Probably a Dark and Stormy Night

It was probably a dark and stormy night. Not that the Fellowship cared much, being stuck three days’ hike into the largest mines a Hobbit had ever seen. Hell, Pippin hadn’t even walked for three days in one direction before, let alone without seeing the light of day.

Things were looking good. The half-time score read “Fellowship - one, Troll - nil”, food rations were plentiful with rump steak of goblin on the menu (for the second day, admittedly) and water bottles were full. They were steadily progressing towards their Holy Grail – the light at end of the tunnel that would signal their escape from the Mines of Moria.

The team had pulled up for the night. Aragorn stretched out, lay back and surveyed his surroundings. He saw a great hall, huge pillars fathomed into the heights with the ceiling stretching so high even Michelangelo would have got dizzy painting this one. The farthest reaches of the room were so pitch black that light probably could not pass through even if it was armed with a backstage multi-pass and a letter from the president. The only sounds to be heard were the eager munching from the Hobbits, a gentle dripping of water down the walls and the thunderous snoring of Gimli echoing through the chambers.

Sam leaned over towards his compatriot. “This is crap,” muttered Sam in Frodo’s ear.

“Give it chance, it’s not even finished,” Frodo replied before turning back to the food.

Aragorn kicked Gimli sharply in the ribs, disturbing the dwarf’s dreams of sheep in the Brecon Beacons. “Something’s coming,” he said.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Gimli as he rolled over and repeated his imitation of a pneumatic hammer. A boot-shaped pain in his thigh strongly suggested this was not the response that Aragorn intended. His bleary eyes looked up at Elessar, son of Arathorn, son of Ivorwen… the hours talking over a fire without a decent brew of ‘Cwrw Draig Goch’ were beginning to tell. Who talks of a family tree to a dwarf? “Oh, all right,” he grouched, and he began to listen to the depths.

Aragorn thoughtfully rubbed his chin in his hand and realised he hadn’t shaved once since the movie began. “We should move,” he declared, suddenly jumping to his feet. “Something is coming.” He grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder with such might that it nearly hit Sam for six, and proceeded to hustle the Fellowship into action. As a pack, they started to move. Aragorn led with all the authority he could muster. He instructed them to be as silent as possible. He turned to Frodo. “You’re making more noise than we need,” he suggested, battering his fatherly eyes at the little guy. “Perhaps you should remove that Mithril.”

“Hmm, Mithril,” said Gimli. Not so much that he agreed with Aragorn, but he loved the sound of the word when he rolled his r’s in a typically Welsh way.

“Aye, Mithril,” squeaked Pippin, not wanting to be left out in the ‘funny foreign British accent’ stakes.

Aragorn ignored them both. He moved with haste, not wanting to waste more time. He could sense them coming. The Fellowship hurtled through the corridors as fast as a dwarf, four piddly little Hobbits and a wizard in a skirt could move, Leggie’s ears flapping in the breeze as he longed for a horse to hop onto.

A violent yet unexpected noise made them screech to a halt, nearly piling on top of each other in a manner most unfitting for the Open Scrolls Archive. Boromir turned, Aragorn ducked. “What is this new devilry?” hissed the Sharpe-shooting Tyke.

Gandalf looked concerned. He thought for a second, before changing his expression to a look of ‘sheer terror’ (by Vidal Sassoon).

“That…” said Istar as he waved his staff in front of his very scary hairdo.

“That, my friends,” he repeated as he raised his finger.

“That is…”

He turned and noticed no one was listening – everyone else was nothing but a spec in the distance with a cloud of dust pluming behind them. Gandalf kicked his heels and careered after the others. “Well, bugger the script, then,” he yelled after them as they dashed over the Bridge of Khazad-dûm before it had chance to think about possibly even considering falling down.

“Something’s wrong,” thought the wizard, still skimming along after the panting throng. He glanced sideways at the director to query if ‘panting throngs’ would get past the censors before the thought dawned that something was not just wrong, but seriously wrong. He knew he should have got bleached but right now he didn’t have the time to dwell any longer.

Behind him, he heard a loud creaking, the crash of rocks and a mind-numbing, feminine scream. He continued on, occasionally hearing whooshes and muffled screams that slowly became more and more distant. The sound of a splash suddenly echoed ’round the chambers, followed by a muffled ‘sizzle’ – the sort of sound you expect to hear when the sun sets in the sea, or the feeling you get after reading a very bad simile.

It was only a few minutes later when the group regathered. Aragorn motioned to the panting crew to keep quiet. “Shh!” he ordered. “I can still hear them coming!”

“Cut out the crap,” Boromir declared as his nostrils flared in anger. He felt things were going great. The score was now two-nil to the Fellowship; if only the Blades had such positive results at Bramhall Lane. He tried to stare menacingly at Aragorn, but could only manage a confused, worried looking grimace; if only he’d not bunked off acting classes when he was a student.

Nothing stirred, except a very bad cliché. Legielolo’s radar picked up the distant chink of metal as a grappling hook took hold on the remains of the bridge, otherwise the only sounds to be heard were the echo of silence and the prang of another very bad cliché. Merry shrugged. “Time to eat, I guess.” No sooner had the backpack come off of his shoulder, he froze. In the distance were two little eyes, poking over a rock like the Jawa on Tatooine. Another pair of eyes appeared. He froze again. Nine more eyes popped up. Merry took a second to count them again, still made it nine, and positively cracked up.

Frodo, meanwhile, was oblivious to the latest dilemma. A beautiful, sultry teenage girl gently strode slowly towards him, her long glowing hair gently blowing in the breeze and a long, shimmering, white dress cascading to the floor. This totally mesmerising sight transfixed Frodo. His jaw dropped as he tried to speak, but he could barely breathe. His sword throbbed and glowed blue.

“Hello,” breathed the girl in a gentle yet husky voice, her heaving chest revealing a wonderfully rounded cleavage. “My name’s Mary.” She fluttered her aqua eyes at Frodo. Aragorn leaned over.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sue, but you are not allowed in this story,” he said with authority.

“Damn, you’re fast,” I said, immediately leaving the story without ever having the chance to enjoy a steamy and romantic encounter with the leading man.

Meanwhile, the plot continued. A million and one little eyes had appeared all over the Mines like a bad case of acne on a teenager’s face. The sight was as equally disturbing.

A distant twang, whoosh and thud filled the air - the arrow pierced Boromir’s armour-plated coat as a second arrow came hurtling through the air. “Quick!” Aragorn yelled, and the team were off again, Boromir dancing like a Strongbow advert and Gandalf still pondering why he wasn’t shinier. Bows twanged, arrows flew, Hobbits ducked, Legolas sped ahead on his skateboard and Gimli wondered why Legolas got all the cool stunts. Does this prove that blondes have more fun?

“Aim between the eyes,” Aragorn commanded. Merry would have commented that this strategy was bound for failure if he wasn’t still stuck in a block of ice. Legolas had already hoisted his semi-automatic, quick reloading “Gattling Bow” and was furiously grabbing flaming arrows from the magic, never-emptying quiver on his back. He returned arrows back with an astonishing 800 rounds per minute in a manner rather reminiscent of a speeded up movie. To make it even more remarkable, he managed to continue this act whilst skipping and dancing backwards, sideways and upside-down, as the Fellowship made haste towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Jawa’s arrows continued to fly like meteorites raining during the Leonids, every single one of them missing the nine as they sprinted, skipped, stammered and stumbled on. Not surprisingly, every one of Legolas’s arrows hit their targets. Ten hours and fifteen minutes later only one eye was left, and that turned out to be Gollum glancing sideways underneath his armpit, whilst stuck to the side of the mine walls like one of those cuddly Garfields that parents are forced to stick on car windows with suction pads on the paws. “This is seriously painful,” thought Gandalf.

All was quiet again, except that the dripping on the walls was accentuated by Merry as he thawed. His stomach made so much noise that Gimli checked for thunderclouds. Merry’s backpack was off again, and the food was coming out. How Merry had managed to pick up and carry his backpack whilst frozen solid is a continuity error that even the author can’t manage to explain in a rational manner. Boromir removed the arrows from his chest and begged Gandalf to heal him – he was desperate to meet his brother in the second movie and did not want to die just yet.

Gandalf obliged, did that nifty little trick with his staff, and Boromir was healed. Gandalf disappeared off stage to chat with his union representative. He was concerned that if he was forced to do too many more nifty tricks with his staff, he might go blind. The union rep spoke to management, management advised that this Alternate Universe was also not permitted and Gandalf had better get back to the plot damned sharpishly. Oh, and could he bleach his cloak?

Gandalf the White, as he was now nicknamed, had obviously eaten his Ready Brek this morning. He illuminated the cavern with a glow that caused Aragorn to don a rather smart pair of Ray-Bans. “It can’t be,” said Aragorn as his eyes adjusted to the light. “I thawt U R dead,” he gasped, before checking the script for more typos.

Gandalf clicked his fingers and an Andalusian galloped from the distance. The bright white horse nuzzled the hair of the bright white wizard and was rewarded with a sugar cube and a carrot. Gimli took one look at the horse and commented, “We won’t all fit on that,” and sulked off. Legolas wasted no time and jerkily somersaulted onto the horse and sprinted into the distance. The Hobbits picked up their food, packed it away and skipped on afterwards. The Fellowship was on the move again.

“Anything coming, now?” asked Boromir of Aragorn with a sly grin. In the distance, they could hear the grunts of the Balrog still climbing the rope, but still a long, long way down. Everything was back on track to find their way out of the Mines. Little did they know that Gollumses was followingses them behinds them. Yes, behinds them.

For a day they trudged, Gimli grew tired and lagged behind. The corridors of the Mines seemed endless, the cold and damp only just countered by the light from Gandalf and a small flame licking from the end of his staff. Gandalf promised himself he would read the book when he got out, as he was sure that flames licking from the end of his tool were not mentioned. Unless it was something Bombadil sung about? He had skipped that section like everyone else. “Damn,” he mused, promising himself to read the script more closely next time.

The corridors were endless, and patience slowly wore down. The Hobbits were running low on Goblin steaks, and Aragorn really, really needed a bathroom break. He had been much too polite to nip behind the nearest rock. Six days it had now been! Come to that, he couldn’t remember any of the others taking time out for a rest-stop either. He remembered Pippin saying something about a ‘wee break’ but assumed this was to do with eating Haggis or something similar. Aragorn was quite simply ready to explode. He could wait no longer. With legs half crossed he bounded his way off the path, accidentally stumbled over a rock and began tumbling down a rocky slope. He bounced sharply off a ledge and crumpled against a wall, several hundred metres down from the path. And that’s when he saw the sign. He knew they were stuck in the Mines forever. They were doomed; he began to cry like a big baby. Tears streamed down his cheeks faster than a melting Merry. Panic overcame him as he turned into a shivering, quivering wreck. If only he had a torch, a beenie and a video camera, he could film a clip for the Blair Witch Project.

In the distance, cries of “Aaaaaaaaragorn-orn-orn”, “Striiiiiiiiiiiiiiider-der-der” and “Coooooo-eee-ooee-ooee” echoed around the Mines, signalling the hunting party was in action.

A few hours later the Fellowship managed to find the sobbing warrior. “Rescue party here,” cried Gimli with authority and pulled out a dirty hanky to dab away the tears. “Nothing appears broken. There, there,” he added, already wringing out the hanky whilst comforting Aragorn in his bosom. Aragorn said nothing, but tried to sniff away the tears. Bags under his eyes swelled uncontrollably as he pointed, trembling towards the sign. Gimli turned. Legolas turned. Boromir turned. Gandalf ducked and the Hobbits turned. They all saw it: big bold letters on a white, metallic sign. One by one, it dawned on them that they were indeed stuck in the Mines forever. One by one, they fell to the ground, and one by one, they began to join Aragorn in his sobs.

The sign simply read, “Due to power restrictions in New Zealand, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.” Why couldn’t they have filmed this scene in the Hollywood studios?

The Balrog finally reached the top of the rope, rubbed his hands in glee, and marched towards his dinner.