Mundality - March / April Vignette 204

[Tiffany Korta]

Your character, or one from a nearby dimension, finds themselves having to deal with everyday experiences in a small town. Birth, illness, or a Town Festival are among the many, many experiences that they may have to deal with, but no supers and no crime!

 

Your small-town tales should be posted no later than the 30th April 2024.

 

(As a reminder, vignettes follow the same general rules as posts in terms of content, player character limits, and so on. You may have only one vignette per player character. Each vignette should be at least one page (~500 words) in length; if posted in your thread counts at the end of the month, it is worth 1pp for the associated character. An especially long vignette, 1000 words or more, may be worth up to 2pp. Multiple players can collaborate on a single vignette - we recommend Google Docs for this, it's very useful - but the vignette should be about one page per participating player.)

[Supercape]

Snakebite in

 

Canterbury Cabbage.

 

Cassandra Crow pulled up outside the Crow mansion. This was Canterbury, England, in allegedly the sunniest county in the united Kingdom. But today the skies were grey, the temperature cool, and tepid rain fell from the skies. A grey day to suit her grey mood.

Yesterday, she would have called this mansion her own. But then she her cousin had a baby boy. In the middle of the Canterbury harvest festival.

 

Normally, that would be irrelevant in the matter of ownership of the estate (although of course the normal celebrations and congratulations would be due). But the Crow family wealth, considerable as it was, was tied up in arcane and obscure legislation stretching back centuries, or, in some particularly dusty tomes, more. Precisely who owned what percentage of what land under what circumstances with what contingencies and loopholes was a gordian knot.

 

It was an irritation that consumed Cassandra. When she stormed into “Her” mansion, she was not in the best of mood.

An assorted gaggle of Crow family members had gathered in the study of the mansion. Cassandra burst in, fists clenched, and eyeballed each in turn.

 

Arthur Crow, her cousin. Handsome, elegant, intelligent. And seemingly immune to the Crow family’s bad luck and curses. His twisted body sat in a wheelchair. It was a common belief that he had had his share of curses in vitro, giving him a painful and disabled body.

His wife, Tonya Crow, a rather fat dark skinned woman who was known for her big heart that could become overbearing. In her arms, their new born son, who, Cassandra noted, looked like Winston Churchill, like all babies did (to her eyes).

 

And finally Penelope Crow, an aged distant aunt, who had a sharp mind and sharper razor. Here, judged Cassie, was the real threat, the real mastermind pulling the levers. Penelope Crow was a lawyer, and her bony hands were dedicated to consolidating as much of the Crow fortunes as much as possible under her less than benign oversight. It was not even greed, thought Cassandra; Penelope Crow did what she did for amusement. A hobby, of sorts.

 

A very vexatious hobby.

 

“Pleased to see you,” came the chorus of acknowledgements from one family member to another. Nobody looked particularly pleased. The baby gurgled.

 

Penelope crow moved to the study table and gestured to a sheaf of dusty documents. The paper had turned brown, the ink had faded but the text was still legible. Cassandra processed the text style and the language. It was probably three hundred years old; at minimum.

 

Penelope took great delight in showing Cassandra the intricate laws and agreements contained within the bundle. Cassandra was no lawyer; it would have been hard to follow even for a professional, given the archaic quality. She couldn’t follow a quarter of what Penelope said.

 

But in summary – it was a trap of ink. If this person begat that person, and lady whatever gave birth two three sons, one of whom was his own uncle, then the Canterbury Mansion (Crow Hall) would pass ownership from this bloodline to that.

 

At least, it was vaguely like that. The net effect was that Arthur Crow was now the owner of Crow Mansion. With various subclauses and so on and so forth.

 

It was quite the headache.

 

Cassandra rated Arthur Crow as the most benign member of the Crow family, even herself, and by some considerable margin.

 

Perhaps his birth defect had given him a heightened sensitivity for the misfortunate, or perhaps he was just that kind of guy, more interested in building than breaking. Penelope Crow, however, was the kind of bottomless pit of bitterness that took active glee in the legal swipe. She stood to gain very little; other than the satisfaction of tearing the mansion from Cassandra Crow, the woman she had always envied.

 

From whence the envy? For starters, Penelope Crow was a sour on the whole universe. But a particular sourness was reserved for Cassandra Crow, who had somehow become a legend, a hero. A superhero. Penelope Crow was born a couple of decades too early, when female adventurers were tolerated rather than encouraged. Perhaps this was the root cause of seething resentment. Perhaps this was why she was so gleeful at her legal masterstroke.

 

Of course, Cassandra would not simply take this lying down. Or even standing up.

 

Her fingers brushed the parchment, her eyes closed, and her mind spun backwards, traversing the centuries…

 

…to a Canterbury village fete. The streets cobbled and dirty, the houses thatched and wonky. Rowdy drunks on the street throwing rotten fruit at the stalls where a poor thief lay clapped, lamenting his luck. The sound of fiddles and pipes, of feet shuffling and dancing, of voices singing badly. It was a very fair fair.

 

And the sound of nobles arguing. Surely some Crow ancestors, with that classic black raven hair, that nose, that chin. The bloodline was unmistakable. With them, a gaggle of lawyers, hangers on, and beggars, and the mayor of Canterbury – grey haired, fat, an the nose of an alcoholic.

 

The debate raged; which descendent of which line would get what percentage of the manor under which circumstance. It all looked rather gordian, as one would expect. Until the oldest Crow, a crone with bony hands and snakelike eyes, turned and pointed at Cassandra Crow.

 

That had never happened before. But then, the Crow family line was not only cursed with curses, but blessed with blessings; wealth and eldritch third eyes.

 

“And you, Cassandra, can tell your family that if you win the cabbage throwing competition of the fete then you get to keep the mansion! Page seventeen, paragraph eleven!”

 

And with that, the vision faded, and Cassandra was back in the present.

 

“May I direct your attention to page seventeen, paragraph eleven, dear Penelope?”

 

Shock, rage and attempts to wriggle ensued, but after much wrangling, Cassandra had marched the gang down to Canterbury high street, where the famous drunken cabbage throwing competition had started.

 

Old Bob Griggins, the regional champ, put in a great performance. Daisy Flowerbeater too, as well as her two young children (who tied the junior championship). But, at the end of the day, the snakelike power of Cassandra Crow won the day – true, one might say it was cheating – ending up with a cabbage bullseye on the golden patch. Perhaps resentment might have festered, but Cassandra swiftly gave the prize money to Old Bob Griggins (and doubled it), and declared that she would fully fund next years fair. For a fair must be fair.

 

Irrespective of prize money or good (and bad) deeds), the task had been achieved. Cassandra Crow was the winner of the 2024 Canterbury Cabbage throwing contest, and thus, according to page seventeen, paragraph eleven of the 1459 deeds to the Crow Mansion, retained the ownership of Crow Manor.

 

Much to the vexation of Penelope Crow.

 

Being of good cheer, and rather liking Arthur Crow and his wife, Cassandra arranged for their family to have permenant living quarters in the east wing. Arthur was an architect and the manor could do with some renovations. Arthur found this perfectly reasonable.

 

Which only vexed Penelope Crow more.

 

One day, she swore, she would have her revenge!

Edited March 14 by Supercape

[Supercape]

DIamondlight in

 

Swiss Cheese

 

August Zoss had travelled back to Switzerland to see his father, who was not a well man. Every time August saw him, Henri looked paler, more haggard, less full of life.

Which was somewhat ironic as the family secret, a shameful Daka crystal procured from the Nazi’s (who in turned procured in from the African nation of Dakana), was pumping the old man full of its strange energy, sustaining his life force. August knew this well; it was the strange energy that had slowed his aging and increased his endurance.

 

And allowed him to fire silver-blue laser beams from his eyes.

 

August wanted to call a doctor, but that would inevitably lead to the secret coming out. Sure, he could use his wealth and contacts to find some disreputable doctor who would keep his mouth shut, and might even know what he was doing. But that was the problem with disreputable people; they were disreputable. They wouldn’t always keep their mouth shut.

 

Besides, August feared it was not Henri’s body that was collapsing, it was his heart. Broken, shattered with grief, ever since his wife died. There was no crystal in the universe that would repair that.

 

Perhaps the annual Cheese festival in the nearby village would cheer him up.

 

Cheese would cheer anyone up, right?

 

There was a festive, communal air to the cobbled streets. Spring was nearly here, and the village had taken upon itself to hold an early cheese festival at this time; early, perhaps, for the purposes of cheesemaking and marketing, but it did attract cheese fanatics from far and wide, being the earliest cheese festival in the land.

The Swiss cheeses were all there, of course, but so where staple cheeses from around the world. English and French, particularly, filled with their particular blue cheeses – so hard to resist. Every land had a cheese, even (to August’s sour shame) Dakana. Every nation on earth could produce a fine cheese. Except, obviously, America.

 

“What’s the point?” asked Henri, walking with a cane, mood sour despite fresh air, sunshine, and a remarkable warmth to the air despite the time of year.

“What’s the point in anything?” asked August, brushing off the question.

 

“Well precisely…”

 

August rolled his eyes at his father. With a subtle nudge, he redirected his father away from the wine store (wine, of course, was always present with anything cheesy) and onto the finest selection of swiss cheeses he could find.

 

“The point, father, of going to a cheese festival, is to delight the palate with finest cheese. Come on, we have the money, and the atmosphere is gay. Does this not refresh your memory? Good days?”

 

“I miss your mother,” came the black response.

 

August winced. “I miss her too. But all love ends in tears or death, that’s the deal of it.”

 

“You and your deals. A convoluted mess, dear boy. I have no idea how you navigate the complexities of business, or life. I yearn for simpler times, simpler pleasures.”

“Like the sun. Or cheese!” said August, injecting a penetrating rigor into his words.

 

“Well, that is true. Many suns, many cheeses in my life. Fond memories.”

 

“Better a fond memory than a bitter future. Come, let us take a bite! You haven’t been out of that stuffy castle for a year.”

 

The two of them took seat by the main road, drinking espresso, sampling cheeses. Henri started to smile. “You are right,” he conceded. “I do need sunshine. My wife… gone, it’s like I am living half a life. But so be it. Half a life is still half a life, and I can enjoy the part that remains. Maybe that’s really what grief is. Grief for the dead, of course. But grief for the part of you that’s lost.”

 

“Savour what we have, right?”

 

Henri nodded. “Savour what we have.”

 

Their musings were interrupted by a scruffy looking man who was prematurely grey. Short, slender to the point of being bony, but with some subtle vitality to his body and eyes. Jonas Fleck, the local historian.

 

“Zoss family, here?” he said, voice gnarly. “Flaunting your wealth like always? Sharp suits, expensive watches…”

 

August reflexively put his hand over his watch (a special spy one, just like in the movies), and was irritated he had done so.

 

“Not the time, Fleck,” he grumbled.

 

“When is the time, Zoss? When would you like to explain exactly how your family came into such wealth during the war?”

 

“Why you little toad! Say another word and I will sue!” declared Henri, ready to rise. His frail body suddenly seemed galvanised. August fear he might raise fists, which would be risky both for Henri’s health and for the legal ramifications. Zoss didn’t need any attention drawn to Fleck.

 

“Good!” said Fleck, with a wide grin. “Great publicity!”

 

August put his hand on his fathers forearm, gentle but clear. “Calm. This man is just trying to goad you.”

 

Fleck frowned. “The Zoss fortunes are obscure and implausible. For the public good, it is only right they are transparent!”

 

“We are entirely legal,” said August, confidently. He didn’t study law for nothing. “You know this, I know this. Stop harassing an old man.”

 

“Its not just him I am harassing.”

 

August detested bullies, but sometimes… well, sometimes it was a fine line. What was the difference between intimidation and bullying? It was perilously thin. He had concluded that the difference might usefully (for the purposes of ethics) be considered the matter of motive. The bully attacked to take, but intimidation might be a righteous defence.

 

That’s what he told himself anyway.

 

“Fleck, do what you will, but your actions have consequences. I choose, and mark my words… choose… to tolerate your little hobbies on most days, but not today. Today, my father and I deserve a little sunshine without your miserable grey cloud. This is a cheese festival, a necessary and vital part of the towns wealth, both spiritual and material. It would not do for someone like you to mar it, to make a scene. And if I wish to make this crusade of yours a scene, then a scene it will be. And you can also believe that such a scene will be engineered, designed to make you’re the patsy.”

 

The threat was delivered in a cold calm manner. No raised voice, no raised hand, just a statement of facts based on absolute confidence.

 

And a subtle glint of silver-blue in his eyes.

 

Klent paused, visibly weighing up the options and balancing his emotions; his mission, his fear, his pride.

 

“Very well, as it’s the cheese festival, we can’t really play this out during a cheese festival, can we? It would curdle our produce.”

 

August nodded and kept silent, waiting for Fleck to walk off. He did not need to wait long.

 

“Odious little piglet,” concluded Henri.

 

“I cannot deny that. Somehow the cheese is even finer with his absence, the wine even crisper, and the sun all the brighter.”

 

“Cheers. Too small things!” sain Henri, clinking his glass with his son.

 

August felt a weight lift from his heart. Perhaps it was the cheese, perhaps the wine, perhaps the sun. But if he was truthful with himself, it was kicking Fleck out of the pitch and seeing his father happy.

[Epiphany]

Rewind in

 

Nothing to Do

 

"Is that a hoodie?"

Naisha rolled her eyes as she left airport security behind and passed through the thick crowd mobbing the new arrivals. She promptly wrapped her arms around her best friend, getting an "Ooof!" in response.  Only then did she flick her hood back and shake her hair out, where it'd laid thick and heavy and increasingly hot on her neck over the past few hours. 

"How hot is it here, anyway?" Naisha asked, craning her neck around as the noonday sun beat down the sidewalk. 

"It's Florida, love," Marcie said, as if that answered everything. The blonde Australian ex-barista was now looking decidedly Mom-chic in her classic blue cover up topped with a Florida State Seminoles baseball cap. "Only difference between this and parts of Brisbane are that it's autumn there and spring here, hey?" 

The two women left the terminal, since Naisha hadn't checked her bag and didn't need to collect it. Parking was trivially close. Naisha frowned a little, as she craned her neck around. "I didn't realize what a small airport this was."

"It's what happens when you fly into Gainesville. The good news is, we're only 40 minutes from home." Marcie opened the car door for her and Naisha slid into the still-slightly-cool interior with relief. She'd tugged off the hoodie entirely by the time her best friend got in from the other side. Then she settled back into the car seat, doing her best not to be a terrible passenger.  

The miles sped by quickly, as the two caught up on inconsequential matters like what airplane travel was like these days, how much traffic was usually on this road, what kind of weather to expect for the next week and so on. Naisha could teach classes on how to fill any amount of time with small talk, and she found it trival to keep the conversation light. It helped. Because within minutes of leaving Gainesville, she found them out in the rurals. Thankfully, it wasn't a one-to-one match with Ohio's rurals. For one thing, there seemed to be sidewalks for huge swaths of the trip despite absolutely nothing in walking distance. There was also a completely pointless divider between the lanes of traffic made up of tree-planted grass greenspace. Even the trees looked a bit different, and certainly the housing styles varied. 

As they drew near Trenton, State 26 turned into a two-lane road with no sidewalks. But still it lacked the enormous cornfields, irrigation ditches and miles of unobstructed view. There were a lot of trees in this part of Flordia and, if it made for shorter lines of sight, it also helped it feel different. 

It didn't quite last. A couple of miles outside of Trenton, the farmland began. Naisha sighed and thought about ALEX. The sentient AI that ran Atomic Tower's Nucleus and provided all kinds of support for the Atom Academy, ALEX was always approachable. And inhuman. So when Naisha thought about talking with the machine intelligence, in her favorite lab at Atom, Inc., it added a layer of remove from these kinds of reminders. 

"Nice place," she remarked reflexively as she glanced out the window, taking in what sights there were to see of the small town. It was a bit smaller than Millscroft and vastly different in layout. No Main Street with every place worth visiting being a five minute walk away. This was a town meant for people with cars, driving everywhere. The place managed to be both old and not vintage at the same time.  

By the time Marcie turned off on SE 2nd Street, Naisha had managed to relax again. When her best friend told her to close her eyes for a minute, she obediently did so, only to open them again as their car pulled up on a house on SW 5th Avenue. It wasn't much to look at, just an old brick home, but Naisha smiled to see it. This place didn't look anything like Ohio. 

Marcie hopped out and Naisha followed her. Retrieving her carry on from the backseat, she followed her best friend up a brick paved walkway to an actual honest-to-God screen door. Naisha had spent so much time living in Freedom City over the past decade, she couldn't immediately recall the last time she'd seen one much less opened one to walk in. 

After squaring away her carry on in the guest room she'd been given, Naisha joined Marcie out on the back deck. She found a simple patio strewn with kids toys, with a circular glass table and three patio chairs. Atop the table were two plates, each bearing a slice of key lime pie. Raising an eyebrow at Marcie, who was already settled into one of the chairs and sipping an iced coffee, Naisha shrugged and claimed the chair nearest the other plate.  

"Isn't this a bit of a stereotype?" she asked, amused and a bit pleasantly surprised at the pie. 

"Nah. Stereotype would be me serving you a nice steak pie for lunch."

"You're right, that would be the stereotype," Naisha said with a grin. "Of course, around here, you'd probably have to make it yourself."

The two women sat in the patio chairs, enjoying a surprisingly refreshing cool breeze that helped knock back the warmth of a Florida spring. Around her, she could hear the ambient hiss of that wind stirring the leaves of the many, many trees in the area. There was a timeless quality to it. One eerily reminiscent of Millscroft, where Naisha had been trapped for uncountable years inside of a single broken day. But the smells of flowers and pollen in the air were different. The sounds of the local birds weren't the precisely timed bird calls she'd heard all over Millscroft, Ohio. And the taste of key lime pie in her mouth wasn't a flavor she'd had a million times over. 

Inch by inch, the tension of Freedom City left her. The pressure of personal perfection. The constant vigilance any woman of color needed to have when out in public, in crowded conditions on city streets. Even the feeling of 'There's somewhere I have to be right now!' began to fade. Most of all, this was somewhere new. There was nothing she loved more than new. 

After a few minutes of silence, Naisha sighed and pushed back her now empty plate before taking up the iced coffee her best friend had made for her. "So, now what?"

"Whatever you like," Marcie answered, not bothering to look, seemingly content to just stare off into the expanse of woodland surrounding her home. 

"I mean, what do you do here all day?"

"Get up. Get the kids up. Send the husband off to work. Get the kids off to school. Clean. Drink a tallie. Head over to the school to help with the cafeteria and recess until it's time for the kids to come home. Take them to their extracurriculars. Realize I missed lunch and snack on something while they're at their practice. Plan dinner. Bring the kids home. Make dinner. Nag them all about their homework. Kiss the husband when he comes home. Have dinner as a family. Snuggle the husband and fall asleep on his shoulder. Get woken up so we can all watch She-Ra on Netflix, which everyone is into for some reason. Send everyone off to bed. Have a bath. Have a husband. Have a bed, hey?" Naisha blinked at the recitation, then glanced around at the obviously absent husband and kids. Marcie waved a hand in the direction of the house. "Oh yeah, they're off visiting his parents for the weekend so you and I can have some girl time."

"Huh." She sipped her iced coffee, stretched slightly in her chair and let out a sigh. "I feel like I should be doing something right now."

"You are, love." Marcie sipped her iced coffee in seeming solidarity.  

"Thanks."

"You ready to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure I'm cut out for this superhero life."

Marcie whistled. "Guess you're ready to talk about it."

"Yesterday, on the way to work, I passed by a car accident." Naisha stared into the slowly swaying trees as she spoke. "They were cleaning the street. Pedestrian, hit and killed. About an hour before I was there. I thought about going to the hospital they took him to."

The blonde Australian barista-turned-American rural mom stretched out in her patio chair. Then she yawned despite the coffee and turned onto her side so she could more easily face Naisha, who was pointedly not looking at her. Slowly swaying trees filled Naisha's field of vision. 

"What kind of a hero doesn't save a life?" she said softly, her words almost inaudible underneath the rustle of a million leaves in the spring afternoon's wind. 

"Mate, he was dead already."

"I could have Rewound him."

"We've been over this, yeah?" Marcie poked her friend in the arm. "Soon as people know what you can do, all of it, you'll never be free. Cities will be shipping their recent deceased your way, all day, every day. To say nothing of the people who have a heart attack or a massive stroke, or who almost die in car accidents."

Naisha realized she'd started sweating, and rolled the chilled surface of her iced coffee across her forehead. "I could...try. Try Rewinding that many people. Maybe I could."

"Right. And you'd burn yourself out, each and every day, because no one can keep up with everything that happens in one city much less everywhere else. You've got to let this go, love." Marcie reached out again, but rubbed her friend's arm instead of poking it. "Nothing you've said is new. We've had this talk a dozen times in a dozen years, yeah? That power of yours will make you a slave. And after all you've been through, the last thing you deserve is to chain yourself up to an unending responsibility. If you want to make a difference, be Rewind. Save lives in the moment, like everyone else. You'll be saving your own life that way too."

This time, Naisha didn't cry. But it was only because the number of times she'd had this very conversation with Marcie before now numbered in the double digits. And if there's one thing Naisha couldn't stand, it was repetition. 

"Kids come home tomorrow night?" she asked instead.  

Marcie grinned. "And the husband. Miss them, do you?"

"You have great kids, Marcie. And a great husband. What's not to miss?"

"Errands, chores, discipline, homework, nagging, yah yah yah," Marcie said, punctuating each word with a spinning finger, as if these things were a loop themselves. "Fancy some League later?"

"Okay."

Naisha thought about getting up and obliging her friend now. But Marcie showed no sign of hurry or inclination to get up herself, instead rolling back to face the forested backyard. Both women sipped from their iced coffees at the same time. 

There was something to be said for staying in a small town with nothing to do.

[Supercape]

Rev in

 

Spare Parts

 

On a long dusty road in the middle of a southern desert lay a small dusty town.

 

The town made poor look rich. It was built out of paper thin wood that would blow over in a stiff breeze. An agricultural village, built in a desert. The story behind that idiocy was never fully known, but its consequences sure were. Barely a hundred people were left living in a so-called-town that should have housed twenty times that.

 

What was left? A gas station, a bar, a store. And the few defiant farmers who tried to keep the fields going with rusty machinery and ineffective irrigation. They would have been better off harvesting cactus and tumbleweed that wheat and maize.

 

Old “One eye” Jack Jones had it harder than the rest. His tractor had broken down, and he was danged if he knew how to fix it. He had twisted this, oiled that, and eventually, in frustration, thrown his spanner at the infernal machine.

 

“Can mah fortunes get any worse?” he lamented, wiping engine oil from one part of his forehead to another. “What in darning darnation did ah do to deserve such luck?”

 

He shook his fist at the blue sky, and also at himself, for being so foolish as to try to make a living out of agriculture on land that was almost a desert.

 

He should have been hunting snakes for snake skin. Or snake oil, come to that.

 

His angry eyes scanned the dusty horizon. There, in the distance. More dust than there should have been. A streak of dust, like a Wild E Coyote. And then a belch of black smoke, a small like of flame.

 

The streak of dust was heading straight for him and his broken tractor. Sliding, scraping, sometimes even bouncing of the poor soil and outcrops of rock. A few cacti were trampled. As the object grew nearer, Old Jones was gripped by panic; he might get hit! Or worse, his heap of junk tractor might be in the collision path.

 

The Object was nearer now; a vehicle. Large tires, wire frame. Some crazy driver inside, trying to control the uncontrollable. With great skill, the driver was keeping the car from flipping, even though the engine seemed to be on fire.

 

With a final slide, that sounded like two sheets of metal tearing into another, the car stopped a dozen feet from Old Jones, who had discovered that fear had welded his feet to the ground. He stood, mouth agape.

 

“Now there’s sumthin’ yah don’t see every day…” he mumbled, taking off his straw hat and wiping his brow.

 

A woman climbed out of the wrecked car. Limbs shiny and chrome, fingers made of steel. Dust over her mechanics clothes.

 

“Shoot! Sorry mister, over charged the engine. Got in a bit of a scrape for a moment, but no harm done, eh?”

 

“No harm? What in the darning darnation heck do you think this is?” replied Old Jones, waving his hand at the scar that had been cut across his field.

 

“Errr….” Replied the woman.

 

“And who the hecking heck are you, anyway? Nearly ran me over!”

 

“I’m Lexa Venn. You can call me Rev!” smiled Rev.

 

“What does that mean? You some kinda alien? Some kinda robot? You invading Earth? I seen it, I seen it in the movies… always starts in some kind of backwater, it does. You building a stronghold?”

 

“Stronghold? No, I mean why would I build a stronghold here, this place is like, nowhere? I mean… wait, I’m not an alien, or a robot! I’m a superhero! Rev!”

 

“Never heard of yah!”

 

Rev sighed. It was true, she wasn’t exactly world famous. Even in Freedom City.

 

“I’m a cyborg…”

 

“A what? Sounds like a robot to me!”

 

Rev clinked her metal arms together. “Cyborg Half Robot, Half…never mind. I’m the mechanic superhero! You need anything fixing?”

Old Jones sly eyes turned to his Tractor.

 

“Well, jess’ so happens I having a little bother…”

 

“Well, happy to help! And maybe I might need to make some  repairs myself. Some really heroic repairs.”

 

Rev’s sly eyes turned towards her smashed up Dune Buggy. It was a tough old bird, but Rev had overcharged the engine in an attempt to break the 10,000mph speed barrier. It hadn’t ended well.

 

She huddled over the tractor, muttering to the world about the various components that were bent, worn out, or twisted. Or that could be recycled. A few tubes and bolts were hurled out, and landed rather near her own buggy.

 

She was cannibalizing the tractor for her buggy.

 

“Hey now. You are tearing my tractor to bits,” complained Old Jones. “Wont be anything left of her by the time you finished. What are you playing at?”

 

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul,” explained Rev. “But cool your jets, mister. I’m going to do it the other way round, too!”

 

Rev leapt over to her Dune buggy and repeated the process, tearing out odd bits of scrap and hurling them towards the Tractor.

 

After a few minutes, Rev leaned back out of her buggy engine, faced smeared with oil and grease. “Dang it! Even I can fix this. Not enough parts.”

 

“Well hold your horses, young lady,” said Old Jones. “Don’t be giving up quite yet. We are a tough old breed down here, and we always look after each other. Plenty of folks got stuff to fix, and if you are so good at fixing…?”

 

And so, a few phone calls later (and yes, Old’ jones was not so old, nor so poor, that he didn’t have a mobile phone) the various flotsam residents of the broken town turned up. Grandma Sprouts, Carrot-head, and Worm-eater where just some of the colourful and occasionally obnoxious nicknames of the eccentric residents. All poor, half mad.

 

And plenty with things that needed fixing, A microwave, a freezer, a washing machine. Vehicles of all descriptions. And a few very bizzarre items, such as the whirly-thing, and the Hopper Bopper. Rev didn’t know what they did, but she fixed them all the same.

 

It was not easy, even for Rev. She had to swap parts, steal them, twist them, and keep track of what went where in what engine or motor. Her brain hurt, but she kept at it, making sure she helped herself to water and – to keep her jets going – some petrol, which she drunk straight down her throat, to the gasps of wonder from the town folk.

 

It was dirty, requiring lots of improvisation, but eventually all the machines and vehicles came to be fixed. Except the Hopper Bopper, which seemed to spin every third hop. But no matter – perhaps the child’s toy would be even more exciting with this unique quirk. At least that what Rev said to the dubious mother.

 

And so it came to pass that a small town, barely holding on, had a slightly brighter day. They had a fighting chance now, with most of the machines working. And perhaps a visit from a super hero had given a little jolt of morale. And maybe, just maybe, Rev might pop in again, to check Old Jones and the gang were doing ok. Plenty of stuff to Fix, and Rev loved a bit of fixing.

[Thunder King]

Severing the Ties of Fate

 

It was the last day before spring break, and Ryan hated it here. The foster family that had taken him in were kind enough, he supposed, but the other kids were not. Everyone knew he was a foster kid, and while that didn’t totally kill his reputation with the other students, it did mean that the rich kids picked on him. Which was, to him, very weird. He was taller than most of them, quite athletic, and a musician. But he was a poor foster kid, so none of that mattered.

 

His foster dad was named Bob. Bob was much less interested in having a foster kid than the foster mom, Sarah. Bob wasn’t unkind, he was just distant.

 

Sarah, though. Ryan sat back. Sarah was a mom. She had three kids of her own, and wanted to foster because she genuinely loved the idea of helping kids. She was sincere and kind in ways he had rarely seen. All of Sarah’s kids were older than he was, and all but one had moved out. His foster brother was decent enough, but there was a lot of distance there.

 

Ryan placed his guitar case on the table in front of him, and unlatched it. He pulled his guitar out, a cheap acoustic guitar, and began to play.

 

He closed his eyes as his hands worked the frets and strings. Music was his big thing. He could play his guitar for hours, until his hands hurt. 

 

He had considered trying to join the school band, but he knew he wouldn’t be at thes school long enough to make a difference. He was, after all, a foster kid. He’d be moved on to a new school eventually, so why did it matter.

 

He took a deep breath, and tried an especially difficult piece of music. He had only gotten it right a handful of times, and he wanted to master it eventually. Then, he opened his eyes, and he realized he wasn’t alone.

 

It was a girl from the school. One he had never met before, but had seen walking around. She had just stopped in front of him.

 

“Hello?” He said.

 

“Hi, um, wow, you’re really good.”

 

“I’m really not.” He said, looking down at his hands. “I’m trying, though.”

“Better than I am.” She said. “Better than most people.”

 

“I guess that’s true. I mean I can play a few songs pretty well, and I’m not bad at improvising pieces. What do you want?”

 

He visibly winced. That had come out harsher than he had intended.

 

“Nothing, sorry. I was just listening. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

 

He looked at her, really looked at her. She had a big, bright smile, and kind eyes. He chuckled.

 

“You’re no bother.” He said. “You can sit down if you want. It’s a free country.”

 

She did sit down, first placing her backpack on the ground. “I’m Emily.”

 

“Ryan.” He said. “Nice to meet you.”

 

“You’re the foster kid.” She blurted out, before covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m…”

 

“You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.” Ryan said. “I am a foster kid. You’re nicer than most about it.”

 

“I know, I just…people suck, you know?”

 

“More than most.”

 

“I’m not doing a good job of making small talk.” 

 

“Who does? I have no idea who my parents are, or were, or even if they’re alive. All I know is I’ve been in the system my whole life.”

 

“Oh, um, I don’t know what…”

 

“That’s okay. You don’t have to do that.”

 

“I’m not trying to be a jerk about it, I just…”

 

“You’re fine. Take a deep breath.” 

 

“You don’t deserve the things people say about you.”

“Most people don’t. I’m not special.”

 

“...I mean that’s true, but still. You’re not a bad guy. You’re not mean. I’ve put my foot in my mouth so much I’m practically chewing on it…”

 

“Look, I can tell you’re trying to be nice. There’s a difference, you know? Like, sometimes somebody says something that sounds like it’s supposed to be nice, but you know it’s not. And sometimes somebody says the wrong thing when they meant to be nice, but it didn’t come out right. You grow up in the foster system, you can tell the difference.”

 

“...fair. I wasn’t even like, trying to talk to you. I just wanted to listen, i can be quiet…”

 

Ryan actually smiled. “I’ve got tons of time to play guitar. This is the first conversation I’ve had with another student where they weren’t being a jerk. Chill. Besides, you’re cute. Easy to talk to.”

 

She blushed. She actually blushed, then she grinned. “Oh, um, thanks. You, um, you too. You’re tall, and…um, sorry, I am not good at this.”

 

“I think we’re supposed to get better at it as we get older, but I don’t think some people do.”

 

“Get better at what?” 

 

“Flirting.”

 

Her blush deepend, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. She really was cute.

 

“OH, crap, um, that’s, that’s my ride. My mom’s here.”

 

“Oh…” Ryan was disappointed. “No problem.” 

 

“I’ll definitely talk to you again.” She said with a smile. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

 

Now it was his turn to blush. She waved and walked toward a waiting car. He could hear her talking to her mom as she climbed into the front seat.

 

Ryan took a deep breath. Maybe things would get better at school, he thought.

 

He began to play again.

Edited March 26 by Thunder King

[Supercape]

Haven in

 

Memory Leek

 

It was the leek that did it.

 

The smell.

 

Every four years, the charming and twee agricultural village of Blossomwell Rivers had a festival. A leap year festival. Meats, vegetables, fruits, specially planted early and harvested early (For Blossomwell was a southern town, blessed with fair weather all year round, fertile soil, and blossoms that, yes, blossomed very well).

 

Haven fought boldly against existential melancholy. He studied philosophy, maths, theology. He would lose himself in digital worlds, and even just digits. But some blackness would ever remain, no much how much light he reflected upon it.

 

Who was he? He was not Milo Mekano, not any more. That was an echo, a shadow, no more than a series of memories, a blueprint at best. His brain was a sphere of quantum positrons in an iridium shell. A mimic of a human brain. He was unique.

 

Haven had no problem with being unique. In his view, most (if not all humans) craved uniqueness in some fashion or another. What beckoned the gloom as the though that he had human feelings, human thoughts, human passions, but was not human. There was the grind.

 

It was, he had come to think, best epitomised by smell.

 

He had no sense of smell, not any more. Just the memories of what smell was like. How he missed it! No digital recreation could create those sensations. Cooking steak, burning manure, it did not matter. There was nothing.

 

And so, slamming his fists in frustration, he had set off to Blossomwell Rivers, to try and stimulate his senses, such as they were. To remember the memories.

 

It was custom, on this festival, not only to serve and eat the harvest, but to dress up as vegetables and livestock. Cows, sheep, and chicken strolled past, waving at the crowds, doing occasional dances. It was rather silly. Haven liked the silliness, and disliked liking it.

 

He sat down at one of the café’s, playing with a cup of untouched and now tepid espresso. Another taste lost.

 

With every passing vegetable or animal, he tried to recall the smell, the taste. His gaze swept across the side stalls. Here, street food stewed and sizzled, but he smelled nothing, nothing but memories. Was the memory of barbeque sauce accurate? Did it really taste like the memories?

 

He frowned, pressed two fingers to his forehead. Was this a journey of discovery, or had some masochistic impulse driven him here. The frown deepened, the skin furrowed. Here was the core-an existential anxiety. He needed no air, but he breathed anyway, air filling artificial sacs in his chest, then expelling.

 

Does it matter what I am? For ultimately, like all things, I am me.

 

A soothing philosophy. But he still missed the taste of things. What use had philosophy for grief? A thing, a pleasure, occasionally a pain, was lost. Something so very organic, a map to lost humanity.

 

And then the leek sat down next to him.

 

“I need a breather,” said the Leek, who proceeded to take of his leek-hat, revealing an elderly, sweating man with a grey beard, grey hair, and a broad smile. The rest of his body still wore the leek costume.

 

The Leek man wiped his brow, and ordered a sparkling water from the waitress.

 

“Enjoying the show?” he asked Haven.

 

Haven slowly turned his head, and nodded silently. He didn’t feel the heat, his crisp suit was free from the stains of perspiration. Watching the old man, he realised that sweating was something he absolutely did not miss. And yet he would have the sensation for a moment, just to remember.

 

We only miss things when we no longer have them.

 

An obvious truth, oft forgotten.

 

“Out of town?” asked the old man.

 

“Yes. Emerald City.”

 

The waitress brough the sparkling water. Haven studied it, almost hypnotised. Water, he recalled, had no taste, no smell. But it fizzed. He could still feel the fizz.

 

“One for me, too…” he asked the waitress, who nodded.

 

“Come here for the show? We are a bit eccentric, I guess!” said the old man, with a wry chuckle.

 

“Why do you do it?” asked Haven.

 

The old man waved his hand over the procession. It was hardly organised, and yet flowed all the same. Like a river.

 

“Because its fun!”

 

“Why is it fun?”

 

The old mans face grew a note of sourness. “Why do you need to know why something is fun? It just is.”

 

Haven gave the slightest of shrugs. “Because happiness eludes me, today. And I would know how to find it.”

 

“Son, if you try to bottle happiness, you are going to end up miserable.”

 

The words slapped Haven. “Then it appears I may be engineering my failure.”

 

“Ain’t no failure in the blues. That thinking just makes you all the more blue. I think if it like blue waves in an ocean. They come, they pass. Would you want a life without sadness?”

 

Haven shook his head. “It would be a lesser life. And sadness makes joy all the sweeter.”

 

“Right, right, you got it! So enjoy the ride, cowboy. Don’t try to control the waves, surf them!”

 

Haven turned back to the crowd, closed his eyes. Yes, he could remember the flavours of life. He could even…

 

…recreate them.

 

In his digital world. His brain working at quantum speeds, one second withdrawn to his digital reality was a week to contemplate. In a Bedouin tent in the desert, in a Viking hall in the snow. And then, recreations – a Tokyo restaurant, sizzling noodles, perfectly cut sushi. Or an American diner, selling greasy burgers with sauce. Yes, time to enjoy memories.

 

Were they real? Did it matter?

 

They were real memories, and Haven could afford the pleasure and lamentation of letting memories leak into his consciousness.

 

Week, after week, after week. Second after second after second.

 

But memories were seductive, and living in them addictive. It was a trap. He had to make new memories.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

“You okay there mister? Seemed like you had a fit or something…”

 

Haven smiled at the old man. How long was he lost in the virtual reality halls of his mind? Months…. Maybe half a minute in the real world. How seductive!

“I am quite well, thankyou, just lost in memories.”

 

“Nothing wrong with a bit of remembering, young man. Especially a my age!” laughed the old man.

 

Haven got up, and shook the old man.

 

“I think you are right, sir. Remembering what we lost… I find it makes me appreciate what I have. And maybe, just maybe, what might yet come…”

[RocketLord]

Stormcrow

 

Small Town Snoop

 

---

 

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Charlie looks up at the sun above. Not a single cloud in the sky, and here he is, walking around Rumblefall, Kansas, in the middle of nowhere, looking for a rumour. The heat, he can deal with. The small town charm is certainly there. He doesn’t mind it all. But the reason he’s here? It is quite frankly boring. Going around and talking to people, trying to find a specific person, while everyone is obviously lying to him.

 

He has just left the grocery store on main street. The bell on the door jingles behind him as it closes, while he turns to glance over his shoulder and look through the window. The grocer is already talking to everyone about Charlie and the questions he asked. Charlie can read lips. He knows that the man is warning everyone to keep silent, to make sure that no one tells the stranger anything.

 

Great. That will make things easier. He can admire their integrity, at least.

 

Now, Charlie enjoys any good mystery, but this? This is anything but. It is just tedious, being turned away at every turn, unable to make any progress with the locals, and all he wants to do is to help. He is only here because Ms. Summers had asked him to go and look into some loose rumours about a local hero. Some kid that had taken down one of the Devil’s Advocates when they came rushing through the town. He can’t say no to a Raven, and yet… Charlie is seriously starting to question whether he should start reconsidering that policy.

 

But he can’t stop now. He’s spent this much time, and it has to be something good if everyone is keeping quiet. Even if it is incredibly boring. So, on to the next place.

 

The bank is next door. It’s a small building, not nearly as secure as anything that they are used to in Freedom City, or most other places that Charlie has been. Opening the door and stepping inside, Charlie notices a single old security guard sitting on a chair, casually reading the newspaper. He’s at least 60, should probably be retired, and he barely looks up to glance at Charlie as he walks in. The teller is a woman around the same age, her hair in a bun, a pair of glasses resting on her nose. She smiles sweetly to Charlie, as he approaches her.

 

“Hey there, what can I do for ya, hun?” she asks.

 

“Hello, I’m looking into some weird things that’s happened around here,” Charlie says, doing his best charming young man impression. “I heard that this biker came into town and caused trouble. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a local super hero or anything like that stopping him?”

 

The teller stares at Charlie for a moment. A flash of recognition in her eyes, a quick moment where it is obvious that she knows something, and then, the same wall that he has been met with everywhere else.

 

“I’m sorry hun, but I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.” She is still all smiles, but it is fake now. She obviously doesn’t want him there. The politest version of the same reaction that he has gotten everywhere else in town. “Now, if you have no business with the bank, I must ask you to step aside to let paying customers have their turn.”

 

Charlie looks over his shoulder. Only him, the teller and the guard are in the bank. The guard has lowered his newspaper.

 

The same wall once again. “Alright, alright,” Charlie says, holding up his arms to make sure that he means no harm. “I’m only here to help, but I’m not gonna push it.” 

 

The last few days have been like this, and as the afternoon passes into evening, Charlie continues to make no progress. The same wall, over and over. He doesn’t want to resort to breaking and entering or looking through their security tapes, if they even have that, but it seems more and more likely that he will need to.

 

Evening passes into night. There is some sort of celebration in town, a local thing with a band playing and some booths. Maybe someone will get drunk enough to forget to keep silent? Just some progress would be nice.

 

Charlie makes his way around the booths, chatting, staying friendly, making sure to buy some stuff, but it doesn’t matter. He is almost run over by a group of kids that rushes by, laughing and cheering all the way. Instead, he is simply pushed to the side, falling on his butt. He should have seen them coming, but maybe he’s just too frustrated. Charlie almost wants to shout something after them, but he stops himself. It’s kids having fun. It wasn’t on purpose, and it’s not like he’s much older than them, anyway. Or maybe they’ve heard about him snooping around and wanted to be a bit more direct than the adults. 

 

Charlie is about to get to his feet when a young woman’s voice breaks his train of thought. “Are you alright, mister? That looked like a nasty fall.” 

 

Looking up to the right, he sees a teenager with short black hair and deep black eyes. She can’t be older than 15 or 16, dressed in a pair of denim overalls over a white t-shirt and an open plaid dress shirt worn over it. 

 

She is holding out her hand to him, and Charlie takes it, accepting her support in getting to his feet. 

 

“Thanks, but I’m alright,” he says. “I’m Charlie.”

 

The teenager smiles widely, nodding as she lets go. “Hi Charlie, I’m Mattie.” She looks at him for a moment, still all smiles. “What brings ya ‘round?”

 

“I’m looking for someone,” Charlie responds, more than happy that someone is finally willing to talk to him. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a local super hero?”

 

Mattie looks at him for a moment, like she is thinking things through, then smiles widely, while she folds her arms in front of her chest. “Sure do! That’d be me!”

 

So much for everyone not wanting to talk to the stranger, then.

 

[Supercape]

The Red Rat in

 

Painting the town red.

 

It had been more than fifty years since Noemi Von Neumann had visited her hometown. At lot had happened since then, but she had slept through most of it.

An icicle, frozen, to be activated whenever the USSR needed the particular skills of a mutant superspy with a superior soviet computer welded to her skull.

 

But when the USSR fell, Noemi Von Neumann was forgotten. She had slept through the nineties, and the noughties, only to be activated by accident.

 

She hadn’t made time to visit her hometown. That’s what she had told herself, anyway. If she looked deep enough, she had avoided visiting it.

 

Bad memories.

 

Family – dead. Bloodline – ended. And she was at least partially to blame; her family had been rebels, opposing the soviet regime. And that had landed her, and them, in a heap of trouble. Experimental subjects, laboratory rats. As far as Noemi knew, she was the only one to have survived exposure to the Darwin-X virus.

 

Decades of disgusting work as a spy, for a cause she didn’t believe in. It was ugly, brutal, and she had decided never to be a spy again. Except as a rogue agent, which created a whole soup of problems.

 

Her home town was not a problem of the future, but of the past. An itch, an itch she needed to scratch. Her family had gone, bar distant relatives. The feeling left her disorientated, like a kite without a line. No connection.

 

So she had decided to see the town, the architecture. It had not fared well; communism, collapse, and the insidious takeover by mafia. It had been propped up by the state, and without a state, it had sunken into itself, like a badly timed souffle.

 

There-the park where she had played as a young girl, now with overgrown weeds, the swings and roundabout paralysed with rust. There, the church graveyard, caked in moss and lichen, where she had smoked her first cigarette. A closed underground bookstore, where her teenage self had met like minded rogues and rebels, ready to dismantle the oppressive communist system armed with books on philosophy and politics.

 

Books were no match for guns and tanks, at least in the short term. Noemi would rather hold a gun than a tome if there was a gunfight to be had. But in the long term? Ah!

There was the hope. Amidst all the chaos, the violence and brutality, there was hope. Stupid hope, but stupid hope was better than no hope at all.

 

She had been so certain of herself then. She closed her eyes and remembered the town, painted red.

 

There had been hundreds of them, some with spines of iron, some who found spines in the numbers, the intoxicating sense of group righteousness. Chanting, singing, screaming. Down with the fascists, down with this, down with that. The mob was not precise, certain only that they should, and would, bring something down. She had been there, yelling and shouting.

 

The police were on the other side. Initially nervous, cautious, outnumbered. Noemi recalled the sweat, the nervous drumming of fingers on guns. Would a gunshot clear the crowd, or provoke them? No policeman dared try the experiment, but they were ready to draw if the mob charged.

 

Noemi recalled the power of comradeship. It was irony, they were forced to call each other comrades, but it had never felt so, not really. Now, rebelling against that very system, she truly felt the man to her left and the woman to her right were comrades. She could recall their faces, the joy and exhilaration. She couldn’t recall their names. That was the nature of a mob. Maybe its power, too. What use were names when everyone was united?

 

It had been dark, Noemie remembered. She scanned the broken town with her cybernetic eyes, every dimension, every nuance of temperature and size fed into the HUD of her minds eye. She could overlay the modern picture with the ingrained memories.

 

The standoff had continued. A few missiles had been thrown. Fires had been lit. Empowered and scared faces lit in flickering flames. Reinforcements had arrived, and with them, the police had slowly gained confidence. Stances shuffled, from defensive to offensive. Batons had been tapped on gloved hands. If there had been a reticence to use firearms, that reticence was seeping away.

 

A Molotov cocktail sailed over the mob, landing on the police, spreading fire, signalling to both sides that the time of taunts and chants had ended. The trigger had been pulled.

 

The town was painted red.

 

Neomi recalled the sickening turn from safety to fear, as the reality of violence exploded around her. She was no superhero, her body unmutated by the Darwin-X virus. She was a young woman of average build and no training caught up in a riot. She was shoved this way, shoved that, ending up on the floor. A cut on her hand – broken glass. The sound of screams – rage, fear, pain. Boots scraping the floor for traction, and for kicking. Batons crunched into ribs, into faces. Broken bones – she could remember the snapping.

 

And even if the Red Rat had been there, what could she do? There was no trick of sambo or savate would work when you were pressed betwixt bodies, barely able to know friend from foe. It was a blur. Yes, press forward to the enemy, crawl back in retreat – fine principles, but you soon lost your orientation.

 

Blood on the floor. She remembered that. The smell, of life lost, crawling up her nostrils like an acid. Her body responded of its own volition, a heaving retch. The contents of her stomach splashed over black leather boots.

 

She had tried to crawl, tried to run, but the sense of powerlessness, caught in a mob, was overwhelming. She felt like a twig in a rapid river. All she could do was move with the ebb and flow, and try not to get the crap kicked out of her whilst she did.

 

Noemi brought her eyes and brain back to the forlorn hometown. An old woman, carrying heavy bags, was waiting to cross the road. Not many cars were passing, but her bags were heavy and she was slow.

 

This was were the Red Rats journey had begun, all those years ago. She was young, niave, untainted by reality and the compromises that had to come with it. It was not a pleasant journey down memory lane, but it was a necessary one. She could start again.

 

She gave a smile and carried the bags for the grateful old woman.

[Supercape]

Echohead in

 

 

Delicious Ice Cream From Italy

 

 

Umberto Velluci’s uncle was dying, apparently. Umberto reserved judgement. Alfonso Velluci had been dying several times before. Apparently, he was, in no particular order…

 

Riddled with cancer.

 

Arrhythmic of the heart.

 

Inflamed of the bowel.

 

Osteoperotic of the bones.

 

Deficient of haeomogblobin.

 

Engorged of the spleen.

 

And had general malaise.

 

Umberto had no doubt that Alfonso would complain of type 2 Chicken Swahili disease and Lumberjack chipping disorder if he felt he could get away with it. Was it a cry for attention and sympathy? Or an unconscious somatisation of anxiety? Or both? Whatever the real reason, Alfonoso Velluci was very fond of manufacturing a health crisis. And Lucia Velluci, his sister (and Umberto’s mother) was very anxious to rush back to Italy to tend to her suffering brother. And dragging Umberto along for the ride.

 

The plane ride had been a cramped, fretful affair. Umberto did not like travel, and did not like plane travel in particular. Turbulance made his guts squeeze and his heart jump, neither of which suited his constitution. He tried listening to opera, he tried watching the inflight film, he tried doing crosswords.. all of which failed to distract him, for his mother repeatedly tugged at his sleeve and asked him yet another medical question.

 

“I am not a doctor,” he would start.

 

“But you could be!” she retorted.

 

Of course, like any overbearing mother, she had fantasies that her son could have been a doctor, a scientist, or the president of the united states of America. Rather than run a flower shop (not that she had any vexation with flowers, merely that selling flowers was not the same as being leader of the free world). That was part of the equation. The other part was – she knew Umberto could “Borrow” the mind of anyone, and could, at the psychic drop of a psychic hat, gain all the skills of a fully qualified doctor.

In Umberto’s opinion – and this was without the benefit of borrowing somebody else’s brains (Which he did not take lightly) – Alfonso needed a psychiatrist, not a doctor.

So the plane journey was a mix of tremulous sweat and agonising eye rolling.

 

Once in Italy, the torture ablated somewhat. True, Rome was as densely urban as ever, with the chaos of traffic and the choking air, but once out of Rome, travelling south, it was pleasant countryside basking in sunshine. Hills of green, olives, vineyards, farms with grazing animals. And Lucia’s natural language, it all made her feel at home and she began to relax. And so did Umberto.

And when they reached the small town where Alfonso was lying on his “death bed”, the fretfulness came back, redoubled and reinvigorated.

 

Umberto inwardly (and occasionally outwardly) groaned with every prayer to the Almighty, every crucifix motion, every determination that, if God would spare her brother, she would donate to the local orphanage or church roof repair fund, or pray five hours every evening on a rough carpet in penance. If Alfonso had really been dying, Umberto could have understood these manifestations of grief. But Alfonso was an entirely health sixty year old man who had been active most of his life, not smoked, drunk in moderation. As far as Umberto knew, the only medical condition Alfonso had was mild hypertension that was well controlled on a low dose medication regime.

 

And chronic health anxiety, of course.

 

Umberto had formulated a plan. A plan involving Ice Cream.

 

It started with popping to the local shop in the small town. Everybody knew everybody here. The shopkeeper even gave him a cry of recognition and a faux kiss. It was, by and large, a happy town. It made Echohead wonder what made him truly happy. His fantasies of being a superhuman superspy? Did it honestly make him happy? Or perhaps the reverse? It was a hard question, and he answered it in a hard way. Did it matter if it made him happy or unhappy? He was driven to do it.

 

Alfonso’s house was in the centre of the small town, old, creaky, collapsing in a quaint way. No doubt the maintenance took up most of Alfonsos time, or perhaps, more accurately, the families. Alfonso was on his allegedly death bed, the window open to let in dusty sunlight, incense burning to ward off evil, a slightly awkward looking priest at his side, grinding through the last rights.

 

He surreptitiously rolled his eyes at Umberto upon the latter’s entrance. “Fifth time this month…” he whispered, clearly under no illusions.

 

A half dozen local family were by his side, busying themselves with idle gossip. It was a precarious tightrope they had to walk on. Humouring Alfonso out of a mix of pity and “what if” fear, but not humouring him too much. Wailing and lamentations would not do, so Idle gossip filled up the treacherous silence. Every so often, one of them would pump up Alfonso’s pillow.

 

Umberto’s mother, Lucia, predictably wailed and lamented – to the muffled groans of the rest of the family. She collapsed onto Alfonso’s bed, weeping, praying.

Umberto casually put the ice creams he had bought on a dresser at the other side of the room.

 

“I brought your favourite Ice cream, Uncle. Sorry you are too ill to have it…”

 

“Nonsense, give it here! With a spoon!”

 

Alfonso was already more lively. Everyone knew Alfonso couldn’t resist ice cream.

 

“With a spoon!” he roared, suddenly possessed of a furious pair of regenerated lungs.

 

 

 

“Nonsense! Italian Ice cream! Give it to me!”

 

“I couldn’t possibly live with myself if I gave you your favourite delicious ice cream from Italy whilst lying down. What if something happened to you?”

 

“Nothings going to happen to me, boy! Give it!” screamed Alfonso, who was already bolt upright, rejuvenated. Cured of his mysterious and serious ailments.

 

A stalemate materialised. Nobody spoke, every body looked at Alfonso. Alfonso looked at his ice cream, and licked his lips. As Oscar Wilde said, he could resist everything but temptation. And it did not take long for Alfonso to crack.

 

He leapt out of bed and stuck the spoon in the frozen delight, and proceeded to shovel it in his mouth, pausing each time to roll his eyes in delight.

 

“A miraculous recovery,” deadpanned the priest. “Praise God.”

 

“And praise Ice cream,” added Umberto, smiling at his mother who seemed shocked, then relieved. And then, quite understandably, angry.