Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The Most Excellent Order of Retired Pirates (MEORP) had its annual convention in the place that was most naturally suited to high seas robbery, lawlessness, and acts of savagery: Florida. While the keynote speaker, Redpatch Ockham, was considered a major ‘get’ for the event, most of the retired buccaneers and pensioned pirates were there for a glimpse of Captain Charles “Crackerjack” Jackson, who had retired undefeated after winning both naval battles, infamy, and the Mr. Beard Universe title five years running. Reclusive in the extreme, no one had seen Crackerjack since he’d retired, and outside of a short audio interview with FPB on the event of his quartermaster Blondbeard’s death, had made no public statements either.

The furor quickly grew into a scandal when Crackerjack arrived via chartered limo…without his trademark calico three-shade beard. Not even a mustache! Crackerjack was as clean-shaven as his sixth wife who accompanied him as his handler, his face and pate as shiny as the hook which replaced his left hand. Relaxing in the convention’s green roon in a Hawaiian shirt, white knee socks, and sandals, Crackerjack was deluged by reporters looking to scoop each other on the fate of his famous facial hair.

“It’s quite the scandal, isn’t it?” one asked.

“Why, not at all,” chuckled Crackerjack. “I’ve simply chosen to wear an invisible beard so as not to scratch my beloved’s face, that’s all.”

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“You specified that you did not care whether your house was painted by a human or a matibrush. Is a matibrush acceptable?”

“Y-yeah, I guess so. I wouldn’t have said I didn’t care if I did.”

“Wonderful. The matibrush will arrive between 10:00am and 1:00pm tomorrow. You will not be required to interact with it, and our automated vehicle will provide it with all the paint and ladders that it needs.”

“Will it…will it be wearing clothing?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Will the matibrush be wearing clothing?”

“Sir, clothing is not necessary for the operation of a matibrush. It may, in fact, get in the way and accumulate paint.”

“I would still…I would really appreciate it if the matibrush wore clothing. Just for my sake.”

“One moment.”

“O-of course.”

“Okay, sir, it looks like we can accomodte your request. What sort of clothing would you like the matibrush to wear?”

“I..I beg your pardon?”

“You said you wanted the matibrush to wear clothing. What kind of clothing would you like it to wear?”

“Uh…a pair of shorts would be fine, I think?”

“Very good, sir. The matibrush will arrive tomorrow wearing shorts.”

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A cartoon character printed onto a helium balloon had escaped from the bunch, and was wriggling its way up to freedom, the mesosphere, and death. Even though the cartoon’s painted-on smile was unchanging, its bugged-out eyes, molded parts of the balloon in their own right rather than a simple sticker, seemed to have a wild gleam of freedom within them.

It was free. It would perish in the freeing, of course, and leave a mess of mylar shrapnel as its toxic legacy. But it didn’t matter, not now, not yet. I wondered, as I watched, what it would be like to behold the unfolding view below through its balloon eyes.

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“Now, the real trick to transubstantiation, the conversion of a living soul into an inanimate object, is that the quality of the source affects the quality of the object. You’ll practice on base creatures, of course, but you’ll soon find that they produde mundane items of little worth and marginal utility.”

“It takes a sentient being to produce a truly effective item, and it goes without saying that those are harder to come by. While there are a few in their declining days or the grips of despondency that volunteer, and a few more at death’s door that are signed over by kin for the bounty, the majority are criminals and prisoners.”

“Even then, you’ll find that the more exceptional the person, the more exceptional the item. That’s why enemy officers are prized so much – they tend to be a cut above the rest in terms of intelligence and ability. It’ll be some time before you are even allowed to observe such a transubstantiation, let alone perform one, but that is the way of it.”

“And, of course, the end goal—one that few will reach, admittedly—is to take a truly exceptional being and craft it into a once-in-a-lifetime item. If you’re ever privileged enough to see General Niot in person—and smart enough to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open—you’ll see he carries a truly remarkable saber. It was made from his opposite number, the enemy in command at the Battle of Ediug, and can cleave a man in twain with the flick of the wrist.”

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Scoct fired up the gaselocity, hoping that it had enough power to slice the voidcave fruiting body so that he could take a slice with his vodka. The mushroom was not flavorful, but it was nutritious enough to take the place of bread and stand tall alongside the fermented potatoes of subterranean vodka.

Naturally, it wasn’t the gaselocity’s intended use. Scoct was quite sure that its makers meant it for nobler purposes than as a glorified still. But if there was one thing about the human spirit amid adversity, even driven into the inhospitable underground, it was that there would be booze made and booze consumed. No matter how illegal it was.

Scoct knew full well that, if caught, he would be subject to confiscation and flagellation, the gaselocity returned to the factory with the balance of his debt still outstanding, and the ire of the Religious Guard’s truncheons visited upon his backside. But he didn’t care.

The human spirit, and the gaselocity operated beyond the specifications of its operations manual, would provide.

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The visit to Burrito Belfry had been a mistake. It wasn’t just that Janelle went of flike a firecracker once she got a little spice down her gullet, or that Marquan would bounce off the walls once he’d had a bag of churros. No, it was the pink drink, the damned pink drink.

All three kids would clamor for it, since the only place you could get it was at a fountain in Burrito Belfry LLC GmbH. They would beg and beg and beg for the largest cup that the Belfry carried. And then they’d take two sips and carry the things around like great pink talismans for the rest of the day, violently rejecting the notion of throwing them away until they cups were “forgotten” or confiscated. And when they spilled—and they did spill—the result was a stainy, sticky mess. Janelle’s Mitsubishi had a permanently sticky floor because of it, they were always finding ants in the floorboards, and everything white the kids owned was inevitably dyed pink.

As much as it annoyed him, he had accepted it. Janelle was The Boss, and even though he’d adopted the first two kids as his own, they were quick to remind him that he wasn’t their dad and that any orders had to be countersigned by The Boss.

But it was all fine when it was just the family. They made sure to drive guests in his Oldsmobile when it came to that. But the real problem was when the pink reared its ugly head in public. Like when they’d been in the hospital to see Janelle’s mother during her most recent bout of old.

The youngest kid, Josiah, had been waddling along with a near-full cup of Burrito Belfry pink drink and tripped over his own feet, dumping 32 ounces of neon sugar all over the hospital floor. He’d been so embarrassed that he’d just snatched the boy—his boy—up and continued like nothing had happened. As they’d waited for the elevators, he’d seen the lady at the front desk put out “wet floor” signs, heard the call for a janitor, and seen people walking by with a wary eye toward the floor, no doubt wondering what kind of horrible Hospital Fluids could have caused such a spill.

His cheeks were burning with shame as they boarded the elevator, but all Josiah could do was mumble about how he wanted another pink drink.

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It was bad enough that things were always breaking down and that Chris had left to take that position at the Westchester ammo factory, leaving him saddled with a greenhorn to train. It was bad enough that his day was plugged sewer lines and rusty outflows rather than the electrical work he’d actually signed on for. But the worst part was that he had made exactly zero headway at getting his mother off of his back about getting himself out there and giving her some grandkids.

Yes, he knew that he was the only child of only children. Yes, he knew that the whispered last wish on the lips of all four dead grandparents and his father had been for the family line to be renewed with many children. Even if he had been able to forget, Mom would have been quick to remind him. Her aging faculties might have meant that each comment about him meeting a nice girl and settling down was the first she could recall, but for him on the other end it was a never-ending torrent.

And how exactly was he supposed to do that, Mom? Working a 40-hour week doing maintenance at the hospital often blossomed into a 50 or 60 hour week because lives were on the line. He needed a job with some stimulation, where every day was a little different, but the flip side was that it left him bone tired every night, and once he’d seen to the care and feeding of mother, the world’s biggest pet canary, there was precious little left over for anything, let alone dating.

He gave it his level best, of course. He tried to flirt with the nurses, the younger receptionists, even the barista with the accent he couldn’t quite place. Hell, even the occasional patient, if they seemed like the might be into it. But it didn’t work.

And, frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to work. What was wrong with a little quietude and time to himself? The occasional hunting or fishing trip with the guys he’d known since high school? Where, other than in the plan Mom and her dead ancestors had laid out, was that a bad thing?

There was an ice machine and a water line that needed fixing. Lives were on the line. He could worry about peer pressure from the dead, and the soon-to-be-dead, another time.

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The etiquette books were silent on the matter of cell phones, at least the ones she had been gifted during her long-ago coming out party and her long-ago engagement party. Their advice had stopped at rotary phones, and frankly she felt that the rest of the world ought to have followed suit. New technology meant new worries, new inconveniences, new wrinkles. She’d been Miss Junior Class in high school, runner-up for Miss Stonewall Jackson in college before meeting Trip, and the age-worn cares that had faded those accolades into memory was almost entirely due to worrying over the newfangled, she was quite convinced.

But even as she rejected touchscreens and streaming media, there were two closely connected innovations that she was willing to tolerate, even proselytize. Pastor Daniel, before he’d moved on and then died, mind, had once said in a sermon that any technology was the Lord’s work that could be put toward His purpose, and she firmly believed that cell phones and her Placebook account fell firmly into that category.

Once upon a time, reaching out and talking to her family or her girlfriends had meant going to visit or talking on a landline. Increasingly gummy knees made the former ever more untenable, and the latter risked Trip overhearing. The man may have been an angry, withered old husk, but he had ears like a cat and she’d get the third degree from him over every little bit of gossip. But with her cell phone, everywhere was suddenly her living room. Maisie could hear about her day from inside the car. Cousin Jan could get updates down to the minute without either of them risking the open road.

So let those other patients in the waiting area stare their daggers as she talked, loudly, on speakerphone. There was nothing in the etiquette books against it, and with Trip out back ensconced in the cold metal grip of an MRI machine, there was nothing the biggest regret of her life could do to interfere.

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He lived in fear of many things—bankruptcy, car crashes, his father rising from the grave—but the one that caused the largest amount of fear, his lifelong Fear Leader for the time being, was being found out as an atheist working in a Baptist hospital.

He’d been convinced, utterly convinced, that nothing lay ahead when the lights went out since childhood, when fate had seen fit to take his angel mother in her 40s while the man who’d somehow married her was barking insults and orders until he was 92. It had manifested as mostly abstinence for him; quietly reclaiming Sundays for himself, bowing his head but remaining silent when prayers were called for, privately scoffing at politicians who claimed divine guidance but in fact worshiped the almighty dollar.

But a Baptist hospital was different. It was explicitly, openly, religious. Giant bible verses decorated the lobby. Staff were encouraged to write out their own favored verses and affirmations on whatever was handy, to show their faith to people in nead of healing—and possibly saving. It turned his stomach, to be honest, but the work as an X-ray tech was the best in town and there was no way he could afford a better home than the one he’d inherited, not in this market and with all the loans.

Now, Baptist didn’t require people who worked there to be religious. That was still technically illegal. And he wasn’t even the only atheist there; Marigold at the sonography outpatient desk was a full-on heathen. But he couldn’t to play the game, couldn’t bring himself to tape lies to his workstation, couldn’t accept the invites to this or that church. He just couldn’t.

And if that ever got out, people would notice. Marigold got a pass because she bowed the head and bent the knee in a temple of lies once weekly, but not him. If one of the more devout higher-ups learned of his apostasy, if Dr. Theodore or Mr. Everts found out, they could use the information like a dagger in the heart of his career. No promotions, no raises, no nothing for the heathen.

Was it a rational fear? Probably not; he was able to admit that much to himself. But for someone who had winced at every sound his father had made, the idea of an unknowable doom around every corner was well and truly ingrained.

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The customers were always very understanding when the coffee machines broke. It helped that many were the nurses and doctors that the barista saw everyday, looking for a few grounds to pour over a frazzled mind as a resurrection ritual. But even the patients or their hangers-on were usually able to conjure from a well of understanding when things broke down. Which was often enough.

The single barista ran the stall from 7am to 9pm daily, “proudly serving Stubb’s Coffee” but without access to any of their supply chain, their union, or their benefits. It was never busy in the same way that the Stubb’s downtown was, never lines hanging out the door, but bury enough that the occasional bathroom and single lunch break at the adjacent cafeteria felt almost like betrayals. Things had been harder in Slovenia, to be sure, and the monthly checks sent home were keeping the family afloat. And losing a job risked losing the all-important green card that kept her slinging java in the American south even after her student visa (for literature, of all things) had expired.

But if only the coffee stand had been built with a modicum of care when the new hospital had been thrown up. If only the repair guys, normally used to fixing IV pumps upstairs, didn’t try to flirt with her when the ice machine had its weekly breakdown. And if only the espresso machine would live up to its life’s purpose and occasionally make a little actual espresso, as a treat.

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