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“I want to be a doctor,” said Julie.

“I want to be a writer,” said Tim.

“I want to be an economist,” said Larry.

“I want to find dinosaurs and giant apes and forgotten peoples and evidence of aliens landing on the planet in younger days,” said Montgomery. 

“Write something shorter in the text box that makes more sense,” said their teacher, unscrewing the lid on her third thermos of ‘tea’ that morning.

So Montgomery wrote ADVENTURER on his what-I-want-to-be sheet, and he received a B- for it. 

***

When Montgomery was seventeen, a passing hurricane kept his family grounded on vacation.  Into the storm shelters they all went, and as the wind whined and wailed and roared outside he gazed hungrily at the sheets of rain that tore and ate at the forests beyond the reach of the emergency lights. 

“Tomorrow,” he said, “I will find my dinosaur.”

“That’s nice,” said his mother.  “Now pass me the can-opener.”
“We’re all going to die,” said his father. 

And Montgomery was right and his father was wrong; for everyone lived until the very damp dawn of the next day, when Montgomery prowled the surf and the wreckage and the foliage for hours and hours and hours and at last – triumph of triumphs – he pulled aside a half-fallen tree and was eyeball to eyeball with the beady red-ringed and brown-eyed stare of a dinosaur, crouched protectively over its nest. 

“Hello!” he said.

“AIIIYK!” the seagull said.  And it bit him. 

***

When Montgomery was twenty-one, he spent his summer hitching illicit rides on cargo ships carrying containers of anything to anywhere for anyone.  It was cheap, even if it was a bit lonely and most of what he saw was empty blue. 

“Somewhere out there, or maybe in here,” he told the crew he negotiated and bribed and wheedled with, “is a giant ape, unknown to the world.”
“Yuh,” they said, counting the money.  “Yah.  Yep.  Uh-hm.  Yes.”

So Montgomery took this as permission and scanned the horizon with binoculars and prowled the decks with powerful microphones and tapped on every wall for secret compartments and poured over shipping manifests and once or twice cracked a container open for a quick peek inside. 

He found furniture.  He found timber.  He found metals.  He found plastic shaped into funny little animals.  He found more water than he could ever have imagined in a million lifetimes.  And at last, as he stumbled back to his berth exhausted and empty-handed, he pulled open the door and there before him, rising up to the ceiling and staring back at him with the calm gaze of those who have every right to exist, was a great hairy ape the magnitude of which he’d never seen; stooped, broad-shouldered, heavy of gut and impossibly bipedal. 

“Gracious god,” said Montgomery.

“Wrong room,” said the able-seaman, and slugged him amidships.

***

When Montgomery was thirty-six he spent the last of his grant on a mad dash to the wilds of Papua New Guinea, where he annoyed many people by talking to them very loudly and slowly instead of using any form of interpretation.  This approach, the final step of his self-published ‘Montgomery Method,’ did not produce results. 

“I was so sure,” he sighed, “that it was maybe this time.  Oh well, perhaps the next.”

So Montgomery went home on an economy flight that stopped over for sixty hours in a place called Burnside, where he was turfed out to make his own way for the time being.

“Is there a hotel you could recommend?” he asked the flight attendant.

“Eh,” she replied. 

From street to street he wandered, but the only places he could find were murderously wealthy, with entire lobbies and carpets designed entirely to warn prospective guests of the price ranges at work within their walls. 

“Needs must,” he muttered.  He thought far back to his childhood, and the wise things his mother and father had taught him.  He girded his loins.  He consulted a map.  He even – god forbid – asked directions.

And so it was that he found a hidden place unseen by human eyes in many years, cobwebbed, abandoned, and forgotten.  A place to rest, and more besides.  This was what he had sought and failed to find in New Guinea – in Egypt, in the Andes, in the Rockies, among the shallow waters of Greece and in the burning deserts of central Australia. 

Montgomery’s subsequent paper, On the Rise and Fall of the Burnside YMCA: an Archaeological Microstudy of a Vanished People, was surprisingly well-received.  He still got in a lot of trouble about the grant money, though. 

***

When Montgomery was fifty-five, he spoke with conspiracy theorists and alternate historians and people with little divining rods.  He read self-published books.  He analyzed ancient folktales.  He read the interpretations of old petroglyphs, and then reinterpretations of those, and reinterpretations of THOSE. 

He also looked at many blurry photos of things in the sky that looked like trashcan lids.

Finally he left his home without notice in the dead of summer and stepped off the plane into a flat dry heat that smelt like burnt lightning.  He hired a car, he hired a driver, and they slept in shifts as they went for miles and miles and miles off the road, into the dust and the crags of the badlands, into sunlight so hard it hurt. 

After a week they found nothing and turned around and as Montgomery stepped out of the car with a full bladder, town nearly back in sight, his urine washed the dust from an innocuous-looking stone and revealed something that he’d been looking for without knowing for half a lifetime. 

The meteorite was small and crushed and old, very old.  And of course it was contaminated by lots and lots of human DNA.  But it was still laden with little funny things that could’ve been maybe trace fossils left by bacteria or maybe traces of extraterrestrial sugars or maybe not, and that stirred up the whole damned panspermia debate in astronomy all the hell over again. 

***

When Montgomery was seventy-seven, one of his organs protested unexpectedly and took the rest of him on a short and eventful if well-trodden journey, and he entered the most mysterious land of all.  His funeral was a little muddled – which his family agreed he would’ve wanted – and the burial happened more by luck than design.  In the milling mob, some few of his old classmates found each other.

“Bit of a surprise,” said Julie.

“Him going first?” asked Tim.

“No, it taking so long.”

“Well, he got plenty of exercise,” said Larry. 

“Not much of that for the rest of us – least of all an economist,” said Julie.  “How’d you stay so trim?”

“Oh, I gave up on that after undergrad.  Went into forestry.  I climbed more than I walked for thirty years.  At least a doctor gets to sit still now and then, eh?”
“Flunked medical school, got into politics, still a sitting senator,” said Julie.  “But yes, I do get to sit all I like.  Sometimes more than I’d like.”
“I should be writing this down,” said Tim. 

“What, you going to use us as material?”
“No, no, as affirmations.  Had a nervous breakdown halfway through my second novel, got into psych work.  Don’t have the biggest degree but it helps the community, you know?”

“Yeah,” said Julie.

“Yeah,” said Larry.  “Never know where life’ll take you, huh?”

“Seems so,” said Tim.

They watched the funeral some more.  One of Montgomery’s grandchildren had found the headstone and was trying to get it to stand up straight as two aunts directed him. 

“You know,” said Tim, “I have the feeling it all mostly worked out for him like he planned.”
“Yeah,” said Larry.

“Yeah,” said Julie.  “Do you think HE knew?”
“Oh who the hell could say for sure,” said Tim. 

The tombstone fell over again.

“Lunch?” asked Larry. 

“They hired a food truck,” said Tim.
“Good,” said Julie.  “My feet hurt.  Let’s go for it.”

So they did. 

Evening’s meal was done and the company-bench had been cleaned and put away in the hall.  The children’s dormitory had been sullenly silent for an hour now.  The last of the surly-lynxes had grumbled themselves to sleep in their dens.  And every single adult was inside and locked up tight and trying to sleep because if anything bad happened they didn’t want to see it coming.

Except for Shorr, the storyteller.  Because she’d woken up a few hours ago, had evening’s meal as her first, and was wandering to the edge of the holdfast, looking for her treestump.

There were several to choose from, but she played favourites.  And maybe it was a little fussy of her to put stock in such things when the light was almost gone from the edges of the hilltops, but her job was stressful and such things that comforted her were things that she insisted on doing.  If they were good for her and harmed nobody, they were good for everybody.  So said her mind. 

That said, she hoped she found that stump soon.  It was getting dark and oh ow ow ow there it was.  Her toe resented her for that.  Well, the rest of her would appreciate its sacrifice.  And none too soon; there was more dark than sky now. 

Shorr sat down on her stump, which by now was as polished and gleaming as if her behind were the world’s softest velvet.  Time has a way of smoothing things like that.  She knocked out her pipe on her boot and she lit it and stared at it and then put it out.  She’d promised her daughter she’d stop. 

So instead of smoking she sighed, and scratched herself, and into the gathering, thickening, smothering dusk she spoke stories. 

She told the tale of Toll the Gecko and the wind calmed.

She told the tale of Little Gret and the bushes ceased whispering.

She told the tale of the Four Brothers and Three Sisters and the glint of light-on-tooth just beyond the edge of sight ducked backwards, slow but sure.

And then she told the tale of the Lost Sun and how the Moon saved her, and the sky was lightening itself already, and her throat was sore, and she was alone in that little shallow valley while everyone else was asleep. 

Shorr’s throat reminded her of her pipe, which reminded her of her promise to her daughter.  So she didn’t smoke, but went and sat by the well and drank it down, down, down instead, cool and crisp.  And she drank more, because her throat was still sore, and a little extra, because it was even worse now, and by the time her daughter was up (first from the children’s dormitory and indeed the whole holdfast to wake, as usual) Shorr was on the ground, coughing and wheezing and making noises that were probably curses but were awful jumbled and came out as mostly-snorts. 

***

A little wheezer was nothing to a child.  To an adult that had gotten it before, less than nothing.  Even an elder who’d escaped the bug for all their years would be at most abed for a few days. 

Shorr had never had it before, but she was strong and healthy and so merely lost her voice for a few evenings, which would be long enough to see the holdfast torn down to shreds and shards and stones. 

Most of them dealt with this by not thinking about it, the oldest solution.  But four of them didn’t have that luxury, so they gathered in the cozy comfort of the decisions-cabinet (one window wide open, to catch the breeze) and drank tea and argued while Shorr dozed in the corner.  It was midday, and she was well tuckered. 

“Troublesome,” said Killy, the firmsmith.  She tapped her giant scarred fists together in the little pat-pat-pat that meant she was thinking.  “Maybe if Nnon sang for the night instead?”
“No,” said Nnon, the singer, and she packed a lot of scorn into that syllable.  “Don’t be dopey; they can’t stand me.  Song is for the songbirds, and those are for the daytime.  Perhaps Shorr could be given emergency medicines?”

“Absolutely not,” said Pruut, the bloodfixer.  “Look at how limp and listless her face is.  I’d have to pack her full to the gills with fillypowder to wake her throat up enough to rasp, and then she’d be sleeping THAT off for half a week.  Borrowing from Petra to pay Polly won’t do us any good.  How about her apprentice?”
“Oh no,” said Killy.

“Definitely not!” said Nnon.

“Might as well give it a try,” said Grar, the charcoal-cutter. 

The others grumbled at that, but it was Grar’s turn to hold the Myturn stick and so they agreed that this was more or less a fair gamble.  Besides, it wasn’t like there were any other ideas coming.   

***

Fli was Shorr’s apprentice in storytelling.  She had a lovely smooth voice that she could make a tree blush, a calming presence, and a firm, reassuring presence.  And she climbed up a tree and refused to come back down. 

“Get down here,” said Pruut.  Besides her, Killy gave the tree another shake.  No good; Fli also had a grip like a barnacle. 

“I shall not,” said Fli politely. 

“Your teacher, your family, your friends, and your fellows have all agreed on this and think you can do it,” said Killy. 

“Nothin’ doin’,” said Fli serenely.

“If you don’t get down here,” said Nnon, packing her voice full of civic pride and determination, “the entire holdfast will end up torn to bits.”
“Maybe they should climb trees too.”

“Get me my sawblades,” said Grar.

“Oh, FINE,” said Fli in bad grace, and down she came. 

“Good,” they all agreed.  And that was just fine until evening’s meal was over and someone asked the question ‘where’s Fli?’ and nobody could answer it. 

“Let’s get her,” said Grar.
“We can look for her or we can find trees for everyone,” said Pruut. 

So they found trees for everyone, and that took a long time they didn’t have, so they were all too busy to notice when Shorr’s daughter walked down to the holdfast’s edge. 

***

Shorr’s daughter walked the path much less surely than her mother, but also more quickly.  Short legs stride fast. 

She took the longest and windingest way possible down to where the ferns grew and the waterfalls grew quiet and plunked down on her mother’s stump, which she recognized from being shown and also because it was as smooth and seamless as a marble from overuse. 

And she said “hi.”

Nothing said hi back.  Darkness does not say ‘hi.’  But there was heightened attention paid, just past eyesight. 

“I’m five years old,” she told the darkness.

The grass breathed in and out, slow and low and steady. 

“Wanna hear a story?  Mom told me stories.  I like the one about the fish.  See, there’s this big fish.  It’s the biggest fish, and it eats anything it wants, and everyone was frightened of it, but then it ate so much it couldn’t fit in the water anymore and the sun baked it and and it stopped working totally and then it was dead.”

The wind rose, dropped, dipped and twirled, then settled into a state of confusion. 

“And she told me about the rabbit-person.  And what the rabbit-person did for breakfast.  See the rabbit person was hungry but was lazy and the rabbit person told her family she was sick and they all brought her food and she ate all of it until they had no food so then then they brought her hot peppers and she ate them and they said it was medicine and they brought her live bugs and said they were medicine and they brought her a biiiiiiiig rock and said it was medicine and she swallowed it and you know what happened?  It stuck.  It stuck in her butt.  Now rabbits have heavy butts and that’s why their back legs are so big and strong.”

Shorr’s daughter frowned for an instant.  “Mom always tells me the stories about people eating too much.  I’ve heard them too many times.”

The shadows lightened a little.  Maybe. 

“Wanna see what I found in my nose?  Here, look.  Look.”
The wind came back, fierce and quick. 

“Okay!  Okay!  Stop it.  Stop!  Don’t DO that.  You know, you know that one time the wind didn’t ever stop blowing?  It did that.  Back in the old days it blew all the time and there was no earth, or water, or animals, or plants, just big bugs with big bug wings.  And they flew everywhere.  But the mosquito queen said she could outwail it, since she was the biggest bug, and she tried so hard with her wings that it broke the wind into little pieces and everything fell down to the ground.  But it shriveled her up.  That’s why mosquitos are so small, and why you should let them have a little blood.  I don’t like that.  Mom says it’s okay to swat them after the first one.  The first one gets blood for being polite.  Are you polite?  Mom says I need to be more polite.  She always tells me the stories about people being polite too.”
Something settled in the brush, far away yet closer than it should be. 

“Okay your turn.  I said your turn.  Come on, I told you three stories in a row.  It’s your turn now.  That’s only fair, right?  Mom always tells me the stories about people being fair too.  Like the story about the old flatsmith with the crooked myturn stick, that always came rolling back to her whenever she made a decision, so it was always her turn even if everyone else watched the stick very carefully.  So she got to do anything she wanted and nobody could do anything they wanted, until her apprentice took a rock, and she reversed the crook in the stick, so no matter what she did it wouldn’t come to her and it rolled away and everyone made decisions one after another except her.  But they didn’t do anything to her, they just made everyone else happy and that made her mad.  I don’t know why that made her mad.  Are you mad?  I don’t think so.  Can you tell me a story?  It’s fair.  Come on, be fair.  It’s fair.  Come on. Come ooooon.”
It was fair. 

So it told her a story. 

***

There was rushing water, and breezes in branches, and pebbles in sand, and bright eyes and brighter teeth, and the sort of urgent, thoughtless patience that formed something more complicated than an imagination. 

***

“Oh,” said Shorr’s daughter.  Except it was more of an exhalation, because syllables seemed too clumsy and indirect for this conversation. 

And she listened.  And she talked back, and in what way she wasn’t sure.

Then it was later and she was gently being picked up by someone and put in her bed even though it was just getting bright out. 

***

Fli was up in a tree, but a different one.  She came down with much protest until someone told her a child without a name had done her job for her, then she came down with much muttering until Killy picked her up and put her in the decision cabinet with Shorr for the rest of the morning.  She was a lot quieter after that. 

Shorr, by contrast, had her voice back by that evening.  She brought her daughter with her, and let her choose the stump, and sat there and for the first time in years she didn’t say a thing all night. 

It was interesting.  And a lot easier on the voice too.  So she brought Pruut, and Pruut brought Killy and Grar, and Nnon brought herself, and well, by then everyone knew about it.  

So everyone came down for the evenings, and some of them stayed till sunup and some of them went to bed early.  Who can say how much anyone learned.

But they all understood one another better.  And that’s important too. 

It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Feeling’s mutual!  Thank you so much for inviting me for this chat today.

You’re a busy institution; I wasn’t sure you’d have time for this. 

Nonsense!  I haven’t been asked to chat in ages and ages and AGES.  Everyone just wants to kick in the door and get it done, you know?  Happy to have a conversation for once.  Love it.

Then let’s get started, shall we?  Introduce yourself, please.

Hello!  I’m the Plundered Tower on the Edge of Darkness, and I’m a dungeon! 

Now when you say ‘dungeon,’ this brings to mind a wide array of possible meanings.  Please describe which of them you feel identify with personally, if that’s no trouble.

Certainly!  I’m not a dungeon in the traditional sense of being a jail you throw prisoners into – although I certainly contain a few of those, let me tell you!  Rather, I am a dungeon as the place of excitement and intrigue and reward and mystery, existing just one possibly-perilous journey away from a conveniently homely settlement.  More specifically, I’m an overgrown and ruined watchtower some six stories high (and my lesser outbuildings clustered around my base, which are in greater disrepair than myself) left to moulder for centuries, signifying that this place was once considered ‘civilized’ and other such concepts and has now been overcome by the forces of entropy and barbarism.  I’m an ironic mirror held up to the follies of empire – and as such, a subtle advocate for its benefits and a warning against its enemies!  Devious, aren’t I?

Indeed.  What are those enemies?  Are they represented within you?

Oh, of course – I have a wide variety of inhabitants, all of them symbolically rich.  For example, my gatehouse is full of gigantic rats and there’s a huge centipede in my belfry.

Ick.

Oh yes, that revulsion is the entire point!  See, these are household vermin… but on a scale fit for a nation!  My infestation with outsized pests represents the disrepair that the household of humanity has fallen into in my immediate vicinity, and thus expunging them through violence is transformed from the simple killing of animals into a heroic deed akin to cleansing a poorly-maintained house for the benefits of its hapless inhabitants.  A blade-as-a-broom, you could say.

That doesn’t sound like quite the kind of heroism most would sign up for.

Well of course – that’s why it’s all symbolic, to suck people in.  It’s like my biological metaphors for societal outgroups.

Pardon?
I call them BMSOs!  It sounds cute, and it’s a lot simpler than remembering what the hell they’re called.  Kobolds, goblins, trolls, apemen, lizard people, troglodytes, cannibals, gnolls, orcs, hobgoblins, goatmen…nobody can keep all that straight!  And most of them are basically the same anyways.  They’re really just dehumanized embodiments of those that fall outside the boundaries of the society represented by both my original state and the humble little hamlets that adventuring groups come from.  Their bizarre but ultimately superficial quirks hide this ugly symbolic reality behind a façade of manly slaughter and pulp.

What kind of superficial quirks?

Well, there’s a few kinds.  There’s the trivially obvious stuff, like the visually bizarre, biologically gross, and standard slurs – stuff like making them ugly and bestial and caricaturized and making it clear they’re all stupid and filthy and live only to destroy.  That’s easy, and the physical aspects can be used as little motifs to make killing them interesting – orcs having light-sensitive eyes, for instance, not only marks them as disturbing and antithetical to diurnal hominids but also rewards clever adventurers for using terrain, time of day, and careful use of supplies against them!  That’s the sort of shtick that gets people invested – and that kind of thing can be useful in ANY monster, not just the BMSOs.  It can get really complicated with the big ones.

Give me some examples of those – do you have any inside you?

Oh yes; every dungeon needs a big showy finish, or at the very least a motherlode where the danger and potential for reward meets a fever pitch.  That’s where you put your showstoppers.  I’ve got two, an evil wizard and a juvenile dragon.

Which is your favourite?
Oh gosh that’s always such an unfair question – I love them both, of course!  But in different ways, you know?  An evil wizard is like French fries: they’re welcome EVERYWHERE, no matter what.  Cave in a hillside?  Evil wizard, mixing foul potions.  Tower on a cloud?  Evil wizard, besetting the countryside with magical storms.  Magical castle inside a glass orb in a dungeon embedded beneath the continental crust?  Evil wizard trying to erase the concept of free will and become a god and also maybe cross-breeding an owl and a bear.  So versatile, so simple – the concept of an old guy who can command and the universe obeys him, wrapping up the concepts of knowledge and social hierarchy in a single robed crazy bearded scrawny man.  Mine’s a necromancer, I think.  He’s raised the captain from his crypt underneath the tower as a wight-lord, and most of the dead guards from the bonfire-grave as horrible cinderwraiths.  Bless his crooked nose and cracked heart. 

And the dragon?

Well, they’re classic.  Can’t have a dungeon without a dragon – some big ugly monster that loves treasure is a MUST, and if it’s a literal dragon that’s just all the better, the bester!  Also they’re sort of fun because they embody a societal vice but externalize it as originating from OUTSIDE the society.  See, a dragon’s about lustful greed, wrath, pride, and usually a good pinch or three of sloth – but it lives by itself in a cave and indulges all of those just by existing,, which it then inflicts upon the countryside.  All at once it warns you that These Things Are Bad but tells you that their REAL cause is people like you becoming akin to stuff from Far Away, rather than any inherent flaws within your home or town or kingdom or whatever.  And of course they breathe weird nonsense.  Mine’s a juvenile mauve drake, so it spits flans. 

That sounds delicious.

Oh no, they’re molten flans.  Six hundred degrees inside, animate, try to ooze inside your orifices.  There’s a surprising amount of monsters named after foods.

Is there any particular reason for that?
Oh, some.  But not all.

You’ve lost me.

There’s lots and lots of detail within me, but it’s sort of selective and fixated on particular KINDS of information.  Like, I can tell you that molten flans were created by an anonymous mad wizard, and I can tell you that you can find one to six of them 20% of the time if you linger in my ruined kitchen.  But I can’t tell why the hell they’re called flans.  Similarly, I can tell you there’s a tribe of 32 BMSOs lurking in my old stables, where they build crude altars of horse bones to worship my mauve drake whenever they see it fly out to prey upon the cattle of the villagers, and I can tell you they have 2 shamans and 1 chieftain with a magical axe and fourteen women which are noncombatants for some reason and eight young which frankly are just bait to rationalize child-killing as morally and biologically logical, and that their altars contain a single rough-cut agate apiece worth a specific monetary value (more if it’s cut properly; gets people invested in their treasure beyond just looting it).  But I can’t tell you why they’re worshipping the dragon, or what’s led them to take up residence here specifically, or why they’re so fixated on kidnapping and sacrificing villagers every full moon.  The traps are where it REALLY sinks in: I’ve got a secret door behind a bookcase in the captain’s quarters that leads to a secret passage that has another secret door in it (press the discoloured flagstone three times) that leads to a spiked pit and if you pull the eighth spike in it a secret door opens in the pit’s wall to a treasure chest.  The treasure is a cursed necklace.  I have no idea why any of that makes sense. 

I see.  Speaking of treasure, you seem to have an awful lot of it for a long-ruined tower.

Oh, absolutely.  Treasure goes where danger goes, so that sort of thing just happens – basically every inhabitant I’ve got is a magpie, inadvertently or deliberately.  The drake is greedy and hoards anything shiny; the wizard uses obscure and obscenely lavish implements in his blasphemous rites; the BMSOs are festooned with crude trinkets from their victims despite having no concept of money; my graves are filled with valuable pieces of armour and coin just ripe for robbing.  Hell, even my weathervane has an emerald stuffed in the eye of the manticore that decorates it.  Sometimes there’s an explanation, sometimes it’s just…there.  The explanation for each given item of value is nice if it’s there, but it’s not as important as the underlying assumption at work: that places outside your home are dangerous but full of value and that those that dwell there either don’t recognize it or are morally unfit to be its custodians or have stolen it from the deserving folk who are just like you.  Or all three.  Usually it’s all three.  Anyways the important part is that people come to me seeking violence and financial gain. 

And what do they do when they’re done?
Wander off, usually.  That’s the thing about adventuring: nobody really PLANS to retire; they just keep going until they just lose interest.  I’ve seen a lot of folks loot me top to bottom before going home, swearing they’ve got to do this again next week, then never ever coming back.  But there’s always some oddballs that get addicted.  They don’t come back again, though.  They usually just move on to other dungeons.  Fine by me; that’s when I get refilled. 

Are you acquainted with these ‘other dungeons’?  How do you get along with them?

Oh yes and it depends, respectively.  I’m what you call a ‘starter dungeon.’  Just a little bit of danger from a little bit of nasty a little ways away from a little town that’s facing a little bit of a problem from it, filled with a little bit of treasure. 

That’s a lot of diminutives.

It is, but I am!  And I like that, and I take pride in it.  No matter who you are, everyone’s been in a starter dungeon.  Nobody moves on to the Doom-Mines of Far Low Deep Kruuk without passing through me first and finding the ancient rubric in the wizard’s chambers that leads you to its hidden back entrance.  And they know it, and they appreciate it!  Me and Doom-Mines, we’re like THAT, you know?  Just like THAT.  Tight as thieves.  Specifically, thieves stuck inside a magical chest of devouring teeth. 

Are there any other starter dungeons near you?

No.  Not really.  I mean, not that it’s worth knowing.  The Forest of Fruundy doesn’t count.  Is it a dungeon if it isn’t a series of discrete rooms, I ask you?  You know what that place is?  A bunch of random nonsense stapled together with no organization.  Anyone could go anywhere in there and just do ANYTHING.  No rhyme no reason no sense no ORDER.  Stay the hell away from that place.  UGH.

Well, thank you for-

I think it has elves.  ELVES.  In a FOREST.  There’s traditional and there’s unimaginative and tell you what I don’t NEED to tell you what THAT is. 

-spending some time so generously with us today-

And a UNICORN.  What good is a unicorn?  They won’t fight you unless you’re a jackass.  The kind of jackass we don’t encourage, at least.

…Is there anything you’d like to say to all the prospective adventurers out there?

Not even any good treasure on ‘em.  Huh?  Oh.  Yes.  Live nobly, fight constantly, loot everything, and bring your friends.  And tell them to bring theirs too.  Always room for more.

Thank you.

Thank YOU.  Mind the trapdoors on the way out.  They’re under the flesh-eating fungus. 

I’m awake at sunrise, same as always.

Awake, but not UP, of course.  I’m too smart for that, even with my brain still cool from the night.  The best of sleep is when you’ve just finished it and are deliciously, completely at rest and unable to think or move, just feel how sweet it is and how warm and soft the world remains and breathe in the gentle snores of Driver next to me, curled against my head. 

So to maximize that time I don’t move an inch and I keep my eyes shut and I don’t change my breathing and I stay in that beautiful place for all of six minutes before That Fucker comes around to my pen and starts loudly asking Driver if I’m awake yet lazy beast come on there’s aa battle to be won abluh bluh bluh bwuh. 

Longer than usual.  Oh what a fine rest it was. 

So away with my rest, up with my body (at the gentle prods of Driver at least, rather than the hasty and careless hands of That Fucker), down with breakfast (cold and lumpy: someone doesn’t want me too content before the fight), and on with the armour.

The armour takes six of them to put on.  Too many buckles in my opinion.  I stand there and watch as the sun goes up and pretend I’m a tree and don’t have to care about any of this and none of it’s my business and today I will live a good dull tree life and NOT have maniacs try to stab, arrow, cut, etc. my face, belly, or legs.

Of course, I’ve seen what these folks do to trees.  Can’t win for losing, frankly.

Tara, tarantatatratatraaaaa.  Alarm, shouting, waving of arms.  That Fucker is here early and is hopping mad. 

Surprise attack!  The sneaky enemy have decided they’d rather fight early over here than on time over there like civilized people.  How deceitful.  How diabolical.  At least I had time for my lumpy breakfast. 

Up my side stomps That Fucker, feet even heavier than usual on the ladder (all that weight on their mind, I suspect).  Then the two bows.  Then the two pikes. 

Then Driver, who is wrapped up in a little ball of armour that’s much less fancy than That Fucker’s but is unconstrained by a need for maneuverability.  Like a baby bird balled up in iron feathers. 

I want to tickle them very badly.  But ah, there’s no time.  The battle has already turned up, and it’s burning down the tents next to us. 

To war! shouts That Fucker.

For That Place We Live In! shout the others.  Death!  Bloodshed!  Defeat (for them, not us please please please).  And so on. 

I don’t get to shout until Driver pokes me behind the ear just so, which happens pretty fast so I guess Driver is as sick of hearing from the others as I am. 

I don’t shout.  I ROAR.

So I do that for a good thirty seconds that feel like three years as I start walking and accelerate and run and then I’m in the battle. 

***

These are the things I saw.

A tent.

A tent on fire.

A person setting a tent on fire.

Two people screaming.

One person running.

Three people standing to fight.

Three people flying away through the air.

Six people fighting four other people while two other people shout at them.

A little bird crouched down low in the grass pretending it isn’t here. 

Someone who’d been swarmed and stabbed in the belly while they were eating breakfast, before their armour was put on. 

Sixteen people braced for a charge.

Eight people throwing away their weapons and trying to run. 

A person screaming – maybe in anger – and waving a very small knife. 

The kitchen and its awful breakfast and twenty people fighting over and around and in it. 

Trampled grass stained red and bile. 

More people. 

A big bright beautiful day turning from golden to blue in the sky. 

Driver.

***

Those are the things I saw in the order I stepped on them. 

***

Driver must have slipped free when the armour around the side of my head took a nasty cut, blowing out some crucial strapwork.  All that weight on them for their own protection dragged them down and off and under my legs where it was no protection at all.

They could have dug in, of course.  They had the prod, and the prod had a big spike on the back.  A real nasty one, just in case I got Ideas.  But Driver never used it.  And so off Driver went.

That Fucker is shouting more than usual.  Probably mad that I’m standing still instead of charging.  But I can’t charge and look after Driver at the same time, so tough shit. 

I think Driver’s alive.  It’s really hard to tell, they’re so tiny.  I need to get all these stupid armour off them. 

Ow.  There’s a pinprick at the back of my skull.  That Fucker is trying to goad me.  Ow.  Ow.  OW. 

Okay, that was a pike.  That Fucker isn’t trying to goad me, they’re trying to have me skewered. 

But I’ve lost some crucial strapwork recently, so I shrug and all the armour and the bows and the pikes and That Fucker slide off and land in a heap and I walk away and don’t even bother trying to step on it. 

I pick up Driver and put them back in their spot as I walk.  Nobody tries to stop me.  I guess they’re busy killing and dying and all of those other things. 

***

It’s not long until it’s quiet again.  Real quiet.  Not sure I’ve been in a place like this since my youth, before I got picked up and hauled off to meet Driver and everyone else.  No little voices.  No fields.  No orchards.  No roads or buildings.  No people. 

Driver doesn’t count.  They’re good for that. 

I pick fruit as I walk and offer it.  Some of it is taken, some isn’t.  We go until the sun starts to drop and I stand and I watch as it turns red over a little river with cool water that tastes like ice against my teeth.

We’ll stay here for the night.  And maybe tomorrow Driver will be okay, and maybe tomorrow Driver will have taken that soft sleep that never stops. 

It will be alright.  The best part of sleep is being not quite awake; but second best is getting there, and it’s a close second. 

The Prepaleoplostic Eon

Most nothing, or at least nothing worth noting geologically.  The stones of the planet fart their way together into tectonic harmony. 

The Paleoplostic Era – the Yurtomitvitch Period

Organisms figure out what to use all this boron floating around in the ocean for the past billion years and start constructing the first visible evidence of their presence recorded in the fossil record: very very small yurts.  Construction is incompetent but diligent.  The form of the inhabitants is unknown and presumably they were still mostly liquid. 

The Rufflupogust Period

Organisms discover that boron-based structures can ALSO be used to create structure within oneself.  Immediately life displays two great lineages: the blohardynopsians, who make elaborate internal scaffoldings and then swallow them; and the bunngowlisia, who make elaborate internal scaffoldings and then force them up their anuses.  Both live side by side for entire years before the bunngowlisia abruptly go extinct at the end of the Rufflupogust, about instantly after they first appear. 

The Greater Krimmidgish Period

Often called the ‘glory days’ of the Paleoplostic, the Greater Krimmidgish sees blohardynopsian life spread far and wide through the boron seas of Yurm, becoming bottom-dwelling scavengers, bottom-dwelling grazers, bottom-dwelling predators, and even a brief and terrifying experimental period where they floated just above the ocean floor. 

The Lesser Krimmidgish Period

The inanimate and insensate bacterial mats that are at the base of all blohardynopsian food webs develop the capacity to float at the water’s surface.  The entirety of the blohardynopsian lineage is wiped from the surface of Yurm within mere centuries; their only modern survivors are those little slimy things that try to eat your toenails in swamps. 

The Whorlibord Period

A small and innocuously group of bacterial mat-dwelling creatures develop the snoot, an anatomical wonder that allows both breathing and eating with a simple flex and snivel.  The group, termed innocuopods (after the late Horthord P. Innocuous), thrives and diversifies into a breathtaking array of forms, spreading into many of the old blohardynopsian niches and more besides. 

One lineage of creatures become known around now, although their past remains hazy.  Like the blohardynopsians and the bunngowlisia they use boron structures to keep their internals structured; unlike either they shun housing and don’t creature their internal support externally; instead building inside themselves using little tiny hands on the inward-facing surface of their skin, called creepi.  The animals themselves, creepodonts, will remain a fixture of the seas for a very long time, thanks to their powerful crotchetiness. 

The Lubbery Period

The oceans of Yurm dry up abruptly, forcing most of the organisms in them to stand on their own ten legs for the first time.  Most perish, some grumble, a few thrive.  In particular several of the most powerfully-snooted innocuopods do quite well for themselves – now their snoots can breathe, eat, and loco-mote for them!  Truly a marvel of evolution.  Many bacterial mats discover that adhering to dry rocks is at least as pleasant as a soggy water’s surface, and within ten million years of the Great Drying, life appears quite congenial. 

Then the oceans of Yurm return from near-orbit in the greatest precipitation ever to occur, wiping out ten times the number of species disturbed in the initial hubbub.  The Sog remains the most titanic disaster in the history of life on, around, and generally in the vicinity of Yurm.  We can only aspire to top it. 

The Mezzosorpanoplostic Era – the Quintuplic Period

The Quintuplic is a time of great hardship and great innovation: the few lucky snoot-bearers and bacterial matters that survive go apeshit across the surface of Yurm, sea and water and air alike.  The sky buzzes with a thousand thousand whiny little heliwings; the water is abroil with fierce and chewy creatures from shorks to shirrts; and on land one million different kinds of creepodont-related creepostrophes lurch sulkily across the landscape in great pouts that shake the very ground. 

At the close of the Quintuplic all five remaining continents bump together at once and the resulting shockwave exterminates all of the innocuopods, most of the creepodonts, a bunch of the creepostrophes, and all of the shirrts.  None of the shorks though.  They did quite well for themselves. 

The Phlegmic Period

The violent wobbling of the continents produces a permanently shaky and highly wiggly climate for life; and the Phlegmic is famously home to the dawn of the jiggliest animals ever to swerve their way drunkenly over Yurm: the jauntertrophes.  This extreme branch of the creepostrophe family tree squiggled their way to ever-more-scrambled heights throughout the entire Mezzosorpanoplostic Era, and indeed early scientists refused to believe the most impressive of their kind could even exist on dry land without undergoing fatal and immediate squiggling.  Modern math has proven otherwise. 

The Boddaceous Period

The Boddaceous was a period mostly consistent of lava, and the way life responded to this in many ways determined its future success.  The jauntertrophes shuddered their way above it and around it and a bit to the side of it; crossing entire trans-continental lava fields without so much as wobbling into a single plume of smoke.  The shorks dove deep and ate rocks.  The creepostrophes ate the lava.  And the creepodonts dropped dead. 

Then a very large rock slammed into Yurm and everyone’s ingenuity was at best a huge waste of time. 

The Seeloplostic Era – the Postpaleoplesic Period

The Seeloplostic begins with a much-diminished Yurm.  The jauntertrophes are dead; the creepodonts are dead; the creepostrophes aren’t doing too hot, and the most prevalent type of animal on Yurm were little ugly bug things that ate fast and died faster – a dubious ecological niche, it’s got to be said.  With little competition and a vast, devastated world open to all, they were free to eat faster and die faster than they ever had before.  They were called copeiforms, and they were our ancestors, except for all the ones that died. 

Which were most of them.  Copeiform evolution believed in error moreso so than trial, with such luminaries as Puborre’s Witherbling (which fed entirely upon its own young); the Lesser Mock Skammer (which possessed eight pairs of redundant legs); and the Rippled Wharf (whose courting rituals appeared to consist of building a tiny ball and sealing itself inside forever). 

The Postpostunpaleoplesicish Period

The beginnings of the modern ecosystem are more clearly visible as the Postpaleoplesic gives way to the Postpostunpaleoplesicish.  Copeiforms begin to settle down into the sober middle-management phase of their existence, with the vosperoids and their plain colouration, bland legs, spherical torso, and modest, unassuming little brains reigning supreme in most niches thanks to a great efficiency of effort.  Their exciting and whimsical wuuly competition were reduced to relictual fauna, surviving only in isolated paradise islands whose gorgeous, peaceful serenity and plentiful food left them plump, flightless, and – according to our ancestor’s records – delicious. 

The Now

It falls to us, as examples of the mightiest single species ever birthed upon Yurm, to record its events for all posterity, which will doubtlessly not include us.  As this chronicle is written we are locked into an irrevocable death spiral, having spent the last two hundred years industriously mining ocean sediments formed of dead creepodonts only to realize halfway in that they were filling our atmosphere with deadly oxygen (knew those would come back to bite us, the surly little bastards).  Since changing things is somewhat difficult for vosperoid organisms, our principle strategy has been to resign ourselves to our fates and grimly trudge towards our deaths.  I hope this chronicle of our world’s history of life explains why this was a winning tactic for our ancestors, and so too for us.  Soon this volume will be loaded onto a satellite and launched beyond the farthest limits of our solar system.  May it never reach another organism benighted and stupid enough to read it. 

-Walmpurt Toos, Chief Botherer of Finklefaak United Collegiate Pit.  Esteemed. 

Gary finished his cigarette and he dropped the smouldering stub and he crushed it underfoot and lifted his foot and the rush of air restarted it as he went back inside and that was how fifty people died. 

Not all immediately at once, though.  It went something like this. 

***

The fire roamed the little patch of mouldy greenery outside the backdoor for some minutes as it figured itself out and came to terms with its life outside the old Mortimer Mansion.  Inside was noise and light and reckless danger; outside was the cold night and the damp air that smelled like autumn mould year-round and the branches of the gigantic tree in the neighbour’s yard that overshadowed the entire block and somewhere in the distance an owl absolutely losing its shit. 

The choice was obvious, particularly when the fire caught hold of a little bit of splintered wood off the deck that was covered in some sort of ancient long-since-illegal varnish that might as well have been pure gasoline.  It ate it up in a blink and dove into the basement headfirst. 

The basement was a dour wonderland of unfinished concrete floors, unpainted wooden walls, and uncoordinated and unsatisfying makeouts.  But behind the walls was gloriously flammable insulation the likes of which hadn’t been manufactured in centuries, and so the fire let them be and roiled upwards invisibly, leaving only some wisps of transparent smoke and a lingering odour of burnt mouse feces. 

Above was the kitchen, and as it scuttled its way beneath the sink the fire felt a great and clammy moisture above its head where Jules Mortimer was trying to wash the fucking dishes.  They should’ve used paper plates, but hey, it’d be cool to use the old place’s dishes, right?  Pretend posh.  Well pretend posh was real dirty and the real estate guy was coming over in three days whoops rescheduled to day after tomorrow so guess who had to do the fucking dishes in the middle of a party whoop de fucking doo fuckity doo fuck?  Him.  Because he was the oldest Mortimer on the premises.  Never mind that it had been Katie’s idea to have the party.  Ugh.  It had been Katie’s idea to try and start a paint-snorting competition too.  Ugh. 

The fire crawled all the way up his pant leg and into his boxers before he noticed, so intense was his snit.  Then it gave him a Brazilian and he started yelping and kicking and running and on his way he kicked the sink so hard the tap broke. 

No more water!  Joy!

The living room was filled with bodies and yelling and music and yelling and vomiting and yelling so it was all equally inaudible until Jules ran in and somehow screamed over all of it.  This distracted the partygoers, at first to point and laugh (didn’t work), then to shout and stand there (didn’t work), then to try to stomp out Jules’s pants (didn’t work), then to pour their drinks on him (worked, eventually).

By the time all was said and done laughing, people had finally started to ask themselves questions like ‘where did that come from?’ and it was too late because the kitchen fire had found the old paint tins under the sink.

It made a noise like FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMP

But much louder and hotter. 

***

By now most of the party was aware something odd was happening.  Either there was smoke drifting through the floorboards, the walls were warm to the touch, they’d just put out a brushfire in Jules Mortimer’s crotch, or an enormous gout of flame had just rocketed upwards through the ventilation system and set fire to the bed they’d been sleeping in.  Also, everyone was yelling “FIRE.”

Several solutions were attempted and beset with difficulties.  The mansion’s fire extinguishers were filled with dried spiderwebs and air; hugging the floor to avoid smoke was complex due to the intricate vomit-and-cotton-candy covering that laced much of the floorboards six hours into the party; and the fire exit was on fire. 

Clearly, improvisation would be needed.  Mercifully, liquid inspiration had been taken.  Sadly, proclamation was outspoken: “THROW THE BOOZE ON IT.”

Which didn’t help much at all, particularly when it vaporized and filled the air with eye-bleeding alcohol fumes and covered the floor in glass shards as people tried to crawl on it.  Still, it was all in good faith and most people were willing to concede it had been better than nothing. 

***

So the evening went on in the spirit of competition, fire against festivities.  The fire consumed the basement and its inhabitants joined the rest of their kind in the living room, where they contributed much confusion and panic.  The partygoers tried to phone for help and the Tinco Valley fire department filed the deluge of reports as spam and said they’d have to verify things first.  The fire feasted upon the discarded coats and purses and shoes in the front hall and their owners retreated up the stairs to the third floor to look for a fire escape. 

And the fire’s humble roots just outside the back door raced up through the gutters and the eavestrough in a snake of embers, until it crept in through the attic window and found the bags and bags and bags of old dry leaves from the autumn of ’32 that Mortimer Senior (dead forty years, god rest his soul) had been keeping for a rainy day.  Like finest tinder they were. 

Things were beginning to get a little bit desperate.  Many were the tears shed and the regrets spoken.

“I wish I’d eaten more than one bowl of chips, and that they hadn’t been nacho cheez flavoured,” mourned Dilbert Dabny. 

“I wish I hadn’t broken up with you ten minutes earlier,” said Daphne Yubo to her ex-girlfriend.

“I wish I’d broken up with you two years ago,” said Daphne Yubo’s ex-girlfriend.

“I wish I didn’t have these horrible suspicions about that one cigarette I had out back an hour ago,” muttered Gary Vorbleck under his breath. 

“I really really wish I hadn’t spent the past three hours doing dishes,” said Jules Mortimer.  At least his arms were still nice and moist, even if they were a little wrinkly.

“I really really REALLY wish you hadn’t talked me into hosting this party,” said Katie Mortimer.

“Excuse me, sir, but you’re a fucking liar,” her brother retorted.

“Excuse and sir yourself,” she said, “but you’re a big ol’ bitch.”
“Language.”
“Motherfucker, do you SPEAK it?”
The fire dropped a beam next to them in a shower of sparks.  Its contribution was misunderstood by its critics, who hastily relocated to the nor’west solar.  Flames were already curdling up from the roof around its base, and the glass of the windows and skylight twinkled merrily in the heat haze. 

There were many uglier places to die, most of which the fire had already set alight.  Bright red tongues and orange hands and the odd blue-and-white licks made outrageous and suggestive statements to the night sky. 

“Well,” said Jean Baltimore, “we’re doomed.”
“Yep,” agreed Sam Winmoore.  “Wanna have sex?”
“Sure why not.”
“Oh good idea!” said Mavis Bacon.  “Hey Claude?  You want in on this?”
“Might as well.”
“People, people, people,” said Jules Mortimer.  “Be REASONABLE.  We’re all about to die; you can’t just have sex!”
“Yeah, not just on the floor,” said Katie Mortimer.  “Have some standards.  Why not use these enormous bedsheets Mortimer Senior (god rest his soul) always kept stashed in the solar’s closet here, for midday trysts with his eighteen mistresses?”
Everyone examined the bedsheets and was very impressed.

“High thread count,” remarked Daphne Yubo, whose father was a tailor.

“Nice patterning,” said Mavis Bacon, whose grandmother was a mural-maker. 

“Could support a whole body with this,” said Boris Murt, who was an aspiring serial killer. 

Everyone looked at him.

“What?”
“Say that again.”
“All I said was oh right.  Huh.  How ‘bout that.”

***

The bedsheets burned away from the windowframe where they’d been knotted just as Katie Mortimer’s feet touched grass, nearly dumping hot coals onto her head as she scuttled away to the streetside with the rest of the partygoers to check out the last of the fireworks. 

They stood there, on the dimly smouldering edge of the lawn, watching the historic Mortimer Mansion disintegrate into base carbon, and they looked at one another in a sort of sobriety that had nothing to do with drunkenness and knew that from now on they would look at life very differently. 

That was when the Tinco Valley firetruck – laden with fifty heroic volunteers, foaming at the mouth one and all – hopped the kerb, tipped crazily onto two wheels for a heartbreaking twenty feet, and skidded nobly into the mansion, taking out it and everything inside it in a cataclysmic eruption of heat and steam.    

***

Most of the Mortimer Mansion partygoers evaded punishment in the days to come.  The public eye was focused on finding a more economical way to budget the fire department; it had been the sixth truck that month. 

Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer certainly weren’t complaining.  That had been one HELL of an insurance payout. 

A Record of the Final Daily Specials of Old Eddie’s Pub n Grub

*Bean Soup*

A rich blend of sumptuously fatty pork, slow-cooked beans, and caramelized onion, augmented with secret spices from our secretive master chef! 

*Soup de Yesterdaye*

A rich blend of sumptuously fatty pork, slow-cooked beans, and caramelized onion, augmented with secret spices from our secretive master chef and given an extra day or so to simmer and really get all those flavours mingling!

*Crunchy Salad*

Put some summer between your teeth and feel it crack!  Crisp carrot and apple slivers with a selection of seeds and nuts, all hand-washed in a raspberry vinaigrette by our master chef and topped with flavoured ice shavings formed from clear glacier water!

*Mozarella Sticks*

Soft, melty, tasty cheesey goodness, breaded in fragrant herbed bread crumbs.  Get a platter – or better yet, get two!  Or even BETTER, guess what’s coming up day after tomorrow?

*An Old Favourite Returns!*

Try some freshly fried pork crackling hors d’oeuvres tonight topped with a breathtaking variety of mix-and-match sauces, and while you’re at it, ready yourselves for the triumphant return of what you’ve all been waiting for tomorrow night!  Get a seat ready and set your Fridays to FUNdays!

*Bean Soup*

A rich blend of sumptuously fatty pork, slow-cooked beans, and caramelized onion, augmented with secret spices from our secretive master chef!  Don’t miss it this time; it’s never too late to correct a mistake!

*Soup de Yesterdaye*

A rich blend of sumptuously fatty pork, slow-cooked beans, and caramelized onion, augmented with secret spices from our secretive master chef!  Better try it now or you’re just proving you’re uncultured swine!

*Marinated Chicken Skewers*

Poke your nose into Monday tomorrow with a pokey little set of these in your belly.  Chicken soaked in a cocktail of spices and herbs before being threaded onto rosemary stalks and seared to juicy goodness, then placed right on your plate not a minute from the grill!  Almost as good as bean soup!

*Jumbo Shrimp*

The biggest and freshest shrimp in the finest breadcrumbs and the most golden frying but really this should be bean soup.  It’s not bad, but it’s not bean soup.  You could like this sort of thing if you like this sort of thing, I guess. 

*Cabbage Rolls With Cabbage and No Beans*

Why did you not eat the bean soup?  It’s a good recipe, my mother made it, my father loved it, my grandmother passed it down to us all.  It put peasants on the farmland and on the battlefield and in the grave for centuries, and now you think you’re too good for it, is that what’s going on?  Have some cabbage rolls and choke on them dry and flavourless.  Like your souls. 

Your last chance comes tomorrow. 

*Bean Soup*

Eat the soup or eat shit. 

*Now Hiring!*

Our dish of the day is… a career in delicious food service!  Why not step in?  Bring your most mouth-watering resume, and don’t skimp on the references!  We’re STARVED for applicants!

*Fried Basket – NEW CHEF SPECIAL!!!*

We all welcome new hands in the kitchen, and those hands are eager to get to know you too – or at least your stomachs!  Welcome our new master chef by purchasing a delicious fried basket, consisting of everything from wings to pickles to chicken fingers, topped with a delectable fried mars bar!

*Club Sandwiches*

You’d have to be knocked over the head to pass up on one of these bruisingly-good meals!  Fresh crusty bread in FOUR layers, encompassing cheeses, meats, vegetables, and a new sauce on every level!

*Macaroni and Cheese and Bean Soup – NEW CHEF MEMORIAL SPECIAL!*

Put the FUN in today’s funereal special with a salute to our old new master chef and a welcome-home to our old old master chef, featuring both their best dishes: golden and crumbly mac and cheese and a rich blend of sumptuously fatty pork, slow-cooked beans, and caramelized onion, augmented with secret spices from our secretive master chef!  Memorial service from ten pm until we’re all too drunk to stay awake. 

*Bean Soup*

You didn’t finish all the bean soup but you ate all the macaroni and cheese this disrespect will not be tolerated. 

*Donuts*

Try a basket of fresh-fried soft moist crisp and delicious donuts, complete with dipping sauces!  Officers of the law, feel free to stop by!  Very free.  We’ll give you the donuts free.  Please visit.  Please please visit quickly.  PLEASE.  Help help help.

*Meat Pies – NEW MANAGEMENT SPECIAL!*

Try a mouth-watering browned pastry packed to the BRIM with aged, marbled fat cut from the biggest pig you’ve ever met.  From the knife to the table within twelve hours!  Served with a hot ‘Sweeney’ toddy, made with secret house spices.

*Shepherd’s Pie*

‘Meat’ our health inspector’s visit this evening with a belly full of Shepherd’s pie!  Warmed to perfection and left with a hint of steamy simple herbs.  Contains everything that couldn’t be packed into the meat pies, but also delicious potatoes! 

*Ladyfingers – HEALTH INSPECTOR MEMORIAL SPECIAL*

In memorial of our health inspector, whom many of you knew for years, we will be serving ladyfingers tonight.  Juicy, meaty, falling-off-the-bone.  Served with plum sauce, because she would’ve wanted them that way. 

*Long Pork*

Get a piece of the forbidden taste with this most slender and succulent of ‘swine.’  No seasoning or sauces; the point is in the ‘pig.’  Applicants for early tasting come around through the rear alley and don’t look behind you.  Healthy yet plump only, please. 

*Molotov Cocktails*

A sumptuous bottle of vodka, half-drained, filled to the brim with oil and topped with a wick flambé before hurtling right into your lap.  I’ll take every one of you bastards down with me I swear if you can’t appreciate what’s on your plate maybe YOU should be on the plate  MAN IS MEAT MEAT IS MAN MAN IS MEAT MEAT IS MAN MAN MEAT MEAT MAN MAN MEAT MEAT MEAT ME

*Future Site of a New McDonalds!*

They sat in the dark circle around the dingy table under the flickering lightbulb, sharing a single cigarette.  Or they would have been but Clyde had taken it from Larry and refused to give it back; sucking it down like a kid with his last Halloween candy. 

“Alright, enough stalling,” said Larry, from somewhere underneath the crushing weight of his unibrow.  “Who goes first?”
There was a brief silence as they stalled some more.

“Fine.  I switched strategies.”
“Bold,” said Clyde.  It was sarcastic. 

“Huh?” said Jeb. It was sincere.  Always was. 

“I changed from ASMR of me opening bills and reading them to me throwing out unsolicited flyers without reading them.  Figured the catharsis would get more viewers, but it turns out people don’t even like to see those things when someone else gets them.  Lost my entire fanbase.”

“Piss on a stick,” said Clyde.  “Well, more bad news: I got my tumblr purged, so my followers are scurrying and uncoordinated.  Knew I should’ve started up a discord community or a twitter or something.”
Larry dope-slapped him.

“Hey!  Ow!  What?”

“I’ve TOLD you not to share your opinions with strangers.”
“It wasn’t that!” snapped Clyde.  “I mean, not this time.  Someone flagged it as porn.  I fought it, but turns out my videos qualify.”
“’Someone competent doing their job quickly and punctually while enjoying it’ is porn now?”

“Apparently.  Got demonetized on youtube too.”

Larry sighed.  Clyde sighed. 

They turned to Jeb, who was knuckle-deep and going farther.

“Sorry?” he asked. 

“You’re up,” said Clyde.
“No I’m right here.”
“What did you do this month?” asked Larry.

“Oh!  I had a good idea two days ago.  Was going to try and go viral on Vine.”

“You’re kidding me,” said Clyde. 
“What?” said Jeb.  “I thought it was still a thing.  Nobody told me it shut down years ago.”
“NONE of us can make the rent this month?”

“Soo…..prostitution and murder?” asked Larry.

“Dibs on prostitution,” said Clyde.

“You ALWAYS get dibs on prostitution,” said Jeb.  “I hate bloodstains.”
“Git gud and stab better then, jackass,” said Clyde.  “Besides, I’m the only one of us that has a face fit for a ring gag.  God I hate the end of the month.”

***

They were sobs the like of which nobody had ever seen.  Great, lung-guttering, soul-quivering, heart-aching shudders welling up from something deeper inside than the most secretive and solitary of his organs. 

“My friend,” the bartender told him as he gently patted his cheeks dry with a little cocktail napkin, “you must not carry on so.  Life will go on.  You will rebuild.  Material things are temporary.  You are worthy of love.  I’m sure wherever they are, they’re happy now.  Do you want more?  I can keep going.”
“Nothing can ease my pain,” wailed the man.  “What I once considered most important in all my life has been taken from me.  I’ve been banned from all social media, effective immediately.  What will I do with my time, with my brain, with my anything?  It was all I had in this world because I’m an empty and loathsome shell of a worm of a fragment of a functional human being.”

“Look,” said the bartender, “I wouldn’t normally go this far for a stranger, but you seem emotionally vulnerable and easily led.  Why don’t you go follow my favourite influencer on twitter, @xXxWITEPOWAxXx?  He can lead you down a road of manipulation, grift, racial hatred, and deniable incitement to terrorism.  It’ll give empty purpose to your freshly hollowed life.”

“But bartender,” wept the man, “I AM @xXxWITEPOWAxXx.”

***

I slid out from underneath the machine with a somber expression.  “Bad news,” I said.  “You’ve got no drive left.”

“Wuh-oh!”

I ignored the sounds with practiced power and  grace.  “And that’s not even the worst of it: you can see here where it’s overheated and partially melted… I’m afraid your rig is shot.”
“Oh god no,” mourned the customer.  He was fat-bellied and thin-haired, in that aimless stretch of extended middle age that can hold some men from age thirty to sixty.  His hands and chin were the only parts of him that moved, working and twisting constantly as he writhed and gasped in the pickle he’d put himself into.  “Oh jeez.  Oh man.  Are you sure?”
“Pretty damned sure.  For the price it’d cost to fix this you could just get an entirely new machine.  You burnt out all the most expensive parts.”
“Oh god oh god oh gosh.  I just took it out for one afternoon.”
I stopped wiping off my hands and looked up in alarm.  “Wait.  This isn’t even your unit?”
“No.  No.  No, this is my WIFE’S bitcoin rig.”

“Sir,” I said, doing an amazing job at keeping my voice level, “I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest for your own good.  Please come with me to the police station.”

“What?  I don’t understand.”
“Precisely.”
“I’m not doing oh god is that a gun please don’t shoot me I’ll do whatever you say do you want money do you oh lordy lou oh god”

“Don’t make me use this.  It’d be a cleaner death than you’d deserve for slagging someone else’s next-gen video card, and a LOT cleaner than what the street mob out there’d give you for it.  Now we’re going to walk very calmly down to the station and you’re not going to try and run because I’ll fucking shoot you and you’re not going to try and fight because I’ll yell what you did in the middle of the lunch crowds and you’ll WISH I’d shot you.  Are we clear?”
“Oh god oh jeez oh”

“ARE WE CLEAR?”
“Yes oh my goodness yes oh”

I pistol-whipped him.  It was just and magnificent. 

He was outgunned sixteen to one.  His shoulder was an open wound, smouldering with his own evaporating blood.  A hangover that could drop a cow dead at forty paces beat within his skull and his gun was empty. 

Yes, he had them right where he wanted them. 

Zak Zorph smirked the smirk of a cornered rat, cleared his throat of dust and sand in a quick swallow that could’ve been mistaken for a gulp by the uncharitable, and charged up his electric pompadour. 

“Oh god are you doing THIS again?”

Slew bolted into attack position as fast as possible with as little dignity as imaginable.  His tail lashed, his fangs bristled, his eyes popped, and he tripped over his own feet and somehow collapsed. 

“Ow,” he said, menacingly.  Truly, a terrifying specimen of the Greater Western Gila  Monstrosity. 

“Dumbass,” said Mulch, but not fondly.  “Double dumbass; you’d be dead if I were someone else.  Why are you reading this crap, and why are you doing it at the bottom of a blind canyon where anyone could eat you?”

“It’s safe down here since nobody but us knows about that passage through the deadfall,” said Slew in a logical and sulky voice.  “And it’s not crap.”
“Tell mom that.  She said she regrets every reading one of these past the cover.”
“Well, she just didn’t find the good stuff.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mulch, eyes narrowing to dead little black glitters in her face.  “And what exactly is this good stuff?”
“Nothin’.”
“Liar.  You always drop your gs when you’re lying.  Show me.”
“No.”
“Show me or I’ll tear off your tail and make you eat it.  Again.”
Slowly, sadly, with seething fear in his eyes that wished it could muster the spine to be hate, Slew handed over the book.

“’The Quontum Jowb,’” read Mulch.  “Book ten of Zak Zorph and his Electric Pompadour.”

“It’s a twelve-book series,” said Slew.

“And you’re reading twelve books of this because?”
“The important themes and stuff.”
“Like what?  It’s written by a human, what sort of themes could it possibly have?  If they knew what themes were and if themes were worthwhile then maybe they wouldn’t have all died.”
“Here,” said Slew, rustling through a mildewed stack of mouldy yellowed paper.  “Try this one.  Zak Zorph: A Wang and a Prayur.  Book two.”

Mulch picked the book up on the fourth try –

“Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I clawed my first one in half.”
– and opened it to a random page.

“Zak, baby, those killbots are right on our heels!  You gotta do something!” dithered Lorna Bumox.  “The neubaddies are gonna shoot us!  Why didn’t you lock the doors to the omnivault behind us?!  Oh jeez, my mama was right about you!”
“Oh, you flighty dame,” chuckled Zak Zorph, giving her an affectionate pistol-whipping in the tits.  “Now just settle down that cute little ass of yours, sweetheart.  You know girls are scientifically proven to be incapable of rational thought when under stress.  It’s just facts.  Sit there and look pretty while I think this over reasonably.  Maybe if you’d remembered to lock the doors to the omnivault behind us we wouldn’t be in this pickle, ya dumb broad.”

“Oh gosh, don’t hit me!” squealed Lorna, but she secretly loved it, obviously.  Zak Zorph knew her delicate little brain like the back of his meta-hand.  But it wasn’t his meta-hand they needed now.

The neubaddies breached the corner, Lorna swooned dramatically, and Zak Zorph charged up his electric pompadour. 

“Huh,” said Mulch.  “I don’t get it.  Why didn’t she eviscerate him with her hindclaws?”
“Female humans didn’t have hindclaws,” said Slew.
“How ‘bout her foreclaws?”
“No.”
“Teeth?”
“None worth noticing.”
“How the hell did they defend their nests?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It sure looks like the guys didn’t help them.  Is this that deep theme you were telling me about?”
“Look, the series is a bit rough at the start,” pleaded Slew.  “Here, try this one: The Corpilix Caypur.  Book six, so it’s later on and he really hits his stride as a writer.  The emotional depth is a lot deeper and such.”

“C’mon, Zak, just pay the flubbing ticket,” wheedled El Slinkle in his indecipherable accent.  “You parked your ultracruuzer in a handicapped megaspot fair and square, there’s no need to take this to court, not with TimeJudge Quinklemaxx in that court.  You know he’s been looking for you ever since you burned down his mansion in the Hindlebur Affayr!”
“Fat chance!” said Zak Zorph.  “Maybe your people have no spines, but humans are made of sterner stuff.  I’ll be damned if I let those federalism fat cybercats steal a nova-nickel of my hard-earned wages through their trumped-up bionicbureucracy.”

“At least take on a public defender,” simpered El Slinkle.  “You owe yourself some degree of legal assistance, and they’re there to assist you.”

“You can go grozz yourself Slinkle, you low-life fatbelly,” scorned Zak Zorph.  “I’ve lived my whole life as an honest criminal, and I’ll never take up government handouts.  The real heroes are out there paying taxes, and I’d sooner shoot myself in the head than seize any of their hard-earned dollars for my own use.  Actually, when you think about it, I’m not a criminal at all – I steal from the government, which is illegal.  I’m a hero of purest justice.  Every man should take it upon himself to live and act utterly alone along with his harem of space-wives.”

“That sounds individualist,” whimpered El Slinkle.

Zak Zorph had heard more than any red-blooded future-American man could stand.  His pulse roared in his ears and his eyes bulged with rage as he charged up his electric pompadour. 

“What’s a government?” asked Mulch. 

“Not sure.”
“What’s a criminal?”
“Not sure.”

“What’s an American?”

“Uhhh…”

“This emotional depth is too deep for me to understand,” said Mulch.  Her tail flicked in irritation.  “I think he’s just making shit up.  Can’t believe you’re wasting your time on this deerpucky – and after mom warned us about it, no less.  I bet if she knew you were down here repeating her sister’s mistakes she’d cannibalize you on the spot.”

“No, wait, it gets better!”
“Oh really?  When?  When does it get better?”

“Later!”
“How ‘later’?  Is this the sort of ‘later’ that is never actually ‘now’, or the  kind of ‘later’ that actually exists.”
“Well, it’s here.  Book eleven.”
“’The Stoonmakker Shodown’?  Shall I open a page at random again?  Want me to find something stupid at random, or is there one sentence in here that saves it?”
Slew flipped through the book furiously for six minutes, then handed it over with slumped shoulders.

“Thought so,” said Mulch in satisfaction.  “Let’s take a peek.”

“Death!” bayed the ravenous hordes of UnHumans outside the spaceskyscraper.  “Death!  Death!”  

Inside, Zak Zorph cradled his wounded leg, incurred while heroically bludgeoning an UnHuman infant to death, and weighed his odds.  He was outgunned sixteen hundred to one, even accounting for the feeble and pathetic power of the UnHumans that could allow a fit and cunning man to easily kill ten of them with his bare hands before being overwhelmed by their disgusting numbers since they bred like two-legged giga-rats.  His heart was still a-aching with sorrow for the loss of the babe of his life, Mindy Milker, to a gang of sneering, degenerate cosmothugs.  And his trusty gun had blown up in his palm and snapped his arm in half.

Little did the pathetic scum outside know that he had them aall right where he wanted them. 

Zak Zorph smirked the smirk of a cornered rat, thought upon all the good things he’d done in his life, and spat on the graves of the scum who’d stood in the way of those things.  And he charged up his electric pompadour. 

There was a long and awkward silence that stretched far after Mulch had dropped the book like a skeletonized rat.

“You know,” she mused aloud, “there’s one thing about these that does interest me.”
“Oh?” asked Slew meekly.

“What the fuck is a pompadour?”

“A kind of hairstyle.”
“And a hairstyle is…?
Slew scratched his forehead.  “Like the bristly stuff that deer are covered in.”
“Are you telling me,” asked Mulch, in the flat and dead voice of the Extremely Tired Of This,
“that this guy had a deer following him around for twelve books and never ate it?”

Slew shrugged.

“Don’t you dare shrug at me.  Use your words or I use my hindclaws.  Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he whispered.

“Mom was right: books are for nerds.  Eat the stupid things for fiber like a reasonable person and let’s go home.”

It was that time of year again.  Despite her fondest wishes. 

Trish stared at the door to the shed as if it would vanish if she refused to blink for long enough.  Unbidden, her treacherous left hand slowly found its way to the handle and shoved it open. 

The boiling air sizzled against her neck.  June had come, and was already trying to make itself into July.  The air tasted like sweat and evaporated dirt.  Something had died six blocks over ten minutes ago and had already ripened into a fly-ridden maggotblot that could be smelt from one side of the town to the other. 

And there was a little fleck of dried straw in one of Trish’s gloves that had already embedded itself under her fingernail. 

God she fucking hated gardening. 

***

The hedges were first.  They’d gotten unruly over the winter, creeping roots where they shouldn’t be and whispering secrets amongst themselves while the other plants slept bare and lifeless under blankets of snow.  Cedar roared with fierce venom as Trish’s chainsaw snarled and gnawed through branch after branch, lashing her with curses and hexes and some good-old-fashioned invective against her family unto the nineteenth generation. 

Trish was pretty glad she didn’t have or want kids, because after doing this for half a decade anyone she pushed out would probably be born with one eye two noses and a satan for a backside. 

She took a break to clear the chainsaw of sap, bark, and malice and wiped some of the venom from her face.  Ugh.  At least it wasn’t hemlock.  She still had nightmares sometimes about the photos they showed back in the arborist classes.  A chug of electrolytes pushed that and her thirst from her head, then she revved up the motor again.

The wind hissed with fresh hatred as the blade was lowered to the hedge-rim, and some of the nearby grass died.

Great.  Just great. 

***

The lawn was even more tiresome than usual.  First Trish had to burn all the pruned cedar branches she’d just trimmed as an offering to the Council of Blades to even HOPE to make amends, and then began the traditional long, hard negotiations.

“No lower than four inches,” First-Grower of the Council whispered.

An insulting opening offer.  “Two,” said Trish.  That was insulting too, but fuck them for starting it this way.
“After you bring the curses of the not-grasses upon us?” demanded Sharpest-Edge.  “Five inches!”
“One and a half.”
“Three, perhaps,” mumbled Drought-Dried. 

“THREE?” said Sharpest-Edge.

“Two and a half and you’ll like it,” said Trish.

And after two hours more debate, this was eventually deemed acceptable, provided the lawnmower was purified with the sap-blood of the cedar hedge, and Trish could finally cut the fucking grass. 

Politics.  Always the politics.  God.  She’d never taken a single polysci elective for a REASON, and here she was. 

But at least it wasn’t as bad as the screaming as she drove over the green acres, faint as it was.  Like an unignorable whisper on the wind, almost possible to mistake for her imagination.

So she wore earmuffs, and if anyone asked she pretended they were because of the lawnmower. 

***

After THAT mess, the garden was relaxing.  The soft crumble of the soil underhand.  The reassuring stench of the manure in Trish’s nostrils.  The neverending litany of murmured prayers and chants and charms as she pressed each bulb into the earth and extolled it to grow tall, bloom beautifully, rend its perfumes and colours into the air like a striking serpent, then die quietly and gracefully. 

Taming flowers was always easiest when they were youngest.  Her fingers had scars from the time she’d come across a feral crocus lurking in a patch of geraniums. 

Shush shush, grow big, dream of tall stems and warm breezes and many bees and fine pollen.  Do not fear the hands that come to stroke and prune and groom you into beauty.  Do not lust for the sap of the gardener.  Do not hunger for the xylem of the fleshy.  Do not become bent on destruction.  Do not scream for the dying of all light. 

Grow well, and think of blossoms. 

Her neck was swimming in sweat.  She had all the time in the world, yes.  All the time in the world.

But still.  One little slip, and she’d have a wild rose on her hands.  And a lot of blood on her conscience. 

Ssshhh.  Warm earth.  Warm prayers.  Shhh, tuck yourself in.  Bear your thorns calmly.  Stand stately. 

Do not fear.  Do not hate.  Do not prey. 

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

Please.

***

The sun was setting.  The timing was perfect, in defiance of every delay and exacerbation and insult of the day’s contempt for Trish’s schedule. 

If only the fucking matches would light.

“You don’t have to do this,” begged the man for the sixteenth time in the past two minutes.  Ruddy-red glow from the horizon made the sweat and tears shiny beautifully like blood on his pleading face. 
“Fuck,” said Trish.  “Goddamnit, how did people live before lighters?”

“Please.  Please don’t.  Please.  Pleasepleasepleaseplease.”
“Piss.  OW!”
“Why?  Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.  He wasn’t even struggling anymore; the wicker bonds held his arms and legs too tightly to do anything more than raise welts on his limbs.  “Why?”
“Burnt my thumb!  Won’t stay lit for longer than a fraction of a second, but you’ll burn my thumb?  What kind of shittery is this?”

“What did I DO?!”
Trish pulled the last match from the box and focused her hatred on it until she fancied it almost smouldered.  “Lived in an apartment block for your entire life without a lawn,” she said absently, rage making her voice tranquil.  “It’s personal that way.  The lawn likes it when it’s personal.”

She dragged the match slow.  It lit, then broke.”
“FUCK.  Guess we can’t light the wickerman tonight.  Fire’s right out.”
The man couldn’t sag in his bonds, they were so tight.  But his eyes did unbug a little.

At least until Trish pulled out the knife. 

Second-best beat nothing at all. 

***

After an entire day spent with no time to waste and every second ruining everything, the time from dusk to midnight crawled along like a paralyzed sloth.  Trish sat impatiently, burping the baby with one hand. 

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” it opined. 

“There, there,” she said, for the forty trillionth time.  “There, there.”
And there, there it was.  The moon hung in the sky, the right stars twinkled the right way, and her watch rang as finally, blessed finally, the hour had come. 

3 AM on the dot.  She picked up the shovel and dug like a demented badger, dredging up the last, last, last reserves of her willpower and strength and dug the hole and plunked the baby in it and filled the hole and bowed to the apple tree.

“Harvest bless,” she said, in a ceremony-perfect picture-polite voice her tutors would have applauded at.  “Go fuck yourself,” she added in those same tones, which they would not have. 

The apples ignored her.  That was fine.  They had no choice now.  A good crop would be coming around by autumn, and they could like it or lump it all the same, everyone else would be eating it. 

And that was the rewarding part of this job, really, thought Trish as she threw the shovel into her truck and finally, finally, finally drove home to a shower and a bed and a stale bag of chips that would pretend to be a dinner. 

The feeling that you were giving something back to the community.