The only story I will ever mention crowds cheering in because I absolutely hate crowds, cheering and crowds cheering.
Lumpy could hear the audience outside chattering among themselves. He remained backstage on his seat, shuddering at the very thought of what he was going to do. It was the annual talent show, and the first-place winner would receive a $15,000 prize. And this year, Lumpy had decided to enter in an attempt to win the prize. But what he was going to do for the talent show was quite possibly the most embarrassing thing to him.
"I... I'm not sure I should do this..." he said to himself.
"Come on, Lumpy, it's not like you'll instantly lose once you come out to perform," Cuddles pointed out as he sat next to Lumpy. Cuddles had already finished his act.
"I think he's just nervous," Giggles said. She, too, had already finished her act.
"I'm not nervous about having to be in front of all those people. What I'm worried about is what I'm going to do in front of them..." Lumpy cringed in fear with the next thing he said. "Showing them all my sneeze."
"That's what you're worried about?" Cuddles asked, sounding almost shocked. "Look, there's only one crowd in this town and it's literally the most optimistic one you can get. They'll cheer just about anything, no matter how bad!"
Lumpy didn't believe that, but he accepted it for what it was. "That's good to hear, but do you really think I'll win?"
"Well, there are some things they'll cheer more than others, so there's that," Giggles said.
"Now, have you got something with you that'll make you sneeze?" Cuddles asked.
"Well..." Lumpy tried to think about it, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flower with five yellow petals.. "I do have this flower..."
"Perfect! Just the thing to make you sneeze!" Cuddles said.
Lumpy blushed in response as he put the flower back in his pocket. When it was finally time for his appearance, he got up from his seat and walked out onstage. He cringed slightly as he heard the polite applause, but quickly got over it. He walked to the middle of the stage as the noise died down.
A spotlight switched on so that all could see him better. He brought up his hand, reached into his pocket, and slowly pulled out the flower that he had briefly showed Cuddles. He moved the flower slowly towards his face, clearly looking nervous as he did so. He was extremely allergic to flowers and pollen, to the point that if his nose sensed even one of the former or the smallest amount of the latter, he'd need to sneeze. But that was what he was going to do.
"Oh, God. I guess this is happening..." he said to himself as he brought the flower to the end of his snout, not caring that some people in the audience managed to hear his bit of dialogue.
Once the flower had made it right in front of Lumpy's nostrils, he gave a slow, deep sniff of it. A good amount of pollen from the flower made it into his nose, and almost immediately afterwards, he gasped and jerked the flower away from his face. His nose quickly turned red and started to twitch madly, while his nostrils flared up to several times their normal size. His eyes went wide and his pupils shrunk as small tears began to form in his eyes.
Everyone in the crowd saw his nostrils flare up and gasped. They knew what was coming: he was going to sneeze. But instead of panicking, they simply stayed where they were and watched.
"Aaaaah..." Lumpy inhaled once, tilting his neck back as his nose continued to itch. He lost grip of his flower, dropping it onto the stage where it landed harmlessly. "AaaaaaaaaaAAHHHH..." He gave a couple of steps back, trying not to sneeze on the audience as he tilted his neck back even more. He deliberately sniffled, sending the pollen deeper into his nostrils with the hope of making his sneeze even bigger.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!" Lumpy fanned his hand in front of his open mouth, preparing himself for the monstrous sneeze that was about to escape. His entire snout was quivering and rumbling constantly in furious irritation, and his nostrils were flaring up as large as they could become. Finally, tilting his neck as far back as it could go, he gave a final dramatic inhale.
Lumpy shot his neck forwards as he released the monstrous sneeze, firing a good amount of spray onto the floors of the stage as he did. And right when he did, the entire crowd cheered. They continued cheering even after he had finished sneezing. Lumpy blushed in embarrassment, rubbing his nose with his forefinger as he always did after he sneezed. Then, continuing to rub his nose, he walked off the stage, still blushing and rubbing his nose.
"My dear gosh, that was absolutely awesome!" Cuddles said as Lumpy returned to the back of the stage.
"Yeah, that was quite a sneeze. I could hear it all the way from here," Giggles added. "And it was really impressive, too. Bless you, Lumpy."
"No, it was not," Lumpy replied in a blunt tone, continuing to rub his nose. "It was the single biggest mistake of my life. I should have sung a song instead. They may have cheered, but I am not going to win that $15,000 prize."
About five minutes later, Lumpy walked out of the performance hall, holding a check for $15,000 in his hand. His expression hadn't changed even slightly, since he just couldn't believe it had happened.
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
The Wholly Book of Doo-Doo-Rot-on-Me is adult satirical humor featuring adult language and adult content, and the work is a parody of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy.
