Nania part 2

The elderly welcoming party beamed at Eric and Shawn as they walked towards them, one of the taller women began ruffling Eric’s hair, dishevelling it further. What a fun word, Dishevel, in fact we hardly ever use ‘sheveled’, just think about that. Eric snapped and batted her away
“Stop your irritating politeness! We’re not children, we’re adults, albeit with the mindset of somebody suffering middle age”
The smallest woman spoke.
“Are you two just visiting then?” She sighed
Shawn hesitated “....Yeeeeeeeees”
“Oh never mind, fine go about your business. We were expecting meals on wheels or a visit from our relatives” She rolled her eyes, specifically at Eric for some reason.
“That seems kind of redundant, what with you living in a different world accessed through cheap badly made furniture. Surely it’d be easier to at least establish some sort of reliable transport system between the two worlds” Eric’s suggestion of a cohesive inter-dimensional travel seemed far too high brow for such a simple parody. One of the elderly men grabbed his braces and raised his eyebrows.
“Well we tried that, but we didn’t trust them foreign builders, and getting English workers is mighty hard I tell you”
“You’re mighty hard” Shawn spat out
“Excuse me young man?”
“Sorry, knee jerk reaction. You were saying?”
An awkward silence crept over the conversation as both parties stared at each for a very uncomfortable amount of time, almost uncomfortable as this excessive ellipse use I will now use..............................
.......
The smallest woman broke the silence, like she’d kung fu chopped it, or something funnier than that.
“So are you boys courting?”
Eric raised his eyebrow, bemused.
“Pardon?”
“Are you boys dating?”
Eric once again raised his eyebrow.
“Like...each other?”
“No, no do you two boys have any women in your life?” She probed
Shawn responded with a nod.
“Yeah I’ve got a girlfriend, Eric doesn’t.”
The elderly woman took a step back and became defensive.
“You’re not one of them...queers are you?”
Eric was obviously pissed off, some old midget woman had accused him of being gay, and he would not tolerate this!
“Dear Zeus no I’m not, and you don’t even know me old woman, ok so step off. I have no qualms with beating a woman in public. I will literally murder your face off”
One of the old men spoke “What about the pub?” And was promptly ignored.
Shawn turned to Eric with a look of disdain.
“Did you just say ‘step off’? Wow. Not even Ice-T says that...”
The old man spoke once again ‘I’d like some Iced Tea” and was once again promptly ignored.
The elderly woman seemed to ignore this threat and laughed to herself.
“Well, we’ll leave you two boys to get your bearings. We’re just a in a small village beyond those trees over there, you should see a sign that says ‘no solicitors’, that’s us. To the west of us is the Co-op in the great mines, and over there is the black tower.” She pointed to a shape in the distance, a large space black obelisk that stabbed the winter sky, a contrast to the white vegetation that lay scattered about. “The black tower is where the enemy of the elderly lives, and we urge you to avoid it, like we avoid having any respect for those younger than us. And with that we must depart, Bergerac starts in 20 minutes and we’d hate to miss it”
And on that unsurprising note the elderly group shuffled back through the forest towards their village on the other side, leaving Eric and Shawn alone in the snowy clearing.



“We have to go to that dark tower” Shawn exclaimed
“Why? The old midgets said it’s inhabited by the enemy of the elderly” Eric replied...replyingly.
Shawn beamed, “And you know what that is?”
Eric paused for a second, stroked his chin and then raised his hand.
“...Harold Shipman?”
“No! Rock and roll! Although that was kind of close, oddly enough”
“I think I’m gonna head back home” Eric stated.
“BUH?! Why? Why why?”
“Because I’m not about to wander some fantasy-esque winter woodland to a dark tower on the spur of the moment, I am cold dammit! If I go back then at least I can come prepared with like...a coat and a thermos next time.”
Shawn sighed and pointed an accusing finger at Eric, like a cheesy cop movie.
“You know, it’s no wonder you’re awkward and boring and single. You refuse to have any ounce of fun or even live a little.”
“That is not true, I was perfectly having fun eating my tuna sandwich and watching Dawn of the Dead!” Eric yelled, his voice soaring above the snow drenched trees like a runaway weather balloon containing an American boy, only he wasn’t in there all along. I can’t even believe it was news, so what if some stupid American child was trapped on a weather balloon, ok, that’s called natural selection. Anyway yeah, Eric was pissed off...and stuff.
“Eric come on, stop being lame. Maybe if you started taking risks you wouldn’t be so unattractive to women”
“That’s uncalled for, come on”
“It’s true. Hell, you spend so much time in the friend zone you should buy a FUCKING VILLA THERE!”
Eric stared at his feet for a second, and looked up expressionless. He spoke quietly and without any anger
“You’re right, but that’s who I am, now I’m gonna head back. I’ll see you in a bit I guess”
He turned around and moped off back the way they had came from, Shawn opened his mouth but thought it was best to leave him be, he then began to make his way towards the dark tower in the distance.
After about 5 minutes Eric arrived at where the wardrobe was, and by ‘was’ I literally mean ‘WAS’, as it was no longer there. Eric hastily looked around, the footprints ended there so he was in the right place, but the wardrobe itself was nowhere to be found, like WMD’s in Iraq or humour in American Sitcoms. He ran his hands through his hair and groaned loudly.
“I’m never gonna be able to eat my fucking sandwich” He muttered before turning around to catch up with Shawn.