MARK MAFFEO

Meet the Doc & Schnozimo

        Have you ever found that perfect one in life? The one that keeps you up at night just constantly thinking about them. That one true being that makes bile rise to the back of your throat in a feeling of pure hatred and loathing. Well that's what Harry Harrison of Castle Norwood found on a frosty winter morning in January that just happened to be his birthday. Doc Harrison, that's what people caused him because he ran the clinic, was a truly happy man. Truly happy because most of the time he did absolutely nothing. He lived in his office and pretty much never ever left. Why would he want to leave? The castle he lived in was a school and a school had students. Now, you may think of students as energetic little learners, but he saw them as the perfect little servants. He was older; he was the Doctor. They were younger; they were..... servants. Most of them even enjoyed doing things for him. Life was good.

        Now having all these little serv... students. He was very lazy. He was so lazy that he rarely took showers. Not only did he rarely take showers, but he rarely brushed his teeth either. As a result, it was said that his foul breath could topple a full-grown elephant. The last thing that you need to know about him is that his first name Harry was not just a name. It was a lifestyle. His beard, his side burns, the top of his, the sides of his head, the back of his head, his ears and even his nose! were absolutely covered in hair. He easily could have mistaken for the distant cousin of an orangutan or gorilla. But all these faults aside, he was as I told you, perfectly happy. Happy with the hole in the big toe of his sock and happy with the two day old tuna sandwich that had been left sitting on his desk. That was until the day he met Schnozimo.

        Schnozimo did not care one little iota about Doc Harrison. He didn't even know of Doc Harrison. Now, he may not have been the happiest about everything in his life like the Doc. He knew that his teeth were a touch crooked. Okay, okay, they were terribly crooked. He had tried braces once and his teeth actually rebelled, twisting the wires themselves until they became a snaggled mess worse than than a knot of snarled up Christmas lights. Despite his crooked teeth though he was still happy. Even his gargantuan nose that dwarfed his facial features didn't hurt his feelings. After living with it for so long, he even though of it as refined and distinguished. There was one feature he did have though that was just absolutely perfect. It was so absolutely perfect that it put all others to shame. The one perfect trait he had that no other could compete with was his perfectly smooth, perfectly colored , perfectly built in all perfect ways, just totally perfect tail.
Did I mention Schnozimo's a rat?
        Wait, wait, I know what you're thinking. Perfect rat, impossible. And you would be right about there not being a perfect rat. It was his tail that was so perfect that all rats near and far marveled in its exquisiteness. It was perfect creamy skin color, as smooth as freshly sanded wood, and as soft as silk. He could live with all his other faults knowing that his tale was absolute perfection. He accepted that his other while traits were the sacrifice needed to make such a wonderful tail. And as I said he too was happy. Happy until that frigid January morning of Doc Harrison's Birthday.
So hence Doc Harrison's nightmare, and our adventures of these two adversaries now begins.