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Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part One

G.O.A.T.

I was attempting to hibernate through a stormy November of the soul when Renfield barged into my office, blinded the room with light and cheerfully yelled “Great news!”

“Can’t you see I’m hibernating?”

“Oh, you’ll want to know about this,” she said with a smile (always smiling). “Daisy and Peety are the greatest superhero team.”

I sighed and lit a cigarette. “So? Both have the emotional intelligence of a six-year-old. It makes sense that they’d play Batman in the Barnyard–On your way out, please kill the light.”

I knew that my hibernation was on pause when Renfield said: “The ‘Barnyard’ you alluded to is on Other Earth.”

“Holy skid marks, Caped Crusader,” I said. “Do me a favor, pretend that I have amnesia and fill me in on the backstory. Speak as though I’m a reader ignorant of Daisy, Peety and Saragun Springs in general.”

“Ha! Forget you and your incomprehensible laziness as a storyteller,” Renfield said. “You’re not passing that buck my way this time.”

It wasn’t my day for picking longshots. So I opened my laptop and wrote the following:

Renfield whistled and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess entered my office. Both are Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my employ, who (along with over a couple hundred other FC’s) “essay” various roles in my productions–which are “shot” like movies. Renfield is a former FC who is now the only Imaginary Friend, and she’s second in charge of this virtual realm of Saragun Springs in which I am the Penname (sigh, yes, just one word)–or “Director.” Everyone over here but me belongs to the Union of Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UIFFC)–formerly the Union of Pennames, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters.

“See, was that so hard?” Renfield asked.

I ignored her, which is easy to do if you get a lot of practice. But Daisy and Peety were more unusual than… well, usual. For the past month or so, Daisy had been sporting a paper mache horn on her head because she wanted to be a Unicorn. Which I supported because I figured that would keep her from bitching about not being born a Unicorn. The horn was gone and she was wearing a glittering gold robe like that of a pro wrestler–except it was designed for a small individual of the four-legged variety. She also had matching spats above her hooves, a ribbon of the same color tied to her tail, and wraparound sunglasses, like the Terminator–except these were fashioned to fit the head of a Pygmy Goat. A gaudy gold rope chain, whose medallion contained four large black letters, also made from glitter, hung from her neck. It said: G.O.A.T.

Peety’s always weird looking. He’s a two dimensional cartoon Pigeon who was the late 1940’s mascot for PDQ Pilsner on Other Earth. He looked the way he always looks, but somehow he had rearranged his lines to form a mask like the one the Lone Ranger wore.

It quickly became clear that the situation was a steaming pile of freshly squeezed Dog crap just begging to be stepped in.

I cracked under the strain: “All right, what’s the gag?”

Peety spoke first. “The G.O.A.T., brought to you by PDQ!” Peety still touts PDQ in between slob-com scripture quotations.

“As in the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy added, with a smidgen of attitude, enough to shade the caps bold, I might add.

I should have known that Daisy would have eventually come across the sportstalk/show biz acronym of hyperbole and get peculiar about it.

“I’m all for delusions of grandeur,” I said, “but Renny here tells me you guys have been to Other Earth in violation of the agreement.”

“Actually, Leila,” Renfield chimed in, “the agreement states that only you can no longer set foot on Other Earth.”

“Doesn’t that imply that FC’s of my creation are a part of me?”

“But surely her highness recalls endowing this Imaginary Friend and all of her FC’s with Free Will,” Renfield said. “We do as we please.”

The phone rang. It was the hot line. The Boss.

I answered the phone with my usual polite demeanor: “What?”

The Boss was in her usual state of disarray caused by her subhuman lifestyle. She told me and told me and told me stuff until I had heard enough.

“I’ve got just two words for you, Boss,” I said before hanging up on her. “And they ain’t ‘thank you.’”

I lit another cigarette off the still smoldering butt of the one I’d just finished.

“The Boss says that Other Earth called to complain about a certain beloved on Other Earth cartoon Pigeon and an unknown Pygmy Goat getting inside an old Twilight Zone rerun at Other Earth. They traced the individuals in question back to her. I don’t think I’m guilty of profiling when I assume the culprits are in this very room–along with their enabler,” I said, looking directly at Renfield.

“Ah, Other Earth, that twin world devised by our Esteemed Employer then entrusted to you, our humble Pen,” Renfield said, filling the remainder of the backstory because she had realized that by refusing to do so meant that I had to cut her lines. “That Eden you visited in its past and altered its future so it includes ungovernable nuclear monsters that exist only in our fifties science fiction films. Where a Team commanded by me and the GOAT found Peety and brought him to our world despite the rift that caused in the fabric of spacetime.”

She came around my side of the desk and began to fiddle with my laptop.

“I’ve managed to download a copy of G.O.A.T.’s first mission.”

I recognized the scene instantly. It was the final seconds of a Twilight Zone episode that was originally aired both here and at Other Earth on 20 November 1959, titled Time Enough At Last. The episode involves an extremely myopic, milquetoast bookworm named Henry Bemis, who only wants to read but is prevented by everyone around him, especially his shrewish wife. A famous episode which ends with Henry being the sole survivor of a nuke attack because he was in the vault of the bank he worked at. Henry at first despairs, then rejoices because there’s “All the time at last” to read. Then, in a cruel ironic twist, Henry accidentally breaks his glasses, begins to weep and is then consoled and aided by a cartoon Pigeon and a Pygmy Goatess in the guises of superheroes–at least that’s what now runs on Other Earth.

“Hello, Mr. Bemis,” Daisy said, “we found your spare pair of spectacles unharmed at your house. Alas, the same cannot be said for your wife.”

“Squ-wack–boiled like a sweet potato.” Peety, ad libbed, as he sometimes does, always preceded with a Squ-wack.

Daisy then used her mouth to carefully remove Mr. Bemis’s glasses from her robe and placed them on Mr. Bemis.

He was both overjoyed and somewhat confused at the same time.

“What, what–um, how is this?”

“We are from G.O.A.T., which means the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy said, as if that explained everything. “I am The GOAT and this is my sidekick PDQ Pete. We must go now, but I recommend that you locate a book on glasses making and repair.”

Then PDQ Pete dug out an unharmed fifth of Jack Daniel’s from the rubble, pushed it toward Bemis and said “‘My advice to you is to start drinking heavily’”–Bluto, Animal House.”

The screen faded to black.

“So,” I said, “you guys are FC superheroes who rescue other FC’s in distress, but can only do it at Other Earth because of Peety’s singular effect on the flow of reality over there.”

“Precisely,” Daisy said.

“Wait a minute–that man was actually an actor named Burgess Meredith, not a Fictional Character.”

“Not anymore, Leila,” Renfield said. “Mr. Meredith lived to almost ninety and has been dead for a very long time.”

“Let me get this straight–or as straight as I’m willing–since Meredith’s death that character on the show has been Mr. Bemis.”

“Precisely,” either Renfield or Daisy or maybe even Peety said. I forgot because I had stopped paying attention.

“Well, thanks for the update,” I said with a yawn. “Don’t let the Boss catch you guys playing over there. And I’m sure that none of you will let the door hit you in the ass on the way out–and turn off that goddam light.”

They just laughed and went on their merry way. And no one turned off the light. Fortunately, the hotline rang again. I fired the phone at the light with stunning success and resumed my hibernation.

Our Cast:

Renfield…Herself

The GOAT…Daisy Cloverleaf

PDQ Pete…Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

“Mr. Bemis”…Either The Ghost of Burgess Meredith or Henry Bemis (we aren’t sure)

The Boss…Dead Air

Kane…Leila Allison

Well, every franchise has to begin somewhere. The big problem here is the backstory, for we deemed it unlikely that there might be repeat readers. Thus it and following productions had (and have) the backstory woven into them in increasingly strange ways. The following day we “shot” a sequel that will air in this space tomorrow.

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy

Introduction

Beginning tomorrow, Miss Daisy Kloverleaf (nee Cloverleaf) the Pygmy Goatess, Saragun Springs’ Lead Fictional Character, the Goatess of the superhero duo, G.O.A.T. and adverb junkie, will dominate the month of July.

Mainly there will be materials that first appeared on Literally Stories UK in the short stand alone form, with new stuff added here and there.

Daisy was initially a supporting character who decided, due to her dose of Free Will, Saragun Springs style, to become a star in the realm–as those of you who read book one plainly saw. A sort of clawing her way to the top via hooves followed. And despite her addictionly addiction to adverbly adverbs, Daisy has persevered and continues to pursue new areas of interest.

Of course, being a person, Daisy has challengingly challenging elements in her personality aside from her little habitly habit. Mainly, she has a long memory, is never wrong, and harbors a special little passive aggressive hell for those who’d dare correct her. But all in all, she is indispensable and lovable despite being described as a “mouthy little feta dispenser.”

Welcome to her world.

Leila

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Star Studded Finale

Meet Peety Pie Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

I stood and approached the stench bubble. I held the picture up to the edge close to the bubble, the same way you would hold a piece of paper above a flame, not touching, but just close enough for the paper to catch fire. That’s what happened, and I lit a cigarette off the picture then dropped the image on the ground. It went up in a little poof of black smoke. But when the smoke cleared, instead of ashes we had Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon. In Saragun Springs he is a sentient two dimensional cartoon character…

Who Looks Like This

I smiled at the Team seated at the picnic table. “Renfield,” I said, “you being a leading Supernaturalist, as stated earlier, how about you take the lead and explain just what happened. But please do so in a naturalistic sort of way that won’t come off as a shamelessly lazy information dump.” I then knelt and held out a hand, which Peety drunkenly climbed aboard and I gently placed him on the table.

Renfield is rather egotistical about her specialty. And she puffed up like a Blow Fish and hooked her thumbs in the lapels of her jacket and assumed an authoritative demeanor. “What we got here is an interdimensional being who exists in two realities at once–ours and Other Earth’s.”

It was Daisy’s turn to speak, but she had nodded off and was snoring. Fortunately, Gwen knew the script.

“An interdimensional being? Oh but how?” She said flatly, as though she were ordering a coffee.

“Glad you asked–Day-Gwen–today, Gwen, I mean,” Renfield, not necessarily the best ad libber, said.

Daisy woke. “An interdimensional being? Oh but how?”

“Just keep rolling,” I said.

“Glad you asked, um, Daisy,” Renfield continued.

“Is there an echo?” Gwen said softly.

“Cut,” I said. “So much for the naturalistic approach. Since Peety will be with us from here on, we’ll tell his story, by and by.”

The Hot Line and Self Conscious Summary

I was supposed to call the Boss on the hotline about a week after I had established the realm. The hotline is an ancient red trimline princess style phone that had arrived on my desk during our first trip into the realm, with a post it note stating “call me once a week,” pasted to it. Free Will makes it so I’m reluctant to take orders, so the phone lay buried beneath various debris that accumulate on your average desk top. When the first week had reached ten days, and I’d yet to file a report, something began to ring under an empty pizza box.

“What?” I said upon finally answering the damn thing.

I’d been drinking since noon and I had Peety in the office watching a 1980’s film marathon on a replica of the Boss’s old VCR. Peety is sentient, though constantly wrecked on PDQ, yet his other world view was limited to extolling PDQ Pilsner. I had hit on the idea of expanding his knowledge through movies that had been made after 1946. But all I had were items like Alien, Porkies, The Terminator, Animal House and such on hand in a video cassette. But Peety ate them up; after all Peety is a good-timing Pigeon unlikely to enjoy Sophie’s Choice.

“You were supposed to report three days ago,”said the Boss.

“I’ve been busy.”

“At least tell me you got Peety.”

“Yep, I do. Gonna need more cash if we go back to Other Earth.”

The Boss is quick to change the subject when it involves money. “Just read the dailies.”

“Then you already know about Peety,” I said.

“Let’s say I skimmed them,” she replied. “Can’t help but notice that you are a bit candid about your thoughts on me.”

“Duplicity is the best policy, Boss,” I said. “But honesty will do in a pinch.”

“I see. When do you think you will get around to reading some of our productions? Damn near forty pages in.”

Our, I thought. Big talk for an anonymous person. Then again I figured she approved of the situation for if she hadn’t it would have been all mine.

“Just turn the page,” I said. I hung up the hotline and yanked the cord out of the wall.

“How’s it going Peety–getting the hang of three-d reality yet?”

“They took the bar,” Peety squawked. “They took the fucking bar.”

“Alcohol is doing wonders for your brain, old chum,” I said. He was watching Animal House for the tenth time. My aim was to have him communicate his thoughts via quoting slob-com scripture.

Why? You ask? “Why not?” Belched Peety, again quoting Animal House as though it were scripture.

On cue, Daisy trotted into the office, dressed like a superhero. ”I’m here for my starringly starring vehicle,” she said.

“Great,” I said. “You, my little darling, will be opening book two.”

The End of Book One

Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Daisy (aka, “The Book of Adverbs”) will appear in installments on this site with an introduction on 1 July. We hope to see you then.

Leila

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Eight “The Book of Peety”

Saving Pie Eyed Peety

I was seated at the picnic table at the spring, keeping a weather eye on the stench bubble, watching the mission unfold at Other Earth on my trusty tablet. The team didn’t need to pass through the portal that was swamped with the foul water, and would never have done it anyway. All it took for them to travel to Other Earth was text in the same coordinates I had used when I lost the first phone there and hit send–but they would arrive five minutes later than I.

Renfield had the phone, Gwen the money and Daisy took it all in on the camera and microphone assembly that was on her head, along with her glitter and paper mache horn. Each team member wore a necklace that contained a fob that connected them to the phone. They brought a fourth fob (also in Gwen’s possession) for the object I wanted them to retrieve. Yes, a magic fob like the tricorder Star Trek leaned heavily on to jump plausibility holes. Only fobbed persons and objects could time travel via the second flip phone. The phone previously used and lost by me was tuned to another fob altogether.

According to legend, President Obama once said “Never underestimate Joe’s [Biden] ability to f*$# things up.” If you replace “Joe’s” with “Our,” you then have what might be considered the Saragun Springs’ motto and/or Mission Statement–yet another item I attribute to Unchecked Free Will.

Immediately after Renfield pushed send the tablet screen filled with a distorted view of Daisy’s paper mache horn. It was smack in the center and obscured about two thirds of the picture. From what little I could see, it appeared that they had arrived in the same parking lot that I had landed near at the start of my trip.

I sighed and sent a text to the team:

GODDAM HORN BLOCKING MY VIEW

In return I received the following: MESSAGE PENDING.SCHEDULED TO ARRIVE AT OTHER EARTH IN O.E. YEAR 1996…

“Rat bastard–give a flip phone time machine any chance to pee in your lager and it will,” I muttered.

Fortunately the microphone worked and after forgiving myself for forgetting to install two way communication. I closed my eyes, listened and imagined.

“Hi,” Renfield said. To whom, I didn’t know right off. “Nice doggy, cute babies…Here you go plenty for all,” she added and I knew that it was the mother Coyote and her pups. I recall Renfield stuffing her pockets with something before going. Most likely Dog biscuits that the Boss keeps on hand, even though she doesn’t have a Dog.

Then I caught if not a lucky break, at least a mixed result. I heard Gwen laugh.”Daisy, you’re invisible but your horn and helmet show.” I opened my eyes and saw fuzzy movement on my tablet, then Gwen’s face as she adjusted the horn so it wouldn’t block the camera.

“Thank God disembodied cam helmets and glitter horns were so common in 1946,” Gwen, forever the wiseass, said.

“Right?” Renfield, also a consistent wiseass, added. And they did nothing about the situation. I watched Daisy follow them into the lounge. Daisy is eighteen inches tall at her highest point; mainly, I saw shoes and the gravel parking lot.

But it improved once they got inside the building. I heard Gwen say, “That’s them over there.”

The they in question were Dr. Dagmar and Durwood. Daisy pointed the camera in their direction. I saw them seated at the same table. Durwood was working on his art and Dagmar was examining the phone with a magnifying glass. The team got closer and closer, heralded by the beat of little, invisible hooves.

“Hi, mind if we join you?” Gwen said, but it really wasn’t a question.

I watched Renfield pick Daisy up and place her in a chair at the table.

“What the hell is that?” Dagmar asked, looking in Daisy’s direction. I’m guessing that the floating horn and helmet was a bit of a conversation piece.

“Not a that, but a Goat, darling. Her name is Daisy Cloverleaf,” Renfield said. “She’s mostly invisible,” she added with a whisper.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Daisy said, obviously understanding that there was no longer a need for stealth.

Durwood looked up and was gobsmacked by Gwen’s beauty. Although he would be a dweeb in any dimension, Durwood was still a guy and Gwen has the gobsmack effect on guys, well the straight ones anyway.

“Was there a woman here a few minutes ago–about three feet tall and a bit of a mouth?”

Dr. Dagmar pointed her flip phone at Renfield and pushed send. That’s a tell of an evil genuis if there ever was one. They just have to push buttons.

“Wrong frequency,” Renfield said. “But you can keep the phone. What we want is the drawing our friend was looking at.”

Gwen sat in the chair next to Durwood. She placed one hand on his and took the drawing I had dropped in the other–for I’d told her what it looked like–and purred “I’ll give you ten bucks for this.”

I think Durwood was expecting a different kind of proposition, yet he sort of nodded yes, and Gwen laid five two dollar bills on the table.

Dr. Dagmar noticed the fob on Gwen’s necklace and reached out and touched it and said, “What’s this?” the instant Renfield hit send to return the crew to Sargun Springs. That action, naturally, brought Dr. Dagmar along, but Daisy had the presence of mind to tap the send button on Dagmar’s phone which sent her back to Other Earth before the link closed. If Daisy hadn’t acted as soon as she had, we’d have been stuck with her–who’d later be responsible for the rise of the Atomic Monsters on Other Earth, aided by something she’d discovered in the flip phone at her laboratory. It takes a special Evil Genius to accomplish that, one that real Earth has never produced. And if it were to happen it would have had to happen very early.

Gwen handed me the picture. “What does it all mean?” she asked.

“Well, it’s like this.”

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Seven “The Book of Peety”

“It went like this…”

“I went over there once and made a record,” I muttered. Then I handed the tablet to Daisy to read because it made sense in a weird and twisted way that a Pygmy Goat wearing a blackout suit, with a spycam and glitter unicorn horn on her head should read aloud. “Eye spy this,” I sighed.

She held the tablet in her hooves and read.

“Aloud, please.”

Daisy’s voice isn’t what you might expect from a talking Goat. I endowed her with Meryl Streep’s voice, circa 1985, for I had an idea that she’d talk a lot and thought that a nasal Goatish bray might get irksome pretty damn quick.

“If I must,” Daisy said. She began to read.

“‘Whilst detoxing from one of the many many many substances that the Boss and I are addicted to, we (from here, I) charged an old flip phone and converted it into a time machine. You see, since Other Earth was my invention, I figured that I’d go there and have a look around. Since I am a Pen whose limitations are only those set by my imagination, I am free to travel to any place of our invention, and at any time of its existence without having to lamely ‘imagine’ doing such. Yet for the sake of a plausible narrative, I changed the old cell in the Boss’s junk drawer into a time machine for the hell of it–disregarding the possibility of time travel paradox, and my belief that you should not be able to travel back in time to a point where you did not exist. Regardless, I knew about the monsters from being in the Boss’s mind and wanted to see what Other Earth was like before they came about. After so much abracadabra and tapping my heels together, I departed from the body I used to share with the Boss and wound up just outside a parking lot of a cocktail lounge at Globe, Arizona 13 November 1946.“

“Smartly, I took fifteen bucks of pre-1946 currency with me. I’d raided the Boss’s old money collection, justified that it had to be at least half mine; I figured it was better to be authentic than in jail for counterfeiting in the distant past of another dimension. Of course I could have sprung myself from such a predicament with a quick edit, but where’s the art in that?’”

“Fifteen smackers for just you and only fourteen for the three of us?” Gwen kvetched, for it had been at least five minutes since her last complaint.

“Never mind that, Daisy, please continue,” I said.

“Seems like a valid point to me,” Daisy said.

Renfield was about to add something, and the entire distraction would have blossomed as a full debacle until I promised (and yet have done) to retroactively edit the sum stated a few pages ago to an even fifty (leaving out the fact that the serial numbers on all the two dollar bills were repeated as many times needed to reach the sum).

After that had been fixed, I asked Daisy read on:

Silence.

“Um, aloud again, please.”

“If you say so”:

“‘I’d researched the idiom of the day by ingesting a Humphery Bogart marathon on Turner Classic Movies. The only item I had difficulty with was what to wear. I never sport a dress, and the way I see it never includes 1946 Other Earth. Still, I could hardly expect to blend in if I arrived in sweats; it posed a problem until I leafed through a couple of film magazines of the era and discovered stars like Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn often wore mens suits. Then I found a photo from the late thirties in which Carole Lombard was at a Halloween party dressed as a gangster. She wore a cream colored fedora tipped at a jaunty angle, a pinstriped loose-fitting “zoot suit,” black shirt and white tie. Now, nature has seen to it that nobody will ever confuse me with Carole Lombard. But since I’m 4’-11” and the movie hoods of the day were three-footers like Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, the ensemble appealed to me and I put together one just like it.’”

“Hey,” Renfield complained. “You do remember how I’m dressed?”

“Duh,” I said.

“Yet you feigned surprise for the readers when you saw me, although you knew this get up was in Wardrobe and had worn it before.”

“I beg to differ,” I said. “I did not deceive the readers. Different times have different standards for taste, morality and the truth. It’s all pretty much minute to minute–especially in Saragun Springs.”

Renfield did that little thing with her eyes; I figured she was mentally filing what I’d just told her “For Later.” She then smiled sweetly at Daisy and said, “Please continue, darling.”

This time I had to give Daisy a little nudge because she was again reading silently, and because I am the sort of Pen who often works a gag to death. Fortunately, it was getting close to the end of my narrative.

“‘You have to be highly specific when dealing with a time machine. Leave it any chance to eff with you and it will. I can either text on or speak into my flip phone time machine. “OK time machine,” I said, “send me back to the day on Other Earth when the monster thing began. But nowhere inhospitable to human beings, nor into a post, nor have me materialize right out in the open for everyone to see, nor have me seated atop a hatching monster egg…”

“‘My list of prohibitions went on for a while. But upon temporarily exhausting my collection of little paranoias, I finally pushed “Send.” I materialized just outside of the parking lot of a cocktail lounge in Other Earth’s Globe, Arizona on a Friday night. No one saw me pop into being except a Coyote mama and her two puppies. My time machine had found it amusing to place me between a mother Coyote and her issue. I do not know what the Other Earth world record is for sprinting from a mother Coyote into a cocktail lounge, but I’m certain I gave it a good challenge that night.

“‘Guess what? Saying “Hey sis, gimme a highball, and make it snappy” didn’t fly back in 1946 the way it does in old movies, that’s what. A rather surly dame (who had no customer skills whatsoever) gave me the finger via a pretend scratch of her nose and blew cigarette smoke in my face. Although I was delighted to be in a civilized place in which smoking was allowed indoors, I lit up and blew smoke right back at her. We might have gone fist city if I didn’t lay a “fin” on the bar and told her to pour me a rye and one for herself. It improved her manners.

“‘I had never ordered a “rye” before. I’m guessing it’s the stuff left over at the bottom of the barrel after all the good whisky has gone to heaven. Imagine what lighter fluid combined with molten sandpaper that some bastard had first taken a piss on might taste and feel like and you’ll be pretty close. The rye got belligerent with my esophagus, lungs and attitude. Fortunately, what was rapidly degrading into a potentially ugly situation between me and the barmaid was averted when a rather pleasant and mutually squiffy man and woman approached me at the bar and asked me to join their party for a martini.

“‘Now, I must pause for a second to reaffirm my stance against plagiarism. I will write the most absurd, self destructive thing that comes to mind before I’ll knowingly poach ideas or Fictional Characters from other authors, living or dead. I also hold disdain for “sampling” or “fan fickshun.” But there, with the gamma effect of the poisonous oozings scraped from the bottom of the bottom rye barrel boiling the usefulness out of my innards, I needed to meet Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated husband and wife sleuths from Hammett’s Thin Man; for only Fictional Characters of their stature had the power to prevent me from feeding the bar wench’es face to the Mama Coyote.

Nick and Nora, however, didn’t stay long. After one martini they and their little dog departed. But in that time they had introduced me to an advertising exec named Durwood Stevens, who was hard at work on the “PDQ Pilsner account” and a deranged looking yet oddly attractive woman named Professor Dagmar, who was wearing a white lab coat, which had PROPERTY of LOS ALAMOS clearly stenciled on the back of her collar.

Poor Durwood. I happen to be a leading authority on 40s and 50s American beer companies. I also collect original advertising from that era. Name it, I’ve got it: Hudepohl, Piels, Ballantine, Rhinelander, Blatz, Hamms–I’ve got posters and various bits of swag from them all–even a life-sized “Brewster the Goebel Rooster.” My scholarship in the field is vast, thus I knew that the PDQ Pilsner Brewing Company had keeled over dead in 1946, its only year of existence. The problem stemmed from the fact that the PDQ slogan, “Hey bartender, make mine PDQ” didn’t get past the censors. Although their initials “PDQ” stood for “Piedmont, Daly and Quince,” the grouping is and was popularly known as a shortcut for “Pretty damn quick.” Couldn’t even infer damn or hell and such on the radio back then.

Yet nobody had a problem with the beer’s mascot “Pie Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon.” In the very few illustrations of Peety extant he is extremely intoxicated–in one he is not only shown drunk, but he’s speeding away in a stolen PDQ truck, blazing past an elementary school, tossing samples to the kids.

All thoughts of monsters left my head. Although the idea of going back in time and adding to my collection has crossed my mind, I never do it because even a Pen Name can’t bring items home from the past and not cause templar displacement. Yet I admired the doodle Durwood was doing on a placemat to such an extent that I carelessly laid my flip phone on the table and asked him to let me have a closer look at the drawing.

“What on Earth is this?” Dr. Dagmar asked, picking up my phone.

“No, no, no, don’t press that,” I said, quickly reaching out, dropping the artwork.

“You mean like this?” she said, with a sinister smile on her face.

I instantly materialized in the present, at my office, minus my phone….”

I smiled at the team. “Your mission is to go back to Other Earth and retrieve the picture I dropped. Use your collective charm to get it from Durwood, when that fails, bribe him with the money.”

“You mean you don’t want us to get the other flip phone time machine from Dr. Dagmar? That might prevent the monster infestation,” said Gwen.

“Right?” Both Renfield and Daisy chimed in with that.

“Under normal circumstances, I’d pull the Mysterious Ways card from the bottom of the deck. But since I need your cooperation, let’s just say that the monsters have a union of their own and let the subject of peremptory monster eradication go–I mean, who amongst us wants to deny a monster his/her/its right to be? Provided that they be at a suitable distance.”

FC’s have a strong common bond, no matter who has created them. I had pulled a different card from the bottom of the deck. Anyway they would have arrived at a Pro Monster stance if given time to choose such; I merely ushered the idea forward.

The FC’s exchanged soulful looks that did not include me, but I knew that a silent unanimous consent had been arrived at when Gwen put the cart in gear and continued the drive to the Spring.

A Day of Rest

Today was going to be part Seven of Welcome to Saragun Springs: “The Book of Peety.” Was until the Union decided that since God knocked off on Sunday that the Union members were entitled the same consideration.

I suppose that the drug dens, speakeasies and gambling houses are entitled to their share of the cut, so it is a day off in the Springs. But in keeping with the spirit of Mondays, pointless activities will resume in this space tomorrow.

In closing, I advise that you Do What Thou Wilt in proportion to the money you have saved for bail.

Leila

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Six “The Book of Peety”

An Overly Radioactive Imagination

“Other Earth” entered the Boss’s head when she was thirteen and doing her best to sleep with her eyes open in History class–”like a Horse”–for every impossible physical task is equine in her mind. And within that slipstream between sleep and wakefulness, she imagined that Other Earth’s history was exactly the same as ours until 1947.

Ah, daydreaming…just about any little thing can affect the course of our chimeras. And such influenced my Employer’s Other Earth fancy when “Brewster the Goebel Rooster” blew into her deepening dream. She had seen a documentary in Social Studies earlier that day which told of the effect that cheaply drawn cartoon advertising mascots had on the public in the early days of TV. Along with dancing cigarette packs and Speedy Alka Seltzer, came Brewster the Goebel Rooster, who touted a brewery that probably was assimilated by Anheuser Busch a long long time ago.

Just seconds before the teacher tapped her on the shoulder, thus returning the Boss to a vigorously unwanted state of consciousness, a cartoon beer mascot was somehow involved with altering Other Earth in a most peculiar way. All the atom bomb caused monsters in 1950’s science Fiction films became real at Other Earth. The Ants from Them the Colossal Man and various super-lizards and such all raged on Other Earth. “And I will be the reason for it!” my Employer thought, and it was almost all clear to her, but that was when her reverie was ended by that tap on the shoulder.

And although many a moon has crossed the sky over the highly radioactive Nevada desert of her mind, my Employer has never completely forgotten the concept of Other Earth, but it has always remained incomplete because she has never been able to replicate the exact imaginative conditions, though she still nods off plenty in “pay attention” situations. So it made sense that upon creating Saragun Springs and handing the keys to the Literary Queendom to me that she would make a big play at solving the Other Earth mystery.

Since I didn’t pop into her mind until shortly after the dream event (and believe me, reviewing a fifteenth generation dream copy is a tad confusing); but I eventually understood enough of it that I knew the wild divergence from history on Other Earth happened in late 1947. I also know that the Boss was the cause of the divergence in a bumbling, well meaning Gilligan sort of way. I also was able to “urge” my Employer to believe that the prime event happened in a bar somewhere on the outskirts of the New Mexican desert. I did so because I had to send my “landing party” to a specific place as well as a specific time.

Mission Prep

The Other Earth team returned to the office after finishing up in Wardrobe and Makeup. Daisy was fitted with a black-out Pygmy Goat-sized bodysuit, helmet cam and, of course, a lavishly glittered paper mache horn was glued to her head.

Gwen looked smart in a modest, yet attractive, Audrey Hepburn-esque blue dress, matching hat, gloves, heels and a pair of No Autographs Please sunglasses–a bit much for the type of roadhouse I was sending her to, but she’s a big girl now.

But goddam Renfield, in keeping with the her constantly peeing in my Cheerios element of our relationship, was dressed like a sitcom gangster from the early days of television–later lampooned in skit comedies of the 60’s. She was wearing a So Loud That You Can See It From the Moon men’s pinstripe suit, a black shirt, white necktie and a yellow fedora and matching handkerchief in her pocket. It’s like she’d fallen out of a Dick Tracy comic. Her shoes were black and white–but made from imitation leather, because we like Cows in Saragun Springs.

Renfield often displays an expression that is for me only. It’s an expectant sort of smile that plainly dares me to say something. I usually cave in and blurt an unintelligible observation, but on this occasion, though I’m certain my eyes gave me away, I held my tongue, remembering that she was the one who had to go to Other Earth looking like that.

“I’ve got fourteen dollars and nine cents from the Boss’s coin collection–it’s enough to buy a house at when you are going,” I said. The Boss knows that I cannot raid her accounts, but I can make temporary one for one “realm copies” of any cold hard cash she has in her possession (which ain’t much, ever). But since they were going to 1947, I needed old loot, just in case (in case of what, I didn’t know), which consisted of change and three two dollar silver certificates.

“You could buy a Dog penthouse for the hundred-ninety bucks that converts to,” said Gwen, all snotty-like, for she has an internal abacus and is an expert on the history of the dollar.

“Maybe Alice Capone here can open a Shylock operation, if you run short” I said, finally biting on Renfield’s bait, much to her satisfaction. “Then again, I wouldn’t commit too many felonies over there. Habitual offenders are fed to the monsters.”

“How did that happen, anyway?” Renfield asked. She knows how much I detest putting in the backstory, but claiming that a duplicate of our planet contains ungovernable Atomic Monsters who have their own nation in southwest American desert, as per a treaty signed in 1948 at Other Earth, might rate an explanation.

I saw this latest ugsome vexation coming. But played dumb because the crew would understand what it all meant when they completed their mission.

The portal at the Spring is a mixture of the past, present and future as one time hole (she saw that on Star Trek, and like her understanding of Free Will, mangled the concept). In her mind you can pull a coin out of your packet then throw it into the vortex and instantly discover that the same coin is back in your pocket yet dated in a future year. Like most quantum tricks that one impresses and yet is essentially useless.

“Mysterious ways,” I said.

Renfield knows it is a fifty-fifty ball whether my use of “mysterious ways” means Orders From the Boss or an old fashioned “I don’t know.” Either way she sees my ignorance as a constant. It’s a bit tough having to bank on the scorn others have for your intelligence to keep things moving, but you can list such under Any Port in a Storm.

Before anyone could look too deeply into the situation, I had them in the cart, headed toward the spring. Gwen drove because I needed to fill in the details of the mission:

“Other Earth’s history is exactly the same as Real Earth’s until the post WWII nuclear testing conducted by the US military out in the American southwest desert did result in the creation of the gigantic ants, mammoth scorpions, huge tarantulas, scores of Godzilla-sized lizards and a smattering of profoundly effed-up human beings that we see only in 1950’s science fiction films. Among the traits these creatures have in common (besides experiencing the enlarging effects of extreme radiation) are an immunity to conventional weapons and insatiable appetites for murder and destruction.

“Naturally, Other Earth’s American government tried to cover up the fiasco, but that proved impossible after a bunch of the critters went to Vegas and did to the inhabitants what tourists do to free buffets. It didn’t take long for the monsters to spread the pain, thus the population of the Other Earth’s United States was decreased by twenty-seven percent during The Mutant-American War, which raged throughout the summer of 1947. And one may correctly suspect that the population would have been decreased to zero by Christmas if a truce hadn’t been signed by the warring factions near the hole in the ground that used to be San Clemente, California.

“A Psychotic Colossal Man (who successfully ignored a missile jammed into his right eye socket), an eternally PMSing Fifty-foot Woman and a comparatively sane Shrinking Man (who, until he disappeared, was an exception to the insanity rule) represented the monsters, who’d have never parlayed at all if not for the fact that their numbers weakened the farther they got away from the radioactive desert. At last these essentially immortal yet sterile (save for the flying ants, whom the Los Angeles smog wiped out) agreed to live on a reservation the size of southern California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico combined. This was convenient because those places had been depopulated and turned into radioactive hells on Other Earth during the war. The monsters all live there to this day, behind mountain high walls of radioactively enlarged granite. Live ‘Food’ and old automobiles, prefab homes and such (the non-foodstuffs are for recreational destruction purposes) are airlifted in around the clock.

“Now, you’d think that one Josef Stalin would be one too many for the Universe, but, no, Other Earth just had to have one too, and he just had to have monsters of his own, lest the Other USSR face a mutant gap. So, Other Earth’s Cold War featured the two Superpowers threatening to unleash ungovernable monsters on each other, until a treaty that banned the creation of new nuclear monsters and use of the current ones was signed near the hole in the ground which used to be Stalingrad. To this day the whole of glowing Other Siberia is shrouded in enlarged granite, whilst live Food and items for recreational destruction are airlifted in around the clock to gigantic Bears, immense Tigers and barn-sized “Sabertooth Rats.” And yes, other nations followed suit, and every one of them had to develop a ‘reservation’ of its own.

“Due to personal standards of good taste, I shan’t elaborate much on the subject of monster chow. Let’s just say that in this present year Other Earth’s population was about a third of Real Earth’s, and that their mean IQ is twenty-points higher than it has ever been on the original item. Although disabled persons and the elderly are protected at Other Earth, there seems to be a noticeable lack of out of shape, slow-footed and unemployable people over there; nor are there any violent offenders incarcerated in their prison systems–well, not for long, any way–but that’s just a personal observation unsupported by scientific data.”

“Why do I think that you and the Boss had something to do with the monsters,” Gwen said. The slight stench of shame and boiled diarrhea and enhanced puke leaking from the stink bubble was getting stronger.

“Because you are sharp,” Renfield said.

“Well, I’ll allow that there might have been a complication long ago,” I sighed. Daisy and BTI were playing “I Spy” as we drove along at a steady two miles an hour.

“I spy with my little eye an incoming plot twist,” BTI said.

“I spy with my little eye ‘tell’ shamelessly disguised as ‘show’ via the use of quotation marks,” Daisy, who’s often a little too quick on the uptake for my tastes, added.

Gwen stopped the vehicle shy of the spring. As slow as we were going, it took a second to realize that we were no longer moving. “Not another inch till you spill,” Gwen said.

“Ditto,” Renfield added. She’s an awfully pretty thing when captured in the Ponglight. And she can do all those little pretty girl nose twitches, lip bites, “that thing with her eyes” and such that charm and make mere mortal Pens like me a bit envious. The sort of looks that I often fancy my fist altering, now and again.

“All right, already–but you guys better not back out after I tell you. It happened before any of us met [I never say “created” in any shape to an FC–for Free Will has written all their pasts].”

I pulled a file from my tablet and said…

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Five “The Book of Peety”

Return of the Pen

Well, that’s how it goes with passive aggressive herbivores. Daisy has a bit of a temper as well. The Adverb Mass Indicator won’t win me the Nobel after all because the one and only of its kind was stomped to atoms, in the Barnyard, where Daisy took it after she grabbed it from me with her mouth and ran outside. Then again, the late AMI can only exist in Saragun Springs, so I guess Oslo would not be overly impressed with a broken smoke detector with a short USB cord hanging from it, even if it did still exist in one piece.

“So, is it still Ignore Gwen Cooper Day?” asked (surprise) Gwen.

“Wow,” I said, “that time again already? Seems like Ignore Gwen Cooper Day comes earlier every year.”

“Right?” Renfield added.

“Har dee har har,” Gwen said.

She approached me from behind and wrapped one of her impossibly long arms around my shoulders. Renfield arrived at my other side. Together we gazingly gazed at Daisy, digging a grave for the semi-vaporized AMI in the Barnyard with her hooves. I swear I heard a beep at gazingly, but it must have been my imagination.

“Who knew that a Pygmy Goat could contain so much rage? She’s like an even tinier Joe Pesci,” Renfield said.

“Daisy is very deep,” I said.

“I bet she salts the grave,” Gwen said.

“I’m gonna engineer a ‘Redundant Dialogue Attribution,’” Renfield said. “My RDA will go off after three–no four consecutive sentences end with ‘said’ as they have done on this page.”

“Way to punch a hole in the fourth wall, Renfield,” I said, lighting a fresh smoke.

The other members of our meeting were distracted by the results of his/her Free Will. Queen Maab had passed out, so we put her to bed in a cigar box that contained a tiny mattress, pillows and a quilt. BTI sleeps twenty-three hours per day, so the odds were against him being awake, which he wasn’t, still asleep in the chair Gwen had placed him in. The Judge was silent, perhaps worried that by making a sound he’d awaken Maab. Poppyseed was egging Daisy on out in the Barnyard, zipping from ear to ear like a little Iago. As Gwen had predicted, Daisy had run off for a moment into the big red barn and returned with a bag of rock salt.

“All right gang,” I said, “since you want some action, Gwen, and since Renfield claims to be weary of smiling and saying ‘Great news!’ before peeing in my Cheerios, I’ve got a little time travel gig for you two to star in, along with Daisy, after she settles down a bit. Let’s go to Wardrobe and Makeup.”

Mr and Mrs Berkshire

We made our way to the Wardrobe and Makeup Department run by a pair of Berkshire Hogs, Taffypuller and her husband, Tallywhacker. Although we produce stories to be read, many FC’s like to dress for their roles. Method FC’s. Tall Gwen led the way, Renfield was a couple steps behind her while I brought up the rear. When viewed from a distance we probably looked like three columns in a spreadsheet telling of dwindling productivity.

Taffypuller tips the scales somewhere in the low eight-hundreds and is mostly white and a little brown while Tallywhacker is much porkier and is mainly brown with patches of white. Wardrobe Mistress Taffy is a Sow of few words, while Makeup Artist Tally is a Boar who often lives up to a homonym of his porcine gender. He also has a verbal dingleberry, “By waddle”–a catchphrase tic of sorts that no one criticizes because everyone in the Springs is weird in her/his/its own way and knows it.

“By waddle, Misses Gwen, Renfield and Leila, we’ve been expecting you,” Tally said. Which made sense because I’d just sent him a text of that flavor about three minutes prior. The Wardrobe and Makeup Department is stocked with patterns and clothes that my Employer has worn in life. Fortunately she is an androgynous clothes hound and a compulsive shopper, even though much of her stuff is best suited for Halloween. Taffy can alter any of her garments, which is pretty goddam convenient for this Pen.

“Hiya, Tallywhacker,” Renfield said. “And how are you, Taffypuller?”

Taffy glanced up from her sewing machine (In Saragun Springs Sows are known as “Nature’s Seamstress” and your typical Boar can make a Mrs. Doubtfire out of you in a few minutes–again in defiance of cloven appendages). “Fine.”

Gwen, a bit of a clothes hound herself, was already perusing the racks. “Ohhh, I love what you have done with this seersucker, Taffy–Dear God can this scream 1978 any louder?”

Daisy trotted in because she has an unerring sense of knowing where the narrative lies.

“Gang,” I said to Renfield, Gwen and Daisy, “I want to send you three on a mission to Other Earth, but circa 1947. You two,” I added, motioning to Renfield and Gwen, “need to be fitted for the proper attire from that era, which Taffypuller has become an expert on thanks to our hoarder Employer’s vast National Geographic collection.”

“What about me, Miss Leila,” Daisy asked. “Don’t I rate a costume?”

I patted Daisy on the head. “It’s like this Daisy, you are going to Other Earth incognito, with a helmet cam that will feed a time vortex linked to a tablet I will be viewing on the other side of the portal at the Springs. You will be invisible, which is probably for the best considering the attention a talking Goat might bring at any Earth.”

Daisy didn’t like that and began to stomp the floor in a snit.

“Oh, all right,” I said. “What kind of disguise would you like to wear?

“I want to be a Unicorn,” she said.

“Of course you do.”

“By waddle, I can devise a paper mache horn and glue it to Miss Daisy’s little head,” said Tally.

But that will get in the way of the effing camera, was queued on my tongue and ready to go, but seeing the smile the horn idea put on Daisy’s face, I let it go and said, “See? All better.”

I left the three in makeup and wardrobe and went back to my office to prepare the equipment and review the top secret Other Earth file on my computer.

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Four “The Book of Peety”

Vote Early and Often

Before we could explore the certain fiasco that Other Earth promised to be, the Union members demanded that I first conduct the Shop Steward election. Since I’m never in a big hurry to attend fiascos, for my existence can be pretty much summed up as hopping from debacle to the next, I figured that any hell would do, since only hell was on the menu. It’s good for a Pen to have an accurate grasp of things.

A quick census revealed that there was a sudden rise in the FC population from sixty-six to two-hundred-twenty-seven; their names, and marks, magically showed up on the Union agreement. This included Pong and several others I had also glancingly considered but didn’t officially invent–but I guess it was another case of thinking it being enough in Saragun.

Some of the overflow were characters grandmothered in by the Boss–who often displays a buttinski attitude even after she gives me control of things; I’m certain God sneaked some noisome species aboard the Ark that Noah had accidentally on purpose forgot.

But that was only partially true. See, sometimes when you open a new realm, opportunistic Spirits (aka, “ghosts” but they hate that term), usually on the run from some other dimension, often take refuge in a new land of make believe before you can seal the border, and you must give them sanctuary. That explained about half of the ones I did not recall creating, yet were considered mine, thus FC Union members, regardless.

Actually, one of the Spirits did belong to me, in a sense. For while we were at the Spring, the Boss sent over a gold gilt presentation gavel that was presented to our late great great great great grandfather upon his retirement from the bench as a judge late in the 19th Century. It was sitting on my desk. She’d sent him over the same way that a dubious person leaves a box of Kittens on the stoop at the ASPCA, rings the bell and runs like hell. Naturally, the Spirit of my grandfather squared, Judge Jasper P. Montague, haunts the gavel; it would only be a matter of time before he showed his often charming yet somewhat unendurable personality.

At first it seemed odd that only six of the two-hundred-twenty-seven FC’s applied for the gig. But upon remembering the extreme sloth of the population, six suddenly seemed a bit high. The ballot was composed of the three FC’s who accompanied me and Renfield to the Spring, and joining Gwen, BTI and Daisy on the ballot were Queen Maab the Photobomb Fairie, a type-A Rufous Hummingbird named Poppyseed, and the newly acquired Judge.

“Great news!” Renfield said with that ever-present evil smile on her pretty face, as she entered my office with the results after the lone poll had closed. “It’s a six way tie.”

I was seated at my desk smoking and drinking hobo wine and wondering if Renfield understood the vast distance between her concept of “Great News” and the way I see it; but I figured the smile explained that she did. I knew some sort of unnatural result would come from the election and needed to steel my nerve. I wasn’t disappointed. See, I usually write out numbers, but this time I must disregard that–for only hard numbers accurately relate the debacle of election day. Somehow, with 227 ballots cast, we wound up with a six-way tie at 37.833333333 (to infinity) votes. Not as in percent, but as in votes.

“How for the love of hell did that happen?” I asked.

“It’s possible because though FC’s may cast just one vote, the Union allows that not all of a member’s vote must go to a single candidate,” Renfield said, reaching across my desk and opening my laptop. She banged in some data (and probably opened the door for some viruses) before she turned the screen to face me.

I scowled at the data. It was enough to boggle a sane mind. But there it was. The ugsome truth. Crowding in on me.

Behold an example of what I read: Drake Mallard, an FC Gander who identifies as a Duck, cast .164 of his vote for Gwen another .37 to Daisy and the rest he pissed away on Poppyseed. All the damn votes were like that, except for the candidates, who at least had the decency to vote wholly for themselves. Somehow it all piled up to 37.8333 to infinity votes for each one.

I snapped the book shut. “What about the other quark of vote unaccounted for?”

“I think it got sucked into the PDQ vortex at the Spring,” Renfield said, with that slappable smirk still on her face. “Feel free to go look for it. I’ll wait.”

“All right, wiseass, everyone says you’re the smart one–what do you suggest?”

“We call it a six way draw and make them all Shop Steward.”

“Great,” I said. “Now you want to give everyone a participation trophy. Is this an election or T-Ball?”

I guess it was T-Ball. Everyone got a trophy.

So, we wound up assembling a Shop Steward panel. From the get go there were problems. By name, the biggest problems were Boots the Impaler, Maab the Photobomb Fairie and Daisy’s addiction to adverbs.

Poppyseed the Type A Hummingbird refused to spend time in the same room with BTI, “Him being a Cat.” BTI said “That‘s profiling,” but since he said that after swallowing a mouthful of a clearly marked can of “Chickenlicious Friskee’s,” and openly shared sarcasms about “Shake and Bake, Hummingbird,” his argument rang hollow. We arranged a honeysuckle “desk” for Poppyseed on the other side of the office window, which we opened so he could hear and comment through a BTI-proof window screen.

Dear Maab the Photobomb Fairie is as charming a soul as you’ll want to meet until she’s had her fourth gin blossom. I installed a bar in my office (an atom for atom a replica of my Boss’s). Upon her fourth drink, Maab stops telling funny old stories and begins to snarl and make dark observations about everyone handy–mostly me. It sucks taking shit from a four-inch Fairie, but that’s how it goes when said Fairie is packing a loaded wand. But that situation has improved since Renfield now disarms Maab at the door. It’s a hell of a thing to watch a Tinkerbell-sized person take a gin blossom in one suck of a straw from a full tumbler several times her weight, and, aside from her attitude, neither changes physically nor ever needs to pee; but she’s a magical being, I guess that’s how they roll–especially in a realm where most of the physical laws of the universe are up for grabs.

Now, Daisy is a shining star. It’s amazing that a Fictional Character Pygmy Goat has such great range as an actor and so many off screen interests. Unlike most of the other FC’s Daisy is a hard worker dedicated to the success of the realm and involves herself in every project and works without supervision (although I’ve never encouraged that last thing). Yet she’s ambitious, and when there are only individuals looking up at your position around, one must be suspicious of the go-getters. She’s also never wrong; excels at eavesdropping, passive aggressive remarks–and when the last of the multiverse succumbs to entropy gazillions of years from now, the perceived slights remembered by Miss Cloverleaf will find a way to continue to thrive.

But the problem she presented as a Shop Steward involved her adoration for the written adverb. She doesn’t use them any more than anyone else in speech, but give her a Chromebook and she goes wildly wild, overly overboard, annoyingly annoying. As mentioned previously, the FC Pygmy Goat is known as Nature’s Stenographer. The lil hooves beat at a steady and unerring clip. That was all well and good until the fiends voted unanimously that one of the Stewards, not I, record our meetings on a Chromebook. Naturally, only Daisy wanted the recording job.

So, it went like this:

Dazingly Daisy

There were seven of us in the office: Miss Leila, Miss Renfield, Miss Gwen, Queen Maab, Boots the Impaler, the Gavel containing the Spirit of Judge Montague, and of course the brains of the outfit, me, Daisy Cloverleaf. Intensely intense Poppyseed was at his honeysuckle desk outside the window.

My desk is near the window. Close to the AMI (Adverb Mass Indicator). It’s a little round white plastic demonly demon screwed to the wall that works like a smoke detector [at Earth it is a smoke detector-LA]; it beeps when, according to Miss Leila, the prose gets dangerously adverbally. Sometimes, as I dutifully tap out the mindlessly mindless meeting events on my Chromebook, which is connected by a USB to the AMI, I cast a gazely gaze out the window at the troubled realm; I wonder wonderfully and dream dreamily.

Then the A.M.I. goes off, irksomely. Which causes Miss Leila to say, all exasperatedly:

“Day-ZEE…”

Drat.

Miss Leila continues to smoke cigarettes even though it offends most people. That’s why she does it. She lit a fresh cigarette off the burning butt of another, leaned back in her chair, put her feet up on her desk, an accidental smoke ring formed over her head as she called the meeting to order.

“How come you don’t use that gavel to call to order?” Queen Maab asked, gin already edgingly edging into her voice. It was fortunately fortunate that Miss Renfield had confiscated her wand and locked it in the wandly wand cabinet…

Damn you AMI!

“Day-ZEE.”

Drat.

“Because I’m inside it, Queen Juniper,” the Judge said, his voice hauntingly drifting from the gavel.

Queen Maab didn’t like that much and snarled menacingly. Luckily…

A pox upon you AMI!

“Day-ZEE.”

Drat.

Anyway, Miss Renfield whispered something in the Fairie’s tiny ear, which caused the imp to smile and calm down, for the moment.

BTI had fallen asleep in Miss Gwen’s lap. But Miss Gwen was widely wide awake and took the floor. “How come this production is nearly ten-thousand words old and I have had only one line till now?”

“Don’t feel bad, Gwennie,” Renfield said. “All I get to do is smile and say ‘Great News!’”

Perhaps sensingly sensing that she was losingly losing control of the meeting…

I thought I had commanded you to hell, hated AMI!!!

“Day-Zee…”

Drat.

Miss Leila smiled at me. Got up from her desk and rose to her full “height” of 4’11”. She proceeded over to me at my desk, patted me on the head, removed the AMI from the wall and asked me if I would like to kickingly kick the goddmanly goddamn thing to pieces in the Barnyard. If so, would it pleasingly please me to allow her to resume the narrative.

Welcome to Saragun Springs: Part Three “The Book of Peety”

In the Land of Poison Waters

I rounded up Renfield and my first three FC’s–by name, Gwen Cooper, Daisy Cloverleaf and Boots the Impaler (simply “BTI”–sometimes “Bootsy”). Due to their heavy roles in the development of the Union, I figured it was an idea to keep them close–not necessarily a good idea, but an idea nonetheless.

There are neither highways nor gas powered vehicles in Saragun Springs. This has less to do with a Green attitude than it has with a great many of my FC’s being creatures who are not known as competent pedestrians–such as Raccoons, Opossums and Hedgehogs. Even though you can’t actually kill my FC’s any more than you can genuinely shoot an actor in a scene, the mere sight of cars and trucks places needless stress on the psyches of the notoriously poor road crossers. What we have are cobblestone paths lined with various plants and trees the Boss likes but knows few of the names of.

Fortunately, however, with everything no farther than boutta mile, there is no real need for a transportation infrastructure in Saragun Springs. Besides we began as a poor realm with a GNP commensurate with that of your basic asteroid composed of useless minerals.

Unfortunately, however, my FC’s are extraordinarily lazy. Unless it’s for a role, forget about asking them to walk twenty feet let alone boutta mile. In my productions FC’s often “blue screen” strenuous activities and cross vast vistas. But in that dimension of being which exists between your reality and our fictions, a dimension as wide as the distance between consecutive thoughts, that in which we live our lives, from where I write you, an off duty FC is downright muley about doing stuff.

“Fortunately, however,” returns to the head of a paragraph because of the bald fact that all FC’s are venal. They got that trait from Renfield, an otherwise fine person, yet one whose ephemeral loyalty can be rented for a handful of “fun-sized” Three Musketeer bars.

“Fortunately, however,” rallies and wins this run 3-1. I can easily bribe FC’s with meaty roles in upcoming stories and Renfield with the same as well as with writing and “directing” opportunities. I also have access to material goods in my Employer’s possession–in fact as long as she had once owned an object I can duplicate it in the realm and use it for payola. This also comes in handy with the coffee, cigarette, alcohol, and other addictions I share with her (she also has a family Ghost we inherited). And at one time she owned a bicycle, an electric scooter and an electric golf cart sort of thing that seats four. And it was in the replicated golf cart sort of thing that Renfield, Gwen, Daisy, BTI and I set out to the realm.

Even though designed for four, our complement of five fitted quite easily. Renfield, Gwen and I are human, but Daisy is a Pygmy Goatess and BTI is a Siamese Cat, both are about the same size. I drove, Renfield rode shotgun, Gwen and Daisy sat in the back, BTI lay on Gwen’s lap.

Not to belabor the point, but a “Prime” FC is whatever she or he is. That FC exists and has her or his own life in that aforementioned infinitesimal distance between your reality and our fantasies. As far as I’m concerned Prime FC’s are as real as it gets and then some. So, if you read one of my works, you can actually imagine that “three Martians” may very well be being “essayed” by a Pygmy Goat, an Imaginary Friend and a Siamese Cat–unless no Prime FC wants the parts then I may create actual Prime FC Martians. I only make mention because there is no person acting the role of, say, Daisy the Goatess, other than Daisy–for she and others often appear as themselves in my productions.

I do not like the over used “anthropomorphic” much. Seems like a fancy adjective to lay on the likes of Daffy Duck or Magilla Gorilla. I figure if a writer has a talking Pygmy Goat and a similarly talented Siamese Cat as lead FC’s, well, so be it. There might not be anything new under the sun, but that isn’t always the case below Pong.

Gwen is a young, highly intelligent, tall, beautiful woman, of the type so perfectly wholesome that you cannot imagine her possessing an excretory system. You may imagine her any race you want, or give her green eyes or blue; raven hair, blonde, cornrows or none at all–knock yourself out, it’s your mind’s eye. But for my own purposes, she must be young, smart, tall and the sort of person who attracts attention, and is probably a joy to her parents. Gwen is a Leading Lady FC, who never loses track of the location of last nerve.

Daisy Cloverleaf, the Pygmy Goatess is an exceptional individual. She is extravagantly imaginative and keen to act out her daydreams. She is also bright and charming, but a bit sensitive and more than a little passive aggressive when things don’t go her way, and has a bit of a temper. It is a little known fact that an interdimensional FC Pygmy Goat, despite hooves, is known as “Nature’s Stenographer.” Daisy can type a hundred-twenty error free words a minute, but she cannot resist adverbs.

Boots the Impaler would be a supreme evil mastermind if it didn’t require work. BTI is named for a real world Cat who has it in for the guy who took him to the vet for the old snip snip. Whenever real world Boots jumps in the guy’s lap he unerringly and without remorse makes a perfect four-point landing “you know where.” The Saragun BTI speaks with a cultured “mid-atlantic” accent, much like that of George Sanders, who often played heavies in old movies and voiced “Shere Khan” in the original Jungle Book.

“Can someone please remind me why we’re visiting this unflushed toilet?” Gwen asked, for it had been ten seconds since someone in the cart had said something annoying.

“I’m wondering if Miss Leila knows where the spring is. Everything is boutta mile away from the Barnyard, yet it feels we have been on the path for hours,” Daisy said.

BTI woke up. “My highly advanced sense of smell detects the spring about a hundred yards farther, and to the left.”

“See, Daisy,” I said. “I’m prepared for anything. It’s no accident that Boots is along.”

“If you say so,” said Daisy, in a tone similar to that of a thirteen-year-old girl saying “I guess” when asked to set aside her phone and help put out her mother, who’d thoughtlessly caught on fire.

“Then how did you know which way to go while Bootsy slept?” Renfield, who’s tight with Daisy, asked.

“Psychic link,” I lied, and was somewhat surprised that no one in the cart questioned that. I drove on, following BTI’s directions, which were a boon to me because I was hopelessly lost. I then saw a fleeting run of black rainbows shimmering in the distance, near a cluster of stunted, possibly mutated crabapple trees. The rainbows rapidly changed directions because at the time Pong was making figure-eights, like an ice skater in the sky. “Masks on the ready.”

Due to another bout of extreme paranoia, during the plague my Employer purchased a riding crop and gas mask “just in case.” Although she has never used either, I was able to bring the mask pattern to Saragun Springs and replicate five, two of which fit both Daisy and BTI. (I left the crop behind; unless used on people it is a cruel thing.)

“Fortunately, however” returns for a victory lap, because 99% of the stench associated with the spring is highly localized. Although there is always a bit of it in the air, the stink is mainly confined to a fifty foot radius around the spring itself. It stands alone in a clearing surrounded by blighted hellworld soil, blackened yet possibly sentient crabapple trees, its contingent of Pong induced, temporary black rainbows and a vague thin gray atmosphere of gasses that marks the stench perimeter. As an object it is a perfectly round ten foot glooping pool of black water that has a small, continuous, six inch wide three yard high geyser at its center.

A decrepit picnic table and benches from the backyard in my Employer’s childhood were located sixty feet to the left of the Spring. Atop the table there lay an envelope secured by a paper weight. The five of us proceeded to the table; Gwen toted BTI and I had to carry Daisy for she’d just had her hooves painted. Renfield carried her insouciant attitude, which weighs plenty.

We sat at the table. Even though we were in the so-called safety zone, no one dropped her/his mask–for the stench bubble was something that didn’t appear to be all that steady, and the smell of boiled diarrhea is hard to wash from your clothes and hair and fur. Renfield lifted the beer keg shaped paper weight. Still smiling, she handed me the envelope and held the weight so we all could read what was printed on it: PROPERTY OF THE PDQ BREWING COMPANY.

“Never heard of it,” I said, but something in my mind groaned upon hearing ”PDQ.” Yet another repressed memory stirred in its shallow grave.

The letter was addressed to me and the Citizens of Saragun Springs. There are only two persons in all the multiverse who could read the scrawl, me and my Employer, whose hand I instantly recognized and, of course, expected. I opened the envelope, extracted the single page inside it, wadded the empty envelope and tossed it at the Spring; it didn’t get far because it instantly vaporized into a puff of smoke after creating a brief yet impressive “foom” type of noise upon entering the gray bubble.

Imagine someone maniacally writing a letter at three in the morning, alone, save for a mostly empty bottle of budget bourbon and a smoldering, overloaded ashtray, butts mounded like a Beaver dam. That’s what my Employer’s handwriting and idiom bring to mind.

I read aloud.

“Leila and Gang–

Ha! I promise to let you run the realm as you see fit–but I just had to give you a realm warming present. Sort of a Pandora’s box that I know you will open because no Pandora’s box is ever left unopened in the wacky multiverse. The contents of the box will allow the Springs to build a GNP of sorts, because as you must already know real money does not replicate in Saragun Springs. (I know you tried)…

“There’s a secret compartment in the paperweight that was not there until now….”

“Bingo!” Renfield said. She opened a slot that appeared at the bottom of the PDQ paperweight and extracted an ages-old flip phone.

“…push the send button…”

Renfield opened the phone and did just so. A standard interdimensional vortex opened about ten feet in the air on the side of the Spring farthest from the picnic table. It was a hole in the fabric of the realm of no perceptible depth; just a flat circle about the size of a donut. The geyser immediately was drawn toward the hole and was sucked in.

“Don’t worry about the Springs ever going dry…”

“As if,” I muttered. And read on.

“Despite whatever little besmirch I’m certain you just uttered, Leila, the Spring is infinite, composed of the steamed souls of the damned, thus an everlasting reservoir. ‘But where does the water go? you ask–or should…”

“I was thinking just that,” Daisy said.

“It is feeding the vats at the PDQ Pilsner plant on Other Earth…”

I stopped reading because the repressed memory had clawed its way out of its shallow grave and just stood there. “PDQ Pilsner….Other Earth,” I whispered.

When a mere slip of a deranged girl, the Boss imagined freely and wildly, without the aid of intoxicants. She liked the idea of realms such as Narnia, Oz and even Hundred Acre Wood, but she didn’t find them roomy enough for her ego, so she created Other Earth–a replica of Earth, but with a few differences. One of those was “PDQ Pilsner”–a budget beer that she invented after a lifetime of cartoon beer commercials. Just why invented PDQ is synonymous with that theological catch-all “Mysterious Ways.” I have always figured her mysterious ways are affected by addiction and a light smattering of personality disorders. But, there it was, the ugsome truth.

I placed a cigarette in my mouth, got up and walked to the Spring and touched the letter to the bubble and lit my smoke from the result before tossing the entire missive in.

“Ugsome developments, gang.”