PUSHING DOGS (PART THREE)

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1,500 words

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“You don’t act like you’re worried,” Nigel said.

Thelma shrugged. “Why should I be?”

“Well, it seems like he’s been beating you all day. Every time you make a bet with someone, Hank’s there to make sure it goes against you.”

“True, isn’t it?”

“Even when you bet me that I couldn’t make that one guy scream on the Ferris wheel, Hank climbed into the guy’s car and started punching him. Remember that?”

Thelma scoffed. “Of course I remember that. I was there, wasn’t I?”

Nigel nodded. “The point is, Hank’s got you beat.”

“No he hasn’t.”

“You got something special planned? Some secret bet that you know he can’t sabotage?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Hard to tell.”

“You could tell me, you know. We’ve always been good friends.”

“Bullshit. You’ve always been the easy mark, and I’ve always been the one who takes money away from you.”

“Maybe that’s because I’ve been letting you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Well maybe,” Nigel said, stammering just a little, “it’s because I’m in love with you.”

The two of them stared at each other in silence for a few seconds; then, simultaneously, they burst into peals of loud laughter.

“I would never have thought to bet on your acting skills,” Thelma said, wiping her eyes. “You had me going for a second there.”

“Yeah, that was good, wasn’t it? Anyway, like I said, you can tell me if you’ve got some secret plan to beat Hank at some point.”

Thelma shook her head. “Nah. I like you Nigel, but you’re a sucker, so I can’t trust that you won’t give anything away to Hank if he threatened you.”

“So you do have something!”

“I didn’t say that.” Thelma lit a cigarette and blew smoke into Nigel’s face. “I gotta get back to my cart, there’s turkeys piling up.”

“See ya,” Nigel grunted.

# # #

So the day went. Every time Thelma made a bet with someone, Hank was right there to sabotage it and make sure it went bad for her.

Hank approached her at five in the evening. “Ready to give in? You must have lost a lot of money today, and you’re going to owe me even more tomorrow.” His grin was a mile wide, and looked like it would split his head wide open. He was positively drooling with glee.

“We’ve still got an hour to go before the fair closes,” Thelma replied.

Hank shook his head sadly. “It was nice knowing you,” he said as he shuffled away.

# # #

She was waiting at her apartment already when Hank showed up. He didn’t even knock; he just twisted on the doorknob like he knew it would be open, and stepped on it. His eyes widened when he saw her sitting in her easy chair, as though he was genuinely surprised to see her there.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“Just waiting for you.” Thelma took a long drag on her cigarette. “You’re early.”

Hank checked his watch. “Well, let’s get busy. You got the money you owe me?”

Thelma couldn’t stop herself grinning. “How much do you figure I owe you?”

“Well, I said a hundred dollars, didn’t I?”

“So you did.”

“Plus you bet that amount if you could place a bet that I couldn’t sabotage. So I figure that’s two hundred dollars.”

“That’s some fucked up logic there, Hank.”

“Best kind.”

“You sure?”

Hank snorted. “You got the money or not?”

“You sure it’s two hundred dollars I owe you? I could have sworn it was more.”

“Hey, I’m doing you a favor here.”

“I know you are, and I appreciate it. Well, okay, then.” Thelma took one last long drag on her cigarette, crushed it out in her ashtray, and then folded her hands in her lap.

Hank stood in front of her, nostrils flaring. “Well?”

“I’m waiting for you to pay up.”

“What?”

“Hank, I don’t think you understand here.”

“I understand. You owe me money. I watched you place at least a dozen bets today and you lost all of them.”

“Correction. You sabotaged them all.”

“So? I couldn’t let you win, could I?”

“So… You would say you had to sabotage them all?”

“Yeah. I’d say that.”

“Then pay up.”

“Why?”

“Did you forget the bet that you and I made?”

“Which bet?”

Thelma grinned. Maybe her logic was sound, maybe it wasn’t. But Hank had just expressed a preference for fucked up logic and he wasn’t all that smart to begin with. “I bet that I could place at least one bet today that you wouldn’t be able to sabotage.”

“And I sabotaged them all.”

“Except the bet that we made. You couldn’t sabotage it because you had to sabotage all the other bets.”

Hank’s considerable eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Okay, I made a bunch of bets today, right?”

“Right.”

“And you said you’d sabotage them all.”

“Right.”

“But you couldn’t sabotage the bet we’d made that you’d sabotage all of the bets, because then you’d lose the bet. Get it?”

Hank hesitated. “I… I think so.”

Thelma nodded. “Good. So pay up.”

“What if I don’t feel like it?”

“You want me to spread the word that you welsh on your bets?”

“You tricked me.”

“So what? Pay up.”

For a moment, Thelma thought that Hank would be able to come up with a counter argument. Or maybe he’d see a hole in her logic. Or maybe he’d just not pay up because he was a thick-headed idiot who was just too stupid to even think about falling for twisted logic. She could see the conflict behind his eyes, in the way he worked his jaw and the way he wrung his hands. But when she the twitch in his left eye, she knew she’d won. He only twitched like that when he knew he’d been beat. She hadn’t seen it very often, just enough to know the sign.

“Right,” Hank said at last. He took his bill clip out of his pocket and pulled out two crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Here,” he said, handing them over.

Thelma grabbed the two bills. She had to tug them hard to get them out of his hand. But he eventually relinquished them, and Thelma put them into her purse.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she told him.

Hank said nothing. He simply turned and left the apartment. He closed the door behind him, which Thelma thought was particularly thoughtful.

She sighed, leaned back in the chair and lit another cigarette. She could probably have gotten more money out of him, she thought, but she’d been pushing it as it was. Any more money and he would have started thinking too carefully about what she was saying. And she couldn’t have allowed that.

Well, tomorrow it was back to the usual. Pushing dogs. Making bets. Arguing with customers. Maybe shooting the shit with Maureen.

Maybe tomorrow, though, she could make a change. Figure out a way to get off the circuit, get a steady job, maybe settle down a bit.

Maybe.

But she wouldn’t place odds on it.

PUSHING DOGS (PART TWO)

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1,400 words

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Thelma tilted her head and glared at Hank. “You don’t think I’m not going to pay you back, do you?”

Hank’s voice rumbled throughout the entire apartment. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Well, I’m going to. Here.” She took the wad of bills that Nigel had given her from her purse and tossed it at Hank.

Hank unrolled the wad and counted the bills. “You’re short,” he said.

“And you’re ugly.”

“I meant that you don’t have enough money here.” Hank counted through the bills again. “But only fiftydollars.”

“So? I’ll have it tomorrow.” Thelma tried not to show any reaction or any sign that her heart was pounding and her palms were sweating.

Hank glared at her for a few seconds, his jaw working. “Fine,” he said at length. “Fifty bucks just isn’t worth it.”

“So I’m off the hook?”

“Get me a hundred by tomorrow night, and you are.”

“Ten? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No I’m not. And it will double each day until you either pay me back, or it becomes with it.”

“Worth it for what?”

Hank’s grin was positively carnivorous. “You don’t want to know,” he said. He tossed something at Thelma. “You’ll need this.”

Thelma caught the object and looked it over. It was the light bulb from her living room lamp.

# # #

The next day started out easy. Pushing dogs on the turkeys at the fair was always easy, even in the morning. People are always hungry, after all.

She looked around the Midway, trying to find a likely place for a wager. The day before, she had wagered with Nigel at the Ferris wheel that he could keep patrons at the top of the Ferris wheel for longer than ten minutes before they would start screaming, and she’d won. Nigel probably wasn’t going to go for that one again.

She sighed, glancing around again. Ah, yes. Fred, over at the Spooktacular Thrill Ride, should be a good mark. He’d been a dark ride operator for thirty years but Thelma was sure she could think of a way to fleece him out of some of his cash.

There were no customers at the moment, so she closed up the stand and went over to where Fred stood next to the entrance of the Spooktacular dark ride. “Hey, Fred. Got a moment?”

Fred looked at Thelma, a cigarette danging from beneath his impressive mustache. He blinked his heavy eyelids. “What do you want, Thelma?”

“Nothing in particular,” Thelma said. “Can’t I just come by to say hi to my friend?”

“We’re not friends,” said Fred. “Every time you come by you want something. So what is it this time? More money?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been friends for years, Fred. Haven’t we?”

Fred shook his head. “Nope. Just tell me what you want, Thelma.”

“Fine.” Thelma looked back at the Spooktacular cars that were lining up at the entrance of the ride. Each one was a tiny black hearse, room enough for three people, topped with a giant gray human skull. “Listen, I want to make a bet with you.”

“Not again, Thelma. I’m no sucker.”

“No, this one’s simple.”

Fred’s face worked for a few seconds. He may try to deny it, but Thelma knew he really was a sucker, and that within a minute, five at the most, he’d cave and take her up on whatever bet she suggested.

And finally he said, “What kind of bet?”

“Just something simple. Something easy.” She racked her brain, suddenly unable to think of anything. Then it came to her. “I bet you can’t get four complete strangers to sit all together in one of those cars.”

“Those cars only have three seats.”

“Exactly.”

Fred smiled. “Yeah, I can do that. How much?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Make it twenty.”

Thelma winced. “Forty.”

“Thirty-five.”

Thelma stuck out her hand. “Done.” It felt unnatural to take a bet with such low stakes, especially when she owed so much money to Hank. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk Fred into betting more. “It’s easy. All you have to do is get four strangers to ride together in one car.”

Fred shrugged and approached the line that was forming in front of the Spooktacular ride. There were definitely more than four people in the line, and there was only one couple that looked like they were talking with each other. As far as Thelma could tell, most of the people in the line didn’t know each other, and were therefore strangers to each other. Thelma knew that strangers would never ride together in a dark ride if they could avoid it, especially if there were more riders than there were seats. It was an easy win.

She yawned and looked back at the hot dog cart, just to make sure there were no customers waiting for her. There weren’t. Then she turned back to the dark ride again, and drew a sharp intake of breath.

Hank was standing next to Fred, helping Fred load up a fourth person into one of the skull cars.

What the hell?

Thelma marched through the line of customers and up to Hank and Fred. “What the hell?”

Hank smiled down at Thelma. “I promised Fred I’d help him out. Said he had a bit of a problem.”

Thelma turned to Fred. “You’re cheating.”

Fred shook his head. “Not at all. You didn’t say I couldn’t have help with it. You owe me thirty-five dollars. Pay up.”

Thelma glared at Hank. “You’re going to do this all day, aren’t you?”

“Do what?” Hank blinked rapidly, feigning innocence.

“Fine.” Thelma opened her purse, took out two twenties. They were the only cash she had left in the world, and she handed them over to Fred. “I need change back.”

“Ain’t got none,” Fred replied.

“Of course you don’t.” Thelma snapped her purse shut and stomped back to her cart. She glanced back, and saw that Hank was following her, hands in pockets, whistling.

She stopped. “Okay, Hank. Tell you what.”

“What?”

“Obviously, you plan to sabotage any bet I make with anyone today.”

Hank shrugged. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. Care to make a bet yourself?”

Hank stared at Thelma for a moment, his eyes squinted. “Sure. What have you got?”

Thelma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was going to have to word this very carefully. “I bet the rest of what I owe you,” she said slowly, “that I can make a bet that you can’t sabotage.”

Hank sneered. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s too easy, Thelma. You may as well pay me right now.”

“Let’s give it til the end of the day.”

Hank nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Perfect.”

Thelma shook Hank’s hand, knowing that she had this one already in the bag.

PUSHING DOGS (PART ONE)

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1,400 words

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“Sorry, kid, law of the jungle. Drop the dog, buy a new one.” Thelma took the money from the little boy’s father and put it in the cash box.

“Ma’am,” said the boy’s father, “he just dropped his hot dog. Can’t you just get him a new one? I haven’t got enough money to buy him another one.”

Thelma shrugged. Once upon a time, maybe, she would have felt sorry for the kid, but not today. “Law of the jungle,” she repeated.

The little boy’s father glared at Thelma for a moment, his jaw working as if he were getting ready to let loose a self-justified tirade. Thelma simply glared back at him until he backed down. “Fine,” he said, and he and his son headed off.

“That was cold,” said Nigel from beside Thelma.

“Whatever,” Thelma said. She glanced to the left and to the right. No more customers. Not at the moment, at least. She turned to Nigel and took out her notebook. “You owe me money.”

Nigel took a long drag off his cigarette, then let out the smoke in a long breath, right into Thelma’s face. “Fine. How much?”

Thelma tried not to grin too broadly as she double checked her watch. “They were up there for ten minutes before they started screaming,” she said. “Five dollars a minute for each minute past five, plus the original five, you owe me fifty dollars.”

Nigel leaned against the fence surrounding the Ferris wheel and crossed his arms. “What if I don’t pay?”

Thelma smiled as sweetly as she could, a smile that said she could bake a batch of cookies and feed them to you because you were her favorite grandchild and she loved you more than anything else in the entire world. Except, of course, Thelma had no grandchildren. “Sweetie,” she said, “you don’t want to go there.”

For a moment, Nigel said nothing. Then, perhaps sensing that there was something more predatory behind Thelma’s friendly smile beyond a simple batch of cookies — perhaps they would be poisoned cookies — he took his wallet out and counted out four ten dollar bills, a five, and four ones. “Can I owe you the buck?” he asked.

Thelma felt the corner of her mouth twitch. She needed fifty-five dollars to pay off Hank, and at the moment she only had four. She had counted on the kids on the Ferris wheel to be left up for at least fifteen minutes before they started screaming, and the fact that they had wimped out before then had set her back. “You sure you don’t have it?”

Nigel sighed theatrically, then dug in his pockets. A moment later he produced some coins and handed them over to Thelma. “I need something to eat with,” he said.

“Nothing here you could afford.” Thelma took the coins from Nigel’s grubby hand and counted them out. Five cents over a dollar. She handed the nickel back to him. “But I’ll let you have a dog on credit later on.”

“Fine.” Nigel turned away from Thelma and started attending to the line that had built up in front of the gate.

Thelma put the money in her handbag and turned back to her cart. A line of hungry customers had started building up. And she knew the kind of ugly that hungry fairgoers could get.

# # #

“I’ve wasted my life,” Thelma said to Maureen.

Maureen — a skinny young woman with greasy hair but surprisingly clear, if somewhat sun-worn, skin — lifted the edge of the garbage can and grabbed the thick plastic bag inside. The bag dripped stale Coca Cola and other, less pleasant fluids from the seam at the bottom. Maureen sneered and tossed the bag onto her cart. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you ever get the feeling that you could have done something… I don’t know, something real with your life?”

“Yeah. Sometimes I think I could have finished school and not ended up working as a garbage maid for the damned fair.”

Thelma scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got your entire life ahead of you. You’re only, what, thirty? Thirty-five?”

“I’m twenty-two, Thelma.” Maureen got back into the driver’s seat of the cart and shifted into gear. The cart lurched and Thelma put her hand onto the dashboard to stabilize herself.

“Well, then,” she said. “Twenty-two. See? Even younger. But me, I’m sixty-five.”

“Really? I had you pegged at seventy.”

“Don’t be a wise-ass. The point is, here I am, at a point in my life when I should be retiring, and I’m working the god-damned hot dog stand at the Fair.”

“At least you’re not cleaning up garbage.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Thelma reached into her purse and took out her cigarettes. She lit one, took a long drag. “The point is, what should I be doing with myself? Surely just peddling hot dogs at fairs isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Maureen stepped out of the cart and went over to another garbage can. “Maybe you ought to go to one of those career guys. Someone who can help you figure out what you’re supposed to do with your life. You know?”

“Did you see one?”

“Yeah. He told me I had an aptitude for landscape design.” She lifted the lid of the can and took out the bag within, then replaced it with an empty one. “Maybe he was right.”

Thelma tapped the cigarette over the edge of the cart , letting the ash drop down onto the asphalt. This was getting her nowhere. She’d won a bet with Maureen a few months ago, and getting free rides all over the fair was part of what the young woman owed her as payment, but Thelma wasn’t sure it was worth it. Maureen chattered a lot, and she never really said anything that was useful. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“If I went to a career counselor, what do you think he’d tell me?”

Maureen paused just before tossing the full garbage bag onto the back of the cart and stared at Thelma thoughtfully. “I think,” she said slowly, “that he would say you should have been a bookie.”

Thelma sighed and crushed her cigarette out on the side of the cart. “Thanks, Maureen. That helps out a lot.” She climbed out of the cart and made her way to the front gate without even bothering to see if her sarcasm had been noted.

# # #

Thelma pulled her car to a hard stop in front of her apartment building. The building, a low squat affair made of brick, lurked at the edge of So Low like a broken down carousel. It was threatening, but it was home, and Thelma was used to it.

But there was something different about the place tonight. Thelma sat in her car for a few moments, staring up at the building and trying to make out what was wrong, but nothing came to her. It looked the same to her as it always did.

She hesitated a moment longer, then switched the engine off decisively and got out of her car. She stomped upstairs to her own apartment, making as much noise as she usually did, but also paying extra attention to any sounds.

The lights wouldn’t turn on.

Thelma gripped her purse tighter and flipped the light switch up and down several times. Even when she knew it wasn’t going to work, she couldn’t stop herself.

“That won’t work.” The voice rumbled low and throbbed in the floorboards under her feet. “I cut the power.”

Thelma took a deep breath. “Hank,” she said. “I knew you’d come.”

“You owe me money,” Hank rumbled. He stepped forward, his face emerging from the shadows like the moon from behind storm clouds. “I intend to collect.”

THE WALLS OF ELSINORE

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 2,300 words

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It’s a good thing the medieval Danes were so gullible. Tell them you’re a ghost, and they’d give you run of the castle.

I arrived outside the walls of Elsinore on a dark and stormy night. The sky overhead hung low with heavy clouds, brought to a faint glow by the full moon which lingered behind them. Rain poured onto my poor knapsack, which I knew wasn’t waterproof at all.

I opened the knapsack and took out the parts of the disguise that the ChronoCorps had given me. The burlap sack to clothe myself in. The talc to pour on myself and rub into my skin. The idea was for me to look like a ghost, raise some ruckus, and set the Canon back to right. So I draped myself with the burlap sack and covered myself with the talc, then scrabbled fiercely through the mud and rocks to the top of the papet. Once I got up there, though, I simply walked up to a pair of dopey looking soldiers who were leaning against the wall, gossiping.

I coughed.

They both leaped to full attention and pointed their halberds at me. “Who goes?” cried the one on the left.

I said nothing, just gave them an enigmatic stare.

“By the heavens!” said the one on the right. “It is a ghost!” The one on the left crossed himself. The two of them ran off, shrieking.

“Huh,” I said. It had been almost anticlimactic. And annoying. I wasn’t supposed to just be any ghost, I was supposed to be the ghost of the king himself. Ah well. All I could do was hope that the soldiers would report back to the Prince that his dead father’s ghost had shown up, and get the message that he was supposed to focus all his energies on avenging the death, rather than running the country.

I waited, hoping that the Prince himself would show up so that I could give him the message in person.

# # #

Working at the ChronoCorps was not nearly as exciting as I’d thought it would be when I signed up. I thought I’d have grand fun being sent up and down the time streams, wiping out paradoxes left and right and generally making sure no one decides they’re going to kill Hitler or anything else that would completely undo history and break the canon.

Instead, it was mostly paperwork.

The amount of red tape involved in the ChronoCorps shocked and saddened me. The archives were lined with thousands upon thousands of history books. Most of them contradict each other, but that’s just the nature of historical documents; even the best historians would sometimes come to the wrong conclusion, and it’s been said around the office that if you put two historians in the same room you’d get three different opinions. But some of the books represented genuinely different timelines which had to be resolved, and taking care of them was just a pain. Most of the time, resolving the alternate timelines with the canon involved tracking down the discrepancy and filling out official forms indicating what needed to be done to fix things up. And doing that meant becoming intimately familiar with the hundreds of thousands of books that made up the official canon.

The books of the ChronoCorps’s official canon of human history itself were kept in a special paradox-free room. Reading through them and comparing them with the thousands of history books to find gross or subtle differences was the more boring than I could have ever imagined.

But every now and then an agent gets to go out on a field trip, since there are some deviations that can’t be resolved with a few minor tweaks to the timeline that can be done from the lab. This is why I was covered in talc and burlap and water, waiting to meet up with Hamlet. The Danish Golden Age that Hamlet II had ushered in violated too many tenets of the Canon so I had been sent back to stop him. The best thing to do the Bureau reckoned, was just to make sure Hamlet II would never become king.

So that’s what I was doing in medieval Denmark: stopping Hamlet II from ushering in Denmark’s Golden Age.

# # #

The next night, the weather was pretty much the same, though at least it wasn’t raining by the time the guards returned to their post. I was waiting for them, once again draped in the burlap, and covered in a fresh coating of talc. I kept my eyes wide open and my jaw slightly dropped. In other words, I did my best to look as eerily spooky as I could.

“Who goes?” shouted the first guard as soon as he saw me.

I sighed. Same as the night before. Trying not to sound annoyed, I moaned as low as I could while still remaining legible, “It is I, King Hamlet of Denmark. Wooooooo!”

The guards both cried out in terror and ran off.

I lurked around the parapet after they left, hoping someone else would see me and report me back to the Prince. I was just about to give up and start wandering around the rest of the castle when the two guards returned, with Prince Hamlet in tow. Hamlet looked annoyed and sleepy, as if the guards had pulled him out of bed.

“There it is,” one of the guards said.

“Spooky as all hell,” said the other.

The Prince looked at me through squinted eyes. This is the moment, I thought. If he didn’t buy my disguise, I’d be up shit creek.

“What are you?” the Prince asked at length.

“It is I, your father,” I replied. I thought about moaning again, but decided it would be hokey.

The Prince started, eyes blinking, and drew back. “Merciful heavens, it is my father!” He turned to the guards. “You were right. Oh, my father has returned.”

“Hamlet, my son,” I said in as woeful a voice as I could.

The Prince turned back to me. His eyes were full of tears, and his lower lip trembled. “What is it, oh my Father?”

This was pathetic. I knew Hamlet was prone to superstition, even at the height of his empire, but I’d had no idea he was this pathetic. “I would beg of thee a boon,” I said.

“Anything, Father, anything.”

“My brother, thine uncle Claudius, thou knowest him?”

“Aye, I do.”

“After I did die, he stole my wife and throne.”

“So? When he dies I’ll be king.”

“But my death would not then be avenged!”

“Father, why should thy death be avenged? It was a natural death, were it not?”

“Nay, my son. Thine uncle murdered me!”

Hamlet gasped. “Murdered? But how?”

“While I slept in the garden, he snuck up to me, and poured a bit of poison in my ear. I died in terrible seizures and agony.”

“Nay, thou didst die in they sleep, in the comfort of thine own bed. So did the royal coroner assure me.”

“Ah, but didst thou behold my corpse?”

He looked doubtful. “Nay, I did not.”

“Then who wouldst thou believe? The royal coroner, who art in the pay of the king, or thine own father’s roaming, unhomed spirit?”

“Hm, tough one.” Hamlet rubbed his chin.

“Thy father!” I shouted at him. “Thine own father! I thus command!”

Hamlet cried out and dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry, father! I swear, I will expose thy killer, and see that he meets justice!”

I nodded, sure that my deed was done. I pressed the callback button in my pocket; the temporal transfer would give the Prince and the guards an impressive light show for them to remember. “Avenge me,” I said again, just for verisimilitude. I knew my voice was going to fade for him. “Avenge me. Avenge me.”

And then I was back at the ChronoCorps Headquarters.

# # #

Things were hectic at the ChronoCorps headquarters. No, not hectic. The word for the mood at ChronoCorps HQ when I returned from medieval Denmark was panic.

Mr. Wells came running up to me as soon as I stepped out of the chamber. “Herb!” he shouted. “Herbert! Things are going to hell! What did you do?”

I shook my head in confusion. “What? I didn’t do anything. I just did my job, distracted Prince Hamlet from founding the empire by forcing him to focus on avenging his father’s assassination.”

“Well now the history books are showing that the Danish Empire had control of all of Western Europe, including England, as well as parts of Russia, as late as 1799. Do you have any idea what this does to the canon?”

“I swear, I did exactly what the plan called for. No deviations.”

“Yeah, well, now history records that you showed up to three soldiers and to some guy named Horatio who claims you showed up in full armor. You were only supposed to appear before two soldiers. Horatio said that this warrior apparition inspired Prince Hamlet to great leadership.”

“But that’s not what happened. This Horatio person must have been lying.”

Mr. Wells quivered like a nervous rabbit. “Well, you have to go back. Fix this before it gets too complicated. The canon states that Norway invades Denmark, and Hamlet capitulates. He isn’t supposed to fight them off and build an empire. You have to go back to distract him again.”

“But how?” It would be impossible for me to go back and replay that scene on the castle wall. The laws of temporal transfer would prevent it.

“We’ll send you to a point near that moment. The deviant record shows that Prince Hamlet had a conversation with his mother that made him forget his mission of revenge and get back on track. You must sabotage that meeting.”

I nodded. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“You’ll do better than that. You’ll do it right!”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Then I turned and went back into the temporal chamber.

# # #

Prince Hamlet was already in his mother’s room when I returned to Elsinore, having a tearful conversation with her. I could tell she was trying to comfort him, and that he was already beginning to think more clearly.

I found myself tangled up in a curtain. The temporal teleport had gone wrong, and I was mostly insubstantial. I shifted about and cursed, knowing that I was almost entirely inaudible as well.

But the curtains shifted anyway. Hamlet jumped up from where he was sitting and cried out, “A rat!” He drew his sword and lunged forward. I shut my eyes instinctively, certain I was going to get stabbed, but it turned out Hamlet was aiming right next to me.

“Ahh!” cried a voice. The curtain I was tangled up in shifted, and out fell an old man, balding, with a long gray beard.

Hamlet looked down disdainfully at the fallen old man. “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool,” he said. “That’ll teach you to spy on my mom.” Then he looked up and straight at me. He paled. “My father!” he cried out.

I realized that despite my insubstantial state, the prince could see me.

“Hamlet, my son,” I said.

“Son, who are you talking to?” asked Hamlet’s mother.

Hamlet ignored her. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re off track,” I said. “Remember my murder? You’re supposed to be carrying out your revenge.”

He nodded contritely. “I’m sorry, father. Of course, I’ll get right back on it. Claudius must die for what he’s done!”

“There’s a good boy,” I said. “And be good to your mom. She’s had a rough time.” Then the temporal bond faded, and I was brought back to the 25th century.

# # #

“Had to do a little damage control,” Mr. Wells told me when I met him the next day for debriefing. “That conversation with his mother… What did you do?”

“Just what we talked about. I showed up all ghostly and told him to get back on track.”

“Yes, well, after that he still went on to become King. Then Emperor. Emperor Hamlet the Terrible, he was called. It was a bloody reign of terror for fifty years after that conversation with his mother.”

“Is that part of historical canon?” I asked. It didn’t sound familiar.

“Hardly. We had to take drastic measures.”

“Meaning what?”

“We had an agent go back and assassinate Hamlet in his youth.”

“But there’s a record of Hamlet,” I protested. “He’s part of the canon.”

“Well, not anymore. Not as such, at least. The canon now shows that Hamlet was just a character in a play by William Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Hack playwright from Renaissance England. He wasn’t part of the canon until we attempt to resolve the Hamlet divergence. Apparently Prince Hamlet is some sort of a causality nexus; he has to be in the canon somewhere.”

“But at least the canon’s fixed, right? There’s no golden age of Denmark? No Danish Empire?”

Mr. Wells smiled, then gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Well, sort of. The canon is going to need some adjusting but on the whole, you did good.”

I sighed with relief. I’d been afraid that I’d screwed up the mission completely. “Thank you, Mr. Wells.”

“Speaking confidentially,” he said, leaning in, “I’m going to put you in for a promotion. I think you could handle more field assignments, don’t you think?”

I grinned in spite of myself. “Oh, absolutely.”

“Good. Because there’s another situation coming up. Some problems with a guy named Torquemada in the fifteenth century. Going a little soft when he should be a big player. You up for it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” Mr. Wells patted me on the shoulder again, just as awkwardly.

“Though I have to say,” I added, “I never expected the Spanish Inquisition.”

BLAYLOCK: A FRAGMENT

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 600 words

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“The first time I killed a man?” Joseph Blaylock took a long drag on his cigarette, then blew out the smoke slowly, pondering the glowing ash. “I was just eight years old.”

Tomas narrowed his eyes. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. I was eight, all right. Forty years ago. You’re not even twenty, Tomas, you have no idea what things were like back then.”

“I’ve heard the stories. Marchand, Xiao Lu, O’Connell. The really bad guys.”

“Who’ve you been talking to?”

Tomas shrugged. “I get around.”

“Huh.” Joseph took another long drag. “Silvers was the worst. Back then, there were a few people who started to have the idea that maybe this town didn’t have to be so lawless, that maybe there could be a government, people in charge. I remember I was with my mom in Grant Park, that day we had the first elections. Huang Tsu was elected the first mayor, and that day was the biggest event I can remember from back then. There was a band in the old fountain, the Buckingham, there were fireworks, and people dancing. Hell of a day.”

“Different times, eh?” Tomas was grinning.

“I suppose.” Joseph grinned himself, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “My mom and I were standing right next to that fountain, right up in front of the fiddle player. They were playing ‘Hog of the Forsaken’. You know that song?”

Tomas nodded. “The hog of the forsaken, he is the pork of crime,” he sang. “That the one?”

“That’s it. Anyway, they were playing that song when Silvers and his gang rode up on their horses, Silvers himself in one of those old metal wagons. He stood up and said, ‘That was fun, fun times all around. But it’s about time you stopped playing, and understand what’s really true here.’ Then he took out this big gun, and shot Tsu in the head.”

“Just like that?”

Joseph snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Everyone panicked and started running, even the ones who’d signed up to be part of Tsu’s militia. One of them, a big guy with red hair, dropped his gun right in front of me. I had no idea at the time, but it was really an piece of work. Classic gun, an old big-bore revolver. Well taken care of, too.”

“So you shot someone with it?”

“Nope. Damn thing was heavy. I picked it up and tried to shoot it but the kickback was so hard, it damn near broke my shoulder. I fell over backwards and cracked my head on the cement.”

“I thought you said you killed someone that day.”

“I did. One of those fool men of Silvers’s, he was running right by me. Tripped over my legs, fell down, and cracked his head wide open on a chunk of rock.”

For a moment, Tomas said nothing. Then his eyes widened, and he laughed, loud enough to drown out all the other sounds in the bar.

LITTLE FLUFFY WIGGLETOES CONQUERS THE WORLD

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1,100 words

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Good morning boys and girls! It’s been so hard to get to our storytimes because it seems like everywhere I go I see policemen. Do you remember what we do when we see policemen? That’s right, boys and girls, we kick them in the knees and then run away as fast as can. They like that! It’s like playing tag!

If you remember, last time our friend, that naughty Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had become President of the Meadow after overthrowing President Cottontail. This was a victory for democracy, even though President Cottontail had been elected by a big majority of all the animals and birds who lived in the meadow. This is what we call a coup, boys and girls, and one day if a President you don’t like is elected, maybe you should do a coup of your own. The people will think you’re wonderful if you do.

Well, as you know, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes wasn’t just satisfied with being President of the Meadow. He wanted to be the ruler of the entire world. But how could he be ruler of the entire world if he was just a little fluffy bunny in the meadow? In order to conquer the entire world, he would have to have a huge army. Now, of course Little Fluffy Wiggletoes didn’t have a huge army. He was just a little bunny, after all, and little bunnies don’t have huge armies, not even powerful President bunnies like Little Fluffy Wiggletoes.

Now of course, boys and girls, you know what you should do whenever you want something that someone else has, right? Yes, little Susie, you could ask them to share, but that isn’t going to work and you’re stupid if you think it will. No, boys and girls, the best thing to do is to steal what you want from the person who has it and then it’s yours. Sharing? Susie, don’t make me laugh.

So Little Fluffy Wiggletoes knew that he had to steal an army from somewhere or someone. But the only army he knew of was the big mercenary army that Mr. Toad had in the pond on the other side of the playground. Remember that playground, boys and girls? That’s where Peter Cottontail euthanized all those children last year after Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had tried to hypnotize them all. That’s right, Little Timmy, sometimes there are some things worse than death, like always having to run away when you see the police or your mommies.

Well, Mr. Toad’s army was a big one, and Little Fluffy Wiggletoes knew that stealing it from Mr. Toad wasn’t going to be easy. A single Hypno-Ray waasn’t going to do it this time. So Little Fluffy Wiggletoes decided to go to WalMart to do some shopping, because WalMart has everything that a little bunny who wants to take over the world might need. And to his surprise, he found that WalMart was now selling Hypno-Powder! This wonderful powder, according to the package, could be dissolved in water and then whoever drank it would be under the control of anyone who also had a Hypno-Ray. Since Little Fluffy Wiggletoes already had a Hypno-Ray, he knew that he had to have this powder. So he slipped it under his jacket and walked carefully out of the store. Because remember, boys and girls, that you should never have to pay for anything that you take out of the store. Always put it into your jacket and walk out casually so that no one knows you’re stealing it. Are you listening, Little Susie?

So after Little Fluffy Wiggletoes got the Hypno-Powder and a brand new Hypno-Ray, he went over to the pond on the other side of the playground. He had to sneak under the barbed wire and past the land mines, but he was a clever bunny and it was easy for him to do that. Then he poured the Hypno-Powder into the pond, and waited for everyone in Mr. Toad’s army to drink. And when they did, they were all under Little Fluffy Wiggletoes’s control.

So now Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had two armies. But he needed a lot more, because the world is a big place, isn’t it boys and girls? It’s scary, too. Do you know what you should do with things that are scary that you don’t understand? That’s right, Little Susie, you beat them up. It’s good that you’re learning, because I thought you were really stupid. But you shouldn’t be too smart, Little Susie, because little girls aren’t supposed to be smart. Otherwise they get sassy, and don’t obey their husbands.

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes knew he was going to need a lot more armies than just two. He was going to need people armies. And that wasn’t going to be easy. But the first thing he did was use the two armies he controlled to take over the WalMart store he always went to. You should have seen all the people running around that day, because they were all scared of Little Fluffy Wiggletoes and his armies! But soon Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had them all under control too, and then he made them make more Hypno-Powder.

And on and on it went. The only one who could have stopped Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was Peter Cottontail, and where do you think he was? That’s right, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had thrown him right into jail for being subversive and for thinking too much.

But while Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was conquering the world something was happening back at the prison where Peter Cottontail was being kept, and pretty soon Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was going to regret letting Peter Cottontail live.

Unfortunately, boys and girls, I can’t tell you what that is, because I can tell by the sirens that the police are coming here again and they’re going to be looking for me. Remember that when the policemen are here you’re supposed to kick them in the shins and then run away, right? And make sure they never find me!

Bye boys and girls!

SPARROW COURT

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 5,100 words

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“There are holes in the middle of things…. Right in the damn middle of things!”

–Stephen King, “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut”

“Aw, hell!”

The voice drifted in through Lawrence Stanley’s open window, and it was so loud that it brought him out of sleep just as surely as his alarm clock would in just a few moments. The voice belonged to Charles Holck, who lived next door to Stanley at 2212 Sparrow Court, and who worked early mornings at the Hunt’s Cannery across town.

Lawrence heard Charles’s wife Anna-Marie next. “Keep quiet, Charles!” she shouted at her husband. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors!”

Too late, Lawrence thought. His alarm clock – an ancient thing which he had picked up twelve years ago as a freshman at UC Davis and which still woke him and his wife up with its intermittent buzzes promptly at six each morning – chose that moment to sound. Erin swung up her arm from her side of the bed and brought it down hard on the snooze button. These days, she did that almost automatically, without even waking up at all. Erin rolled over in the bed, pulling the covers even further off of Lawrence, and mumbled something about Easter eggs.

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to get to work this morning?” Charles’s thick voice carried in from the street. “What the hell is this thing?”

Lawrence thought that Charles’s voice was remarkably civilized this morning. Normally his speech contained far more invective and expletives. Charles had come over to California a few years ago from Scotland where, presumably, he had taught Irvine Welsh how to swear.

“Well, keep your voice down,” Anna-Marie said. Her own voice was an American one. Positively red-neck. “I’ll call the police,” she drawled. POH-leece.

Charles cursed again, softly, so that Lawrence couldn’t hear exactly what was said, and his voice drifted away.

Erin shuffled under the blankets again and muttered something else about Easter eggs. Apparently they were in the garden. Lawrence decided not to even try to get back any of the covers, and got up carefully out of bed. This morning, he decided, he would make the coffee. And maybe this morning, for a change, it would be drinkable.

# # #

“What happened to the street outside?” Erin asked him when she came downstairs half an hour later. Lawrence had heard the alarm go off and get snoozed again two or three times before he finally heard his wife’s stomping footsteps in their bedroom. She wore a thick white robe now, drawing it close about her. Even though it was late spring in Davis, and the temperatures would probably get as high as 86 or 87, it was still cool in the mornings, and the morning breeze – which Lawrence figured would probably become one of the famous Davis spring winds before noon – made it even cooler.

“What do you mean?” Lawrence asked. “What’s wrong with the street?”

“There’s a great big hole in it,” Erin said. She shuffled over to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. “Yeeeugh,” she muttered. “Did you put the whole can in or what?”

“I like my coffee to actually have some taste to it,” Lawrence said. “What do you mean, a hole in the street? Like a manhole?”

“No, a great big hole. Charles was complaining about it, I heard him. Go take a look.”

Lawrence shrugged. “Sure. Make me some toast, okay?”

“Lazy.”

“My personal defect.”

“One among many.”

Lawrence made a hmph-ing noise at his wife, and grabbed his T-shirt from over the back of the chair where he had left it the night before. Then he stepped outside.

Erin had been right: there was a huge hole in the street, much larger than a simple manhole opening. In fact, the hole was almost the size of the cul-de-sac itself. Lawrence saw that the source of Charles’s anger earlier had been the fact that enough of the asphalt had disappeared to make driving impossible without driving half on the sidewalk.

“What the – ?” Lawrence wondered aloud.

The hole itself was black and apparently bottomless. Lawrence peered hard, trying to see the bottom of the pit, but had no success. Its edge was right up against the curb next to his own driveway, which meant that he was as effectively trapped as Charles was.

“Where the hell did it come from?” Charles’s voice came across from the other side of the cul-de-sac.

Lawrence looked up. He hadn’t seen Charles standing there in front of his own house, dressed for work in jeans and a pale blue work shirt.

“You can’t even see the bottom of it,” Charles continued.

“I wonder how deep it goes?”

Charles shrugged. “Hell if I know. All I know is I can’t get my car out of my driveway, and I don’t know how I’m going to get to work.”

Lawrence looked back down at the edge of the hole, to where it came within two feet of his driveway. He could see the layers of the street: asphalt, concrete, dirt. Various pipes and tubes looked as if they had been cut neatly in two with a hacksaw. Further down there were rocks, and then more or less solid stone. The hole was very deep: the bright sunlight could not illuminate its bottom.

“Must be city work,” Charles said. “Public Fucking Works, some shite like that.”

Lawrence shook his head. “There would be signs or cones or something like that if it were,” he said.

Then Lawrence realized that he had the same problem as Charles did: the hole blocked his driveway and would prevent him from pulling his car out of his garage and going to work.

What the hell, he thought. It’s a nice enough day. I’ll bike.

“City Works,” Charles repeated himself forcefully. “I saw where they’re doing some shit up on Covell Boulevard. They’ve got this long trench, and those white concrete blocks up on both sides of it. And this long black hose goin’ all the way down from a manhole to this big white truck. You ever seen that X-Files movie?”

Lawrence looked up, surprised by the apparent non-sequitor. “What?”

“The X-Files movie. Some kids in Texas found this hole in the ground with some alien shit in it, and then the government came in with all these big white trucks, and then…”

“I have to get dressed,” Lawrence interrupted Charles. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Yeah, right,” Charles said in his thick brogue, and went inside his own house, cursing softly.

Lawrence turned to go back into his own house, but as he did, he saw a curious thing. The neighbor’s dog, an ancient yellow Labrador named Dan, sat on the neighbor’s lawn, idly gnawing on his left front paw, the way that old dogs sometimes do. What was curious about it, though, was the way the dog seemed to be shimmering, as though Lawrence were looking at him through the hot air above a stove. Not only shimmering, though; faded, too, as if the old dog were an old Polaroid photograph, turning a faded sepia with age.

Lawrence rubbed his eyes and took a breath. When he looked up at Dan agin, the dog was staring back at him with his old droopy eyes, as if to say, “Yeah, life’s a bitch, but what can you do about it, huh?” The shimmering was gone, as was the faded coloration. Now Dan looked as he always did, an ancient yellow Lab with more grey than yellow around his muzzle, paws, and tail.

“God-damned heat,” Lawrence muttered to himself, and went back inside his own house to get ready for work.

# # #

He spent the day at his office at the University, hammering out the details of a new union contract with lawyers from the University’s main offices in Oakland. The weather had turn out hotter than he had expected, and the dry, hot winds from the south made biking home nearly impossible. Halfway to his house, he simply gave up, and walked his bike the rest of the way up Anderson Road in the dry heat.

He had expected work crews from the city to be surrounding the hole in the road, perhaps even have it taped off with yellow “CAUTION” ribbons. But there was nothing of the kind. Sparrow Court looked absurdly empty to him, even abandoned, in spite of the number of cars which sat in driveways in front of the houses.

Then it occurred to him: there were no sounds here. Sparrow Court was relatively isolated from the sounds of traffic on Covell and Anderson, but today it was utterly silent. Even the wind when it rushed past his ears and disturbed the trees along the sidewalks, could not shake the feeling he had the silence reigned supreme here.

Lawrence went over to the hole in the street and looked down it again. He still could see no bottom to it. And now he almost felt a coolness rising up from it, as though it were filled with ice water. Overcome with a sudden chill, Lawrence shivered and backed away from the hole.

Erin was in the kitchen when Lawrence walked in. She was standing before the open doors of the pantry, staring blankly at the cans of soup and bags of dried pasta. Her arms were folded across her chest and her thick dark hair with its few grey streaks was pulled back into a heavy horse-tail which hung halfway down her back. She made no sign that she had noticed Lawrence coming in until he came up behind her and touched her lightly on her bare shoulder.

Erin gasped, jumped, and spun around. “Jesus!” she cried, falling back against one of the pantry’s two doors.

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence said. “I thought you heard me.”

“Well, I didn’t. Lawrence, you scared me half to death!” She was pale, and Lawrence suddenly noticed the dark red rims to her eyes.

“Erin, is something wrong?” he asked her.

Erin looked puzzled for a moment,as though she had never expected to hear him ask her that. Then she regained her composure, and cleared her throat. “No,” she said, “there’s nothing wrong. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Then why don’t you go up and get some rest?” Lawrence suggested. “I’ll make dinner.”

Erin shook her head. “No, don’t worry about that. I’ll be fine. You go work.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Go on, now.”

Lawrence leaned over to Erin and gave her a quick kiss. “You’re beautiful, do you know that?”

Erin pushed him back gently, smiling faintly as she did so. “You get working,” she said to him.

Smiling, Lawrence went into the den, and turned on his computer. While he waited for it to start up, he picked up the remote control for the television and turned it on. White snow filled the screen of the TV, and static poured from its speakers. Lawrence surfed through the channels, but there was no change; swearing, he punched the Power button on the remote, then set it down and put a Gilbert and Sullivan CD into his stereo.

“Honey!” Erin called from the kitchen. “Do you want ranch or bleu cheese dressing on your salad tonight?”

Barely thinking, Lawrence answered, “Ranch, please.”

Lawrence turned back to his computer and his files and began to write. Halfway into his grievance summary, just as the Pirate King was about to begin his song, Lawrence heard a loud, deep moan.

Instantly, he looked up. “Erin?” he called.

Erin did not answer, but the moaning sound came again. Lawrence turned down the volume on the stereo so he could hear the sound better. It was like an animal’s moan of pain: deep, drawn out, and somehow hollow. There was an echo to it as well.

Lawrence stood up and went into the dining room. He found Erin standing at the kitchen sink, looking through the window to the street outside.

“What was that sound?” Lawrence asked.

Erin shook her head. “I have no idea,” she said. “It’s coming from outside. I think it’s coming from that hole.”

Lawrence raised his eyebrows in surprise. “From the pit?”

Erin nodded.

Lawrence stood next to her for a moment or two, then turned to go out the front door.

“Where are you going?” Erin asked.

“Out there,” Lawrence replied. “I think maybe someone fell in.”

Erin gasped. “You don’t really think so? That’s horrible!”

Lawrence didn’t answer that, but went outside, pausing only long enough to grab a flashlight from the utility drawer. Erin came after him.

Outside, Lawrence leaned over the edge of the hole. The cold chill he had felt earlier was stronger now, and much more definite. He could feel a slight breeze on his face.

The moaning sound was much louder here, and was definitely coming from the hole. He shone his flashlight down and called out, “Hello?”

There was no answer.

Charles came out of his house and stood by Lawrence. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I think there’s somebody down there,” Lawrence said. “Can’t you hear that?”

Charles peered into the pit. “Yeah,” he said. “Sounds like a dog or something.”

Lawrence stared at Charles incredulously. “A dog? A dog wouldn’t make a noise like that!”

“I saw Dan earlier today,” Charles replied. “He was looking pretty sick. His foot was all mangled.”

“Didn’t you go to work today?”

Charles shook his head. “Nope. Called in sick. I couldn’t drive my car out of here anyway.”

The moaning started up again, louder than before. Charles peered down the hole and swore. “Shite, there’s a bleedin’ light down there.”

Lawrence looked down. Sure enough, there was a dim light source about fifteen feet down the hole. It was like someone had hidden a lamp in a small recess of the hole’s lining.

“There is someone down there,” Charles said, sounding almost amused.

Lawrence leaned over the edge of the hole and shouted. “Hello! Is there someone down there?”

No response came back, save for another deep, moan that was almost gutteral. “Whoever it is,” Lawrence reported, “I think they’re badly hurt.”

Charles nodded. “I’m going to get some rope,” he said. “See if we can’t get them out.”

Lawrence turned on him. “You will do no such thing,” he admonished. “I’m going back inside to call 911.”

Charles looked at Lawrence angrily. “You do that,” he said slowly.

Lawrence glared at Charles a moment longer, then decided that there wasn’t time to deal with this. He turned and rushed back into his house.

“What’s happening?” Erin asked him.

“I think someone fell down the hole,” Lawrence told her. “It sounds like they’re hurt badly.”

“Oh my God,” Erin said. “Can you see him?”

“No,” Lawrence said, shaking his head. He picked up the telephone receiver and dialed 911. “I think they’re on a ledge or an outcropping. Shit!”

“What?”

“The line disconnected.” Lawrence clicked the disconnect button and tried again. “Dammit, it keeps disconnecting!”

“Let me get my cell phone,” Erin suggested. “Just a moment!”

While Erin went to the other room to find her cell phone, Lawrence tried the phone in the kitchen, then the one in the living room. Each time, the line was cut off as soon as he was connected.

Erin returned and handed Lawrence her cell phone. Lawrence dialed 911 and pressed SEND. Again, the line clicked off as soon as it was connected.

Lawrence swore and handed the phone back to Erin.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

Lawrence stood in indecision for a moment. “I’ll go round to the neighbors’ house,” he said, “and borrow their phone. I’ll be right back.”

He jogged through the front door of the house, and out onto the sidewalk once again. He saw Charles out in the street once again, near the hole; this time, he was tying one end of a length of rope around a the pole of a streetlight.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lawrence demanded.

“The bloody phone’s not working,” Charles replied, “an’ I cannae get through to 911. I’m going down there to help out whoever is trapped down there.”

Lawrence shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.

Charles shrugged. “At least I’m doing something. What are you doing to help?”

Lawrence paused. “What’s wrong with your phone?” he asked. “Is it dead?”

Charles looked over at Lawrence and paused in tying the rope. “It’s weird,” he said. “I can get through all right, but once it connects, it rings off. I can’t get in touch with anyone to talk to them.”

“I had the same problem,” Lawrence said. “What the hell’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “All I know is that there’s someone down there that needs help. Are you going to give me a hand or not?”

“I won’t be much help myself. Let’s get Hank from next door.”

“Good idea.”

While Charles finished tying off the rope, Lawrence went over to 2214 and convinced Hank Watterson to come over and help lower Charles down into the hole.

Between Lawrence and Hank, they had enough strength to lower Charles into the hole; they were both fairly large men, and Charles was only middle-sized. It was slow-going, though. Charles was heavier than he looked, and Hank wasn’t much help at all – he had been drinking nearly constantly since his wife had left him two months ago, and was drunk now.

Lawrence had been concentrating deeply on lowering the rope, and had therefore nearly missed the strange, mournful whimper that had come from the yard of the house next to his.

Lawrence looked up, and gasped at what he saw. The source of the sound had been a creature of some sort, slick with what looked like blood, lying on its side in the yard with a face that was remarkably canine. It had no legs, and blood seeped profusely from several points on its body. It looked as though it were surrounded by some sort of faint brown smoke, with red streaks that skittered across its surface.

“What the hell?” Lawrence muttered.

“Hey, up there!” Charles’s voice came up from down in the hole. “What the hell’s going on? You gonna let me down or what?”

Lawrence turned his face from the apparition and started lowering the rope again. “Hank,” he said. “Look over there in the yard next to mine. What do you see?”

Hank looked over and swore. “Good God,” he said. “It’s Dan.”

Lawrence looked over again. The smoke with the red skittering streaks was gone now, and Lawrence could see that the shaking, whimpering thing on the grass was indeed the neighbor’s dog, Dan. “What the hell happened to him?” he wondered.

“He’s gnawed his legs off,” Hank whispered. “Jesus Christ.”

The two of them had stopped lowering the rope again. Again, Charles called up from down below, cursing them for slacking off.

Lawrence and Hank started lowering again, but Lawrence could not avoid staring at the old dog. Had he really consumed himself as Hank had suggested? Then, as Lawrence watched, he saw Dan reach back with his muzzle, and start gnawing on his hindquarters.

Stifling a retch of disgust, Lawrence turned away, wishing he could let go of the rope long enough to grab the remains of the dog and take him away… or even to put him out of his misery.

“Holy shit, this is deep!” Charles called. “I’m probably down fifteen feet, and I still can’t see the bottom. How did this get here?”

“Are you close to the light?” Lawrence called down.

“Yeah, I’m nearly at it.”

The moaning began again from the hole in the ground, louder this time. “Hang on, I’m coming,” Lawrence heard Charles say.

A moment later, Charles called to Lawrence and Hank to stop lowering. “I’m here,” he called up. “Hold me steady.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s a bright light,” Charles called up. “There’s someone moving… It’s like a cave or something.”

“Are they hurt? Who is it?”

“It’s…” Suddenly Charles stopped.

For a moment, there was silence.

“Charles?” Lawrence called.

Silence only for a moment. Lawrence was about to call down again when suddenly Charles let out a long, bloodcurdling scream. The sound was terrifying to Lawrence, and he heard Hank draw a breath and his grip weakened on the rope.

“Shit!” Lawrence said loudly. “Hank, PULL!”

The two of them started to pull on the rope, lifting Charles back up. Hank moved slowly at first, as though the scream had weakened him. But he picked up speed as he moved, and they had Charles up within five minutes.

“Charles!” Lawrence called. “Charles, are you okay?”

Charles did not respond. Instead, he hung limp from his end of the rope, as though asleep or dead. His eyes were wide and staring, though, and his mouth worked slightly, as if he were trying to talk.

“Sweet Jesus,” Lawrence muttered, and bent over to pull Charles out of the hole.

Charles was heavy and difficult to lift. After five minutes of struggling, he was able to pull the heavy Scotsman up onto the asphalt. “I’ve got you,” he told him. “You’re okay now.”

Charles lay on his back, eyes wide and staring up at the dim sky above. On impulse, Lawrence looked up; the stars in the sky were bright, but Lawrence got the impression that they seemed swollen, almost heavy, and somehow… bloated. “What the hell is going on here?” he wondered aloud.

His attention was drawn back to Charles, who began to take sharp, deep breaths, as if trying to suck air back into his lungs through swollen windpipes. Lawrence’s vision wavered again, and Lawrence got the impression that Charles was shimmering, as the dog Dan had appeared to. The sensation filled Lawrence with a greater sense of dread, and he shut his eyes against the vision. When he opened them again, though, the shimmering was still there.

Erin’s voice sounded in his ear, startling him. “Is he all right?” she asked him.

Lawrence turned to face her, and was about to answer her, when Charles let loose another warbling scream and began thrashing his arms and legs. Lawrence found himself forced backwards and fell down hard onto his rear. Hank, whom Lawrence had forgotten about, was also forced back, although he managed to recover his balance and raise himself to his feet.

“Charles!” Hank cried, but to no avail. Charles scrabbled crazily on the ground, gasping and crying out in whimpering sobs as he did so. He pulled himself to his feet, and stood in a half-crouched position, his arms and legs apart and his eyes darting back and forth crazily. Lawrence was strangely reminded of John Belushi acting out Jake Blues.

“Charles, quit it!” Lawrence shouted, but Charles did not respond. Instead, glaring at Lawrence, Charles suddenly brought his own hand to his mouth, and brought his teeth together through two of his fingers. Blood poured from his mouth.

“Holy shit,” Lawrence found himself blurting out involuntarily. He tried to raise himself to his feet, but found that there was no strength in his lower body. From the corner of his right eye, he could see Hank swaying unsteadily, and then he heard running footsteps as Hank darted back to his house, then slammed the door shut behind him.

Charles worked his teeth and tugged his hands a few times. The fingers came off, and Charles flailed his mutilated hand in circles while he chewed.

Lawrence swore again, and finally managed to stand up again. Charles stared warily at him.

“Charles…” Lawrence began, but Charles suddenly rushed at him, his face suddenly filled with rage. Lawrence managed to side-step him, and Charles rushed past, letting out a scream that sounded full of fury and pain.

“Lawrence…” Erin started.

Lawrence ignored her, and ran to follow Charles, who was rushing to the opening of the cul-de-sac, about to turn right onto Hummingbird Drive. He rounded the corner, and was obscured from Lawrence’s view by a line of hedges which the Sanders family had planted a month before. Lawrence turned the same corner, but he

could see no sign of Charles.

Charles had vanished.

Hummingbird Drive was dark and disturbingly silent. There was no sign of Charles’ passing; not even any drops of blood on the ground, even though Charles had been bleeding profusely from his wounded hand.

Lawrence turned back and headed back down the sidewalk toward his own house. He could see Erin standing in the street, a few feet from the edge of the hole, near the spot where he had pulled Charles out. She stood between him and the hole, looking at him with a worried expression on her face.

“What happened?” she asked.

Lawrence shook his head. “Not now,” he said. He held his hand out toward her. “Come on,” he said, “we’re getting out of here.”

“What?” Erin replied. “What do you mean, we’re getting out of here?”

“We’re leaving. That hole…” and suddenly Lawrence stopped.

Something was coming out of the hole.

A brown mist rose up behind Erin – though it seemed more of a brownish-tinted distortion of Lawrence’s own vision than a proper mist.

“Erin!” Lawrence yelled. “Get away from there now!”

Erin, confused, stood for a moment, then turned to see what had frightened Lawrence. Then she turned back to Lawrence. “What is it?” she said.

Lawrence could not reply. Indeed, he found he could do nothing but stare silently, horrified, as the mist enveloped Erin, and she was engulfed in the distorting shimmer.

Lawrence turned, his chest feeling like a block of ice, and ran, ignoring Erin’s shouts behind him, leaving Sparrow Court behind him.

# # #

Lawrence spent the night in the downtown Econo-Lodge, after running and then walking forty-five minutes to get there.

In the early morning, still terrified, but now filled with shame at himself for having left Erin behind, Lawrence called a taxi, and returned to the street where his home was.

The hole in the street was gone; there was no sign in the asphalt that there had ever been a hole in the ground. Lawrence examined the road very carefully, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

His house stood as it always had. Hesitantly, he went to the front door and opened it. “Erin?” he called. There was no response.

He searched through the entire house, but found no trace whatsoever of his wife. All of her possessions were in their places, but she herself had gone.

Lawrence went next door to the house where Charles and his wife lived. Charles had vanished also, according to Anna-Marie; she had stayed in the house all night, especially when she had heard the horrible screaming, and had only ventured out this morning. The hole was gone, she observed, and so was Charles. Lawrence noted that Anne-Marie said this with little sign of remorse or sadness.

Lawrence himself, however, felt overcome with grief at his wife’s disappearance. He drove around the neighborhood in their Toyota, looking for any sign of her; he wondered if she had been overtaken by madness as Charles had, or whether she had simply fallen to self-consumption, like Dan the dog. Both possibilities made him sick to his stomach.

He traveled throughout the city, contacted Sutter Davis Hospital and the police department, but could not find any sign of his wife. That night, he lay alone in his bed for the first time in five years, and tried half-heartedly to read a book. But relaxation wouldn’t come, and neither would sleep. Eventually, he got up out of bed and wandered over to the window, to look out on the cul-de-sac where the hole in the ground had first appeared, where he had first heard Charles cursing his inability to move his car, just yesterday morning, and where everything now seemed so normal and reassuring. The night air was still, and nothing moved.

Lawrence sighed, and found that he was near to crying. There was no sign whatsoever of Erin, and he knew now that he would never see Erin again.

Nearby, something that Lawrence thought might once have been a dog, howled in pain and rage.

Frightened, Lawrence stepped back from the window, and nearly fell as his footing was suddenly unsupported behind him. He recovered by falling sideways onto the bed, and stared down at what had caused him to lose his footing.

In the floor, consuming wooden floorboard and carpet alike, a hole had appeared. And from its depths, something glowed and shifted.

Lawrence’s vision shimmered.

And then he heard his wife beckon, and he knew then that everything would always be okay.

And God, he was hungry!

TEH K1NG IN Y3LL0W (PART FOUR)

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 2,700 words

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“What in all the realms are you doing here?” Hastur asked Nyarlathotep.

“I’m stopping you from committing the worst crime in the universe,” replied Nyarlathotep.

WE ARE SIMPLY TAKING THE SHINING TRAPEZOHEDRON, said Nodens.

Nyarlathotep stared at the two of them with its many tentacled eyes. “To what purpose?”

Hastur took a deep breath. He hated talking to Nyarlathotep. “We were just…” he started, but Nodens interrupted him.

WE HOPED TO USE IT TO PREVENT CTHULHU FROM EMERGING INTO THE WORLD OF HUMANITY.

Through his swarm of facial tentacles, Nyarlathotep sneered. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you were going to do. Get ‘em, boys!” This last was directed at the two figures that had abruptly appeared at his sides: to his left, an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, a shining yellow globe engulfed in black and green clouds of mist. And to Nyarlathotep’s right, Azathoth chittered away in his bite mask and straitjacket. Azathoth and Yog Sothoth stepped forward, tentacles and mists writhing menacingly.

Hastur took a step back. “Whoa, now. Hang on just a second.”

IT WAS HIS FAULT, said Nodens. HE TALKED ME INTO IT. I’M TOTALLY INNOCENT.

Hastur turned and glared at Nodens, cursing the other deity’s sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

“Is this true, Nodens?” Nyarlathotep asked Hastur.

“Of course not!” protested Hastur. “It was his idea. We both hate the idea of Cthulhu breaking through into the human realm. We just want things to stay the way they are.”

HE’S LYING! shouted Nodens.

Azathoth roared behind his biter mask. Both Nodens and Hastur stepped backwards again.

Nyarlathotep put a hand on Azathoth’s shoulder. “Easy there, big guy,” he said placatingly. Then he turned to Nodens. “I’ll deal with you later.” He waved his hand, and Nodens vanished.

Hastur felt the surface of his skin go clammy. This didn’t appear to be a favorable situation for him. “Okay, you got me. What are you going to do?”

Nyarlathotep stroked his chin. “Hard to say. Normally I’d have you imprisoned in a solitary dimension but that’s really passe these days, don’t you think?”

“Well, I kind of already am anyway.”

“Well, sort of. Did you know that out of all of us, you and Nodens are most capable of traveling between dimensions? I mean, aside from Yog Sothoth here.”

Yog Sothoth cleared his throat. “I permeate all worlds and realities,” he said.

Hastur shook his head. “I didn’t know that,” he said, ignoring Yog Sothoth’s boast. “If that’s true, though, then how come you guys are here?”

“The rules are… variable. Volatile, if you will.”

“Yeah, volatile,” chittered Azathoth.

“We can only be here because you are here. And now we’re all here, and you have the Shining Trapezohedron. So hand it over.”

Hastur clutched the precious object to his chest. “What are you going to do with it?”

“We’re going to destroy Cthulhu’s gate!” Azathoth shouted. Then he glanced over at Nyarlathotep with an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

Hastur took another step backwards. “What’s he talking about?”

Nyarlathotep gave Azathoth a shove on the shoulder. “Idiot,” he hissed. Then he turned back to Hastur. “Azathoth’s right. We’re going to destroy Cthulhu’s gate.”

“What? I’m confused. If you destroy Cthulhu’s gate, then you can’t invade Earth.”

“Oh, gee, Hastur,” said Nyarlathotep, striking his forehead. “I never thought of that!”

“Huh?”

“You’re not the only one who wants to keep the status quo, Hastur. You think we want another war with humanity, let alone the Elder Things that live at their South Pole? Or the Shoggoths? Sure, we’d probably win, but most of us have better things to do these eons.”

“Wait a minute. Does this mean you set me up? You manipulated me into coming here to earth to get the Shining Trapezohedron?”

“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Would you have said yes?”

Hastur thought about this for a moment. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Great.” Nyarlathotep smiled. “So just hand over the Shining Trapezohedron, and we can all go back to our homes and forget this entire business.”

Hastur began to hand over the Shining Trapezohedron and tried to make sense of this turn of events. Nyarlathotep was many things, he knew, but not a liar.

Except, wait a minute. Nyarlathotep had lied; either he had lied about supporting Cthulhu’s efforts at the beginning of this whole affair, or he was lying right now. Which was more likely? Hastur couldn’t know for sure, but he thought it more likely that Nyarlathotep was lying to him now.

He clutched the Shining Trapezohedron back to his chest. “How about this. We all go together to Cthulhu’s gate, and I use the Shining Trapezohedron to destroy it myself.”

Nyarlathotep’s facial tentacles twitched. “That’s not going to happen, Hastur. The ritual needs to be done by myself or by Yog Sothoth or Azathoth here. Right, boys?”

“By myself,” intoned Yog Sothoth.

“Yeah, or me,” said Azathoth.

“So hand it over,” Nyarlathotep said.

Hastur shook his head. “No. I can’t trust you, Nyarlathotep. I know what you’re up to.”

Nyarlathotep blinked, and looked taken aback. He almost looked affronted, as if Hastur’s accusation had actually hurt his feelings. “I don’t know what you mean. My agenda is the same as yours. To stop Cthulhu so that we don’t have to deal with interdimensional wars.”

Hastur opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again. He couldn’t actually think of a way to respond to Nyarlathotep. He was, of course, certain that Nyarlathotep was lying to him, but at what point, and to what extent? He knew that lying was second nature to both Nyarlathotep and to Yog Sothoth; but Azathoth, however, was such a mindless idiot, lying was impossible for him. But it was also impossible to lie to Azathoth, whose army of servitors would reveal all truths to him. Which meant either that Nyarlathotep was capable of lying on a cosmic scale, something which Hastur didn’t believe Nyarlathotep was capable of, or that he was sincere in his desire to destroy the gate that Cthulhu had managed to establish.

So the question then was why Nyarlathotep would want to do that. Did he honestly want to simply prevent interdimensional war? Or…

“You’re trying to stage a coup,” Hastur said, realization dawning. “You’re not just going to destroy Cthulhu’s newest gate, you’re going to destroy them all.”

Nyarlathotep sneered. “So what if I am? Cthulhu’s been the primary representative of our pantheon for eons now. Isn’t it time that someone took him down a notch or two?”

“But Cthulhu will be trapped eternally in his sunken city. He’ll never be able to leave R’lyeh, even when the stars are right.”

“So what? You don’t actually feel sorry for him, do you?”

Hastur pondered this. It wasn’t so much that he felt sorry for Cthulhu, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a cosmos where Nyarlathotep was the primary avatar of the entire pantheon. Cthulhu was an idiot, sure, and evil, but no more evil than any of the other Elder Gods. Nyarlathotep, though, was evil and smart.

“So, Azathoth,” he said, turning to the mindless chaos in the straitjacket. “Just where is this new gate manifesting, anyway?”

“Leng,” Azathoth replied, just as Nyarlathotep elbowed him with a sharp, “Don’t tell him.”

“Thanks,” Hastur said, and teleported himself. As he had expected, Nyarlathotep’s guard was down, and Hastur was able to teleport away without interference.

And if Nyarlathotep was right, Hastur’s sudden teleportation would leave the other three trapped, at least for a few moments, in the interstices between the worlds.

# # #

The Plateau of Leng had existed within the Dreamlands of Earth long before Earth even existed in a material form; yet at the same time, it was also undoubtedly a manifestation of the dreaming conscious minds of the earth itself. This, of course, provided endless fodder for speculation amongst the scholars of the Pantheon: were the dreams the manifestation of human minds, or were human beings the manifestation of the unfathomable powers of the dreamlands themselves?

None of these questions mattered at the moment to Hastur, who found the Plateau of Leng barren, isolated, and cold. All of the legends and stories had placed the Plateau of Leng in the midst of the frozen wastes, and it was definitely true. No one could say where the winds that swept across the frozen wastes came from, but it was plain that they came from beyond Yuggoth, at least. Only winds from that kind of distance could be so cold. Hastur could feel the cold deep in the depths of his being.

There was no sign of any gate, though. At least, not that Hastur would have recognized as a gate of any sort.

“Hastur! Old buddy! What are you doing here?”

Hastur, startled by the sudden voice, jumped and spun around. Ithaqua stood just behind him, a self satisfied smirk on his long face. The jacket of his tuxedo whipped about him with the wind. His feet and the tip of his cane rested lightly on the snow, even though Hastur was already up to his knees in it. Ithaqua was, after all, the Wind Walker, and weather extremes like this simply didn’t bother him.

“I’m just looking for something,” Hastur replied.

“Here in Leng?” Ithaqua whistled low. “Good luck. All this snow? Hell, even I can’t see through it all.”

Hastur shrugged. “Well, it’s kind of important.”

“What are you looking for, anyway? Maybe I can help.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Huh. Well, okay.” He turned, started to walk away, then looked back over his shoulder. “Funniest thing happened recently, you know.”

“Oh?” Hastur was getting weary of this. He wanted Ithaqua to simply leave. “What was that?”

“Nodens. He just came flying through here, at full speed, screaming. Like he’d been ejected from some other realm by Nyarlathotep himself. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Hastur shook his head. “Nope. Nothing.”

“Ah. I thought you might.” Ithaqua shrugged, then started to walk away again. Then he stopped again. “Oh, one last thing.”

“What’s that?” Hastur asked, sighing.

“I noticed that you’re holding the Shining Trapezohedron in your hand. Now, a more suspicious soul than myself might think that you’re here in Leng looking for the new gate that Cthulhu claims to have had created by that crazed human. And that same suspicious person might, knowing that you and Nodens have similar attitudes towards humanity and their world, suspect that you and he had gone to Earth to steal the Shining Trapezohedron from the location where I’d hid it last. And that you’d run into Nyarlathotep and his gang and had some trouble with them, which is why Nodens went flinging through here at top speed.”

“A more suspicious soul than you, huh?”

Ithaqua turned so that he was facing Hastur straight on instead of just looking back over his shoulder. “Well, Hastur, what’s a deity supposed to think? I know what you’re doing here. You’re planning to destroy Cthulhu’s new gate so that he can’t get through to earth.”

“You don’t know what Nyarlathotep is planning on doing. He’s planning on taking this to R’lyeh and destroying all of Cthulhu’s gates. Cthulhu would be even more permanently imprisoned than he is now.”

“Oh, I know exactly what Nyarlathotep is planning on doing. Don’t you think that Cthulhu needs to be reined in a bit? Or a lot?”

“Maybe, but if he gets trapped forever in his sunken city, then Nyarlathotep will be the primary avatar. Do you really want that?”

Ithaqua shrugged. “The point is, Hastur, that I’ve hidden the gate you’re looking for. I can’t have you destroying it. It just wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

The snow and ice on the ground began to move, as if stirred by a wind that Hastur could not feel. Then the air shimmered, glowing yellow, then red. Three silhouettes appeared within the swirling colors, silhouettes that Hastur recognized immediately.

“Nice try,” said Nyarlathotep. “We were only stuck in the interstices for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, minutes,” chittered Azathoth.

Hastur felt the organ that serves as one of his hearts sink into his chest. Nodens had betrayed him. Ithaqua had hidden the gate. And now Nyarlathotep and his two thugs had shown up.

“So hand over the Shining Trapezohedron,” ululated Yog Sothoth.

Hastur looked down at the Shining Trapezohedron, feeling frustrated by the whole situation. “Fine,” he said. “Go catch it.” He spun around, pulled his arm back, and launched the Shining Trapezohedron at the horizon.

“No!” shouted Nyarlathotep. He ran after the Shining Trapezohedron, loping in the snow like a giant wolf. He leaped into the air, stretched his arms out above him. The Shining Trapezohedron bounced against his palms; Hastur thought that if Nyarlathotep had reached just a little higher, then perhaps he would have caught it. He fumbled the catch, though, just as Cal had fumbled their own catch during their game against the Mustangs.

The sky shimmered red for a moment, and then blue. The Shining Trapezohedron slowed in its trajectory, then came to a complete stop, hanging in its flight.

Nyarlathotep looked back at Ithaqua. “You hid the gate, right?”

Ithaqua fiddled with his cane. “Of course I did.”

“Did you put it somewhere, or did you simply render it invisible?”

Ithaqua did not answer.

Black streaks appeared in the sky where the Shining Trapezohedron hung, like cracks in glass. There was a cosmos-shattering sounds like a planet-sized plate of glass shattering, and the black streaks in the sky spread until they had spread to a disc several hundred yards in diameter.

“NO!” shouted Nyarlathotep.

“Oh, bother,” said Ithaqua. He looked at Hastur. “I guess I just got lazy. You won’t tell the old guy, won’t you?” With that, Ithaqua waved his cane over his head, and vanished.

Hastur looked back at the shattered Gate, shards of which still hung in the air like sharp-edged wisps of smoke. He chuckled. “Looks like you blew it,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Azathoth. “Blew it.”

Nyarlathotep snarled at Azathoth. “You shut up.” Then he turned to Hastur. “Well. That was well played on your part.”

Hastur shrugged. “Just good luck, I think.”

Nyarlathotep’s facial tentacles twitched, then he vanished, along with Yog Sothoth and Azathoth.

Hastur looked around the empty plateau of Leng for a few moments. Snow crunched under his feet. The wind from unfathomable depths of space whipped his clothes about him.

That, he reflected, had ended quickly.

He returned to his apartment, and found Nodens waiting for him, sitting on his couch and drinking one of his beers.

I ASSUME NYARLATHOTEP FELL FOR MY RUSE, Nodens said.

“Ruse? What ruse was that?”

Nodens stammered for a moment. I HAD HOPED THAT HE AND HIS GOONS WOULD FOLLOW ME BACK TO MY OWN DIMENSION AND LEAVE YOU ALONE TO COMPLETE THE ACT WITH THE SHINING TRAPEZOHEDRON.

Hastur shook his head. Nodens, for all his posturing, had always been a coward, hiding out in the Dreamlands where things were safe for him. “Well, they didn’t fall for it. I had to deal with the whole situation myself.”

OH. I AM DEEPLY SORRY TO HEAR THAT. BUT BEHOLD, I HAVE ACQUIRED A NEW TELEVISION SET FOR YOU.

Hastur shrugged. “Whatever.” He went to his refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and sat down on the couch. The new television wasn’t nearly as good as the old one, but at least it had remote control. He turned it on, and looked for a good game.