A Case of Syrah Syrah

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$27 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$220 Four Pack of Beer
₵$20 Bloody Mary	₵$21 Sex Doll Goon Sack
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$122 Bux. Semp. X Cannabis
₵$20 Black Meat (g)	₵$55 Bottled Emotions (qt.)
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$30 Self-Cooking Olive Oil (375 ml)
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$255 Brick of Cocaine
₵$35 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$62 Memory Coffee
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$17 Christian Repellent
₵$31 Mythril (oz.)	₵$75 Anti-Flimflammatory
₵$9 BZTCN	₵$9 Extrasolar Teas Box

This Week's Special:

In a golden age, long ago, there lived a precursor race known as Boomers. A sect of this people engaged in a ritual known as 'swingers parties'. They would hang their coats in something known as 'parlour', a decadence since lost to subdivision, before swapping their jollies. Magic happened in one such parlour, of the wholesome dick-on-clit variety.

Magic Coat Hangers happened. Two went to the Dunbars, who brought a wine to drink and a wine for the host. Two went to the Murphys, because he was nice but batting above his average. Two went to the Hands, who had moved into the cul-de-sac two days prior and excused themselves as best they could.

Thirty seven Magic Coat Hangers were created because Tinder and its gay prototype tapped into certain markets. Two have since been destroyed and three are unaccounted for. North Korea has one.

Why should anyone give a shit? If someone hangs clothing on a Magic Coat Hanger in closet, said clothing will be in any closet which they open. This is useful for people inclined to wake up in other people's beds and make hasty getaway in clean clothes. Such people often leave Magical Coat Hanger in their haste, which leaves it with their snoring host.

'I've come into ownership of three Magical Coat Hangers.' Mamta tastes Syrah Syrah. 'Through barter.'

Felicity does not quite hide jealousy: 'Sure. Speaking of barter, gimme' a coat hanger?'

Felicity is offering a Case of Syrah Syrah, which she does not recall buying but found in her cellar. Or, rather, five bottles, because one has been cracked for tonight's sampling. Notes of plum, tobacco and wine. It is the most syrah of syrahs.

'Which,' Felicity reminds, 'really makes someone appreciate our unique Australian shirazes.'

Mamta does not disagree but silently weighs previous offers, eyes behind glass of blueberry, anise. Tonight is not the grand opening of Mamta's new bar - that is pending. This tree house is built in the commons of a commuter town (population: village). The car park was once used for a small primary school. A light drizzle arrives and smokers cluster cigarettes under branches.

'I have a spirit level. And a string level. And a laser level.'

            'Everybody knew that Mr Squiggle was a coke head.'

                        'Which is why Pornhub doesn't have an amputee category.'

There is no roof, so Mamta considers Marks offer of Impossible Ceiling Tiles. Mark had hung T-Bar as part of a restaurant fit out, using a laser level for precision of height. The ceiling tiles were not forced into rails but they gave that impression. Straight rows became zigzags, the flat surface curved in waves, competing centres of gravity dragged gaze this way and that. The relativity of Escher was not part of this contract.

Mark replaced the tiles until the ceiling looked like a ceiling. He boxed the offending tiles until because they were still clean and someone may want easy psychedelic decor. Mark offering this box for three Magical Coat Hangers, which Mamta thought a bit steep. But Mamta loves the market and if you love something you should let it be free.

Dr Woke has also expressed interest in the Impossible Ceiling Tiles, having grown bored with his lair's plain volcano cavern roof. He cannot justify any new renovations after a complete refit earlier this year. Unless he has something to celebrate. Like money.

Dr Woke's most immediate path to money is Protocol: Microscope. This involves threatening world leaders with the release of a patent into the creative commons. This technology can reduce the cost of microscopes by 90%, so it will be commonplace in a generation. The caveat will not be obvious until commonplace: these microscopes glitch at 400x to 1100x magnification. Nobody will be able to see chromosomes, a disaster for certain genetic-disease specialists but super-villains will super-villain.

'And, World Leaders,' Dr Woke has rehearsed in mirror, swirling prop glass of S. C. Pannell 'Dead End' 2021 McClaren Vale 2021 Tempranillo, 'it is biological fact that Woman is cross and Man asks "why". No historian can locate the concepts "male" or "female" earlier than the 1880s. No child has differentiated the genders before learning of chromosomes. Those non-westerns on that island, firing bows at visiting helicopters, are a culture of polyamorous bisexuals.

That is my threat. A world that does not know its chromosomes will not know its genders, sexes, pfft. Extra flesh on chest may make extra flesh between legs turgid but not lead to fucking, because half chance gay. And gaybos won't fuck straights.

Only the bisexuals will comfortably fuck, once they fumble into a decent position. You best hope the stereotypes are true if there is to be anything resembling a birth rate. Is that what you want? A generation raised by frisky bis?'

World leaders will not. Magdalene feels otherwise.

'Fuck yeah fuck yeah fuck yeah do it. I'll be in your debt. We'll do an indentured servitude - ingredients in, potions out.'

Yvette had shown concern with Magdalene's enthusiasm: 'Could I put in a counter-offer for your future?'

'Eh? Sure.'

'So I've recently come into possession of a bathroom.'

This time it is a handicapped/family toilet. It had been graffitied overnight, tags on the fold-out changing table sticking out like trashy navel tattoo. Yvette sprayed Muck-Off and wiped with microfiber. A faint stain remained on the changing table in the graffiti's shape. Yucky.

The next tag was on the hand dryer. She sprayed, she wiped, then she sprayed water and wiped with a second microfiber. Most of the graffiti was removed but what remained mixed with the hand dryer's paint, becoming sky blue against the wall's PSU. Hm, well, Yvette fished white paint from the shed and applied layer of cream, make of that what you will. She hung a 'wet paint' sign before returning to her rounds.

Yvette emptied the shopping centre bins and cleaned miscarriage off the ladies toilet floor.* The handicapped/family toilet was hit with different tags: the changing table, the door, the 'wet paint' sign, which felt personal. Whatevs, Yvette Muck-Offed the graffiti as best she could and rolled the door fresh.

Yvette had lunch and watched a nutrition tier-list video during her cigarette.  Fresh tags appeared on those faded. Fucking school holidays.

Yvette finished the Much-Off and texted before-and-after photographs to the boss, who charges for this work. She binned the microfibers and kept the graffitied 'wet paint' sign as souvenir. Yvette's shift was done.

The process repeated the next day.

Something happened, of the Ship of Theseus variety. The freshly painted bathroom remains at the end of the breezeway, convenient for anyone's pooping. Piece by piece, however, the graffitied bathroom discretely stepped outside reality. Whoever carries the 'wet paint' sign owns the paradox bathroom. Whoever owns the Paradox Bathroom steps into it upon attempting to access any conventional bathroom. This is not useful for someone who needs to access toilets, plural, for their work.

Now, Yvette finds Syrah Syrah overrated: 'And you could do with more space for your alchemy.'

Magdalene growls agreement through her drink. Potions have spilled from her overfull shelf. Through tactical postponements the rental agent has not seen the kitchen glow swamp green during a waxing gibbous moon.

'What, I propose,' Yvette continues, 'is that you use this personal bathroom to make a certain potion.'

Said potion fundamentally alters the drinker's appearance to that of the DNA (gross) added. By applying CRISPR-Cas9 to a piece of drinker's own hair, the potion can fulfil certain aspects of the drinker's appearance. For reasons beyond Roland Barthes, however, the potion which fundamentally alters appearance is brewed in a female's toilet.

Magdalene is cross about this problem. Why? Never has man been able to sate his oh-so-desperate bowels in the sacred ladies' shitter. No man may enter to clean shit off those temple walls. Yvette herself cannot enter the gents  and so must work with a useless man called Aaron. This double-hiring of cleaners, extrapolated for every public toilets, is the sole driving force behind inflation.

(The only unoccupied female toilet that Yvette can recall is on the third floor of her former employers. Said toilet is currently patrolled by Amy, with drill gun: 'Come on out, penis allegory. This is a safe space.')

'But owning this Paradox Toilet will make it yours. A woman's. The ladies.' Yvette continues. Again. 'So you will be able to make Polyplus Potion. And you want to. Maybe for your customers to try out, see if it works. Or perhaps to ease the strain of those earlier, gender dysphoric days. Or perhaps to provide some customers with a lifetime supply, get your own indentured servants.

It could be done. It could be cheaper than existing options and you could still profit. Profit which you'd share with me.'

'Such enterprise would be non-profit.' Magdalene also finds Syrah Syrah to be so-so, but she knocks back her glass. 'But I appreciate the offer.'

Yvette suspected this possibility. Perhaps her profits lie in added values, such as her dabblings in sex lives. Otherwise, she has shown the Paradox Toilet to Cameron, who remarked:

'I could make drugs whilst shitting.'

And so the night continues in this would-be tree house, drunken chattering:

'But with a potion of Perfect "Eyeballing It" you can look good.'

            'Hardly the worst thing done by an Australian children's entertainer.'

                        'Oh - fuuuuuck.'

Someone has leaned too far on the railing and Mamta pours a shot of Monkey Booze. Everyone hears the oomph, 'that hurt' and the shot goes down. A tractor crests over the hill and Steven is still winded. The last thing he sees is headlights.

'Whoa.'

'Gnarly.

'He was a cunt.'

 Mamta is going to have to shut this bar down and start a new one. She will therefore not need the Impossible Ceiling Tiles and the market vibrates with repercussions. Mamta pours herself a Monkey Booze chaser. This drink is known as a Purple Spark.

 

*Ed: this actually happened, paramedics and all, in the handicapped toilets three months ago. 

Value Added

Ryan Johnson told all his teachers to get fucked in Year 11. They had stopped caring if he was right or wrong or learning, which he was, having mathed the fastest route along the six points of profanity and into expulsion. Anything the school could offer was quicker over the internet and worth less than the title of 'bloody cunt of a legend'. That social standing had translated into a network and a step into employment ahead of those who had preferenced their grades, many now languishing and left behind over the past eight years.

Walking through the university does not sting Ryan with regret but he feels like a tourist. The blokes at the warehouse are always theorising about millennials of totalitarian political correctness but Ryan reckons it's just fashion - different clothing, mannerisms, cultural activities. Students bitch about the plight of transgender Eskimos in order to fit in, get along, get by and get laid. Fuck, man, Ryan knows he could give a shit about anything if it got him in the pants of these uni girls. No, these uni women - no mere girl fills jeans quite like that.

Onto the coffee shop, where Carl Reid has already ordered for both: 'A good morning for some wood, Ryan.'

Indeed, Ryan has a subtle bulge: 'How are you not straight, surrounded by - ' pointing eyes at a passing pair of wiggling asses ' - all of this?'

'I experimented during my youth.'  Sliding over the newspaper. 'Cops found fifteen acres on a Victorian property. Five point eight mil.'

Ryan sits, scans the story, that's good coffee: 'Doesn't affect me. Started because of a tax fraud investigation and, besides, their product is a matter of volume. We provide quality, add more value.'

Meaning chop-chop, black market tobacco. Ryan has a mortgage on a quarter-acre wreck on the suburban fringe, having converted the backyard into a tobacco crop (value added) and renovated the garage into a small tobacco barn (value added). 'Chop-chop' is so named because of the minimal processing (a tobacco shredder from the U.S. adds value) but Ryan also applies home-made organic pesticide and fungicide (value doubly added) and an aniseed glycerol (value added) whilst curing. Sure, the shelf-life is shorter but the nicotine hit is more natural, healthier, less addictive.

None of these added values matter much to the blokes at the warehouse, who aim for the cheapest convenient hit every two hours. Therefore, the market for Ryan's product is the young affluent with money to spare, pleasure centres unwarped and appearances to maintain. A chance drunker encounter (Ryan had been flirting with Carl's wingwoman) established this market in Carl's network (value added) with Carl's brand (value begrudgingly added). That queer bastard (both technically true) appeared to have more money than sense but, on later reflection, seems to have the sense to make some money from his appearance i.e. sell shit.

Ryan produces a small sandwich bag with this batch's sample: 'Back when Australia had licensed growers, before our time, the profit was in the stuff sold on the side.

Carl spreads a pinch on rolling paper: 'No licences therefore decreases the illegal supply, then they increase the tax.'

Nodding, smiling, he gets it: 'Which makes the crop on the back acre high risk, high reward.'

Carl lights for three seconds and quaffs: 'Good man, tastes just the same. I suppose there are still the smuggled darts.'

Ryan smiles polite, the product has been consistent for two years now, begins rolling his own: 'They tend to come from China or Indonesia. More for the pack-a-day guys.'

Carl twists to rest his left arm over the chair-back, has another drag. He cuts a handsome figure in a yellow shirt, skinny jeans, clean shaven and Wil Anderson hair. Ryan reminds himself that he is dealing with a young queer (never use 'fag' unless everyone else in company has) with all the emotion and ego of a uni student. Thus Ryan continues:

'Smuggled cigs are convenient when you know where to get them. What you want to avoid -' Remembering Steven, the brief mentor and right Ivan Milat motherfucker, '- is stolen ciggarettes. Bad crowd.'

Carl exhales, sets up a joke: 'That just leaves vaping.'

Ryan takes the cue: 'Vaping is for pussies. And gay men don't go for pussy.'