The Saga of the Taurus of Love

 

once upon a time there was a Taurus of Love. it belonged to the king. the king bought the Taurus of Love so he could drive around the women in his harem, and so he could drive himself to visit the various women in his harem as well, since they were scattered throughout the land.

one day the king was driving along in his Taurus when suddenly it started shaking. fearing a blown tire, the king firmly gripped the steering wheel and directed the car to the outside lane of the interstate. he let off the gas. the vibrating abated. hmmmm, not a tire then, more of an engine problem. the car continued to run completely crappily all the way to the wedding, at which the king's presence had been requested and he had graciously accepted, and all the way back. it had no power, vibrated terribly at partial throttle, and idled very rough.

the king took it to one of the wizards in his kingdom, a man named Meineke. Meineke was a powerful wizard, and he threw magic powders in the air and danced a dance around the car, and then said, "your car has told me that it has an error with the neutral drive switch. i will replace it." and so the wizard Meineke replaced the bad part. the king rewarded him with 130 golden coins.

so then he drove the Taurus home, but sadly the new part did not seem to help at all. so he took the Taurus of Love to a learned sorceror named Jensen Tire. Jensen gazed for hours into a disembodied cat eyeball, and finally said, "i see nothing wrong with your Taurus." the king wanted to say "that's because you've been looking at a cat eyeball, not at my Taurus" but he knew Jensen was a learned sorceror so he said nothing. fortunately Jensen did not expect a reward for that work. then Jensen said, "but for 90 golden coins i will thoroughly examine the aura of your Taurus, which may reveal something."

the king did not know his Taurus had an aura, although he did rather like the sound of it, and said "Taurus aura" to himself several times, before finally deciding to consult his doctor, whose name was Sparks.

Sparks laughed. "90 coins?! that's ridiculous! i will examine your Taurus' aura for 60 coins, if you would prefer."

and so the king arranged to take the Taurus back from Jensen and take it to Sparks.

Sparks examined the Taurus' aura thoroughly. then he came to the king.

"yes, Sparks?" said the king. "what are the results of your examination?"

"well," Sparks began, "the patient needs many transplanted organs before i will be able to fully decipher the ailment. it needs a sparkplug transplant, distributorcapandrotor transplant, and sparkplugwire transplant."

"hmmm," said the king thoughtfully. "how many coins? the treasury is running low, and the budget did not allow for this."

"for you, my king, a mere 160 coins."

"very well." the king waved his hand to dismiss Sparks. "proceed."

later that day, Sparks again came to see the king.

"i have made the transplants, and i can assure you that the Taurus of Love is feeling much better. since making the transplants and checking more things and doing some other stuff, i regret to inform you that i have determined it has a more serious illness than i am able to cure."

"oh no!" said the king. "what is it?"

Sparks sighed. "it is heartsick."

"heartsick?"

"yes, deep inside, one of the valves of its heart is not consistently working right, that is my guess."

"can it be fixed?" asked the king.

"i am afraid it would be very expensive," said Sparks gravely. "an operation of this magnitude would run you maybe 1500 coins."

"1500 coins!" the king exclaimed. "alas!"

"i'm sorry," said Sparks. "that is one of the least agreeable things about being a doctor, telling the family of the patient bad news."

"yes. well, thank you for your help."

and so the king gave doctor Sparks his 220 total golden coins and came with him to get his beloved Taurus of Love.

on the way home, he did notice that it had improved, but it was not as good as it had been.

and now the king drives a heartsick Taurus of Love.The Compendium

© 1998-2024 Zach Bardon
Last modified 7.19.2019
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