On the Price of Slut Root

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$36 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$63 Fire Chicken Feathers (doz.)
₵$15 Bloody Mary	₵$16 Fine MRE Spice (p/g)
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$340 Four Pack of Beer
₵$28 Black Meat (g)	₵$20 Sex Doll Goon Sack
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$120 Bux. Semp. X Cannabis
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$47 Bottled Emotions (qt.)
₵$50 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$20 Self-Cooking Olive Oil (375 ml)
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$205 Brick of Cocaine
₵$29 Mythril (oz.)	₵$86 Memory Coffee
₵$14 BZTCN	₵$40 Christian Repellent

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..

The Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark

No points for guessing who made the Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark. He runs a landscape and property maintenance business, chasing the money trickling down from landlords of industrial estates, shopping centres and heritage buildings owner-occupied by accountants doing good, honest tax-evasion. Much like how some people smith medieval weapons as a hobby, selling these for beer money, Mark side hustles as an enchantress, adding further value by imbuing such weapons with properties of broken electrical wires or hydrochloric acid, flipping these enchanted goodies for whiskey money.¹ For those of you playing at home, that is a gendered occupation title.

Thirty-four days ago, Mark milled around his warehouse, hands fidgeting behind his back and cigarette butts trailing his path. His teams of grunts were out completing work orders, likewise the subbies, leaving him to wait for one of them or a client to phone with problems - unusually, none did, a circumstance that Mark had not known for 5.46 years and which landed him outside his comfort zone. The Glenfiddich sang its siren chorus from the break room cabinet but it was not yet noon. Then he came across the trailer awaiting a dump-run: decomposing weeds, scrap wood, paint buckets half-full of hardened gyprock, rusted air conditioner, a pool noodle. Inspiration quivered Mark's shins.

Enchanting is a matter of transferring a previously enchanted item's magical caveats onto another item. Mark used his spirit level to determine that a metre-long roller door (in other trailer, awaiting recycling run) carried a +4 fire damage and a curse wherein the inflicted fire damage would be returned to the inflictor's crotch. That this roller door came from a client's smoker's yard suggests a worrying state of that workplace's politics. Then the enchantment simply required separating the +4 from the curse - proper demolition is separating trash from that which is useful to yourself or those with money. A quick incantation: badda bing, badda boom (not the incantation, btw) and Mark held aloft a gently flaming pool noodle, which he left in the gent's perpetually flushing urinal so as to not burn down his warehouse.

The Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark has quietly simmered until now, a day like any other i.e. someone phones with a problem.

Mark answers: 'Yep.'

From the worksite: 'Heeeey.'

Voice leaning angry: 'Yeeeep.'

'We've set up the cabinets and we're finishing off the windows. We've laid the carpet tiles along most of the hallway buuuut the ones in front of the toilet keep flying onto the ceiling. Fit right next to each other. Immaculate craftsmanship.'

'Clean up, you're done for the day. Finish the carpet tomorrow.'

Mark hangs up and dials a number not in his phone but memorised. He had made Graham's acquaintance nine years ago, when a prostitute double-booked and left them in the foyer whilst her pimp, panicking, brainstormed ways to keep this book keeping error unknown to the gossiping circles of the Pimp's Guild. Mark had been understandably irritated, impatient with anticipated cocaine wear-off and (cocaine) chatty, but he was struck by the silver fox seated opposite, quietly rolling catnip-and-tobacco cigarettes. They got talking, recognised entrepreneurs in each other: turns out that Graham is a medium and now Mark's go-to exorcist.

After dark, Graham uses the worksite's street number to open the key box and thereby unlock the front door, lighting a cigarette of Ghost Tobacco upon his entrance. Sure enough, near the toilet, a reaching hand materialises in his exhale. Graham accelerates the smoke with a sharp drag before offering it to the disembodied limb. The hand clutches, moves cigarette midair before the flame brightens again - smoke is inhaled downwards through faint ectoplasmic form and gives mass to lungs, then veins brain stomach spine then, ooourf, engorged anus. A bit later, a second offered dart of Ghost Tobacco has fully visualised the ghost of a grey-haired tradie, who sighs content:

'I hate to smoke on site, unprofessional, but I think that was my unfinished business.'

Lo, the ghost passes on to the afterlife. Next afternoon Graham arrives for payment at the warehouse of Mark, who gets one of his grunts to rinse off his fiery noodle before giving it to Graham.²

Graham sets up the joke: 'What am I supposed to do with this?'

Mark plays the role, whiskey held aloft: 'Sell it.'

'To who?'

The Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark shall be sold to Kev, who announced his life's ambition when to family when he was seventeen: 'I shall be Australia's greatest K-Pop girl group.'

His father had played dull patriarch, ruffling newspaper: 'No Noongar man will ever be a K-Pop girl group.'

His mother had actually listened: 'Group?'

But his auntie, a bit crazy and thereby the sanest of the lot, suggested: 'Low lying fruit, but not big money. Bit on the side?'

So Kev nine-to-fives as a mortgage broker to pay for tyres, pet insurance and, get this, a mortgage. He side hustles as Australia's leading K-Pop girl group on Friday and Saturday nights and every third Sunday afternoon. Kev performs for artistic kicks and drink tickets, so he seeks out the receptive audiences and better atmospheres at weird pockets of suburbia, where people seem to gather to exchange goods-not-explicitly-illegal-but-still. Coincidentally or otherwise, these audiences are more generous with commodities thrown into top-hat: El Dorado Green, which Kev is partial to, Bloody Mary, the hangover cure he begrudgingly indulges in occasionally, or Ghost Tobacco, which Kev has no use for.

It will come to pass that Graham and Kev will meet after a gig at Felicity's, over respective lager and dopplebock. K-Pop is not really Graham's thing but his toes discretely tap within shoe during Kev's requisite arrogant dance, so they will get talking, which will become bartering. Ghost Tobacco is a tool of Graham's trade and he will find an opportunity to buy two month's worth. Kev will find an opportunity to take an opportunity: he will, elsewhere, be offered a black-market gig at a warehouse pool-party but be unsure of this career booster because of safety concerns regarding large scale illegal gatherings, also the possibility that his performance could go badly. The Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark, however, is a casual floatation device which, in a pinch, can be lifted from water to ward off aggressors, or be a cool prop. A trade will be made.

 

1. Technically, he barters these enchanted weapons for esoteric spirits (pun intended) so as to keep these exchanges unknown to the taxman and the wife.

2. Everyone knows how this sounds.