3-word story 3

This is the third story written by the fans on the forum using the rules where each poster adds three words to the end of the story. It started immediately after the inevitably abrupt ending of the second story. To facilitate reading we'll try to keep the latest version up-to-date here. Refer to the original thread for attributions.


 * The red crow and the blue cardinal had been dancing for hours when a nice mad scientist arrived. She was experimenting with new formulae for cloning hippopotamuses. Unfortunately, the clones had hybrid DNA which combined gnat characteristics with slight bloodthirstiness. Slight. So that morning's massacre really wasn't the inevitability the tabloids had promised. Instead, despite Arlo Guthrie's insistence on singing "The Motorcycle Song" over and over, the innocent bystanders started tap-dancing, the hippopotamuses followed, wearing their tutus, and eating pickles.


 * "Never," said Henry Higgins, "have I seen such a disgraceful display." He shimmied awkwardly across to the glowing barbecue grill upon which pickles sizzled and ate one. Fanning his mouth he quaffed gatorade and casually said, "Peep s'mores? NOM!" The sticky chocolate defied gravity and crawled up the outside of his trousers. "Augh!" he cried. "If only my father had wound the clock!"


 * As many times as he tried to hold up the local bank, he never managed to support it as long as he couldn't stop it from falling. So he went off to buy a new cape. The only one left in the store that fit nevertheless smelled like elderberries. So he chose a different style entirely, a red and white striped waterproof canvas with a fringe slightly reminiscent of calliopes, circus tents, or English Sheepdogs. He tried it both upside down and sideways before before [sic] hurling it violently downstairs. Whereupon seven small envelopes began walking beside the small dark mutt who sniffed the butt of the cigarette, coughed, and backed away. Just then, the hippopotamuses (remember them?) (Story's about hippopotamuses.) (And their restaurant.) (But we digress.) (So let's progress--a little less tangentially, shall we?)


 * Anyway, the hippopotamuses fled through green cucumber fields, away from the golden days of old. They headed towards cerulean glass towers upon a field, in seven league tables which were formatted in Excel. At the foot of the silverback Welsh mountain gorilla. There was no rhyme or reason in the season, but the season was so pleasin' for a reason (now you're teasin') and the sneezin' so very displeasin' because it's freezin' in this rhymin' little pink gazebo.


 * The mighty gazebo broke loose from its moorings and attacked the party of sprightly hippos which were dancing interpretive dances learned to fly in deepest, darkest... Vermont. Where wabbits wander and aardvarks amble, where platypi paddle way down upon the Winooski River. Not to be outdone, the wallabies team bus and the orangutans' libraries coalesced into singing filthy Latin ditties.


 * Smoke clouds arose from behind the missile silo roof. "BBQ time again, I guess," said the hippopotamuses (yes, there were seven) in unison, to the odd mathematician. And what mathematician could resist the lure of the spicy, savory, glistening baked apple pi, which as everyone knows, is quite irrationally, transcendentally delicious.


 * Seven sparkling diamonds caught the eye of a hippopotamus whilst another hippopotamus admired the rubies. Trading gemstones for umbrellas, they insisted it'd rain cats and dogs before the setting of a story ever expanding into the firmament settled down.


 * The mad scientist cried out, "Igor!" and reached for the lightning machine and a theremin. He didn't know what had happened. But the undead theremin was surprisingly helpful and explained "point and shoot" to the mad scientist, and fortunately she grasped the implications of zombie videographers on YouTube. Who would notice if there were a few shambling lightning-struck hippos making videos of wizards in glass gazebos eating barbecued rodents. Nevertheless, she made a couple zombie papparazzi for Henry Higgins (remember remember the fourth of December; it's significant for hippos). Especially undead hippos.


 * "Quite, quite so!" He said, "I -- You're not Eliza!" Except one of the hippos knocked its tutu askew "Wardrobe malfunction," it declaimed, dashing offstage.