(An Aldous the Angry Wizard Story)
by grapehyacinth
It was getting late, and Aldous was swiftly becoming a very angry wizard. He was stopped in a sea of traffic, due to an accident at the same corner where he had been trying to get a stop sign placed.
He had seen far too many accidents at this intersection, and had importuned his congressman, mayor, and whoever else would listen, to have a stop sign put there. But to no avail. And now his wife was going to kill him if he didn't get home in time. Dear friends were in town for the weekend, and they were coming for dinner. Not that he really cared, but he didn't want to get on his wife Cora's bad side. That was always a risky endeavor.
He moved forward two car lengths and then stopped. “Damn, I should have just teleported,” he mumbled. But he didn't feel like expending the energy to do it. Sometimes, going to the grocery store was done best using a car. And you didn't have to worry about teleporting all the damned grocery bags back with you too...
The cars moved forward again, and Aldous could make out the accident. Due to a blind corner, two cars had simply careened into each other. He listened to the thoughts and voices of the people involved and was happy to learn that no one had been hurt. Of course, if they had had a stop sign, none of this would have occurred.
As he neared the intersection, the car in front of him stopped, and an officer that had been waving people around the accident got back into his police car. He blocked the cars with his own, and stuck his pointer finger up in a 'wait' gesture.
Aldous sat back. He was quite law-abiding; whatever the officer needed to do was fine – he had a healthy respect for policemen. Yet as he reached into the man's mind, he was astonished to note that the officer had simply taken a break to drink coffee and talk to his fiancee.
“Patience, Aldous, patience...”
But when the officer hung up, then he called another girl. And she wasn't his fiancee. And they were making plans to do things that made the aging wizard blush.
“Let me call Melody and Ashley and they'll do it with us too!”
Furious, Aldous exited his car. He stood glaring at the officer, who didn't notice. Or perhaps he didn't care.
“I won't do anything to him,” he told himself. “Like Cora said. I wait, I learn patience, I don't resort to doing...immature...high-school magic student pranks...”
Finally, the cop exited his car and waved the car in front of him on. Then he glared at Aldous, who was re-entering his own car. “Hey, buddy! You're holding everyone up!” the officer yelled.
Aldous gritted his teeth, got behind the wheel, and inched forward. Then the cop stopped him.
The wizard opened up his window. “What's going on here? There's no reason to stop me,” he said.
“There's an accident.”
“Well, that's because there's still no stop sign here.”
“Not my fault.”
“Yes, but you are holding me up for dinner and my wife's going to kill me.”
“Not my problem.”
Aldous bit down hard on his tongue, watching a tow truck back up to one of the crashed cars. “I've been trying to get them to put a stop sign here for years,” he complained. “Damned town.”
The officer fished out his cell phone and began to text.
“You texting Melody or Ashley?” The words fell from the wizard's lips too quickly to be reined back in.
The officer glanced up in shock. “How the hell did you know that?”
Aldous dodged the question. “Why are you not letting me by? The cars are to the side.”
Glaring hard at the wizard, the officer smirked. “Because I don't want you to go by. How about that?” However, the man was unable to mask his increasing worry over Aldous' words. “Don't tell my girlfriend, okay?” he added in a weaker voice.
“How about you let me by and we forget all about your plans with prostitutes, okay?”
“I'm writing you a ticket, man!” The officer brandished his ticket book and pulled out a pen.
The wizard's mouth fell open at the man's audacity. “I didn't do anything!" he exclaimed.
“You're impeding an accident investigation.”
“That's a lie! You can't do that!”
The officer smiled craftily. “I can. I'm the law!”
“No, now you're a stop sign, damn it!!”
A bright flash of light from Aldous' arms reached the officer, sending him to the grassy streetcorner and planting him in the earth. The glowing man thinned out, his arms and legs melting into his body – which was becoming a metal pole. His head flatted, grew into a red octagon, and as his features disappeared, white lettering blossoming out in their place.
Aldous strolled up to his new creation. “S, T, O, P.” He clanged his fingers on the sign. “I spelled you right! Ha, ha! Get it, 'spelled'? Boy, I've still got it in me!” he studied his work quite happily.
What did you do to me? You son of a bitch!
Aldous could hear the stop sign's words in his mind, and he chuckled. “You know damned well what I did to you. You'll help make this the safest corner ever! Enjoy your new job!” Aldous turned away.
No! No! Don't leave me like this! I'll go insane! I can't move! I'm...metal...You can't do this to me!
Aldous chuckled. “I sure can. Now I'm the law.”
As Aldous walked back to his car he suddenly realized that eyes were on him.
Murmurs met his ears. “He's that wizard-guy!” “He's real!” “Look what he did!”
“Damn it,” he mumbled. He had gotten so into punishing this jerk of an officer that he had ignored everyone else present. Now he had to weave a whole memory-loss spell for all of them. He was going to be so exhausted tonight, and Cora would be mad because he wouldn't be talking to their friends enough...
Half-heartedly, he flicked a spell over the gathering of people, and, confused, they made their way off.
Don't leave! screamed the stop sign.
Chuckling evilly, Aldous waved to the helpless officer and drove off.
The moment the wizard entered his home, he was greeted with, “Aldous! Shut the damned garage door! You always leave it open!” His wife was also a powerful sorceress, one of the few who could rival his own powers. So there was a hidden fear that she might take her anger out on him one day by making him dinner...literally.
“Well, if it isn't Aldous the Angry Wizard!” she snapped as he walked into the room. “Thanks for joining us. They're waiting with baited breath to hear your excuse for being late.” She held a tray of potato puffs in her hand, and he snatched one from it. “Aldous!” she slapped at his hand. “Can't you wait?”
“No! I'm starving!” he popped the food into his mouth and swallowed it quickly, before she could make it disappear or turn it into a frog. Yes, at different points in their lives, she had done both.
But Cora was more interested in entertaining her guests today. She walked into the dining room and placed the tray on the table. “Here you go, Brian. I know you love these.”
“Hey, Aldous, how's it going? Change anyone lately?” asked their friend Brian.
The look on Aldous' face made Cora slightly suspicious, but she said nothing.
“Oh, the usual stuff,” Aldous laughed it off and sat down for dinner. “How are the boys, Robin?” he asked Brian's wife.
“Oh, Aylan's starting his third year of the wizardry program, and Marty...well, Marty wants to be a chemist.”
“Chemistry's a great career! We don't all have to be wizards!” said Cora, sitting down beside her husband.
As the meal went on, the dull chitchat pushed Aldous' tired mind to seek out his newest victim.
A strong night wind had sprung up, and it buffeted the poor stop sign back and forth. Officer Frank could feel the cold penetrating his metal form, and it was almost eerie. The whole experience was eerie. Feeling his body coalescing and hardening into metal was odd and disarming. He would have thought it would hurt, but it didn't. It was just...weird.
A cold rain fell, tapping against his surface. Each individual raindrop made a 'clink' and made him vibrate, which, admittedly, was kind of nice.
He somehow could still see, and he studied his police car which still sat at the curb. What would his fellow officers think when they found it? How long would they search for him? Damn, Melody, Ashley, and of course, his fiancee Dorothy... would they miss him?
He sighed forlornly to himself.
He observed the intersection which he now called home. So this crazy wizard-guy wanted a stop sign here? Well, he had all the time in the world to see if it was necessary.
And, as if on cue, a car came around the corner too fast, smashed into his police car, and was sent flying straight towards the brand new stop sign.
No! No! I'll die! Help!
The car collided with him, bending his pole halfway to the ground.
You idiot! Slow down! I'm a stop sign! Don't you even see me? We need a god-damned four way stop here!
The driver, momentarily stunned, glanced around, then backed up and skidded off down the street.
Officer Frank had memorized his license plate number, but what good would it do? All he was was a stop sign. He couldn't ticket the guy.
The sign remained there, in all its bent ignominy, and then a dog came by and urinated on it.
“Aldous, you didn't!”
Aldous pulled himself from the officer's mind as his wife jumped up, aghast.
“Is it time for us to go home, Cora?” Robin asked with a smirk.
“Maybe?” Aldous muttered weakly.
Robin and Brian stood up from the table and said their good-byes. As they walked outside, Robin took Cora aside. “Be gentle on him, Cora,” she said, winking.
Cora watched their friends' car pull away and drive down the street. Then she turned to face her husband. “Officer Frank? Really?”
Aldous cast his eyes to the floor. “He was a jerk to me! I was trying to get home!”
“But a stop sign? You had to turn the poor man into a stop sign? Why can't you just reason with people instead of resorting to magic?”
“I tried!”
“Did you?”
“He's also a lecherous cheater who abuses his power.”
For once, Cora chuckled. “Well, I bet he won't now that you got to him. Although he'll probably still be a cheating bastard. Everyone in town knows that. That's nothing new. Now take me there.”
Aldous had been married long enough to know to simply obey.
Cora examined the misshapen sign with a laugh. “Looks like more than Aldous got to you, Officer Frank. Apparently you had a run-in with a car, and,” she sniffed the air, “and a dog too?”
Goddamned dog pissed on me, said the sign in their heads. Cora? Can you get him to stop this?
Aldous merely stood by, a pinched look on his face.
Cora circled the object, chuckling to herself. She traced her finger around the red octagon, then drew it all of the way down the metal pole.
The stop sign shuddered.
“Feels, good, huh, Frank? Did you ever in a million years think it would feel good to be a sign?”
The object did not answer.
“Well, I can't say you haven't been asking for it. I mean, look how you're treating your fiancee, first of all. You don't deserve her. She's too good for you.”
If you turn me back, I'll never look at anyone but her. I'll be a better policeman, a better person...
“And you'll get a damned stop sign here,” Aldous grumbled.
I'm just a traffic cop...
“No, you're a stop sign. And you'll stay that way unless a new one doesn't take your place very soon. So get on it!”
I will! I promise!
“Change him back, Aldous.”
“Goddamnit,” Aldous mumbled, but he allowed the sign to slowly gain human form. The pole was thickening, the octagon was inflating...
“You can speed it up, Aldous. Don't torture the man,” Cora grasped his arm, sending a shock of power into him, and the sign quickly sprouted arms and features. Soon the pole separated into legs, and the officer pulled his feet from the ground.
“Holy shit, you must be the most powerful guy on earth!” the officer said, wiping the dirt from his boots.
“Get on the damn stop sign,” Aldous demanded. “I'll be watching you.”
“Yeah, I also gotta get the guy that hit me! I'll phone in his plate number.” The cop gratefully entered his car.
“And what are you going to charge him with? Hitting you when you were a stop sign?” snickered Aldous.
The officer merely stared at the man. Aldous's face clearly forbade him from mentioning his plight. “Thanks for changing me back,” he said, and slammed the door closed.
Aldous pointed to his eyes. “I'm watching!” he mouthed.
As the police car sped away, Cora blew a raspberry. “Oh, God, Aldous. Talk about dramatics.”
“So what are we going to do in the meantime here?” Aldous scratched his head. “Well, I guess people can live without a stop sign for a bit more.”
“Or we can be one. Or two. Kinda looks fun. I never did that.”
“I'm not wasting my time as a sign. I can conjure one. But then people will wonder where it's from...”
Smiling, Cora poked him, sending transformational magic into his body. “You're right. But nothing says we can't have a little fun tonight!”
Aldous let out his breath as his body stiffened. Ignoring the feelings of his own transformation, he watched his wife as she transformed into a sign across the street from him. He always loved to watch her transform. She was talented, beautiful, and whatever she became was beautiful. And as she shivered and shook from the metamorphosis, he called out an “I love you” to her in his mind.