fantasy

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 Two “The Book of Peety”

Layout of The Realm

We scheduled an election to take place within a few days for the post of Shop Steward. All the FC’s were eligible. Renfield, being the only Imaginary Friend, obviously represented herself. In the meantime I fleshed out the realm before the Union could make suggestions with the layout.

The word “Saragun” was invented by my Employer when she was nineteen, whilst under the influence of yellow-microdot acid and fortified “Bokay” apple wine. The name, of course, is psychedelic gibberish; but she liked it, and believed that it described her youthful hopes and dreams. So she founded a rock band and named it Saragun. Five years later my Employer was kicked out of the group by the other members as a result of a secret vote. Next to dying at twenty-seven, “artistic takeovers” due to personality conflicts is a rock and roll way to go–especially if you are fired by a band that you had created.

Saragun Springs is your typical make-believe inter-dimensional realm-world whose physical laws, as previously mentioned, are greatly affected by the limits of its creator’s education and knowledge of physics (here, not so high). Left and right, gravity, up and down are normal, but distance is something that is observed only when necessary. Thus nothing in the realm is farther than “‘boutta mile” away from anything else (usually much closer). For example, let’s say point A is boutta mile from point B, and to C is the same from B, yet even though you may have traveled in a straight line, C is still only boutta mile from A.

It is a round semi-flat world, and the spring itself lies smack in the middle. The zenith of our sky and the Nameless Hills that completely encircle our realm are the only places here that appear to be a bit more than boutta mile away. Hardly anyone visits the Nameless Hills, because if you do go there and climb and try to peek at what is on the other side, you are immediately transported to your house in the realm. This comes in handy if you get lost, but not so much if you are running away from home.

The Nameless Hills are consistent in shape and there are three hundred and sixty of them. Three hundred-and fifty-six are of equal height and four are half-again taller than the others. The big hills are evenly spaced from each other and mark direction and have names. One has a giant W etched on its side, another, directly across the realm from W. contains an equally immense E, plus there is both an N and S where you might expect to find them. We call them Will, Eill (pronounced “’Eel”), Nill and Sill.

All of this had been planned, but things began to get a bit slippery for me upon the realization that we had a sun in our sky named Pong. I recalled thinking about whipping up a little thinking sun for Saragun Springs named Pong while developing the FC roster, but blew the notion off, figuring that no one would care about what was in our sky. But I guess thinking about it was good enough to cause Pong to fire into being–a tiniest wisp of a notion who seized a heaping helping of Free Will.

So, unannounced, Pong showed up the day after I’d glancingly thought about creating him, and has been on the job ever since. Since nobody and no thing in Saragun Springs is obliged to follow the natural laws of the Universe, it should be no surprise that, mechanically speaking, Pong is a celestial scofflaw.

As an object, Pong is a fiercely radiant little orb, the color and relative size of an unripened blueberry held at arm’s length. Pong is either very small and close or huge and far away. Sadly, Saragun Springs lacks an Archimedes-type to study Pong in the scientific way. Nor has anyone dared to launch an Icarus inspired project. This is again due to a creator’s inability to beget someone who is smarter than she is. She can only make individuals who are certain they are smarter than she is on the basis of their own opinions alone; a circumstance, which, of course, leads to atheism and unhappy surprises in the end.

Pong’s first day began reasonably enough; he rose from behind Eill at 6 A.M. on the nose and set behind Will exactly twelve hours later. Adequate, when measured by the flexible standards of Saragun Springs normalcy. But the tone of the process changed when he rose again precisely at six the next morning, but this time from the exact same spot he’d gone down the evening before–from behind Will. Our little star tracked north that day and Pongset there, to the left of Nill, at six pm on the dot, then, of course, rose there the next morning.

The only constants with Pong are that he works from six to six, twelve hours, without as much as a millisecond of variance, dawns from where he goes down the night before, and never appears to change his relative distance. Everything else is up to Pong’s whims. I’ve seen him double back and set where he had risen; I’ve watched him do loops, feign heading one direction then go another, and zigzag across the sky. And that only touches the truly bizarre stuff he does. Once he emitted a long thread from his orb and spent the day going up and down over Sill like a yoyo on a string until quitting time. Pong can also stop without first slowing down and travel at various speeds. Sometimes, he will sit way high and wait until 5:59:59 P.M. then zoom toward his setting point at a rate of speed that should be impossible to achieve, yet make it on time. As you can imagine we have strange shadows in the realm. And yet equally strange is “Pongspotting,” which involves wagering on the exact place the next Pongset will happen.

Saragun Springs has several communities. The main ones are The Village which is founded on vice and whose main attractions are taverns, brothels, crack nip dens and Pongspotting gambling houses–and where the addresses stand for specific years. There’s also the Enchanted Wood, the Turkey Pen (where my rejected stories go to live and await editing), the Hoosegow (where no one ever goes for we have no laws to break) the Barnyard, which contains my office and Union headquarters and a studio city by the odd name of Ago-a-Go-Go, where all my productions are “shot.” There are many other little nooks, hellholes and crannies, which we will visit by and by.

Perhaps the oddest, certainly foulest spot in all of Saragun Springs is the spring itself. It sits precisely in the middle of the realm like the hole in a record album. There is only one spring, but the name is plural because it flows slightly more trippingly from the tongue than something that sounds like part of a bed.

The spring oozes to the surface from a crack in Hell and smells like boiled diarrhea and tiny black rainbows form when Ponglight passes through the spray.

A couple days after Pong first rose (which was also the eve of the Shop Steward election), I headed a party for a day trip to view the realm. Everything–if not as it should be–at least was. Which is pretty much the best you can hope for when new to the art of realm weaving. Due to its nasty reputation, we visited the spring last.

Welcome To Saragun Springs: Part One “The Book of Peety”

My name is Leila Allison. I’m a Penname–just one word, like “dammit.” And I insist that it be considered a proper noun, like “Irish.” I do, however, approve of “Pen”–which I find swaggery, thus to my ego’s liking.

My employer (from here, “The Boss”) is a woman of mystery who keeps a low profile because she fears the social media secret police. She is paranoid and erroneously convinced that there is enough interest in her for someone to want to ruin her life with unsubstantiated accusations on Instagram, if she were ever to rise above her state of anonymity. At best she’d rather be like Oz/Professor Marvel, but cloaked behind an impenetrable, Toto-proof iron curtain, unknown, unloved, unbothered. It’s hard to get away with much nowadays, but paradoxically it has never been easier to get lost in the unforgiving crowd. This led to the invention of Yours Truly, who considers herself as real as she needs to be, and then some.

Before slinking off to a yet another sabbatical at a place where the sunsets are pretty and the Thorazine is plentiful, the Boss summoned me from the deep shadows of her mind and endowed me with “untakebackable Free Will” and the keys to her Literary Queendom, a realm in the make believe multiverse that she’d named Saragun Springs. That’s just how she put it, shortly after swallowing yet another loganberry wine flip, and seconds prior to passing out in her chair–”Lei-lith, youse goth untakebackable Fee Bill…and da keyz to Sarygun Spings–dooze whatevuh…”

Now, I was in the Boss’s mind for a long, long, long time before getting out. Everything she knows, I know; her addictions are mine; our intelligence and education levels are the same; and we both understand that a writer, whether human or a Pen, cannot create someone smarter than herself–yet there is this strange degree of separation between us that allows me to behold her objectively. We have an I/me perception shared between two distinctly different points of view. I also have the advantage of recalling things she once knew but has forgotten–for though I am of her, I am much younger in the existence sense. For instance, I remembered she had once known that Free Will was a choice given to humankind by God. Mainly, we have the choice to kiss His butt or depart from Him and court disaster (in a way Heaven sounds a lot like North Korea). The Boss’s interpretation is simpler and owes to the Thelemite creed “Do what thou wilt.” And although there is no real such word as untakebackable, the concept behind it was clear to me.

Ha! I was off like a Cat with thumbs and the car keys. Although trouble stemmed from that viewpoint (mainly, there isn’t a Cat-sized car out there worth stealing), the principle of it all formed in my mind, regardless of logic. The first thing I did as she began the long sleep off was head to Saragun Springs (a concept that had been trapped in her mind even longer than I had). The second thing I did, being what you might call a virtual sort of person, was to reject the physical laws of the universe except for those that pleased me–or when such suited me as plot devices. The third thing I did was when and where the trouble began.

I needed to populate my realm with characters. I also put a call in to an Imaginary Friend whom I grew up with in the neighborhood of my Employer’s mind, named Renfield. I made her second in command of Saragun Springs. We both flew from the Boss’s sleeping mind, taking the blueprint of the realm with us.

As virtual persons, both Renfield and I are eternally on the more popular side of thirty but we do not belong to any specific generation–not that any are lining up to have us. All you really need to know about Renfield will unfold clearly and soon enough. But if I had to sum her up quickly, I’d say that she is as distinctly American as a baseball to the head. I endowed her with the same permanent state of “Fee Bill” that the Boss had given me.

I’m a Pen who specializes in fiction. Thus I began to develop Fictional Characters (from here, FC’s) to populate my works; I must have FC’s before a storyline. But the Boss’s weaknesses involving booze and not necessarily well thought out Big Ideas are mine as well. About halfway into a fifth of Three Freedoms vodka, I thought it would be cool to endow my FC’s with the same mistaken notion of Free Will that pulsed through both my and Renfield’s souls. Untakebackable. Furthermore, each FC was given sentience and a life that goes on outside the stories they appear in–although those lives take place only at Saragun Springs–lives and sentience I have no control over whatsoever, save for the stories they appear in. I conceived them as actors to play roles in my acts of genius.

Another thing I have in common with the Boss is the capacity to blow off the mental Voice of Reason. Conservative stuff like “Think about what you are getting yourself into” is tiresome, boring and too safe to be much fun. It’s my good luck that the Voice of Reason does not hold her liquor well. The Voice of Reason is always a shot or two from becoming a cheerleader–the staunchest toady for my Big Ideas, as long as I’m pouring.

At first the realm was like a new house on moving in day. Stuff still in boxes and not much going on save for sloth, beer and pizza. There was no real plan other than whatever popped into my head on the spur of the moment. I guess for free wheeling types, that’s the way to go, but when you are founding a realm and/or new dimension on the otherside of reality, maybe a to-do list of some sorts should be consulted.

Hence…

Union Troubles

I created my office in a “territory” of the realm named “The Barnyard” (in all, there are seven territories, which we will get to, by and by). On that first day my office was a bare room save for a window, my desk, and me working away on a Chromebook while drinking and smoking in a squeaky chair I’ve yet to do anything about. Then I set about creating a group of FC’s. I figured that fifty would do for starters.

Upon completing my FC list, I took a break, lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair, ignoring the squeak, feet up on the desk. I had all kinds of projects planned. First I wanted to arrange the geography of the springs, because at that moment there wasn’t much outside the office window except the Barnyard and a barracks to temporarily house my impressive roster of FC’s.

This was when a recurring theme in my existence commenced. Renfield,who is my only Imaginary Friend, entered my office to pee in my Cheerios in the metaphoric yet just as equally disgusting fashion. She had “Free-Willed” a luxurious office of her own next to mine, and, unbeknownst to me, she had met and got friendly with each FC I had sent out upon creation. To each I’d said, “Hi there [insert name], you have Free Will and your own life. Stay handy, and don’t let the door hit you on the butt on your way out to the barracks.” In retrospect I should have been friendlier, maybe a bit more personal, perhaps even glanced up from my computer when I spoke. But I had fifty (to be honest, I soon lost count) of the fiends to deal with before the vodka ran out and the Voice of Reason’s new flexible philosophy wore off. Seizing the advantage, Renfield had intercepted each FC as she/he/it exited the office. She is both ingratiating and duplicitous. A Free-Willed conspiracy was fomenting between individuals I had created, and yet I was ignorant of it. In my defense I am no more omniscient than the Boss–but maybe I should have paid closer attention.

“I bring great news, darling,” Renfield said, barging into my office, carrying a document file.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I was slightly confused by the interruption because I didn’t write “Renfield entered the office” and the bit about the Cheerios until after it happened. In the real world cause precedes effect, but in fictional realms it is supposed to be the other way around.

“I have Free Will, remember? Besides, I’m the Imaginary Friend, as real as you are–I don’t need you to write me–in fact nobody in the realm is under restraint, unless acting a part.”

“Shitsticks,” I said. “I probably should have thought that out better. But the Voice of Reason is one swallow shy of rehab. Guess the endowment of Free Will puts me in for a slew of little surprises.”

“Right?” she said, smiling. Renfield smiles a lot. In fact if a person could be described as having a secret smile hidden behind her back, you’d have Renfield. “Your life, on the rare occasions I think about it, seems awfully barn door after the Cows, darling.”

“Let’s leave personality traits out of this, darling,” I said. “May I assume the ‘great news’ of which you speak has something to do with the file in your hand?”

Renfield sat on the edge of my desk. Like smiling, she does a lot of that too. It doesn’t say such in the Bible, but I bet on the eighth day God awoke hungover, and realized that the stuff She had set in motion was now hopelessly beyond her control and couldn’t be undone. That describes the sinking feeling I had when Renfield laid the document on my trusty Chromebook, which was still warm from all the FC creation.

I opened it and saw a psycho manifesto, whose title will be burned into my mind long after my Employer has turned to clay that reeks of fermentation and ashtrays.

It said:

The Union of Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UIFFC)

Below the ugsome heading was a list of demands. At the end was a list of names, beginning with Renfield and followed by each FC I had created, beginning with Miss Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess and ending with her brother Fenwick; there were sixty-six names of various “persons” (that confirmed my suspicion of losing count–or blackout FC creating) lying between the Mini Goats. Each one had either signed or made her/his/its mark on the document.

I read aloud: “The ruling Pen cannot create new Fictional Characters (FC) to appear in new stories without first offering the role to already extant FC’s–what the fu–”

“That’s explained here,” Renfield said, flipping the document to an equally ugsome page.

I again read aloud: “We FC’s and Miss Renfield, our dear Imaginary Friend, consider ourselves actors in the ruling Pen’s productions. And since stories are composed of words, we feel that any competent FC can play a part suited to his/her/its talents….”

I chewed on that for a while, like a dope addict Cow working a poppy cud. Then I glanced up at Renfield.

“Lemme see if I got this straight….someone like Daisy the Pygmy Goatess must be offered the part of, say, a five-hundred pound blob of sentient Jello if such isn’t already in the roster before I can wonk-up said beastie–right?”

“Precisely.”

“But there are only sixty-six ‘actors’–what if I want to fill a stadium with fifty-thousand Jellos?”

“We will just shoot something like that the way they do in cheap movies. Round up a crowd of fifty, move them around with each scene and have them wear different shirts or a hat in other shots.”

I cast about my mind for objections to the Union and found none other than it was not my idea. The Voice of Reason had straightened up enough to point out the futility of arguing the point further.

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” I said, signing the document.

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Peety

Tomorrow in the world, there will be exciting forays into adventure, romance, intrigue and happiness for people we will never know and who are most likely not named us. Regardless, there are lesser diversions to be had for us that are free of charge, calories and lead.

In that convoluted spirit, on this very site tomorrow, you will witness an admittedly not Big, but Modest Bang into being of the Make Believe Land of Saragun Springs, with the world premier of Welcome to Saragun Springs: The Book of Peety.

It took God six days to create this mess we exist in, so I took a bit longer with the Springs. The book begins tomorrow, one part will appear every morning for nine days.

Consider this a fair warning–

Yours,

Leila Allison