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On the Shelf: |
Behind the Counter: |
This Week's Special:
The
backyard is a dull grey blanket in dawn's blue. April loses her
shins in foliage heavy with last night's rain. The garden fork's teeth sink
into earth. April levers fork - the crackle of tearing roots and a tuber is
raises above canopy.
It
screams: 'Venus! Cock! Trap!'
April
removes fork, twists it 90° and stabs it into the tuber again. And again.
Slut
Root, or 'Dull Man's Drake', is a weed endemic to April's backyard. April's
front yard is mostly a heap of the dried tubers topped with a tarp, like
immodest boob with nipple tassel. Dried Slut Root tubers have an energy density
of roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram but are a slow burn.
April
throws her latest harvest/victim into the front yard pile to dry. Parked on
street with trailer, Kev leans on black
Toyota Prado. He has two coffees.
April,
thank you: 'You? A morning person?'
'I
have chores.' Rizz. 'First on my list, buy some firewood. The best firewood.
Click
of the tongue: 'Sorry, eftpos is down. Must be another software update. Perhaps
you'd like to barter?'
Passing
her a newspaper clipping: 'Oh, I would.'
Kev is a mortgage broker but
moonlights as Australia's leading K-Pop girl group: 'So I've got connections.
Bought a smaller, household prototype from Hanwha. Consider the opportunities.
Fast food could one day be delivered by drone, and you could shoot it down for
two-fifty. Fish and chips. For two-fifty.'
Yeah, that checks out: 'How
much do you want?'
'My trailer carries half a
ton?'
#####
Ryan slips
between dream and light, every roll comfortable with yeah, a little longer. His rational mind is amused by his sleeping
brain's murmuring, because they mean returning descent into sleep. He was woken
earlier but he does not recall how. He recalls upon the screech of 'seeemen deeemon'.
Ryan sculls bedside water
and turns the coffee on. Pissing out the door, he admires his backyard. It is a
crop rotation of illegal tobacco.
(The price of Ghost Tobacco
has continued to trend downwards due to this new supply. Ryan had hired a landscaper
to swap his backyard with an American Indian burial ground, atop which he
planted tobacco. Julielle had been
paid to negotiate with the undead strata. a cemetery just outside Kadapa favoured by US expats.
Ryan throws on a dressing
gown and, coffee steaming, strolls down street. He waits patiently through a
shriek of 'commuuunity kiiitchen' followed by laugh and start of chainsaw.
April eventually comes out front with a full kindling box.
Ryan blurs: 'You? A morning
person?'
Of course: 'I'm doing Dry
July. I have more energy in my mornings.'
'It's August.'
'If everyone did the same
sober month, there'd be an oversaturation of designated drivers.'
'Fair.'
Magdalene pulls up
in her Toyota Hilux. She used to be Australia's leading trans alchemy YouTube
personality but the algorithm has since fucked her. Not that she minds - free
of trend chasing and upload grind, she can pursue her side hustle at (still
rigorous) ease. Perhaps this inspired her throwing spice bag of Retrograde Amnesia
into pot of water before keys hit counter.
'But I'm still an
alchemist.' She assures. 'And I have a Potion of +2 Enjoyment Derived From What
You Enjoy.'
'Uh.' April chooses her
words. 'Have you heard of marijuana?'
'Everybody says that.'
Frustrated, but: 'What if what you enjoy is
smoking dope?'
'Still.'
'Now now.' Ryan tuts. 'What
did we talk about?'
(He had previously insisted:
'Accept every taker. The more this root gets around, the more word of mouth
about its accessibility.')
April: 'Fine. Fifty kilos.'
#####
Noon has risen on this
mostly clear day. April has removed jumper and Ryan has opened dressing gown.
They lounge on deck chairs in her front yard. They drink glasses of Lipton,
with ice cubes and mint garnish and Pina-Colada umbrellas.
Janessa and Shane
come skipping down the street. Their arms are linked and they each carry a
carton of beer on their spare shoulder.
Ryan demurs: 'There is no
image more wholesome than skipping with beer.'
'True.'
Shane does the brewing and Janessa does the
books. One tends to kids whilst the other tends to drunks, then they swap
roles. A microbrewery greater than the sum of its beers. Shanessa* have (has?)
become good at this dance. They do-si-do. They allemande left and right. They
weave the rig and box the gnat. They grand the wrong way but everyone holds
their tongue, pretty sure that Shane and Janessa are unaware of their own
dancing. The in-joke amongst patrons has grown customer base by 8%.
Alcoholics of taste are not
the only sentients to notice. A rearrangement of the heavens
had placed the Beer Gods' keg in the Square Dance Gods' hall. Their first week
had been icy, both parties cliquey and everyone wishing to work from home. Then
a moment from Heavens above (management): both parties sharing Janessa and
Shane's dancing, looking over to the other party and realising.
'Colab?'
'Colab.'
'Colab!'
Their enthusiasm was
somewhat premature. There was dancing, there was drinking, there was too much electro-swing.
The interns of respective factions produced a British sitcom's worth of
discrete hook-ups.
Still, they looked on the
tank of dopplebock and smiled. It became a West Coast IPA. Janessa waved down
the panic of Shane's tastebuds:
'Magic's happened before.
Let's sell it again.'
They tapped it and found
their regulars returning, driving licences unmolested, because they were
skipping home. Janessa and Shane canned a batch of +3 Skipping West Coast IPA.
The 7.4% alcohol increases confidence in skipping and the +3 Skipping improves
skipping. Shane and Janessa skip past April and Ryan.
April: 'Mo-ther-fuck. I wanted something to drink
tonight.'
Ryan chuckles.
#####
Overcast afternoon. April is
a salivating troll silhouetted in shed door. Eyes darting before she selects
her latest implement, a Dutch hoe:
'Hne hne hne. Amsterdam.'
The blade is plunged into
earth.
Muffled: 'The people's
dildo.'
The Dutch hoe has killed the
slut root and April is disappointed. Blue boobed. she unloads her dishwasher.
The doorbell plays Crazy Frog.
April answers the door: 'I
don't know who you are but you have a bottle of McWilliam's 'On the Grapevine'
2022 Pinot Noir. Come in.'
Elise and Todd take
stools (the sitting, uh, wooden kind) at April's kitchen top. They are
crypto-zoologists with a knack for uninvasively profiteering from their
research subjects. Low-hanging urban fruit has already been picked, much like
the Mirelurk dung, so they have been venturing further out. A stockpile of
lightweight firewood is therefore useful.
April empties bottle,
refilling all glasses: 'And what is useful for me?'
So. On the 16th, the lovely
couple (they brought booze, after all) had been walking down a main road when
heavy rain hit. Todd had brought an umbrella but it proved insufficient, so
they ducked into a convenient shopping centre.
Elise's white shirt became
transparent. Fortunately, their corner of the shopping centre was unoccupied,
no foot traffic. The Asian grocery was expanding into the space vacated by
Commonwealth Bank. There as a piece, elevated in the corner between tenancies,
where they could both sit. Todd expanded umbrella vertically for privacy whilst
Elise peeled off her shirt. The cleaner came by to empty the bin, gave no shits
and left.
The Gods of Public Sex had
long ago subscribed to Elise and Todd. For reasons. They hang around their
celestial water cooler, scrolling phones for shit to talk about, but that shit
is public sex. They talk about public sex - after all, it is public.
Todd and Elise kissed before
the umbrella popped. The Gods were indulging electro-swing
and their reaction was definitely premature. The umbrella became the Umbrella
of Sex Discretion.
'But.' Elise adds. 'All I
did was change my shirt.'
Todd: 'And now it looks like
this.'
April's
glass is done, so she's done: 'That's cute. 25 kilos.'
Elise: 'Mmm.'
Todd: 'Higher.'
Because the Umbrella of Sex
Discretion carries a list of other bonuses:
a) +1 sneak
b) Once per day, the wielder
can cast a giant umbrella that is used specifically for people doing it
and, c) just to cover all
linguistic bases, a +2 Gender Ambiguity and Everyone's Okay With That
d) +110% melee damage
'Hm. All right.' April
thinks on her feet. 'Four perks. 25 kilos a perk. 100 kilos for your penis umbrella.
Now, if you don't have any more booze, get out of my house.'
*Ew..
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