Admittedly, our fine webzine isn't dedicated to interviews of interesting people, but we recently caught an opportunity we couldn't pass up. We got a hold of a sous chef working in a state penitentiary. And while he had only a few moments to chat with us -- the death row inmates he serves are literally dying to get out -- the conversation was fascinating. He's asked that we not reveal his identity.

Q: So you're a chef.

A: I'm a sous chef, actually. I'm the hands-on sort of guy whose job it is to ensure that the food we serve is well prepared and properly arranged. 

Q: And you work in the death row section of a prison?

A: Yes.

Q: Don't you find that odd?

A: Should I?

Q: I mean, why ever would death row inmates need a chef, much less executive kitchen staff?

A: Simple. You can't send somebody into the afterlife on an empty stomach. Everybody gets what they ask for, within reason.

Q: So nobody gets a dozen coldwater lobster tails as a last meal?

A: I said, "within reason". If they asked, they might get one lobster tail, perhaps with a petite filet mignon and asparagus spears.

Q: That's a ridiculously expensive meal for someone about to die. How can that be reasonable?

A: Cut the guy a break. It's his last meal before they kill him. Besides, nobody orders lobster as a last meal. It's mostly chicken, sometimes spaghetti. And ice cream. Lots of it.

Q: Why ice cream?

A: [Shrugs] Comfort food, I suppose.

Q: So, getting back around to a prior question, why do we serve death row inmates last meals?

A: It's a little-known state requirement that everyone on death row must be offered a last meal. If they aren't offered a last meal, their sentence gets commuted to life in prison.

Q: Are you serious?

A: Absolutely. Look it up, it's a state law.

Q: So you're telling me that if I murder twenty people...

A: ...And I don't offer you your last meal, the worst you get is life in prison. Just don't tell the warden I told you.

Home usually is where the heart is, but if you can't find one or the other, then you've got problems.

When I was eight, firecrackers fascinated me. I mean the type you light up and throw on the ground before they go off in a rapid-fire chain of bursts that makes everybody in the neighborhood think they're getting shelled. But I wouldn't have been so intrigued if I had known then how quickly my life could go up in smoke.

I was twenty-six years old and life couldn't be better. Fresh out of grad school, I landed a job with a manufacturing firm. I'd just gotten married. We had a baby -- Cody -- on the way. It was high-time I moved out of my apartment and did what all the other respectable grown-ups did. It was time to buy a house.

The real estate agent showed us a three-two bungalow on the fringes of the county. It was a brand-new neighborhood. Some of the houses on our street were in various stages of construction at the time. My wife fell in love with it at first sight, and while it wiped out our life savings, we snapped it up at a bargain price. We qualified for special mortgage financing through a local bank. The deal was too good to pass up.

Then the savings and loan fiasco hit. Practically every local builder in the state went belly up, and many of the houses on our block remained unfinished.

The bank that had financed us hit hard times. They got swallowed up by bigger banks, and then even those banks were swallowed up. Every day we'd get mail informing us to redirect our mortgage payments to the successor banks. When all the dust kicked up during the financial mess had finally settled, our loan had come to rest in the hands of a national bank headquartered in New York City, thousands of miles away.

The first piece of correspondence the bank sent us was a "welcome" letter, introducing themselves to us. It was nothing short of a punchlist setting out the documents they needed from us to sort out the financial mess they'd inherited. Their letter closed -- politely enough -- with a reminder that we would occasion an immediate default and foreclosure if we failed to cooperate. By then we were eight years invested in the home, so we weren't in a position to take their request lightly. We mailed back a thick envelope chock full of everything they asked for.

Weeks passed. Then got this letter from a finance company we'd never heard of. As it turns out, the bank that owned our mortgage note also bought up the insurance company that wrote the policy on our home, and changed its name soon after. The letter explained that the insurance company was cancelling our policy due to "irregularities" pertaining to the title to our home, and that the bank would be following up with another letter soon. 

The bank never wrote back. Instead, it got its high-powered New York attorneys to do that for them. The lawyers said we'd defrauded the predecessor bank by getting a mortgage on a tract of land that -- get this -- did not exist.

We didn't have any money to hire an attorney, so I did the best I could on my own. I took a few days off from work to investigate exactly what had gone wrong. County records revealed that our neighborhood sat in an unincorporated sector of the county. The post office where our mail was processed was located in a city twenty miles south, but since our neighborhood was lumped into the same mail route, it was assigned the same geographic code as the city, despite being nowhere near each other.

That was just the tip of the iceberg my research uncovered, although, in retrospect, I did get carried away. Those couple of days I took off work turned into weeks. My dismissal letter had been sitting on the dinner table in a jumble of other mail before I even knew I'd been fired.

With no money to pay the note, it was a sure thing that the bank would take us to court. Nonetheless, I was ready. I'm no lawyer, but I did one heck of a job. You should have seen the look on the judge's face. He laughed those bigshot lawyers out of court when he heard them trying to foreclose on a property they said didn't exist. But, as if to add insult to injury, the bank rigged things so that nobody -- not me, not the bank, not the county recorder's office, nobody -- can say for sure who really owns the land now, and it'll be a long time before anyone can sort it out.

My victory, if you can call it that, was bittersweet. Luanne left the house one day while I was out at the labor exchange. She'd taken Cody with her. We don't talk much. Things are awkward. Still, she is good enough to let me spend time with Cody every other weekend.

The neighborhood hasn't changed. My neighbors -- if you can call them that -- are still bombed-out shells of never-built houses. I still draw water from a hand pump well in the backyard. The roof is falling in, and since I can't show proof I legally own the place, I can't refinance to pay for repairs.

But for what it's worth, the house is mine. I live here, I fought for it, and no one's taking it from me. Even when a man's got nothing left, he's got to keep his principles.

Sneak attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of force on a person or locale.

Shark attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of force on a person by a shark. Also, one of the most unsafe times to go swimming.

Snark attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of snarkiness. Usually results in laughter. Typically harmless. Sharks are incapable of this.

Let's face it: there are so many good (and not so good) books to read these days. Some readers prefer the classics while others gush over the latest paranormal romance between an Egyptian mummy and a preteen aardvark-shapeshifter. Whatever your pleasure, our mission today is to give you a bite-sized synopsis of a book we've read. In case you didn't know, we're professional nerds so we read a lot. Most of the books we've read are venerable enough to be considered classics in their own right, but that's only two of the three criteria for making this list. The third, and most important criterion: these were books we suffered through.

So now, without further ado, we bring you our snark attack of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Please refrain from hurling stones and other objects at us until the end, thank you.

There once was a short hairy lazy guy who lived in his family's basement. An old hairy smart guy showed up at his door with twenty short hairy smelly guys. The hairy smelly guys were called: Fodder and Dodder; Casualty, Basualty, and Rasualty; and Only Guy We Care About.

Then, just as soon as he had foisted the smelly guys onto the lazy guy, the old guy disappeared, warning them all that they were in grave danger and that he (the old guy) would do nothing to help them. Notwithstanding that, the old guy occasionally popped up out of nowhere to destroy hordes of bad guy fodder, only to  disappear again.

The group traveled for weeks. All the while, the smelly hairy guys carried on a call-and-response chant where some talked about mutton and the rest yelled back, "At your service!"

Along the way, several of the smelly hairy guys died (guess which), but not Only Guy We Care About or the titular character, because that would be silly. Eventually, everyone blundered onto a raging battlefield. More armies joined the melee. A bizarre bird migration joined the melee. Then it all became a freakish sort of medieval multi-car freeway pile-up that hardly no one lived through. Thankfully, titular short guy survived by turning invisible and falling asleep even as the bodies piled up around him.

Only Guy We Care About was mortally wounded in battle and died on his bed, but not before being declared the king of the smelly hairy guys (those that survived, at least). The titular short hairy lazy guy goes back home with a piece of jewelry that would prompt a curious obsession and a book trilogy.

It was a boutique resort. I didn't know much French at the time, but given the context, boutique meant expensive.

The open-air mezzanine overlooking the parking lot called to mind a beachside motel from the '40's, which was exactly what the place was. North Beach was full of these, except these days they all were being converted into resorts. And unlike the brand new luxury high-rises that formed the coastal palisade, these boutique resorts were always in some stage of repair or another.
 
The TV hanging in the poolside bar buzzed to life. It was an old TV, a CRT unit with a big square back and bubble screen. Its display was faded, shadows burnt into it from years of running the same advertisements for hotel services. Onscreen, a lady in a polka-dot one-piece and pompadour hairstyle took a dip in the hotel hot tub, contentedly smoking a cigarette all the while. If at all her look was fashionable, then it was decades before I was born. That gave some clue as to how long the TV had been running those ads.

The sign by the hot tub read "temporarily out of service", which was a half-truth. Out of service it was -- the only water in the pool was the six inches of rain that had collected at its bottom. The "temporarily" part was questionable. The hot tub looked like it hadn't been used in ages. And seeing as the other pool patrons out today were well into their seventies, I'd have wagered the last time anybody had enjoyed the hot tub was when they were young.

My wife climbed the steps out of the pool. In her arms was our one-year-old daughter, her poutiest face on for leaving the pool. My wife deposited our child in the basket of a shopping cart from "Cashway", a supermarket up the road. We'd forgotten to pack a baby carriage, and this was the model the hotel was so eager to rent us.

An advertisement for the resort's steakhouse restaurant flickered on the pool bar's TV. Onscreen, women in ballroom gowns dined with tuxedoed men. The scene had a grainy filmreel effect and was slicked over in a thick sepia veneer. It was altogether too much and came off as ridiculous. My wife didn't seem to think so. In fact, she was thrilled with the idea of a steak dinner. We left the pool and headed upstairs to our room, her leading the way and me struggling to get the shopping cart up the steps.

Once at the top of the stairway, I followed the walkway overlooking the car park and rounded the corner of the building. Suddenly my foot missed the floor. The shopping cart pitched forward into the gap of open air where the walkway had been shorn away. The cart's basket snagged on some exposed reinforcing bars, breaking its fall. I pitched over the cart's handle and hung half-in, half-out of the cart, some forty feet from the concrete below. My daughter shrieked.

My cries for help were cut short by the roar of diesel heavy machinery. A man in a lift bucket coasted into view by my left shoulder. He lifted his hardhat and scratched his head, looking about as perplexed to see me as I was to see him. Then he yanked a lever and a series of pulleys whirred to life, hauling a heavy load of splintered two-by-four planks over the balcony railing. The planks settled onto my back, threatening to crush the wind out of me. I screamed at the man to stop, but he only shook his head. The construction crew was on a tight schedule and they couldn't afford any holdups.

The diesel engines roared as the pulleys went for another load. Jagged wood crashed onto my back, punched through the shopping cart basket. One particularly nasty plank with a serrated edge slid closer to my daughter. It was inches from her face. I scooped her up in one arm and held her to my chest. Eyes shut, all I could do was wish I were somewhere else as the next load of materials crushed me flat.

Speaking strictly in the interest of free markets everywhere, I have to denounce the artificial restrictions imposed by online auction businesses. Take for example a perfectly salable abstract commodity such as love. Undeniably, love is something that the world needs more of, and yet most online auctioneers forbid its sale in its venues. Why, we ask, when love is so freely exchanged for jewelry or chocolate or – dare I mention – even cash under city streetlights?

Honesty is another great example of something we need more of yet they won't let us exchange. Don’t we all wish that everyone had a bit more honesty, from our neighbor down the street with the shifty eyes to that congressman with shifty eyes?

Nevertheless, online auction businesses have made a practice of rejecting for sale those items one cannot grasp in the hand. Company policy appears to be that such things as honesty and love cannot be sold because it is impossible to set a price on such things. Such policies are as sensible as the flat Earth theory. Honesty has been bought and sold since antiquity, and contrary to what the Beatles may say, money really can buy you love in some contexts.

You may be asking yourself, “What’s the big deal if there’s still joy, happiness, and a multitude of other good, salable abstract commodities?” Well, the big deal is that these online auction houses won’t let you sell or buy any of those either. In fact, whoever said money can’t buy you happiness probably works for them.

Shock however, seems to be on the rise, but not because it commands higher prices than ever. No, actually, the
auction companies practically hand this one out to all takers. Shock comes free with every purchase when your account status shows up in your e-mail. That’s when you realize the auctioneers are taking a cut of your sale coming and going. It’s like setting up a booth and offering free samples of ice cream (or anything else for that matter – I like ice cream) just beyond the threshold of a revolving door. Of course, the consummate businessperson that you are, you offer only one sample per person. But, consummate scammers (with shifty eyes no less) know that they are “new” customers each time they walk into those revolving doors, take the spin and walk back out again, right into the path of your booth. Here’s where they look surprised and say, “Ice cream! My, what a pleasant surprise!” for the third or fourth time in fifteen minutes.

Bring the gavel down on those chintzy auctioneers. Insist upon love, joy, honesty, happiness. Tell them you want your abstract commodities, and you want them now. Stand up to them, and for all the money they exact from their fees, those auctioneers will wish they could buy yet another abstract good – time, because it won't be long when they'll be forced to change their game.

Unbeknownst to him, Marco’s life teetered on the cusp of change.

Muttering curses under his breath, Marco trudged up the boardwalk with his backpack in tow. He was short on time and completely lost in the labyrinth that was Denrico’s seaport.

The merciless heat didn’t help either. His messenger’s uniform was crisply ironed this morning. If he wrung the sweat out of his shirt now he could irrigate a small farm for a day.

He cupped his eyes and scanned the pier ahead. Enormous trade galleons packed the crowded harbor. Never had Marco seen, much less set foot on, an oceangoing vessel. Today he had seen enough ships for a lifetime.

He slung his backpack across his opposite shoulder. The parcel inside was heavy. To make matters worse, it would be weeks before he could rid himself of its bulk. The parcel was addressed to Queen Catherine Saint-Saenz Lucinda of Avignary, and that was on the other side of the world.

A shout from nearby snagged his attention.

“Hey there, lad!”

Marco turned his head to look. An old crewman sauntered down the gangplank of a nearby ship. He was particularly ugly. Here was a man who looked like he threw rocks at beehives when he was a boy, except that the rocks were attached to a short stick, and the stick was still in his hand when the rocks hit the hives. His cleft chin extended beyond the arch of his nose, giving him a horrific underbite. He balanced a reed on his lips. When his jaws met to chew its stem, he looked as though he could sniff his chin.

The sailor planted himself in the center of the boardwalk, arms over his head as though signaling someone distant. “Hey!”

Marco held his breath as he approached. The sailor reeked of sweat. He hadn’t gone a step past when his backpack snagged, knocking him off balance.

“Whoa!” Marco yelled, whirling to face the old man.

The sailor’s eyebrows arched, resembling a pair of caterpillars on a twig. “Whoa yourself.”

Marco took a step forward. The old man put out his hand to stop him.

“Out of my way,” Marco said.

“That presumes you know where your way is.”

Marco stiffened at this affront. “You’d better have a good reason for obstructing Lord Amadis Eric’s mail.”

“Yup.” The sailor gnawed his reed.

“Well?”

"You don’t know where you’re headed.”

“You don’t either.”

"Don’t I?” The old man grinned a checkerboard pattern of missing teeth. Those teeth that remained were stained from years of neglect.

Marco tucked the backpack into his armpit. “What do you want?”

The sailor turned up his hands, palms out. “Meant no offense, lad. Old Turbo here only wants to help you. You look lost.”

“I am,” Marco admitted despite himself. He would never make his delivery if he did not first find his ship.

“Right, right.” The sailor touched his forehead and shut his eyes, pantomiming a diviner receiving a vision. “The sea spirits are calling. They tell me... They tell me you’re headed to Avignary.”

Marco crossed his arms. “Lucky guess.”

“Turbo doesn’t guess, lad.”

"So answer me this: where are the ships headed for Avignary?”

Turbo gnawed his reed. “That answer’s hidden in an old tale of the sea.” He cleared his throat. “The ship you seek flies a pennant blue as the sky on a summer day, red like the blood in your countrymen’s veins, and gold like, a... eh... Sorry, lad. I never was too good at rhyming sea tales. Rhythmic pentameter’ll be the death me, if I knew what that was.”

“What does this have anything to do with my getting to Avignary?” asked Marco.

“Rules of the sea, my boy. An old salt like me has to answer every nautical question by spinning a tale of the sea on the fly. And they don’t have to be true.” Turbo heldup an index finger to make his point. “But they have to rhyme. That’s the important part.”

"You’re senile,” Marco said.

“Aye, there’s a touch of madness in this here skull, methinks. Old injury. Musket ball to the noggin. But I tell you no lies. Avignarian ships fly blue, red, and gold pennants.” He pointed across the pier. “Head back the way you came to the branch and go two over.”

“Thank you,” Marco said before trudging away in a hurry.

Taking the old sailor’s advice, Marco backtracked up the pier and followed the boardwalk to a distant wing of the seaport. The ships anchored at this end of the harbor dwarfed even the freighters he had seen earlier. These giant barges floated so high on the surface of the ocean that the boardwalk between them seemed like a path through a valley. Each of them flew Avignarian colors.

He slowed his pace to look at the ships more closely. These had square windows carved into their sides, some ships having one, others two rows running along their middles. He stopped in place, stunned, when he noticed that the ship before him cut away. The rear quarter of the ship’s side had been shorn off.

Sunlight glinted off of a dull metal tube sticking out of a stack of splintered wood. Marco cupped his eyes to peer inside, and realized that the metal was the lip of a cannon cast in black iron.

Marco was so engrossed with the warship that he wasn’t looking where he was going. He walked into the outstretched hands of a man standing in his path.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Marco said out of reflex.

“No harm,” said the man. He brushed the ruffles out of his red suede coat and adjusted his hat. After a beat, he added, “Admonisher caught your eye. It was to be expected. She is a remarkable ship, after all.”

He doffed his hat with a bow. “I am Alexis Mordail, corsair extraordinaire.”

Alexis’s overcoat drew back as he straightened from the bow, giving Marco a glimpse of the ivory-gripped derringer holstered at his waistband.

“Look,” Marco said, “I’m sorry to cut you off, but I’m lost and pressed for time. I’m looking for an Avignarian ship.”

“You’re in the right place,” said Alexis. “All of these are Avignarian.”

“Yes, I know, but I’m looking for one in particular. I’m on business, you see, and I can’t be held up any longer.”

“Ah.” Alexis gave a thoughtful nod. “Forgive me for not recognizing you earlier, sir. We’ve been expecting you.”

“It’s of utmost importance that I... wait, what?” Marco asked. He’d kept speaking over Alexis without listening to what the man said. “You’ve been waiting for me?”

“Of course.”

Marco’s shoulders bowed in a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Kandensa.”

“Here, let me take that for you,” Alexis said, snatching up Marco’s backpack like a dutiful valet. “Follow me, please.”

Alexis led him past the warships, where a much smaller vessel awaited at the end of the pier. “This is Stormwind,” said Alexis as he led Marco up the boarding ramp. “She’s on loan to me for this special assignment.”

“What special assignment?”

Alexis stopped in place halfway up the ramp. “Why, you, sir.” He resumed walking. “She’s by far one of the finest caravels on the open sea,” Alexis went on, absently running the pads of his fingers along the ship’s rail as he stepped aboard. “I’ve a mind to own a vessel just like this – as a pleasure boat, of course – before I get old and relegated to telling rhyming nautical tales to random passersby.”

Marco’s brow knit. Sailors were strange people indeed.

Alexis put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Men poured out from the stairs leading below deck and assembled before him. Each of them stood shoulder to shoulder rigidly at attention, eyes trained at the horizon, arms at their sides, exemplifying the chiseled discipline that comes only through effective leadership.

“Mister Monkeygrip,” Alexis called out.

“Coming, sir!”

None of the men standing at attention had spoken. Then, suddenly, a tall youth with spindly limbs shimmied down from the mainmast, leaping between the rigging ropes like an ape. He dropped to the deck and tumbled with the fall, coming to his feet in mid-roll.

“Present and accounted for,” Monkeygrip gibbered. He snapped erect long enough to give a firm salute, then dropped to all fours with a crooked grin.

Alexis shoved the travel bag into Monkeygrip’s arms. “Take the gentleman’s personal effects to his quarters.”

Monkeygrip pressed the backpack to his chest with one arm and scampered through a door at the ship’s rear, jabbering all the way.

Alexis turned to face his crew. “Mister Kerrigan, if you please.”

A bald crewman with a face like creased leather hobbled forward. His tiny eyes were sunken deep behind his craggy brow, looking like two black raisins floating on the surface of a bowl of burnt oatmeal. Grease and sweat stains pocked his shirt, which frayed away at the sleeves, revealing giant bronze forearms. He slumped against a gnarled wooden crutch tucked under his armpit.

“Prepare for departure, Mister Kerrigan,” said Alexis with arms akimbo.

“Aye,” he shouted back. He faced his mates. “You heard the man. Get this barge moving.”

All at once, the crewmen scattered to their respective duties.

Monkeygrip skittered out from the rear of the ship and let out the sails. Three enormous men wrestled with a hoist to draw up the anchor. Kerrigan took his post on the bridge, overseeing the activity on deck with the tiniest motions of his even tinier eyes. In the midst of the uproar, Marco turned in place to watch as the men around him worked with mechanical precision. It was extraordinary.

Alexis squeezed Marco’s arm gently, catching his attention.

“Please sir, follow me,” he said, sweeping his other hand out before him. They cut through the commotion on the deck, headed for the stateroom at the ship’s rear. Alexis was first to reach the door and he held it open for Marco.

“I trust you will be comfortable,” Alexis said.

The quarters were sumptuously furnished. A fine writing desk stained glossy black sat at the end of the room, accompanied by a plush chair tucked under it. A globe of the world cast in bronze stood within arm’s reach of the desk. In the opposite corner, a wardrobe sat on brass lion’s paws. A massive four-post bed occupied half of the room. Just by the look of it, Marco presumed that he could lie down at the bed’s center and stretch out, and yet still not reach its corners.

“This is magnificent,” said Marco as he stepped inside.

“I’m pleased you think so. These are my quarters. I’m rather particular about my furnishings, you see.”

Marco blinked. “So where will you be staying?”

“I must oversee the repairs to Admonisher. Kerrigan will serve as acting captain in my absence.” He pinched the brim of his hat between his thumb and forefinger and tipped it down briefly. “Safe journey, sir.”

“Goodbye,” said Marco as Alexis left.

Marco rounded the desk and sat in the chair. The globe beckoned for his attention, just asking to be spun dizzily.

Monkeygrip had left his backpack on the desktop. Marco undid the buckles and peered inside it to make sure nothing had been removed. Tasked with such important business as he was, he could not be too careful. The parcel was still inside and padlocked. The letter strapped to it bore an unbroken wax seal. Neither showed signs of tampering.

He looked up with a start as Kerrigan appeared at the doorframe.

“We’ll be leaving shortly, sir,” Kerrigan said. “Captain Mordail asked me to tell you.” He glanced over his shoulder and back again, his eyes merely a dull glimmer beneath the shelf that was his forehead. “Also, there’s someone here to see you, sir. I’ll be leaving you to your business.”

Marco rocked forward in his chair as his visitor came in.

A dragon. Never before had he seen one in person. If it was scaled, walked on two legs, and talked, then it was a dragon by Marco’s reckoning. That, or an exceptionally well-trained iguana.

Smallish in height, the dragon seemed smaller still with a giant like Kerrigan beside him. He had the look of a human bureaucrat, dressed in a black straight tie and crisp white shirt tucked neatly into his pinstripe slacks. Navy blue scales covered his body, from the tips of the frilly crest atop his head to his clawed feet. His tail ended in a broad spade that hovered above the floor but never touched it.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the dragon said with a bow.

A pair of enormous folded wings jutted out from where his shirt had been tailored to accommodate them. “I am Kuril Krenarin,” the dragon went on, “of Emperor Rao Ordan’s Bureau of Foreign Affairs. On behalf of our country, we are most pleased to have you as our guest.”

There was no mirth in Kuril’s words. He smiled out of cordiality alone. Marco fought hard not to wince as there were many pointy teeth in that mouth.

“I trust you have your letter, sir?” said Kuril.

“Oh,” Marco sputtered, prying his eyes from the dragon’s fangs. “Yes, of course.”

He reached into his bag and handed Kuril the envelope.

Kuril glanced down at it but did not take it. Instead, he waggled his talons in a render unto me flourish.

“Your letter of introduction, please?” Kuril insisted.

“I didn’t think I’d need one,” Marco said.

“Well, perhaps a person such as yourself needs no introduction. But a letter of introduction would be helpful to identify you, sir.”

Marco’s brow furrowed. “Why is everyone calling me ‘sir’ all of a sudden?”

“Shall I call you something else, sir? Lordship, perhaps? Ambassador?”

“Ambassador?”

“Do you prefer that one?”

Marco swallowed hard. “Why would I?”

Kuril’s eyes narrowed. “Well, sir, that is who you are, isn’t it?”

Marco's (mis)adventures have only just begun! Want to see what happens next? Click here to continue reading.

Still want more? Check out The Gullwing Odyssey in our bookstore.

Let's face it -- adventuring is not the safest of professions. Even the best of adventurers get hurt. And if the length of their injury list is any measure, the characters of The Gullwing Odyssey are by far not the best of adventurers.

While an exhaustive list would be tedious, here we've posted some of their more interesting -- as in genuinely awful or humorous -- personal injuries.

These come courtesy of Dr. Desmoulin Jonas's medical clinic -- "handy enough with a scalpel to be your surgeon, barber, and tailor!"

Broken nose -- killer hummingbird
Facial bruising -- leapt through a pub window
Severe chest contusion  -- wild animal attack
Cracked ribs -- wild animal attack
Abdominal impalement -- airship crash-landing
Blunt trauma to side of head -- struck with flat of a sword

Severe nervous trauma -- extreme verbal abuse
Crumpled snout -- bashed with a shield
Bruised talons -- punched an assailant
Full-body first degree burns -- magic spell
Electrocution -- magic spell

Facial laceration -- wild animal attack
Internal hemorrhaging -- walking into a hail of bullets
Broken ribs -- point-blank gunshot wound
Facial contusions -- group beating

Flesh wound -- glancing pistol shot
Mild abdominal contusion -- kicked by a man on a horse

Three teeth knocked out -- biting an assailant
Facial contusions -- group beating
Black eye -- group beating
Life-threatening abdominal laceration -- dueling injury
Bruised ribs -- magic spell
Fractured clavicle -- gunshot wound

Abdominal impalement -- crossbow bolt
Assorted bumps and bruises -- crashing his airship into a warship below
Head trauma -- musket butt to the back of the head
Blunt facial trauma -- group beating
Two teeth knocked out -- severe beating

Want to see just what sort of trouble this motley group of misfits get into (and out of)? Check out The Gullwing Odyssey. It's a fantasy/comedy adventure of epic proportions, and not your typical swords and sorcery novel. Expect spectacular magic. Expect plenty of laughs. But above all, expect the unexpected.

Click the book cover image for more information.

Want to read some sample chapters? Sample the first three chapters for free.

Cyan Wraithwate’s campaign in the Elashi Southlands had come to a standstill. He was loath to admit it, even to himself, but he was terrified.

The battle fought a week from yesterday brought him closer to death than ever before. A chance arrow struck him dead-center in the chest, punching clear through his breastplate, knocking him off his horse. He awoke hours later in his tent, his wounded chest swollen and warm, in frightening contrast to how clammy he felt.

He sat cross-legged in his tent, elbows propped on his thighs, face in his hands. He hadn’t left his tent in days.

A rustle at the tent’s entrance drew his attention.

“This had better be important,” Cyan spoke into his hands.

“Good evening, Captain Cyan,” said his visitor.

He did not recognize this man’s voice. Cyan raised his head.

Standing by the tent flap was a lanky wisp of a man enveloped in yellow robes. Every inch of him was draped in yellow fabric except for his clean-shaven head.

Cyan frowned. No doubt this man was a wizard. Cyan had never met a wizard he liked, much less would trust with anything more important than latrine duty.

“Why are you here?” Cyan asked.

The man paced inside with an imperious air. “General Godfrey sent me. He is disappointed over the news that his shining young protégé has lost impetus.”

“If all he sent you out here to do is recite the obvious, then you can save your breath and leave.”

The man drilled into Cyan with his steel blue eyes. “I am known as Wren. And I did not come solely to discuss the obvious.”

Wren reached over his shoulder and slung off a small shoulder pack. He withdrew a forearm bracer polished to a high gleam. Two serpents were embossed into the metal. One coiled into a horizontal figure-eight pattern and the other did likewise, but vertically, bisecting the first.

Cyan’s eyes flitted down at the armor and back up to meet Wren’s. “Apparently, you got your facts wrong,” he shouted, yanking his shirt open to reveal the bandages on his chest.

“You jump to conclusions,” said Wren. “Wear this, and you need not don any more armor.”

“You’re a closeted academic.”

“Is it that you are afraid?”

“You’re wasting my time.”

“See that I’m right,” Wren spoke over him. “Try it on.”

Cyan held his tongue, but shot Wren such a look of derision as would make a nun faint. Grudgingly, he obliged. The bracer fit as though it was made just for him; the leather straps did not even need adjusting to fasten the armor to his forearm.

“And now?” Cyan asked.

“Now we do a test,” said Wren, an instant before snatching a dagger from beneath the folds of his robe. Cyan roared with surprise as Wren’s knife flashed before him. A chill entered his body through his neck.

Cyan fell, cupping his wound with his hands. Blood surged between his fingers. Everything went gray, then black.

* * *

Cyan awoke with a start and kicked off the ground, springing to his feet and hollering all the while. Wren pointed his fingers and launched a smoldering ray of fire at Cyan that exploded at his chest. The burst knocked Cyan head over heels, landing him onto his back with the wind knocked out of him.

It hurt too much to move. Cyan’s body let up wisps smoke.

“I am going to kill you for that,” he wheezed.

“For what?” Wren asked, arrogant as ever.

“For…” Cyan trailed off.

“For killing you?” Wren suggested.

“Yes.”

“But did I really kill you?”

“No,” Cyan stammered. “No, I suppose not.”

Damn Wren for being right, he spoke the truth. Cyan touched his injured neck and found that the flesh there was intact. Even his puncture wound in his chest was gone.

“Now you see the power of the bracer,” said the mage. “Each time you are laid low, it will bring you back and grant you monstrous strength. But there is a catch.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“You must not take the bracer off,” Wren said with emphasis.

Groaning, Cyan brought himself to sit up. “Is that all?”

Wren nodded.

“Good. Get out of my sight.”

Daybreak saw Cyan astride his horse at the head of his army. His troops fell into position around the palisade wall of an Elashi hamlet. This would be a difficult siege. The week-long hiatus he had given the defenders plenty of time to make preparations.

He called out to the people behind the walls, “Open your gates and surrender, and we shall be lenient with you. Refuse, and we will burn you out of your homes.”

The Elashi men on the palisade catwalks held up both hands with middle fingers held high. Cyan was unfamiliar with Elashi culture but knew enough to recognize this for a rude gesture.

He gritted his teeth. “You brought this upon yourselves!”

Raising his battle-ax, Cyan gave the signal for the battering ram to advance. His army gave way to a crew of engineers pushing a wheeled ram. The engineers butted the device up against the palisade gates, then rocked the ram’s head back on its fulcrum to send it careening into the fortifications.

The ram stuck the gate with a deafening crack of splintered wood.

Coarse yells went up just as the ram smashed the gate. Cyan’s horse reared as Elashi ambushers surged from out of hiding behind the palisade’s blind spots. The ambushers fell upon the siege engineers’ flanks like a wave at sea, utterly cutting the hapless men down.

Suddenly the sky darkened as though by a swift moving cloud. Cyan looked up, for a moment taking his eyes off the action, and saw that iron barbs rained down upon them.

He had led his men into a trap.

Cyan tugged on the reins and his mount threw him to the dirt. His shoulder gave a sharp pop on hitting the ground. Wincing, he dragged himself along one-handed, fleeing from the defenders’ charge. His horse gave a panicked scream as the hail of falling arrows tore into its flesh. It reared again and toppled over onto Cyan, crushing him under its weight.

* * *

He awoke in a panic. Facedown and gasping for breath, he spun onto his backside and sat up.

The sun was half set. The battle was over. The bodies of an entire Elashi legion were fanned out in a circle around him, with him at the center.

Cyan stood. The palisade was leveled. Beyond it, waning daylight shone through black billows of smoke as the Elashi settlement burned.

“By Nordon,” he whispered. Had he done this? He wasn’t sure. He held up his forearm for a better look at his enchanted bracer, turned it one way then the other for any clues it might hold.

This was too much. Wren had gone too far. Cyan’s orders were to subdue the Elashis, not to decimate them. It might be years before the Elashis would be in any shape to offer up regular tribute. This would get Cyan court-martialed for sure.

He tugged at the bracer’s leather straps. As he undid the first band the bracer began to grow warm.

“What the…?” he muttered, then broke into a scream. The bracer glowed with searing heat like a blacksmith’s forge. Smoke rose from his burning flesh. Cyan clasped the bracer with his other hand to yank it free but scalded himself and tore his hand away.

As abruptly as it began, the burning sensation stopped. The bracer had become a sooty black color. The leather straps that fastened it to his arm were gone. It had become a solid metal tube fused to his skin.

The world spun. Cyan clutched at his temples. His vision rippled as though running water fell before his eyes. When finally his senses settled down, he realized he was no longer in his tent. Cyan stood in a cavernous library. Books were stacked in shelves that ran floor to ceiling as far as he could see.

He was not alone.

“You tried to take the bracer off, didn’t you?” said Wren in a matter-of-fact tone.

Cyan spun to face him. “You!” he bellowed. “You tricked me!”

“Did I?’ Wren asked. “I gave fair warning against taking it off.”

“You didn’t say this would happen.”

“I felt I didn’t need to.”

Cyan glowered at him.

“Was I not perfectly clear?” Wren went on.

“Then how did you expect me to take it off once I was through with it?” Cyan asked.

“It would have been simple, if you had come to me first.”

Touché, Cyan thought. “What do you mean would have been?”

Wren frowned at having to state the obvious. “I mean, it’s now going to be a lot harder to take it off.”

“So do it,” said Cyan.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” he shot back.

“It’s too late for me to do that now.”

Cyan reached between his shoulder blades and drew his ax. “I don’t have patience for your word games, wizard. So you’d better start making sense before I cut it out of you.”

“You don’t understand the powers at work here,” Wren explained. “That one bracer has more power infused in it than any living creature can ever imagine. With it on you can be like a god, undying and eternal. But to safeguard against someone taking this power from its wearer, it bonds itself to the flesh of the user when someone attempts to remove it.”

Cyan eased his stance, lowered his ax slightly. “So I’m a god now, am I?”

“You are immortal,” said Wren.

“For how long?”

“For as long as you are alive.”

“That’s forever, right?”

“So long as you wear the bracer.”

“What if it comes off?”

“It won’t.”

“So then I’m a god?”

“Maybe.”

“Answer my questions!”

“I thought I had,” Wren drawled. He clasped his hands at his chest. “You will forgive me, as I am very busy. There is other work I must attend to. Should you need further assistance, merely call my name.”

Wren extended a hand and a small white card popped into being between his fingers. Cyan took it and glanced it over. Printed on the card was the mage’s name and occupation – Wren, Owl Mage.

“So now what…” Cyan began, and cut off. He was back on the outskirts of the Elashi village. Wren and his library were nowhere to be seen.

“Hmph. Wizards. Always here one minute and gone the next.”

Cyan yawned. It was late and the moon was high. Such a thing for a god to require sleep, he thought. He trudged into the village and spent the night in a burnt-out shell of a house.

He slept a scant few hours before the sky burned rosy orange from the rising sun. His pupils stung in the morning light. Cyan rolled over and faced the wall. Today he had no reason to wake up early. His campaign was over and so was his career – not that a god needed such things.

It was not too long after that Cyan finally roused. His parched throat yearned for water. He felt like he hadn’t had a drink in weeks.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the heels of his palms and stopped in mid-motion. The touch of cold iron against both sides of his face prickled his skin. Eyes still cupped, he blinked, then slowly drew his hands away from his face.

Both arms were covered in iron up to his elbows.

Cyan shook his head. He held up his left arm for a closer look at the bracer. On this arm was the one Wren had given him, he was sure of it – it was embossed with coiled snakes. The bracer on his other arm wasn’t there yesterday. He held it up, searched for buckles and found none.

“H-how?” he stammered. Cyan clasped his mouth with one hand, staggered backward and fell on his backside. Raspy little breaths wheezed through his fingers. He rapped on new bracer with his opposite fist. It sounded hollow.

“How can this be?” He held his arm out and turned it around. His right arm from his elbow to his fingertips was encased in iron.

He felt the need to scream. At that instant, Cyan cocked his head back, clenched his eyes shut yelled Wren’s name.

When he opened his eyes he was in a dark, stuffy laboratory. Fumes rose from cauldrons and open beakers, making the atmosphere heavy. Wren sat at his desk, looking more amused than surprised. His workspace was cluttered with notes and papers stacked messily atop it and peeking out from its overfilled drawers.

“I take it that you are having some kind of trouble?” Wren asked.

“Oh not at all,” Cyan said with a sarcastic grin, “unless you call my skin turning to lifeless metal trouble!” He held up both arms. “Look!”

“Such is the price of immortality. Did you think it would come without a cost?”

“This is not what I signed up for.”

Wren spread his arms. “What is more timeless than iron? Iron does not die. And with proper care, iron never corrodes. Look at all the statues of war heroes – they’re all made of iron for a reason. And now you can be just like them.”

A fine sweat broke on Cyan’s brow. He was not sure whether Wren had meant Cyan would end up like the war heroes or their statues.

“I don’t want this,” said Cyan. “I want my body back.”

Wren steepled his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“What do…”

“I said I’m sorry,” Wren spoke over him.

“That’s not good enough!” Cyan shouted.

Wren’s eyebrows dipped sharply at the inner corners. “It is not possible to reverse the effects of the bracer now,” he said flatly.

“There has to be a way.”

“There isn’t. No mortal has the power to undo the magic that binds the bracer to you…”

Cyan grit his teeth. “Then who does?”

Wren’s mouth pressed into a tight line.

“Damn it, you know something I don’t, don’t you?” Cyan yelled. He reached across the desk and grabbed Wren by the collar, dragged him across the desktop.

“Tell me what I need to know!” Cyan shouted into Wren’s face.

“Cyan…”

“What?!” He shook the mage to rattle the answer out of him.

“There…” Wren stammered. “There exist four sage dragons.”

“Quit with the fairy tales, wizard. Dragons don’t exist.”

“They do exist!” Wren clutched Cyan’s wrists in his hands. Much as he struggled, he could not wrest free of Cyan’s grip.

Cyan cocked back a fist.

“I’m telling the truth!” said Wren.

Cyan drilled his eyes into the wizard’s quivering face. If Wren spoke any lies, he would have detected them out by now. “Keep talking, wizard.”

Wren’s eyes flitted between Cyan’s and his fist. “Four sage dragons guard the treasures of the elements – earth, wind, water, and fire. With their powers you can undo the binding force of the bracer, maybe even revert your metal body back to flesh.”

“How do I find them?”

“Put me down first.”

“How do I find them?” Cyan repeated, shaking the mage with each word.

“I will give you a charm…”

“Oh no,” he cut him short. “Not that again. I’m through with magic.”

“No, no, it’s harmless, really! Trust me!” Wren pleaded.

“Unless I try to take it off, right? Then what’ll happen? For all I know you could be giving me something that will phase me out of existence for good.”

“No, this charm is completely safe, I promise. Now please, put me down so I can get it for you.”

Cyan paused a beat, then shoved Wren back across the desk. Wren rolled of the workspace and onto the floor. The wizard got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Right… well…” Wren trailed off.

Cyan gave a slow deliberate nod. Even without words, the message was clear: “Get on with it.”

Wren went to his cluttered chest of drawers and dug through them, spilling papers onto the floor. “I found it,” he said, holding up a crude necklace. It was nothing more than a loop of jade suspended from a cord.

“Put this around your neck,” Wren said, handing it to him. “It’s a wind charm. It will take you wherever you want to go instantly.”

Cyan opened his mouth to speak.

“And no, nothing will happen to you if you try to take it off,” Wren preempted him.

It was with no slight trepidation that Cyan slung the necklace on. To his relief, the wizard had told the full truth this time. Nothing utterly detrimental had stricken him. Yet.

“What do I do once I’ve talked to the dragons?” Cyan asked.

“You need for them to lend you their treasures, each representative of the elements they stand for.”

“I need one treasure from any one of them?”

“No.” Wren hesitated. “All of them.”

Cyan scowled.

“They will test you,” Wren went on, “to see if you are worthy of their gifts. Once you have all four you must return here, and using their combined powers I might just be able to free you from the bracer.”

Arms crossed, Cyan could not believe what he was hearing. Dragons did not exist – they never did. They were beasts slain by knights in fairy tales. He shook his head. Almost as unbelievable was that, for a moment, Cyan actually thought Wren was telling the truth.

He gave a sigh. “What do these treasures look like?”

“No one knows,” said Wren. “No one has ever seen them.

Cyan nodded. “So now what?”

Wren froze in the middle of straightening the creases in his robe. “Tell the wind charm where you want to go.”

It occurred to Cyan that he didn’t know where any of the dragons were.

“You’re overthinking this,” Wren said. “Just tell it you want to go to the abode of the earth dragon.”

“Why should I go there first?”

Wren threw up his arms in exasperation. “Stop making this difficult. Just go.”

Cyan snatched up the charm and gripped it in his fist. “If this thing drops me into a fiery volcano, I’m going to claw my way out and come after you personally.”

It was faint, but Cyan saw Wren’s throat bob as the wizard swallowed hard.

 The charm glowed bright green in Cyan’s hand. Wren’s papers rustled as a gust of wind kicked up, swirled into a vortex that began to whirl around Cyan. The world beyond the rush of air stretched into streaks of color.

“A final word of caution…” Wren shouted over the noise. “Try not to die too many times.”

“Or else what?” Cyan yelled back.

“I'm not sure,” said Wren.

That very second there was a bright flash of green and the next thing he knew he was falling to the ground face first.

This excerpt is from R. Perez de Pereda's upcoming novel, The Many Deaths of Cyan Wraithwate. It's a sword and sorcery fantasy with an ironic twist published by Darkwater Syndicate. The novel is available in all ebook formats, as well as in paperback from our bookstore.

Born in Cuba in 1941, Ramiro Perez de Pereda has seen it all. After fighting communist insurgents at home, in 1959 he left Cuba for the United States where he made a name for himself working with blue-chip corporations. He has since retired from the business world and now devotes himself to his family and his writing.

Ramiro, who writes under the name R. Perez de Pereda, is the author of several dozen short stories and poems. A lifelong fan of fantasy in all its forms, in his youth he was a big fan of Robert E. Howard's work, particularly the Conan the Barbarian series.

He couldn’t remember when he had acquired the mask. He had come into the room one day and realized it was there on the great marble mantlepiece, in a place of honor, candles and sprigs of greenery around it. Days went by and it remained there, though the greenery eventually dried up and was cleared away; by the servants, he supposed, for he certainly had not moved anything. He did not go into that room very often. It was too large, too formal, too much in the middle of things. His scattered thoughts and a sense of restlessness led him to prefer the more remote areas of the mansion. But when he did enter the room, the mask was always there.

He liked looking at it. It was formed like the face of a man, eyes closed, serene smile on his face, but the lines were far too perfect, too beautiful to be any ordinary person. Perhaps it was the face of a god; had one of his friends who enjoyed traveling found it in some distant land where such idols were worshipped, and, knowing his love of beautiful perfection, brought it to him?

Come to think of it, he had once loved to travel. How long had it been since he had set foot on train or ship in search of beauty and excitement in faraway places? He didn’t know. This strange restlessness, accompanied by the equally strange inability to decide where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do, had had him in its grip for as long as he could remember.

 The more he looked at the mask, though, the more it teased him with a sense of familiarity. Was it only because the mask itself was becoming so familiar to him? He spent more time thinking about it than about anything else, and when he left his lonely retreats and ventured down the grand staircase into this room, it was always the first thing he looked for. 

 Something deep inside of him told him that wasn’t the answer, though. He thought–he thought that perhaps the man depicted by the mask was someone he had known once, long ago. But he couldn’t call a name to mind, and surely he would have remembered an acquaintance–or perhaps someone even closer than an acquaintance?–who was so beautiful.

* * *

He had always lived alone in the house–at least, as far as he could remember–so it came as a surprise one day to wander into the grand room and find two elegantly-dressed women standing there. One of them he didn’t know, but the other seemed so familiar, like a long-lost relative he had once been close to and then lost touch with. The women were standing by the fireplace, talking, then the strange woman gestured towards the mask. Curious to hear what they might be saying about his treasure, he drifted closer, taking care not to interrupt them or startle them with his presence.

“Yes, that’s him,” the familiar-looking woman said. “So handsome! All the ladies sighed over him, but, sadly, he never married.”

The other woman made a tsking sound. “What a shame.”

“Yes, it is. And gone so young, barely even forty. Even though masks are out of fashion, we had to have one made, so that we’d always have something of him with us.”

His curiosity piqued even more, he moved to an angle where he could get a better view of the familiar woman’s face, and gasped in surprise. The two women didn’t seem to hear him. The familiar-looking woman bore a striking resemblance to the mask. Forty, she had said he was. She appeared barely older than that–the man’s sister, perhaps? Too young to be his mother.

“Why do you leave it here, then, instead of keeping it at your house?” the other woman asked.

“I’m not sure. It just seems more...fitting, somehow. As though his house would be too sad and empty without something of him in it. Though sometimes, when I come by to make sure everything is all right here, it almost seems that I can still feel his presence...”

The two women moved off towards the hall leading to the kitchen and pantry, the sister saying, “Of course, we’ll have to sell this place eventually...”

He went over to stand before the mask, and looked at it as though he had never seen it before. Of course. And he wondered why he hadn’t realized the truth before. Had it been simple denial? Or that sense of not quite recognizing yourself when you see yourself in a portrait or photographic image?

There was an ornately-framed mirror hanging over the mantlepiece. Why had he never noticed it before? Or had he been deliberately avoiding it? He looked directly into it, and saw only the room behind him reflected in it. An incredibly odd feeling, but he found himself smiling nonetheless. If he wanted to remember what he looked like, he had only to look at the mask, and see himself as he would always be–forever beautiful, forever in his prime, forever as he had been in life.

This piece, A Familiar Face, was authored by Kyra Halland. She is the author of dark-edge tales of fantasy and romance and has written several books and short stories. She lives in southern Arizona and has two young adult sons, a very patient husband, and two less-patient cats.

Photo and picture by Ms. Halland.

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Rod stood holding the vial in his hand, the stopper firmly in place. New York City had never looked better. He was at the top of the Empire State Building, and could see the city laid out beneath him.

He had four vials. He would open the first one here. It was a good night to change the world. The wind was blowing briskly, and would be a willing helper to what Rod had planned.

A child prodigy, Rod entered the university system when he was twelve years old. Once, he was in the fast track towards earning dual degrees in Business and Economics, before his life took an unfortunate turn. It set him on a course that led up to this very moment.

Rod opened the vial and poured its contents out over the side of the building. The building was screened in, to prevent people from jumping to their deaths, but the steel mesh curtain was no barrier to the formula in his vials. Rod systematically walked to the three remaining corners of the building, opening his vials, emptying them out over the city. When he finished, he put the empty containers into his suit pocket and walked back into the building, back to the elevators, and out into the night. He stopped to hail a cab and couldn’t help but note with a rueful shake of his head that taxis without passengers drove by him for almost fifteen minutes. It was no wonder, he mused -- he was a Black man on the streets of New York City.

Finally, a cab drove up to him and stopped.

“Thank you for stopping, it’s been a long night,” Rod said, smiling.

The driver, an Arab man, smiled back at him and asked, “Where to, Brother? In this world, anything not white is a brother to me!”

The taxi driver laughed, pulling out into the traffic once Rod closed his door.

“That’s a good way to look at it," said Rod. "I’m headed to JFK, on my way to Philadelphia.”

“Ahh…the city of brotherly love! As if there is such a thing in America!” the taxi driver said, both of them laughing.

Rod eased back into his seat. He had worked tirelessly for almost ten years, and the formula was absolutely perfect. He had the only antidote. It was perfect, made up not just of a viral component, but it was laced with human DNA that would imprint upon its victims, not simply superficial, but molecular level changes.

He had a long way to go, but he’d bring the United States to its knees before he was done. New York, though, he had wanted to take care of himself. The rest of America would follow, as soon as he got to the airport. Planes left JFK headed for all parts of the nation, even the world. Rod had one more vial he would open when he got there. He had made sure that this virus could survive just about anything, heat, cold, wind, water, even chemicals. He had used the same packaging that was found in hoof and mouth disease, a mostly wind borne virus that affected cattle.

His little concoction was going to make everything even, once and for all. He was going to hit people with something soap and water couldn’t wash off.

The cab pulled up to the airport. Rod paid the driver and headed for the busy airport. He had a good forty-five minutes before his flight left, but he had some plans first. He walked through security, putting his briefcase on the x-ray ramp.

“Sir, can you open your briefcase, please?” the woman on the x-ray machine told him.

Rod sighed. Racial profiling. They really seemed to like stopping Black men in suits coming to the city on business.

Rod opened his briefcase, and watched one of the security men rustle through it. The man then closed the top, motioning for Rod to proceed on his way.

“You can’t be too careful nowadays," drawled the Hispanic security man, rolling his eyes at Rod. They both knew there was no problem.

The x-ray tech was a White woman, and this was her sector of power, her own way at needling every Black man that came through here.

Rod continued on his way, knowing that he had the virus all over his body, having poured it out over the city earlier. She’d be in for quite a shock when she woke up tomorrow. That was the beauty of the virus he made, it did its work while the body was at rest. Everybody had to sleep sometime.

Rod walked through the terminal and soon was on the observation deck upstairs. He could look out over the entire airport, looking at the planes on the tarmac below him. Lufthansa, USAir, Continental, Delta, British Airways -- the list went on and on. Rod hesitated a moment, taking a deep breath. He reached into his coat pocket and felt for the last vials. These were the large ones, the size of a small prescription bottle. He’d release one in Philadelphia and another in Washington, D.C. late that evening. All he had to do was get up someplace high and open the vial. The virus would do the rest.

He walked to the edge of the observation deck and took out a vial, tossing its contents over the side in a wide arc. It was a cool night, and mostly business people were traveling, with it being the middle of the week. They didn’t have time to stop and watch him.

Recapping the vial, he replaced it into his suit pocket with a smile of satisfaction. What did people always say about New York? If you could make it there, you’d make it anywhere...

Rod went back into the terminal to wait for boarding. He was flying in first class. When they called Business First, Rod stood up and went to hand his ticket to the person at the gate.

“Thank you, sir, have a nice flight," the young woman said, already moving on to the next passenger. Just after Rod came a White businessman, whom she spoke with briefly. Rod just shook his head and walked away.

“May I take your coat, sir?” a young flight attendant asked, waiting for an answer.

“No, that’s alright. Thank you anyway,” Rod told him, walking to his seat. He took off his coat after setting his briefcase at his feet. He sat down and put on his seatbelt, watching the flight attendants fawn over the White Business First passengers.

Rod closed his eyes and nodded off, not waking until they were beginning their descent.

He repeated his actions in Philadelphia, this time taking a moment to open his vial right outside the plane as he walked down the stairs. Everyone was so into their conversations that no one noticed his actions. The virus dropped onto the tarmac. Rod looked back just in time to see a luggage truck drive through the puddle he had dumped most of the virus into, making a huge splash before it continued on its way. Rod could almost see his creation leaping up into the air, borne on the wind.

He crossed the tarmac to the terminal, then walked down to the gate to catch his connecting flight. He was soon seated once more, on his way to Washington. Home.

* * *

Rod had used his equipment at Genetico Pharmaceuticals, to create his virus. He was fortunate, that due to his age, most of his work was unsupervised. He had worked tirelessly, coming in early and staying late, working on two separate projects, doing double the work, so he would have some results, besides his work on this virus. They never suspected.

Just before landing, he took his last vial, and went to the restroom, closing and locking the door. He then opened the toilet, and emptied the vial into it, flushing it as they began their descent. That would spread it out over the area, overnight. There was a strong headwind, which would make his job that much easier. “Fly babies, fly.” Rod whispered, putting the vial back into his suit jacket, and then washing his hands. He went back to his seat, fastening his seatbelt, as the plane inched ever lower, swaying in the wind.

Rod was one of the first people off the plane, and went through the terminal quickly, going to the parking garage, and climbing into his car. He drove an old Porsche boxer, and it had gotten him pulled over several times, for no reason. He restored the car himself, it was one of his baby’s! He drove to the exit gate, handing his ticket, and a credit card to the attendant, who took both of them, with a slight shrug.

“Sorry sir, it’s declined.” She sniffed, tossing her blonde hair for emphasis.

“Run it again, it’s an American Express card, platinum doesn’t get declined.” Rod told her, waiting for her to rerun the card. It went through the second time, and he took it and the receipt, commenting,

“Hope you enjoyed touchin’ it, baby, it’s about as close as you’ll get to having one.” The girl was trash, and STILL thought she was better than him, cause her skin was White! Man! He hated that shit! She glared at him, about to reply, but he rolled the window up, driving out as the bar raised in front of his car. He was home in half an hour. He pulled into his garage, after opening it with his garage door opener, and quickly turned the car off, getting out. It took just a few moments to put down the garage, and then he went inside, putting his briefcase down by the door.

Rod lived in the Maryland suburbs, in a town named Mitchellville. It was the up and coming address for the Black Bourgeoisie, with several people building huge estate type homes in the area. Several different enclaves existed, and many of the communities were gated.

Rod hadn’t moved into a gated community, he simply lived in his parents home. His parents. All they had wanted was a better life for him. All they had wanted, was for him to be judged just like all the little White kids. But even with all they wanted, he was never good enough, and neither were they.

A traffic stop by a Prince Georges County cop, had ruined everything. The young black men they had pulled over had put up a struggle, and one of them ran into the traffic on Route 50, when his Mother and Father had been returning from a shopping trip to Annapolis. There were no exclusive stores in the County they lived in, which led the nation in the number of young Black people in the upper portion of per capita income as minorities. But you still had to drive to another County to find a Saks or Lord and Taylor.

His Father had been driving, and a car in front of them had swerved to avoid hitting the boy. His Father didn’t react in time, and the boy came through their windshield, instantly killing his parents, and the driver. The boys had panicked, because of the reputation of the County officers. Four Black youths driving in a Mercedes were an easy target. They later found out, the car belonged to one of the boys’ parents. The boy that had panicked had been a friend he had met in an all-met basketball tournament, who was wanted in DC for an assault warrant. He had panicked, and tried to get away, resulting in the accident. Others were hurt, but only the young man, and Rod’s parents, were killed.

His Aunt came up from South Carolina to take care of him. She had died two years ago, of breast cancer. Now Rod was alone. Alone, except for his babies. His viruses. He loved the human genome. It had only been completely broken down near the end of 1999, and it had yielded him a great deal of material to do research with.

Rod yawned, tossing his keys on the kitchen counter, before he walked upstairs to go to bed. He turned on his television, and checked to make sure the videotape was ready once more, before he quickly undressed, and got into bed. He went to sleep with a smile on his face. It was the first time that had happened, since his parents’ death.

* * *

Rosemary DeLuca did the x-ray work at JFK Airport. Last night had been a good night. She knew for a fact that she had made two Black women and three Black men get shaken down and then strip-searched by Customs. It had made her night.

She woke up this morning feeling congested, as though she had the flu. The phone rang on her nightstand and she reached for it, putting it to her ear absently.

“Hello, Ma?” Janey’s voice came over the line.

Rosemary sighed. To think that her daughter had married a Black man. While Rosemary had never called him the ‘N’ word to his face, she stopped referring to him that way out of fear that it would slip out and she wouldn’t be able to see her grandchildren anymore. Poor things, they couldn’t help it if their parents were fools.

“Yes, Janey, what is it?” Rosemary said.

“Ma! Have you seen the news?”

“No, I just now woke up, what’s wrong with you?” Rosemary replied, taking the portable phone with her to the bathroom.

“Ma! Have you looked at yourself this morning? It’s happening all over the city! Have you looked in the mirror?”

“No, I haven’t! Stop being so cryptic!” Rosemary snapped at her, as she turned on the bathroom light. She lifted her head to look in the mirror, and screamed in shock.

The person in the mirror wasn’t her. She dropped the phone, screaming over and over.

"It won't come off!" Rosemary wailed.

Rosemary snatched up a towel and started wiping her face, her screams echoing off of the tile in the bathroom.

* * *

“Did it happen to her?” Janey’s husband, Big Al, asked, blowing on his coffee. His tone was cool, not at all upset with the breaking news flashing across his television right then.

“Ah... yeah..." said Janey. "I’m pretty sure it did.” She hung up the telephone and stroked her arms gently, marveling at how smooth and brown they looked now. They were just a little lighter than Al’s jet black skin.

“Honey, I’m black now, ain’t I?” Janey asked, a slow smile coming over her face.

Big Al smirked, nodding his head. He took a long drink of his coffee.

“Yeah, you plenty black now!" Al said.

“Well... I don’t know who did this, but I like it," Janey said, smiling. "Now my Ma, that’s another matter!”

He set his cup down and stood up, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. He was calling in sick today. With a grin he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

Janey couldn’t believe what had happened, and in her man's arms, she couldn't believe how happy she was -- she was Black. And the way it looked right now, so was most of New York City.

This piece, The Blacker the Berry, was penned by Trisha A. Lindsey. Ms. Lindsey, who also writes under the pseudonym Ronin Schtihl Daire, is the author of over a dozen ebooks and two paperbacks. She has also written the Josef and Blair Series, a five-book Series about love and race. Her works are available through Amazon.com.

Story © Trisha A. Lindsey, 1998

Story and pictures by Ms. Lindsey. 


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