Mo’ Stories

for as long as questions have existed people all o’er the world have asked why certain people die @ certain times & why certain people don’t. ¿what makes 1 cancer kill & ’nother be killed? sure, there are laws o’ biology — laws much too complex for e’en the greatest biologist to fully understand.

in any case, if we are talking ’bout st. hawthorne general hospital, a clean, modern building right in the middle o’ central boskeopolis, i can give you the answer: e’ery midnight a mechanical device, what its engineers blackly called “the reaper”, does in faith to its name & calculates, & thru those #s & thru the influence o’ its tendrils o’er e’ery part o’ the hospital, thru subtle shifts in the temperature or air quality o’ individual rooms, weakens the immune system o’ certain patients so that they are induced into death where it would not have happened otherwise.

there exist various theories as to what logic lurks in these calculations. some theorize that it operates primarily on the science o’ economics, culling those whom the computer realizes are a cost & not a profit, build this way to ensure that this private business maintains the surplus necessary to maintain its own existence; others theorize that it is strange algorithms based on the current day or the photons emanating from stars & quasars. only the unknown engineers ’hind this machine know, & they are not telling.

a nice day for a game, ¿isn’t it, gunner, ol’ boy?.

with a polite smile, gunner returned, yes, my leader, sir.

they sat @ their seats in front row & gunner forced himself to take bites o’ his popcorn despite his lack o’ appetite & forced himself to laugh out loud ’long with great milliam, leader o’ gall for life, as he watched the game being played by gan bourners, 1 o’ gall’s most celebrated poets, who had made the mistake o’ writing ’bout a slimy vampire who, it seemed to some people, seemed similar to milliam, which had led milliam to interpret it as a stealth insult gainst him.

the game was simple: on each round, gan would have a hand or a foot or an arm chopped off — without anesthetic, ’course — & would have to hit this strange-shaped organ with its weird air dynamics, with his golf club into the hole, which, you can imagine, becomes harder later on, when the player is trying to hold himself up by just his torso. the # o’ hits ’bove par is the # o’ bludgeons applied to his body.

’ventually the player collapses, completely unable to continue playing, @ which time he is beheaded — but using a special gallean technique that leaves the player still ’live — & his head is played on the last course by a gall’s star golfer. it is only after the head enters the hole that its person is finally granted the mercy o’ death, & what is left o’ his body taken to be reused as meat for prisoners.

the grand dean o’ spade university said with their hands in the pockets o’ their jacket & a downward look, not with exasperation nor anger, but just tiredness, ¿has it come to this?.

the council could only return, ¿what other choices have we?.

the grand dean nodded with a hand held out to the engineers, & then left.

there came a rumbling, & anyone outside the gates o’ spade university would see big black bat wings suddenly stretch from the sides o’ the building & the perimeter round said gate slowly rip itself out o’ the earth & rise up high into the clouds, where the milliam regime could not reach them.

gliosmar grasped genesis’s jacket & shivered thru her. ¿when will she get here?.

genesis looked @ the time on her apple watch. she said there was a holdup @ the train, but she’s on her way.

gliosmar’s wary eyes surveyed the mansion she had stupidly let genesis convince her to watch, waiting for any signs o’ unscientific behavior. they had been warned that e’ery muertoween the ghosts o’ the ol’ family would enter, hungry — but not hungry for food or flesh, but for the sweet sound o’ music. their employer had told them that only a professional pianist o’ the caliber o’ melody fischer could calm these spirits back into their tombs.

’course, gliosmar had brought up all the problems that could arise — ¿what if madame fischer were to be too busy on muertoween to come in & play for them? ¿what if she were to have an accident? & genesis had grasped gliosmar’s shoulder & told her not to worry, e’erything would go as slick as oil, & like an idiot, gliosmar had let herself be convinced — ¡& now look what’s happened!

professor dawn summers knew the solution was in triceratops fruit, a star-shaped soursweet fruit the color o’ blueberries & the size of one’s hand, found only in the dankest depths under the most modest o’ fallen boughs, under the loam that only the mushrooms & ants know, in hidden hollow.

legend — & mo’ importantly, peer-reviewed studies — say that the chemical reactions in this fruit can change the color of one’s breath, & that that color will reveal one’s inner temperament: thru blue breath the color o’ resting waves one reveals one’s calmness; in red smoke the color o’ burning coal one reveals one’s anger; in yellow air the color o’ dandelions one reveals one’s warmth & happiness; in purple aether the color o’ royal robes one reveals one’s beating heart o’ romance; in white clouds the color o’ flashes one reveals one’s anxiety & fear; & in black fog the color o’ steel one reveals one’s tiredness & stress.

on a lonesome road, surrounded by nothing but yellow mountains on both sides & slowly drifting clouds ’bove, drive 2 trucks.

breaker, breaker, 5-4, this is debra waters speaking. i welcome you all to my show. we have for you a special guest, robert geiss, the famed architect for the i-7 highway going from perth to kurimori. robert, ¿do you read me?

loud & clear, debra. thank you for having me on your show.

robert, 10-4 has been asking where you got the inspiration for i-7’s famed 7-shape. ¿can you give us the dt, please?.

well, breaker, we were running into what we call a split vote on whether the east side should be in perth or somme, so we got ourselves a compromise to have it start in perth, go down to somme, & then continue west from there. ¿do you read me?.

i do, 1-2. i would like to thank you for coming on my show, robert.

’twas my pleasure, debra. thank you for having me on.

join us next time when we’ll have as our guest, tim coast, author o’ the book, how to find the optimal route that works for you. out.

& with that the road split, with robert’s truck taking the side path & debra’s continuing down the straight path. by this point the sun had set below the mountains & a waxing gibbous moon was rising, surrounded by a starry twilit sky.

the key to milliam’s rise was his decades’ long experience working in gall’s “keepers” society, a group all dressed in purple to hide them in the night, with secret shibboleths not e’en the president knew to identify fellow travelers.

while keepers were duty-bound to serve, not to rule, milliam had grander ambitions, specially after he managed to earn fame — a rarity for members o’ a clan whose main goal was to keep hidden — after saving the president’s life during an attack by rebels — tho some are skeptical that the attack was genuine & that milliam had it planned from the start, tho there is no evidence o’ any conspiracy. milliam @ 1st appeared to demur @ the attention the president insisted on giving him & acted with only modesty, as was expected o’ a keeper, but later, with much urging from some fellow keepers, as well as many patriotic citizens, ran for president & won in a landslide.

while some keepers expressed unease with rise to power o’ a keeper ( & some jealousy ), most keepers were pleased & were specially loyal to the new president, glad to see 1 o’ their own in such a position ( as well as the advantages in may bequeath ). ’twas a mix o’ this extra loyalty & milliam’s experience with secrecy & cutthroat tactics that allowed him to spread his influence o’er the republic o’ gall; & by the time citizens began to become wary o’ milliam’s power — & fret o’er the cost o’ the special privileges he gave to himself — & tipped their tastes toward the challenger, redd alcorn, milliam had already build for himself the leverage to nullify that legendary election & stifle all dissent.

if you wanted to get your ideas heard by the lead o’ gall, great milliam, there was only 1 place: the damocles, the richest o’ restaurants that served only the rarest o’ dishes. there a gunner backson, sweating arrows, sat ’cross from the lead himself, sitting with a cool look in his eyes & in a prim but modest suit.

but gunner wasn’t looking @ him, but @ the menu, knowing full well that the choice he made would play a big part in how pleased the lead would be. he figured that ordering from the “presidential” menu, with the tagline, “¡elect what you like best!”, might please the lead best, since ’twas his idea to add this menu, but realized that there was also a trap to making a selection: ¿would the lead interpret choosing an “eye o’ alcorn” ( the presidential candidate, back when gall still had elections, who “cheated” milliam & won before the coup ) or a “heart o’ hearthorpe” ( someone who ran gainst milliam later, after the coup, but when elections still appeared to run, & had turned out to have “committed various forms o’ corrupt embezzlement” ) be taken as agreement with milliam’s “harsh but fair” punishment gainst them, or a stealth protest vote for them, & for the return o’ democracy to gall, which would possibly end up with his heart becoming the “heart o’ hearthorpe” for some lucky other patron to this fine establishment?

luckily, gunner knew the trick: he just asked the lead what he thought was best.

try the crab bisque soup, my good man.

& you can bet that gunner did just that.

hadil was so close to fulfilling his lifelong dream: completing his collection o’ rhino roast coffee.

as o’ now there are 120 flavors o’ rhino & thruout the last 3 years hadil had been traveling the world, going store to store, picking up any flavor he hadn’t gotten before, as well as ordering a subscription to rhino magazine & going to official events & not only had he tracked down the rare flavors like melondew & bananabread, but also received the limited-time-offer mystery flavor given ’way only in the october 2022 issue o’ rhino monthly & arrived early to rhino’s special january 2023 event @ fredmart to ensure he was able to get 1 o’ the rare give’way “golden” flavor — which was just their regular dark roast, but in a golden package ’stead o’ their usual wisteria.

the only flavor hadil hadn’t been able to check off was grape. that was till today.

finally, @ a small kiosk store in the airport, while waiting to jump on a flight to argentina to check their stores, he found it — in the last place he expected. he double-took when he saw the words, thinking that his mind was playing tricks on him. but, no, there ’twas: “grape” in large, serif characters. he bought it without hesitation, skipped his flight, & rushed home to have a cup in celebration.

as it turned out, grape flavor was probably the most awful flavor hadil had tasted, — e’en worse than popcorn — but nothing could sour the taste o’ checking off that last box on his list & seeing the whole family all there on that top pantry shelf.

citizens o’ boskeopolis always wonder how things seem to change so suddenly. now you will learn the truth.

deep down in the bowels o’ the earth’s crust dwelled the office o’ turnkey & magic, a company that specializes in magical effects. down there a worker named maria, once she’s had her coffee, turns 1 o’ millions o’ levers to turn a piece o’ boskeopolis like a character in ¿guess who?, whether it be a fire hydrant, a mansion on a grassy hill, or e’en the sun or moon themselves. nothing is free from the gears o’ turnkey.

’course, turnkey is such a professional company that they only turn what their client requests, & would only possibly turn things for ill outcomes — turn firs into zombies, books into bats — if they were, for some reason, refused the compensation promised to them from boskeopolis’s parliament, as part o’ contract. “we ain’t evil” is their slogan, after all. that’s what e’eryone assures.