked grin. “I’ll go first.”

 

The fat tycoon pulled out his solid diamond debit card (because even the rich know not to get in debt). “I never leave the mancave without it,” he sneered. He then swiped it through the door, which somehow unlocked it, stepped outside… and locked the door behind him, not even bothering to look back and sneer again.

 

And so Borio was locked in the janitor’s closet. “Oh, how will I get out of here?” he moaned and bemoaned.

 

And so he stayed locked in the janitor’s closet.

 

An hour later, Borio stood up.

 

“That’s right, I have a phone!”

 

And so he called Earnestwise Tomatopatch and told him to come to the museum and get him out.

 

“I’m so stupid, I’m smart,” Borio said as he proudly tucked the phone away.

 

And so Earnestwise came and got Borio out of the closet and drove him home. On their way back, he asked “Sir, why did you call me on the phone? You have a distress beacon in your cane for just such an event as this?”

 

Borio looked at his cane. “Dear me,” he said, as if that explained anything. Which it does, because Borio said it.

 

The end.

 

Epilogue: Garius Penskrower found out soon after leaving that the shiny thing he suspected was valuable was just a piece of a chewing gum wrapper placed in the closet by Borio Singaldi earlier that morning.

 

The end of the end.

To give credit where it's due, my little sister had a little input on this story's resolution, suggesting Borio be stuck in the closet for an hour before realizing the obvious solution. So... it's a three-way story! He's written more of these in the museum setting, so stay tuned!

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