Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

MV Seaflake was a charter boat operating out of Shortbeach on the US gulf coast. It was generally rented for fishing expeditions, but had also been used for diving, hauling light cargo, and other odd jobs. On one memorable occasion in 1972, the boat had served as a scab, shrimping with makeshift equipment as part of the management response to the Gulf Coast Shrimp Strike of 1971-72.

On September 6, 1977, the MV Seaflake put out on what was ostensibly a fishing charter. Other boats around the marina recalled the skipper, Joseph Andrews, arguing about money with an unidentified man; they assumed it to have been the aggressive haggling that Andrews was infamous for. In addition to Andrews and his passenger, three other hands, all regular part-timers for Andrews, were aboard.

According to the harbormaster, the MV Seaflake was supposed to return from its charter in 6 hours. When the ship failed to appear after 12, a search and rescue operation was initiated, one that was rapidly complicated by the formation and arrival of Hurricane Cecelia, a Category Three storm, in the gulf.

A small skiff, manned by volunteers and coordinating with the Coast Guard station at the Shortbeach Light, located the MV Seaflake seventy-five miles off course. The vessel had a slight list, and was completely abandoned, her engines disabled for want of fuel.

Photographs and affidavits confirm this part of the story. However, wilder tales soon emerged of a lower deck slick with blood, mysterious packages in the hold, and a “black motorboat” shadowing the rescuers. In any event, no survivors or logs were recovered.

With Hurricane Cecelia bearing down on the rescuers, they ran a tow line to the MV Seaflake. The outer bands of the hurricane snapped the line, however, and the ship was last seen drifting into the eye of the storm.

It has since been regarded as one of the preeminent ghost ships of the area and era, thanks in no small part to the wild tales spread by its would-be rescuers that could not be disproven without the craft itself.

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“My name is Penrose Ridgebear, and I run the Merovingian Lodge,” the woman said. She was solidly built, with the ghosts of her accustomed outfit writ large on her skin.

“Pleased to meet you. The name’s Sam McKeone, but everyone calls me Sproutt.”

Penrose ignored Sprout’s out-thrust hand, offered at an upward angle due to her height. “Do you know what the Merovingian Lodge is for, Sproutt?”

“Tourists?” Sproutt said.

“It is a working wilderness lodge for serious birders who have traveled here, sometimes across our larger oceans, to try and catch a glimpse of LaSalle’s Warbler. It is carefully managed and curated by myself, and others, to preserve the delicate environment the birds need.” Penrose flicked her eyes down at Sproutt, then back toward the carefully curated trail he had wandered off of.

Sproutt looked down. “Ah, I seem to have…yes.” He waked over to the path. “Good as new, eh?”

“If Fish and Wildlife sees you doing that, they’ll close the reserve, cost me thousands of dollars, and leave me with very angry customers from far distant lands. I don’t like having enemies abroad, do you?”

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“So what I’m wondering is, why is this a matter for law enforcement?” Officer Faltermeyer said, squinting at the object in front of him, thumbs beltlooped.

“What I’m wondering is, how is it being powered?” Officer Hickenlooper said.

They’d gotten the call from MetroMart, concerned over unauthorized merriment that didn’t fit their corporate image–their store manager’s exact words to Jimmy Przewalski, the dispatcher. Two squad cars had responded because it was a slow Thursday, and they’d found an old drywall bucket filled with cement with the lopped-off head of a distinctly deciduous tree set in it. It was gaily strung with cheap LED lights, with the wires disappearing into the cement to draw their juice from a hidden, secret source.

“I guess it could be a bomb,” Hickenlooper went on. “Seeing as it seems to have some source of internal power.”

“You think someone would go to all the trouble of making a bomb in the shape of a half-assed Christmas tree?” replied Faltermeyer. “If they really wanted to hurt people, they would have spent ten dollars more for a whole-ass tree and put it at the front.”

“Well sorry, I did not realize you was an expert on bombs as well as Christmas trees,” Hickenlooper whined. “Did you get your Doctor of Trees degree first, or was it Doctor of Bombs?”

“I think someone had a vision that they lacked the arboreal and electrical skills to fully realize,” Faltermeyer drawled. “And upon this sobering realization, they abandoned their creation to which they had given light and life, much as the modern Prometheus Dr. Frankenstein spurned his own creation and recoiled from its ugliness.”

“Doctor of Trees first, then,” Hickenlooper said. “Sounds like there was an English major in there too someplace.”

“If you can’t liven up a weird-ass call on a boring-ass Thursday with a little rhetoric, then what are we even doing in the world?”

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Scattered leaves from a late fall storm
The last of autumn all come at once
Branches laid bare over carpets of orange
Optimism looks at the snowbirds
The frost, the fiery early dusk
In passage of the seasons, beauty
But pessimism lingers, a reflex
Twenty-one months in the making
Is this the Last Autumn
The snowbirds dwindling, last hope fading
The winter of a warming world come forever

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Neododo
Bred beginning in 1853 by an eccentric nobleman in Shropshire, the Neododo is too large and heavy to fly, while falling considerably short of the mass and height of the extinct dodo, a relative. Lord Hawley’s ultimate project, to reintroduce a bred-back dodo bird to Mauritius for the purposes of establishing a meat industry, was never realized.

Bloodove
As omnivores pigeons can eat meat, but they often prefer vegetable matter instead. This breed, originating in Montana, was an attempt to breed a pidge-of-prey that exclusively ate meat and was able to take living animals. The idea was to establish a bird-fighting ring, but a small population of pigeons that subsisted on carrion was as far as the idea got

Colombe de Levage (Lift-Pidge)
Originating from the Argonne in France, this was an attempt by the French Force de Pigeonne to increase the carrying capacity of carrier pigeons through selective breeding. While they succeeded in quintupling the birds’ cargo capacity by 1888, this was at the expense of range, as the overloaded birds could barely fly a quarter of the distance, leading to the discontinuation of the breeding program by 1910.

Megacoo
Bred in San Francisco by a financier who missed songbirds and was bedeviled by feral pigeons, the Megacoo was an attempt to breed a pigeon that sang like a songbird. Instead, the most that resulted was a pigeon whose coos were 200% louder and 300% longer but otherwise identical. Local legend has it that the pigeons in the Wickham Slope neighborhood are still unusually loud as a result.

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Name: Downy Woodpecker
Peckédex Number: 25
Type: Quiet type, Woodpecker type
Weakness: Noisy type
Evolves From: Downy Wudpequito

Description:
A small but powerful entry-level woodpecker, what the downy lacks in size it more than makes up for in speed, maneuverability, and élan.

Attacks:
Peck-Eño – A defense-piercing strike that does modest damage but is nigh unblockable.

Bug Get – The Downy drills into a nearby tree for a tasty bug, which heals it for a moderate amount.

Hang Eight – The Downy uses its powerful zygodactyl claws to hang upside-down, bamboozling foes and increasing its defense against all but Noisy type attacks.

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In this assignment students will:

1. Grapple with the intense existential loneliness that is life.
2. Research and present solutions to the question of life, the universe, and everything.
3. State a clear and concise thesis and support it with 8-10 secondary sources, of which at least 2 must be books.
4. Include a works cited page formatted in such a way that it will be understandable, and relatable, to scholars in 400 years’ time.
5. Complete this assignment in the allotted 24-hour time window between 2am Sunday and 2am Monday during Exam Week.
6. Use 2500 words or less.

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Though ever did I think it
The apple of my eye
When posted to my feed
A swift death it did die

I put out something later
A piece of junk it would seem
I came back to a million views
For it had become a meme

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It has come to my attention that some so-called “teachers” in the great State of Tallahatchie are using a dangerous and disingenuous new form of brainwashing to try and turn our students against their parents, against the state, and most importantly, against their politicians. I speak, of course, of Critical Zombie Theory.

For those of you who are churchgoing, god-fearing, upright citizens who have never heard of Critical Zombie Theory, I will explain it. Critical Zombie Theory claims that the law is biased toward zombies, that it has historically allowed them to eat brains unopposed, and that the powers-that-be have allowed this situation to continue as it allows the so-called “elites” to maintain their power and privilege by throwing people to the zombies and by building an militarizing a Zombie Patrol that can also be used to silence dissent.

Obviously, this is ludicrous. The great State of Tallahatchie does not favor zombies at all. Granted, they can kill with impunity and are rarely charged and often acquitted for their crimes. But the law is very clear and ironclad in this case: if a zombie murders a a person and consumes their living brain in self-defense, they are will within their legal rights. The solution is simple: don’t startle zombies! Don’t ask them for things, criticize them, or question their actions, and you’ll be fine. That’s not the law favoring zombies; that’s just common sense.

Another lie that these purveyors of Critical Zombie Theory have been pushing is that the Zombie Patrol has been given too much power and is being used to harass and kill the very people that it ought to be protecting from zombies. This is clearly ridiculous, too. Zombies are slow-moving and low-witted, so naturally armored vehicles, tactical kevlar, and high-powered repeating rifles are necessary for containing them. And if those same tools need to occasionally be used on protestors? Well, those people forfeited their right to not be shot by the Zombie Patrol when they disobeyed lawful orders to sit down and be quiet.

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Alignment: Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Neutral
Hit Die: d8
Starting Debt: 4d6 × $10,000 (average $140,000) In addition, each character begins play with suit worth $50 or less.

Class Skills
The rogue’s class skills are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Jargon (Int), Jury Rig (Int), Knowledge (Office Supplies) (Int), Knowledge (Professional Buildings) (Int), Lockpick (Dex), Looking Busy (Cha), Looking Important (Cha), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex),Sycophancy (Cha), Use Gadget (Cha),
Weaseling Out (Cha)

Description
Adventure is where you find it for those who have learned to use their wits to cut through the red tape of bureaucracy. Always in danger of running afoul of stodgy middle managers and clueless administrators, bureaucratic rogues beg, borrow, and steal what they need to get the job done. Never knowing what to expect, they prepare for everything, becoming masters of a wide variety of office skills, accumulating supply closet keys, personal favors, and equipment of questionable origin. Always the first in the door when someone leaves to loot their office, always on the lookout for unguarded supplies, bureaucratic rogues know all the back channels and tricks. They know whose palms to grease with swag and food, who to suck up to, and who to avoid. Where a bureaucratic rogue is active, no dumpster is un-dove.

Role
Bureaucratic rogues excel at moving about unseen (to sneak out of work) or scrounging supplies and tend to avoid head-to-head confrontation. Their varied skills and abilities allow them to be highly versatile, and they excel in overcoming hindrances of all types, from unlocking office doors and stealing snacks to outwitting managers and conning dull-witted coworkers.

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