The Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua

Michael and Kristy had thought long and hard and decided to drop their criminal chicanery for mainstream employment, she in aged care, him in IT. The problem was that this was boring. They shared dinner at the dining table before Netflix on the lounge, mutually failed at their domestic duties, were intimate and communicative and healthy. The relationship was fine, it was the life that was boring, so Michael bought a brick of cocaine.

When Kristy saw the drugs: 'That's, what, two month's rent?'

But her eyes had returned to the old Yeah, let's do something stupid. Dealing with consequences is half the fun. The first consequence had been coke-dick - Michael could only get half erect, which was not fun. The second consequence was the mice.

Michael, incredulous, to his dealer: 'You cut the cocaine with what?'

The dealer: 'Self raising flour. Self raising flour contains baking powder. Cocaine is often cut with baking powder. Mice eat flour.'

Shouting: 'They were playing Sympathy for the Devil full volume at two in the morning.'

'Yeah. Cocaine. I can believe that.'

The rodents grew confident, shagging doggy-style on the kitchen table so as to as stare the humans down:  no coke-dick for us. Michael and Kristy disposed of the occasional mouse that they found in deep come-down sleep, allowing for some population control, but the cocaine fuelled fucking had already birthed the first generation of crack-pups. The remaining cocaine had been quickly smuggled away into the criminal warrens in the wall space and ceiling.

Kristy dons rubber gloves: 'Ok. We have an inspection in four days. We can't get rid of the mice in that time, but we can get the landlord on side if we tidy this place up. Above and beyond.'

The mildew between bathroom tiles is bleached, the carpet is shampooed, a line of roses is planted along the driveway. Their next target is a long dead tree stump, of roughly 42 cm diameter and 15 cm height, that occupies the centre of the back lawn. Their solution is an ad-hoc 'Swedish fire pit', chainsawing the stump into eighths and pouring meagre petrol into the gaps. Standing a metre away, Michael and Kristy take turns at striking and throwing matches. They succeed on their sixth attempt and, on the first night, they sit in the heat and light of the slowly burning stump, content with a few beers.

Michael: 'This is nice. We should do this more often.'

Kristy: 'Yes, it was a productive day.'

The ash smoulders in the morning as the fire continues to nibble into the roots. Michael and Kristy have neglected nature's cunning - particularly, a tap root weaving through the path of least resistance towards an underground aquifer or, rather, water pumped underground by a black market fracking operation based a few streets away. Some thirty, forty years ago, Jeremiah Forst had the ingenuity to detect shale oil beneath the suburb and the engineering chutzpah to discretely pump fracturing slurry underground, in excess, via a well-bore in his backyard. Jeremiah did not have regard for zoning laws or, for that matter, respect for the property of others or, for a-complete-fucking-nother* matter, the foresight to acquire the equipment required to then extract the natural resources.

Long story short, the burning tap root is a lit fuse leading to a high-pressure oil reservoir. On the third morning, Michael and Kristy find that the Swedish fire pit has become a ten metre spike of flaming hydrocarbons. Kristy unfurls the Catnip Page and lights the cigarette within, left arm cradling the neighbour's cat. Puss Puss is confused but unfussed.

Kristy: 'Someone is going to show up. He's probably going to try to get me in bed.'

Michael: 'An ex?'

'Noooo it's just what he does.'

Tom sprints through the hallway, back and forth: 'There are mice in these walls and. They. Have. Energy.' He places a chair beneath the manhole and ascends. 'Where are you bastards? Ooh, hello.' Snooort clack. 'Mother. Fucker.'

Tom eventually, begrudgingly, settles into a beanbag with beer, smoke and bandaged nose: 'Who the Hell puts cocaine on a mousetrap?'

Michael, thumb over shoulder: 'Behind the fridge it's mixed with ricin.'

Kristy scans the Catnip Page: 'We need something to snuff an oil fire. Do you have a small nuke? A colossal pot lid?'

'Oil fire?' Tom heads out back, notices the fiery spurt for the first time. 'Oh, Jeremiah, you dumb cunt.'

Michael: 'We have no idea who you are talking about.'

Tom takes a long drag on his smoke: 'OK, what you want is the Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua. Once upon a time, 2003 I think, a young man fell in love with a princess and, to get her attention, began setting fires. To each their own - I've never found monarchs to be remarkable in the sack.

Anyway, the young man's father wanted his son to go to uni, get a good job, chase girls sans extensive property damage. This meant keeping the son out of prison for multiple counts of arson, so the father spent his nights pursuing the son and extinguishing fires. The old man began to feel his age.

However, the father was something of a Walter White level chemist who, instead of cooking meth, broke bad via the occult. So he whizz-banged a few chemical patents, a couple mechanical, struck a deal with his personal daemon. The resulting extinguisher suffocates fire in minutes, whatever the fuel, range of up to two kilometres. But it also killed the fire in the young man's heart, who never loved again.'

Kristy: 'Sweet, yeah, that'll work.'

In exchange for the Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua, Tom will accept the Kaki Kirupatorikku, one of the Hakujin No Tabemono, a ball-and-chain flail currently owned by one Christian Holiday. Tonight, Mr Holiday competes in an underground mechanical fight club ala Robot Wars with more alcohol and fewer regulations. The tournament is being held in a warehouse in the slowly gentrifying ex-industrial area near the old port. The bouncer, a lanky teen with hedge-trimmer slung at his side, sizes them up:

'Can't enter unless I've seen you before, or you're with someone I've seen before.

Kristy: 'Ah, but I believe you're short a contestant.'

Michael, wrapped in alfoil, riding a child's tricycle and with replica Master Sword resting over his thighs: 'Beep boop.'

The bouncer crosses arms: 'Your bot have a name?'

Michael: 'The Wheelie Dealer. I mean, beep boop.'

The bouncer nods once: 'Speech recognition. Yeah, we need an eighth contestant, and your machine is short enough, let me call up. But artificial intelligence well educated in the modulations of human speech don't count much in the pit.'

The young couple, engineer and machine, are escorted to their cage. Kristy has her fingers through the wire mesh separating them from the arena:

'Ahhh, so it looks like most of the contestants are dudes on tricycles.'

Michael pedals in counter-clockwise circles: 'The left wheel keeps jamming.'

Tightening grip: 'And I reckon the Fort of Bath is just five pygmies under an upside down tub.'

'They could be midgets.'

Kristy turns, scowls: 'Dwarves, damn it.'

The cages open and the eight contestants enter the arena, beginning an assimilation lap ala GoGo Sweeper in VS Arashi. The Fort of Bath is the slowest of the entrants and Michael pedals past its broadside. The Fort of Bath extends an aggressive spike - a hypodermic needle taped to a stick - and Michael swerves away:

'Nope. No boop-beeping way.'

Then the gladiatorials begin proper. Daesh Bot, a remote control car with miniature Islamic State flag and C4, speeds towards Dumped in the River Styx, a shopping trolley possessed by the ghost of some sort of businessman. Explosives shred RC and shopping trolley and a spirit ascends from the scrap metal with a high pitch 'I'm freeeeeee...'

In the bleachers, Graham exhales smoke: 'Aah, did that work? Are we good?'

Sinead: 'Mmmmmaybe?'

Easter Sunday aka Christian Holiday swings the Kaki Kirupatorikku in circles above his head. Christian swoops towards the Fort of Bath and smashes the bathtub with a mighty slam of the flail head.

The commentator, over speakers: 'And in a shocking twist, the Fort of Bath turns out to be five pygmies and dwarves working together, on the way learning about respect, friendship, and that we're all not that different. It warms the heart but breaks the rules. KILL THEM.'

Christian raises the Kaki Kirupatorikku in triumph: 'I fear no needles for I have been to Tafe. Beep. Booooooop.'

Michael pedals into a tricycle joust with Jim's Miscellany. Master Sword clashes with electrified rake. There is no decisive hit and the two respectively spin around for another run but a bedsheet wraps around Jim's throat courtesy of the Bedsheet Strangler. Jim's Miscellany is jerked backwards off their tricycle and dragged by the neck for two minutes.

The Ghost of Stalin, with two colossal speakers mounted on its tricycle, begins to play: 'Rossiya - moy khozyain, Rossiya - moy brat. Rossiya polnost'yu uchityvayet motiv pribyli, yesli pribyl' oznachayet vremya, provedennoye za predelami GULAGa.'

The volume is such that the eight bedsheets wrapped around the Bedsheet Strangler prove no defence against the wall of sound. The Bedsheet Strangler's ears spurt blood  and they scream, although no one can hear you scream in Soviet Russia, bureaucratically speaking. The Bedsheet Strangler collapses and Michael rams the side of the speakers, which tilt and crush the Ghost of Stalin.

Deafening propaganda silenced, only Michael and Christian remain. They pedal a counter-clockwise adversarial circle, weapons ready and talking smack. Passing the cages, Christian notices Kristy with leering elevator eyes. Kristy points at her face with two fingers:

'Eyes up here.'

Christian smiles dirty at Michael: 'Your engineer has good veins.'

Kristy: 'Not what I was expecting.'

Christian, wistful: 'My real passion is phlebotomy - the decisiveness of the needle, frictionless blood, engineering a new ruby stream on a micro scale every time.  I'm wasting my potential on bloodless robots.'

Bingo, Michael cracks an excited smile: 'Well, perhaps I can offer you a wheelie good deal.'

Kristy groans.

Christian raises right eyebrow: 'What? Veins for..?'

'The Kaki Kirupatorikku. Ten minutes.'

'Twenty. The veins in the ass, nobody ever lets me at those.'

Kristy, bemused, whatever: 'Fifteen. Upper arm.'

Michael to Kristy: 'Are you cool with this, my little pachinko?'

Kristy to Michael: 'Morkie porks, you just crushed a man between speakers. My bloodlust is sated, take the deal.'

Christian: 'Are you, are you involved with your robot?' A sneer of disgust. 'Whatever, such is the lot of mechanical vampires to have strange bedfellows.'

Mechanical vampire. Michael panics: 'No, wait, I renege, keep your filthy -'

But Christian lands a kick to Michael's chest that leaves him winded and sprawled on the floor. Easter Sunday is declared the victor - the prize money had not factored in the negotiation. He is good enough to spend some of it on alcohol to calm Kristy's nerves during his fifteen private minutes with her veins. Her four quick shots of Grey Goose had been necessary but not because of Christian's needling, which had been professional and relatively painless. Kristy discovers that her blood type is O+, which she will raise with her parents.

The Kaki Kirupatorikku is exchanged for the Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua, which they intend to apply in the morning. For now, in the wee hours, Michael and Kristy make love beside the oil fire, serenaded by the screams of coked-up mice trapped in the burning rental home. They have done something stupid and dealing with the consequences had been most of the fun.

* Makin' words