To Thine Own Self Be Zoo
Vol. I No. 9
September 2023

CONTENTS:
[1] Sons of Belial
[2] Fallow
[3] Cheer's Journey
[4] Tiberius
[5] A Haiku




[1]

Sons of Belial

Azure licked their partner's anus, taking in nostril-flared sniffs
as they did, creating as wide a cavity inside of their nose as
possible for smell particles to land on. Smells were important to
them. The hyper-flowery smell of Bluegreen's deodorant. The
sweaty, musky, intestiney smell of Bluegreen's anal sphincter. It
was no matter of "good" smells or "bad." The compelling thing was
if a smell was strong. Azure and Bluegreen had met at a family
Christmas gathering, after they had been excised from overly-
delicate conversation for their chosen identities. They had gone
on a walk together at a nature trail nearby their grandparents'
house, gotten to talking, within the hour gotten up to things that
would get them uninvited from future Christmas gatherings if they
became known, and by February they were sharing a studio apartment
together.

Eventually contented, Azure gave Bluegreen's anus a last deep
puckered smooch, and then both of them stood up. Azure pulled up
Bluegreen's pants and redid their belt, and they both stepped out
of the alley and resumed their late night walk.

"That was really good. Thank you."

"Keh. No problem."

"You are the best kind of asexual."

"Keh. Thank you. I try."

"It's like if I was a vampire and you let me eat you, but like,
'eat you.'"

"Keh. Ass licker."

"You were the one who offered."

"Keh. Hey. I offered this time. You were the one who suggested it
the last twenty times we walked by that alley. I figure it is hot
as God's tits out tonight, we're already sweating like hell, I
know that that's a big thing for you, and the sweat adds to it for
me too, I might as well offer. Give you a little bit of a treat."

"The sweat adds to it?"

"Keh. Yeah. A lot."

"I thought you just put up with me."

"Keh. No. It's just not sexual."

"I need you to elaborate so much on how getting a sweaty rimjob is
nonsexual. Is it something I could be doing better?"

"Keh. No. Keep it up."

"But what is nonsexual about it? What is nonsexually good?"

"Keh. I imagine that I'm a newborn dog, and you're the parent
licking the slime off me."

"No way."

"Keh. Why not?"

"They don't just lick the puppy's butthole! There's no way that's
what they do."

"Keh. No, I don't think so either. I mean I assume not. But I
think it's like. The way I imagine it, the way you're licking my
sensitive stuff is like a proxy for how it would feel for all of
my body to be new. So like, I'm extrapolating, but that really
works for me. You're just licking the one part, but I feel it
across everything."

"That's awesome, what the fuck."

"Keh. Yeah. I really like it. So, you weren't worrying about me
not getting anything out of it, but still, if you do think of it
in the future, it's good."

"I can still smell your ass smell so much on my upper lip."

"Keh, yeah wow! You just had your whole face in my ass recently,
and now your face smells like your cousin's ass! Wow.
Unprecedented. Call a scientist. Let's figure out the answer to
this mystery."

"I was just saying. Saying true things. I can still smell you so
much."

"Keh. Happy about that?"

"Not complaining."

"Keh. Wanna circle back to the alley again?"

"No. Kinda. I really do but I think we were already pushing our
luck how long we were just there. We can just resume when we get
home later."

"Keh. Yeah I'm not against that."

"Love you."

"Keh. You too. For real."

"Watch these stairs, that one is uneven."

"Oh thanks."

"Use my hand. I believe in you. Yeah, we did it."

"So pumped."

"I can tell."

"Keh. Hey, I wasn't being mean."

"I swear I am going to write a song about how my upper lip smells
after eating your ass."

"Keh. What kind of words would that be?"

"No, instrumental."

"Keh. What? What would convey, 'my cousin's ass on my face?'"

"It's... hard to explain, I guess. It would sound like it smells.
I don't know how else... Nirvana. It would sound like Nirvana."

"Keh. It would smell like Teen Spirit?"

"Oh my god no. No that's not what I meant at all stop."

"Keh. Did you know that was their partner's deodorant?"

"What?"

"Keh. Teen Spirit. That was the brand name of the deodorant their
partner used."

"Oh. I've never heard of that one."

"Keh. Yeah I don't know if that was like, more known at the time,
or. I don't know."

"I can still smell you so much on my upper lip, it's kind of
driving me crazy. In a good way."

"Keh. Gimme a kiss."

"Mm."

"Keh. Thanks."

"Does anyone still make Teen Spirit?"

"Keh. I think so. Krista--my wombmate, your cousin--they wear it."

"Oh."

"Perv."

"What!"

"You totally remember just immediately what everyone you meet
smells like, huh?"

"Maybe! Also you cannot say wombmate, you're not twins!"

"Keh. Well, sibling sounds way too, I don't know, medical, so
that's what we decided on at some point. Do you like how they
smell?"

"I plead the fifth. But yes."

"Keh. So yes, that's what Teen Spirit smells like. They're
eccentric though. I don't know if they buy it at the store or if
they bought a thirty pack that's been sealed since nineteen
ninety. So I don't know if anyone still makes it."

"Are you otherkin?"

"Keh. What? Why?"

"The being a puppy getting licked by your parent thing."

"Keh. Oh, yeah. Therian. I. Kind of identify as a lot of things.
Age regression. Connectedness. The universe sort of, bridging,
together parts of itself, across itself, through itself, in me.
Animals are part of that. Why not, right?"

"Yeah, why not totally. Want me to call you anything different?"

"They is still good."

"They is basically overpowered."

"Keh. Honestly."

"Want me to lick your forehead like a dog?"

"Please."

"Mmlm."

"Keh. Thanks."

"Happy to help. Love you."

"Keh. You too. Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm. Keh. Mm. Okay yeah I can taste what you're talking about with
the lip. Keh."

"It's really good."

"Keh. Not complaining, I guess."

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm-m."

"Sexual."

"Mhm. Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm."

"Mm."




[2]

Fallow

What do I even do anymore? Anneth thought. She rocked slowly in
her rocking chair, really trying to answer that question. Kim does
real estate, gets to show people around to new and different
homes, peek a little bit into other homeowners' lives, and she
still goes out drinking with some of the old gang. Howard rock
climbs, out on real rocks with real ropes by himself, which is
insane of him, man with one hand, but I get it, and it is a thing
he does. He actually does things, in his life. I'm... what? Some
woman who makes sure office supplies are on the shelves each day?
And then comes home, and sits in front of a computer, playing
computer games. Not even liking when there's an update to the
computer games. I grind levels on the same dungeons that have been
in the games for the last, what, five years, longer for some of
them. Actually. Actually longer than that for all of them: most
are older than ten years, of doing the same dungeons, just
grinding. Why? I don't think about anything, at all, while I'm
playing. Is that why? So that I can not think? Or is that a side
effect that I haven't realized and unpacked until just now? Here's
another question: When is the last time anything new happened?
Prior to last Friday, of course. Before that, when was the last
time there was novelty in my life? When was the last time I
noticed anything? Literally anything. A... a nice sunset, or, an
interesting smell. When was the last time I had a witty
observation, even to myself? I don't think I could if I tried.
When was the last time I had an actual conversation? Not telling
someone what to do at work or being told what to do at work. Not
direct messaging other players in the games I play, telling them
things they might not have known about the games. When was the
last time I talked to a friend? Do I have friends? Or, do I only
have friends who I used to have? Fuck, when was the last time I
was happy? I'm not unhappy. Well. I'm... What do I even do
anymore? It's since Myrtle died. What have I done since Myrtle
died, twenty years ago?

She let that thought hang for a while, sat with it. Even the most
precious memories of time spent with the palomino were so
simplified now. Some flat notion of standing at the mare's head,
and the mare leaning her head against her. Some note to self that
she was supposed to remember all of the moments of brushing the
mare, and both of them liking that. The weight that those things
had had on her then was sincere. The most sincere things Anneth
had felt in her life. But the other life in that equation had come
to a natural end.

I didn't die too, Anneth told herself. I very specifically did not
kill myself, and that was really on the table, and I didn't. Shit,
I transitioned, that was quite an accomplishment. I got help for
anxiety. I've been surviving. Maybe I'm not happy. Maybe I am post
happiness, now. But I am surviving. Even if it's not that
interesting to tell someone about. Even if the day to day is one-
note.

She was putting it off.

Anneth knocked her open palm against the arm of her rocking chair
about twenty times, and then hit the speed dial button for her
boss. As the line rang, she rocked in the chair. She looked out at
her back yard, the back yard of her townhouse, and tried to force
some observation about it. Something nice. She saw the wind
shaking the neighbor's trees, and the birds and squirrels hopping
around in the branches. That was a nice image on its own, she
supposed. It did not need any deep addition on her part. It was
just nice to see the pretty critters running around and flying. It
was a nice thing in front of her.

The line was answered. "What's up Anneth?"

No delaying it with small talk then. Anneth jumped right into it.
"Jane, hey. I'm going to have an absence coming up."

With no pause at all, Jane shot back, "How soon?"

"Like, now," Anneth stammered out, before a more tactful way of
saying it came to mind. She rocked back and forth quickly in the
rocking chair, though, nothing about that should have been audible
through the line at least, which was good enough. She figured she
looked like a crazy person. She quickly explained, "I got a
summons. I can't be in starting tomorrow, and I'd count me out for
a full week after that too."

"It is DECEMBER!" Jane said, the harshness of it causing the audio
on the line to peak out on the word 'December.' In a more
modulated whisper into the receiver, Jane added, "We are good
enough to get by on seasonal shits we've been able to get on
board, but I cannot be out a floor manager and you know that."

"Jane," Anneth shot back. Standing her ground wasn't common for
Anneth, but she knew the fuck how to do it. "I don't have a
choice. You know I've called in two days the entire five years
I've worked here, and I even wish I wouldn't have had to do those.
I do not get joy in telling you I can't come in, but like I said,
I have a summons, it is frankly not my choice right now."

"Wait," Jane said, "like a..." She trailed off, and then sighed as
the words escaped her. "What kind?"

"Chronuous," Anneth answered. "It's the real thing."

"I thought you were..." Jane began, and then cut herself off
before she said something very rude. Discriminatory, someone from
HR might be willing to describe it as if backed into the right
corner. Anneth metaphorically patted herself on the back for
calling Jane by the company line, instead of the bitch's mobile.

"You thought I was what?" Anneth drilled in sweetly, not willing
to waive Jane's partial statement away if this was going to be
part of a record.

Jane quickly backtracked, no doubt picking up on all of the same
implications. "I just haven't had to do the forms for anyone
getting any kind of summons in a long time."

"Understandable," Anneth said, seeing no harm to herself in
conceding whether or not that particular information seemed true.

After a little pause, Jane said, "What day is the summons for?"

Anneth saw through it instantly, and really wasn't willing to
concede the ground. Answering that question was heading straight
into give an inch, take a mile territory. Instead, Anneth said,
"No um, I really have to call in a disability privilege. I really
can't be in for the week, and, I'm telling you now that I don't
hope to extend that but I am reserving the possibility of it. My
anxiety hasn't been... out of control... in years... but this did
it. I'm going to be in and out of therapy, and..."

Thankfully, really surprisingly, Jane actually did say the line
that she was, in theory, required to: "Take the time you have to.
We'll figure it all out here."

And that was about the end of it. Anneth considered asking if she
was already fired, but knew that the answer wouldn't be honest
either way. If she was fired, she would figure something out after
the fact. If she wasn't fired, well, that was easier, her schedule
would return to normal in a couple of weeks, probably. For the
next week, what mattered was that she was free.

It was a Sunday afternoon as she had made the call to Jane. She
had seen the letter on the previous Friday evening, and had,
admittedly, avoided opening it for a large amount of the weekend.
Purple envelope, and a black stamp on the face of it of an
hourglass. Correspondences from the gods were a suicidal kind of
thing to fake. It was almost assuredly real, and yet, it was so
unexpected to Anneth that she still grappled with the reality of
it.

What Anneth's boss had just barely stopped herself from saying out
loud, the thing that would have been very rude to point out, was
that some people were never contacted by the gods. 'Untouchables'
was among the more polite names for them. And it had, in fairness,
seemed to Anneth and everyone who knew her that she was one of
those people. She was approaching forty and had never been
summoned before, even by the more accessible gods. Hermes, Cupid.
It was common enough for someone to be summoned by Chronos at one
point sometime in their life, to be called away to some point in
the past. But it was also common enough for someone to never be
called.

Others seemed to be personal favorites of the god of time. Some
lived lives in a very confused order, always backward and forward,
even intersecting with themselves as a regularity. The second most
of the same person in the same place as himself was a filmed
porno, where seven of the same man, Luke T., engaged in an orgy
together. The importance of it or the lack thereof was studied and
debated at length among religious scholars. The first most of the
same person in the same place as himself was 9/11, where videos
placed at least 45 of the same man, Jeremy Lucas, at the scene,
helping to rescue survivors. Going forward in time was
exceptionally rare: four people were documented to have done it,
and each of those instances had been of a duration that did not
exceed five seconds.

Anneth did not assume she was being summoned to be a part of
anything so notable. The surprise, for her, was that it was
happening at all. The letter from Chronos contained very little,
as was usually the case. It had the time and date she was to show
up at the temple, which was noon on the Wednesday that followed
the Friday she had received the letter on. It had a brief,
standardized statement saying that the nature of the visit was to
have her be translocated in time, and that her participation was
not compulsory but strongly encouraged.

Anneth had to scroll through her texting history for some time to
find the number of the reception for her old therapist. It had
been eight, nine years since she had last talked to him. Doctor
Holland. He had helped her overcome a lot, back then, but there
had come a point where there hadn't really been anything left to
talk about between them. She was better, so to speak. She was
done. They were done. But now, they were back on at his next
availability. At first the receptionist had texted back saying
that the doctor was booked up for the next three weeks, but within
two minutes, she had sent a follow-up text saying that something
had freed up, and the doctor could make an appointment with her
tomorrow, Monday, 2:20 PM, preferably nothing that would go over
into the doctor's three o'clock. Anneth confirmed the appointment,
avoiding commenting to the receptionist how just-so all of that
seemed, or, more honestly, how inconsiderate it was to lie about
the doctor's scheduling to someone who was seeking mental health
help, only to find out that the doctor would be willing to make
time, and so have to make up a pretense as to why the unworkable
situation had suddenly become workable. She decided to move beyond
looking a gift horse in the mouth, there.

The following Monday at 2:23 PM, she was sitting in a couch in an
office that smelled like cinnamon candles. The walls were lined
with bookshelves full of nonfiction textbooks and fiction novels.
She faced a bookshelf mostly full of sci-fi novels, as Doctor
Holland sat on a chair side-by-side with her couch, facing the
bookshelf alongside her.

In some ways, she had worried the conversation would have to begin
with why she hadn't kept in touch over the last near-decade. She
had come in ready to admit she had assumed it would be
inconsiderate to take up his time and act like a friend when their
relationship had been formed on a more professional basis. But
when she had come in, he had opened with such a sincere expression
of happiness, and a very warm, "It's so good to see you again!" It
had made her realize very quickly that there was no animosity, he
was not mad at her. They caught up. Both of them had overall been
doing very good since the last time they had talked. Anneth then
divulged that the reason she had come in was because of the purple
letter she had received, with the image of the hourglass on it,
marked for two days from then, the following Wednesday.

The doctor began to ask questions about that. In some ways, Anneth
always wanted to criticize his questions for being cliche,
obvious, even though the questions were exactly fit to purpose,
exactly what they were supposed to be.

"How do you feel about getting the summons?" the doctor asked.

"Nervous. Extremely nervous. I don't even... I can barely talk. I
don't know what to..." She tried to put a cap on the thought, and
couldn't. In many ways she did hope to wrap this up quickly, and
not take up the doctor's time waffling about her feelings. She did
want to get to the root of it. But evidently she was not there
herself yet. Hence the visit. But she did want to get to the root
of it quickly, if possible.

The doctor asked, "Do you think you'll go to the summons?"

"Yes. Oh gods, you think I would miss it? I'm worried... I'm
worried I might mess it up, I think? But I know that doesn't make
sense."

In a friendly tone, the doctor agreed, "It is comforting that
these things are preordained, isn't it? But we don't always worry
about things that make sense. Sometimes we can worry anyways."

"Sure. But then what am I worried about?"

"Well. Do you have any ideas?"

Anneth sighed through her nose.

The doctor suggested it another way. "What do you worry will
happen?"

"I..." Anneth thought about it. "I guess I'm not worried I'll, I
don't know, create some problem in time itself. That doesn't...
well, I couldn't, I think, even if I wanted to for some reason,
which I don't. I'm not worried I'll screw it up THAT bad. I'm just
worried I won't live up to what I'm supposed to be for this."

"Mm," the doctor intoned. He thought for a moment himself, it
seemed, and then asked, "Where do you think the summons will take
you? What time, who will you meet, what will you do?"

"I have a guess," Anneth said. She felt her cheeks start to burn
up a little, and presaged an awkwardness at even being able to say
it out loud. She had told this doctor about her past relationship.
She had been very open with talking about it. At one point she had
been open about it with a lot of people. But she did not currently
make a habit of talking about it with anyone. It had,
incidentally, been a long time now since it had ever come up.
Without intending to, she talked around it at first. "I know it
won't be myself."

"Never met yourself?" the doctor asked.

"No," Anneth answered. She then asked, as it had actually never
come up before, "Have you?"

"Myself and I have had a couple of very nice dinners, but I have
to admit, I wouldn't stop going on about music trivia," the doctor
said, and then laughed at himself. "You know what's the worst? One
of those dinners, I've now been on both ends of, and I could feel
myself doing it, but it couldn't be helped."

Anneth laughed at that herself, not faking it. She was very amused
at the idea of the doctor being awkward. "I didn't even know you
liked music that much."

"I really don't, but I know that I'm going to talk my own ear off
at least three more times about it anyways."

"Oh no," Anneth said, lightheartedly.

"There was some other good advice to myself in there too, to be
fair. Stuff that sent me on what I would like to call a good life
path. It was all very specific to things I needed to hear at the
time, nothing that's not a life skill you don't already have. But
that was peppered in among quite, quite a lot of rock band trivia.
The one of those I can say I have delivered now, I believe I was
phrasing it the way I did to attempt to make the metaphors stick
to a less wise self who needed the help." Doctor Holland cleared
his throat. "So, you've never met yourself," he said, circling
back. "But you have some idea of who it might be that you're
meeting in the summons?"

"Yes."

"If you write it down on a paper first, can I take a guess?" the
doctor asked.

That caught Anneth by surprise, the idea of that. "Oh. Sure. Do
you have..."

The doctor ripped a page out of a spiral bound notebook, and
handed it to Anneth along with a pen.

Anneth wrote down the name, glancing over to make sure the doctor
wasn't peeking. The doctor had indeed turned his head away to face
the wall.

"I wrote it," Anneth said, having already folded the paper a few
times as well, to obscure the name farther.

"Myrtle?" the doctor asked.

Anneth unfolded the paper and showed it to the doctor, revealing
the name 'Myrtle' freshly written in her handwriting. "I'm
surprised you remembered," she said, and then added, cutting the
doctor off slightly, "I don't mean anything by that, I just, I'm
bad with names, I'm surprised you could remember the name this
long after."

"We talked about her a lot," the doctor said. "I might not
remember every story, I'm sorry, but yes, I remember her name,
absolutely. You think you're going to see her?"

"Nothing else would be as important as that," Anneth answered.
"And it's not myself. So."

The doctor let a silence hang.

Anneth finished, "So yes, I think I'm going to see Myrtle."

The doctor asked, "And you're worried about that?"

"Yes," Anneth answered. "Oh gods, I can barely... yes, I'm more
nervous than I've been in... I've never been this nervous as an
adult. I'm serious. It's not a bad thing that I would get to see
her again, not at all, obviously. But how can... how can she be
dead, and then I get to see her alive again for what, a few
minutes? How is that supposed to happen and it won't fuck me up?
How could I make enough of that? That's impossible. I..."

Anneth began to tear up, not even having suspected she was going
to, herself.

The doctor handed her a box of tissues, and set a waste basket
beside her.

Anneth took out a tissue to wipe her eyes with, and then balled it
up when she was done and put it in the waste basket.

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

"It's okay," he said.

A silence hung in the air.

Anneth broke the silence by saying openly, "I don't know what to
say."

"It's difficult," the doctor said. "What would you want to say to
her, if you had the chance?"

"Don't--" Anneth began with a tone, and then cut herself off. She
started again, still harshly, but not overly combative, "Don't
talk down to me about what me and her shared."

"Of course," the doctor said. "I'm sorry. My impression of your
relationship with her is very high. I understand that your
feelings towards her are very loving."

Anneth laughed bitchily to herself.

Sounding surprised himself, the doctor asked, "Was there something
other than loving in that relationship?"

"No. I mean, we annoyed each other sometimes, but, who doesn't?
No. At the time it was... she was the center of my world. Getting
her out to run each day, bringing her new things to try, going on
our rides. I didn't listen to what anyone else said for more hours
in a day than with her. That was... we loved each other. But that
was then. That was... a really long time ago. About twenty years."

"Oh. Your feelings have changed since?"

"Not changed, just..." Anneth felt herself becoming choked up. She
readied another tissue, but more tears didn't come. She held the
tissue in a tight fist. "The part of my life where I loved her,
was..." Anneth couldn't finish it other than to repeat herself: "a
really long time ago."

The doctor adjusted in his chair, and then said, delicately, but
firmly, "The reason I wanted to ask what you would say to her
wasn't because I wanted to hear a platitude from you, like 'I
would say to her I love you,' or 'I would say to her I've missed
her.' I think, and you can let me know if I'm wrong, but I think I
do understand how heartfelt your position on her is, and I'm not
trying to step over that like it isn't a big deal. I only wanted
to ask what you would say to her because if you're anxious about
meeting her again, and you think that you are going to meet her
again, then that's an obstacle that might be troubling you."

Anneth nodded. "Sure. I think I would just tell her I love her
though."

"Okay," the doctor said. "Anything else?"

Anneth threw up her arms. "Play it by ear, I guess. If she wants
to run circles, we'll run circles. If she wants to go on a ride,
we'll go on a ride."

"Is there anything you would like to do with her?"

Anneth covered her sudden smile with the tissue she was still
holding. "I don't have the equipment for that anymore."

The doctor chuckled along, and said, "Ah, fair enough. It sounds
like whatever comes, you're planning to make the best of it."

"Yeah," Anneth said.

"I think that's all anyone should expect from someone," the doctor
offered.

Anneth nodded. "Maybe. Gods. This is still just..."

The conversation went on, but mostly consisted of circling back to
the same topics, finding other ways of saying the same things.
Anneth worried that she had moved on from the palomino so
completely that she had forgotten her, that the feelings had
become too distant, that meeting her again would not live up to
the miraculous nature of such a thing getting to happen. By the
time she thanked the doctor and they agreed that it was a good
place to put an end to the session, Anneth had not gotten as far
as no longer being nervous, but she did believe she was ready to
appear at the appointment at the temple of Chronos without being a
complete wreck. And as for what would happen on the other side, it
was like she had said. She would play it by ear.

That Wednesday, in the morning, she dressed in comfortable jeans
and a flannel top, and packed a satchel with two pears. Bringing
items back and forth through time was only prohibited if deemed
exploitative, and the priests were guided to be permissive in
their judgment. She made the drive to the temple much earlier than
she was scheduled to arrive, and parked in the lot outside. In a
nearby courtyard there was a fountain. She sat on a bench and
looked idly at the water, it flying up and splashing down. She
wanted to reflect on dear memories of time with her soulmate, as
she looked at the fountain. But nothing more substantial came to
her than the dim memories she always had. She sat staring at the
fountain, and only that. She had to force herself to not zone even
that out. When it was time, she entered the sliding doors of the
temple.

Standing inside, there was a priest in a white robe. He smiled at
her. "Anneth Williams. Thank you for coming."

She nodded. "Of course. Is there um... where do we do this?"

"Follow me," he invited, and turned and walked deeper into the
temple. The halls had white walls, and at intervals were hung
framed works of art, quite a lot of the art depicting architecture
or weather.

Anneth and the priest arrived at a room that made Anneth think of
a classroom. There were no desks, or lectern. It was likely only
the size of the room that made her think of it. She tried to think
of other rooms that were that size. There were probably plenty.
But she couldn't think of any others at that moment. This room,
the room in the temple, was a room of grey bricks, and no other
features. The fluorescent lights in the hall outside cast the only
light into the dim room.

The priest led her to the room's center. "Stand here. Face the
doorway. Close your eyes. Okay. Keep your eyes closed as I depart.
It will happen shortly."

She heard the priest walking away, and then the sound of the door
closing.

Immediately after the door had closed, the sound of cicadas
buzzing filled the air, and the world smelled of grass and dirt
and water. Anneth opened her eyes. She was outside, in the
nighttime, standing on a little grassy finger of land that jutted
out to encroach meagerly on a large lake. A crescent moon hung
overhead. Anneth turned around, and around, and didn't see a
palomino anywhere.

From the edge of the water, past a bush that was farther out on
the finger of land, a deep voice called to all who might hear it,
"Is someone there?"

"Oh," Anneth said, realization causing her spirits to sink. "You
have got to be fucking kidding me."

"Excuse me?" the punk said. 'Man' wasn't the right word. Maybe for
two reasons, but at the very least, for the reason that the person
with the deep voice was still an insolent shit, not fully matured,
still didn't know enough about the very basics of the world for
'man' to not at least come with some footnotes. This was herself.

"Hey Nick," Anneth called past the bush.

"Who the fuck," the punk said to himself, but still loudly, and
then stood up, emerging from the incidental cover.

The dude wasn't bad looking. She had to give that much to her past
self. He had some things working against him, most notably a black
pencil moustache, but his features around it were handsome, very
Dean-esque. It looked like he still had the black leather jacket
at that point, because, well, he was wearing it. She didn't know
where that had ever ended up.

"I don't know where to begin," she said to her other self. To him.
To Nick. Thinking about what she wanted, in light of the fact that
this was not who she had been hoping to see, she supposed that,
now, all she wanted to do was impart whatever lesson, whatever
information, it was that her past self needed now, at this moment.
Get it over with, whatever it was that she was here to do for him.
She supposed she would start with the basics. "I'm from 2023."

"Oh," he said. The information seemed to have a softening effect
on him, taken the edge off of his rather hostile demeanor that had
been present until that point. "Are you someone I know already,
yet?"

"I'm you, loser."

"Pffff!" Nick said, and then turned and paced alongside the water,
laughing to himself. "I don't know who you actually are but that's
funny."

"Why's that, Nick?"

"Easy, I'm a dude," Nick said, pointing to himself with both
pointer fingers. "I'm a dude on the outside and I'm not not a dude
on the inside. Being a dude is the fucking best. Why would anyone
WANT to be a woman?"

"You'd be surprised. But you know what, part of that is true,
you're not transgender. Not yet."

"Wuzzat?" Nick asked.

"Wuzz what?" Anneth mocked.

"Transgender."

"Oh gods I was a moron."

"Hey! Even if I don't believe you that is not very nice!"

"Look," Anneth said, "we can prove this."

"Oh yeah, how?"

"You're..." Anneth looked Nick up and down, trying to gauge it.
She was surprised she wasn't even good at placing herself in terms
of age, but she took a shot at it. "You are at least seventeen."

Nick looked at her like she was an idiot. "Twenty two," he said,
pretty bitterly.

"Oh," Anneth said. Well, damn. That changed things quite a lot,
from where she thought this was at. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

Because that put him, currently, in a very dark place he had been
in, in the few years after Myrtle had died. She hesitated to even
bring that up, though. What did she have to say to him about it?
It clearly wasn't anything that had helped, if she didn't even
remember having had this meeting with a stranger at night by a
lake. And at this particular moment, the guy seemed to be in what
would have been a better than usual mood, overall.

"If you're twenty two, I know who you lost a couple years ago,"
she said.

"It wasn't a secret, that doesn't make you special."

"No, I know. That isn't what I was going to bring up, I just
didn't know that had happened yet, and, I'm sorry. I really know
how it is right now."

"Yeah, well." Nick shrugged.

"But, my point," Anneth brought back up, "is that you're older
than fifteen, when you got Howard to give you a tramp stamp of
Bender the robot lying seductively and burping fire."

Nick suddenly snorted, and doubled over, wheezing out laughter,
barely able to breathe. In the breaths he could get out, he
mocked, "There's no way... you..."

His words trailed off as Anneth loosened her belt, turned around,
and lifted up the back of her flannel, showing the exact tattoo
that Nick assuredly had. Well. She had actually gotten it touched
up, since, but it was the same lines Howard had done, in the
parlor they'd broken into that night.

"Noooo fucking way," Nick muttered.

"Fraid so," Anneth said, and then hiked her pants back up again,
and faced herself once more.

Nick's eyes darted all over her, seeming to take her in for real
now. He seemed afraid of her, actually. All the implications.
Really the one main implication, but, that one was nothing that
had started to be on Nick's mind yet, not for a couple more years,
at least. Anneth let out a little huff of a laugh, actually. She
really was such a fucking dude back then, back now. She, he, had
taken masculinity by the horns. First to jump to the challenge at
any implication that he wasn't the best at something: the number
of times arm wrestling had happened at lunch tables well into high
school was stupid as fuck, but she remembered the fun he had had
in that, because he was really good at it, really strong, and
almost always won. The feeling of winning, of impressing people,
he sought that out so much. He and Myrtle had been insatiable in
riding competitions. She was a competitor type too. He and she,
they got each other on that. He had been asked in literal
interviews how he pushed the palomino so hard when he seemed to be
doing nothing. It was because she wanted to give things her all
too, and her all was very, very, very impressive without him
needing to act for an audience like he was the one pulling that
spirit out of her. The way they would fuck after a victory, her
thing giving rapture to his thing, his thing giving rapture to
hers, celebrating in their winning, they were champions, the most
incredible soulmates in the world.

Nick, twenty two and with that kind of fire dying from him
quickly, asked, "So what do you want? Cause I've kinda been
feeling done with things, and I'm surprised to see I live more
than another year."

"I don't know, dude. You get through things? It gets better than
this right here?"

"Does it?" Nick asked. "What do you do now?"

Anneth let out a long puff of air that flapped her lips. "Yeah not
much. Shit."

Nick made a pointedly unimpressed hum, and then took a flask out
of his jacket, and had a drink.

"Tch! Oh, come on!" Anneth said, only just realizing what should
have been a given, given that Nick was at that point in his life.
"You're drunk!"

"Guilty."

"You are actually blacked out right now!"

"That is a possibility, random crazy woman who is apparently me."

"Wow, so that's... huh," Anneth said, and then laughed once to
herself. "That does explain some things. But then... what could
possibly be the point of this? You're not going to remember this,
at all, I can tell you that already. Come tomorrow this is just
GONE, from your perspective. Huh." Anneth thought on that. "So I
guess this is for me? That seems wrong."

"Maybe this is the gods' last ditch effort to remind you of your
old ways and save you from cutting your schlong off."

"Oh that ship has sailed."

"What!"

"Can I wear that jacket?"

"Does something happen to the jacket too!"

"Maybe. But come on. I actually like PART of that idea that you
said, about reminding me of old things. I wanna wear the jacket
again."

"It is the best," Nick said. He took another sip from the flask,
set it down on the grass, and then did begin taking the jacket
off.

Anneth unshouldered the satchel she had packed, with the two
pears. She suppressed letting out a sigh of sadness at something
about that.

"What's that?" Nick asked, looking down at the satchel. He handed
the jacket out to his later self.

"Oh, it's a couple of pears I brought. If you want one--"

"I bet I can throw one farther than you."

Anneth let out a sharp laugh. "Ohhh wow, you are so what you are."

"Hundred percent. Well, I'm drinking Fireball right now which is
actually weak as shit, it's like, thirty percent, but I was
drinking other stuff earlier."

Anneth took the jacket, and put it on. It had been big on Nick, so
it still fit her, actually pretty perfectly, even with breasts in
lieu of abs, arms that were all around a lot less muscle, a bit
more cushion. It took her back. She wore it pretty damn often. It
was what enshelled her, him, in the crisp mornings in the stable,
as his breath and an assertive palomino's both produced clouds in
front of themselves. So often, they came close enough, stayed
close enough, to where their clouds were one combined effort,
breathing in each other's vapor, having each other's breath.

Nick rummaged clumsily through the satchel and grabbed out the
pears, and handed one to Anneth.

"You're really serious about throwing them," Anneth said. She had
meant it to be a question, but the answer was so apparent that she
couldn't maintain the interrogative tone for the entirety of the
sentence, and it fell out as a somewhat defeated statement, which
wasn't entirely what she had meant for it to be either, she was
amused by him, her old self, more than any other feeling, but the
words had come out a little bit wrongly.

"You can stand ten steps farther ahead than me," Nick offered.

"Fuck no, we're gonna do this even, let's go," Anneth said, and
walked with her pear to the edge of the water, at the end of the
finger of land. The vast open lake laid before them, black water
barely perceptible in the light of the crescent moon. Nick came up
to stand beside her. The both of them scooted their feet, looking
down at them in the dark, to make sure that each of them had the
frontmost part of the frontmost toe even with each other's.

Anneth tossed her pear up and down in her hand a couple of times,
feeling the weight of it, and then hurled it out into the water,
where it made a splash.

"Oh damn," she said. "I actually didn't think I would still be
able to throw that far."

"That was honestly respectable," Nick agreed.

Nick then hurled his pear out into the water. It went far enough
out that Anneth lost sight of it, and only heard the splash.

"You win, good job," Anneth said.

Nick gave a weird laugh, some kind of half snarling gloat, Anneth
wasn't even sure what her old self was going for with it.

"I like this," Anneth said. Her old jacket. Hanging out with,
well, a more animated self, even if it was from a place of him
doing very badly. "Kiss me," she said.

"Um," he said back. Slowly, he said, "I have never kissed a human
before."

Anneth shrugged. "Yeah I know. Neither have I. But I know what
this is now. I'm getting reignited. So spread the fire."

"I ain't got no fire left, since Myrtle's gone."

"Well, you're drinking Fireball, so you're more on fire than I
am."

Nick gave that snarling laugh again, and then said, "Sure," and
wrapped an arm around the back of her neck, and went in for a big,
long kiss. It felt silly, kissing a human, but she gave herself
over to it, let his lips peck and suck on her lips, let his tongue
slide in and run between her upper lip and her teeth. It seemed
like he might have just been getting started when suddenly, he was
gone, and she was in a dark room.

She walked through the dark towards the door, and opened it to see
the priest standing outside in the hall.

She said to him, in an excited whisper, because the place seemed
so quiet, compared to all the buzzing of cicadas, "It happened!"

"I can see," the priest said with an amused smile, looking down at
her chest.

Anneth followed his gaze down at herself, and realized, after a
moment, that she had come back wearing the leather jacket.

"Oh. OH."

The priest chuckled. He did not pry on details as they walked back
out, though Anneth did volunteer some of it, saying she had met
herself, and it had gone well, it had been good. The priest seemed
glad to hear it, and wished her a nice day at the front door.

Anneth stood outside in the sun for a moment, giving her eyes a
sec to adjust to the bright glare reflecting off of everything on
that cloudless noon. As she stood she thrusted her hands into her
jacket pockets, and it was then that she discovered the phone
resting in the left pocket, with a screen that was cracked in one
corner. Her breath stopped. Leaving a hand on the phone in the
pocket, she walked quickly to her car, and got in. Only there,
where she wouldn't have a chance of dropping it on the concrete,
did she take Nick's phone out of the jacket pocket, and press the
unlock button. She tapped in the passcode. It was one she no
longer used, too obvious. Six digits. And then she was in. Seeing
the home screen background alone caused tears to strike her. It
was a selfie of Nick and Myrtle, taken by Nick of course, with
Myrtle nosing over his shoulder, nuzzling against the side of his
head. It called back to mind the closeness of the mare, the weight
of a mare pressing her head against her human.

She went into the photos, and looked through them, every one that
had that palomino. It was like getting to say goodbye. No. It was
like getting to say I loved you. No. It was like getting to say I
loved you then, and I love you now, and you have shaped me and the
result of you on me will never leave me, and goodbye. When she had
looked at everything, she pressed the lock button on the phone,
and wondered if she might not ever choose to look at it again,
since she had gotten what she had needed to, less or more.

The following day in Doctor Holland's office, after they had
talked about some of the other things, she told him, "I'm gonna
start dating again. Maybe humans. Maybe not even looking for love,
but just to meet people. I'm just gonna go to things. Bars, live
music, the state fair. I'm just gonna get out and do things
again."




[3]

Cheer's Journey

My part in this matter began on a day that was all around
miserable, and I wish, oh I wish, I could say that it did not go
on to progress miserably in every instant from then until today,
as I sit and reflect on these doings now at the end. For the
beginning though, I must start it with the context that the office
I had then recently been placed in bore all of the same homely
comforts as a burial crypt. In the chamber were four desks, one
after the other in a single file from the door to the tall and
narrow window. The chamber had a very high ceiling, and the wooden
walls high up featured a great many gaps, which caused a cold
draft to circulate through the room constantly--a blessing in the
summer, were the assurances made to me, but as it stood it was the
time in the summer at which the days were their longest, and yet,
with the cloudy and raining days, a constant chill hung about the
lands, and I had yet to find myself grateful for the wind that
came constantly across my desk--my desk was third from the door,
separated by one from the window. It was such a cold wind to cause
one to shiver even in long sleeves, and to cause one's nose to
run, such that one needed to take a moment every few seconds to
wipe away the nose's thin discharge, even while sniffling, or else
allow the substance to accumulate slowly at the end of one's nose,
sorely growing and growing, until a substantial enough drop was
formed to fall forth from the nose, and then have the next drop
sorely begin where the last one left off. A small hearth was
tucked in the wall beside the two middle desks. Any heat that it
did emit was swiftly carried away by the draft.

A year prior, I had had an office to myself, one that was aptly
cool in the heat or warm in the cold. Alas, such simple comforts
came to an end when Percival said to me, in a bored conversation
in the meeting hall, "It seems like you aren't able to secure the
Jaishi peninsula after all."

The Jaishi peninsula was an impossible task. Lush and grand
jungles of tall and exotic timbers, oh yes, a mouth-watering spoil
that tempted starry-eyed merchant lords such as Percival from the
Amber Sea to the Granite Isles. But it was, all the same,
impossible. The natives were a vicious sort, deaf to trade, and
meeting the least entrance onto their land with nightmarish
violence. Though armed with no more than spears and stone knives,
they frequently attacked camps by night or in other manners of
unfair ambush. As well, the sea surrounding the Jaishi peninsula
in all directions was host to four consecutive miles of tumultuous
rocky straits. There was but a single route through the straits
which, principally, although winding and none too comfortable, was
wide enough to navigate a small trade ship through. This route was
aptly called Suicide. Any crew skilled enough to navigate it would
be intelligent enough not to bother. To enter the peninsula by
land would be to go through the nation of Gom, and immediately
lose nine tenths of any timbers to that nation's governors and
guilds and inspectors.

To solve any one of the problems of the Jaishi peninsula--the
natives, the sea route, or the land route--would no doubt gain the
solver a reputation in legend as one of humanity's great
engineers. But Percival had known from the start that it was a
highly speculative sort of thing, putting any man on that task.
And, over time, he did come to accept that the speculation had not
been fruitful, and so it came to that sentence, that day in the
meeting hall. "It seems like you aren't able to secure the Jaishi
peninsula after all."

I nodded. I told him, "I don't believe it can be done at all, my
lord. I've been wondering if the white forests to the far south
wouldn't be a more fruitful undertaking. It's a longer journey,
and the climate there is very harsh, but for all that, the native
population is sparse and skittish, and entry to the continent is
no trouble, save for the distance from here."

Percival frowned.

The two of us sat there, as a gust of wind outside caused the
walls of the offices to groan.

His black beard was uncharacteristically unkempt that day. Behind
his spectacles, his eyes showed none of the curious and delighted
sparks that I had become accustomed to seeing from him.

He sighed.

I clarified to him, at the time worrying that he'd believed I was
only making conversation, "If you would like, I can refocus my
efforts away from Jaishi, and towards the white forests."

"Surveyor work, then?" he responded.

He may as well have smote my stomach with a hammer, for the blunt
and nauseating effect that those words had on me. Surveyors were
two layers of reports below my high office. And yet, he had
uttered no error that I could raise objection to. To find out a
route as free of obstacles as the white forests was indeed no
longer work that required an engineer.

My mouth dry, and my words faint, I did answer, "I could do
surveyor work for a time."

"If you would like," he said. Then with that, he stood, and exited
the meeting room. I remained there for some time, staring at the
wall, reflecting on my accomplishments. Nothing. I had
accomplished nothing.

So it was that I found myself placed into the surveyors' office,
with the four desks in a line, and the horrible chilling draft.
Moreover, I found myself there alone. Or, in a sense, I found
myself there with the ghosts of my colleagues, who each appeared
in various likenesses.

Mahn, whose desk was first closest to the door, had been out on
expedition for nearing two years. His likeness was hollow silence,
cold vacancy, empty space. I had no notion of him.

Tenk, whose desk was behind mine, closest to the window, had been
sent one year ago to seek out any changes to the waters
surrounding Jaishi, to see if any more favorable route had
appeared. His likeness was bitter embarrassment, weak vengeance, a
feeling upon me as I sat at my desk of being watched and
disapproved of. I believe I am the one who ordered him there to
Jaishi, but I have not looked back through the records to find
out. I believe I am the one who ordered him to his death to keep
up my own appearance as an engineer who was still trying.

Carson, whose desk was second closest to the door, had been out on
expedition for nearing two years, and had in fact set out on the
very same ship as Mahn had, but at the start, Carson, unlike his
colleague, had managed to send back reports with some frequency,
at first one each week, and then one each month or so. For six
months no word had come from him, and it had, apparently, begun to
seem that he may have met some untimely fate, but a package
arrived on my desk that was marked as a report of his, some seven
hundred pages. His likeness was obligation. I was to read the
report, and summarize its nature in a more brief report to be
given to his supervisor.

There though, at the beginning of this matter on which I reflect
over today, I had not progressed through more than the first three
sheets of the report before the draft in the room was too much.
The breeze nipped at the papers, caused my nose to run, and caused
my very fingers to shiver as I sat there at my desk. It was no
possible condition to make meaningful progress in reading under.
And so, I had repackaged Carson's report, and as for myself, I sat
huddled directly before the hearth, holding my shivering fingers
to its small fire. It was while I was seated thusly that the door
to the office opened, and Percival stepped in and took a seat
against the corner of Mahn's vacant desk.

"Cheer, old dog!" he said to me, cheeks high and eyes scrunched in
shining praise.

Though I may have been demoted to the office of a happy imbecile,
I was not one myself. Doubtless, he believed that with his winning
smile, he could send a man to risk life and limb, and the man
would do so vigilantly, worrying not for his own wellbeing, but
chiefly concerned that he not cause the delighted merchant lord to
be disappointed. But such an imbecile I was not, and his
manipulating wiles effected no charm over me.

I should add, as well, that 'Cheer' was not an imperative on his
part, but merely my name being mispronounced. Though indeed my
name did sound similar to the word for good spirits, merriment,
and joy, it was not. Pronounced correctly, it would be in two
stresses, chee-ur, and it would have no meaning grander or smaller
than whatever was the grandness or smallness of my name. As
Percival pronounced it though, a passerby overhearing the
conversation could be forgiven for thinking he was commanding me
to jubilation.

I stood up from where I was seated before the hearth fire, and I
went and sat on the corner of my own desk, facing the delighted
merchant lord. Carson's desk laid between us. The draft blew over
me, and sapped any heat I had gained from sitting before the small
hearth. A cold and unimpressed vessel, I sat facing Percival.

He said, still smiling, "When the weather heats up, this is known
to be the best chambers in the building for cooling off. You'll be
up to your nose in folks stopping in to chitter chatter."

As if he were a witch ordaining it, my nose began to drain a cold
discharge once more. I sniffled, and then withdrew a handkerchief
from a trouser pocket, and dabbed some of the discharge away.

While returning the handkerchief to my pocket, I asked the
merchant lord, "Do you still wish to stay my departure to the
white forests until autumn?"

He responded, "I had the most interesting conversation at the pub
in Fairspring last night."

I was neither surprised he had ignored my question about the white
forests nor surprised he had indeed had a most interesting
conversation in a pub in Fairspring. For the former, the white
forests bored him as much as they bored me. For the latter,
Percival sought every opportunity to leave the office and rub
elbows. I had attended luncheons and masquerades alongside him,
and witnessed him speak with minor members of royalty and with
minor house servants with equal delighted interest. Indeed, I
think he liked the sound of his own voice, and so the ear he spoke
in the direction of mattered not.

I indulged him, "Who did you speak with at the pub?"

"Wild man by the name of Gongogast, as muscular as a Mershi
statuette, and damn proud of it, clearly, because he wasn't
wearing anything but a thong and a sash."

Percival paused there, eyes still twisted up in a pantomime of
joy, waiting for me to show some amusement at the nakedness of a
man I had never been aware of until now.

"You had to be there, I suppose," he said, saying with a slight
squint of his happy eyes that he would forgive me, just this once,
for insulting him by not playing into his humor.

Hoping to usher the story forward to its conclusion, I prompted
Percival, saying, "And you spoke with him?"

"With Gongogast, yes. Say that once."

"Gongogast."

"Ha ha! Gongogast. You like that name? I love something about it.
Gongogast. Anyways. Of course, first thing I do when I walk in and
see a man damn near naked and proud of it is buy that man a drink,
because I need to know more, you understand the inquisitive
spirit, the call of the unexplored. So I sit with him, and--well,
it was a fascinating conversation, but you had to be there."

Again, his eyes, though on one level jolly, on a deeper level
squinted at me in a pointed hate, alike to a lavish pillow pierced
through with a sewing needle.

"I suppose I had to be there," I echoed back to him.

"Are you familiar with the Heaven's Basin cluster, Cheer?"
Percival then asked me.

A droplet of discharge fell from my nose. I answered Percival by
utterance of the word, "Passingly," as I retrieved my handkerchief
once more. With it in hand, I turned to the side and blew my nose,
and then returned the handkerchief to my pocket again.

"East of here, innit?" Percival asked.

"Quite east, yes. Notably little in that region of sea." I stood
from sitting on the corner of my desk, and walked over to a large
map of the known world that hung on the wall opposite the small
hearth. "We are here, of course," I began, pointing to the
southern end of a sizable island that was indeed called Percival.
In all directions surrounding, the seas were populous enough with
islands on which civilized folk had settled. In search of Heaven's
Basin, I scanned my finger eastward from Percival, moving slightly
southward as well to come around the lowermost horn of the Tenia
continent, then straight east past the distant twin islands of
Kess and Veritch, through a vast empty region that was three times
as far as the distance to the horn of Tenia had been, past a lone
island called Shrew's Hill, farther east again through empty sea,
and finally my finger arrived at three small dots labeled Heaven's
Basin. "Here, my lord. Quite far east."

"Yes, I see, quite far east indeed," he said, stroking his black
beard. "Gongogast had been through there in his travels."

Still observing the three isolated dots on the map, I responded,
"By the accounts I have heard, it is very eye-catching. No
substantial vegetation to speak of on any of the three islands,
and the exposed rock has a high content of reflective minerals.
Hence the name, for its appearance of a heavenly bright spot upon
the sea. Once there though, there is nothing of value to the
place. It makes for a useful landmark, perhaps."

"Nothing of value?" Percival asked. "Have a look at this here."

I turned to see what he had produced. Both of us standing beside
Carson's vacant desk, Percival handed me a small jar. I held it up
to my eyes, and beheld that inside, suspended in some manner of
liquid, there was the carrion of a juvenile sea creature.
Prominent pectoral fins, three pronounced dorsal fins, and sharp
teeth within its mouth which hung loosely open.

"Something I purchased off of Gongogast," Percival said. He took
it back, and set it down on Carson's desk, then sauntered past me,
deeper into the office, towards the window. He laughed to himself,
and said, "I should clarify, he had a variety of trinkets hanging
from his sash, he didn't pull that out from anywhere untoward."

I shook my head to myself, and went to stand nearby the hearth.

Looking out the window, Percival asked, in a full voice which
echoed easily through the room, "You ever see a creature quite
like that before?"

I had another glance down at it. "No, my lord."

"Of course not. That there is a hatchling barther shark.
Absolutely unheard of kind of thing to recover. They spend their
juvenile period at the ocean floor, and only venture up near the
surface in adulthood. Gongogast received the specimen as a gift
from the natives on Heaven's Basin."

"Skilled fishermen reside there, then?" I asked. Dreading that he
seemed to be angling towards something in among this rambling
having to do with me, I wished for him to at least come forth with
it.

He answered, "Ha! A skilled fisherman--a very skilled fisherman--
could catch an adult barther shark. To fish up a hatchling, no,
they don't make fishing line that's long enough. Actually I hear
that in the north, there might be developments on that, but
anyways, no, no one on Heaven's Basin has access to line that
long. That specimen didn't come from skilled fishermen, not at
all. That there is the work of mystics. The natives there have
mastered the art of telekinesis, teleportation, they change the
weather and part the sea, they walk on water and hover above the
ground. According to Gongogast's account of it, anyways. Do you
suppose it has merit, Cheer? Or do you suppose he was just making
up a tale as it came to him?"

Again, a discharge had gathered at the tip of my nose. I dabbed at
it with my handkerchief. Then I answered him, telling him, "Garl,
one of my surveyor overseers on the Jaishi project, brought up
mystics with some frequency, convinced that their talents would be
needed to overcome the water route. I was willing to explore it.
Certainly in history, we have record of acts that could be
described only as supernatural. My skepticism, though, was as to
whether any persons of such talents exist currently. Garl was
never able to produce any such person as to overcome my
skepticism. This man you spoke to in the pub was more than likely
only telling you a tale, my lord."

"And yet," he said, more quietly, almost as if to himself, "there
is the specimen."

He continued to look out of the window at the drizzling rain.

A gust of wind caused the building to groan.

Again, I tried to let him down lightly, careful not to directly
contradict him. "It is possible, my lord, yes, that the specimen
here was fished up by mystical means. Be it also possible,
perhaps, that it was taken out of the belly of some other fish?
Washed up on the shore?--by unlikely happenstance, yes, but not of
any lesser likelihood than successful voodoo. May it be, even,
that this is some other specie of aquatic creature entirely, one
from far away and unfamiliar to us, that so happens to resemble a
barther shark?"

Percival laughed, slapped his leg, and turned to face me. "Cheer!
Cheer, old dog, this is exactly why I came to you about this. You
would find out the truth of the matter. If it is just a tale, and
you found out for a surety that it was, ultimately, just a tale,
then you would tell me. And if there was something here..."

I felt a lump gathering in my throat.

He went on, "If there was something here... something that would
let us float timbers over land as though down a river, allow us to
levitate ships in the air, grant us teleportation, telekinesis,
changing of weather, parting of seas... Cheer, old dog, I would
like you to go to Heaven's Basin and figure it out."

The lump in my throat swelled such that at first, I could not
speak at all. Already, my career had been driven back from that of
an engineer to that of a mere surveyor. But even as a surveyor,
there had been promise of reestablishing myself, securing small
but surefire gains in the white forests and the like, reproving to
all that I was not incompetent in my work, I had simply been
saddled with an impossible task, back when I had been given
Jaishi. Now though. Now, Percival wished to send me straight out
onto another impossible errand. A goose chase even more cruel than
the last.

Faintly, I croaked out but a few words, enough to be candid of my
worry. "If there is nothing here..."

With a delighted smile still spread across his face, he assured to
me, "I would not hold it against you. When you come back, if there
is nothing to it, you can get back to work on this white forests
survey."

It was the delighted, assuring smile that he almost always wore.
He did not mean a word of his promise one way or the other. When I
returned, I likely would be able to return to the white forests
survey, but not due to his promise of it. I would likely be able
to return to the white forests survey only because I was once
again far enough below him that it was a waste of his time to
oversee my activities one way or the other, once they were no
longer of interest to him.

Another gust came through the office, causing my very jaw to
chatter. And that was what resigned me to it, I think. Visions of
the comfortable captain's quarters aboard Adelia crowded my
thoughts.

I said to Percival, even in the face of his empty promise, "Very
well. Ha. It will be good to set foot on Adelia again, get out
onto the sea."

"Hm?" he responded. "Oh, Cheer. Adelia has been reallocated."

"What?" I shot, far more harshly than was wise.

He again shot me a look of scornful forgiveness, still couching
all in the folds of a smile. Passing by me to exit the office, he
said, "Leaving a ship at harbor the year round, just wasteful. I
don't recall who has it. When you speak to Ahns over the funding
of this trip, perhaps she would be able to tell you its current
whereabouts, if you have an interest in knowing."

"She, my lord," I said quietly, as he was on the doorway.

He turned back, and asked, "What's that?"

"Mountains and ships are she, not it, my lord."

"Yes, well, good sailing," he wished, smiling his same smile, and
then he departed from my presence.

I faced the empty doorway for a time, reflecting on what had just
been given to me.

Then, I turned towards the hearth, and looked down at the burning
wood. The fresher of the logs burned hotly. Under it, smoldering
remains of its cousins. I watched, for quite some passage of time,
as the hotly burning log became black and cold.

The draft blew through the room, and I drew in a sharp staccato
breath through suddenly chattering teeth. With a hideous grimace,
I turned towards the door, casting no further glance back towards
the hearth, no further glance towards Carson's report, and I made
exit of the surveyor's office. In the passages of the building, I
marched quickly, making no pause, taking no curious peek into the
offices of any others. My station so upheavaled, I had found that
there was no longer pleasant conversation here to be found for me.
Not among anyone. My former equals, I had come to be below. My
former underlings, I was now below as well, or equal with, or less
distantly above; all cases were to a similar effect. They pitied
me too sorely. I passed through the passages unmolested, up a
flight of stairs to the next floor above, and entered the
budgetary department. There, the secretary, Anka, looked up from a
chart she had been poring over, and frowned at me.

"I was told you aren't permitted here anymore," she said.

To my own self, I scoffed at that. It was the usage of her word
'anymore' which caused the greatest undue insult. I had not
frequented this office even before, while on the Jaishi project. I
had been above it, my own secretary handling the most of the
intercourse between this department and my office.

Outwardly, I maintained an upright posture, and told Anka,
"Percival has sent me to confer with Ahns."

Anka continued to frown. "What matters will I tell her you come
on?" she asked.

I began to speak, and then felt some horrid speck of phlegm seize
my throat, and I turned aside and coughed, at first quietly,
though that did no good to clear it, and so I coughed more
violently some few times until I could once more feel my throat
clear to speak. I took a breath, turned my sight to the secretary
once again, and said, "Percival sends me to confer with Ahns. My
matter is with her."

Anka stared at me dumbly for a moment, and then stood from her
seat, and departed down a narrow passage towards Ahns's office.

I stood there in the empty reception room in wait for an egregious
interval of time. Near to a full hour had passed, I believe, when
Anka returned from the passage, carrying in both hands before her
a small drum of unfinished maple.

She set it on her desk, sat down at her seat, and from a drawer
retrieved a stack of twenty and some papers.

She said to me, "The funding has been allocated, we must go over a
few simple points of policy before transfer of it can be made."

I asked her, "How much is the funding?"

Her answer was only a small utterance of, "We will come to that."

"Is Ahns in?" I demanded.

She responded in a small manner, "The department is not at liberty
to divulge more than is relevant to any matter."

In that moment, the fact that I stood still for a time and did
nothing was due only to the fact that I was pulled equally in
opposite directions. One pull, towards the passage Anka had gone
down, towards Ahns's office, to demand the respect I knew she had
not forgotten, to be well reasoned professionals and discuss, as
intelligent minds alike, what the demands of the voyage were,
which ship I might procure in Adelia's stead, what amount of crew
and provisions would suffice, and any further margin considered in
the face of the likelihood of unexpected circumstances and costs
on such a lengthy journey. For all to be set without my input was
a grave insult. The other pull, the one opposite Ahns, was towards
the exit. I did consider, then, whether I was done with this work.

As my passions on the insult cooled, I found that, while my own
heat had made the prospect of leaving seem hot, the cold facts of
it set in to a sad reality. Here, I had once had much, and now had
lesser. Leaving this work, I would have nothing at all. I would
find myself a pauper in want of food within the year, if not
within weeks.

I stepped forward to Anka's desk. I was made to put my signature
on several of the papers she had produced, all vowing that I would
use the funding towards the assignment, and other various
contractual points all more or less to that effect. In the midst
of the signings, the amount that was contained in the drum did
come up: three measures of gold, five measures of silver, and some
assorted coinage amounting to another forty measures of silver.
While not lavish, it was an amount that would suffice me to get by
becomingly at any stops along the way. As Anka and I progressed
through the pages, I awaited the indication of what my ship was to
be, and how much would be the crew manning her. When I had signed
the very last page, Anka slid all of the pages to herself and
deposited them in a drawer, and then slid the maple drum in my
direction.

"Safe traveling," she said, a sad and pitying tone in her voice.

Again holding myself upright, I asked her, exceedingly reasonably
even in the face of all of her dispoliteness, "Has Ahns allocated
a ship already, or is the timetable of the departure still being
worked on?"

Anka shied back in her chair, not a lot, but enough to where I
noticed.

I demanded, having just then grown quite tired of these cat and
mouse games, "What devilry now?"

"You've just been given the funding with which to secure passage
on a ship."

Her words at first had the appearance of being so disconnected
with any form of reality that I could only matter-of-factly
respond with the word, "No."

She shied back yet farther, and said, "Yes."

I told her, "Then there has been an error. Three measures of gold
wouldn't purchase a ship capable of arriving at the next island,
much less all that distance east to Heaven's Basin."

And then, dry on lies and misdirections, she came forth with it
outright: "The funding is not to secure a ship. It is to secure
passage aboard a ship. Passage."

For what happened next, I should hope that she still reflects
often on how blessed she was by the fates, for I was so moved to
fury by her words that the sharpness of what stood on my tongue
could have pierced a suit of iron armor were it not for the
circumstance that then followed. Indeed, by wit or by force, it
was my intent then to have an audience with Ahns. However. Oh,
however. As I drew in the very beginning of a deep breath to give
myself air to speak with, phlegm once again strangled me, doubled
me over, left me hacking and wheezing for such a time that tears
wracked the corners of my cheeks and I was beginning to feel very
faint, and even still the cough could not be dispelled. It went on
to a point where it was apparent I would be capable of gaining
nothing further there without retreating and regathering myself.
Feebly, I made staggering steps forward towards Anka's desk, still
wracked by coughs. There I seized the maple drum, took it, and
departed from the room.

I proceeded down the flights of stairs. I passed by the surveyor's
office without a glance, desiring nothing from that place. In
possession of the maple drum, I made exit of the building, and
stood at the grey brick plaza outside in the drizzling rain.

There, as my clothes became damp, I reflected on my circumstances.
I had been dealt a foul hand. An engineer, though, is a man of
solutions, a man of overcoming, a man of triumph. The task I had
been saddled with was lowly. A pointless errand over a great
distance with insulting funds. But it was possible. No matter how
unfruitful, no matter how much of a waste, I would, in a year's
time, be able to return to Percival, and say that I had done it,
and reclaim some favor in his eyes and delight in his tone.

A cab entered the plaza through the rain, drawn by a black horse.
I waved the driver over. He turned the horse, and caused the cab
to swing in my direction and come to a stop nearby me. Seeing the
netting which hung from the brim of his hat, a prickly discomfort
ran through me, as I realized I had left my own netting in the
surveyor's office. I would not go to get it though. On principle.
Additionally, the need of it would be behind me after this transit
regardless. I approached the cab driver, handed him some small
coinage from out of the maple drum, and stepped up into the cabin.

"To the port," I told him, and then I added, "I have much to think
over on the way."

His tongue stayed by that, we began off towards port in no sound
more than that of the knocking of hooves over the road. Flies
began to buzz about the cabin before we had cleared the plaza.
Though they annoyed, I made no effort to brush them off when they
landed on my hands, my neck, or my face, as they would soon be in
such numbers that there was no point to fighting them.

In not much time, we were out from the cluster of buildings that
surrounded Percival's high offices, and we began our journey
through the fields of mud which surrounded. The forests of this
island had been harvested down to every root many years earlier.
It was a testament to the spirit of dedication how wholly the
landscape had been changed. All thick greenery, gay songbirds, and
elusive foxes had been given over to an open expanse and a heavy
pestilence. At points in the journey, I could look out through the
cabin window beside me and see over the mud for miles, the grounds
feeling as enormous and empty as the sea itself, a psychotic
artifice of land that nature alone in her temperance and fits
could never have achieved here. At other points in the journey,
when the wind was more still and we were over a wider body of
standing water, such a blanket of flies and mosquitoes hung upon
us that I could not see the cab driver through the window ahead of
me. During those stretches, I did what I could to cover my head
with my waistcoat, though this left only the thinner material of
my shirt as armor for my torso, and so the overall effect was that
all I achieved was a more even coverage of pestering and bites.

When we arrived in the port town, dusk was beginning to come
about. I itched at a bump that had formed on my side, one among
dozens, though that one proved the most nettling. The cab driver
deposited me by the docks and wished me happy fortune. I trudged
forth to the sand. The maple drum in hand, I looked out to the
sea. Most ships, unless directly in the process of loading or
unloading, stayed at an appreciable distance out into the waters.
I squinted out at them for some time, and then sighed. Adelia was
not among them, nor was she stayed at the docks, nor grounded up
or down the shore at any place I could see.

I turned from the shore, and passed back up through the main
thoroughfare of the town. The rain had been on and off that day,
and quickly picked up again as I made my way under the gaudy
awnings of the port town's storefronts. In the central square,
there walked about many women and men in colorful rags, collecting
up various props into carts, the most notable items among the
props being swords and shields and spears that were all two to
three times larger than would be practical, and made of painted
wood with no sharp edges. Performers of some sort. Comics, one
could hope, though dramatists making use of such exaggerated items
had become tiringly common as of late as well. I could not
recollect if the day was a holiday noted by any tradition, or if
these performers were more likely merely passing through. Two men
about the group shouted directions now and then to the others, as
I happened to be walking by. I could not mark the language which
they shouted in, lending to the likelihood that they were merely
passing through here from afar.

I continued past the square, and went up a road which climbed over
a steep hill. Through this ascent there were no awnings along the
sides of the road, and the rain had indeed been growing stronger,
such that by the time I stepped into a doorway near the top of the
hill, my clothing was fully drenched, and my shoes were swamped in
water as well.

Nonetheless, I had at least arrived at my lodging for the night. A
clubhouse in the port town for those on official business under
Percival.

I saw, upon entering, that the place had changed in some ways
since my last visit. The walls, once wood paneling, had been
plastered over and painted blue. There had previously been quite a
number of wood carvings in the place: elaborate masks hanging from
the walls, gargoyles perched on counters and mantles. I had not
noticed them much, when they had been there, though I certainly
noted their absence as something of a disappointment. If it was
not for the same keeper as before glancing up from his sweeping to
look at me, I would have believed I had entered the wrong place. I
recognized him quite readily though, by the swirling patterned
tattoo that marked one of his cheeks, and by his spectacles, which
caught the glow of the hearth that was in the center of the room.
Two men and a panting dog sat nearby the hearth.

The keeper came over, and stood with the broom across his
shoulders, arms hanging from either side of it as though he were a
scarecrow. "We have some rooms free tonight," he said. "Dinner
will be on in an hour." He then seemed about to relay some third
matter, but instead grunted and turned away, and lowered the broom
back to the floor, returning to his business.

I proceeded across the common room, past the two men and the dog,
none of which I gave much thought towards in that moment, as all
of them were quite silent. The two men looked into the fire. The
dog had rested its chin by the foot of one of the men, and closed
its eyes.

At the far side of the common room was a steep stairway, which
parted halfway up, the right continuation of the stairs leading up
to the second floor, the left continuation leading up to the
third. I went first to the right, up to the second floor, and
found that all three rooms bore a red card on the floor before
their doors, marking them as claimed. Muttering, I went back down
the stairs on that side, and climbed the opposing stairs up to the
third floor, quite drained of breath by the time I had reached the
top. There, indeed, there were three of the rooms free, and only
one claimed. I entered the nearest, first making sure to remove
the red card that laid on the bed and place it before the doorway.
I stowed the maple drum beneath the bed. I shook my head. Even the
walls in the rooms had been plastered over, and the homely
decorations removed. In any case, I then undressed from my soaked
clothing, and laid it out evenly upon the floor in hopes it might
dry some. To wear in the meantime, I retrieved a robe that was
available in the closet. I had worn the robes of this clubhouse
before, and did not look forward to doing so once again, but I
was, in that instance, pressed for alternatives. In all my times
staying at that clubhouse, neither I nor any other guest could
ever determine what material the robes were made from. They seemed
to be of a textile made out of some horrid mistake, such as a
barber's sweepings being spilled onto a shipment of wool peeled
off of leprous sheep. My intention was to attend that night's
dinner though, and so I did put on the robe. Wearing it felt like
wearing a blanket of sand and gravel. By this point in the day I
had had though, I was verging on too exhausted to care. In the
scratchy attire I descended back down the stairs to await the
meal, and to sit and warm myself by the clubhouse's hearth in the
meantime.

As I approached a free chair nearby the two men, I was perhaps
rather more silent in my footsteps than I had intended, walking
slowly from my exhaustion of the climbs up the stairs and down.
Additionally, the rain by this point pelted the building rather
harshly, further disguising the sound of my approach. I fully
believe, looking back, that they in genuine did not know I was
approaching. But my ears burned at what I heard the two men
uttering.

The one with long black hair, smiling, said under his breath,
"Seppa cherra, kolvidi den deykordey." We are exceedingly foolish,
we will be thrown from here before we have seen morning arrive.

The one with the short red hair, in a tone as likewise warm as it
was likewise conspiratorial, responded, "Kolch kordeyna. Cheya
chersil av seppa cherra arro, ah." We will not be thrown out. They
are the fools who believe that we of exceeding foolishness belong
here.

I interjected, "Yiraicheel veda komeritz eer galr. Kor orra,
sinich." There are beds and plates in abundance. Worry not,
gentlemen.

The red haired gasped and whirled back towards my direction. Now
smiling even bigger than before, he shouted, "Hingri!" Assassin!

He, his friend, and even the dog all looked ready to jump up and
flee for the door.

I gave a warm and relaxed laugh, and said, "No, no. I will be
candid with you in full, I am only a man, and not so greatly
invested in politics these days that I would assassinate any
other." I was surprised by myself at how easily I was slipping
back at once into my emissarial ways of speaking. It had been a
function of my engineering work, at many times, to converse with
others, negotiate, make impression, gain information, come to
understandings. Hearing my mother language from two men who were,
apparently, not supposed to be in the clubhouse in which they sat,
I was indeed curious to know more. I took a seat in the vacant
chair that was beside the red haired man, and I leaned towards the
hearth fire, holding my hands up before it. The skin of my hands
was riddled with bumps and red spots, after the cab ride.

The red haired man remarked, "Rare is the man who speaks the
tongue of the Galwur."

I answered cordially, "I am yet rarer: I am Galwur."

"No," said the red haired man with a laugh, "you are not."

"More by birth than by upbringing," I said, which was truthful.

He squinted at me for a moment, and eventually conceded, "Yes,
that much you may be. You will throw us out for sure now, though:
we are Nessayk."

"Nessayk!" I echoed, my surprise genuine though my outburst about
it put on for effect. I then settled in again, and said, "No, that
sours nothing of my opinion. You speak in Galwur because it is
lesser known here abroad?"

"Exactly."

"What is your business here in Percival?"

"Sightseeing," the red haired man answered. "Not for just this
island, but for the world across."

"Indeed?"

"Yes."

"Where are you destined from here?" I asked.

"We were more or less finished with this region, yeah?" he said,
and turned to the man with long black hair.

That man gave a simple affirmative "yeah," and slumped back in his
chair, and pet the dog.

The red haired man went on, "After this, Death's Coast, The Green
Towers, The Ursa Sea..."

"Alice," added the other man.

"Alice on the southern horn of Tenia," the red haired man agreed,
and went on, "Heaven's Basin, Davin well beyond that, and by then
we will likely be circling back westward again, though the exact
landmarks we hope to hit on the return, we are undecided."

I did not speak at first, as I was still trying to work out,
before giving anything away, how they had pulled off such a trick
on me. For them to 'happen' to have stepped in to the clubhouse to
which I had access. To 'happen' to be speaking the first language
I had ever learned, and which hardly any others in this region
were even aware existed. To 'happen' to be making a circular
transit which, though not directly there and directly back, did
include Heaven's Basin, where I had come to town that very day to
seek passage to. I did not know, then, that it had been
accomplished because the trick had not been played by them at all,
but by the fates. In that moment, I was the fool enough to believe
that because I had not spoken the words "Heaven's Basin" in the
port town that day, this was finally the beginning of my dealt
hands making up for lost luck.

"How do you get about to all of these places?" I asked.
"Stowaways? Crewmen?"

I chose not to insult them by suggesting they may be men of any
importance, only to cause them to have to tell me that they were
not.

The two of them looked to each other. I could not discern their
cypher. There was no nod, wink of the eye, twitch of the ear,
tapping of the nose or rubbing of the stubble from either of them.
They seemed to do nothing other than look into each other's eyes
for a few moments, and then the red haired turned to me again.

"We are crewmen, yes," he said. He was lying, in the manner where
someone considers himself too important to falsify information
without being pressed to, and so he speaks in riddles and details.
It is a very careful kind of speech and very easy to notice.

So, somehow, when looking at each other, they had agreed not to
tell me the true nature of their travel arrangements. My best
guess at the signal they had used is that it was done in a lack of
signal: if there had been a nod, a wink, or so on, that would have
indicated to the other to be forthright. It was the fact there was
not a signal that caused them to default to deception. That is how
I believe they did it. That they did it at all is incidental to
these events, but there were times, later on from then, I would
reflect on it. So that is what I believe they did.

Although I was being lied to, I also did not believe that all was
lost. They did not seem bent on harm. As well, for all the lie
that was said in "We are crewmen, yes," they had nonetheless been
truthful with me until that moment, in telling me their planned
travels. They were destined to Heaven's Basin, and securing
passage alongside the two of them was a more direct arrangement
than I was likely to get from anything else: even were I to
independently arrive at the southern horn of Tenia with no
difficulty, I had no ship of my own and no funds great enough to
command one temporarily, and so I would be left to wait, perhaps
for months, before a ship already happened to be going that way
and would take me. It would all be easier, I believed at that
time, were I to secure passage with these two.

The red haired asked me, "What of you, sinich?"

"Please, call me Cheer."

"Cheer," he echoed back, using the correct pronunciation, saying
it in two parts, chee-ur. It was no wonder he should say it
correctly, as he then told me his name: "I am Cheek." It was
pronounced by the same principle: chee-uk. He was not making up
that similar name to ingratiate himself to me in some way either,
as that is the name I observed him to be referred to by at all
times later.

Cheek turned towards the man with long black hair.

That man turned down to look at his dog, smiled, and told me, "She
is Checha."

He then looked to me with some kind of pleased finality, as though
his part of the introductions had, in all sincerity, been
completed. From that moment, even having not known him very long,
I found his manners to be very strange. At first, though, my
assumption of the most likely truth on the matter was that he was
simply not as well spoken as his friend, hence why Cheek had done
the most part of the talking with me until that point.

"And what may I call you by, sinich?" I asked him.

His expression dropped. What manner of slight he imagined me to
have given him, I do not know. I only know that he appeared,
suddenly and for no reason, displeased with me. "I am Solok," he
told me.

"Steeg, Cheek eer Solok," I told the men. Pleased to meet you,
Cheek and Solok.

Solok said nothing, and looked at me with open contempt, as though
my pleasant greeting had been some grave insult. I wondered then,
and to this day I still have no good answer, whether he wielded as
full a command as he seemed to over either of the languages which
we had in common. It may have been, when hearing me call him a
gentleman, sinich, his untrained ear for Galwur had guessed at
some other less flattering term, though what that would be, I
cannot make a reasonable guess of, as it would be something
predicated on incorrect information, and could therefore be
anything. All I can say in confidence is that in that moment Solok
very quickly detested me, and his opinion of me as time went on
did not rise in leaps and bounds. Whatever slight he had conceived
of right then was not one that he ever forgot.

Cheek had noticed his friend's cold response to my pleasant
remark, and, to his credit, at least attempted to cover for his
friend's poor manners. The red haired laughed a little under his
breath, leaned back in his seat, and lifted an imaginary glass
into the air. "Had I wine I would lift all of our names in a
toast," he said.

At other times I may not have been moved to playing along with a
gesture as childish as that one. Being quite glad to move the
conversation along from there, though, I raised an imaginary glass
as well, and clinked with him.

"As for my business," I said, and then I itched at one of the
insect bites on my shin. As I shifted, the material of the robe
then seemed to constrict, and nettled at me from neck to ankle. I
sat upright again. I made a show of looking at the arms of the
robe. "This material is awful." I had also begun to sweat, sitting
by the heat of the fire, and my sweat now held the prickly
material against my skin no matter which way I sat. I adjusted in
my seat a few times, and eventually I resigned to discomfort, and
I continued, "I am a surveyor. Percival sends me to Heaven's
Basin."

At those words, Solok muttered something under his breath that I
took to be an oath. He stared into the fire and said nothing else
in my presence for the rest of the night.

Cheek glanced at his friend. He seemed to want to play ambassador,
bridge the gap between, but he evidently could not form a plan to
do such. He continued to speak with just me. "What business could
you possibly be sent to Heaven's Basin on?" he asked.

Nothing of my business necessitated being deceitful. Them knowing
I was on a fool's errand would not impede the errand, in any way I
could see it. I told the red haired, while also still able to be
heard by the black haired if he was listening, "There are rumored
to be mystics living on those islands. My lord would like me to
find out whether it is true, and report back anything of use."

The red haired asked, "Do you believe there are mystics?"

I shook my head. "No. Not of the caliber my lord hopes for."

He then asked, with a mischievous smile teasing the corners of his
lips upwards, "Why not lay low for a few months, and come back
saying you went and that there was nothing?"

I was speechless. He spoke of insubordination as though it was a
thing to find glee in. Of misuse of a lord's resources as though
Percival were a surly tribal chief. The answer to his question,
"Why not," was because such idiotic betrayal could never have
occurred to me.

With a laugh, Cheek reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, and
said, "Cher pech." We are joking.

I do not think that he was. I think he truly wanted to know why I
wouldn't hide from my responsibilities in some manner akin to what
he had suggested.

He went on, "Come with us tomorrow morning to see our ship."

"I would like to," I said.

Shortly thereafter, the keeper came to tell us that dinner was
prepared.

We all gathered to a side of the common room which had a long
table, and many chairs down the line, the extra chairs not removed
in spite of the fact that only the four of us ate that night. The
keeper had done correctly, according to custom: Every spot was to
remain ready, such that a passing man of need or an unanticipated
extra guest would not feel he was inconveniencing his host. The
keeper had, in fact, set up in fullness one more place than would
be necessary: Solok dished stew into his bowl, fished and strained
extra pieces of beef from the broth to drop into his bowl as well,
grabbed two cuts of the thickly sliced bread on offer, and then
turned and went up the stairs to eat in his room alone. His dog
followed after him, its nose towards his food.

I inquired with the keeper if any others from above would be
joining us. He said that there were others staying the night, but
they were each taking their meals privately. I could guess, then,
at some of the men who might be present. Garl, perhaps. In any
case, I did not dwell on it. I was ready enough by then to finish
the meal and retire to my room, and be prepared to get on with the
next day.

The meal bordered on inedible. Something about the stew was off.
The potatoes or the carrots might have gone bad. I wondered if
they might have been intended for a stew the night before or even
earlier, been cooked partially, then left to sit and spoil until
added to that night's broth. The beef, what few parts were left,
was passable if bland. The bread was stale. In dipping it in the
broth, whatever taste was off about the stew transferred onto the
bread as well. By the time my bowl was empty, I certainly felt
that I could have eaten more if the food were any good. I was
unsure enough, though, whether I would even keep down what I had
eaten already.

Without dishing myself up seconds, I wished the keeper and Cheek a
good night, and retired up the stairs. My thoughts reeling over
the day I had had, I went up the wrong branch of the staircase at
first, realized it halfway up the wrong path, turned, climbed back
down, and climbed up the correct side, and retired into my room.
There inside, I stripped off my robe and climbed into the bed.
Though I was thoroughly exhausted, I was also riddled with insect
bites and had been sweating in the common room's heat, and I
remained awake for quite some time, wishing for sleep, but kept up
by itching spots on my hands, torso, brow, ankles, right shin, and
left thigh.

Hours into the night, at a moment when sleep had not been upon me
for more than a few minutes, I distantly heard the howling of dogs
on the streets outside. I covered my head with my arms, blocking
out the sound. It worked, and I thought, for a moment, that I
would be falling back to sleep hardly having noticed the
interruption. Then, though, the howling seemed as though the dogs
were in the room with me. I shot upright in my bed, frantically
trying to come up with what the nearest weapon to me was to strike
a dog away with.

Looking around my dim room though, there was nothing.

I listened again.

The howling was coming from the next room down the hall, howling
back at the dogs outside. I shouted vile things at the wall,
telling the cur to stop their ruckus or I would go in and stop
them myself. For I had believed, at that moment, not thinking of
things fully in my half awakened state, that in the room next to
mine, there were only two dogs who were dedicated to ruining my
sleep. I do realize now that it was one dog, and Solok.

The howling did cease, and I was, after some further itching to my
shin, able to fall asleep again.

In the morning, I picked up my clothing from off the floor. It had
still not dried fully. I wrestled my way into the damp things
though, and put on my boots, which squelched and squealed with
every step as I went down the stairs.

There in the common room, at the breakfast table, was a platter of
eggs and pitchers of water. I had always been made nauseous by the
smell of eggs. They reminded me of mildew, or milk gone bad. I do
not see how chicken droppings ever came to be such a staple food
among civilized peoples who could afford anything better.

Seated towards the far end of the breakfast table were Cheek and
Solok. Cheek waved me over. Solok ignored me, and offered down a
morsel of his eggs to his dog. It ate straight off of his fork. If
I were already upon them, seated at their side, I think I would
not have been able to help myself from snatching away the fork,
kicking the dog, and telling this rudely disrespectful band of
intruders to be gone. As I made my walk towards them across the
common room though, I had time to calm, and approach things in a
more peaceable fashion.

Standing beside the table, I said to the black haired, "That was
very disrespectful."

He turned and looked at me. His eyes were not friendly, nor were
they impassioned. He was unimpressed by me. I continued to stand
upright all the same, looking down at him severely.

As I did, something else caught my eye. On the floor behind him,
against the wall, there stood a bowl. I glanced from the bowl to
Solok, and then to the dog, and then turned and looked at the
platter of eggs, and then looked to the keeper who sat at the
other far end of the table, and looked back at me with an
expression as bored as Solok's.

I put it all together, of course. The dog had not just eaten a
morsel then off of the fork, but had in fact already had even more
from out of the bowl, and what's worse, it had happened with the
blessing, or at least the permission, of the keeper. As such, I
could not, in the manner of civility, stand and call to task the
rudeness I had seen. I was not the host, and I was no longer a man
of such a high station as to supersede the host either. Without
scolding Solok further, but also without stepping back from what I
had said already, I took a seat. I consoled myself by my belief
that eggs were filth. The dog, Solok, the keeper, all of them ate
filth. I ate nothing.

The red haired tapped his fingernails against a slate that was
laid out on the table, calling my attention to it. On the slate
was chalk writing. Looking it over, it appeared to be a manifest,
detailing the crew and provisions of the ship they were traveling
by. Fourteen bodies were the crew, with two additional bodies who
were both called navigators, neither captain. I inquired if these
'navigators' were Cheek and Solok. They were not: Cheek and Solok
counted themselves among the crew. The navigators were called
Damick and Nir.

We discussed accommodations. Tucked into the stern of the ship
were six quarters, three at port and three at starboard: I
considered how small every one of the quarters would be, given
that the entirety of the ship could not be so large with a crew of
less than twenty. There was a quarters to the navigator Damick,
one to the navigator Nir, one shared by Cheek and Solok, and the
other three were to six further crew members who I did not yet
have any notion of, with the remainder of the crew sleeping on
hammocks among the provisions. We came to an agreement that for
the three measures of gold in my drum, Cheek would give up his bed
to me, and he would go sleep among the provisions as well. I would
not be made to labor unless all hands were called to deck. I would
have access to the provisions evenly with any other man aboard the
ship. It all seemed agreeable to me. As agreeable as I could hope
for, at least. We brought the keeper over as a witness to the
agreement, and I had him attest, in the presence of the red haired
and the black haired, that if any mischief befell a surveyor of
Percival, that mischief maker would be marked a severe criminal in
all lands and waters which Percival touched.

With all settled, we all returned to our rooms, gathered our
things, and proceeded out of the door, down the hill, and towards
the sea. In the shops near the port I purchased some commodities
for the travels, based on my knowledge of what may bring comforts
during the long days at sea. Spare clothing was quite an important
thing I had been neglected, much of my attire gone with wherever
Adelia had gone to, and the trunks in her captain's quarters.
Though as to materials with which to pass the time at sea, my
chief purchase was a journal and writing implements. Cheek and
Solok made no purchases of their own, and stood about outside any
shop I went into, bickering between themselves, Cheek cursing the
morning's hot sun, Solok cooing and preening over his panting dog.
When I had gathered enough to suffice me, we continued the last of
the walk to the sea. There at the port, the ship awaited us.

The ship was called Sorry Ester. I will not speak poorly of her.
She was not a vessel of grandeur, but in her meek way she was
built like an iron chariot to weather the harshness of the sea.
She did not sink. She continued to sail at all times she was
tasked to.

When we arrived, a gangplank was across the gap between dock and
deck. At the top, two women were conversing. In short time I
learned them to be Damick and Nir. Damick wore a slim sword at her
hip. Nir wore a greatsword at her back, so large that I was
surprised a woman could have the strength to walk about with it,
let alone lift it in battle, though I would later see her do just
that. Upon our arrival, the two navigators looked down at us, and
then to one another. Damick, the woman with the slim sword,
smirked, and did what I could only describe as letting go of
herself: she fell off of the side of the ship, gave herself over
to the whims of weight and the natural laws. I believed she was
about to break her neck, split her head open on the dock's planks.
Upon coming to the dock though, she rolled and in one motion stood
to bring her face an inch from mine. She was not the slightest out
of breath. I did not realize, until afterwards, until now, even,
how much that struck me. By her fall, she had exerted almost
nothing, felt no peril. With a nonchalant smile she stared at me
eye to eye as though she had turned in place to face me.

"This is him," she said, speaking of me as a subject, speaking to
Cheek and Solok as her audience.

Cheek responded, "We believed so."

"Good," she said. And then she turned, and walked back up the
gangplank, and she and Nir walked off farther aboard the vessel.

Cheek turned to me, and said, under his breath, "Prophecy
followers, both of them." Then he stepped back a pace, and at a
more ordinary volume, said, "Shall we go to see your
accommodations?"

"Please," I said.

Solok's dog went up first, followed by Cheek, and then myself, and
then Solok behind. At the deck, Solok went off to speak with some
others. Cheek led me astern, towards the open portal into the
quarters. The portal itself was a round door, two feet in diameter
if that much, with stiff hinges that left the door standing open
as we were there at port. The portal led into a narrow passage
which had three tall and narrow doors to the left and three tall
and narrow doors to the right. Cheek led the way to the second
door on the right, and held it open for me, standing back in the
small space further down the passage. I looked inside. The room
was about six feet across and six feet deep. The majority of the
floor was occupied by two beds, side by side, a narrow aisle
between the two. All else was tucked away in secured cabinets upon
the walls.

"It will do," I said, fool that I was.

I stepped inside. From my drum, I removed the three measures of
gold, and handed them to Cheek. The red haired took them,
mentioned some pleasantry, removed his few items from the cabinets
on the left side of the quarters, and then he departed out of the
portal again, leaving me to the room he had condemned me to.

I tucked away my things in the cabinets he had just cleared. I
then went and paced about the deck of Sorry Ester, standing
variously near stern and bow, making small introductions to crew
members as I encountered them. Provisions were carried aboard in
no great hurry, and ropes and sails were made ready.

At some moment Solok's dog came up to deck from the hold and ran
squarely in my direction. Had I not happened to have been facing
it to be ready to fend it off, I may have been bitten and clawed
to death then and there. But, facing the approaching dog, I
shouted, "Back! Scram! Back!" This gave the dog some brief cause
for hesitation in its bloodlust, enough for me to turn and flee up
towards the helm. With a bark it pursued after me, struggling
enough with the steep portside stairs up to the helm that I had a
moment to look about and figure where to flee to next: the mast,
of course. Just as the dog was coming to the top of the portside
stairs, I fled down the starboard stairs, sprinted for the mast,
and began climbing up the ladder pegs, making it nearly to the top
before I dared to look down.

When I did look down, I saw that the crewmen who were on deck had
all paused in their work and were invariably staring up at me.
Directly below me, at the foot of the mast, was that aggressing
dog, and standing beside it was Solok. The dog and Solok both
stared up at me.

Solok called up to me, "Is the crow's nest to your satisfaction,
sinich?"

One crewman, Yansed was his name, laughed loudly at that.

I shouted down to Solok, "Call off your villainous hound!"

The black haired thought about it for quite some while, and then I
heard his shout back up to me: "Very well."

He turned down to the dog and said some command to it. Oh, how I
wish I knew its command that turned it away from me, but alas, he
was too far for me to hear it, and he never repeated it at any
later time either, such that I could hear. With the command said
though, he walked away to return to whatever his business was in
the hold, and the dog followed him back down below as well. I
stayed upon the mast until some time later when a crewman, Teetri
was his name, called up and asked if I needed any assistance down.
Bashfully I made the descent down myself, and retreated into my
quarters.

Sitting on my own bed, my feet over the edge of it and resting
down in the narrow aisle between my bed and Solok's, I felt myself
grimacing at the accumulation of dog hair upon his bedding. I
wondered how a man could sleep, pricked so by the hairs of an
animal, lying among a dog's stench.

Some time passed as I sat there alone. I felt, in that moment, one
longing. I longed to be at sea, and feel the ship rocking under
me. That was a simple comfort I had not had in too long.

I felt a small hunger, which caused my stomach to turn as I sat
there. I had not eaten much the day before, and I had eaten
nothing at all on that day, and the time was coming to late
afternoon. I arose to inquire out how meals were organized aboard
the ship. As I was stepping out of the narrow door of my new
quarters, a crewman, Vish was his name, stuck his head into the
open portal out to the deck. He seemed about to shout some
announcement into that section of the ship, but paused when
realizing he was about to shout it at me squarely. Rather than
shout, he simply offered a smile, and said, "Setting off now, sir.
You are coming with us?"

I nodded. "Indeed. Do not let me stay the departure."

Again smiling, he said, "Very good." He then turned away, and
joined the buzz of activity that had begun all aboard the deck,
men shouting and moving.

I remained in my quarters, and laid down for a spell. I did indeed
fall asleep soundly to the sounds of a ship's men at work, and the
rocking of waves as we got out to sea.

I was startled awake by a harsh rapping of knuckles on wood.
Sitting upright on my bed, I attempted to gather my bearings.

Beyond the closed door to my quarters, I heard a woman, who I now
know to have been Nir, speaking at a raised volume as she knocked
on the door to another of the quarters tucked into the stern,
which I now know to have been Damick's door. The two of them
seemed at all times to speak in vaguery. What Nir said exactly
then, I cannot recall, though it would have been to the effect of,
"We are needed! Fortune calls! Fortune will not wait, navigator!
Come, let us fulfill today's step in the great play!" Whatever set
of grand compulsions Nir had used that day, it did cause Damick to
rise, and the two of them departed out to the deck. My ears
following, so to speak, in their direction, I marked then that the
sounds out on deck had changed. No longer was there the shouting
and bustle, but instead, conversation, and occasional laughter.

I exited my quarters, and found, on the deck, that a dinner was
being had. Men stood about in little groups, conversing as they
sipped intermittently from the bowls that they held. Nearby to the
mast was a cauldron, and some empty bowls remaining beside. I
ladled myself one bowlful, rueful to find that it was fish. Not a
full day out, and fish already. I should have realized, a vessel
as tight on space as Sorry Ester, that fish was to be a staple.
Bringing much of other substance would not be feasible, if she was
not planning to stop to restock with frequency. I stood a few
paces back from the starboard railing, and faced out to sea as I
ate my dinner of fish soup.

When I was done, I placed the bowl among a stack of dirtied ones
that were by the cauldron, and returned to my quarters again. I
began penning the first entry of my journal, chronicling the day
thus far, while there was yet daylight through the room's small
window to write by.

As I was nearing the end of the day's log, Solok entered the
quarters, and his unruly dog, which was so bold as to push even
its master aside to run into the quarters first, leaping up onto
Solok's bed and then over to mine. It nosed at me very rudely, and
then laid down on Solok's bed and looked up to its master. Solok
came in, and laid down on his bed as well, and settled in on his
back with the dog pressed against his side.

I told him, "Your dog is to leave this quarters at once."

By the dim light of day that yet came in through the room's
window, I saw Solok lift his head and look in my direction. He
then rubbed the side of his head against his dog as though he laid
in bed with a woman. And he said to me, and I quote him exactly,
"I would throw you overboard before I would make her feel uncared
for."

The words he said cannot have hung in his own head for too long,
as within half a minute after him saying it, the sound of his deep
snoring came from his side of the quarters.

Let me be clear about one thing: I hate dogs. I have hated dogs in
all my youth and all my adulthood. I have hated dogs at all times
before this journey began. As I sit here now and reflect, I
continue to hate dogs in all of the same ways that I always have
hated them. They are a miserable and lowly species without
redemption. I hate the high pitch of a dog's whining and barking.
I hate a dog's two-facedness, its instinct to beg and plead and
then claw and bite if it isn't granted what it had feigned a
humble asking for. I hate a dog's lesser intellect, capable of
only the world's evil things such as cruelty and predation,
incapable of the world's good things such as reasoning and
dignity. I hate the way a dog will eat its own sick. I hate dogs
grilled or boiled. And I hate the armor that some idiotic and
gullible men give to dogs, when we have otherwise agreed that all
the world's things are a man's to subdue, because such men have
been so completely fooled by a dog's basic deceits towards
feigning kindness and loyalty. I hate that a dog is all the pest a
mosquito is, yet because someone has taken the mosquito to be
their own child, I may not destroy it. To say it one further time,
to make the point apparent and without caveats or exceptions: I
hate dogs.

That first night, I wondered whether I would get a night's sleep
during the entire duration of the voyage. I do not fault a man his
odor. I have spent too much time aboard a ship to. It is true,
that when Solok entered the quarters, the once neutral air was
overwhelmed by a hanging steam of sweat. But a man's
unpleasantries, while unpleasant, are nothing that he can be held
to shame over. To add the dog, though, was shameful of him. Its
breath filled every cubic inch of the air in that room that the
smell of sweat had not claimed already, such that I was surprised
for every minute that I did not lose consciousness due to
suffocation in the resulting miasma.

How can I summarize the way in which that dog made all my days and
nights of that voyage into agony? It cannot be summarized. I noted
every transgression in my journal throughout the voyage, and to
recite the journal in full would take too long, such that the
point of reciting it would be lost in the process of the
recitation. I can only select out for you a great many examples of
how that dog was nearly my ruination, and then at the end tell you
that for all those examples I have recited, I could recite twenty
more.

Day of first dawn at sea after leaving Percival: The pest, I have
decided to call it. Dog is not poor enough a word. Dog does indeed
encompass everything wrong with the wretch itself, but pest is
needed to also encompass Solok's insistence that it not be barred
from our already confined quarters. He cannot be argued with. I do
not know if he is dull, or even finds some enjoyment in forcing
the pest upon me. It is true that in the exchange we had agreed
upon, I had purchased stay in Cheek's side of the quarters, and
little had been said of Solok's. Solok refuses to revisit that
aspect of the deal and clarify it so as to put reasonable
restrictions on his behavior. He will not leave the pest outside.
He has suggested that I find some other place aboard Sorry Ester
to sleep, if I am so bothered. He said, and I had not even
offered, but he said that he would not remove the pest even for
all the rest of the contents of my maple drum. Again, I do not
know if he is an idiot, or if his pleasure at my suffering simply
does exceed that which he could purchase with such a quantity of
silver and coins. In either case, he continues to preen over and
protect the pest as a man ought protect his children. I could not
sleep much last night for the smell of the pest alone, even
putting aside my fear that it would become aggressive again at the
slightest movement from myself, and seize upon me with its jaws as
I flailed back against it helplessly in the dark. But he is not
bothered by it in any of these ways. He shares none of my
observations or concerns. Far from it. I have seen something which
I regret I can only describe as kissing between them. I revile at
even the suggestion that that is what it was, but I do not know
what else it would be: he had picked the pest up as they were
crossing the deck, so as to carefully step over some ropework that
was being done, and not have the ropes be tangled and scattered by
the animal which he continues to keep aboard the ship. I note,
there, by the way, that he does have some concept of not allowing
the pest to bother other men aboard the ship, hence a growing
belief on my part that his cruelty with the pest is in some way
specific towards me, for what transgression, I do not know. But
returning to the point, as he was carrying it across the deck in
his arms, it faced him and jabbed its unruly tongue at his mouth.
Rather than scold or beat the cur, he opened his mouth to its
intrusion, and it prodded its tongue further and licked upon his
teeth, as he made no protest, and seemed, even, to angle his head
to help the pest reach into his mouth farther. Whatever the
practical reason for it was, I do not know. But it seemed to me,
and of course I cannot confirm it, but it did seem to me that
whatever the reason was he allowed the pest to lick the inside of
his mouth, he found some pleasure as well in the fact that the act
was occurring. Again, I do not say that he found pleasure in it
for a surety. That would be a very grave accusation to make
without full knowledge, which I have not. He was at some distance
across the deck from where I was observing. Perhaps that which
seemed to be the face a man might make when kissing a woman was in
fact a grimace. The expressions are, oddly, close enough to one
another. Under other circumstances, I would likely assume that it
was the grimace. The way he regards that pest though. He is like a
native in possession of a clay idol of a devil. He holds evil,
worthless evil, and cannot be convinced by any reasoning that it
is not holy. I do not think I will sleep much tonight either.

Day of second dawn at sea after leaving Percival: I did not sleep
much last night. This is again due to the pest. It may have begun
barking in its sleep.

Day of eighth dawn at sea after leaving Percival: The pest has
definitively begun barking in its sleep. I believed I had noted it
before, but was often half or a quarter asleep myself, and so was
led to some uncertainty, previously. But last night, while fully
awake, I heard the pest bark as though sent to chase after a
burglar. I thought it might have finally made up its mind to
assault me regardless of its master's command, but as it remained
in place on its side, I realized that it was the nocturnal barking
I had believed I had heard before, only it was occurring at the
pest's full voice, as though it were not asleep at all.

Day of thirteenth dawn at sea after leaving Percival: The barking
at night has continued. The men in the other cabins are nearly as
deaf to it as Solok, and seem too dull to understand that such a
nightly bother demands outrage. Alas. The others still pet the
pest when it nears them. They attempt to get along with the pest
out of fear, of course: keep the pest on their good side. I do not
believe in such grovelish solutions. I will continue to make the
pest know it may not approach me. On the day it does tear a gouge
in a man of this ship, sinew from bone, we will see whether it
will be a man who has attempted to appeal to a higher cause than
the pest has any concept of, such as friendship, or whether it
will be the man who has kept everything quite simple and to the
beast's level, making it know, always, it may not approach me.

Day of fourteenth dawn at sea after leaving Percival: The pest has
left a dead fish on my bed. I have placed it on Solok's bed.

Day of fifteenth dawn at sea after leaving Percival: The pest
chewed on the dead fish for much of last night and then fell
asleep among the viscera. The smell, at least, covered the smell
of dog at times.

Day of twentieth dawn at sea after leaving Percival: Someone or
something has left a chewed branch upon my bed. The branch is of
pine, and sap from it has made a layer of wet gum across my
bedsheets. Upon the wet and adhesive surface that had formerly
been quite suitable for sleeping on were pieces of the bark and
splinters from the meat of the branch. Due to the adhesion, of
course, all of these small pieces will be quite a task to remove.
I have thrown what remained of the bulk of the branch overboard.

Day of twenty second dawn at sea after leaving Percival: From all
of the sleep that has been stolen from me all these nights, I have
been drowsy on and off throughout the daytimes, and suffering
headaches as well, worse and more consistently than has ever been
typical for me. The pest approached me on the deck today with a
branch in its mouth, and dropped it before me. I continued on my
way, not stopping to pick the branch up. I later found it on my
bed, not chewed to shreds as the last one had been, though this
one did have notable marks of gnawing on it. I went and dropped it
overboard, and came back to my quarters, and will stop writing
shortly and attempt to get some sleep now, before night comes and
Solok and the pest come in again.

For all those examples I have recited, I could recite twenty more.
You understand the point.

I have heard a saying now and again, often spoken by womanly men.
The saying goes something like this: "What matters is not the
destination, but the journey." If that is true, then the point of
all this has been to tell you of the unceasing misery I faced
these last months, and that has now been accomplished. If the
inverse of the saying is true, then the point of all this will be
to tell you of a much briefer disappointment. I will get to that
now.

The day we arrived at Heaven's Basin was heavily overcast, and
raining on and off. As such, the island renowned for so
brilliantly reflecting the sunlight, for being a beacon upon a
flat and vast sea, could hardly be seen. We could have sailed
right past it, if the rain had been much heavier, or if Damick had
not been as attentive as she was in the crow's nest. We stayed the
ship some distance from the islands, as it was clear there was no
good place to put in among them: all the surface of the island was
rocks. The most it could boast for vegetation was some manner of
slime at certain positions upon the shores, and a few lines of
seaweed that had washed up here and there. There were three
islands. One a bit larger and overall in the shape of a hill,
certainly not a mile across any way you measured. One was smaller,
perhaps thirty feet across, and not entirely flat, but closer to
flat than its larger neighbor. The third island was more of a tall
pillar, about a mile out from the other two islands, with a flat
top that I doubted was ten feet across, if it was even five.

On the shore of the large island, standing all side by side to
face us, were four men and nine women in grey tunics. I would
later come to learn the tunics were all made from the skins of
sharks.

On Sorry Ester, a rope was cast over the starboard railing.
Damick, Cheek, Solok, and myself all climbed down it, into the
water, which was chilling and choppy. Solok's dog jumped after us,
and at points in the swim towards land I wondered if that dog
might drown its owner, swimming so closely against him along the
way, paws striking down over and over against the water's surface.

When we arrived at the island, the natives all crowded around the
damned dog. I do not know what they said, as it was all in a
language I was unfamiliar with, but the tone of it was praising,
and the tone is all that the dog would have been able to
understand, in any case. They ran their hands over the dog's back,
and many then afterwards had to strike their hands against each
other some number of times in order to remove the wet hair that
had come off from the pest.

Of the thirteen natives on the island, only one had a language in
common with the rest of us. He had a smile as though he was drunk.
His name was Mirlo. As the other natives of the island wandered
away in one direction, we and Mirlo wandered off in the other, and
we talked as we went. He asked us if our journey had been good
thus far, and Damick, who was at the fore of the conversation on
our side, said that it indeed had been good. I did not weigh in to
contradict her.

Damick did eventually say to him, "We have come because we have
heard that the people of Heaven's Basin command magic."

The man gave a hearty laugh, as though Damick had just recited a
joke that he had never heard before. "I assure you," he said, "we
do no such thing. But it is understood what you speak about."

He then stopped walking, and gathered us all together in a circle.
He outstretched both hands, and held his empty palms in the center
for us all to see. For some seconds, nothing occurred. I had been
subjected to supposed mystics before, and I suspected that in
short order, this man would be tediously attempting to convince us
that we should all be able to feel some unseen force. That is not
what occurred though. I had not even been blinking when a stone
appeared in the man's hands. It was a stone the size of a man's
head, and water poured off of it as it first appeared, splattering
down onto the ground. Mirlo laughed proudly at the summoned rock,
and then offered it to each of us to touch and know that it was
real. It was indeed real, and of quite a dire weight. When we had
all had a chance to observe the rock, Mirlo turned away from us,
and threw the rock into the ocean, where it produced a tall and
mighty splash.

I do not know why he had said that he did not command magic. It
was very clear that he did. The effect of his magic was not
causation of faint feelings, but indeed everything that Percival
had heard rumor about, and sent me to find out. Telekinesis.
Teleportation. Walking on water. Mirlo and the other natives could
do all of these things with ease. I was astounded at every
demonstration of it. There was no mechanism for it to be trickery.
There were not hidden lines strung up from trees: the islands had
no trees. There were not tricks of forced perspective: Mirlo and
the other natives performed their talents openly, inviting others
to check their work, as he had invited us to hold the rock.

I asked him, after he had thrown the rock back into the water, and
caused that tall splash, "How is it done?"

His response was the brief disappointment, the ending of my
journey: "Most men see, but he who is a master painter sees truly.
Most women walk, but she who is a master dancer moves truly. Most
creatures exist." He then gave some sort of sweeping gesture
towards me with both hands, as though he had explained everything.

In the course of our days on that island, I could elicit nothing
from them of the actual mechanism by which their mysticism worked.
Damick and Solok spoke the most with Mirlo. I often listened in
when the circumstances were opportune to, though Mirlo was often
in conversations with Solok while playing with the dog, and I
would not subject myself to its presence when there was room to
avoid it. Mirlo had summoned up a branch of some manner of aquatic
vegetation, and he and Solok spoke for hour on end while playing
fetch with the dog, throwing the stick into the water for it to
dumbly bring back again and again.

Mirlo spoke at length of the sea, its currents, its creatures. For
food and other materials, he and the other natives summoned up
sharks from the water's depths, and smote them with sharp stones
to kill them quickly when they were brought up. Mirlo made some
claim that the sharks which were selected were ones which were
even more aggressive and harmful than usual to the other
creatures, and that a great amount of time was invested in
observing the seas with their mystic abilities, and selecting
those sharks out. That is not all of the exact language he used:
his own wording was always quite passive, and I do not think he
ever made claim to possess magic or mysticism in any way. Yet day
after day, he continued to demonstrate the talent.

On the fifth day, I was sitting at some distance away from Mirlo
and Solok, observing them throwing the stick into the water for
the dog. And then, I saw it. Solok, as he was raising the stick to
throw it again, hesitated. And then he disappeared. The dog
barked, agitated over the occurrence. Mirlo raised his hands high
over his head and clapped and shouted praises: I spotted,
following his direction, that Solok had teleported to the small
island, that was as a tall pillar out at sea. Solok raised his
arms to the air in an expression of victory, and then teleported
back to the main island again, and threw the stick for the dog.

Even from Solok, I could learn nothing. He spoke of the moment he
figured it out as though it was the dog that had taught him. He
said things to the effect of it being like allowing a dog to chase
him, rather than chasing the dog. He kept coming back to that way
of describing it. It was apparent to me, from his utter failure to
describe the talent in a way that crystallized it, that the talent
was not something that could be taught or learned by intelligent
thought. If it were, Solok and Mirlo would not be the men to learn
it. Perhaps it is some innate ability passed down by bloodline, or
even something akin to a disease, spreading from man to man with
some more prone to receiving it. I do not know. The only ones
among us who were able to learn it were Solok and Damick. Both of
them, and, thankfully, the dog, left the island cluster by
teleportation, alleging to be going ahead to the continent we were
destined for next, though, I suppose that will not be known for a
surety until we arrive to see. I could offer no payment to any man
or woman on the island to come back to Percival and perform their
talents for his use. All of their desires were to the ocean.
Currency did not sway them. I have known many natives so dull, and
understood that pursuing the issue farther was a moot point until
such a time as their own resources could be destroyed, making the
supplantation of Percival's resources a new necessity to them. But
I would not be able to do that on this present journey. It would
take a fleet to suppress the ocean, and a mighty army to do it in
the face of men who could effortlessly summon great rocks and
sharks up into the air.

So now, there is the journey back. I will be able to confirm to
Percival the rumors of powerful mystics, who can do everything
that he asked me to find out. I will tell him these talents can
move great items over long distances. I will tell him these
talents can be spread to others. I will tell him I have gained him
nothing.




[4]

Tiberius

Meg Pittman leaned back in her swivel chair, holding her steaming
cup of coffee in both hands under her nose. It was hazelnut, and
the smell was always cozy to her. It reminded her of log cabins,
antique furniture, overcast drizzling days. She blew across the
surface of the coffee, ostensibly to cool it, but in actuality, in
her secretest heart of hearts, she was amusing herself creating
the little waves across the coffee's surface and imagining that
this was also causing the ocean waves she looked down on. She had
spun her chair around to face her office's window, which
overlooked the Indian Ocean from a fifteen floor vantage.

Chance, who stood beside Meg, also looking out at the ocean, took
a sip of her smoothie. Meg could smell the mixed berries, but
could also smell in equal measure or more all of the additives.
She didn't comment on it.

Instead, she, Meg, asked, "Have you ever gone surfing?"

"No," Chance said with a warm smile, a self-deprecating 'Heaven
forbid' tone of voice. "I loved water parks as a girl. Sometimes
I'd try to stand on those floating boards, what do you call
them... But surfing, no, I never tried. Have you?"

"I tried," Meg said. "The first week I was out here I started
lessons. I had never learned in Florida, and in Fort Worth, I
mean, you couldn't. So I figured, new leaf, let's give it a try
right away."

"And?"

"Fuuuck thaaat."

Chance let out a sharp laugh, and covered her mouth.

Meg smiled to herself, and had a tiny, tiny sip of her coffee.

"How do you think Pearson's presentation will go?" Meg asked.

Chance didn't answer right away. She took a moment to settle from
her laughing outburst, and took a long, thoughtful sip from her
mixed berry smoothie. Then she glanced over her shoulder for a
moment, and then said in a hushed tone, "The board already made up
their mind what they're doing."

"Yes," Meg said. She nodded. "I still want her to sell it though.
Make it glaringly apparent it was already decided."

"Cheers."

The two of them gently clinked plastic cup and coffee mug.

Chance looked down at her wrist watch. She sputtered out a sigh.
"Scrum meeting in three, I should give myself time to look at my
notes."

"Scrum it up. Eugh that's such an awful name."

"You're telling me," Chance said, and then toasted Meg briefly
with her cup, and took a drink as she turned to leave.

She closed the door on her way out.

Meg settled in her chair again, smelling the hazelnut, watching
the waves out on the ocean. When the coffee was cool enough to
take more than just a tiny sip, she downed the cup in one go,
feeling the heat all down her throat and settling behind her
ribcage.

As she was spinning the chair back around to actually get back to
work, she was saved by the phone on her desk ringing.

"Desk of Meg Pittman."

"Hey Meg, Stefan here."

"G'day g'day."

"Getting better!" Stefan remarked. "Pitch perfect, in fact, but it
still sounds a little canned. You can practice the phrases in the
mirror all day long, but you really have to feel the Aussie spirit
brimming up from the depths of your heart to fully capture it."

Meg, not having to fake an endeared amusement at least, said, in
her normal American accent, "I'll take that under advisement.
What's going on?"

"Nothing dire, I think. You know that, oh what is it, fulfillment,
logistics, something like that, position we've been looking to
create? I don't have the exact title of it in front of me."

Meg twirled the line around her finger. "I have absolutely no idea
what you're talking about."

"Ah, well. Job open, need someone good with numbers, statistics,
not going to be the lead on anything, doesn't have to be
Archimedes, but they should have a head on their shoulders. One...
gentleman... who applied, put you down as a reference."

"Oh. What's the name?"

"That would be one James T. Kirk."

Meg's eyes shot wide open. She slapped her palm down on her desk.
"Get out!"

Stefan gave a laugh, and said, "Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah. You know
him?"

"Yeah, I know Tiberius."

"This is real, then? I'm not hiring the captain of the Voyager?"

"Enterprise."

"What's that?"

"Kirk was captain of the USS Enterprise. Voyager was a different
series."

"Ah right."

"I only know from knowing him, I never watched any of them," Meg
clarified. She then cleared her throat, sat up straight in her
chair, and continued, "Yes, I do know a James Tiberius Kirk. His
parents are big sci-fi dorks. But he is real, that is his real
legal name."

"How do you know him?" Stefan asked.

"We attended Athens together. High school."

"Yeah, that's the one he has down! Huh. His application seemed fit
for the role. Experience as a CPA in California, extensive
volunteer work for some kind of dog charity, helped with inventory
management besides the hands-on work. I'm not really calling to
grill you on him. I mainly just wanted to make sure the whole
thing wasn't fake."

"Huh," Meg said. She spun back to face out the window again, and
again leaned back in her chair. "I didn't know he went on to do
accounting."

"Got his certification and started work in 2017."

"Right, that was after I knew him, yeah. Huh. Good to hear. Good
for him."

"Application form might say something about... yes, asks for all
references to be from someone who's known you for more than ten
years, suppose no one at his current employment fits the bill."

"Oh, that'd do it," Meg agreed.

"Easy guy to get along with?" Stefan asked.

"Yeah, he was a great friend."

"Any reason I shouldn't hire him?" Stefan asked.

"Umm..."

2015

"Fuuuck me, there is already no way you're going to be good to
drive tomorrow, there is no fucking way you're busting out three
more bottles of vodka right now," Tiberius said. His chin was
augmented with red streaks from wine he had missed the mark on
drinking. His dress that night, a white lacey thing, did no favors
at all in obscuring the spills either.

"Not just any three bottles of vodka," Meg said. One by one, she
placed them down onto the little table between the couch and the
TV: "Chocolate. Marshmallows. Graham crackers."

"Nooo," Tiberius bemoaned. "Goddammit, I can't say no to that."

"You in?" Meg asked Ron. Ron's boyfriend, Terry, was asleep on
Ron's shoulder.

Ron said quietly, "One shot of the graham crackers. Curious about
that one."

Meg collected up used shot glasses from everyone, minding the same
glasses would be going back to the same people. Between the
bottles, she poured seven shots.

All three graham cracker shots were grabbed first. "Cheers," she
said, and they all drank.

"Oh that's good, actually," Ron said.

Meg agreed, but she and Tiberius were too busy grabbing their next
shots to comment. Back to back, she and Tiberius did the
marshmallow and the chocolate shots too.

Upon finishing his chocolate shot, Tiberius laid limply back in
the couch, letting the shot glass fall out of his hand onto the
carpet. "Fuck me that's good," he said.

"Three more?"

"Go. Fuck yourself," Tiberius said drowsily. "Fight me with your
main first."

"Toad!" Meg said, a nickname Tiberius had. "You can't hold a shot
glass right now, you're going to puke if you try to play another
round."

Tiberius, not attempting in the slightest to get up or look
around, felt around blindly with his hands, saying, "Where's my
controller."

Meg grabbed it off the floor and handed it to him.

Tiberius held it with all the confidence in the world, head lolled
back, facing the ceiling, mouth hanging open.

"Toad. Are you going to look at the screen when we play?"

"When it starts."

Meg brought them to the character select screen of the fighting
game that was in.

Still facing the ceiling, Toad selected his main on muscle memory.

Meg groaned. "This is going to be so embarrassing."

"Yes," Toad said.

Meg selected her main, and confirmed the start of the fight.

As the timer was counting down, Tiberius was still facing the
ceiling.

As soon as it began, the sounds of both of them manipulating their
controllers filled the air, clicking and mashing and sliding. Toad
slammed Meg's guy into the ground repeatedly until it was over.

Mouth agape, Meg turned to Toad, who was still laying back on the
couch, facing the ceiling. "Tiberius!"

"You were right, I really can't deal with the movement on the
screen right now, I couldn't look."

"Toad," Meg said.

"Meg."

"Toad," Meg repeated, and slumped over onto him, putting her hands
on his shoulders.

"Meg. What?"

"Fuck. You," she said, and then weakly headbutted his chest.
Basically just got the dampness of the wine on his dress onto her
forehead. "Fighting games are about highly, highly honed
reflexes."

"Yeah."

"You are so drunk I'm shocked you're not puking."

"Yeah. Same. I might be able to deal with another shot of that
marshmallow though."

"You weren't even looking at the screen."

"I was listening."

"Oh my fucking god."

Over on the other side of the couch, Ron was getting up, keeping
Terry's arm around his shoulders. "Gonna get us home," Ron said.

"Walk safe," Meg said. Then to Toad, she said, "We should both get
to bed."

"Yeah," Toad agreed.

They both continued to lay there, Toad laid back on the couch, Meg
sprawled over Toad.

Toad began snoring.

Meg rolled her eyes, and figured she would get up in a sec and get
to bed in her room. Instead, Tiberius's rising and falling stomach
was comfy enough that she settled in and gave up on not falling
asleep before she had realized it.

In the morning, she got up off of Tiberius, who was still snoring.
She sat on the couch looking around the living room. Empty hard
cider bottles stood on the little table, and several were piled
unceremoniously to either side of the couch. Three bottles of
flavored vodka stood centerpiece on the little table. The TV was
still on, playing the gameplay demo of the fighting game.

Meg found the remote and turned the TV off, then stood and walked
to the kitchen for a glass of water. She did have the tiniest
headache, but she was usually fine at bouncing back the morning
after a night of drinking, and that held true for that morning
too. By the time she took a shower and got into a new change of
clothes, she was ready go get on the road like they'd planned.

As she returned to the living room, she saw Toad sitting hunched
over at the center of the couch, bottle of marshmallow vodka
clutched in his hands. He had changed out of his white dress, and
into a black t-shirt with orange gym shorts. He glanced up at her.
"Hey," he said, and then took a drink of the vodka.

"You ready?" Meg asked.

Tiberius nodded. "I guess so. We're really doing this?"

"I will basically call you a pussy if you back out at this point."

"Sexist."

"You watch your cis drag wearing mouth."

Tiberius giggled, and then took another drink.

Meg, as much as she loved ribbing him, pointedly restrained
herself from ribbing him about getting drunk immediately that
morning. It was in line with the plan.

Tiberius set the bottle down on the table, where it made an empty
thump.

"You ready?" he asked.

Meg took her car keys out of her pocket, and spun them around on
her finger. "Bags are in the car, phone is charged, I'm ready to
hit the road."

Tiberius groaned as he stood up. He grabbed the two remaining
vodka bottles, one in each hand, and followed Meg out the
apartment's front door.

It was a cloudy day. The blacktop parking lot of the apartment
showed damp regions, signs that it had already rained some earlier
in the morning or sometime the previous night. On the way to the
car, the two glanced around. Nobody else in the parking lot.
Nobody passing by on the sidewalk adjacent. Meg unlocked the
driver's side door with her key, got in, and leaned over to unlock
the passenger door. Toad got in, and they both slammed their doors
closed.

"Are we really doing this?" Toad asked.

"I mean, we don't have to, but with that said yes we absolutely
are."

"Yeah, but like... this part?"

"Don't be shy," Meg encouraged. "You said you would love to go on
a road trip, but have trauma of worrying you'd ruin it by having
to stop for a bathroom every ten minutes--"

Tiberius protested, "I don't think I used the word TRAUMA."

"Well it sounded like that's what you were getting at," Meg said,
half teasing.

Tiberius sighed. He set the two vodka bottles in the car's cup
holders. "Yeah. I still don't know what it is, if it's the
seatbelt or the bumping road or just worry at being confined, but
I swear it's like, the second I get in a car I have to go."

"Yeah. I thought we had a fun time outlining all of the ways we
could make it work for you."

"It was fun TALKING about it," Tiberius said. "When I thought we
were JOKING."

"And what did we come up with?"

"Basically two things. Number one, I get to be drunk the whole
time."

"Number two, put on one of those diapers already and pee yourself
to your heart's content, no one on the road would possibly be able
to see you below the waist while we're driving."

And they weren't even going anywhere in particular. Just getting
on the highway north until she spotted a motel that struck her as
somewhere they could stay the night at.

Tiberius took a drink of the graham cracker vodka, and then said,
"Alright. Keep a lookout for me?"

"Nah no one's around I'm going to look at your dick and balls to
alleviate your modesty."

Tiberius reached down to the pack of adult diapers that sat on the
passenger's side floor. He tore the packaging open, grabbed one
out, and tossed the rest of the pack into the back seat. He took
some time finding which way was forward and back on the grey
diaper, and then he quickly stripped his gym shorts off, and
replaced them with the crinkling material.

"Comfy?" Meg asked.

"I feel naked," Toad said.

"You were for a sec, I did see your dick and balls."

"Yeah. Oh my god. So, I peed in the sink while you were in the
shower--"

"Wooow, thanks for respecting my living space."

"--and I know we haven't even left the parking lot, but I do
already have to go again actually, so since we haven't even left
yet I might as well go back in for a second--"

Meg started the car, threw it in reverse, backed out of their
spot, and began through the residential streets that would
eventually take them to the highway.

"This is cruel," Tiberius said.

"Freeing," Meg countered. "The wide open road before you. The
ability to pee or not to pee at any time you like. I say give it a
test drive before we get on the highway."

"I..." Tiberius sat there for a bit. "I don't think I could if I
wanted to."

"Just imagine you're at a urinal and someone is standing there
beside you waiting for you to start going."

"Meg."

"Toad."

"That is the opposite of helpful."

"You're a nervous peeer?"

"Yes! How is that surprising!"

"It sounded like your peeing is out of control! It sounded like
you can't stop peeing!"

Toad took a drink from the chocolate vodka, and then a drink from
the graham cracker vodka, and then another drink from the
chocolate vodka, and then said, "I think the anxiety is kind of
self-defeating in either direction."

"Well, I'm sure you'll get there. Because you have no choice."

Toad took another drink from the chocolate vodka. "Can we turn on
the radio?"

"Yeah. Do you want the radio or my phone?"

"Ehh, phone."

Meg took her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it, and handed it
to Tiberius. Tiberius plugged it in to the aux cord. As he was
going through Meg's music to choose something, the car went down
the on-ramp and onto the highway.

Tiberius put on some Simple Plan.

"Oh shit, throwback," Meg commented.

The highway wasn't all too busy on that cloudy late-morning. Meg
drummed along to the songs with her fingers on the steering wheel.
Toad sat slumped back in his seat, staring spaced-out through the
windshield at the sky ahead.

A few songs had passed before he said, "Oh that feels so weird."

"Did you pee!"

"Yes."

"How is it!"

"It's like. Aaaa. It isn't like having wet clothes like from the
rain. It's like. A damp pillow inflating around my balls?"

"Oh, that sounds weirder than I expected."

Toad took a long drink of the graham cracker vodka and finished it
off.

"I don't hate it," he reported.

"Good. Think this is going to work?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

Simple Plan continued to play on the radio.

Meg giggled, and commented, "I can hear you peeing this time."

Tiberius didn't stop. "Get used to it."

"Fuck yeah, own this."

Meg flicked the turn signal to get into the other lane to pass
someone.

As the miles went by, Meg eventually noted the signs telling them
they were crossing up into Oklahoma. Tiberius gave a surfer
"tubular" hand sign.

He said, "I forgot what letter we were supposed to be on for the
alphabet game."

"Oh, I forgot we were playing, yeah. Oh well. Oooh, how about
never have I ever?"

"Nooo I'm too drunk, I'll tell you secrets," Toad said, and then
flopped an arm around in search of a bottle. In the cup holder,
his hand found a bottle of peppermint schnapps that he'd taken out
of the glove box. He drank some, and then set it back down in the
cup holder again.

"You are actively peeing in a diaper right this second," Meg
pointed out.

"Yeah?"

"So I feel like it would be fair to say we trust each other," Meg
continued.

"Yeah."

"So what secrets do you have?"

"Ugh. I don't wanna say. You can know, but I don't wanna say. We
can do never have I ever. Remind me how it works."

"Hold up ten fingers," Meg said.

Toad did. Meg did too, driving with her palms.

"Now we take turns. I say a thing I've never done. If you've done
it, you--"

"Bestiality," Toad blurted.

"Wait, what?"

"I'm only into bestiality, that was my secret," Toad said. "I
didn't really understand the game, sounds like a lot of double
negatives, hard to follow, I thought I'd just say it and get it
over with."

"Huh." Meg lowered her fingers, taking hold of the wheel again.

Meg heard the muted patter of Tiberius letting out another squirt.

A second after he was done, he asked, "Have I ruined everything?"

"How the fuck did this never come up before?" Meg asked.

Tiberius reached for the peppermint schnapps. Meg swatted his
hand, and he drew the hand back, empty.

"No, seriously, how did you never say anything about that until
now?" Meg asked. "How did I never say anything about it to you?"

"What?"

"Zoophile," Meg said. "That's the word for it. You're a zoophile,
right?"

"I've heard that and bestialist, yeah."

"I'm only into bestiality too," Meg said.

"What?" Toad said. He sat up straight in his seat, his diaper
making a squishing and wheezing noise. "Meg what the fuck."

"You what the fuck!"

"This is insane," Toad said. He grabbed the peppermint schnapps
quick and had a drink, then sat holding the bottle, arms limp laid
over his legs. He flexed his entire upper body, and a loud fart
smacked its way out of him.

"Good push," Meg commented.

"I really thought I could sneak that one out," Toad said, turning
a little red. "Thought it would like, mute the sound, but this
situation is actually more like an amplifier."

"Apparently. I mean, do do what--"

Toad snickered.

"Oh my god. No I'm sticking with that, you can giggle if you want:
do do what you have to do. It was part of the understanding that
all bodily functions within that garment are free from judgment."

"I don't know if I'm ready to go that far."

"Can we get back to this bestiality thing though!"

"Please," Toad said.

"Have you done it!"

"Yeah. A lot. I work summers on my aunt's farm for a reason.
Basically why I never dated anyone in school. I was like, all
good, didn't have any further questions about what it was like
that I didn't get through with cows."

"Funnnnnn, that's such a cool opportunity."

"Yeah, it really is," Toad said, nodding. "You?"

"Neighbor's dog Garth. He's so old now, but he's still so friendly
when he sees I'm back on a visit."

Toad's voice cracked as he said, "Oh."

"What?" Meg asked.

Toad sniffled.

Meg glanced over, and saw that he was crying. "Hey," she said.
"Toad."

Toad sniffled again. His face was contorted into a sudden sorrow,
and tears made his cheeks glisten.

"Toad."

Toad shook his head.

"Toad."

Toad clenched his fists, and stared forward.

"Toad."

"You can't fuckin do that, Meg," Toad said, his voice high,
choking it out.

"What?" she asked. "With a dog? It's really fine, I promise he's
not hurt by it at all."

"That dog's name. How immediately casually perfect you are about,
about goddamn bestiality of all things, right when I thought,
right when, right when I thought I found someone like me,
genuinely fucked up like I am. And now already, two seconds later,
I don't know again," he said. "The cows don't have names."

"Oh. Oh sweetheart." Meg put a hand on his shoulder, and rubbed it
gently as she continued to drive. "I'm sorry."

"I've thought about burning that place down so it can't hurt any
calves ever again. I've thought about poisoning the corpses before
they go out." He sniffled. He shook his head. "I keep working
there."

Meg took her hand off Tiberius's shoulder as she steered over into
the other lane to pass a semi.

As they were passing, she said, "You don't have to stay there."

Tiberius nodded. "I was scared there wasn't anything else." He
screwed the cap onto the peppermint schnapps and let it fall to
the passenger side floor. "Take what I'm saying with a grain of
salt, I am gone. I'm not making any sense."

"I think I follow," Meg said. "There are other jobs, dude. You
could find something else."

Tiberius sniffled, and shook his head. "I was scared there wasn't
anything else for a, for a monster like me, who would put so much
blood and sweat and sleepless nights and shit into helping cows
live through a place I knew was going to kill them. To treat them
with love, genuine, heartfelt, nuzzling, caring, listening,
devoted love, all while knowing this place was going to kill them.
Not when they're ready to go, or when, ooh, times are tough now so
we have no choice. Never even, pretending, that that's what that
place is. That place just kills them. That's what it's for. That's
all it does. And I keep working there."

"But that's not you killing--"

"I do the slaughters."

"Oh."

Tiberius shuddered, and then went on, "I was, what... eight? The
first time I helped. I was excited to, too, what little boy
doesn't want to see blood and guts? I knew what it was like to
kill them and take them apart a long time before I ever realized
there were lights on behind those eyes."

"Jesus, Tiberius."

Toad bent down and fished up the bottle of peppermint schnapps,
and had a drink.

Neither of them knew what else to say, for the rest of the Guns N
Roses song that was playing.

Portugal. The Man came on next.

Tiberius started to say something, and then stopped to gather his
words, and then tried again. "Maybe I'm glad to know there's a
better version of someone who's only into bestiality. A happy
version. A non-monster version."

"Well, thank you." Meg sighed. "I'm sorry that's what your
experience has been."

The car crested the top of a large hill. Looking forward through
the windshield, there was a wide open grassy field below them,
shimmering in the sunlight from recent rain. A rainbow stretched
across the horizon ahead of them.

Tiberius shat himself aggressively.

Meg doubled over in the driver's seat, screaming out one defeated
laugh and not able to get the breath back in to keep laughing.
Toad, a smug look overcoming his face, reached over and took hold
of the steering wheel, doing his best to keep them from veering
off the road as Meg recovered. He held off from taking another
drink while his hand was on the wheel.

Present

"Hello?" Stefan said. "Meg?"

Meg snapped upright in her swivel chair again. She turned away
from the window and the ocean, and back to her desk. "Sorry, just
got handed something, one second." She put the phone to her chest,
and said, to her empty office, "Looks good at a glance, I'll
compare it with my figures and get back to you by, woof, by two at
the latest, if nothing else comes up. Okay. Thank you."

She leaned back in her chair, slid some papers from one side of
her desk to the other, and then returned the phone to her ear
again. "Sorry again about that."

"No, no worries at all, sorry to keep you from your work," Stefan
said.

"Remind me of your question?"

"Any reason I shouldn't hire this James fellow?"

Meg thought back on what Stefan had said Tiberius had been up to
in the years since she'd known him. "No, no reason at all comes to
mind."

"Wonderful. Alright, thank you Meg."

"Cheers."

Meg hung up the phone, and went through the motions of getting
back to work.




[5]

A Haiku

Small dog talking shit
Throw big dog over the fence?
Maybe someday, punk.