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Not up to snuff
“Do, Mr. Lightning? I expect that you will die!” The mad scientist snickered at the maser beam slowly tracked towards the helpless metahuman strapped to the table, melting a glowing red furrow in the duratanium surface.
Dash Lightning, the fastest man alive, struggled against the duratanium staples that bound him, wrists and ankles, to the table. “Listen, Mr. Demento—”
“It’s ‘Mentato’!”
“Whatever. Look, I’ve had a busy day. I wrestled the Incredible Alligator Boy in Chicago, had a shootout with some twit actually named the Six Pooter in downtown Austin, and had to convince the Chrome Collective that it’s not acceptable to assemble into a giant chrome Gojira and terrorize Tokyo all before breakfast. Then my twins woke up and things got really tough. They’re teething, and they both got my speed and their momma’s extraordinary flexibility, and they’re holy terrors around the apartment. It’s rent controlled, so you better believe I don’t want to piss off the neighbors too much. So they ran me ragged until I could get them to Montessori Meta school. There were a few other guys—Rocket Hands Rex, The Gaudy Giggler, Mutaplicity, but I think you get the drift—”
In re: Roy's Burgers
- Me: I really feel like you've missed out on a career of making restaurant themes.
- You've got incredible flair for it
- John: 😛
- Me: I assume that Roy's Burgers is an Australian joint, so that "outROYgeous" is in theme.
- John: I didn't really consider that but it's the right choice, for sure
- Me: And then you have Roy's Rooburger.
- Which is a double outROYgeous burger.
- It's so big you "roo" the decision to order it.
- John: 😛
- Me: 😆
- John: I can't really hate on you too much after feeding you a full page setup for a crappy pun this week 😉
I really want an OutROYgeous Value Meal now
“Welcome to Roy’s Burgers and Fries, how may I help you?”
“Hey, uh…you guys, uh…you guys have Coke?”
“Yes, sir, we have Coke.”
“OK, good. Can I get a…uh…”
“…”
“…uh. Uh, what’s on your Roy’d Rage burger?”
“The Roy’d Rage is a steak patty between two egg whites and double veggies, topped with Tabasco and habaneros, served on a gluten-free low-carb flatbread.”
“Uh, oh…so is it, like…is it a burger?”
“It’s a high-protein sandwich like a burger, but it doesn’t use ground beef or sandwich buns.”
“Oh. Does, uh…does that come with Coke?”
“If you want, yes sir. Would you like a Roy’d Rage with a coke and fries?”
“No, I want a burger. What kind of burgers do you have?”
“We have normal, double, and OutROYgeous size versions of all our burgers, sir. The menu is right there.”
“Oh. Uh….I guess…uh…”
“…”
“…uh. I guess I want a…wait. How do you cook your burgers?”
“Roy’s Burgers are cooked medium-well unless otherwise described. If you want them more thoroughly cooked you can ask for Royally Done, or Well-Rogered.”
“Oh, uh…so I could get a burger and a coke Royal?”
“Sir, we don’t - we don’t cook our soft drinks.”
“Wait, you don’t have Coke?”
“We have Coke.”
“Oh. Uh.”
“…”
“…uh. I guess I just want a cheeseburger and fries with a Coke, then, please.”
“Alright, your total is 8.50. Thank you for ordering at Roy’s Burgers and Fries.”
This an entry by my brother, and the final one in the “Things come in three” theme of the week.
Be still, my heart
“Bad things happen in threes, Henry,” his grandmother always told him. "If the world has knocked you down twice, know the worst is not over.“ She had lived through the nightmare of apartheid as a half-black woman. She knew misfortune like an old relative. One you had to see at family gatherings, and were obliged to acknowledge, but never loved. She knew it like an old chair, uncomfortable and ugly but still somehow impossible to throw away. She knew two stillborn children, and the agony of anticipation as two living ones grew up and lived. And she knew cancer when it came for her throat. When radiation and poisons drove it away, she knew the icy grip of emphysema. And as she gasped and wheezed her warning of the tripartate nature of fate, she welcomed back that old relative, cancer. It took her bones and her brain and her stomach, and of course it took her life as well."Perhaps we just find comfort in the idea of rules, son,” his father said to him one day. "Perhaps the world makes more sense to us if we believe that fate has to follow rules; that fate exists at all. I don’t know if things happen in threes, but I know things happen, and I know how to count to three.“ They played catch with an old softball one year; with a baseball, another. They kicked a ball that was almost round and roughly the size of a soccer ball. When Henry was 15, they stole away from home and shared a 12-pack of beer and a couple blunts. When they came home the next day, they shared the matriarch’s punishment as well, grinning like the boy one was, and the boy one had once been.
"Bad things don’t happen in threes unless you just stop counting at three,” his mother told him, when his grandmother wasn’t in earshot. She knew the hardships of being the child of a de facto criminal. She knew what being bullied really meant, not this weak excuse for opportunistic parental outrage that was the fad in PTA meetings when Henry was a child. She knew the heartache of becoming a widow at twenty, and the empty sound the world makes when you gave everything you had to something which was stolen from you and broken in front of your eyes. "Bad things just happen, Henry. But good things happen as well, and if you try hard enough, you can find more good things in life than you’ll have bad things pushed upon you.“ She knew the pride one felt in hard work and a job well done. She knew the satisfaction of having the respect of her peers. She knew the value of a diploma, and understood the importance of never resting on her laurels. She knew what love felt like when it came back from years abroad, and knew what a relationship felt like when the mystery was gone but the respect and trust grew into something more.
"Things happen in threes,” Henry told his children. "Your great-grandmother always said so, and she knew more about life and its ways than anyone I’ve ever met. I found the love of my life when I was 25,“ he said, looking at his wife with a love that had never faltered for a moment. "I thought that was the best thing that could happen to me, but then I found a new love of my life when I was 30,” smiling at his daughter, “and again at 35,” and his son. "So remember, never give up - if bad things have happened to you, they’ll stop soon enough and the good will come.“ They laughed and played on the carpet.Henry’s first heart attack came when he was 41. He was at work late - late for the hundredth day in a row, growing gray with stress and worry - and found out that he was going to be let go at the end of the week. He remembered thousands of hours of hard work for the company; dozens of projects outside the scope of his job description that he’d learned how to do. He remembered careful budgeting and saving, and loyalty. And he remembered that the labor cuts were being done to drive up stock prices a dollar or two, and to provide an excuse for half a dozen executives to get multi-million dollar bonuses again. Then he felt the pain, like acid reflux, but sharper. Like nails being driven into his chest and gut, the hammer struck and the pain echoed, along his arm, into his shoulder and lungs. He had awoken in an emergency room, his beautiful wife looking like she had seen into some unimaginable void. She held him with desperation and helplessness for weeks, too busy holding him to hold her tears.
His second heart attack happened when he was 43. Diet and exercise can only do so much, his doctor had told him. At some point, it does come down to luck. You can make your odds better, and you can make it likely that you’ll live longer, but if you have more heart attacks while you’re still fairly young, then you need to know that they will kill you. In the aisles of a grocery store his vision went black, his breath came short, and his legs weakened. A cold, cold hand rested on his shoulder, white as chalk. White as ivory. As his frightened children looked to him through tears, he smiled and said, "Don’t worry for me. Don’t cry. Things happen in threes, remember? It will be okay. What does pain do?”
“It makes us stronger, daddy."And so when he was released from the hospital two days later, Henry’s first stop was to a lawyer to draw up a will. Because things happen in threes, and even if he couldn’t be there to see it, he would do everything he could to make sure the three lights of his life shone on when he was gone. The process was surprisingly easy, and the older lady had worked with his wife for a few years when they had both been in the HR department at a large textiles company. So he got a will drawn up and properly executed and filed for the price of some gossip and a cup of coffee. Peace of mind was never cheaper.
Driving home a few months later, Henry felt a familiar touch in his chest. The gentlest caress of an old friend come to take him away. His grandmother’s words - and courage - burned bright in his memory. Pulling into his driveway, he knew he had to tell his wife, had to say goodbye to his children. Had to turn his back on the only lights in the world. But he had been shown how to face the last minutes, and he would not go in fear or bitterness.He stepped from the car and hugged his children who had run out to meet him. The edges of his vision were indistinct, and breathing was becoming slower and more difficult. He kissed them both on their heads as they went to get the mail, and smiled at his wife as she stepped outside to wave at him. And probably smile, but it was hard to tell. There was a roaring in his ears now, and fever in his eyes. And some sort of shrieking or laughing. Turning for a last look at his children, he saw the roaring was not only in his ears just as the odd shape of his son pinwheeled away from the speeding van. Too many knees on those little legs. Too wide a face by far, too far back on the too-flat head.
Time….almost…stopped. As the ground rose to meet him - did he fall? No, surely not - his vision darkened to a tiny tunnel. One tiny light. Perhaps two. And a cold, cold hand, white as clouds reached for him. In the moment he died, Henry knew that bad things did not happen in fours.
This is one of my brother’s entries, and a continuation of “Things happen in threes”
Good things come in–I’m not going to say it.
“I figure if we use a 4"x4” for the primary arm we can keep the whole thing under a quarter ton, so it won’t be too hard to move around and won’t take too many sand bags to hold still.“
"Sure,” nodded Eli, “that’s fine. Probably no more than a twelve foot beam, right?”
“I was actually thinking sixteen, since we’re planning to keep the payloads under twenty pounds. A sixteen foot beam should give us twelve feet of throwing arm, which at twenty pounds gives us a little over 1kN-m at 3 gee, which is well within what pine should support.”
“Wait, you want to use pine? I thought we were going with oak.”
“Pine is like a fourth the cost, E,” Dana said with a wry grimace. "I don’t know how much allowance you get but I’m building this trebuchet on a budget.“
"OK, ok,” he laughed. "Pine it is. I was thinking that we should be using bolts instead of screws. My dad says his hammer drill will drive bolts just fine. He’s going to show us tomorrow after dinner, if you’re still coming over.“
"Of course. Would I miss homemade pizza night?”
They shook their heads in unison.
The conversation lulled, and they leaned back from the table, closing the folder to keep their myriad schematics from blowing away. Rocking slowly in wicker chairs, the friends stared vacantly across the yard, thinking about their summer project. The porch door opened, behind them.“Apple cider, kids?” Dana’s mom carried a pitcher in one hand, and two ice-filled cups in the other. At their eager nods, she poured until the cups were filled to the brim. "So what progress have you made on your…“ she looked at them sidelong, ”…‘water balloon launcher’?“
With the excitement of mischievous youth they rapidly explained how they had researched diagrams, called around to hardware stores to get materials pricing, and asked Eli’s father for help with the tools.
"It’s going to be so cool, mom,” Dana gushed. "E and I are definitely going to win the science trophy this year.“ She grinned. "We’re not going to lose to a stupid baking soda volcano again, that’s for sure!”
“Alright, dear. Just make sure you’re very careful with it. Even if you do actually just use it to throw water balloons.” She gave them a knowing look and headed back inside.
“Your parents should be here in about half an hour, Eli, to pick you up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Daniel.”
Quiet again, as they sipped their cider.
“Dana, what are we going to use to bind the frame beams? Bolts alone won’t be enough, according to the articles I’ve read.”
“I had an idea but I don’t know if it’s a good one. It’s cheap, at least.”
“Cheap is good,” he admitted.
“You know how my granddad did a lot of weaving before he died?”
“Yeah. Didn’t he actually make these rocking chairs?”
She nodded.“He used to teach me some things, and I remembered that if you have good vines, you can soak them until they get really flexible, then use them as a sort of rope. If you sear them with fire when they’re still wet, they harden up even better, but if you wrap them a few layers deep, they’ll get all gluey and hold really tight.”
“Oh, that’s awesome. That’ll save some money. But where are we going to get vines?”
“Well, there’s a lot of kudzu in the back lot,” she pointed. "If we took a hatchet or saw we could climb those older trees and cut some loose. Probably be good for them, too.“
Eli looked very puzzled.
"Dana, are you telling me that gooed strings come in trees?”
This is one of my brother’s entries, and a continuation of the theme “Things come in threes”
A Fool and his Wishes
Danny peered intently into the bright green eyes of the piksie hovering before him, gossamer wings a kaleidoscopic blur. He thought as hard as he’d ever done in his life. After a moment, he ventured a hesitant question to the tiny flying girl.
“So… ye mean I dinnae get three wishes?”
“How the…och, ye giant gobshite, what d'ya keep in that great noggin, old cheese? Feck! Damme if I’ll be explainin’ this to yer stupid face again. Bloody agreements with the sodding big folk be damned. Ye’ll get what ye desire, ye daft old bean, fer freein’ me from that old hag’s spell. S'how it works, how it’s worked since the fey and folk first met. Sod off home, ye beer-soaked, hulkin’ buffoon. When ye wake, yer desires’ll be met. Just like feckin’ magic, which it bloody well is.”
With that, the mossy-eyed fey flew away, disappearing into a swirling mass of autumn leaves. When they stilled a moment later, she was nowhere to be seen.
Danny looked about, taking in a deep breath of the crisp, cool air. Nodding - just a habit to get him moving, not to indicate he had any understanding of what just happened - he stepped back to the street with the deliberate air of a man who knows damn well how drunk he’s gotten.The sun’s light pouring through the cracks in his walls woke Danny, hours after the cock first crowed. Stumbling about his tiny hut, he flailed through his morning routine. First he stripped off his clothes from the night before, then splashed some water on his face from the one good bucket he had. But Drunk Danny last night had decided it was very important to rearrange things, so sober Danny got a handful of chamber pot in his face before he knew what he was doing. Spitting miserably, he grabbed the good bucket and staggered out to his mean well, relieving himself as hand over hand he hauled up buckets of clean water to wash himself. He’d nothing to eat again, so once dressed and somewhat clean, he picked some dandelion on his way to the mill, to ease the gnawing in his belly. Something tugged at the back of his mind, but Danny had been born stupid and learnt well that such things weren’t very important. He had to get to work, so he could get food. He’d been paid yesterday, so he had six more days until he could buy beer again. These were the things that mattered.
What *was* that he wanted to remember? A dream, was it?“Late again, Danny. Ye’ll be working until nightfall today, then. Here’s yer belt, put it on. Good lad. And now yer axe, good. Ah, ah. Saw. Good lad. Off ye go, then.”
Humming contentedly, Danny finished cleaning his saw as the last rays of evening sun faded away. Old Gran Aine had brought fresh barley bread for the workers today, soft and just slightly sweet, and she gave Danny an extra piece and a smile for the good work he’d done. Chewing happily on his slice of bread for supper, he walked back homeward, to start anew on the morrow.
“Oi! Oi, lad. C'mere, would ye? Me boys need a hand with a cart. Help us, would ye?” Danny nodded and walked off the road with the stranger, but when they’d gone perhaps a hundred paces, they came upon three dirty lads, and no cart.
“Uhh…is yer cart missin’, mister?”
Danny didn’t know he told a joke, but the men laughed all the same.
“Seems it is, lad. Seems we’re in need of a bit of help to get a new cart.”
“Oh, that costs money. I don’t have money, mister. I only get paid once a week.”
“Ah, but ye’ve shoes, and seems we need those more than ye. And that shirt - wool, is it? Warm. Wouldn’t do to be cold at night, aye?”
Barefoot and shirtless, Danny wandered lost, looking for the road to get home. His eyes stung from how dark it was and maybe the cold too, but he was a man and wasn’t crying, even though it was too dark to see the road. So when he tripped and rolled down a slope, he wasn’t surprised, even though his wrist had made a bad sound and now hurt. Clambering back up the slope, he found what he’d tripped upon; a still-warm body. A big man, all in hard leather and iron rings, still grasping an axe and a rod. The axe was wrong, with a cutting edge too large, and a backspike instead of a hammer face to counterweight the blade, but it was proper fine metal it was. Smooth and pale, unmarked though the leather-wrapped wooden haft was split as though it had been twisted apart.
The dead man showed no blood, and cold as he was, Danny decided it was better to take a dead man’s shirt than to freeze to death, alone and lost. The man wore a strange triple belt, which Danny took to keep the shirt - more a tunic, come to think - tucked properly on his waist. There was a purse, knotted oddly and unworkable to Danny’s stiff fingers, that stayed on the belt. Something about the rod called to him. As sure as he’d ever been, Danny took up the rod, and turned to go home. But he could not move his feet. Something held him fast. Something called his name, so quiet it didn’t even break the silence his clumsy fall had draped over the wood.The axe. A shame to leave such a beautiful piece of metal, even if it was all wrong. Even if it was going to be twice as heavy as a proper felling axe and like to stab him in the eye or shoulder if it bounced off a knot in a gnarled old oak. He took a step back, and lifted the smooth haft with surprising ease. The axe felt light, though he knew it was not. The leather was somehow old but smooth and unstained; the wood darker than any beer or bread and delicately carved with the shape of a dragonfly along the smooth grain.
Was that odd? Danny didn’t know. Nodding to himself, he tapped the hard leather of his breastplate to hear the toll of the demigaunt against iron rings, rolled his ankles in his well-strapped boots, and strode off, unerringly homeward.
The axe light in his hand. The rod heavy at his waist.
This is one of my brother’s entries and a continuation of the week’s theme: “Things come in threes”
The Death of Hope
There are three stages to the death of hope.
First, despite the odds, you believe that you can pull it out in the end. It’ll be tight, and you’ll have to work like hell, but it will be okay. Then you realize: no. No you won’t. It’s all gone to shit again like it always does, and you’ve fucked it up beyond repair. But maybe it won’t be that bad, you tell yourself. Maybe it will all work out for the best. You’ve got other plans; one of them will surely work.
Finally, you realize that it’s all completely fucked. Give up, abandon hope, unto your hands, o lord, we commend ourselves.
If you’re lucky, you have some time to realize the three stages in sequence. Maybe you have a few days or even hours to understand each stage and get used to it. At the lines of Gardu, you have maybe three seconds, all in.
The artillery shells burst overhead and, like the scythe of the gods, reaps a harvest in blood. Your lieutenant is suddenly hamburger at your feet, one of your drinking buddies from school is screaming because he’s misplaced a fucking arm, and as you look at the trenches a half a kilometer away and wonder if you can possibly make it there at a run with your pack on, you see dragonne wings fill the sky. This was supposed to be a glorious fight to protect the homeland, and a rousing show of gallantry and derring-do. As you dive face-first into a trench two steps ahead of dragonne fire, you inhale wet muck that smells like piss and death and burned flesh, and you realize that your hopes of victory, of importance, of playing your part to save the old kingdom, they’re all dead. Somone with a rifle and a seasoned air about himself stands on your neck in place of a firing step and fires off a few rounds from his large-bore weapon, probably doing nothing except guaranteeing that more dragonne fire will show up and maybe kill you before drowning in mud does.
It takes three steps to lose all hope. Yours is all gone before you’ve ever loaded your gun. When they call for you to go over the top that afternoon, you don’t hesitate because the hope is already dead. That’s how they want it, you guess. Otherwise they’d do something smarter than this slaughter.
This continues the week’s themes of “Things come in threes.”
The Field of Judgement
I call on Latakoya, the crone who watches the spirits of all who have gone before us; I call on her to witness this moment when Raven and Bear fight each other on the Plains of Bone and remember. I call on her to bring our ancestors to guide the warriors of the right and blind the craven of the wrong and sit in this place in judgement for them. With a feather from an owl, and a branch from a redtree, I bring here to this place.
I call on Ahamba, the mother of all who are; I call on her to remember the lives of those who fight. I call on her mercy for the trial ahead. I call on her rage. I call on her to bring the love of all mothers to this battle, and when any wounded man cries out to bring him quick peace. I call on her to watch for the brave and the cowardly and sit in this place in judgement for them. With hair from a horse and a branch from a willow, I bring her here to this place.
I call on Donaya, the virgin bride of all who will be; I call on her to remember and love all the sons and daughters who will never be after the knives still on the Plain of Bones. I call on her to bring the bravery of every son who has to be, every boy who will become a man and hear the stories of his father’s role in this trial. I call on her to grant honor to the right and acceptance to the wrong, as the sons of our sons would want to have it be, and to sit in the place in judgement for them. With this egg and this acorn, I bring her here to this place.
By the three, I bring you all warriors to the holy Plains. Step lightly, for here you feel the bones of warriors long gone to dust, and the bones of your sons who have yet to be. Fight bravely, for your ancestors back to the third generation and beyond are watching, and the sons of your son’s sons will live by the accord you reach here. By the three, let the trial begin!
This is a continuation of the week’s theme, “Things come in threes”
Three Blessings; Three Curses
The first old woman ran her broad thumb across the baby’s forehead. “Descended of demigods. His ancestors made the civilized lands howl. I give the gift that he will always remember each day that passes.” She hawked, spit. With a firm nod at no one, she stepped aside.
Next, an equally aged crone stepped up and measured the baby with a cold and calculating eye. “Strong. Healthy. His life will measure decades. I give him the gift of a century, to have time to achieve all his dreams.” She pawed at her sunken dugs, rearranging then in her thick wool toga, and then she too stepped aside.
The third woman was oldest, her hair so thin as to be nearly invisible and her skin a cyanotic blue. Her flesh all quivered and hung loose when she walked up, but her hands did not shake in the slightest. Her face regarded the little boy with the pitiless blankness of a glacier. Her mouth was drawn up tight like a miner’s pure, but she managed to force a wheeze breath out past it. “String is pulled and measure’s done. I’ll not cut til his race is run.” With a slow blink, she stepped aside, and all three quickly vanished into the crowds.
Thus was blessed Armin Plague bearer, burner of cities and destroyer of the Golden See. Unkillable by man or beast, but scarred, unloved, and driven mad, none can say what awful deeds he could have performed in a previous life that the Fates themselves should show up to curse him at his own naming.
This continues the theme for the last week, which was “Things come in Threes”
