Ghyll:Heh-blammo balance

The Heh-Blammo balance is the mystical balance mantained by the Brothers of the Lantern. Or so they say. It can be stated in many different terms, and is variously understood to be the balance between enjoyment and misery, or perhaps between pain and pleasure, or maybe, by the very devout, between good and evil.

The origins of the Brother's passion to maintain this balance is always traced to the statement of one of the senior brothers, often called the Proclamation of Heh Blammo Balance. The official story (as far as the Brothers are willing to state an official story for anything) is that the brother in question, upon looking up from deep meditation, quoth thus:

"Where there is much heh, there shall surely follow much blammo."

One of his other brothers, who was there at the time, responded by saying, "Brother, are you saying that there must therefore be maintained a balance between the two?"

Thereupon, the aged brother responded, "Yes, Brother, it is even so."

The less official story, told secretly by more than one eye witness, under condition of anonymity, goes more like this.

One evening, the brothers had a big party. There was a great deal of Adlort, and rivers of fefferberry wine. Late in the evening, when everyone was pretty much 4 sheets to the wind, and many of the brothers were slumped under the table, the afore-mentioned senior brother looked at a colleague of his, and stated "Heh, heh. Dude, if you drink that, there's going to be plenty of blammo in the morning!"

His inebriate colleague looked at him blearily and said, "You mean, like, there's some kind of mystical balance between the two?"

To which the aged brother responded, most gravely, "Whoa, look out, man, I think I'm going to hurl."

Upon awakening in the morning, the elder brother was heard to moan, "Wow, my head is going blammo!" before crawling back under the sofa.

Whatever the truth is, in the years since this event, the maintenance of the heh-blammo balance has become something of a dogma, with varying degrees of belief both in the existence of the balance, and in the ability of mere mortals to effect it in any way.

Nevertheless, true zealots, both in and out of the brotherhood, can be observed muttering "blammo" under their breath whenever they observe someone laughing or otherwise exhibiting mirty. And the really devoted are known to bop people on the head for laughing in public.

Given the origins of the whole silly affair, there is general agreement that the idea of maintaining the balance is merely a drunken joke taken too far. Indeed, there are those that have this view on most religious dogmas. But that's a topic for another article.

Regardless of what they will or will not admit to, the Brothers are well known for conducting comedy festivals in the proximity of wars, and whingelism seminars in the proximity of comedy festivals. Apparently they don't take the long view.