She just popped up in front of my eyes, literally out of nowhere, all glittery and mischievous. You could smell the faint ozone scent that usually comes with lightening bolts on her hair that was sticking up at all sorts of weird angles from her head. If she had not been so obviously impish, I would actually wondered if she had not been suddenly displaced by a sudden storm, but she was sneering at my puzzled face, so I just swallowed and stammered ' I do not claim to be very inventive :
'Who are you ?'�

Giggling, she did something between a cartwheel and a summersault and start bouncing all around the bar. Looking at her antics, I could not help but notice that I was the only person in the local who was actually looking at her. You'd think that a semi naked girl in a ragged tutu would rather attract attention ' she was quite pretty, in an elfish way ' especially in a place mostly visited by male patrons, most of them always ready to pounce at the slightest hint of a skirt. But no. She was pirouetting her way through the bar and nobody, but nobody was even so much as glancing at her.

I started to think that maybe I had been imagining her.
I looked into my glass, trying to recap the shots I've had so far. Three ? Or was that a fourth one ? Not enough to have visions, surely.

She positioned herself in front of me again, between my stool and the wood pole that pretended to hold up the saloon's ceiling, and just stood there, grinning from ear to ear.
I non verbally reiterated my question by raising an eyebrow and this time she graced me with an answer.
She was my muse.

My muse ?
There is a muse for failed accountants ?

I used to wail in a band when I was much ' much ' younger, but since I left school, I kept away as much as possible from non-profitable activities and music was one of them. I'd painted a few houses for a few bob, but it was not what I would have considered to be an artsy job either. Come to think of it, the last client did not pay me because he thought I had done a bad job. I can't write to save my life. If I had been able to, my ex-wife's lawyer might not have been able to rip me off so badly when we split up.
So what the fuck would I do with a muse ?

Obviously my confusion was amusing the silly creature to no extent.
She did a little pole dance thing about the pillar behind her, causing me to spill the vodka I'd been trying to swallow a moment before.
Still no reaction from the other guys.
Not a single peek.

'I am Gresilda, the muse of cheesy jokes'�

I had problem getting control back over my lower jaw.
She must have been a joke herself. What type of muse was THAT ?

'I've been sent over to help you. Some people have been complaining about you and the Slightly Creative Muse Department has received the action to bring up to an acceptable level, or you'd run the risk of being hurt by your victims.'�

My victims ?
What the hell was she on about ?

'Well, the poor people you bore with your stupid tales. They suffer. And we have sensed restlessness. Violent trends even. The Goddess of Spirituality has sent me over to help prevent some poor idiot being dismembered by his peers because his jokes are not quite cheesy enough to elicit a fatigued grin.'�

Well, thank you for sparing my feelings, cutie.
'People NEED their laughs, you know. It's essential or how would poor buggers like YOU survive ? Your lives are dreary enough as they are. You need a little something to lighten them up. Now, you are not gifted enough so we could plunk you with a full fledge muse ' her talents would be wasted on you ' so that where I step in, for a good shake up. Or two. Yeah, it might be needed, by the look of it.'�

I thought for a minute about whacking her one, but I am not really a violent person ' unless you ask my ex-wife, but there I'll plead severe provocation ' and she was too cute, in her pesky ways. Maybe I'd become a mild masochist and welcoming sarcasm and worse from pretty creatures ? I sure could have done with an enchanted life, so instead of slapping the saucy girl I just enquired about what her taking care of me would entail. Did I need to do anything ? Would it hurt ? How did this musing bit work ?

I did not like her reply.
Apparently your normal muse can just influence you by standing by your side or looking over your shoulder, but since she was a more '� Say : elemental version, she would need to physically get inside me to operate her charms.

I was not about to let a fairy get under my skin.
Especially in THAT type of place where we were at the present time.
Suppose I start to sparkle and dance around the bar. Or even ' oaaaargh, the sight ! ' attempt pole dancing. The best I could ever hope for from my fellow drinkers would be getting thrown violently into the dumpster outside. The best. I do not want to imagine the worst. They do not strike me as the most tolerant crowd for alternative sexual behaviour, this lot.

So I refused.
Said I would prefer to keep my mouth shut ever after and not utter another joke if that would placate Miss Spirituality, but there was NO WAY WHATSOEVER that I would let her get inside me.
Now, if we could do it the other way instead'�
Before I could add a wink to that later statement, SHE knocked me off my socks and I had to pick up myself from the floor, with a sore jaw and an empty ' but amazingly not broken ' glass.
I looked up and discovered that she had gone.
Oh well'� Good riddance, I suppose.


'Hey, Carl, give us another shot, willya, matey ?'�
'Don't think so. HuHu. Not a good idea.'�
'Awww ! Why's that ?
'I think the way you have been staring at that pillar and talking to it in the past minutes is a clear indicator that you've had one too many already. PLUS you just fell from your bar stool. Time to go home, old mate.'�

So I did.

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