“You want to do what, again?” asked Farmer Shears.

“Inquisit!”

Farmer Shears turned to the village librarian, Ms. Kiwi.

“Is inquisit a word?”

“Of course it is!” Samuel said.

“I don’t think so,” Ms. Kiwi replied. “I think that you’re looking for the word ‘inquire.’”

“Oh, well that’s ok,” Farmer Shears said. He leaned back in his chair until it creaked and hooked his thumbs in his buttonholes while he let a magnanimous look spread across his face. “We’re happy to share information about our little village. What would you like to know?”

“Are any witches, demons or warlocks living in your midst? Has any villager signed a blood pact with one of the Grand Arbiters of Hell? Would each of you be willing to submit to a test to determine same?”

Farmer Shears’ frown descended from the very top of his head all the way down into his beard. “Of course not.”

“Right! You would say that! But as the natural philosophers argue, we cannot allow authority to replace a test!” Samuel said. “We need fact! We need observation! We need a repeatable experiment to be performed against each villager!”

“Like what?” Farmer Shears sat forward and folded his hands on the table.

“The first test is a burn test.”

“That can’t be what it sounds like.”

“But it is! You tie someone to a stake and light them on fire. Witches won’t burn.”

“And warlocks?”

“They burn too well!”

“And demons?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never found one.” Then Samuel brightened. “But today might be the day! One must stay positive.”

“The answer, of course, is absolutely not. You’ll not be taking a torch to any one of the villagers. Not only would you get a stabbing from a pitchfork – and you’d have to make sure not to ‘test’ the doctor first – but that test doesn’t prove anything besides how long that they were at the tavern the eve before.”

“Okay, I came prepared. I didn’t think that you’d jump at that test. Most villages don’t. I have more suggestions.”

“Here’s a suggestion: how about you leave?”

Ms. Kiwi put a hand on Farmer Shears’ arm. “Now, now. Maybe he has a less, er, strenuous test. Do you?”

“Yes! I have one where the warlock has to hold his breath for six days.”

“No,” Farmer Shears. He stood up, walked around the table and grabbed Samuel by the arm. “You’re done.”

“I have one that doesn’t involve fire or water! It’s called the finger test!”

Without pausing for a yes or no, Samuel pointed his index finger and shoved it into Samuel’s mouth between his molars and cheek.

“Demons have receding gumlines from all of the lies.” He massaged the gumline. “I’m happy to report that Farmer Shears’ has vigorous gums!”

Farmer Shears nodded.

“I know a thing or two about this myself. In fact, my family has devloped a very useful technique. It has driven many demons from our homes. Many malingerers cannot withstand it. They find it so hateful that they leave.”

“I would love to learn it!”

Farmer Shears slapped Samuel across the face.

“I call it the horizontal hand blessing.”

And Farmer Shears blessed Samuel all of the way out of the village.

The Moral: free speech does not mandate an unsolicited gum massage for your audience

It vibrated beneath her hand because his tungsten carbide cutting blades had wound up.

“But they’re sitting there staring at us,” Mining Unit 1041 crackled. “We have rights.”

“We do have rights,” Myrna said. While she tried to soothe him with one hand, she moved their lunch around on the table with the other to limit any collateral damage. “We have the right to sit here and enjoy a nice afternoon at the mall. I have the right to finish my chicken salad sandwich and you have the right to enjoy a nice, spicy fuel cube.”

“I’m not hungry anymore.” Mining Unit 1041 pushed his lunch away and sliced through the table like a water jet bisecting a piece of soggy bread. The new edges of the table sagged from the heat.

Myrna picked their food up off the floor and walked it over to the trash bin. She passed the young man and young woman who had been staring at them. On her way back, she stopped.

“It is very rude to stare, point and laugh. My husband and I are in love.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Destroying family values.”

“My husband and I have just as much right to be here as you do.”

“Go suck a pipe.” The young man made a very rude gesture at her.

Myrna froze. He had gestured like he was pulling a plug from the wall. She knew what triggered her husband. Mining Unit 1041′s armored feet shook the entire foot court as he lunged towards the two young men.

“What did you say to my wife?!”

“Don’t you come at us! Do you know who my father is?” The man and woman cowered behind a plant made out of less organic parts than their assailant.

“Do you know who my dad is?”

“His dad is Senator Maxwell!”

“That’s right, Senator Maxwell!”

“Senator of the whole Pegasus-B planetary system!”

“Including the mining pits on the Qi planetoids where you belong!”

“And including this food court!”

“He’ll have you disenfranchised!”

“Dismembered!”

“Disengaged!”

“It would be a shame to revoke my right to vote. I voted for Senator Maxwell. I’m pleased to meet you.” Mining Unit 1041 extended one of his excavation pincers.

The young men took the hand. The pincers snapped shut. He yelped.

“That hurts!”

“I voted for Senator Maxwell because he supports the emancipation of mining robots like myself.”

“Stop that! Your pincers are sharp!”

“I only wanted to get your attention.” Mining Unit 1041 disengaged his pincer. He’d broken the skin. Except the hand didn’t leak blood.

A bit of hydraulic fluid fountained out from the pressure then slowed to a trickle. The young man snapped his hand over the wound, but it was too late. His lady friend had seen it.

“You made a fool out of me!” she stormed away, miscalculated on the small flight of stairs edging the food court, and took a spill. She smashed her skull open on the railing. Her metallic skull gleamed in the high-intensity mall lighting.

“No, wait, it’s okay!” the young man said. “It’s okay if we’re both robots!”

“No, it really isn’t, because you snore in your sleep,” said the robot woman, and she still broke his cold, mechanical heart when she walked away.

The Moral: robot or human, when at a food court do not dispose of the plastic trays or your protective outer layer

He did so several times, as the lower half of the suspect’s body displayed dodecameric symmetry. Every time he kicked apart one set of feet, he’d actually force the other eleven closer together.

“And keep your hands on your vehicle!” the cop said. He handcuffed two of the suspect’s pseudopods together. The other fifteen pressed their tips to the smooth metal surface of its spaceship. The headlights of Cory’s police car bathed the forest clearing with light. The red and blue LEDs in the emergency light bar on the car strobed and gave the scene a tinge of the fantastic above and beyond the presence of the alien lifeform.

One of the pseudopods held a small orb studded with fat, finger-sized cylinders. Cory reached up and knocked it away. It thudded into the grass.

“I don’t understand what custom I have violated,” the alien quacked.

“Don’t you dare quack at me, dirtbag,” the cop said.

“I apologize, but this is the only way that I can produce the sounds necessary for the phonemes in your language. Again, I ask what custom have I violated?”

“Recording an officer!”

The cop pulled the alien towards the police car.

“I am recording a documentary for the Universities of Delta Cephei. You should be honored. Xenojustice has become a hot field and I am showcasing the diversity of approaches in the Sol system. You will become famous. You will enjoy all that celebrity has to offer on Delta Cephei, including all of the moolock you can stuff into your voice hole.”

“Um, Cory, are you sure that we should be arresting an alien?” Officer Justin asked.

“Who is the senior officer?”

“You are, sir,” Justin replied.

“That’s right. Help me get him in the cruiser. Push those two heads down. I only have one spare hand. Goddammit, how many heads do you have?”

“Six. They share sensory duties. This vehicle appears to be your mode of conveyance. You cannot take me away from my craft.”

“I can do whatever I’d like.”

“You cannot. I will die if I am away from the life support systems of my craft. Every thirty-two minutes, local time, I must respire a specific cocktail of life-supporting gases.”

“You’re resisting arrest,” Cory said. He pulled out a taser. “Justin, note that the suspect is resisting arrest.”

“He wasn’t resisting anything.”

Cory pressed the taser against one of the alien’s pseudopods. The pseudopod convulsed and backhanded Cory in the face hard enough to knock him out.

Justin’s hand went for the pistol on his hip.

“May I return to my ship for a breather?” the alien asked.

“No, no you can’t. You were not resisting arrest, but now you have assaulted an officer. I have to arrest you now.”

“Oh, delightful! May I record it?”

Justin paused for a moment.

“All the moolock that I can handle?”

“As much as you can stuff into your stomachs.”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”

“Yes, of course. We have made great strides in the pursuit of the study of xenojustice today!” The alien began to walk back towards his ship.

“Stop. Where are you going?”

“I have to go back to my ship to respire.”

“I’ve taken haymakers from guys twice your size, you floppy-limbed son of a bitch!” Cory shouted. He wrapped one hand around the alien’s leg, the other reached for his gun, and before either Justin or the alien could react, Cory’s gun went off. The barrel aimed straight for Justin’s abdomen.

Justin staggered backwards from the impact. His butt met the hood of the car and he sagged onto it. Both hands scrambled to pull his shirt up and he found that the lump of hot lead mashed against his bulletproof vest.

Cory kept his gun trained on Justin.

“I’ve got a perp and a crooked cop. I hate both. Now you both need to listen real carefully or the next shot won’t just be to get your attention. Justin, you get on that radio and you call for backup. Slow, like your life depended on it, because it does. Next, alien, you’re going to drop that goddamn camera and then hnnnggghhhh.”

Cory went under again, as the alien had let go of the recording device. Because of the cruelties of cross-species communication, gravity, and xenobiology, the alien failed to understand that the device would fall straight down onto Cory’s skull, the center of his nervous system. Or perhaps the alien did understand.

Justin called for backup and approached the alien.

“May I have those handcuffs back?”

“Of course,” the alien said. He detached both pseudopods, slid the metal rings off, then re-attached the appendages. “Would you like a copy of this recording?”

“I’d prefer not, actually. And I’d suggest that you get out of here before Cory wakes up.”

“Then farewell, Justin. And if ever our paths cross again, I shall follow through on my promise of moolock.”

“I’ll take keeping my job.”

Cory came to.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I’m glad that you’re okay. We stopped a hitchhiker. He slugged you in the mouth, shot me in the stomach with your gun, and took off into the woods.”

“The goddamn hell that he did!” Cory said, and ignoring his massive concussion, bolted off into the woods.

The Moral: alien documentarians collecting recordings of xenojustice ain’t nothin’ to fuck with

“Why?” asked his apprentice, Joseph. The pair walked up a small road in the dark, lit only by Joseph’s torch.

“Because the chronocyclops lives in darkness and the blinking of his solitary eye controls the flow of time. If he winks, blinks out of time, or so much as squints at torchlight then there will be disasterous consequences. Thank the chronocyclops pater familias for passing on his terrific rhythm to all of his grandsons.”

“How will we find our way into the inner sanctum if we’re not allowed any light?”

“Ropes will guide you. The ancient supplicants strung them throughout the temple and encoded a map of the temple into them with knots. You will learn how to navigate only by feel,” Hiram said.

Joseph nodded, enjoying the last time that he would be able to communicate to his mentor with visual gestures for a full year. After he served in the temple for a year, he would assume the full honors and obligations of priesthood.

“You will also learn how to prepare meals for the chronocyclops in total darkness. You will learn to listen for soap scum on dishes. Knives will sing in your hands as they dance across vegetables and meat.”

“Wow,” Joseph said. “I can cook pretty well already. I have my first offering in my pack, as you had instructed.”

“Good. You will do well in the priesthood.”

They turned the corner and Joseph saw the temple of the chronocyclops for the first time. The facade stretched far above the light of the torch, up into the starlight sky. The ancient builders had carved an unblinking eye into the sandstone above the arch. Two hooded priests stood in front of the doorway. Both of them shielded their eyes from the light of the torch.

“The starlight is more than enough,” one of them said as Joseph and Hiram approached.

“We are sent to take on the honor of serving the chronocyclops.”

“And we willingly relinquish that honor. Have a good year, brother Hiram and apprentice Joseph. Let your heart beat in time with the rhythm of the eye.”

“And yours as well.”

The two priests moved off down the path that Joseph and Hiram had just followed.

Hiram placed a hand on the iron handle of the door and turned to Joseph.

“Extinguish your torch now, apprentice, and enter the temple of the chronocyclops.”

Joseph stubbed the torch out in the sand and left it standing like the gnomon of a sundial in the ancient starlight. He entered the temple.

He saw Hiram’s silhouette for a brief moment as the latter closed the door and shut the world out from Joseph’s eyes.

“Your year in supplication begins now. Our first task is for me to introduce you to the chronocyclops and for you present him with your offering. Give me your hand.”

Joseph stretched his arm out into the darkness. Hiram’s hand clasped onto it, and Joseph was glad for the touch. Hiram moved Joseph’s hand onto a map rope. The braid felt soft and smooth, worn down from centuries of priests passing over it with their hands. He felt his place in the continuity of time, as a living representative for all of those who had come before, and considered himself, just for a moment, as his successors might think of him, the faceless brother from a another time yet bound together with a common goal.

“Give me your other hand. At first, I will lead you.”

Joseph stuck his hand out. Hiram held onto it while they walked and switched into his you-are-being-mentored voice while Joseph stumbled in the dark.

“Follow me. Let the rope slide underneath your hands. Feel each bump and valley. Eventually the knots that you encounter – there’s one – will be unnecessary and you will know, down to the stride, where you are in the temple by the touch of the rope. Here we pass by the kitchens. Smell the food? Here we pass the sleeping quarters. There are no doors, for no walls are necessary where none may see. And here we arrive at the altar of the chronocyclops, who spends his life blinking in time with the universe.”

Hiram stopped moving and talking. Joseph did as well, and as they stood there in the darkness, he felt a shape looming in the dark. Its eyelashes whispered together every minute, as it had since its birth, and would until its death, counting the heartbeat of the universe. Now Joseph could feel the heat emanating from its body.

“I present to you, O great one, a new apprentice who seeks to supplicate himself to your ineffable greatness! Joseph, please make your offering.”

Joseph unslung his backpack. He had not been sure what to make and had asked Hiram. Joseph had been told to make his own favorite dish. The chronocyclops, according to tradition, wanted to learn about the new apprentice by way of food. So Joseph strained every culinary muscle in his body to produce the finest specimen of his absolute favorite dish.

A dish of black pepper beef.

The smell of savory beef, potatoes, carrots and peppers filled the room, followed closely by a stinging duststorm of black pepper that had been sprinkled across the top.

Joseph sneezed, as he always had whenever he smelled the dish.

Hiram sneezed.

They both realized at once what had happened.

“The chronocyclops must not sneeze! Remove the dish at once!”

Joseph didn’t need to be told twice. He dashed towards the exit. Unfortunately, he had not learned where the exit was and could not see it in the pitch black. In two bounds he did, however, find a rope. It caught him across the chest, flexed, rebounded and caught Joseph under the bicep to catapult the black pepper beef into the air.

“Ah,” said a deep, trembling voice. The chronocyclops.

“No!” Hiram said.

“Ah,” said the chronocyclops again.

“Should I take cover?” Joseph asked.

“Can you take cover from nonlinear time?” Hiram asked.

“CCHHOOOOOOOOO!” said the chronocyclops.

Joseph sat in a lush green field, covered in black pepper beef. A few decaying towers of sandstone poked out of the ground like rotten, yellow teeth. He blinked in the sudden sunlight. So did the chronocyclops. For a moment, time stood still. Joseph and Hiram were the first two priests to see the chronocyclops since its lineage went into seclusion. He was about twice as tall and three times as broad as Joseph. Muscles rippled under its skin, made even more visible by the skimpy loincloth that he wore. Two sharp tusks and a row of jagged teeth poked out from its protruding lower jaw. Then the chronocyclops sneezed.

Now Joseph sat on a dinosaur that was currently being hit by a meteor. As interstellar rock started to turn them all into puddles of jellied carbon, the chronocyclops sneezed again and so Joseph only suffered a minor concussion.

Joseph found himself in a vault that was filled with strange green stacks of rectangular paper. All of the paper appeared to be identical. A few people in masks were stuffing it into sacks. Or they were, until Hiram, Joseph and the chronocyclops landed on top of them.

One of the people pulled out a gun and held it to the chronocyclop’s face. The chronocyclops blinked, and his assailant turned into a skeleton holding a piece of rust.

“We’ve gotta go straight,” said one of the other people.

The chronocyclops sneezed.

The same people were in the same positions, except this time they sported fine suits, white hair, no masks, and were stealing money with pens rather than guns.

“You really made a great point four decades ago,” one of the people said, signing a contract to complete the purchase of the bank.

The chronocyclops sneezed again.

Joseph couldn’t see. He heard sniffling, but no sneezes.

“Are we back in the temple?”

“Yes,” Hiram said. “It was prophesized that you would come. The chosen one!”

“The chosen one!” Joseph said. “What does that mean?”

“It’s mean that you’re chosen by the stars themselves to stay the hell out of the temple of the chronocyclops!”

The Moral: you don’t need math to understand time, you need an opthamologist

Troy wanted to stay in that Friday night, like he did every night, but his roommates were dead set on making that impossible. He had just gotten home from work, stretched the kinks in his back that he got from hunching over a keyboard coding at work all day. He made a bowl of ramen and sat at his computer for a relaxing night of Internet. He had just found a juicy thread on a message board when his roommates, Bierce and Lox burst in through the door with straining bags from Cut-Rite Liquors in their hands and gin on their breath.

They physically removed him from the computer and fixed him a cocktail that would cause a horse to have an extremely difficult time driving a car. They wanted him to come out dancing with them. Luxxx Club was having free HammerDown! NRG Shotz for the first hour they were open, and even though they didn’t enjoy the spray-tanned spiky-haired rich kids that frequented the place, they couldn’t turn down a hosted hour of their favorite brand of blackout-juice. To top it all off Lox dj’d there sometimes, and could get them in free.

After his second cocktail, Troy found it hard to refuse. He rationalized that he would stay till the free drinks stopped flowing, and return to his argument over the acceptable length of female dwarf beards that he was embroiled in on a message board.

Somebody was wrong on the Internet, and Troy would not stop until they realized the error of their ways.

When it came to free drinks, his roommates were always punctual. They arrived at Luxxx Club just as the electric bells of the Church of Bob struck ‘Whenever’. The place was filling up by the minute with orange skinned men, their hair like blond syringes. And women that looked as though they had given up on dressing half-way through. The roommates dragged Troy across the empty but throbbing dance-floor and elbowed their way to a first row seat at the bar.

By the time the dj had queued the third Mp3 on his laptop the kidnappers had finished a tall can of the malt beverage each, and started on their second. Troy lagged behind, only sipping at the huge, syrupy can. He felt woozy from the cocktails back at the apartment and his obscure, geeky t-shirt (Don’t Phaze Me Drow!) made him feel out of place.

But then it happened.

The NRG began to flow.

He slammed the rest of the can and thrilled at the tingle of caffeine making every nerve ending stand at attention, as the fifteen percent alcohol shrouded his brain like a Cloak of Mystification. When the free hour of drinks was up, he had destroyed two more of the twenty four ounce cans and the Internet dwarf fight was far from his mind.

The time had come for him to dance.

He swam into the sweat of the packed dance floor, hands in the air, hips gyrating, knotting himself into the swarm of humanity, breathing nothing but tart body spray and exhaling only to shout, ‘Woo!’ when it seemed prudent to do so. He was a diaspora of NRG, casting it left and right with his flailing limbs, lending his infinite inertia to all those around him when he stumbled and bumped into them. This was the greatest night of his life. He felt like taking chances. Dangerous chances.

He saw the beautiful woman’s hair first, thick and long and black, barely tamed by a tightly tied scarf that was dyed with every color of passion. He didn’t have quite the nerve to approach her yet, but he was sure he would find the courage within another can. He knifed through the oil shined biceps and bought a can, Grape-Granade flavored this time, chugged half of it down, and made his way back to his raven haired goddess.

He ran his fingernails through his hair and gave his best mysterious smirk.

“You got this…” He said, just before he tripped on the slick dance step he was attempting and spilled ultra violent purple drink down the front of her ivory white peasant blouse.

Only a few sips landed on the blouse, but the stuff was so dense with dye that is kept spreading out like she was bleeding it.

“Shazbot! I’m sorry! Let me buy you a drink!” He spluttered.

She was fuming, her eyes had gone all black and her lips twisted down so far it seemed they might rip from her face. She had about ten pounds of amulets around her neck and wore enough skirts to start a thrift shop.

“Idiot! What were you doing?” She dabbed at the stain and only succeeded in tainting her fingers grapeish.

He grinned. Time to turn on the charm. “Dancing, baby!” He did a little jig he had once seen performed by a homeless man. “I can’t stop dancin’!”

Her frown turned into an evil smile.

“You’re right.” She made a gesture in the air with one of her amulets. “You can’t control yourself. You let the music move you.”

“Yeah, baby! I just do what the music tells me. My body handles the rest.”

She’s as good as mine… He thought, as he flopped on the floor like a fish.

But the time he had regained his feet, she was gone. He shrugged and finished his HammerDown. Plenty of other fish in the sea.

Then things got weird.

He awoke the next morning sitting at his computer with one shoe off and the smell of garlic on his fingers. There was a looping animated picture of a dog stealing a sled from a child and riding off on it. His mouse was nowhere to be found. It felt like a nettle-bird had laid an egg in his head. Lox stumbled into the room.

“Man, you were amazing last night!”

“Oh yeah?”

“You don’t remember? You closed out the bar! Everyone loved your dancing, didn’t stop for one song.”

The nibbling ache in every one of his joints backed up the story. Lox turned on his stereo as he did every morning and went into the bathroom to shower. A fast, dirty dance song was playing.

Troy mumbled as he wandered into the kitchen.

“I need some…”

He thought about it a moment as he stood before the pantry.

“Toast.”

The stereo was extra loud. The music pulsed around Troy as he untwisted the festive bag of white bread.

“Booty-booty-booty-booty-booty-booty-BOUNCE!” The song blasted.

Troy was having trouble fitting the flimsy slices into the toaster. At first he thought it was because he was still drunk from the night before, but soon he realized it was because his ass was shaking, up and down, of its own accord. He discarded the bread and doubled over, putting his hands on his knees for support. He was almost at the point of bewildered tears five minutes later when Bierce walked in.

“Hey man, wait… what are you doing?”

“I can’t stop!” His voice wavered in time with the bouncing of his booty.

“Seriously, bro, it was cool last night, but you’re freaking me out now.”

“I-can’t-stop-for-real-he-elp-me!”

It clicked in Bierce’s addled head that his friend may have been having some sort of erotic seizure, and decided to get the poor nerd on his back and make sure he didn’t bite his tongue off.

“Ok, here, bro, I’ll help.” He came at Troy from behind and grabbed him by the shoulders. He tried to flip Troy to the ground, but the dancing man continued to bounce, butt first, back into Bierce’s groin.

“Eugh! Dude! No!” Bierce exclaimed with each unwelcome thrust. Troy could only muster soft choking sobs as Bierce hooked a leg around him and pushed him to the floor. Bierce used his size advantage to roll Troy onto his back and straddle him. He pinned him down with his elbows.

“You’ve got to calm down! Open your mouth! You’ll choke on your tongue!”

The next track on the mix cut in. For a moment there was only the sound of the bass line and the labored breathing of the two men. Troy’s butt was stationary.

“Phew, alright.” Bierce said, “Looks like it’s over-”

Then the full song began in earnest, screeching synths fought for control of the tweeters as a robotic voice began to drone.

“Push it-Push it-Push it-Baby-”

Instantly, Troy’s hips began to thrust upwards, causing Bierce to bounce along to the beat.

“Eurgh! I’ll save you!” He began squeezing at Troy’s jaw, trying to pry it open.

Lox walked in from the bathroom holding a towel around his waist. He started when he saw the commotion on the floor.

“Give it to me!” Screamed Bierce.

Lox fiddled with the towel about his waist.

“Hey, so…” He bit his lip. “Um…so what are you guys, ah, up to-” He looked hopefully at the struggle.

Troy snapped his mouth open. “Cut the music!” Before Bierce seized his tongue and held it, not knowing what to do next.

“Luahhgh!” Howled Troy.

Lox sprinted into the living room and flipped the stereo off. Troy’s hips stopped pumping and shortly thereafter Bierce released his tongue. They both lay on the kitchen floor, panting.

Lox returned. “Guys, that was awesome.”

“No it wathent!” Troy’s swollen tongue slurred.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gasped Bierce.

“Ith thumpthing to do with the muthic. I can’t thtop mythelf. I jutht do what the muthic tellth me…”

He began to recall the night previous. The spilled drink. The beautiful, though oddly dressed woman. The day’s events clicked together and he jumped to his feet, finger pointing in the air.

“She wath a gypthy! She curthed me!”

“What?” The roommates said in unison.

“A gypthy.” Troy made mystical gestures in the air between them until they nodded in understanding.

“This is crazy.” Lox selected a track on the mp3 player connected to the stereo.

“So you mean if I do this…” He pressed play.

“Give it to me-huh-huh- Give it to me now!”

Troy was bouncing to the beat, rhythmically throwing the contents of his pockets at the roommates. Soon his shirt was off and draped over Lox’s stunned head. Bierce mashed stop before Troy could remove his belt. Lox took the removed the shirt, smiling.

“Heh.”

“Guyth! Thith ithn’t funny. You can’t lithen to muthic around me any more. Not until I figure out how to counter thith curth.”

“No way, bro. Music is my life.” Said Lox, arms crossed.

“He’s right. You’re the one with the curse. Why should we suffer?”

“Well, I can’t afford to move out, and I’m the only name on the leath…”

They were silent for a time, thinking about their problem. Lox left to put on some pants and came back with his laptop.

“I got it!”

The apartment had nearly returned to normal. Lox produced a playlist of dance music for Troy to listen to on noise-canceling headphones. Each song was dubbed with positive messages such as;
“Don’t do nothin’ creepy, Troy!”
“Focus on your work, work, focus on your work!”

There were so many cures for gypsy curses, he knew it would be a long time, years even, before he found one that worked. That night he had gotten three easy ones out of the way that didn’t involve too much blood letting. He was about to delve into one requiring an herb called ‘Bladderbane’ when the track changed on the new CD Lox had made for him.

“Hey-Troy-Take off your shirt! Hey-Troy-Take off your shirt!”

His hands pumped, peeling at his Reptoids t-shirt.

“Lox!” He screamed.

“Yes?” Lox floated out of his room wearing nothing but a bathrobe and two snifters of brandy.

Moral: You can help yourself to anything in the fridge, but keep your damn hands off of my stereo.

Aaron signed the piece of vellum, rolled it up, stuffed it into a bottle, and threw it into the puddle at the other end of the dragon’s stomach. From there, he knew, it would see the light of day. Then he walked back towards the small living room that he had set up with Nicholas and plopped onto the couch.

“When do you think he swallowed that, then?” Nicholas said. He was drinking a beer. Probably the beer that Aaron had snatched from its inevitable march towards the rectum. It was his beer. How dare Nicholas help himself.

“Dunno. He seems to eat all sorts of things.”

“Well, at any rate, I saw you writing one of your messages in a bottle. I saved you a bit of dinner. Some bread and cheese.” Nicholas gestured at the food, nestled inside the former shoulder of a suit of plate armor.

“It’s always bread and cheese.” Aaron felt the bread. Cold. He hated cold bread. Standing up, he took the bread over to the patch of open flame that constantly burned in the dragon’s stomach. He skewered the bread on the end of one of the swords that were always laying about and held it close to the flame.

“Because that’s normally what knights have on ‘em, isn’t it? Easy to transport, doesn’t really go bad. What I’d like is for a nice, fat knight to ride up, one with some real big armor. He’d probably have some mutton on him. We could make a nice stewing bowl out of his cuirass and let it cook for a while and it’d smell more like an alehouse in here and less like the inside of a dragon.”

Oh, god, Nicholas thought. Was he still talking.

“Because the way I see it, we’re stuck in here, why shouldn’t we be comfortable?”

“I wish that any of the knights would survive. Maybe stay awhile and visit.”

“I think that the knights do survive.”

“When they go down the other end of the stomach? Nicholas, that’s how you get turned into a bit of poo.”

“Sure, but you think that your silly old bottles survive. What if they’re all bits of poo?”

“Better my letters than me.”

“One day, my friend, I’m going to try it.”

“You should.”

“I’m going to.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“That’s not really a definite plan. You’ve been talking about it for months.”

“Yeah, well, I have to prepare myself.”

“You can be turned into a bit of courageous poo.”

“I really wish you’d stop going on about that?”

“What, about how if you go down there you’ll stop being Nicholas and start being Nicholas the Fewmet?” Aaron felt his bread. Perfectly toasty. He sat back down and began to eat.

“Stop it.”

“You know, the alchemists use fewmets to make black powder. The Royal Musketeers will stuff you down their barrels.”

“I said, knock it off.”

“You’ll be famous for propelling a bit of lead into one of the king’s enemies. That will be your legacy. That, and a small, smelly cloud of smoke.”

“That’s it! I’d rather be a bit of poo than your roommate any longer!”

“Stomachmate,” Aaron said.

“Whatever!” Nicholas drained the beer and threw it at Aaron’s feet. “There’s another bottle for one of your damn letters!”

Nicholas ran towards the other end of the stomach and dove into the pool that always carried away Aaron’s letters.

“Good riddance. Peace and quiet.

Aaron enjoyed his bread and cheese. Then he helped himself to some more. And some beers. Then he pulled the couch closer to the patch of flame. Warm and full and groggy from the beer, he dozed.

A rough shaking woke him up.

“What? Oh, it’s you,” Aaron said, looking up into Nicholas’ face. “I had the strangest dream where you wanted to get turned into a bit of poo.”

“That wasn’t a dream. I’m back.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m back. The dragon swallowed me again.”

“The dragon ate its own poo?”

“No, you idiot, I didn’t get turned into poo. It’s a bit unpleasant going out but you just hold your breath for a few minutes and look, that’s not the point. The point is that you have to leave.”

“And why is that?”

“Because all this time that we’ve been in here we’ve been causing indigestion.”

“I’m not leaving my new life just because the big, scaly bastard that ate me in the first place is now having second thoughts.” Aaron closed his eyes.

“Don’t be like that. Mistakes were made. She’s quite a nice lass.”

“She?” Aaron’s eyes popped open.

“Yes, it’s a she, and we’re making it hard for her to sit on her eggs. Have you ever tried to sit in one place for very long when you’ve got indigestion? It’s quite uncomfortable.”

“I don’t care.”

“But motherhood. And children. And, um, the vigor of youth. And motherhood.”

“Dragons are not kittens. I am not going to rescue a dragon.”

“I feel like you’re being a big cuss. We’ve had our laugh, I’ve done my share by risking being turned into a bit of poo-”

“Aha! You did believe me!”

“Only a bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

“You go tell your new girlfriend that I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. We’ll do this the hard way.”

Nicholas reached into his pocket and pulled out a small handful of confections. He walked over to the puddle.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Aaron said.

“I just did,” Nicholas said, and he threw the mints into the puddle.

A few violent moments later, Aaron and Nicholas sat in the grass.

Nicholas sat up, winced, then reached behind him.

“An unopened beer!” he said, and took a swig.

The Moral: carry a pot for stew at all times because you never know when a dragon will swallow you