Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Ali Abdul Malik was an apprentice to the court astronomer in Baghdad during the height of the Islamic Golden Age. It is likely his name is incorrectly attested, and that many other minor details may be garbled, as the only surviving records are Greek translations of lost originals made after the sack of Baghdad in the court of Emperor Theophilios.

In any case, surviving accounts state that Ali Abdul Malik became engrossed in stellar observations and algebraic calculations around the time of the legendary Dark Comet, a natural phenomenon that he became obsessed with explaining. Modern-day scholarly consensus is that the Dark Comet was mass hysteria and that Malik never witnessed it in person, but in any event he became withdrawn and disheveled as he plunged down a mathematical rabbit hole.

Concerned, the court astronomer consulted with the Sultan, who decreed that Ali Abdul Malik be examined by the physicians at the medical school. Unexpectedly, Malik ferociously resisted being removed from his quarters, and killed three of the Sultan’s men before he was reluctantly killed.

The Sultan ordered a search of Ali Abdul Malik’s quarters, and retrieved an incomplete manuscript, now lost, that was entitled “Of Light and Dark Comets.” A summary of the work appears in the Byzantine Codex Nemeses, however.

According to the Codex, which again is a summary of a translation of an incomplete and lost original, Ali Abdul Malik had accurately determined the orbital period of a comet, but the time scales and distances involved had consumed him. “Of Light and Dark Comets” quickly veers off topic, and posits a metaphor for human civilization: as it approaches its zenith, it burns brightly but is also partly consumed, and a long slow inevitable decline into darkness follows. The dark comet is then replaced, or perhaps subsumed, by another.

The Byzantines saw this as a prediction of the sack of Baghdad, but others since–notably Stenos of Athos–have argued that Ali Abdul Malik’s mathematics applied to civilization as a whole, and that his lost original manuscript represents a Rosetta Stone into the lifespan of human civilization worldwide.

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Shin Huyei, court poet and administrator in the Shuyin Dynasty, became withdrawn and reclusive in the last months of his life. Out of respect for his decades of loyal service, the Panglong Emperor allowed Shin to retire to his quarters and had servants provide whatever he required. The result was a manuscript entitled “Age of Iron, Age of Rust.”

In it, Shin Huyei argues that regardless of what may happen in the heavens or in nature, intelligent beings like mankind operate on a never-ending cycle of two parts. The first part, which Shin called the “Age of Iron,” resulted in the intelligence building itself up through technology and toil. The second, which he termed the “Age of Rust,” involved the gradual decay of natural and artificial systems from the Age of Iron until all has literally rusted away and the people are extinguished.

As an example, Shin used the people of Suremu Island, a location otherwise attested only in a few records from the Nu period. He details their Age of Iron, in which they grew wealthy and powerful by building weapons and boats from the fine timber on their island. He also details their Age of Rust, in which they clear-cut their island and destroyed themselves in war over their few remaining resources, with the final few survivors living out their days as curiosities in the imperial menagerie.

Shin Huyei ends by asserting that the world is in its own Age of Iron, but that the Age or Rust is inevitable and imminent. Most translations include a note that the manuscript was discovered by servants near Shin’s body, with the scholar having written himself to death, but this is not confirmed (or denied) by surviving Shuyin Dynasty records.

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Named after its founder, John Christmas, Christmasville is unusual in that it does not lean into its holiday-themed name in the slightest. There are no year-round holiday decorations, no tree farms, and the local Santa only works two weeks per year as is traditional. Many attribute this attitude to the longtime mayor William Christmas III, who was in office for nearly 40 years. A deeply religious man, he nevertheless disdained seasonal trappings as the crass commercialization of what ought to be a solemn and dignified holiday. When asked about his town’s lack of Christmas shush, Mayor Christmas would always remark that there were hundreds of other cities trying to be Christmas City USA and no hope of beating them; the only option was to be a good town and leave Christmas in the hands of the Lord.

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The Consolidated Truck Stop and Gas Station was formed from the merger of three smaller gas stations and was a beacon of the interstate for many years. Business was good enough to erect large steel letters on poles by the interstate reading “GAS STATION” and “TRUCK STOP.” Crippled by the early-2000s increase in fuel prices, the station closed in 2003. Its owners simply abandoned it, and years of neglect led the steel letters to begin falling off one by one. By the late 2010s, “GAS STATION” had deteriorated to “AS S ION” with plant growth largely obscuring the “ION.” This led to a short-lived popularity as a piece of urban decay photography, with the dilapidated station being framed behind what appeared to be a sign reading “ASS.”

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Camden Parsons’ dreams of being an influencer had to accommodate her rural upbringing and the lack of local glamor. Undeterred, she set out to be the world’s first professional bass fishing influencer, combining fishing trips to local hot spots with family and relatives with glamor shots and pinups in waders. Surprisingly, the strategy has somewhat worked, and Camden has thousands of followers and several minor endorsement deals to her credit. Her current goal is to court a national-level sponsor to compete in, and pose at, the regional bass fishing championships.

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Originally intended to be “Valiant Storage,” the owners realized too late that the name was already taken after printing all their signage. Converting the “L” to an “R” meant limiting their losses, but also led to much bemusement over what variants were being stored there. The facility fields multiple calls per day from collectors mistaking it for a specialized facility for storing rare variant comic books or action figures.

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A taxidermied buffalo that is famously, or infamously, large. The last survivor of a failed buffalo farm, the unnamed beast became a familiar sight to travelers as it grazed along a popular road, with many local sets of directions beginning with “turn at the giant buffalo.” By the time of its death it was a local tourist attraction with several business in town named after it, such as the Buffalo Grocery and the Buffalo Gas Station. Taxidermied after its death in a winter ice storm, the buffalo now resides in a special pavilion as a the nucleus of a small buffalo themed tourist trap as “the world’s largest stuffed buffalo,” occasionally referred to in travel guides as the “Stuffalo.”

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The dark figure sidled up next to Russ at the bar. “I understand you’re a man who knows about the Sizzle.”

Russ sipped at his drink. “Everybody knows about the Sizzle; what they read in storybooks and see in cartoons.”

The figure pressed the subject, motioning to the bartender to freshen Russ’s drink. “But you know more about ghosts. You’ve seen the Sizzle, communicated with the Sizzle, even banished the Sizzle.”

“Not anymore,” Russ said, taking another sip. “Not for a long time. Why do you want to know?”

The figure let their dark cloak slip off. “Because I am the Sizzle, and I need to know what this means.”

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The dark figure sidled up next to Russ at the bar. “I understand you’re a man who knows about ghosts.”

Russ sipped at his drink. “Everybody knows about ghosts; what they read in storybooks and see in cartoons.”

The figure pressed the subject, motioning to the bartender to freshen Russ’s drink. “But you know more about ghosts. You’ve seen ghosts, communicated with ghosts, even banished ghosts.”

“Not anymore,” Russ said, taking another sip. “Not for a long time. Why do you want to know?”

The figure let their dark cloak slip off. “Because I am a ghost, and I need to know what this means.”

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The waiter approached the table, bearing a single gilded toothpick upon a silk napkin. Vandercarn picked it up and delicately prodded at his teeth.

“May…may I have a toothpick as well?” said Stubbs.

“Ha! Dear Stubbs, this toothpick is an electrum-gilded miracle, one of a kind, and it’s in my mouth besides. Do you really want it that badly?”

Stubbs sucked audibly on his teeth. “I’d settle for a wooden one.”

“Oh, there are no wooden toothpicks here,” Vandercarn laughed. “A thing you only use once! How wasteful. No, you may use your fork once our business is done and not a moment before, are we clear?”

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