April Fool’s Crossword – Run As Fast As You Can

RUN as fast as you can; go through the woods, the trees that twist and twirl in their branches. Over the river, the river that flows, flows, flows, and flows some more, fish with their skeletons bracing on their shiny, scaled skin. Up the hill, up you go, all the way to the gloomy house on the top of the hill, the one that squeaks and shifts in the subtle wind, and the windows rattle in their frames. Creak open the door, the one that squeals through the wood, and fills the air with sound. It fills the air with the sound, close, but far, eerie, yet calm, the sound heard when no other life is near. Enter the kitchen, the one with the stove aflame, the oven roasting, and the vat boiling. That vat, only that vat, holds the secret to the world. Its bubbles whisper the sounds of the greedy, but how do you know? Your eyes peer into the vat, the bubbling vat, the boiling vat, the mysterious vat, the scalding vat, and you feel the smoke fill the air. You reach your hand into the vat, and… Well, I do not know what happens, but you read it. Gullible.

You know what rhymes with RUN: fun. You know what’s fun— palindromes and anadromes. They are words that, when spelled backwards, make a word. For anadromes, it is different, like “saw” and “was”, and for palindromes, it is like “rotor” and, well, “rotor”, or the same forward and backwards. They are cool little features in the English language, and I really like to find them. They do not have to apply to words. For example, 73 and 37 are number anadromes of each other. They are also both primes, the 12th prime being 37 and the 21st prime being 73, and 12 and 21 are anadromes. 73 in binary is a palindrome, as it is 1001001. Also, for those who may know, this is from The Big Bang Theory. Despite the interesting nature of the number 73, I like words more. My favorite anadrome pair of “elbillug”.

You got tricked, right? When you flipped it in reverse, you saw what was there, correct? I hope that you saw it. Well, enough tricks for now—hopefully. So enjoy this puzzle, and good luck with it. You will definitely, almost certainly, absolutely positively, supercalifragilisticexpialodociously, tremendously need a lot of help to get all the clues. Go now— RUN, scram. Please halt your progress at this very precise moment in your entertainment timeline and use your technological clicker to simply scroll the screen away and enter a fun, entertaining activity to use your time in a relaxed manner. That was wordy, was it not. That is the point, or is it? Stop reading, you are wasting my time. You are wasting my time. I do not believe you had any if you are wasting it reading this sentence. Stop reading, seriously. Play the puzzle, scroll down to it, and go. It is not that hard. Are you struggling with it? You cannot even use a scroll bar, somehow. That is ridiculous. Just leave and go away from these endless lines before you bring yourself to shame.

You are still here somehow. Incredible, you have made it this far. Then again, I had to write this and read it over way too many times, so your simple word-following technique is laughable. You might as well just stop right in your tracks, like a car. You might as well extinguish your flame. Wait, that is a good idea. There are flames ahead. They will burn you; be careful. Alright, so… no flames, but there were words, and they are slowly boring you. So, leave, at this instant, right now, in this very moment, every single word from now on is useless. Hippopotamuses are cool. Animals, they are. Walk, they shall do. Read, you shall stop. Brain, commence automatic scroll to the interesting section. Now I will create a meaningless entry into a new paragraph.

Hello, there! My name is Mr. Paragraph. I will be your writing professor today. If my very complex words confuse you, RUN away. Hippopotamonstrosesquippedaliophobia is a word for your information. Some know what it means. It is not the fear of hippopotamuses, although that would suck. Imagine seeing a hippopotamus, and your friend is like, “RUN!” It is actually the fear of long words, so in a way, boo. Did you like that? Were you scared? No, you say. Okay, that is fine. I will continue talking, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and uh…boo. No reaction was so kind. You could have laughed at least—just a pity laugh. I am trying, okay? You get the point, right? Well, well, well, what do we have here… it seems to be a… uh, thing that—includes, or actually, uh… erm… I do not know, but… uh, hmm. There seems to be a lack of…word choice, so…boo! Okay, okay, okay, I will stop… in ten years. We will see if that actually happens— or not. Who cares anyway? Also, why are you still reading? I told you to RUN away earlier. Multiple times I mentioned it, and you know what, I give up… for now. Play the game right now.

RUN… RUN… RUN. They said it could never be done. Was that not fun? I guess it was a ton. You have won, or maybe you got none, in which case I will now mock and make fun. Hopefully, you were bright… like the sun! That was a good pun. Ok, I will actually be done. Thanks for playing. Thanks for reading. Thank you for… Nothing. Thank you for nothing, except that you went for a RUN. Thank you for choosing to RUN.