Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Cast-off skin of a retread, rubber exuvia
I saw it for weeks on the side of the road
Perfectly posed so it looked like an injured cat
Regardless of the direction you were traveling
I said that it was a tire that had assumed a catlike shape
So that, in death, it might get the one thing that had eluded it in life
A hug. Human contact. Empathy for its fate. Love.
My wife told me this made her sad
It made me sad too
So I beg your pardon if you see me
Smeared with road grime
Hugging a tire
They deserve love too
Even if their plight is not real

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“I think it has to do with the Colossus of the Wastes. It wanders, you know, still to this day across the sands and will attack anyone who comes near. I think that the people in the Dead City had the Colossus as their protector, they put all their faith in it, but it failed. They were attacked, and everybody died, and now it wanders the wastes without a purpose, only returning from time to time in order to keep the city clean.”

-Kuwayra, caravaneer

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“My theory is that the Dead City is just that. The dead, jealous of the living, rose up to make all in the city equal in death, dwelling in some deep, hidden sepulcher that explorers have never located. But As jealous as they were of the living, they respected the city that had been built, and the living creatures that remained. So, whether out of obligation or remorse, they maintain it still.”

-Semara Smara, guide and tout

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Not to be confused with the City of Aaiun on the Dead River the Dead City is far to the southeast, in an arid desert that is within sight of the Silver Sea or Waking Sea.

It is a masterpiece of engineering, with tough volcanic rocks making up the majority of its construction. A spring wells up on a hillside oasis, there, so the entire city has been built as a series of descending terraces so water will flow from top to bottom by gravity alone. Le Aaiun herself called the city “a stepwell that the ancients could live in.”

But, as the name suggests, no one lives in the city now, though the water is sweet and much sought-after in the arid lands. Large numbers of cats and desert hares are the only occupants now, and those like Aaiun who visit seldom tarry long.

This is because the city is eerily preserved; silt has been cleared out of the channels, dust has been swept out of the streets, gardens are tended and even the cats and rabbits seem well-fed. But no one has ever seen a soul performing the labors necessary to maintain the Dead City and, moreover, no one has seen fit to settle there despite its advantages.

It takes only a day, maybe two, for the profound silence of the place outside of the running water, and the enigma of who maintains the place, to unnerve every the most hardened adventurer.

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Q: Why do people need to eat protein?

A: Because only the NCAA can devour amateur teens.

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Tendons and bones creaked as the corpse lolled its head toward me. “I realize now that my life was a series of amazing feelings,” it said in a sepucheral croak. “But now I can’t feel anything now.”

Hands shaking, the observer raised the pistol, noting with some alarm that the body already bore the marks of several bullets upon its putrefying flesh.

“You’re not shooting me like that, with the hammer down,” the dead thing rasped. “Do you need me to tell you how to use a gun?”

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Shattered at the intersection
By a collision, new in town
A wooden Adirondack chair
Will never be abandoned
In a backyard after a night
Of heavy drinking

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BTSB Incident Report #2297-A

This incident involved the collision of two brooms, a Justin Precision Brush Company model 87 light broom, and an Industrial Sweepers International ISI-6 push-broom. The PBC-87 was a single-passenger broom with only the pilot aboard, while the ISI-6 was a taxi broom with a pilot and two passengers.

Taking off in rough weather and low visibility without filing a fight plan, the PBC-87 collided with the ISI-6 as the latter was on its final approach. One of the passengers was able to cast a teleportation spell and escaped with minor injuries, and the other was wearing a feather fall charm and was treated for severe whiplash. The two pilots were killed at the scene, which scattered bristles and splinters over an area of 2000 square yards.

It is the opinion of the BTSB in this matter that the pilot of the single-passenger broom, Dr. Mungocius Magnificus, was at fault due to his lack of flight time and experience. The pilot of the commuter broom, Keego Vitellius, and their employer, Ajax Broom Taxi Ltd., are absolved of any wrongdoing.

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Every time I drive by, the shattered headboard is still there in the gully, a little more faded but still recognizable. And since it’s the start of a long, boring drive, I’m always spitballing theories about how it would up there.

Obviously it could have fallen off a truck, one destined for the university most likely. Someone moving in or out, possibly shattered before it was ditched if the rumors about campus life are anything to go by.

Of course the natural dirty scenario also presents itself. Surely the shattered bed frame landed there after being launched like a Saturn V during a bout of particularly eaves-rattling fucking in the nearby farmhouse, right? Har har har.

My preferred theory is that it’s the remains of one of those magical flying beds. We only hear about the successful flights, after all, never the crashes.

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According to urban American folklore collected by Dr. Dawson Sou, the 52 Decker, also known as the Decker-of-52, the Cardman, the Shuffler, or simply the Decker, is a shadowy figure that dispenses fates written on the face side of playing cards. Some accounts have it as a grim reaper in black robes, while others give it a more hobo-esque or homeless appearance. All agree that it is always hooded and its face is never seen, though Dr. Sou has noted a few cases in which the telling recount isolated features of a face visible against pooled darkness.

Whatever its exact appearance, the 52 Decker arrives in an area and purchases a new deck of cards. It often gives its first fate to the person that sells it the cards, although some telling have the card-seller gifted with an antique gold piece or otherwise rewarded. Once armed with a deck of cards, the 52 Decker will scrawl a fate on each card in the deck, in turn, and place it at the home of a victim. This fate will bedevil the occupant for a number of weeks equal to the face value of the card, with jacks as 11, queens as 12, kings as 13, jokers as an indeterminate period, and an ace meaning either one week or forever.

A typical example from the stories is a card, often a low-value card like the two of hearts, with the word “INSOMNIAC” written on it. A person finds it and suffers from insomnia for two weeks. The legends differ on whether the card must be found or not, but all agree that the fate is binding. Other fates attested in legends collected by Dr. Sou include things like:

-AMNESIAC
-ANOREXIC
-BULIMIC
-PYROMANIAC

In darker manifestations of the story an “ANOREXIC” card with a high face value, like a king or ace, results in a victim starving to death. In virtually every telling, though, the cards are drawn and inscribed at random.

Defeating or driving away the 52 Decker seems to be contingent on seizing its deck. The rules card, in particular, is said to have power over the Decker, and anything written on it by a victim will supposedly effect the Decker, making the creature wiling to barter for its return. In some cases an additional card with a pleasant fate, like “FORTUNE,” is added to sweeten the deal. But in some tellings this is a trap, and the Decker will retaliate with a fresh card once it recovers its deck.

The only other way to drive away a 52 Decker is to allow it to hand out 52 fates, at which point it will discard any remaining parts of its deck and disappear.

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