《Unamed》 :Ursula And then Regent, red-eyed Regent, the devil, put his cards up right close to his face, right where you could see the bottom of his irises and nothing more. I could imagine him smiling wide behind his five-card-stud with his cheeks all puffed out to his pierced ears. His pasty pale white skin was stained black on the tips of his ears, just that smidge above where they were pierced by those circle piercings that made a hole that you could stick a thick pen through. Not one of those office-man''s pens or the kind you''d keep in your pocket, all quick and speedy with the smooth flows. But like the kind of pen that you might be given by some greedy shit with his logo smeared across the side. Clip and all. Of course, not that I''d use a clippy pen ever. Don''t have any suits or dresses to pin it onto or one to do the pinning. But yeah, Regent was just staring out from behind his deck with the little blue and green stripes on the backs, pulling up his legs in front of him all like he might if he was cold, but if he was cold, he''d just pull on the leather jumpsuit of his that was so tight. I mean, he''s already wearing gray sweatpants for his legs, sitting on that jumpy of his, but yeah the only reason he''d pull it on would be to cover up his shoulders, wearing that black tanker of his. I''m not cold either though, see. I''m in a black shirt and black sweats myself with the little and big black tatty bands on my right arm, just that smidge above the elbow. Regent just the week after he got the pen-hole-piercings insisted that I do it too with his style but I slapped him up and told him ''fuck no'' and he''d been asking ever sense, the devil. But then when Ursula saw Regent with his pen-hole-piercings she turned to me and said ''ey Zyolfe, that looks great. I think I might get ''em too'' I had to say ''might as well'' being the odd one of us out. So now we''re all three really holey, we three there in the ears. And I might as well say now that Regent''s actually Regent Lynchin, Ursula''s actually Ursula Utkin and yours truly happens to be Zyolfe Snowviss. But of course, I just call him Regent and when I''m feeling pretty intimate or conversational with her, I call her Yuyu. And so Regent was sitting there with his cards in his face and his white hair falling right down to his eyes and his black hands gripping his cards, his arms graying their ways up to his white shoulders and his tanker. So I finally picked up the cards that he had dealt me and looked at ''em. There was up front and in my face the eight o'' hearts, but Ursula always liked to call ''em thumpers instead of hearts. I put that at the back of the stack and there was the two, the fucking two, yes the two of clubs. I did what Regent was doing and sort of hid my face behind the cards and put the devil''s two at the back and saw the queen and the eight o¡¯ diamonds, which made me happy, and then the last card of the five was the duke of spades, but all the ados like us liked to call it the ''dick of spades'' instead. So seeing the two of the same suit, I took my free hand and threw a pistachio into the middle of our little gray blanket that we were sitting on, making a total of eleven in the middle. It wasn''t much of a bet, sure, sure, but I just wanted to get it going and let him know that I had at least something, but not tell him what it was. See, Regent was really bad at keeping his cards to himself, so I like knew that he was holding a really good set, especially when he threw in his match and then a counter of five more. See, that''s how he liked to get you, not betting much and then reeling you in with more and more until he had you by the balls. But I''d been playing well tonight, bluffing and calling everything really well and was up fifty pistachios against him. So to keep him on the toes, like, I threw in another five pistachios to even it all out at twenty-two. Then while I was waiting for him to trade in some cards, after I had done mine, I looked around at the alleyway. I mean, it wasn''t much, just that little space between block housings, but they had just recently had it lit, so now Regent didn''t have to race over here during his lunch breaks to play and we could just wait till night. Sure it was a bit dirty and loud with the radiators and pipes and things, but hell, can''t really beat it for privacy.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. So then when Regent had finally finished I look at my new cards and slowly bet him up and call his throws because I knew that I had him this time. I kept the duke and the eights and picked up the dukes of spades and clubs too. And when the dealing and betting was done, Regent put his cards down, holding ''em under his foot that he had in front of him and leaned back on his little black hands. And then you could really see that little pink scar on the side of his white neck that his maman had given him that one day when she was just so dead drunk. I mean, it just makes it so much funnier that Regent''s now a worker at the local mead plant yeah. Like four guys died there last year, so like the whole injuries around the stuff just seems funny with his experiences. From there he had a quick laugh at my spiky rat''s nest of black hair, calling it ''dumb as dogshit, the style, that one'', swishing back his hair to the right side of his face. ¡°Hey, if you want ridiculous, you, just look at your eyes!¡± ¡°What about ''em?¡± ¡°You got ''em reddened, and that''s some dogshit styling.¡± ¡°Hey, natural blue doesn''t suit either of us.¡± ¡°Or Marie, from across the way.¡± ¡°Neither! So-¡±, his mischievous grin coming back, ¡°you wanna call this one the last hand of the night?¡± ¡°It''s a good idea. Ursula wants to see me, at least just to check if I''m alive, before I turn in.¡± ¡°Yeah, I''m boxed up for tomorrow in work, you know?¡± ¡°Yeah, I get it.¡± ¡°You sure Ursula''s not already turned in? It''s gotten past midnight already.¡± ¡°Oh she''ll be up till two making sure I don''t try to sneak in and skimp out on fixing the cables for her morning emissions. Connections got all fucked up again and she''s been trying to watch her shows all day, and I''ve figured out what the problem was just before I left to see ya.¡± ¡°I have to say it''s a great deal though, getting to live there so long as you do all the work and make all the meals and hang around such a hot chick in the meantime.¡± ¡°Not my style.¡± ¡°Well, she isn''t Marie, eh?¡± ¡°Very true, you devil, you.¡± ¡°What kind of girl would you want?¡± Then all sorts of words crashed into my head, slamming against each other like disjointed and terrifyingly off chords of bassists in a clash. Introverted, extroverted, calm, feisty, submissive, dominant, small, tall, fashionable, hopeless, stupid, brilliant, dependent, confident, silent, wild, sylphlike, insane... ¡°Uh, alive.¡± ¡°Heh. Should we finish the hand?¡± ¡°Sure, sure.¡± Regent lifted up his little sandaled foot and pulled out those cards, which he flipped over. I could see the first four, two red thumpers: the six and the seven, and then the two black sevens too. The one card that was buried was fished out and he showed me the six of spades. Knowing that I had won, I distracted him with a comment on his footwear. ¡°Why are you even wearing sandals anyway? It''s still winter, you know.¡± ¡°It''s getting warmer!¡± ¡°But sandals and a jumpy? That''s some dogshit fashion there, you.¡± ¡°Oh shut up, you, and show those cards!¡± I dropped on his stack the pair that I had and then shoved the dukes in his smirking face, saying, ¡°All holes filled, you devil, you! Three dicks.¡± ¡°Cunt fucking damn you, Zyolfey. I thought I had it. My best hand of the night.¡± He threw up his hands and laughed, sliding his lost pistachios over to my side of the blanket, making sure to do it in a disorganized shit of a push, scattering them all around me. Regent stood up and collected his pistachios into his little pouch and I folded up the blanket with mine inside, tying a little knot with the corners to keep all the little nuts in place. ¡°Hey man, it''s been good.¡± ¡°Yeah it has, Zyolfe.¡± ¡°Take care, you devil, you.¡± ¡°And to you, man.¡± We gave each other a quick hug and patted our backs before Regent stepped into his jumpy and I pulled on my gray and teal hood and sleeves and trekked it out into the breezy winter air. It''s not like it was cold or anything, just really windy which brought the cold with it, yeah. And so I crossed the park and the ice-flowy river that went right through that to reach the side where Ursula had her place all set up and decked. The building was big and gray and dull like every-fucking-thing else in this town and inside was even darker. There was this big meshed off shaft for the elevator which didn''t lift shit now and these times, and the stairs that went up and around that were littered, especially with gum so you had to jump steps sometimes cause there wasn''t a clean place to step it and you didn''t want to get all that shit on your feet. And on the third floor was that door of hers with the little silver placard on the front that had a little bear on it for, of course, Ursula. Ursula:The_Park I knocked the fifteen times it took for her to reach the door and get the bolt undone and let me in. She had this one room place with a little bathroom attached to it. She had painted all the walls herself into this really scenic setting of like woods and forests on the edge of a lake and had boarded up her window to get the paint on it and finish her panorama. And so Ursula sat down on her little mattress that she had put in the middle of the room and patted it down and around a bit while I finished locking up. So I sat behind the little screen box in the little of the room and started unplugging and replugging in the cables and wires, looking up every so often to look at Ursula. So she was all got up in this sort of gray green teal dark not-sure-what-to-call-it colored wrap around her waist and matching set of wraps that she had put around her torso, going over her shoulders and across her ribs, making a sort of bra. She had this little charm around her neck that looked really exotic and had tanned and furred bracers on her wrists and ankles, see. And so when I finally got the screen working again, I could hear her playing really calming tunes on her pan flute. ¡°So what all did you miss?¡± Pausing her tribal pieces, ¡°All the good nature programming. There was one on foxes around the world that I was really bummed at missing.¡± ¡°Well I''m sorry about that.¡± She put away her pan flute by putting it on this little mat she had next to her mattress and put her bracers there too. So I took to my bed too, which was properly elevated against the back wall of the place, so I undressed down to my underwear and tucked myself in for the night and she called over to me, ¡°Goodnight Zyolfe. Sleep and dream well.¡± ¡°You too, sleep well, you.¡± ¡®N so in the morning, when I got up and got myself dressed in the same sweats as yesterday I put on a fresh black tanker to put over those shoulders yeah. Just that smidge after that, I¡¯d gotten the tea going on the stove and the pan heating itself on the other burner for the eggs. I could make ¡®em scrambled, flipped all proper or omelet-style and the sizzling of me tryin¡¯ to decide what way to make ¡®em must of woken her up because once she¡¯d put on a new bunch of wraps and a furred jacket and her bracers, she started playing her tribal tunes again, till... ¡°Good morning, Zyolfe.¡± ¡°How goes yourself, Yuyu?¡± Groggily rolling over to put a blanket over her shoulders, ¡°Pretty well, thanks. How are you?¡± Shrugging off a bit of yawn there, ¡°Just fine yeah.¡± Ursula stood up to go brush her teeth and do other stuff in the bathroom, but I just kept on frying up the eggs and pouring out glasses of tea. See, I never bothered with all the hygiene things. I took a shower every day or so, sure, but I rarely bothered brushing my teeth. Like, certainly the day before going to the dentist, but whenever I just felt ¡®em getting a bit gross I¡¯d just clean up real well with a bit of tongue and spit and drink. No cavities. Never. I¡¯d swim in the river every so other day as a kid, fooling around with Regent all the time and we¡¯re tempered now. Don¡¯t ever get sick cause we taught our bodies to live in toxic waste and shit every time we dipped a hand in that river those years ago. But now if you wanted to be so immune like us you¡¯d have to find some other shitty river ¡®cause the plant that Regent works at and some of the other plants around town just don¡¯t do the same stuff and have taken to dumping into someone else¡¯s shitty river, see. So when Ursula got back and sat down again on her mattress, I brought her that tray with eggs and some bread and then went back to grab the glasses of tea which we¡¯d split every morning. Chai-chai was her taste, see, but I¡¯d always liked straight green best. But to keep her happy when I made it I had it be chai-chai for her. She was always up and like ¡®it¡¯s only right that you serve me breakfast in bed, noting the circumstances¡¯, well, a hell of a lot more polite than how I¡¯d say it, but that¡¯s what she meant. But I always thought, ¡®well fuck where else? There¡¯s nowhere else to sit! At least not here¡¯ and so I did it, see. And she always appreciated it, giving me one of her rare mead-less smiles. Well, not that she had much drink anyway, but more that she didn¡¯t like to smile much to begin with. So if you or s¡¯mn gave her something nice she¡¯d smile all nice and pretty, with her thin little face and cheeks, but she¡¯d do it for you anyway if you put some mead in her cup earlier. ¡°So what all¡¯s up with you work today?¡± ¡°Well there was a cat that came in yesterday. She¡¯d swallowed a couple little magnets and quite literally got her stomach in a knot, so we had to surgically get those out yesterday. She¡¯s been recovering all night, so I¡¯ll be checking in on her to start. After that, I think I¡¯ll be helping out with the dogs. We¡¯ve still got a few of them that- Well, actually, Sam¡¯s probably going to be doing that himself. That¡¯d leave me to fill out some prescriptions and take calls then.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°The devil, him, eh?¡± ¡°Sam? He¡¯s as nice as anyone I know. You know that.¡± I do know that. Sam is a very nice man, but he isn¡¯t so down to earth as say, Regent. See, I don¡¯t know if Ursula knows, but Sam does more than mead over the weekends when he¡¯s off, and I¡¯ve never really approved of that kind of behavior, at least, not to the extent that Sam goes off to do it. I mean, we live in the perfect little town for it, all smoky and industrial already, really dark with plenty of woods surrounding it, see. Plenty of places for those exchanges to go down and plenty of places to do the smoking. You could be an addict easily without having anyone know that about you, at least, you could around here. I inquire all politely, ¡°When do you have to go in for that?¡± ¡°Oh, soon enough. What time is it anyway?¡± Myself, not being very good with the time, never having a watch or a phone, you¡¯d see, that I had to walk all the way over to the other side of the room to find Ursula¡¯s phone that she had stashed away in a heap of wraps of hers, all smelly and ready for a wash. ¡°It¡¯s just about eight after the same hour.¡± ¡°I have to be there at nine¡­ should probably pick up some things on the way there, or I could just wait and get them on the way back. Eh¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go with you. You could let me take the spare key and I¡¯d take the stuff back here while you head out to work.¡± ¡°That sounds like a plan.¡± So while she was getting up and really getting ready to go, doing stuff like pulling on her sandals and brushing her teeth again, I was getting on my hood and sleeves and my proper shoes and going to the door. See, there was this little ledge right above the top of the door where there was some molding to sort of outline the doorway and make it look fancier than it really was, but ours was all old and chipped real bad. But it still worked just fine for what we needed it for, which was holding the keys, so I grabbed both of ¡®em and tossed the shinier one to Ursula. She liked the shiny one more because it was the one she used the most, all shiny from being used every day, not gathering dust and rust up like the other one. So we got down to the little shop on the far side of the river between the park and her veterinary clinic and knocked on the door real nice so we could get Roderick to open up early for us. See, just about everything opened at nine around here, so if you wanted to do anything before work, you had to know some people, and Ursula¡¯s mother¡¯s sister¡¯s granddaughter¡¯s father-in-law or something like that was Roderick here, so she knew him alright. He undid the metal shutters and let us in, lighting up all the bright white lights that looked like really fat star-streaks. You know which ones: the kind that give you a headache from looking at for too long and the kind that you could take and really give a guy a good beating over the head with, yeah, that kind, see. But you could only give him the beating once and you¡¯d only get one good swing because then it¡¯d break and all that gas on the inside would come out and it wouldn¡¯t work anymore. And we walked around, chatting it up about the latest news we had about our friends. Ursula asked me how the job-hunt was going and I told her the whole ¡®yeah it¡¯s going slow. See, I¡¯m waiting to hear back from some people still¡¯ and that¡¯s really true. It doesn¡¯t sound true at all, but it really is, see. I might not be to responsible or anything, but I¡¯m a good observer. I see stuff well, so I started looking for jobs at the library but they don¡¯t pay and then at the printing press and bookstore but they were getting rid of people, so I figured that they¡¯d just get rid of me too. But that meant that I¡¯d have to go back to my second best skill, which is cooking. See, there¡¯s a ton of quaint little shops and outlets around here, but at least a little teahouse or food joint per. So there¡¯s this really small but classy soup and bakery place, where they make soup and serve it with handmade bread that I¡¯m waiting to hear back from. But above all, there¡¯s this other place that serves noodles and rice, all with vegetables, meat and egg that I¡¯m also waiting on. But there, they¡¯ve also got sushi. I mean, I don¡¯t know how to make sushi, but I think it¡¯d be really cool to hang around a place and be able to learn in whatever lulls there¡¯d be. So I asked Ursula about more of her friends and how they¡¯ve been getting on, which she was always very happy to share with you. And then we both asked Roderick the same things at the counter, asking him about his family and friends and what all he had planned for the week, and he answered us really nice, checking us out real fast. So I took the bags and brought them back to the place, almost slipping up on the steps back up to the third floor and getting my face in a pile of gum, but I was fast and got my balance back all good and didn¡¯t step in any of that shit. And I put away all the groceries in the fridge and cabinet, practically overflowing the place where she kept the wafers and pork spreads with surplus. Anyway, as a nice treat for her, I got the stove going and made a pot of hot chocolate, adding all sorts of good things to make it better than just packeted shit, yeah. Some nutmeg, a dash of cinnamon, and a few spoonful¡¯s of honey. Then I turned down the heat to really low so that it couldn¡¯t boil over or anything, and grabbed my blanket of pistachios and put it in my backpack. It was a hard-shelled backpack, see, made of plated scales over a mesh so it looked like the back of an exotic animal. In there was a lot of paper and pencils for my drawing and also my books, my knife and box of matches, because you never, never know when you might need ¡®em, right. So I turned off the lights, used the restroom, grabbed my pack and headed on out to the park. The_Park:Interruptions_Too The park was chilled in the air like refrigerator. What I mean by that is that if you stuck your arms out into it there wouldn''t be any cold pains or numbing, just a sort of gentle air, but if you let the air fall out and onto your chest you''d really feel it then. That''s definitely what today was like. There were the plants starting to grow and the trees not even close to starting with their budding again. So I get down to the bridge over the river, the old Young Bridge, yeah. Crossing right over the Nomina River, newly named after it came about. It''s new, you know. See, after all the melting in the nearby mountains that hold our forest it created a permanent river, like, finally named and tamed a few years before Regent or I were born. And there were still ice flows in the river, going under the bridge in a way that was real pretty and probably poetic, like. I suppose I should go check on my mail and find out if I¡¯ve gotten something back from the job that I¡¯ve applied for, but eh, that can wait a bit. It¡¯s not like knowing right now is going to make a difference in whether or not I get in or can really do anything anyway. Like, even so, I¡¯m not going to be able to do anything about it or get back with ¡®em until tomorrow anyway even if they have replied and stuff, after sleeping over my options and all that. But like I was saying, all of that checking on all of that can wait till I¡¯m done with eating up on yesterday¡¯s winnings. So I sit down, just off one of those paths that cuts across the park. So the ground¡¯s pretty cold, really, but it¡¯s all fine because I just open up the blanket with all those pistachios in the middle and sit down on it. And so I just start cracking ¡®em open with my nails and popping ¡®em into my maw and throwing the shells out and into the river, you know, old Nomina. It feels good to be doing that river a bit of a favor, you know, people are always up and on about recycling and stuff and like those shells will just get all up and in the environment and add some fuel back into the system, I¡¯d think after a while. And even if I¡¯m really wrong it¡¯ll get the river back to the good ol¡¯ times of making little kids immune and everything, just like it did to Regent and I. So once I¡¯m done shelling ¡®em all and I¡¯ve got my pack all packed up again with the blanket all brushed off of mud and scraps and folded back up, I head over to the post to check up on it all. So I got up and walked again over ol¡¯ Nomina, but this time taking the new bridge, that one with benches on the edges right next to the grated sides where other ados put locks for their wishes and threw the keys to help out polluting the river for the strength of future ados. And all that cal. At one of the tables, like there were so many days, you see, were a few old men sitting about a chess board. Sometimes when you walked by you could see that they were playing a really good game with all the pieces pinning each other in this delicate balance, super fragile like you¡¯d think of that vase or dish, you know the one, that you¡¯re scared of touching cause you know it¡¯ll break if you just set it down slightly wrong. But today they were playing one of those real dull ones where black¡¯s really beating up on white, taking the middle and just pressing the trades and it¡¯s like no fun to watch cause there¡¯s no suspense. There¡¯s no excitement! That¡¯s why I always wanted to leave this little place, cause there¡¯s no excitement! You turn on the programs, like Ursula does every night and you hear that fifty people were killed in an explosion and there¡¯s some new war or supervirus and you go ¡®where? Where? Where¡¯s it all at¡¯ and they¡¯re like ¡®on the other side of the world¡¯ and you go ¡®well shit! That¡¯s too far away to be interesting¡¯ and then you turn it off and think, like. See, not that I want to be involved in any of that, but I¡¯d just want there to be something changing everything up every so often around here, but there never is besides the occasional accident at a plant or a funeral or a store closing from our stale economy and then some jack buys up the place and renovates it and ends up losing all his money too. And once I finally get all the way to the far side of it all, real close to the plant where Regent works, even though he lives all the way on the other far side of town, I see the post, yeah. I think it was one of the oldest building, see, after this fire a long time back that burnt down everything, the post was one of those buildings that like n¡¯n wanted to see gutted and built over, so they just restored it as best they could and went on fixing the rest of the town all new and, well, they said pretty. So once I¡¯m inside, I can see all the old brick walls on the one side with the burn marks on ¡®em and that line of new bricks that marks where the old building ends and the new sort of building begins. There¡¯s this lucky ado at the counter who got a spot here who I don¡¯t need, but he insists on escorting me to my private box and looking over my shoulder the whole time I¡¯m trying to get the letters out of the damn little thing. And so once I finally do get him out of my hair and busy handling another person, who insists on sending four fucking jars of jam to some man studying at some prestigious university somewhere out there, I get myself out of there and down the street. I think ¡®there¡¯s the place¡¯ as I see the shuttle. See, the shuttle¡¯s the only metro thing we¡¯ve got around here and it¡¯s a miracle we have it anyway. We¡¯re all like too poor to really keep it in good shape or have it connect everything, but it gets you from one side of town to the other really great. Three stops, two trains: the post district, the park, and the lot. So I¡¯m at the post district and the park stop is on the side of the river that I don¡¯t live on, so it¡¯s really inconvenient for me to use the shuttle, but for making it across for Regent must be really helpful. The lot, way out on the far end of town is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There was this time after the fire when everything was being rebuilt and people were actually moving here that everyone thought the town was finally going to grow up and be a place people would want to live, so they made all these plans to keep building out¡­ East, I think. Yeah. The lot¡¯s on the east side, and the post is on the west, along with Ursula¡¯s place. Anyway, the stop¡¯s literally in the middle of this overgrown field. See, it¡¯s just a couple square miles of nothingness that you can still get off at and look out at. Cause there¡¯s some ado with nothing better to do, the lawn right outside the station¡¯s always mowed and clear, but if you go more than twenty feet out you¡¯re going to walk right into the brush. And there¡¯s all of the utilities already laid out, all the pipes and telephone wires, so if you were to actually walk through the fields, you¡¯d find all these things out there. So I go down into the tunnels, yeah. It¡¯s really dark because half of the lights don¡¯t work anymore and the levy to get someone in here and get the system¡¯s all working again didn¡¯t pass cause n¡¯n could afford it. And they¡¯re those tube lights too, so the half that do work hurt your eyes when you look at ¡®em. There¡¯s all sorts of writing and scribbles on the walls too, but some of it looks pretty cool, see. Like, there¡¯s the stupid stuff that people write that¡¯s just their names in big and ugly lettering, but sometimes you see a real work of art, yeah. For example, there¡¯s this one that¡¯s of this hyena that looks like it¡¯s sort of just hanging in the air with its legs stretched like it was making a big jump or something and it¡¯s got its mouth open but it looks like it¡¯s having a great time of it, real happy. So when I hop on the shuttle, I start opening up the mail that I¡¯ve got, which is mostly just crap from people who want my vote or their money. Jokes on them, see, I don¡¯t vote ever. They like to say that you have to vote and if you don¡¯t vote, you can¡¯t complain about the outcome because you didn¡¯t take a stance, but think about this here, would you? If you vote for some guy and he happens to win and he doesn¡¯t do good things, then you can¡¯t complain at all because it¡¯s your fault that he got elected and did whatever bad things he did, so I feel like I can complain more if I just say out of it. Or, at least, it lets me laugh at all of it real good. But there is a set of two nice white envelopes from the places that I had applied to, and so I open ¡®em up. And the one¡¯s a big disappointment, but the place that serves noodles and rice and stuff, just named after the owner, Mrs. Mao¡¯s, sent me back some good news. It was all handwritten too, really nice and pretty and in cursive with a signature in foreign characters, probably from Mrs. Mao herself, yeah. At least, I wanted to think that. But yeah, whoever wrote it from Mrs. Mao¡¯s place wanted me to come in sometime and talk with ¡®em about what I might be doing and see whether or not it¡¯s something I¡¯d want to really do and of course if I¡¯m ready for it. So the shuttle stops at the park, sort of making this really high-pitched grindy sound as it does, and I hop off, really eager to go and see if I can get formally hired by Mrs. Mao. So I stuff the mail, except for the one special letter, into my pack as I run up and out of the shuttle right out to the west edge of the park. So I ran right on and off towards Mrs. Mao''s but of course it wasn''t gonna what I was thinking because not two blocks from the park, I saw a man I couldn''t refuse the company of, see.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Cyrcil was, eh, let''s say my best friend, yeah? Regent''s great, really, but no one could really do me the same pleasure that Cycril''s given me with his presence. Funny enough, his name should have been ''cyril'' but his parents fucked up real bad and so now he''s Cyrcil, but I just call him Cc and he likes that. He''s got this face that reminds me of a raccoon every time I see it, truly, and he even looks the part. See, he''s wearing this black and white striped hoodie, with the stripes being over an inch thick, easily, and over that he''s wearing a plain white short sleeve shirt and a black backpack on the back of it all, with his adorable raccoon plushie affectionately strapped to the back of that. Cc''s always reminded everyone of raccoons it seems, so for his birthday one year when we were really young I got him that plushie and he''s been keeping it on him ever since, really sweet him, the devil. Oh yeah, and like he''s also got some dark jeans on his legs, but who cares about that. What else? He''s got big blue eyes, just like mine, doesn''t have any tatty on him and this black hair that just looks so casual, but he keeps it well. So yeah, Cyrcil is just the most fucking brilliant man I''ve ever met. He was born in this shitty town and managed to get into computers enough to get hired way young and way out there, in some tiny country that I couldn''t tell you the capital of. Starts with an ''L'' I think and has, oh fuck it, I don''t know where and you know I don''t so let''s just say ''over there'' and be on with it, yeah? But yeah, he got out, moved over there and everything, lives cheap there and saves all his money and time to go visit all his ados around the world and never skips a season to come back home and see some people. We keep in touch all the time, usually when I''m at the library on a computer doing some quick stuff on a public computer, we get in a quick call or something. See, there''s no one ever at the library, so none of the librarians care at all if there''s some ado just making some noise. So he was just walking right along the side of the road, just like all of us ados like to do, right over the edge of the curb because we''re not worth the sidewalk, and neither are the taxes, you see, but not far out enough to get clipped by a car. And of course, he''s turned the wrong way to be able to see me, so I really loudly call over to him, ¡°Oy! Cc!¡± And how could you not turn to look back at someone screaming ''oy'' and then your name? Huh? It''s natural, and so he did and seemed to recognize the voice and spun around. And then he did something pretty stupid in just bolting across the street, not even looking for cars or anything, just to get over to my side. As soon as he was over he gave me this big hug that nearly knocked me over, the devil, and exclaimed, ¡°Zyolfey!¡± He reached over and grabbed my arm, right between the shoulder and elbow and looked at it, ¡°And you got that second stripe tatty. Much better than just the one, yeah?¡± ¡°Definitely, man, how''s it been?¡± ¡°And the ears too, really got them out to size now. Don''t you go too much larger with them, eh? Don''t wanna fit a dime through there, see, that''s when it just gets disgusting.¡± ¡°Yeah wasn''t gonna.¡± ¡°Anyway, I''ve been doing really great, yourself?¡± ¡°Good, just got some good news, but why didn''t you tell me that you were coming back?¡± ¡°There was supposed to be this big tech meeting in Toronto, and I was to be our company''s representative there. It was new and I was going to be accompanied by some of our biggest RnD stars from our overseas departments. But then there was this big storm and the airport got shut down and I was already in Vienna on another meeting over a sales deal turned sour, so there was no chance to get there on time any other way, so I called up my boss if I could change out the Toronto tickets for a quick trip for a day or two back here and he said that he didn''t see any harm in it and gave me a quick break, unpaid of course, but I don''t care really.¡± ¡°That''s great!¡± ¡°Do you wanna go get some tea or do anything?¡± ¡°Certainly!¡± ¡°Let''s head over to my place for that, shall we? Maybe play some games while we''re there, yeah?¡± And of course, I''d agree to all this as we cut through all the busy crap that we, well, he''d been dealing with and everything that''s new, I guess. But his old place was actually really close to Ursula''s. He still kept the deed and cause he was back at least once a season, didn''t have anyone take care of it while he was out, so everything was pretty dusty when we got there. After setting some water for tea, he led me up to the roof. See, it was on the top floor of this building all by itself. It wasn''t as special as that sounds though, because just a few feet over was another building exactly like it and so on for about a block or so, but he got the top floor privilege of the roof too. And, and he got the added bonus of being at the west end of the block, so he got all the great views of the sunsets, well, at least the best of anyone in this town. So there''s all the factories on the west side with their smokestacks, so it''s either hazy with the smoke or the towers are in the way or there''s something else, always something else, that gets the sunset just wrong for a good picture. But regardless, Cyrcil leaned himself right up on the railing facing out that way, resting himself a bit on his elbows and forearms. And he looks back at me with that smiling face of his that still reminds me of raccoons with the factories in the distance, all surrounded by the depressingly gray clouds, and brings a smile to my face anyway. He''s just the person who can always brighten up my day, no matter what the weather or bad news, Cc''s always there to say these beautifully brilliant kind words and keep me going. ¡°Got anyone yet?¡± ¡°No.¡± Cyrcil laughed, ¡°I''m not that lucky.¡± ¡°You''re brilliant, though. You''d think that som''n would want to be into that?¡± ¡°N''n. They want a man who''ll sit still for a day or two, turns out.¡± He laughed again, ¡°Oh, they don''t like that about me. See, the ones who wanna be with me just don''t wanna tail me forever to stay with me.¡± ¡°Sounds like the don''t truly like you then.¡± ¡°You''ve gotta draw the line somewhere. And they seem to like it there, where it is.¡± He turned his back to the factories and leaned against the railing with his body now, facing me with his hands in his pockets. Not putting them there all proper like someone with his influence might, but instead like a true ado with only his thumbs on the inside and the eight of ''em others on the outside, gently tapping away. ¡°It''s alright. I''m certainly not out of luck. See, there''s this lovely man in our department, who''s totally like me. We compare code all the time, he''s practically right across the way and we''ve been going out for drinks a lot. I mean, it''s nothing official or anything, just... it''s really fun to be with him and I think he likes me too.¡± ¡°Man! That''s great!¡± ¡°Thanks. Thanks a ton Zyolfe.¡± ¡°So, Cc, I got to ask, what''s he like?¡± ¡°Well, his name''s Anatoli and I think I already said that he''s pretty hot. He''s got a bit of a problem with the drinking, but thankfully it''s not mead that he''s into. So, he does a lot of meetings and traveling like I do when we''re not finishing code and trying to integrate the fucking hardware. Cause I always say, I''ll do the software, and if you give me a good snack, I''ll do the firmware, but I''ain'' never touching the hardware. So guess what they''re having me do now...¡± ¡°I see.¡± ¡°So how are you doing in the hunt?¡± ¡°Oh, absolutely nowhere. I''ve told you about my tenancy with Ursula, but she''s definitely not my type.¡± ¡°Why''s that?¡± ¡°I''m not into the pan flute, to be honest, and she''s a bit... odd. It''s hard to describe but she just feels like the type of person who''d drag me down to her level of being one with nature and stuff, and I really don''t think that''s the life for me.¡± ¡°Sounds like something you''d say.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yeah. You''re the one who, well. Eh, never mind.¡± ¡°No, I wanna know.¡± ¡°It''s nothing, just something really strange I thought I noticed. But I''m just being crazy.¡± ¡°Okay then.¡± ¡°Let''s go get tea, huh? It''s certainly ready.¡± ¡°Okay, sure.¡± And so right then I wasn''t feeling too good because Cc was starting to make me nervous, but as soon as I took a sip of some of his classic green tea, those troubles melted away. In fact, the entire night sort of melted away into a bit of cards and more tea. I was really wanting to spend the night there with him, but there was always something in me that said not to spend the night around Cyrcil because of his orientation and how I just didn''t want things to get super weird between us. And I also knew that Ursula would be waiting for me to get back to be able to lock up and go to bed. She''d probably be a bit disappointed too. I didn''t make her dinner, which I usually manage for her. So when I did finally get back, I just sort of slummed the night out till I could get out of there next morning after all the daily stuff. So, it was just a few hours after sunrise that I made it finally to Mrs. Mao''s place, and without really any distractions or interruptions too. Interruptions_Too:Beef_Too On the way I couldn''t help but think of Cyrcil and how our conversation didn''t go quite as smoothly as it usually did a couple times yesterday. It was a bit disappointing really. Perhaps when I''m done here, I''ll have to pay him another visit and try to make up for that. Yeah, that''s what I''ll do. So the building itself was brick and sort of dark with a really quiet entrance. There was a sort of courtyard in front of it that was brick on the ground, but the sides were just really short plants sort of meshing right up against the buildings alongside it. The door in was a couple feet up off the ground and there was this metal staircase that curved right on up to it, but what was really dumb was how the door opened out into the staircase so it was really hard to get in. You had to squeeze up against the corner of the railing and slide the door past you to be able to fit through to get inside, almost as if Mrs. Mao''s had something against fat people, like ''no no no, you can''t get in the door? You don''t get a taste'' sort of, how you say, disdain. So, the entryway is really skinny but there''s three doorways to get out of that cramped excuse of a coathanger. There''s this small room on the right with a couple tables and a large window out over the courtyard. It''s pretty dark, but it''s got charm with some traditional art pieces that Mrs. Mao brought over when she moved to this town. In the back is a stairway down and into the restrooms and on the left is the real part of the restaurant. It''s a room that''s much brighter than the one on the right, but goes much farther back to a sushi bar, behind which is a rack of even more interesting artifacts of Mrs. Mao''s and the back right wall of that room has the door into the kitchen. See, it shows just how distressed I was over the conversation with Cyrcil because when I saw the little lion or tiger, hard to tell the difference in statuary, just that smidge up and beside this little cd player and radio that Mrs. Mao had on her display, I just couldn¡¯t help but become sad again. See, I rarely had times like that with him. Maybe it had to do with feeling a bit distressed over the fact that I didn¡¯t know he was coming, or maybe it was because I was a bit jealous of him maybe getting together with Ivan, or whatever his name was. Actually, I think I¡¯m being a bit unfair. Anyone that Cyrcil likes that much deserves more respect than that. So I told myself ¡®I¡¯ll do my best to remember his name then¡¯ and really did give it a good try. It just¡­ it makes me so sad to think that there¡¯s even that chance of losing my best friend, even over something as stupid as a conversation that didn¡¯t go perfectly. So, I did manage to shape myself up and suck in my thoughts for Mrs. Mao. She was a very small lady, only slightly thinner than Regent, who was easily the scrawniest man I¡¯d ever known. Well, lanky is a bit of a better word, because it¡¯s not like he was short or anything, n¡¯n like that, only his arms and legs and stomach were so thin. He wasn¡¯t strong, not many of us ados really were, but he didn¡¯t give up on things easily, and you had to respect a man for that. Anyway, Mrs. Mao was a very small lady, all dressed up in a nice and fancy robe, and it really was fancy with pink floral patterns on its green fabric. It was that sort of green that you could see in the grass if you got far enough away from town in the summertime. I could only imagine that it was like that over at the lot year-round, when it wasn¡¯t covered by snow or anything like that. She seemed a bit overbearing though, looking out from the doorway to the kitchen over her sushi chef and the waiter who was attending the only group that was here. It was early, so I didn¡¯t expect there to be a crowd anyway, see. She walked over to the sushi chef and asked him if he needed any more supplies and he told her ¡®no ma¡¯am¡¯, and then when the one waiter went back into the kitchen, she asked him something, to which he replied, ¡®yes ma¡¯am.¡¯ And so I really quickly figured out that ¡®yes¡¯,¡¯no¡¯ and ¡®ma¡¯am¡¯ were some of Mrs. Mao¡¯s favorite words. So, all nervous, like, I walked up to Mrs. Mao and really softly told her ¡®hi¡¯ and sort of smiled at her. She looked a bit confused and so I said, ¡°I¡¯m here to talk to you about the position.¡± ¡°Ah, come.¡± And she led me over to the empty room on the left side of the entryway and sat me down across from her. ¡°So, Zyolfie¡­¡± ¡°Snowviss, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°Hm. Well, we need a bit of a man who is willing to do just about everything. Help out in the kitchen, bussing tables, going on supply runs, cleaning up and various things like that.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯d prefer to work mostly in the kitchen, but I¡¯d be very fine doing all of that, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°Are you sure that would not be a problem.¡± ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡± And then we talked for a while. She asked me some questions about my personal life and schedule and what I liked to do and what I didn¡¯t like to do. And of course some questions about my personality, like my work ethic and what my ideal job would be and such. It took quite a while to get through everything and about halfway through the whole thing, she started taking notes with this little pen on a napkin.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Well, if you¡¯d give me a day to think on it and see if I can get in contact with the other potential applicants, I will have made up my mind about you then. Come back tomorrow morning and you¡¯ll either start then or go home.¡± ¡°Sounds fair, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°Good. I will see you then.¡± So, you see, when I walked out of there, I felt really relaxed and laid back, like it was all going to be okay. I mean, I won¡¯t lie, I was nervous about it, but I felt good in the sense that I thought Mrs. Mao liked me enough to hire me. And to share the news of an interview gone well, I headed to the shuttle and took it over to the post district and made the rest of the way on foot to Cyrcil¡¯s place. It probably would have taken just as much, or maybe less time to just walk the whole way from Mrs. Mao¡¯s, but once I got to the park, I felt a bit shaky in the legs and wanted to sit down, so I took the shuttle, like I said. When I got there, I saw him up on his roof again, leaning out over towards the factories. He had on his wide-eyed grin that he had when he was focused off in the distance, and, once he let me in and we got up to the roof, I can''t say I blame him. It''s this brilliant view of the smokestacks with these amazing streaks of light cutting through them out into the forest out behind ''em. ¡°They''re beautiful, aren''t they?¡± ¡°Absolutely.¡± ¡°Do you know what they''re called?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Crepuscular rays.¡± ¡°That sounds neat.¡± ¡°Yeah, I had to look it up just earlier because it was so beautiful.¡± We had a good laugh at this and I leaned up on the fence beside him and we started talking again, but this time it all went really well. We talked about my potentially new position and work and he congratulated me several times and we looked into the possibility of me getting a chance to finally get out of this town for a while with this new income. Nothing big of course. But, we did figure that after two months of good work I would probably be able to get a ride into the next city and take a train in to the capital and see the sights, stay some nights and then get a ride back. The idea fascinated me. I was practically jumping at the prospect of getting to leave for a bit and see the world like Cyrcil got to every day. I wanted to be like him, really, in just about every sense. And, well, I can''t think of anyone who I''d rather be. And so when he looks back and up at me with those raccoon eyes of his, I smile back with the widest and most sincere grin that I can give him. I mean, he deserves more than that, so I hug him too, patting him on the back, you know, in that really firm way that ados do that between their best friends when they think n''n''s watching. ¡°Tell you what, Zyolfe. If you get the funds for yourself in order, I''ll make sure I get off work to come with you, if you''d like? Plus, some nice meals out, on me.¡± That reminded me a lot about the one flaw I did see in Cyrcil. See, we''ve a mead factory in town, you know, the one I said that Regent worked at, and so anyone who lives here either works there and hates the place or just hates the place. It''s all disgusting and too many people are drunk on the mead around here, well, they used to be before people started cleaning up themselves, and so none of us ados wanna drink it. It''s a bit confusing as to why, I''m sure, but simply it''s fucked up our lives enough that we don''t want anything to do with the stuff, but cause Cyrcil got out before this was sort of ingrained into him, he likes the mead and drinks it a bit. So when he mentioned meals, I thought about him drinking again, and it made me a bit sad, but he''s such a good guy that I''d always let that slide. ''I''ll never hold that against him'' I thought, and really meant it. But, sometimes he''d be a bit more than, well, mouse tipsy, and I''d see him around him stumbling home on the arms of various other ados. It made me sad to see it, but I''d never say anything though. We settled another round of cards over a drink. Tea, of course. Cyrcil was smarter than that, the devil. But after that, I wanted to go meet Regent for lunch and share the news with him too. Thankfully, Cyrcil had some clocks lying around his place, cause without other people''s help, I didn''t really have a way to tell time, which made me think about buying a watch sometime this afternoon just so I''d have one for work, if I got a position, see. And Regent was so nice about the whole thing, really happy and cheerful for me. He even gave me a bit of cash to get a cheap watch after our visit. See, I knew where Regent would be for his lunch because he always went to the same place for each day of the week for his lunch. Today was Tuesday, so he was at the Dusty Moon. It was a nice place with some billiards tables in the back, but if you were a real ado, you''d never say billiards of course. If you were playing billiards, you''d be home before midnight and without a stain on your trencher. But you see, if you were playing a real game of pool and were playing with some true ados then by the end of the night, at least, if there was a welcher in the group, you''d see a pool stick up someone''s ass and a lot of blood to clean up before sunrise, so you could get home and dress your wounds and get a tad bit of sleep before having to get up for the next day. Anyway, the dusty moon was known for its pool tables and for being sort of the town¡¯s pub. Pretty good grub for a pretty good price, especially their burgers, I¡¯m told. But I didn¡¯t eat anything. I was just there to see Regent. He also asked me to stop by our little alleyway for another set of poker hands, so I had that to look forward to as well tonight. So in the meantime, waiting for all of that to happen, I went back to Ursula¡¯s place and began preparing dinner, even though it was only lunchtime. Because of all that, I really took my time getting dinner started. Like, I didn¡¯t even set the stove on high. I put it on low and just slowly brought it up to where I wanted it, taking at least twenty minutes just to get the water boiling. And sure, that was a lot of time, but it¡¯s not like it made any difference. Good soup takes a lot of time to prepare and I was fine not sitting over a stove waiting for water to start boiling. So, like, I just chopped up some vegetables, started preparing some corn and cutting up some beef too.