The Great Tome of Fantastic and Wondrous Places: The Great Tome Series, #3

By Calvin Demmer, James Dorr, Ed Ahern and 6 more

The wonder and mystery of The Great Tomes series continues with The Great Tome of Fantastic and Wondrous Places. Volume Three of this collection features narratives revolving around the exploration of fantasy or alien locales in which the acts of exploration and adventure are central to the plot. This anthology features:

Arabesque by Ed Ahern
Autumn Road to Yessar by Tannara Young
Ice Vermin by James Dorr
The Catacomb Enigma by Jon Michael Kelley
A Hill on Which to Die by Joseph Vasicek
Low the Ascomycotan Sky by Deborah Walker
Fury World by Rob Munns
Tour of Duty by Calvin Demmer
Pawprints of the Margay by Vonnie Winslow Crist
Xaria by Larry Lefkowitz
Subter Dawn by Alva J. Roberts
The Caterpillar Princess by L. Chan
Captain Joseph Marlin's Adventures in the Spider's Web by Diana Părpăriță

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bards and Sages Publishing
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386406907

Book preview

The Great Tome of Fantastic and Wondrous Places

Edited by

Julie Ann Dawson

Assistant Editors

Julie Hedge, Jessy Roberts, and Asha Azariah-Kribbs

––––––––

Volume Three of The Great Tome Series

Bards and Sages Publishing

Bellmawr, NJ

www.bardsandsages.com

© 2016 Bards and Sages Publishing. Individual stories are © their respective authors and reproduced here with permission.

––––––––

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except as allowable by United States law regarding Fair Use (such as criticism, review, commentary, research and scholarship, etc).

FIC003000    FICTION / Anthologies (multiple authors)

FIC009040    FICTION / Fantasy / Collections & Anthologies

FIC028040    FICTION / Science Fiction / Collections & Anthologies

These stories are works of fiction.

Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or undead is coincidental and vaguely disturbing.

Introduction:

That’s a Warning

––––––––

Darwin and Cassandra avoided the mysterious chamber with its circle of still-burning fireplace and books that unlock themselves for several days. While the first book had been a peculiar intellectual curiosity, the second had been...rather unnerving.

Darwin had asked Cassandra if she was finally ready to file the 9R-3. They were almost a week into their six-week assignment at this point. And considering what they had discovered in the ancient library, nobody could fault her for wanting to bring in more experienced Scribes at this point.

Let me get some other research complete first, she had said while going through one of the drawers of the thing she had previously called a Card Catalog. It was close enough to an agreement that Darwin didn’t push the issue. He realized that she was just as spooked about the whole situation as he was, but she was stubborn and if he pressed the matter she would refuse just on principle.

Why do you think the ancients wrote stories like that? she blurted out as she turned off her datapad and plopped it on the table.

They were a violent people, Darwin replied. Maybe whoever wrote that book wanted future generations to know that.

It’s more than that. There is an entire section in the Card Catalog labeled ‘Horror.’ There are...hundreds, maybe thousands, of books with the same theme. What did the ancients get out of writing and reading such...terrifying things?

That is for the Crypto-Philosophers to worry about.

What if the earthquake wasn’t an earthquake?

Is this a riddle?

No, it’s a serious question. We were able to find this library because the earthquake uncovered that training facility, which just happened to have the one surviving paper atlas found in the last how many centuries? And the atlas just happened to have the information that was needed to locate this library? What if that wasn’t random chance? What if...what if whoever built that chamber, whomever wrote those books, planned this?

Are you finally admitting that there is something unscientific about this craziness?

Not unscientific. Science not understood. There is a great deal of lore about how primitive civilizations that existed even before the time of the ancients often misunderstood common natural phenomena as magic. We may have stumbled across a forgotten type of technology that simply appears to be mystical in origin.

So you think the chamber is, what? A creepy time capsule, and some ancient set the earthquake on a timer to go off now so we would find this?

It’s a working hypothesis.

Before Darwin could reply, they heard the chamber door downstairs open. A moment later, the smell of ocean air filled the library. Then they heard the cawing of seagulls.

Please tell me you just turned on an Environmental Mood Elevation program?

Cassandra shook her head and looked toward the hallway that led to the stairs. Possibly the program or technology supporting the books is set on a timer to...get our attention...of we ignore the books for too long.

We’ll go with that. Darwin took a deep breath as he watched Cassandra’s expression alternate from fear to intrigue to fear and, finally, to determination. We’re going back down there, aren’t we?

She answered him by walking down the hallway.

Of course we are, he said as he followed her. "Scribes."

Before entering the chamber, Cassandra sent in the probe to see if there had been any environmental changes to the room. After the probe confirmed that everything remained as it was, they cautiously entered the chamber. Cassandra sniffed the air.

The smell if coming from that book." She pointed at a book with a shiny green leather cover. As they walked toward it, the lock popped open.

I guess this one is next on the reading list, said Darwin.

Cassandra picked up the book and carried it upstairs. She placed the book on the table and opened it to the title page.

The Great Tome of Fantastic and Wondrous Places

Looks like we’re going on a trip, Darwin joked.

Let’s hope there’s a map, Cassandra replied.

The Catacomb Enigma

By Jon Michael Kelley

––––––––

At a dependable time every year upon the flattest and most arid of deserts, and right at the juxtaposition where the sand meets a pockmarked mountain known as the Catacomb Enigma, there comes a carnival of the same name, penned after its origins. And it remains there until the joints of its novelties begin to stiffen in the winds of a cooler season, whereupon it is disassembled and hefted piecemeal, by aid of rope and mule and pulley, up and back into the adjacent limestone warrens that will shelter it and its inimitable crew until the climate once again turns agreeable.  

It is a carnival that ventures in all unimpeded directions within the mountain’s shadow, its boundaries ebbing and flowing throughout the day as if upon some tidal influence. It is as mysterious as it is wayward, and those who have experienced the midway’s collection of conveyances come away with a strange and lasting reluctance to divulge the alluring details of their journeys, as if legally bound to some agreement of non-disclosure. It is the wideness of their eyes when reminiscing upon the Enigma that provides the most enticing endorsement.

And the carnies set the daily price of admission not to a standard currency but rather upon their own intuition, as they will individually assess each and every person’s deservedness with either a quick glance or a long, studied appraisal. Outright or reluctantly, most are deemed eligible. But a few are denied access, and without being offered any reason why are turned away with a flip of the hand. After all, these are the legendary carnies of the Catacomb Enigma  the very architects of its famously formidable miscellany of rides  and the rules, all be they mystifying, are legitimately their own to create, and enforce.

There exists the usual games of chance, of course, but none of them are gaffed because there is simply no incentive to rig them. Just as is customary at the admissions booth, neither coin or token is accepted when tossing hoops or knocking milk cans or guessing weight. Besides, this carnival’s most cherished prize is not a stuffed toy but rather a quantity of adrenaline rarely found outside its fluid borders.

And, like admission, refreshments are charitably free. It is only asked that each guest practices courteous restraint.

Mr. Garrity and his daughter Kay traveled there to embark upon one amusement in particular; to ride the back of a most famous creature and be whisked excitedly away into something hopefully humid and primordial. To soar with the pterodactyls; or, as Mr. Garrity naturally suspected, to ride upon (or, perhaps within) a contraption made to emulate such an extinct reptile and its methods of locomotion. The brochure was purposefully vague, leaving those kinds of assumptions to the imagination; a befitting approach, as the Enigma was alleged to be a springboard for such intangible states. Nonetheless, Mr. Garrity was sure the ride would produce a profound and lasting experience  despite the fact that pterodactyl was a term most people used to mean either Pterodactylus or Pteranodon, and belonged more to the general nomenclature than a scientific taxonomy, not to mention that never were any pterodactyl remains found of such a size as to accommodate a human rider. Both were common misconceptions, and Mr. Garrity promised himself that he would try and see them, at least in this case, for their recreational guise.

Kay, a young lady of nineteen, knew little of the Enigma and was just overjoyed to be pulled from her studies at university.

Mr. Garrity, a brash and bespectacled man, was a practicing paleontologist; an expert of things fossilized, and was really hiding his giddy enthusiasm behind an overdue sense of fatherly obligation to his daughter. Having attained a maximum height normally restricted to accountants, Mr. Garrity often compensated his short stature with a most prim and contained bellicosity.

He paused to pull a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dab his brow. The morning had little authority over the thermostat.

Ahead of them, tethered to a pole and forty meters high, was a steely, war-size dirigible, its skin a milky translucence, as if it were a snake about to shed. It hung leadenly upon the hot and torpid air. In large tasseled letters, once brilliantly yellow but now sallow, it announced:

WELCOME TO THE ENIGMA.

Below, a figure sat hunched and motionless within the shaded confines of a ramshackle booth; its head bowed, as if reading a paper spread upon the lap.

Kay stopped her advance, her shoulders drooping, and just stared blandly beyond the booth. I don’t know, Father, she said, her anticipation bruised. Maybe it’s just that I was expecting pretty calliopes and strings of rainbow lights, the sweet and mingling aromas of confections... She sighed. All I smell is the backside of a mule. 

She adjusted the tilt of her white parasol, then clucked disapprovingly as she glared down at the hem of her matching ankle-length pinafore, now singed the color of desert sand.

I warned you not to expect the quaint trappings of a county fair, he reminded. This is a carnival unlike all others. He smiled, attempting to reinvigorate her own. One that finally lives up to its billing, he said, as if he were actually a returning customer.

It’s a dump, she flatly admitted. Unabashedly and unashamedly.

Her father explained that its corrosion was simply a product of longevity, of weathered endurance, and therefore evidence of a thriving company that wasted little time on embellishments and went straight for the nerve. Yes, it appeared flimsy and most unkempt, he acknowledged, but just listen to the showmen shouting to be heard above the discharge of oily steam, the clatter of wheel upon rail, the barkers’ solicitous entreaties! And woven throughout this meandering and drably garmented spectacle, he promised her, was one vibrantly garish thread of pennants  and oh how she loved to collect pennants! Flags of every color and design from every town in every province, winnable from licensed dealers as the smallest of brooches all the way up to an impressive size requiring insertion into a heavy mount for support. He went on to explain that the peoples of these Northern regions took their solidarity to community and politics as seriously as they did their entertainment, and that there was always lingering in the air the stout, discernable presence of partisanship. Or so touted the brochure.

Unfortunately, it all must shoulder its way through the stench of a feed yard, she said, not through reminding him. And in the climbing heat, no less.

He clucked. Why they let their beasts of burden wander unrestrained is all part of the mystery, the unorthodoxy, I imagine.  He leaned in, and said in a hushed tone, If it’s any consolation, I hear rumor that those populations diminish considerably from the season’s opening to its closing. You think they’re shiskabobbing them when they run out of turkey legs? He laughed, and that finally brought a smile back to her face.

She continued to study the adjacent grounds. Thin crowd.

It’s still early, he said. Besides, since when did the prospect of sharing the company of more than three people become an event you gleefully anticipated?

Oh, very well, she said, careful to let her excitement return. Let’s go see what all the fuss is about. 

Upon reaching the admissions booth, Mr. Garrity noticed that the attendant inside was neither reading nor dozing, but appeared to be in some kind of trance; his open eyes glazed and fixed upon a single point somewhere between his knees and the limitless distance of his thoughts.

This attendant, a heavily bronzed man with a closely cropped and iridescently white beard, was wearing a one-piece jumpsuit of a pigment just this side of copper, as if in homage to the sand beneath them. So closely was this color match that, save for his whiskers, if he were to trip and fall he might be missed entirely. And upon his left shoulder was embroidered a strange cluster of staring eyes. There was also a nametag pinned to the right chest area, of which Mr. Garrity took routine notice.

More curious still was his facial skin; unusually supple and doughy, as if stricken with yeast and in the midst of rising. His hands insisted on an age of around sixty, but his face was far less convincing, as if it were a younger and barely passable replacement on loan while the original was out for repairs.

Mr. Garrity cleared his throat. Immediately, the attendant stood; the vacancies in his eyes filling liquidly with the images of the two patrons suddenly before him.

This is our first visit, Mr. Garrity explained, so if you’d please direct us

The attendant held up a hand, cutting Mr. Garrity short, then began mimicking his face by contorting his own into an identical countenance; that slack, malleable flesh parroting his features  and to a finer degree, his expressions  in a manner that wasn’t truly appreciated until the mind was left to return to it and play it over and over again, until finally realizing that what had just been witnessed and initially regarded as a cleverly dexterous demonstration was, in truth, a manifestation of something far more supernatural.

The attendant then pivoted, passing over Kay with hardly a glance; huffed, then waved them both in as he plopped back into his seat, then likewise into his catatonic meditation.

Once safely past the booth, Kay giggled nervously. That was certainly strange, she said. That...impersonation of you  to include your glasses, no less, with just his skin. Just how was that accomplished, do you suppose?

He was intrigued. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t a clue. But for just the briefest moment I had the most peculiar feeling of...nothingness. And I felt the slightest tugging here, he said, tapping his temple. Then he smiled. Ah, but a promising start to what is rumored to be an expedition through layers of mystery.

Well, he hardly noticed me, she said, disappointed.

"It takes little effort to see your virtue, he said proudly, as nothing exists to obscure it."

Give me a few more years, she promised. Besides, are you so sure that it’s the level of one’s inherent goodness that guarantees admission?

What else could it be? 

You’re thinking it a reward, she coolly offered, when it might very well in truth be our punishment.

That this is hell, or some variety thereof? He gave her a scornful look. You get that from your mother. She always gave the nod to darker alternatives.

Kay thought to defend her mother, but decided to leave it alone and let the blunt irony of the woman’s premature and most painful death steep affectively.

Just within the entrance was a rectangular sign whose size and color coordination implied that its message was important and not to be overlooked. It stated:

TICKETS FOR ALL RIDES ARE OBTAINABLE THROUGH THE OPERATOR AT THEIR RESPECTIVE KIOSK. PLEASE KEEP ALL BELONGINGS CLOSE WHILE EXPERIENCING THE UNDERGROUND RIDES

Overlaid in skewed fashion was a cautionary attachment:

WARNING: SOME UNDERGROUND RIDES ARE IN A CONSTANT STATE OF FLUX

She’d been taken completely off guard. "Underground?"

He was grinning at her, having anticipated this moment, and was now savoring her reaction.

After searching his face, she punched his arm. You knew!

He laughed delightedly. "As I was hoping you didn’t. I was counting on it, in fact."

And this ‘state of flux’? she asked him, appearing slightly anxious. What might that possibly mean?

Ah yes, a brief line of diminutive type on the brochure addressed this, he admitted. It would seem that there exists a very slight possibility with certain rides of their never, well, stopping.

"Never stopping?"

Now, I assure you, he said, that this is deliberate hyperbole of the most shameless kind. An attempt to ‘sweeten the pot’, as it were. 

And most effective, she admitted, especially given the rides’ unconventional location. She looked around. Well, that would at least explain the apparent shortage of customers. Most everyone has ventured below, I should think. She wheeled around, and asked, How many men do you suppose it took to dig the tunnels, Father? What kind of machinery? How many months?

"That would be a gargantuan task, even for the Enigma. No, I’m afraid they’ve simply exploited an existing network of subterranean caverns. The very same geology responsible for that," he said, pointing directly ahead to the cratered mountain, practically in rock-throwing distance.

Of course, she said. The catacombs. Do you imagine the lines being long?

It is my understanding from the brochure that lines are non-existent here. It was a bulleted selling point, as a matter of fact.

And was this brochure polite enough to advance an apology to those of us who are claustrophobic? 

I doubt the confines below are that restrictive, he said, placating her. Not to worry; you’ll do just fine. He laughed. Besides, I have the feeling you’ll be coming away with a replacement anxiety far more worthy of your concern. We both will. I’m counting on it.

Her step quickened and smile widened as she continued to marvel at the thought.

"Underground. How deliciously uncommon."

A woman with a starkly bewildered expression hurried by then, pulling behind her a small boy of about seven, angling toward the entrance and obviously intent on exiting there. In her determined wake the boy stumbled along (she’d called him Phillip), trying to regain both his balance and wits, as he appeared quite disoriented, as well.

No, not just dazed, Kay thought, but acutely shaken.

And Phillip was one of only two children seen that day, the other being another small boy of roughly the same age standing alongside a dull and sullen clown and his equally morose mule, having his picture taken by one of the jump-suited carnies. And the longer Kay stared, it occurred to her that the clown hadn’t so much assumed the brooding character of someone who’d simply become disillusioned with his career, but instead was imparting the disposition of an inmate who has grudgingly surrendered to the reality of his lifelong incarceration.

And behind them, providing the most popular backdrop for such occasions, as well as the company name, was that ever-looming, ever-photogenic cavernous mountain.

Mr. Garrity took the moment and explained to Kay that, according to the brochure, all the children’s conveyances were located on the surface. But after taking inventory and discovering a mediocre assortment of dated and uninspired rides, both agreed that given its lackluster efforts the Enigma didn’t appear to be especially amenable to the younger set.

A carnival antagonistic toward children, Kay wondered aloud.  

Well, that’s a bit unfair, countered her father. The better adjective would be ‘dispassionate’. 

Kay considered the revision carefully, then accepted it with a nod. Strange, regardless.

Yes, in a paradoxical way, her father agreed.  

They continued in, and to their good fortune the entrance to the ride they’d been seeking was one of the first encountered along the midway; an attendant beside a simple and seemingly pointless turnstile, beyond which directly followed a narrow flight of dirt stairs, carved completely out of the existing ground and twisting downward into a twilit gloom. The freestanding signage was large but tediously conventional, and completely lacking the sultry, tropical fronds and distant smoldering volcanoes one would naturally expect to find trimming the advertisements for 'pterodactyls' and their ilk.

FLY WITH THE DINOSAURS!

And this set Mr. Garrity into a mood.

Kay caught it immediately, as she was more knowledgeable about such things than most, compliments of a close and extended proximity to her father and his chosen vocation. And as often happens from such kinships, it was an unfortunate consequence that through this act of osmosis  facilitated of course by her father’s excessive eagerness to preen and prattle on  it was not just banal trivia she absorbed but also some of his narcissisms, and other traits perhaps not befitting a young woman.  

Leave it alone, Father, she cautioned him. "Something tells me you especially don’t want to agitate these carnies."

He puffed out his chest. My dear, you know what a stickler I am for semantics.

Kay rolled her eyes. Yes, but is it worth a bloodied nose?

A simple correction, he promised. The operator deserves to know that he is misleading the public.

This attendant was a man not so unlike the one encountered at the admissions booth; was, in fact, quite comparable in all appearances, to especially include that strange flaccidity in his face. The only measurable difference was his size, as he was considerably taller. His nametag stated TINSON in unusually large block letters, as if catering to a younger and more illiterate crowd were the expectation. Below the name was stenciled his designation in smaller type: OPERATOR. And upon his left shoulder stared a cluster of embroidered eyes, and Mr. Garrity turned to Kay and declared this recurring and most mysterious emblem as something to later discuss in depth.

The operator smiled winningly as they approached. Good morning, good morning! he barked. "Step right up and experience a world not seen since time was an infant! Feel the rush as you glide through thick and alien atmospheres wrought with peril! See below the thundering denizens that dwarf the animals of today in size and temperament! Muster your courage and take the reins! Come! Come fly with the dinosaurs!"

Yes, Mr. Garrity said, "the dinosaurs. He returned the operator’s smile with only a third of the warmth. That is a bit of a misnomer, if I may."

A what? said the operator, holding pleasantly steady.  

"These creatures, these pterosaurs, are not and were not ‘dinosaurs’, Mr. Garrity explained. They’re of a different order entirely."

The operator looked to Kay, as if she might provide him the template necessary to translate these allegations.

Kay just shrugged, chagrined.

You see, Mr. Garrity continued, pterosaurs lived during the time of the dinosaurs, but that’s where the similarity ends. Now, it may seem paleo-pedantic to some, but I insist that the correction be made whenever and wherever I encounter this error. I won’t bore you with the details, as they would be lost upon your apparent level of education, and it would be overweening of me to do so. Suffice it to say, both pterosaurs and dinosaurs are distinct groups that shared a common ancestor but diverged upon separate branches of evolution. He removed both his handkerchief and bifocals and began cleaning one with the other. "To call a pterosaur a dinosaur, Tinson, is the same as calling a mackerel a shark."

The operator had lost his smile entirely, and replacing it now was a scowl; an expressive species of facial formation that was commonly though mistakenly called a frown, he might have thought to say to this obsessed little man, but to the learned observer it was obvious that each had its own genesis in separate, stagnant pools.

Please forgive my erudite father, Kay said, lips pursed, as if something sour were being experienced. He minored in arrogance.

The operator remained silent amid a deafening mien.

Then, just for the briefest of moments, Kay witnessed Tinson mimic her own countenance, just as the booth attendant had her father’s. And, though fleeting, it was fashioned genuinely enough that she even glimpsed the telling rigor of her own mortification.

Tinson’s scowl had darkened, assuming a vengeful aspect.

Oh my, it appears that I’ve upset him quite terribly, said Mr. Garrity, seemingly delighted with himself.

You’ve done far worse than that, admonished his daughter. You’ve embarrassed him. And me, as well. Let’s just go. There are sure to be other animal rides available.

And far more obliging to contemporary theory, I should hope, Mr. Garrity said while flauntingly throwing one last look back at the distressed carny.

Tinson stared contemptuously after them, as did also upon his face the flitting visages of his carnival brethren, each taking a turn in roundabout fashion to cast a critical glance. But this carousel of visitations was missed by Kay and her father, and was perhaps deliberately timed to evade that scrutiny, as witnessing such a demonstration might have encouraged them to leave prematurely.

Kay had taken a quick peek back, as well, and said, We shall both suffer third degree burns upon the backs of our heads, she observed, if his eyes continue to burn holes in them.

Mr. Garrity sighed. Oh, but I so did want to ride the pterosaur, he bemoaned, sounding even more pathetic than he’d intended. Find me something as equally captivating to ride, he insisted. Preferably something extinct and whose generic name is only marginally easier to pronounce than its scientific one.

After a casual stroll observing some of the midway’s unremarkable booths and their equally mundane tenants, Kay abruptly stopped and turned to her father. Do you hear that?

Mr. Garrity looked expectantly around, as if it were his eyes of which she’d asked the favor.

Nothing out of the usual humdrum, he said, shrugging.  

Yes, yes, all the sounds indigenous to carnivals, she said, with some of them canned, to be sure.

Come again?

For instance, amidst the clamor I can clearly and presently hear the popping of an air gun. Someone shooting targets, or those looping foul. And I can hear the attendant shouting encouragingly amidst it all. But look around. There is no such booth or attendant in sight to account for the origins, let alone the proximity, of those sounds. 

He pirouetted around, quite deftly for a pudgy man; then more slowly a second time. I see what you mean. 

Kay then felt a disorienting swoon as she became instantly certain that those sounds were actually those of someone else’s experience encroaching upon their own, either adjacently in concurrent time or wafting over from some distant past or future; that the invisible veils that were perhaps designed to separate, or encapsulate, each patron’s visit were showing the same signs of wear and neglect as was the Enigma itself, and were simply prone to leakages.

Just cracks in the foundation? she wondered. Or, are those sounds and other stimuli being piped in with eerie and deliberate intent? 

And look! she said, just noticing. We haven’t been walking that long  yet that admissions booth and its dirigible are now just flyspecks on the horizon!

Mr. Garrity was nodding now. Yes, I’ve heard of this occurring. I was once told the Enigma maneuvers erratically about the sand, ‘not so unlike the way iron shavings are coerced atop a sheet of paper by dragging a magnet beneath.’

Kay appeared perplexed. Then who’s doing the pulling?

Mr. Garrity’s indulging smile resurfaced. Again, all part of the flavor. He held out his hand, directing the way. Shall we continue?

There’s one more thing, she said hesitantly, restrictively, as if in the midst of an eavesdropper. I’ve noticed that the face of every carny we pass is briefly overtaken by Tinson’s own  and he just glares. It’s as if

He’s watching us, he said softly, obliging her caution. Yes, I’ve been noticing as well, but I didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.

Well, alarmed I am, she said. It’s a bit unnerving to be stalked in such an anomalous and predatory way. 

Predatory? He leaned in, and said, Stop being a female for just a moment and remember where we are.

I can’t be sure anymore, she frankly admitted. Have you brought us to a carnival, or on some diabolical safari where, after the hunt, our heads are to become stuffed and mounted like trophies?

Glowering now, he said, If that is indeed the case, then one better have an accommodating wall upon which to hang yours, for its width would have to be substantial. 

She considered him carefully, then sighed. Really, Father, as much as I hate to admit it, you and I share a tendency to be most insufferable.

‘Superfluous’ might be the better term, he offered, but I hardly think we’re unbearable.

No, we’re quite insufferable, she insisted.

He clutched his heart then, and finally admitted, An affliction of the elite.

Then what’s our excuse? she said.

From a row of grey and listing booths directly across the way a huge, muscle-bound carny was waving them over, his designation more vendor than operator, as he appeared to be selling pennants; was, in fact, inundated with them. Below a frayed, checkered awning, and centered within the booth’s narrow opening, his size made him nearly a caricature. And although dressed in the same style of jumpsuit as were his colleagues, this carny was refreshingly different in that his face appeared taut, and much younger; certainly more handsome. But most different of all was the silver glinting from his hands, the left one especially, the light bouncing off the various bands ornamenting his meaty fingers, each ring stacked so solidly upon the other that it would have been impossible for him to affect any degree of dexterous function, unless it was just to fan himself or wave someone goodbye.

Or, wipe shut the open eyes of the freshly deceased, Kay thought  and there it was again, her grim preoccupation with death; a condition she’d been entertaining with alarming frequency. It had, in fact, become ashamedly addictive, and she’d come to suspect this fixation as having something to do  albeit belatedly  with her own mother’s gruesome passing so many years earlier, when