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I still remember the day we found him.

It was six months into the voyage and a month since our supplies ran out.  We were down to rainwater and rats from the bilge, and the only rats left were the swift canny little bastards that were all gristle and ribs.  If our boat hadn’t run into that mysterious mist-wreathed island covered in jagged rocks and overflowing with dark primeval jungle the likes of which no human had ever witnessed in memory living or dead I don’t know WHAT we’d have done. 

Anyways after our boat ran into it we all went ashore to find food and also something to patch the hole in it.  Ted found some crabs; Lenny found some coconuts; Jess found some kind of enormous crocodile; Joe found a rock to hit the enormous crocodile with; and then as we were all limping inland I swept away a patch of giant ferns with my left arm and saw the clearing and saw him.

He was resplendent in the light of the fading sun, eyes aflame with bestial wrath and a glimmer of almost-human intellect.  I stared in awe and gasped as he raised one mighty limb and, with casual ease, bit off a mouthful of leaves and chewed them. 

“My god….” I said, taking the name of the creator in vain for surely his attention was needed here.

“Whazzat?” asked Ted.  Then he saw and he too was stricken into silence. 

“Huh?” inquired Joe.  And he gawped too.  And so on and so on until every single one of was slack-jawed and paralyzed at the sight and not one of us had dared open our mouths to describe it.

Until Jess (slowed by his masticated state) stumbled up and saw the sight and dropped his jaw and said.  “Wow.  That’s a very large gorilla!”

And so he was. 

***

I won’t lie to you.  That very large gorilla caused us all to question the nature of the universe, god, and ourselves, in that order.  What truth did the scientists have to show us that would explain this very large gorilla?  What verse in the bible expounded upon god’s desire to create a very large gorilla?  And how could we sit here as pretty as you pleased and declare ourselves the pinnacle of the world’s animals when here, hidden on this island, was a very large gorilla? 

It was enough to drive one mad.  I know it drove Lenny mad.  It took him about an hour to get over it, and before he did he’d picked up all our coconuts and hurled them into the ocean.  Real inconvenient that was.  Ted was the only one that could swim good enough to fetch all the coconuts back and on the way he got bit by a shark.  Just a small shark, but he was really upset by that and we had to tear off Lenny’s pants to make a bandage and HE was really upset by that but hey fair’s fair. 

In the meantime, the very large gorilla had gotten curious and had wandered over to watch us as we swam for coconuts, screamed about sharks, tore each other’s pants off, and ran in circles on the beach waving our arms.  He picked up some fresh leaves and ate them, and the grinding of his mighty jaws was enough to freeze our blood in our veins. 

Not literally, of course.  It was a nice day out.  Practically a tropical paradise, aside from the slightly chilly mist.  And the enormous crocodile.  And the small shark. 

We wandered around the place and discovered all its secrets: the rotting log with spiders under it; the lizard family sunning themselves on a big rock; a snake hanging over a tree branch; a big dead tree with a bird sitting on it. 

Then we dismantled a sturdy-looking tree, patched the hull, and at the last minute – it was Joe’s idea, I think, but we all were on board right away – took all the chloroform from the medical cabinet, snuck up on the very large gorilla as he slept, dumped it on his face, and ran for it. 

Then we ran back for him, picked him up, put him on the boat, and locked him in the lavatory. 

It was many days of going over the side for us, but the rewards would be worth it. 

***

The city welcomed us home as heroes: it failed to notice any of us and tried to pretend we weren’t there.

So we did as heroes always do and made a big show of it.  Hired a theater, hired an agent, hired strings of lights and billboards and barkers ticket-takers and agents and even a small audience before people caught on and turned it into a BIG audience.  All on credit, of course, but once you’ve acquired enough credit people are eager to add to it because hey, everyone else CAN’T have made a mistake. 

The banner was a small problem.  Nobody could remember how many wonders the world was meant to have.  Was he going to be the eighth?  The ninth?  The twelfth? 

I credit myself this much: I was the one who suggested just calling him “a wonder of the world.”  Mind you, Ted was the one who said we should puff it up to “THE wonder of the world.”  Confidence.  Always about confidence.  And we were confident men, or confidence men, or well what’s REALLY the difference anyways?

So we put on our rented tuxedoes and we put on our borrowed manners and we fingered our best scars and we stepped out on stage and introduced THE wonder of the world, a beast that walks like a man, a creature that was once king of his world and is now a shackled piece of dime-store entertainment: a very large gorilla.

Maybe we should have bought newer chains on credit too. 

Whoops. 

***

So our very large gorilla was gone.  The good news was that while he ran for it he also spooked off all our creditors.  The bad news was that probably wasn’t permanent.  And the immediate news was the army showed up.  They were very upset about our very large gorilla, who was running through the city and disturbing traffic. 

“Just what kind of force are we going to need to destroy this very large gorilla?” inquired the general or maybe colonel or major or someone who was in charge.  He was tired and crabby and had somehow put two cigars in his mouth. 

“Loads,” said Ted.

“Tons,” said Joe. 

“Bring howitzers,” said Jess.  “Bring mortars.”
“Use planes,” I chimed in.  That was me.  I said that.  I’m pretty sure.  “This very large gorilla’s existence defies all humanity’s assumed knowledge of the universe, god, and ourselves.  You’re going to need at LEAST five planes.”
“Sure,” said the man with two cigars in his mouth.  “Whatever.  Fine.”  He doodled on his paperwork, then read it.  “Says here he’s gone to ground.  Let’s go get the big bastard.”

He’d climbed on top of some sort of factory – I think they made condoms? – and was refusing to come down.  He huffed and smacked his chest and punched the roof when people yelled at him, and we recoiled in awe at how very large he was.  He picked up a loose shingle and threw it down, where it hit Lenny on the head (Lenny didn’t come off very well in this whole affair) and roared at us with his very large gorilla mouth. 

Then the planes swooped by and riddled him with bullets and he tipped over and fell over and over and over and over and over and landed on the pavement right in front of us. 

“Looks like bullets killed the beast,” one of the swarming reporters commented.
“No,” I said.  “It was more metaphorical than that.  Say beauty killed him.”
“What beauty?  Didn’t see none of that he did, but lord that was a lot of bullets.”
“Don’t you dare trivialize this very large gorilla,” I demanded.  “He deserved better than that.  We’ll tell his story and tell it properly.  We’ll tell it on every stage from here to San Francisco and beyond.  This is THE wonder of the world here, and he will live on in the imagination of every man, woman, and child from now ‘till the end of time.”
“What do we do with the body?” asked another reporter. 

“Can’t just leave it here,” said the man with two cigars in his mouth.  “That’s littering.  You boys’ll get fined for that.”

“Dog food,” replied Jess quickly.  “My uncle owns a factory.”

“Good thinking.”

***

I still have one of the cans from that run.  Mind you, I think he was something like five percent of it by weight; even a very large gorilla can only provide so much dog food.

But in your imagination, he can give so much more than that. 

They come when I sit out for a smoke.  Always do. 

The sight of me sitting on the steps doesn’t do it.  The flicker of the lighter doesn’t do it.  The swearing when it won’t work doesn’t do it.

But that first long slow breath of smoke brings them scooting in low, rippling up the ground like giant fog banks, from cumulus to cirronimbus and beyond. 

I’ve told them a thousand times a thousand and more: I’m too old now.  Go play with the new girl.  But they don’t seem to understand that meteorologists can retire. 

***

It’s a lonely job, in its way.  You don’t see a human being for months, on the maintenance checks, and of course you’re both covered in environment suits so it’s more a human-being-shaped object. 

But you see people every day.  They’re just vaster and fluffier.  All my friends – my real friends, the ones you have long talks with and walks with and don’t even bother to say hello to because theyr’e always there with you even when you’re far apart – were clouds. 

Fat and grey and soft and thin and wide and faint and great big angry anvils all passed me by up in the meteorologist’s hut, perched on the top of the tower heaved up over the city, held against the sky by guywires and cables and thousands of feet of rickety metal poles. 

I spoke to a human once a week to request groceries.  I spoke to the clouds every day for forty years.

Not like it was a sentence or anything, mind you – I had holidays.  I just didn’t use them.

I had my work, broadcasted down a metal line to the people down below, who strained for every word.  I had my food, in little metal tins.  I had my friends, forever passing by and murmuring to me in my little box. 

What else was there?

***

My house is on a cliffside, on a hill.  I’m still way too close to the ground for my comfort, but it puts me at ease a little, even if six months isn’t quite enough time for me to have gotten my land legs back yet.  My feet still feel unsure with having all that dirt and stone under them instead of miles of air.

I wonder if that’s why the clouds come.  To make me feel at home, at peace.  It’s ot a paranoia of mine, not really – if they’re doing that, it just proves they care all the harder.  Not an easy or simple thing to do, to descend all that way from the sky to drift down here in the thick air just to see an old woman and her cigarette smoke. 

I only started when I came down.  It was too easy to breathe here.  Six months in and I’m almost feeling at home now, which makes up for the foul taste in the back of my throat. 

Today my visitor is a little wisp of cirrus, hurrying down from its perch to see me so quickly that it’s a good thing it doesn’t have legs or it’d be ass over teakettle.  It’s shedding mass in the breeze without a care.  Come on now; I can’t be THAT important.  How will you get home like that, all frittered away?  It can’t stay still even in front of me, bobbing this way and that like a schoolkid trying to think their way out of answering the teacher. 

“How now, tiny?” I ask it.

It shivers, trembles, and snatches the cigarette right out of my mouth.  Then it makes a break for it.

“Hey!”

I chase it, half-serious.  Maybe it’s a dare.  God only knows clouds do stupid things enough with each other’s encouragement; it’s a big sky and everyone gets bored, even the water vapour. 

But it isn’t running half-serious.  Cloud moves and moves and moves; doesn’t even stop to tease.  It slows down when I do to keep me in sight as my freshly tarnished lungs wheeze and gasp, staying a good dash away from me at all times. 

“What’s gotten into you?  C’mon.  I’m too retired for this.”
It shivers at me, and keeps moving.  It keeps moving until it doesn’t and then I almost walk right into it, and by extension, the ladder. 

Oh. 

I look up, and up, and up, and up. 

Yes, there’s no place like my old home. 

“No, I’m not going back up there.  There’s a new friend for you now.”
The cloud offers no comment.  That’s normal.  It wraps around me and seeps into my clothing and won’t stop shaking, and that’s not normal. 

“Come on.”
Nope. 

It already knows it’s won.  If I’m complaining to the world at large, I’m already moving. 

One hand at a time.  One hand at a time. 

So, for the third time in my life, I used the sky ladder.  And boy did I regret those cigarettes. 

***

The first mile is the hardest.  By its end I’m sweating and freezing and wheezing and barely holding myself together as I sit on one of the maintenance platforms, legs dangling.

Halfway through the second I’m so exhausted I can’t even think, which means I’m starting to pay attention and I notice all the things that are wrong. 

The clouds are moving against the wind.  And none of them are close. 

Well, except for the one in my coat.  It’s a bit reluctant to go away, which is nice because I need the insulation.  I hadn’t dressed myself for this today. 

The last hundred feet are the real warning signs. 

The air up here should be dry and thin.  But the rungs of the ladder are thick with dew.  Dripping, fresh dew.  A cloud was here.  A cloud that was falling to pieces, shedding itself as hard and fast as a summer rainstorm. 

But it hasn’t rained in days and we aren’t due for at least another week. 

I shiver again and I press on as the condensation grows heavier and heavier until I heave the trapdoor open and roll inside and I’m up to my ankles in cloudblood and I say “what’s going on oh” because that’s already a stupid question.

I’m eye to eye with my replacement for the second time.  I didn’t know her well because I don’t know any humans well anymore, but she seemed nice at the time.  Earnest.  Forthright.  A bit reluctant to meet my eyes, but that was something I’d noticed in a lot of people so not much to think of.

She has no trouble meeting my eyes now, even as her hands are busy tearing off strips of cloud.  There’s a knife in one, a snapped-off looking thing that seems to have been made of a piece of the ceiling.  A railing has been turned into a fishing rod.  All fabric has been unravelled and fashioned into line. 

And the walls and gaps and holes in the place have been filled with icy cloudbone, and the floor is awash in clear pure blood. 

She chews.  Swallows.  Stares at me. 

“I was hungry,” she says into the silence.  It’s a very normal quiet voice and it doesn’t sound like a monster at all. 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I take a step forwards but she decides for me knife-first. 

***

The knife is easy enough to fix.  Just don’t be where it is and then keep it far away from both of you until it’s less useful than a free hand. 

But hands are hands and hers are attached to arms with a lot more muscle than mine.  Time and tide haven’t helped me, and I don’t know how long she’s been at this madness but it’s clearly helped her grip strength.  She’s got a hold on my wrist that’s putting an ache there that isn’t from the climb alone, and it’s a lot of work keeping that other hand from my neck. 

My neck is tickling.  The cloud is still there, and I feel really bad about that.  It shouldn’t have to see this.  Not after all it did already, poor little bastard.  I wonder how big it was before it made that mad long dash down to see me.  I wonder how many friends it lost, how much pain it saw before it made its plan.  I wonder so many things I almost don’t see it in motion in time, see it pour out of my shirt, see it pour onto her face, see her moment of indecision as she tries to decide whether staying blind or loosing her grip is a bigger risk. 

But my reflexes aren’t bad, even if my muscles are sore and my lungs are weak, so I stomp on her instep and twist with the wind and maybe that shouldn’t do the trick but well.

Six months is a long time up here, by yourself.  But it isn’t quite enough to get rid of your land legs. 

So she falls, and I make sure she keeps falling, and she falls across the floor and I didn’t think to close the hatch. 

Not a sound.  Not one sound. 

***

I drain the floor.  I close the hatch.  I tear apart the rod and line and I hammer the knife back into something useful again. 

The cloud stays for six days to get its strength back, and by then its friends have come close again, cautiously, carefully, and someone’s sent a polite questionnaire up the metal line and I’ve filled it out and made myself clear. 

I’m still retired, obviously.  But for the time being I can be retired up here.

And I needed to quit smoking anyways. 

They were three brothers.

That was probably why they succeeded where so many of their kind didn’t.  Three’s a good number for sorcery.  Witches know it, which is why they’re generally more successful than sorcerers. 

They summoned the spirit successfully, in a circle of molten silver.  They bound the spirit successfully, in chains of finest silk.  They tortured the spirit successfully, with fresh milk and warm blood.  And on the third hour of the third night it gave in, and it told them the secrets of immortality. 

“Be forgotten,” it told them.  “Never ever have a single creature, however small, recognize you for what you are.  Erase yourself from the page of history, and live in the gutters – forever fleeting, forever invisible, forever.”
The brothers were elated at this and banished the spirit to the netherworld, then they actually realized what this would entail. 

“Fuck,” said the youngest brother, who was the quickest thinker. 

“Fuck,” said the middle brother, who generally went with whatever was going on.

“Fuck,” said the oldest brother, who hadn’t figured it out yet but was starting to feel stupid. 

***

It’s a very useless thing, to become an immortal god-king of magical lore that nobody knows about.  But some people won’t settle for mere mortality, and so the three brothers bent and twisted and gnawed at the limits of their goal: to live forever and look good doing it. 

“What do people recognize?” pondered the oldest brother.

“It’s you,” said the middle brother.

“’You’ is far too big a concept for day to day business,” snapped the youngest brother.  “It’s your NAME they recognize.  Let’s just excise that.  I’ll get the orichalcum tongs.”

Now, most people would balk a bit at having the first gift anyone ever gave them extracted from their core conceptual being with a pair of spell-scalded metal claws, but that’s why most people aren’t sorcerers.  The profession attracts a certain kind of person, and soon each of the three people of that type present held a softly whispering sphere in palm: their own names. 

“Now throw them away,” bade the youngest brother.  “Throw them away where nobody will ever see them again, ever, no matter how long it takes.  Also, we’re never seeing each other again or this won’t work.  Goodbye.”
“Bye,” said the middle brother.
“See ya,” said the oldest brother.  “Woops.  Forget I said that.”

***

The oldest brother felt sort of stupid, and he despised that.  He brooded over his misstatements and belated realizations all the way home, chewed on them as heavily as he chewed his dinner, brooded on them like a motherly chicken. 

“I’ll bury it deep,” he decided.  “Where it’ll never come back out.”

So he hiked up the side of Mount Firegut – driving six guides to their deaths in the process – and chucked his name down into its caldera, and went home and raised up a mighty empire with conquering, killing, all that sort of thing. 

Mount Firegut groused and fussed and belched and erupted and subsided and burbled and eventually turned quiescent for good five hundred years later, which was a great boon for the wealthiest merchants of the oldest brother’s empire, who established diamond mines all over it.  Jewels flowed like water, and a particularly large and glowing one was brought to the emperor personally. 

The oldest brother laid eyes on it and immediately recognized it.  And at that moment, so did his entire court.

“Aw FU-” he managed, and then he turned into a dusty skeleton and everyone was quite embarrassed.

***

The middle brother went home by the long route, and he walked by the sea and listened to it rumble and roar.  He climbed the tall hill by his home and watched it go on and on forever. 

“Well,” he said.  “There’s a match made in heaven, if I’m a judge.”

So he sailed out to the middle of the ocean – losing half his crew to salt madness and dehydration – and threw his name overboard, and went home and established a towering sanctum of madness and magic with insanity and darkness the likes of which man had never dreamt and all that sort of nonsense. 

The ocean moved.

Continents crawled, plates shifted, seafloors raised and lowered, and the ocean moved. 

So did everything in it. 

Five thousand years later, a crab ate a funny thing and was eaten by a small squid which was eaten by a small fish which was eaten by a bigger fish which was eaten by a shark which was eaten by a murderous whale which died on a beach gasping for relief from the searing heat at its insides, which was stolen by a gull which was eaten by an eagle which dropped it near a fishing village, which brought it to their dark and sorcerous overlord as tribute. 

“Oh!” said the middle brother. 

And that was about all he had time for. 

***

The youngest brother went home looking up at the stars.  How he hated those twinkling bastards.  They were made from the same matter he was, but they smiled down fondly as he aged to nothing. 

“I’ll outlive you all,” he swore.  “Just you see.”

So he decided to show them. 

He buried his name in a chest in a box in a safe in a vault in a bricked-up basement and he began to send things into the sky. 

Birds were an early experiment.  But at a certain height they came back down dead. 

Balloons seemed plausible.  But they popped. 

Some kind of flapping machine nearly did the trick, but they could never flap high enough.

Then he tried fireworks.

And bigger fireworks. 

And engines attached to the fireworks. 

By the time he launched his first rocket the youngest brother was a billionaire many times over and he’d had to replace his name vault many MANY times more than that.  It was loaded aboard, triple-bound in enchanted whispers and hand-packed by blinded wage-slaves. 

“To forever!” he toasted the rising little mechanical star.

And he made a holiday of it. 

“To forever!” he toasted the six thousandth year of his reign as Global President. 

“To forever!” he ordered the Newmanity under-slaves as they carved the monument marking ten million years of their god. 

“To forever!” he called out across the boiling seas and the fires of apocalypse missiles as four hundred million years of history went up in atomic smoke. 

“To forever,” he whispered to the cautious invertebrates that were his only friends a billion years hence, wandering under the baking heat of the engorged sun. 

“Forever,” he chanted as the world was gently enveloped in the warm hand of its star. 

Forever, he remembered as matter slid away and the solar system washed into nothing. 

Forever, in the dark space as the last few coherent atoms raced ever greater infinitely apart. 

Forever. 

***

A long life is a fine thing.  But immortality brings with it concepts that don’t quite fit naturally into the human skull.  Try to keep them at arm’s length, and use gloves. 

The wind is blowing.  The sky is white.  The ground is white.  The window is white.

It’s a good day to be indoors.  I’m sitting at the window and will sit here all day and I will watch the nothing, the lovely white nothing that’s eaten outside.

And we will tell stories.

***

I tell the wind about my week.  How I hid from it, here in the warmth behind the walls where it can’t find me.  it doesn’t mind, I can tell.  How I took in proteins and carbohydrates and expelled waste.  How I spent nearly a third of it in torpor, electrical currents dying down to a smoulder in my skull.  How I watch the snow whip through its breath and imagine patterns in it. 

It tells me about where it’s been, where it’s come from.  Hot and cold clashing violently far above me, far away from me, sending it howling down and far away from its cold homes to scour the warmer places, to strip away their warm blanket and leave them shivering in the storm.  Of the trees it felled.  Of the animals it froze.  Of the stones it cracked.  Of the lights it put out. 

Both our stories are very repetitive.  We’ve told them all a thousand times.  Life is like that, but so is everything else. 

***

The next day I have to go get more firewood. 

The wind is waiting.

We play our little game that we do every time, and it’s in high spirits now.  It whips and whistles at my ears, my legs, my hands.  I numb right through my clothing, my teeth shake inside my head until it feels they might fall out; my hands freeze to the axe and I almost chop my foot off six times as the fog creeps in from around my thoughts. 

I laugh and laugh and laugh and it laughs too, howling and wailing at my ears until there’s no sound and all until I kick in my door and stagger in and light the fire that puts things back into the world.

Oh, that was a close one. It nearly had me today, it did.  Oh it nearly had me today. 

***

I go walking.  The wind walks with me. 

We talk as we go, about aimless things.  Fancies and flights and hopes and dreams and imaginary frivolities.  I remember the last time I had hot chocolate.  It whispers about the drifts it pushes under trees and into thickets, where the deer are hiding from it.  I tell it about the time when all this was green, and it laughs at me until my cheeks are numb and white from grinning into it. 

The wind knows all this was white before it was green, and it will be again, and again, and again.  It proves its point when I fall waist-deep into it, am smothered in it, nearly drowned in its leavings, a heaped-up mound that covered a dimple in the path and created a sinkhole that would make quicksand blush. 

I dig myself out with my fingers and my guts and my heat and as I pull myself up my the roots and branches at closest grasp I shake someone’s hand. 

It’s strange to feel that.  It’s not at all like mine feels. 

Oh, and there’s a wrist and a palm and an arm and an elbow and a whole body with a face, a human face!

How surprising. 

The wind is surprised by this too, and it mutters itself into astonished silence the whole way home. 

I bring the human.  It’s something new.  I don’t know how to feel about something new.  Maybe further examination will tell me. 

***

The human wakes up after three days.  It makes noises at me with its mouth and its hands and its eyes.  I think it’s trying to communicate with me. 

I talk to it back.  I’m not sure it understands.  The fur above its eyes bunches when I talk. 

Instead, we eat.  It’s very grateful for the soup. 

The wind is annoyed with me for missing our talk today, but it’s a slow day.  It always gets irksome on the slow days.  I leave it to fuss and play with its drifts, pushing them hither and thither and piling them up thick and tall against the windows until it’s not fierce and sure white anymore but a soft comfortable grey that puts the whole world to sleep.

When I wake up, the human has made some sort of tea. 

It’s not hot chocolate, but boy is it close.  I thank it.  It doesn’t understand, but it understands.  I don’t understand it myself. 

***

The next day the human follows me out when I chop wood.  I wield the axe and it stacks the logs and we make faster work than before and we’re set and done before I’ve even lost track of all my fingers.  The wind is howling hard, but it can’t outrace us, and I chuckle a little at its discomfort.  It kicks snow at us as we scurry back inside, and I think the murmuring is excessively petulant as we feed the fire back up to a snarling height. 

The human conscripts some scraps and snarls of old torn bedding I’d thrown away and begins to incorporate them into its clothing.  It works with thread, makes new patterns out of nothing, turns openings into closings.

It hums as it works.  It’s a quite quiet sound.  The wind is very loud.

But I can hear it all the same. 

***

I wake up because something heavy and cold has fallen on me and it’s the roof, and when I try to move I realize it’s also a tree.

The wind has grown irate with me, it seems. 

I talk to it, I complain at it.  I even whine.  But it’s not listening, it’s not talking, it’s just yelling and ranting and howling to itself now. 

I thought we were friends! 
I really, really thought we were friends. 

Well, not friends.  On speaking terms, at least. 

The human digs me out.  The human pulls me out.  The human drags me to the unburied corner of the house and as luck would have it that’s the corner with the fireplace, so bit by bit all the feeling creeps back into me and I can feel my face again. 

I say ‘thank you,’ with it.

It shocks both of us so much we don’t dare say anything until we fall asleep. 

***

The wind is in my dreams.

It stands outside the door and scrapes against it with paws made of hail and sleet and snow, its voice almost silent.  It is angry with me, it’s so very angry with me, that I am not paying attention.  And I try, and I try, and I try, and I try, but I just can’t hear the words. 

The wind breaks the door in and starts gnawing on my foot.  I kick it.  The wind grunts and huffs and shuffles off and turns into a bear and I wake up and watch the bear leave.

Oh.

The fire is out.  The door is shattered.  And judging by the oodles of bear tracks, it finished off the potatoes before it investigated my foot. 

The house is no longer livable, and I’m only alive because the human and me turned each other into pillows in the middle of the night. 

It’s time to go. 

***

Sixteen miles past the edge of my world and the snowdrifts get deeper.  The crust grows more uneven.  Even the snowshoes the human bent together from tired pine boughs founder and stick.

The wind is most unhappy.

I don’t understand it now, in more ways than one.  First it wanted me dead, now it wants me to stay?  We shared so many stories together, we shared so many days together, I saw so much of me and it so much of I and nothing I saw would make it want to do this, any of this.

I wonder what it thought it saw in me?

I fall in another drift and that distracts us for a while longer. 

***

Nightfall comes, and with it comes the white-in-the-black, the wall of frozen water that comes in hard and fast and furious, without mercy.  We dig into a drift, then dig out an airhole, then dig it out again, and again, and again.  The whole world is trying to bury us at the wind’s behest. 

We are very good diggers, me and the human.  But we are not an entire world. 

So I pat them on their shoulder, and I take their hand and squeeze it, as if I were trying to warm them, and I start walking. 

The wind’s roaring like a lion now.  All brag and boast.  It’s won, it’s won, it’s won. 

And then it dies down, to a soft murmur again, all familiar and softness.  Whispering to my ears, trying to tell me of things very far away that it’s seen and done and been and I can’t understand any of it, not one word.

Not since I’ve been listening to the human.

The human.

Oh. 

It didn’t want to kill ME.

***

Oh it rages when I turn around.  Oh how it shakes and rattles at my bones.  But I know it’s bluffing now, it’s baring empty teeth at me, and I find the snowed-in shelter before it’s vanished entire and dig through before the air runs out.

The human isn’t moving.  It’s probably very tired. 

So I pick them up.  They’re heaving, and they’re bulky, but so is a sack of potatoes. 

One foot, two foot, one foot, two foot. 

Oh how the wind is screaming!

One foot, two foot, one foot, two foot. 

I can’t understand it at all.  What a shame.  What an awful shame. 

***

It’s a one foot that makes the first mark in the white. 

A dark smudge left behind in my bootmarks. 

The two foot follows.

And then it gets deeper.

And deeper.

And deeper.

Soil is coming through.  Soil and mud are clotting up my bootprints, melting up into the snow. 

The wind is spitting mad now, but it’s spit.  It’s froth.  Sleet at best, wet and nasty against my face. 

And then one foot two foot one foot two foot and I’m through, and it’s through, and I’m standing up to my ankles in mud and slush and the sky is a painfully normal blue, with a drunkenly bright sun, and there are birds calling again like I haven’t heard them in.

Ever?

No, that’s not right. 

I’ve been here before. 

Yes, I’ve been here before.  A lot. 

I turn around and look at my footsteps.  Look at the green sprouting softly out of the cold and into the warm.  I flex my fingers, feel the numbness long gone. 

I breathe deep, and when I exhale, the trees bud. 

Oh.

Oh.

Well. 

A naughty thing to do, that wind.  To lull me to sleep for so long.

But spring is here now.  I am here, by the flow and churn of the overfed creeks, by the hot sun and the dying gales.  I am here and the animals are moving again.

I hope that bear enjoyed the potatoes.

I hope that human is alright.  They seem warm enough.  Such a long trip they made to find me, there away from everything, all by myself. 

So I make them a pillow of moss, and a blanket of ferns, and I sit in the rising sun and wait and listen to the long-lost ghostly trembling echoes of the wind. 

The town had never never seen the sun.  If you don’t know it exists, you can’t miss it.  It was so. 

They saw pressure, and smelt darkness, and the soft rain of little fragmented things from above.  They moved ponderously, and with great care.  Ooze squelched under their heavy metal feet.

They were the anchorpeople, and they lived at rock bottom.  It was a good place to be because it was the only place to be. 

***

Manners came easily to the anchorpeople.  Their lives were tightly interwoven in their little community, and their pace could neither slow nor speed itself.  Neighbours would pass each other by over the course of many hours, and there were invisible layers of courtesy that they put on like clothing every time they had company. 

They did not put on clothing.  Anchorpeople did not have clothing. 

“Hello,” they would signal through waves of pressure and charm.  “Greetings,” they would say.  “How are you?  I myself am fine.  I have been fine recently.  All is well.  All is good.  It is a fine thing to be, at rock bottom.  Do you believe so as well?  Yes, that’s what I thought, what I thought, what I knew.”

And so on and so forth. 

All the anchorpeople had these conversations very carefully enmeshed in their heads from beginning to end, because you never knew when you would be talking to someone and they would be lifted away forever and you would have to finish the conversation by yourself.  It was very embarrassing to lose track of yourself when you were talking to yourself.  Embarrassment was unpleasant, and to be avoided.

“Why do people get lifted away forever?” asked the newest anchorperson, who was very small still and had just seen that happen in person for the first time. 

“It just happens,” said her mother. 

“Will it happen to me?”
“Oh, probably not for a while.”
“Oh,” said the newest anchorperson.  She looked up out of rock bottom and wondered where ‘away’ was, and if her friend was enjoying himself there, and so she asked about it.

“Pardon?”
“What’s ‘away’ like?” repeated the newest anchorperson. 

“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother, who was very much telling the truth. 

“Is it different from rock bottom?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother.  “I’m not sure I understand at all.”

***

A while later the newest anchorperson’s mother was lifted away forever and she had to get a new mother again. 

“It happens,” said her mother. 

“Yes,” said the newest anchorperson.  “Do you think she’s happy in ‘away’?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother.  And she too was very much telling the truth. 

This distressed the newest anchorperson, because she didn’t understand either and she wanted answers that nobody seemed to have.  It was confusing and uncertain and frightening. 

So she did what all anchorpeople did and fidgeted with her cable.  It spun and knitted and twined in her fingers into the many many patterns that a cable could form; half-knots and maybe-twirls and loops and loops and whoops.

The newest anchorperson had been a bit too nervous, and had made a real knot.  She swore some anchorpeople swears and untangled it until she’d stuck her fingers in it too and had to call her mother for help.

Her mother helped.  And while she watched, the newest anchorperson thought about how vexing it was to be stuck fast. 

That wasn’t the idea.  The idea popped into her head later, when she was about to fall asleep.  But it was probably where it had come from. 

***

“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother.  “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother.  And she helped her out, though it took a bit. 

“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother.  “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother.  And she helped her out, though it took a bit longer. 

“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother.  “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother.  And she helped her out, though it took a bit longer still. 

“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother.  “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother.  And she helped her out, though it took a good long time to fix. 

“You really should be more careful, dear,” she told the newest anchorperson reproachfully. 

“Sorry,” said the newest anchorperson.  And this was her first lie, which was a very important part of growing up that nobody ever talked about and was to be admired. 

The newest anchorperson had a plan.  She had a plan and a cable, and that was all she needed.  And a good thing too, because she didn’t have time to test her sixth knot before she felt something she’d never imagined before. 

A tug.  A long, slow tug on her cable. 

***

The newest anchorperson’s fingers were greased lightning these days.  And she was so rushed, she didn’t even have time to worry before the knot was done. 

She took a deep, long breath of cold smooth water. 

“Help!” she called.  “I’ve tied myself up again!”

“Oh dear,” said her mother.  And she hurried over at her anchorperson’s pace and she helped out.  Which, unfortunately, involved helping in.

“Oh dear,” said her mother.  “How did you manage this?”  The two of them were quite tied together now, in an awkward sort of meshed mush that tangled their cables. 

“I’m not quite sure,” said the newest anchorperson, which was either her second lie or just part of the first one depending on how you counted them.  “Help!” she called to their neighbour.  “We’re tied together!”

“Oh dear,” said the neighbour.  And she hurried over as fast as she could and tugged and pulled and carefully tied herself to them.  “Oh very very dear.”
“Help!” called the newest anchorperson. 

“Help!” called her mother. 
“Help!” called their neighbour. 

“Help!”

“Help!”

“Help!”
“Please!”

Manners came easily to the anchorpeople of rock bottom.  And one by one, so they came, and one by one, so it went.  It brought the whole place closer together than ever before. 

“Help!” called the oldest anchorperson.  “That’s funny.  No one is helping.”
“I think we’re all here,” said the newest anchorperson’s mother.

“So we are,” said the newest anchorperson.  The tug had grown stronger and stronger with every addition to the knot, and now all of rock bottom was there, stuck fast.  Her cable was singing through the water now, tension pulsing like a deep current. 

“What can we do about this now?” asked their neighbour. 

The newest anchorperson’s cable twanged three times, each impossibly stronger than the last, and went slack. 

“Oh!” she said. 

“What happened?” asked her mother. 

“I’m not sure,” she said. 

They were still trying to figure out the knot four hours later when the boat fell on them. 

***

“What is this?” asked the oldest anchorperson. 

“I’m not sure I understand,” confessed the newest anchorperson’s mother. 

“I’m not sure I understand,” admitted her neighbour. 

“I understand,” said the newest anchorperson.  “It’s from ‘away.’  This is something from ‘away.’  It’s not from rock bottom.”

“Oh,” said the anchorpeople.  “Oh.  Oh!”

And they thought about what that meant. 

“There are other places?” someone asked. 

“There must be,” said another. 

“And other people,” concluded a third. 

“Could we see them?”

“I don’t see why not.”
“Why did we stay here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh!”
“What was that?”
“My cable.  It tugged.”

“Well, there’s no sense in letting it take you.  Let’s go now.”
“Yes.  Let’s.”

***

The town had never never seen the sun.  It had been rock bottom, once upon a time. 

Now it was empty. 

The anchorpeople did not live there anymore.  They didn’t know where to live anymore. 

But they were figuring out how to live, so they didn’t mind. 

At age nine, Eddie Bifteck had no patience for other children.  They didn’t know what the hell they were doing; they all wanted to be veterinarians or astronauts or some other nonsense like that. 

Eddie knew what he wanted and he knew what he wanted was the only thing that mattered: Eddie Bifteck wanted to be a space marine. 

He knew there wasn’t any water in space, so the name confused him a little, but he didn’t let that stop him.  Because that was the kind of attitude a space marine needed. 

“Space marines aren’t real, honey,” his father kindly told him many times over in an effort to crush his hopes and dreams and undoubtedly lead to doom for all mankind.  Eddie forgave his treason against the species, but ignored him all the same. 

The dream was bigger than them both. 

So he worked on it.  He he pumped weights all the way through middle school; he lied on career aspiration surveys all the way through high school; he graduated with barely any time spent on science or math or anything else but he paid a lot of attention to anything with astronomy and spent all his free time at his uncle’s gun range firing things in ways that probably weren’t legal and practicing retrieving ammo under fire which was definitely not legal and sometimes pretending the other patrons at the range were treasonous scum and fantasizing about executing them to the rapturous applause of a planetary tribunal, which wasn’t exactly illegal but was the sort of thing people didn’t like to hear. 

That was what Eddie wanted.  To do the things people didn’t want to do, for the reasons they didn’t like. 

Because that was the kind of thing space marines did. 

***

“You’ll have to go to college, sport,” said Eddie’s father warmly.  

And Eddie did, but only to enter in debate clubs and argue ferociously for the necessity of exploding rocket bullets as mandatory equipment on all expeditions outside Earth’s atmosphere.  He honed his arguments to killing points of lethal sharpness based on an unorthodox technique he called ‘no, that’s treasonous.’ 

“This sounds a little excessive,” his opponent said. 

“No, that’s treasonous,’ said Eddie, shrewdly. 

“What?”
“You heard me.” 

And that worked very well until the last debate of his first year, when he was arguing against a particularly wily and cold-eyed classmate. 

“Your idea is preposterous and useless,” she told him. 

“No, that’s treasonous,” said Eddie, advancing confidently. 

“Putting the propellant in the gun AND the missile itself is pointless,” she continued. 

“No, that’s treasonous,” said Eddie, pressing his advantage. 

“One struggles to find the right words to describe the sheer amount of wastage and excess this concept represents,” she said.  “What would you call it?  ‘Deliberate self-sabotage in a manner best fit to destroy the entity enacting it from within?’”

“No, that’s treasonous,” said Eddie, sensing victory within his grasp, and then he realized what he’d just said and burst into screaming tears with lots of snot. 

***

Eddie graduated with a degree in accounting and applied for a job at NASA. 

“Can you do math?” they asked him. 
“No,” he said. 

“Can you fly rockets?”
“No.”
“Can you run software?”
“No.”
“Can you assemble impossibly delicate and complex machines?”
“No.”
“What CAN you do?”
“I can fire a gun and reload it and will never surrender against any threat assailing our species from the stars, fighting to my last breath.”

NASA said they’d call him back and never did.  

Eddie applied for a job at a private space launch company instead. 

“Can you do math?” their interviewer asked him. 
“No,” he said. 

 “Can you fly rockets?”
“No.”
“Can you run software?”
“No.”
“Can you assemble impossibly delicate and complex machines?”
“No.”
“What CAN you do?”
“Annihilate the aliens that seek to destroy us all,” he said. 

“We’ll get back to you,” said the interviewer.

Eddie realized he had to take matters into his own hands and started with the matter of the interviewer. 

“Take me to the spaceship,” he told them through a gentle chokehold.  “There is empty space to guard.”

***

Liftoff was less tricky than anyone had told Eddie, which made sense to him.  You just pressed buttons and hey he was in orbit. 

Good, but not good enough.

“The aliens will take over the moon before they assault Earth,” he explained to ground control, “so I need to guard there first.  Which is why you need to send me there.”
“The spaceship isn’t designed for that, Eddie,” said ground control.  “Eddie, we have your father here.  We have your teachers here.  We have your uncle here – which took some doing, because he was in a supermax prison.  We’d have your childhood friends but we can’t find any.  Eddie, won’t you come home?”

“I’m doing this for them, and for home,” said Eddie stoically.  He was surrounded by those that lacked vision and courage and spine and honor and some other stuff he couldn’t think of.  “If men like me don’t stand guard over the sheep then the sheep don’t have watchdogs and they get eaten by wolfdogs and that’s bad and I’m great and whatever or something.  Point me at the moon.”
They pointed him at the touchdown site, which almost worked until he saw through their cunning stratagem. 

Fine.  He’d do it himself. 

***

Any landing you could walk away from was good, Eddie knew.  So this was at least 50% good. 

“Aaargh,” he gargled heroically to Earth.  “I’ve aaargh taken up ooooeeurgh offensive ouch ouch ouch positions in a defensive owwwww emplacement in the rubble of the main cockpit.  For the first time in Earth’s jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeSUS history it is secured against threats extraterrestrial and insidious.  Anyone that travels dozens of lightyears across the nightmarish emptiness of the void to attack you will have to go through me first.  I did this all for you, for all of you, except for those of you that tried to stop me because you’re all traitors seeking to subvert and destroy our species.”

“Eddie, buddy,” sobbed his dad over the radio, “please, special boy, what led you to do this?  Why couldn’t you stay here and be happy?  What put this idea in your head?  Why are you dying on the moon?  That last one’s the most relevant right now the rest are rhetorical.”
“Because,” said Eddie, as he prepared to straighten his right leg out, “that’s what space marines do.”

Eddie straightened his right leg out. 

“OooooohSHIT,” he confirmed, and passed out for six hours, which is pretty bad when you have two hours of air left in your tanks.

***

When the Betelgeuser archaeologists showed up thirty million years later, he was the only human they met in person.  A small shrine was built around him to commemorate the occasion, admiring that the alien who had expired so far from air and warmth had done so with his hand outflung and outstretched towards the stars in the spirit of universal brotherhood, reaching out with an open mind and optimistic soul to the hope of finding aid in a seemingly uncaring and empty universe.

It was all very heartfelt and they never found a history book that could tell them otherwise.  

Ding.

Janice knew that doorbell better than the voice of her own mother.  It was bright and loud and cheery and a pleasure to hear – as if what it signified wasn’t a pleasure enough in and of itself. 

A new guest!  A new visitor seeking shelter from the storm of the world under the generous boughs of wow that metaphor had gotten away from her but yes, a guest!  A guest!  A guest!

“Welcome!” she said happily as the guest hurried in out of the rain.  “How can we assi-”

“Room for the night, door with a good lock, don’t ask questions,” said the guest, hurriedly brushing unmentionable fluids off her trenchcoat with one hand and clamping the other over an oozing tear in her left arm. 

“Certainly, ma’am!  Is that a gun in your pocket?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”
Janice’s eyes popped wide in shock.  “Of course not, ma’am!  I wouldn’t dream of forcing your privacy!  But we do have rooms with gun safes.”
“I need it on my person at all times.”
“Of course, of course, of course.  You’re in 48a, on the third floor.”  Janice smacked the bell and Toby came around the corner, eventually.  “Toby!  Please take this fine woman’s belongings upstairs for her.”
“I don’t have luggage.”
“Toby!  Please take this fine woman to her room.”
“I can find my own way.”
Janice put on her most concerned expression.  “Ma’am, the Highview Hotel & Hospitality is among the oldest buildings in the city, and its architecture can be a little…esoteri- oh she’s gone already.  Toby!  Go back to whatever it is you were doing.”
Toby saluted and lurched back to her corner.  Janice watched her go with suspicion: yes, she was a hard worker and never complained, but there was something ambiguously sarcastic about that.  A proper employee should feel some minor level of detectable hatred towards their boss; anything less was worrying. 

Ding.  Ding.  Ding ding ding ding ding. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Janice, spinning in place.  “Welcome!”
“About time,” said the guest.  “This place used to have some class.  When I was young your grandmother would have NEVER let a customer get as far as the first bell, let alone the second!  Sloppy.  Sloppy sloppy sloppy.  I knew you’d turn out this way, Janice Grace Fletcher, and I knew your mother would turn out that way too.  Idle!  Idle and superficial and unappreciative!  Oh your grandmother did her best, but you can’t teach those that won’t listen, let me tell you what, and your mother never listened to anyone but herself, and you – well, that’s the one thing you ever learned from anyone!  Ungrateful.  Ungrateful whelps squandering the hard work of your betters, the lot of you.  I’ve half a mind to never come here again but I owe it to your grandmother’s memory, my best friend, god rest her soul, never complained a day in her life even though a lesser woman would’ve stabbed you all to death in your sleep and called it justice.  She could’ve done it, too; she was a dab hand with a cleaver.  Lord that woman was the finest butcher in town, and did it while running a hotel full-time and raising the worst and most troublesome daughter ever created – at least, until YOU came along.”
“Will you be taking your usual room then, Ms. Hatskill?” asked Janice cheerfully. 
“Mrs.  My husband is dead but I’m not forgetting him, you insinuating, scheming little bitch.  The insolence, the sheer gall, the unmitigated bitchery of you.  Why I should claw your face off with hot pokers and call it mercy, the barbs and the taunts and the nastiness you give to me for nothing, you cold-hearted, vicious sack of pond scum in a dress.”
“And will you be having room service tomorrow morning?”
“Stop making fun of me!  I won’t have it.  I’ve done nothing to deserve this sort of treatment.  The eggs should be over easy.  I hate it when they aren’t.”
“Wonderful.  Toby!  Take Ms. Hatskill’s luggage upstairs.”
“I don’t trust that big lug with my belongings.”
Toby picked up Ms. Hatskill’s suitcase in one hand and Ms. Hatskill in the other and went upstairs, shuffling three steps at a time.  The staircase was creaking more than usual; Janice knew she’d have to look into that.  It would be expensive, but the last thing they needed was another Crash Tuesday.  Word of things like that tended to travel unpleasantly far and fast. 

Ding!

“Welcome!” she said.  What a woolgathering day it was.  “How can we assist you?”
“Room,” said what she was sure must be the guest because bears couldn’t talk. 

If they did, though, they’d probably sound like this.  Goodness, the poor thing was almost half as big as Toby. 

“Certainly!  For one night, or-”

“Number.”  One paw held up a blurred photo of a woman in a trenchcoat. 

“Oh!  You’re staying with her, then?  She didn’t mention a friend.”
“Not friends.”
“Oh my.  Well, lips are sealed!  We are very discreet in these matters, don’t fret.  Here’s a key, and have fun!”
“Yes.  Yes.  Fun.”

Ding!

Oh there’d been another guest somewhere behind the last.  A lineup!  An actual, honest to goodness lineup, here at the Highview Hotel & Hospitality!  It had been years since she’d seen the like, when that comic convention had come to town.  “Welcome!”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to hit the bell,” said the man, who would’ve probably been invisible behind even an average guest.  His extraordinarily bald head gleamed at chest height.  “Reflex.  I travel a lot.”
“Oh that’s perfectly fine, don’t fret.  It’s like an old friend to me.  Now, what will you be needing?”
“Room for the night, please.  A suite, if one’s available.”

“Of course, of course, of course.”  Janice fished the key out of the drawer and flipped it into his hand with one motion.  “Toby!”

Toby took the last flight of stairs at a lunge, and the floor boomed.  “Please take this fine gentleman to 50a.”

Toby didn’t say a lot, but her eyebrows rose.   Still, she plucked the guest like an apple and was on her way before he could so much as ask questions. 

Well.  Well well well.  To think she’d have Milo York, famed hotel reviewer, under her roof!  No doubt trying to review incognito, clever thing.  But Janice had a good eye for receding hairlines, and there was no disguising that dome, no matter the tricks. 

Ding!

“Welcome!” she said, and she meant it even more than usual.  What a busy evening this was. 

“Hello,” said the police officer.  “Ma’am, we have some questions for you.  Do you recognize either of these women?”
Janice peered closely at the photos.  “Why, they’re in 48a!  Don’t tell me you’re staying there too?  It’s only got one bed.  Well, not that there’s anything wrong with that sort of-”

“Ma’am it’s a matter of life and death.  Give me the keys.”

“Oh!  Oh my.  Here you go.”
The officer nodded and hurried up the stairs.  Maybe they should get an elevator at last, budget permitting.  Life and death!  How exciting.

Ding!

“Welcome!”  Oh, it was a couple.  How cute.  They were holding each other’s hands and everything oh goodness. 

“Overnight, please,” they said as one. 

“Certainly!  Here’s 47c.  It’s a suite, and if you need room service, don’t hesitate to leave word.”

“We are joyous,” they intoned.  “Praise be matter.  Praise be flesh.”
“Indeed, thank you,” said Janice.  Religious types.  Well, it took all kinds.  “If you’ll wait a moment, Toby can take your luggage.”
“We travel unburdened of all inorganic material,” they told her.  “Our weight is in our minds, ponderous and immortal, our minds are in our bodies, renewed and everconsuming.  We go now.”
They went then. 

Hmm.  Toby wasn’t getting much of a workout tonight.  Janice hoped she wouldn’t grow fat and lazy.  Who would put the guests in their rooms?  Who would bring room service?  Who would pick up suitcases?  Who would shovel?  Her hands were too soft and small for such brute work. 

Bong.  Bong.  Bong.

Oh dear.

The front desk phone was NOT the desk bell.  It was solemn and deep and foreboding and it usually meant someone was unhappy.  Unhappy enough to do something about it, no less, which was a real problem.  In Janice’s experience, most unhappiness was happy enough to make you sit and sulk. 

“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’

“My breakfast is late.”
“It’s 7:30 PM, Ms. Hatskill.”
“Who do you think you are, to dictate to me when I can and can’t take breakfast, you insolent little guttersnipe?”
“Well, normally you prefer it at 8:03 PM sharp.”
“Oh, so now I’m bound by tradition?  I’m rigid and unimaginative?  I’m predictable and boring?  Is there no end to your rudeness?  Get me the usual and make it happen in six minutes or I’m phoning all my friends to tell them EXACTLY what kind of granddaughter poor Eugenia ended up with.”
“Understood perfectly, Ms. Hatskill,” said Janice, and she hung up. 

Well now.  That could make things more difficult. 

Bong.  Bong.  Bong. 

Oh dear. 

“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’

“We are troubled.” 

Janice took a deep breath and ignored the trembles in her hand.  “We’re very sorry to hear that.  What seems to be the problem?”
“There are loud noises from the room next door.”
Oh.  Oh MY. 

“Oh dear.  I’m sorry to hear that.  We’ll send Toby up to ask them to keep it down.  There’s a time and a place for fun, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of consideration for others.”

“There is great violence.”
“It’s not my place to judge, sorry,” said Janice.  “We’ll get right on that.  Goodbye.”
She hung up and felt her worry curdling into annoyance.  The nerve of some people.  Yes, there was such a thing as being too noisy, but it was none of their business what others did in the bedroom beyond its volume.  Honestly. 

“Toby!” she called. 

There was a thump, and thud, and a crash, and Toby emerged through the nearest wall. 

“Oh not AGAIN.  Stop doing that!”
Toby regarded her with bland and totally false obedience. 

“Oh, fine.  Could you please stop by 48a and politely ask them to be a little quieter?  Be apologetic about it; it’s not really their fault that they’re next door to a couple of prudish preachers.  If they complain again we’ll just move the whiners.”

Toby indicated her understanding and backed through the wall.  Sometimes Janice wasn’t quite sure how she managed to get around the building without using the staircases, but it certainly was faster, so she tried not to pry. 

Bong. 

Bong. 

Bong.

Janice breathed.  It took some remembering, but she got there.  By the skin of her teeth. 

“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’

“There’s… noises.  Coming from the closet.”
Janice prided herself on her professionalism.  She prided herself on her tight control of her temper.  But she’d had to deal with Ms. Hatskill and three separate instances of the front desk phone that night, and she had real, human limits. 

And besides, it wasn’t as if exceeding them produced real problems.  She just got a little short, that was all. 

“It’s fine,” she said.  “Nothing major.  Don’t make sudden movements or feed it.  Goodnight, Mr. York.”
“What?  But-”

Janice hung up.  She was in no mood to tolerate Milo York’s feeble attempts at pretending he was someone else. 

Bong bong bong “oh FUCK OFF.”
“Language!  Your grandmother never swore a day in her life, not even the day her heartless bloodless whore of a daughter told her she’d taken up with a lout of a tramp and had already gotten pregnant out of wedlock, god rest her vile devil-spawned soul.  I should expect such things from you, coming from sin as you did, but there’s no forgiveness for not at least trying to rise above your filthy origins, and I don’t deserve to hear such horrible things.”

“How can we help you,” said Janice. 

“My breakfast is late.”
“It’s been three minutes.”
“What has service come to if it’s not early.  The early bird gets the worm, we all know that, but do they ever tell the children these days what happens to the late bird?  It starves.  It starves and it deserves it, for its sloth, for its indolence, for its ingratitude for the joy of hard, harsh work scraping its soul clean of vile laziness and mortal frailty.  Labour is the wire brush of eternity, I tell you what, and I’ll tell you again and again until it finally sticks, even if your mother never ever listened to me a day in her life.  Nobody’s beyond reach, you know, not even-”

“Fuck off,” said Janice.  “Fuck off fuck off fuck off fuck off fuck offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff” and she hung up and felt very happy again for the first time since she’d heard the front desk phone ring. 

Toby wasn’t back yet.  She hoped the guests were being tractable; Toby could be quite diplomatic when she had to be, but she was in no mood for more difficulties. 

An unearthly screech came from the stairs, followed immediately by the two guests from 47c, grown vast and wormlike, undulating bonelessly from step to step and singing through their six mouths and watching with their twelve eyes and taking great steaming breathes through their single cavernous nostril that seemed to swallow light and choke the air to death with every inhalation. 

“Hello!” said Janice.  “What seems to be the problem?”
THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS

IN

THE

SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS

WALLS

“I’ve sent Toby upstairs to ask them to keep it down, so if you could please calm yourself, I promise it will all be fine again shortly.  We apologize for the inconvenience.”
The guests slid over to the front desk, flowed themselves into a pillar of molten flesh that stretched up to the ceiling, and gaped wide their primary jaws before Toby fell through the ceiling covered in burning oil and landed directly on top of them. 

“Thank you, Toby,” said Janice.  “Oh dear.  Those ladies are playing rough, eh?”
Toby nodded as she carefully extinguished each fire with her palm, one after another, making little hamburger hissing noises. 

“Well, I think we don’t have to worry about warning them off again, now that this is sorted.  Be a dear and dig a new plot out back, will you?”  She tilted her head a little and listened through the gap in the ceiling.  “Or maybe two.  Just in case.  My word that is a LOT of gunfire.”

Bong.  Bong.  Bong. 

“One moment.  Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?”

“The door won’t open.”
Janice sighed.  “Mr. York, the key turns counter-clockwise until it clicks.  It’s a very loud click, you’ll know it when you-”

“It’s gone.  The door is gone.  The door is gone and the floor’s going next.  It’s just..nothing.  There’s nothing there.  Where the hell have you put me?  What is this?”

“Mr. York… did you feed it?”
“What?”
“The voice from the closet.”
“It said if I didn’t it would come out!”
“Well, it was lying to you, Mr. York.  I warned you.  Goodbye.”
“Wai-”

Janice hung up and sighed, bone-deep, soul-hard.  “Make that three plots, Toby.”
Bong.  Bong.  Bong.

“Front d-”

“Still no breakfast, no matter how nicely I ask, no matter how-”

“Four plots, Toby,” said Janice. 

Toby raised all of her eyebrows. 

“Yes, I know I’ve been optimistic about this before,” said Janice.  She reached into the door next to the room keys and felt around for a handle, notched and battle-worn.  “But eighth time’s the charm, right?”

Toby raised all of her other eyebrows. 

“Try, try again?”
Toby’s eyebrows did a complicated little dance. 

“Oh, come off it.  Go dig some graves and wish me luck.  Fuck, I hate the busy season.”

“Like taking candy from a baby,” Maurice said with satisfaction, as the ranger’s jeep slid around a corner and out of sight. 

“What?” I asked.  “He pulled us over, checked our day passes, and waved us on.  We didn’t exactly have to lie here.”
“He asked if we were here for business or pleasure and we told him it was a vacation,” said Maurice, his beard bristling smugly. 

“Oh whatever,” I said.  There was no arguing with him when he was like this.  Determined to be happy about something. 

***

The site had been well-chosen: tucked around three quiet bends and at the farthest end of a no-canoeing lake.  No traffic.  No witnesses.

Thank god there were no witnesses.

“Do you HAVE to wear that thing?”

Maurice swept a hand over his… garment.  “I’m the host!  The narrator!  People expect a certain level of personality.”
“That’s not a personality, that’s the visual equivalent of a psychotic break from reality.  My god, my eyes hurt even when I’m not looking at it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”
“Even the BUTTONS clash, that’s what’s wrong with it.”  Puce and peppermint swirl should not mix. 

“Oh, fie.  Now are you ready?”
“Fine.”
“Steady?”

“Sure.”
“And… go!”
I flipped the switch on the camera and Maurice’s smile got even wider.  It almost made it out of his beard. 

“Welcome to the private lives of North American lake monsters.  Today we’ll be taking a look at that most reclusive of species: Dermapteracetacea ogopogo – or, as it’s more commonly known, the ‘pogo.  Originally and famously known from Okanagan Lake, the ‘pogos are the largest living animals known to live in the continent.  Assuming, of course, that you can find them.  Today, we’re here at Lake – edit in this thing’s name in post – to do just that.  Cut.”
I turned off the camera.  “Really?  Already making work for me?”
“Oh it’ll be fine, we can run that last line over panning footage of the lake.  Now let’s get the canoe cracking.”

“We’re going canoeing on a backwoods lake you don’t even know the name of?”
“It’s safe, it’s safe, it’s safe.  They wouldn’t let people go back here if it wasn’t safe.”

“We’re trying to get footage of a lake monster.”
“And that’s perfectly safe so long as you don’t agitate it!  Very peaceable creatures, ‘pogos.  We’re far too small and bony to be in their prey range.  Now, if we were mooses, that’d be another story.”

“Moose,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“The plural of moose is moose.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, who’s the documentary host here you or me?  Now put these oars away and help me get this stupid canoe off the car.”
“Paddles.”
“Whatever.”

“This,” I said, “is exactly why we stopped dating.”

***

It was a nice lake, I had to admit.  Still, deep, heavily-wooded.  You could almost hear the air breathe it was so quiet. 

“Lake – fix it in post – is typical of ‘pogo habitat: deep, stagnant waters.  The lack of oxygen at the bottom, which would choke any organism with gills, is of no account to the air-breathing ‘pogo, providing it with a quiet, empty place to spend its days in serene solitude.  When it isn’t eating, it’s dreaming.  Cut.  Tom, you’re not aiming the camera at my face properly.”

“I’m paddling,” I said.

“Can’t you do that one-handed?”
“No.”
“Just let us drift then.  Come on.  Time is money.”
“We’ve never sold a single copy of this stuff.”
“And the public thanks us for providing them with quality scientific information free of charge!  Now pick up that camera and get a nice long panning shot of Lake whatsitsname.”

I sighed, but I also did what I was told.  Character flaw.

“In modern times, lakes like these have acquired another valuable trait for ‘pogos: they are obscure, and as such protect them from illicit hands.  The organs of a ‘pogo are worth very nearly their weight in gold, which, considering the animal’s size, is quite something.  A single successful hunt can let a poacher team retire for life.  Here, in the backwaters of national parks, under legal protection and the blanket of obscurity, are one of the last refuges of these gentle giants.  Cut, let’s break out the hydrosonic thingy.”

The hydrosonic thingy was broken out.  It looked like a headset wrapped in six layers of waterproof plastic and it was exactly that.  Maurice tossed it overboard with a merry splosh. 

“How deep do we place it?” I asked. 

“Until you hit bottom, then a little back.”
“Right.  How deep is this lake?”
“How should I know?”
“Did you plan ANYTHING about this trip?  Jesus, are there even any lake monsters here?”

Maurice looked affronted.  “Certainly!  Probably.  It’s worth a shot.  Have a listen on the hydrosonic thingy.”

I switched it on.  Nothing but the low slow gurgle of water. 

“It could be dreaming,” said Maurice.  “They’re quiet when they dream.”
“Maurice,” I said, conveying as much hatred and menace as I could manage in that name, “this was my first weekend off in four months.”

“Yes, and-”

“And you said you’d planned everything.”
“From a certain-”

“And that it wouldn’t be like last time.”
“Well –”

“And that we’d be getting paid.”

“Public recognition and exposure are-”

“I quit,” I said. 

“I – you what?”

“I quit.  I quit, I quit.  I quit.  I quit.  I quit quit quit quit.”  I picked up the paddles and began to heave back to shore.  “I’m getting out and I’m putting this away and I’m driving back home and if you want to come that’s fine but if you’d rather stay here I’m not stopping you.  We’re six last straws deep and that’s more than enough for any human being to bear.”
“Wait-”

“Nope.  Not waiting.”
“Liste-”

“Not listening.  Not being reasonable, not going to sit and listen to you go on and on and ON god this is EXACTLY why we broke up, you never ever do anything but talk!  How’s it feel, huh?  How’s it feel to be talked over?”
“Look-”

“Not getting a word in edgewise?  Not getting a say in what’s said?  Oh, no wonder you wanted to be the narrator, it’s a chance to be the only voice making any noise!  Just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!”

The canoe touched land, and as I turned to face it the soft, buttery-shiny metal of a gun’s barrel gently kissed my nose. 

“Hey,” said the poacher, ten thousand miles away at the other end of the weapon.  “Please step out of the canoe, okay?  But maybe put your hands on your head first.”  Somewhere behind him four other men were heaving a heavy outboard off a trailer attached to an SUV, a nice homey vehicle that should’ve held a soccer mom and dad and two point five suburban spawn. 
“Alright,” I said.  Behind me, Maurice made an insufferably put-upon sigh.  “Are you going to shoot my friend?”
“Not if you shut up and do what you’re told.”

“No, I mean, please.  Please do that.”
“Excuse me?” asked Maurice.  “Nobody’s shooting anybody.  Or anything, for that matter.  Why do you think you can get away with this?  You can’t possibly smuggle a carcass that big past the rangers.”

“Well,” said the park ranger, stepping out of the SUV, “it all depends who’s asking.”

***

“You won’t get away with this,” said Maurice. 

The park ranger raised his eyebrows.  They’d given us the courtesy of not tying our hands, but that was a level of politeness you could afford when two separate guns were pointed at us from several large, plaid-clad men.  “You keep saying that.”
“It’s still true.”
“Haven’t explained how.”
“Well… you won’t get away with this.”
The park ranger sighed and looked at me.  “He always like this?”
“Yes.”

“Well, at least you won’t have to deal with it much longer,” he said, cheerily.  “Pat, kill the engine, we’re here.”
Middle of the lake.  Which, I realized, was pretty much where me and Maurice had been. 

“So there IS a ‘pogo here?” asked Maurice. 

“Yep,” said the ranger. 

“Well, that’s a surprise.  We couldn’t find anything.”
I blinked. 

“What?” asked the largest poacher, who was apparently Pat, from his position at the engine. 

“Not a single sound.  It was a promising site, but no dice.”
“There’s one here,” said the ranger. 

“Nope.  Not a sliver of a trace.”
“You’re full of shit,” said the ranger. 

“He’d better be,” said Pat.  “You said this was a confirmed sighting.”
“It is!”
“It is,” agreed Maurice.  “Sure thing for nothing.”
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, shut up,” said Pat.  “You have no idea how much money this kind of firepower costs. We’re not gonna be wasting our time here on anything less than a sure thing.”

“The hydrosonic thingy didn’t pick up so much as a sneeze,” said Maurice.  “If there was a ‘pogo here, it’s long gone.  That’s the trouble with relying on eyewitness accounts: they’re overeager.  Some folks’ll call any old log a lake monster sighting.”
“Shut up,” said Pat.  But there was doubt in it now. 
“They’re full of shit,” said the ranger. 

“Shut up,” repeated Pat.  “And you throw their hydrosonic thingy overboard.  Let’s make sure before we drop the depth charges.  I ain’t spending six grand of explosives on dead lakebottom.”

The ranger opened his mouth, saw something he didn’t like in Pat’s eyes, and did as he was told.  For the second time that day I watched the little plastic-wrapped, lead-weighted bundle sink with a splish. 

“I’m not hearing anything,” said one of the other poachers, fiddling with our receiver.  “Just gurgles.”

“You’ve got it set on broadcast, not receive,” said Maurice helpfully. 

“Shut up,” said the poacher.  But he flipped the lever anyways. 

Dead silence filled the air in a progressively ugly way. 

“So,” said Pat in the very casual way of someone so angry their teeth were eating each other.  “Sure thing, wasn’t it?”
The ranger’s hand twitched towards his belt.  The gun there looked a lot smaller than Pat’s rifle, although that could’ve been because the long gun was in the poacher’s hands already.  Amazing how much bigger weapons get when they’re aimed at you.  “It was,” he said.  “It is!”
“I’m not hearing anything.”
“Of course you’re not hearing anything!  They’re quiet!”
“Uh-huh.  This a sting?”
“No!  I’m in it as much as you are!

“For a promotion, more like.”
“I’m not!”
“Prove it.”
“I’ll shove them overboard myself,” said the ranger.  “We need the bait anyways.”
“Excuse me?” asked Maurice. 

“Shut up.  And that’s proving nothing if there’s nothing there to eat them.  Nah, you want to prove you’re in?”  Shoot ‘em first.”
“Excuse me?” asked Maurice. 

“Shut up!” shouted the ranger.  “Where the hell do you get off, listening to a couple of idiots over me!  I’ve put my goddamned career on the line for you morons, I planned this, and-”

“Excuse me,” said Maurice to me, “but please be very quiet.”

“Shut up!” yelled Pat.

“Shut up!” shouted the ranger.

“What?” I asked.

Then something the size of a freight train hit the boat and everything was very complicated for a while. 

***

It was easy to be quiet.  Everyone else was making so much noise for a while that all I had to do was tread water until the lake was smooth and placid again.  That, and try not to scream. 

“I thought,” I managed to get out as I pulled a lifejacket off what had once been a torso, “that you said they were peaceable creatures?”
“Oh they are,” said Maurice in all earnestness.  He’d already taken his own lifejacket off the ranger.  “Very harmless, wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Unless it woke them up, of course, which isn’t surprising when it got an earful of all that name-calling getting put on broadcast.  Quite ill-tempered when their dreams get interrupted, let me tell you.  Why do you think we used a canoe instead of something with a motor?”
“I thought you were just being cheap.”
“Well, it would also save on funeral costs, so in a manner of speaking, you were correct.  That outboard was my big hint that we were dealing with some profoundly ignorant characters – quite shameful in a park employee, too.  That’s the trouble with hunting prey that lets you retire after one harvest: nobody successful stays in the business long enough to teach the up-and-comers anything useful.  I certainly think they’ve learned their lesson.”

“Not going to do them much good like this,” I said.  More pieces were starting to bob their way to the surface. 

“Educational moments: created by the individual, enjoyed by the masses.  That’s exactly what a documentary is all about, Tom.  Do you think you could get some footage of this?”
“I dropped the camera.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Maurice. 

And there was another argument after that, but it was all in good spirits no matter how hot the language got.  It was amazing how determined to be happy a little sudden death could make you. 

Once upon a time there were three brothers: eldest, middle, and youngest.  Eldest was the best and youngest was the worst and middle was in-between.

“Eldest brother, can you go out and milk the cows for us?” their mother would ask him.  And he would do so immediately and did a good job, even if it cramped his hands and hunched his back. 

“Middle brother, can you go out and chop wood for us?” their father would ask him.  And he would say yes, and maybe he wouldn’t remember, but then his father would cough twice and say something about a dying fire and middle brother would rush out to the woodshed in such a hurry he’d forget his jacket before cutting enough firewood to set the house ablaze.

“Youngest brother, can you weed the crops?” their mother would ask him.  And he would say yes, but then never do it. 

One day, their parents called them all together to announce something very important.  “We are very, very old and will soon die,” they said to them.  “When we do, it’s of crucial importance that you follow these instructions exactly: go to our graves, thank your grandmothers and grandfathers, thank their grandmothers and grandfathers, and then promise to be good children.  Can you do that for us?”
Of course all three brothers vowed that they would do this.  And so their father and their mother both passed away peacefully. 

On that day eldest brother was the first to arrive at the tombstone, and he stood there and remembered their words.  “I thank my grandmothers and my grandfathers.  I thank their grandmothers and their grandfathers.  I promise to be a good child.”

Then he went home and slept peacefully.

Middle brother arrived a little late and out of breath from running – he’d nearly forgotten.  He almost fell over on his parents’ grave as he wheezed and gasped, but eventually he stood back upright, finished panting, and spoke. 

“I thank my grandmothers and my grandfathers.  I thank their grandmothers and their grandfathers.  I promise to be a good child.”

Then he went home, and it took him some time to drift off, but in the end he slept until past dawn. 

Youngest brother didn’t go at all because he had lied to his parents.  He stayed at home and ate a big supper and drank fine wine and toasted himself over and over and made no promises to anyone but himself and all of those promises were “I’ll have another glass, thank you!”

But as youngest brother drank long into the night his eyes hung heavy.  And try as he might, he couldn’t resist the pull of one more bite, one more sip, one more brag.  By the time he realized what was happening it was far too late: the night would never end.  Youngest brother was held fast in the iron hands of his own guilt, turning every second to a thousand hours, and he would never break free. His own oldest brothers found him the next morning, stone dead, and his body was that of a man twice the age of either of their parents. 

***

“Now,” asked the storyteller, “what have you children learned?”
“Mmmmm,” muttered the first child.  “Errr.  Uhm.  Lying is bad?”
“Close!  Anyone else?”
“Always keep your promises, especially to your family,” said the second child, sitting bolt upright and clear-eyed. 

“Well done!”
“I don’t think youngest brother deserved that,” said the third child.  “What kind of parent asks their children to make a promise that will kill them if they mess it up?”
“It’s a metaphor, third child,” said the storyteller.  “You can learn about those when you’re older.  Now, all three of you, this is your turn: try and make your own stories.  You’ve heard hundreds of mine, all teaching you very important things, and it’s time you showed what you learned!  Come back to this spot tomorrow with a story of your very own, and you can be storytellers too someday.”
“Do we HAVE to?” asked the third child.

“Shoo!” said the storyteller. 

So they left.

***

The next day was bright and beautiful.  Storyteller sat on a stump and smoked the storyteller’s pipe and thought on how fine and wonderful a thing it was, to tell stories and give guidance to the young.  And as the last ashes faded away from the pipe, on came the children: first, second, and third. 

“Ah, my storytellers-to-be have returned!  Now, sit down, sit down.  Tell me your tales.  You first!”
So the first child stood up and mumbled and coughed and began to speak. 

***

Once upon a day there was a dog.  And this dog was very good.  It was a great dog.  It liked to… to eat and to sleep.  But it wasn’t lazy!  It helped out a lot.  Around the house.  But in a dog way?  Because dogs don’t have hands.  He barked when people came to the door and things and anyways this dog was asleep once when a stranger came to the door, and he said hello to the people in the house, but they were asleep too because the dog was asleep so it didn’t bark and they didn’t hear him come in.  And he stole all their food and ate it in one bite.  So it was the dog’s fault.  But the dog knew she had to fix it and she chased after the man.  And bit him.  The dog bit him a whole lot.  And then uh. 

Uh. 

Uhh….

The man… gave back the food.

And the dog was happy so he went home and gave it to the people and it wasn’t the dog’s fault THE END.

***

“Well,” said the storyteller.  “That was pretty good.  Maybe a tiny bit… all-at-once, but very good.  Strong moral impulses.”

“Wait, how did the man give back the food if he ate it?” asked the third child. 

“Shush,” said the storyteller.  “Now, which of you will go next?”
“I will,” said the second child, upper lip stiffening visibly.

“Very good!  Go ahead, go ahead.”

So the second child stood up, ramrod-straight, coughed once very particularly, and spoke in clear, enunciated tones,

***

Once upon a time there were three brothers: oldest, in-between, and youngest.  Oldest was the best and littlest was the worst and in-between was neither.  Oldest brother would do as he was told, in-between would forget but do it anyways, and littlest would lie.

One day, their parents made them promise never to be rude or mean or nasty.  All three of them promised to do that, and littlest brother lied because he was evil.  But the other two brothers knew he lied, and so they took him and threw him off a cliff for being evil, and their parents were very happy with them. 

The moral of the story is that evil must be stopped at all costs.

***

“Oh.” said the storyteller.  “Well, that was very… clear.”

“Thank you,” said the second child.  “I wanted the moral to be very strong.”
“It’s moral to throw your brother off a cliff?” asked the third child. 

“Talk less about other people’s stories and more about your own,” said the storyteller.  “It’s your turn now.”

“Okaay,” said the third child.  And then the story began, without so much as standing up first. 

***

Once upon a time there were three children in a small village.  All three of them had parents that were very busy and needed to get lots of things done, so they sent them to work for the local blacksmith, pumping the forge.

Having all of those children working for him made the blacksmith feel mighty important.  He stood there at the forge smelting iron and forging tools and told himself over and over that the children were there because they wanted to be, because their parents wanted them to be, because he was the most important person in the village. 

“Truly,” he said, “nothing would get done around here without me!  On my shoulders this community lies!  I am here to teach all the value of hard work: with it, anything may be done!”  And he told himself this and things like it a dozen times a day, and the more he did, the more he ran the forge and the more tired the children got from working the big leathery bellows all day. 

One day, the first child didn’t come in, because they were sick from being exhausted pumping at the blacksmith’s forge. 

“Well, that just goes to show that some people don’t appreciate hard work!” said the blacksmith.  “You two are good children, and will pump harder!”

So they pumped harder.

The next day, the second child didn’t come in, because they were too tired to wake up after pumping at the blacksmith’s forge.

“Excuses, excuses!” said the blacksmith.  “You are the only one around here who’s paid PROPER attention to me.  Now you and I will get some things done!”
But the next day, the third child didn’t come in, because their hands were a blistered mess and their arms were strained from heaving the heavy bellows at the forge all day on their own, and the blacksmith had nobody to help him. 

“Well, that’s fine!” said the blacksmith.  “It’s normal for the industrious and earnest to suffer the slings and arrows of a lazy and needy community!  I shall shoulder my burden alone, as I am the only person who can get it done properly!”  So he took up his bellows himself, and heaved, and pumped. 

But the blacksmith had pulled the bellows so very little over the past few days that his arms were as thin as sticks, and it only wheezed onto the fires no matter how hard he tugged.  The only hot air that day was inside him, and by the time he went to bed it had all leaked out as he struggled and failed, leaving him a tiny little man as small outside as he was inside.

***

They sat there. 

“Did I do a good job?” asked the third child. 

“Buzz off, you little pissant,” said the storyteller. 

And so the children did, with confusion and frowns and big bright smiles. 

The storyteller refilled the storyteller’s pipe and smoked it down to the dregs four times over, looked at the big bright sky, and sighed. 

“I hate children.” 

Thez sat, surrounded by crinkled food wrappings, and watched a star die.

For the seven hundredth day in a row.

Proper days of course, not the star’s local system’s days.  All three of its planets had been tidally locked; fried crisp on one side and frozen solid on the other.  But those world’s days were long gone; the star’s bloating senescence had swallowed them up one after another and now it was the only thing left in its system, a terribly empty ball of gnawing, churning, dying fire. 

Very poetic AND very informative to the thousands of instruments that filled Thez’s ship.  But after seven hundred days of anything, the awe and the thunder of it always started to fade just a little, no matter how sincere your appreciation.

Thez, for instance, was only watching with two of her eyes.  Her third (installed on the back of her head on a dare in her student days) was preoccupied with some Sol system dramas playing on her personal journal, the real shitty kind with one thousand years of convoluted backstory and eight hundred characters, all of whom had sixty secrets each.

Lois Lane had just suspected that Clark Kent was Superman.  Thez’s toes curled in anticipation. 

“Proximity alert,” interjected the calm, neutral voice of her ship. 

Well, shit.  Had one of the others drifted a few tens of thousands of miles off course?  There were dozens and dozens of other vessels here to watch the fireworks; reality prospectors looking to make a quick buck from the torn seams of space and time the star’s corpse would leave; fellow scientists out to harvest some juicy thesis data or tweak a paper; tease-riders who were here to experience the sweet sweet agony of waiting for literal years for a proper BANG.  But most of them preferred to stay still and wait after their initial explorations for a proper observation post.

Maybe this was someone new. 

“Unauthorized docking,” commented her ship.  “Boarders arriving.”

Oh.  This was piracy. 

***

“I can’t believe she never noticed,” said the pirate for the sixteenth time. 

“He looks completely different when he’s Clark,” said Thez.
“Please.  It’s just posture and expression.  Same build.  Same face.  Same hair.”
“He styles it differently.”
“Oh like that matters.  Anyone can see it’s the same hair.”
“Lois can’t.”
“Because she’s an IDIOT.”
“She’s a reporter.”
“This is exactly why we have drones do news research.  This woman here.  Precisely her.”
“Well, I still like her.”
“You just think she’s hot.”
Thez drew herself up with all the dignity she could vaguely recall possessing at some point, possibly during graduation.  “Do NOT,” she said.

“Do so,” said the pirate.  She took a swig from one of Thez’s beverages, but she didn’t make any complaints.  There was still a gun pointed at her, however casually. 
“And anyways, you’re all over Clark.”
“Damn straight.  Boy’s a ten.”
“He’s gormless as a gutless fish!”
“All an act.”
“What, you want a liar?”
“Lying’s a good skill in my trade.”
“Piracy.”
“No,” said the pirate, somewhat peevishly.  “Academia.  This is just a side-gig.”

“Really?  What’s your field?  And why the piracy?”
“’Branes,” said the pirate.

“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“My sympathies.”
“It’s fine.”
“I mean, you know.  It’s just funny that, how it all makes perfect sens-”

“It’s FINE.  Stop talking about it.”
“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, fine, fine, fine, fuckity fine-fine-fine-fine-finerino, fine fine Finnegan’s finewake,” chanted the pirate.  Then she shotgunned Thez’s beverage, crushed the can on her forehead, buried her head in her arms and burst into tears.

Thez wanted to hug her, but the gun was still pointed at her.

“Proximity alert,” interjected the still very calm voice of the ship.

The pirate continued to cry. 

“It’s… probably nothing,” said Thez.  The gun wasn’t particularly big, but they didn’t need to be unless you had some sort of fetish for inefficiency. 

“Unauthorized docking.  Boarders incoming.”
“Let me do the talking?”
The pirate’s aim didn’t waver, but she made no protests.

***

“This beer is shit,” said the professor.

“It’s not beer,” said Thez.  “It’s tea.”
“No wonder it’s shitty beer then,” said the professor.  She took a swig anyways, belched, and threw the beverage can into the waste disposal.  “Ten points!”
“I’m still ahead.”
“You’re a grad, your points are worth half as much,” said the professor, the smugness that infested her very soul intensifying.  God, Thez hated her.  She hated her so much.  Hate hate hate.  And of all the godawful times to schedule her academic checkup.  The far side of a dying star was too close by half already, and now they were in the same ship. 
“That’s not fair.”
“And that’s just realistic.”
“Realism is overrated.”
“Reality,” mumbled the pirate, head still buried in her arms, “doesn’t matter a flicking fistworth of fly-spit on a fucking tarmac.”

The professor looked at Thez. 

“She studies ‘branes,” explained Thez.

“Oh dear,” said the professor.  And she very gently gave the pirate a hug.
“’M fine,” she mumbled.

“Of course you are, dear,” shushed the professor.  “Of course you are.  There there.  There there.”
Thez picked up another beverage.  She was getting a lot better about not noticing the gun pointed at her by now.  She wondered if the pirate’s arm was starting to hurt. 

“Proximity alert,” chimed in the ship. 

“Oh, fuck off.”
“Proximity alert.”

***

After the next two dockings they all sort of blurred together.  Some arrived out of curiosity; some arrived looking to be rescuers; some arrived just because everyone else was doing it.

At some point everyone moved out of Thez’s ship to the pirate’s, which was larger and more comfortable and most importantly had muted the ship’s proximity alert for professional reasons long ago, which was much more relaxing.  No matter how calm and neutral the alarm sounded, sooner or later you hated its guts. 

“Good party,” said the professor, who was wearing one of the pirate’s sweaters backwards and upside down.
“This isn’t a party,” said Thez.

“Tell the news drone in the corner.  It’s switched over from science reporting to sapient-interest piece in the last ten minutes.”
“Fuck!” said Thez.

“Oh, hush up.  Live a little.  You’re only young once.”

“Easy for you to say.”
“Damn straight.”
The pirate mumbled something and the professor handed her another beverage.

“Are you trying to get her drunk?” asked Thez suspiciously. 

“No.  It’s tea.”
“Are you trying to lower her inhibitions?”
“I have nothing but honorable intentions towards a fellow academic.”
“She’s pointing a gun at me, so you’d better.”
“I know!”

The ship’s speakers made a small but precise ‘ting’ sound, and another vessel docked into the tethered fleet. 

***

Thez woke up upside down and hung over and surrounded by food wrappings and crushed beverage cans and awful, half-shadowed memories.

There had been an argument.  Yes, there had been an argument.  An argument about whether or not the professor could crush more cans on her forehead in a minute than she could.  And at some point she’d realized that she’d save time if she crushed the cans when they were still full. 

It had been very sensible at the moment, and everyone else had agreed that it was such a good idea.

She was never, ever, ever, ever going to drink ethanol teas again. 

Hell on earth it was dark in here.  Where was she?

“Multiple unlicensed dockings,” said a calm neutral voice.

Oh.  She was back on her ship again. 

“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”
And it was still so dark, so dark because – oh. 

Thez checked the computers to make sure.

Yes, the star had finished collapsing before she woke up. 

That had been some…night?  She’d never had relativistic forces be a party game before.  Or done shots from a gun’s barrel.  Or a lot of other things she couldn’t quite remember and probably would very carefully avoid recalling. 

“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”
With any luck, her ship’s data harvest had collected things on her own.  As long as the party hadn’t damaged it, or they hadn’t turned them off on a dare, or one of a million hilariously fun disasters hadn’t targeted them, or, or, or, or.

“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”

“’urn it offfff…” mumbled the pirate beside her. 

Thez turned off the ship’s proximity alarm, gently threw the gun out of the bed, and snuggled down under the covers. 

So her grad work was done, one way or another.  However it was, that was nice.  It was nice to be done. 

Maybe this was something new.