The Agrinautica

   Your boss is presently in his office with his feet up on the desk, cup of coffee in one hand, and phone in the other, telling his colleagues how laughably terrible you are. They're, you know, having one of those "who has the worst employee" contests and he's using you to one-up them all. Or is it one-down them. Or maybe it's your very own coworkers he's laughing about you with. Yes, Sally has gone into his office to ask a question but now they're both having a hearty laugh at your expense. Sally with her stupid pants-suit and hair bun and too-thin eyebrows. He is telling her how perfect her work is, and she's laughing that irritating fake sounding laugh of hers, though she means it because she thinks he's right that she's better than you.
   You know what you should do? You should eat the chicken salad she has in the office fridge for lunch. No one will know it's you. Just picture her smug face as she stands in front of the open refrigerator with it's vague smell of fish from Steve's god damn fish last week that'll never go away, and she realizes she has no lunch. And that tupperware of chicken salad looks pretty delicious, just think how much you'll enjoy it. Picture yourself like one of those women in a commercial with a shit eating grin because the cereal or yogurt they are eating is just so so so good, yeah that will be you eating Sally's chicken salad.
   Fine, fine, keep on working and don't think about that. Eat your boring sandwich.



   Your boyfriend lingers by the watercooler in his office. The one in the corner by the obviously fake potted plant. What's it supposed to be, a ficus or something? He lingers there because Peggy, the new secretary, is approaching, She tosses her long curly auburn hair "nonchalantly." He gives her that huge glowing grin of his. The one you like so much. He's making a bad joke, but she's laughing, and now he's casually touched her on the arm. You know what that means. They're lingering by the watercooler bantering flirtaciously. He's making a a double-entendre, testing the waters, and she's slyly sending one right back. You should call him right now. No? He's checking out her rump as she walks back to her cubical. It's looking very fine and round in her pinstripe skirt, accentuated as she walks away in her heels.
   You sure you don't want to call him? All day they're exchanging glances. In fact now they've both found reason to be out in the hall together. They're walking towards the stairwell, bantering all casually, though sexual tension crackles in the air. They both know what game they're playing. They go up the dusty seldom-used stairwell. Push out the doors onto the roof of the building.
   "Check out the view" he says like a badly delivered line in a play, pointing out over the low parapet wall.
   "Oh it's nice" she says dutifully as she goes to the parapet overlooking the parking lot, and turns to face him with a coy flounce. Or maybe it's the other side facing the park. Anyway he comes to her with a grin, and they embrace, kissing passionately. He begins to hike up her skirt and...
   Okay you're right it's very unlike him to be so daring and saucy. But he probably did make the double entendre at least.

   Oh he's calling, probably to confess his steamy affair! Oh he's saying he misses you, yeah right. Ask him about the water cooler by the ficus. Gah, you never do anything I say, I'm getting in someone else's head.



...

   Sally and Deborah are at this very moment snickering about what a bad boss you are. They met up by the xerox machine, where Deborah commented on that huge workload you dumped on her, and Sally rolled her eyes and made a derisive comment about your leadership abilities, followed by a completely unnecessary dig at your nice red tie and now they're both laughing. Is this tie too long?
   Put your feet up on the desk. Yes you deserve to relax a little bit. You've been working hard. Put your feet up, lean back, sip some coffee, and imagine your employees rolling their eyes about you by the xerox machine. You know they do, employees always talk shit on the boss. They're probably commenting on your receding hairline too. Even Steve is probably getting in on it. With his purple tie he's in no position to comment on your tie at least.
   You know what you should do? You saw that chicken salad Sally put in the fridge. You should eat her lunch. It looks delicious and you're the last person they'd suspect. In fact they'll probably suspect Steve. Steve with his stupid purple tie. You deserve that sal-- oh you're already getting up to go get it. Yessss.

   It wouldn't know what hit it. Don watched the rhinoceros through his binoculars, it was partially obscured amongst some bushes and at extreme rifle range, but it was there, and that's what counted. It had a beautiful horn on its nose. Don thought of the money he would get for it on the black market. He thought about his buyer, a smug bastard who had thought Don would never find a rhino in this area. In his confidence he had promised a really good price. who's the sucker now?? Don thought happily to himself. Don scanned the surrounding hills, golden yellow with dry grass, doted with scrubby thorn trees and the taller acacias. No sign of rangers or anyone else. He hadn't heard any ranger radio traffic on his scanner all day so he was pretty confident they weren't around. The rhino was disappearing behind a rise. The distance was long anyway. He looked around and came up with a plan. The rhinoceros was going that way, so he'd go this way, hide in the copse of trees over there, he should have a shot.

   He walked as quickly as he could under the hot savannah sun. High overhead some vultures circled. Don't worry you'll have a meal soon he thought towards them. As he walked he reached back to his small backpack to make sure he had the axe he'd use to remove the horn. It would be a frustratingly long walk back to the landcruiser to get it if he didn't have it with him. He entered the copse of tall trees, startling several warthogs. The shade was refreshing, though it was still steamy hot, and mosquitos buzzed around in the dim protection of the trees. He hurried through the leafy grove to the edge where he hoped to see the rhino around the hill. He quietly lay down on his belly with the gun resting on a root. He took a swig of water from his flask, the water was quite warm from the heat of the day but it was better than nothing.

   Don was beginning to worry the rhinoceros had changed directions behind the rise when he noticed an itchy sensation on his arm and realized a mosquito had been sucking his blood unnoticed already. He quickly punched down on it with an open-handed slap and was satisfied by the large smear of blood that resulted. Take that mothersucker! he thought to himself. He was just thinking about getting out his mosquito netting when he noticed some movement out by the rise. Sure enough the humped white back of the rhinoceros slowly emerged like a surfacing whale. Don switched from binoculars to the rifle scope and prepared for the shot. It wouldnt' do at all to merely wing it, and also it would be quite disasterous to accidentally hit the horn itself. He waited as slowly more of the great beast emerged from the tall grass obscuring it. He calculated the distance, centered the cross-hairs just high enough above the center of mass to account for the bullet-fall, braced himself for the terrific kick his high powered rifle would punch back into his arm.

   He never knew what hit him. The lion had expertly stalked its prey, making the final attack from a branch directly above him, pouncing, plummeting silently downward, a quarter-ton of lion impacting upon the prone hunter claws-first. By the time rangers finally came to investigate the nearby abandoned landcruiser they found only a damaged rifle, an axe, some scraps of clothing, and a large smear of blood.

   “There have been several officer-involved shooting incidents in the Los Angeles area in the early hours of this morning, though Police Chief Charlie Beck has issued a statement assuring us that the situations were unrelated and should not be cause for alarm” [click]
   “…and reportedly a fourth incident in Lakewood” [click]
   “…clearly the police are out of control Tom, I think there’s more to the story of this morning’s shootings, and I’m demanding answers…” [click] why is it always talk radio in the mornings?? David wonders. It’s something he had often wondered. The drive to work would be much more peaceful with some good music, rather than jarring banter about the news or latest entertainment gossip.
   He turns off the radio and suffers through the morning rush-hour traffic in silence. It’s going to be another one of those days, he thinks to himself as he finally pulls into the parking structure at work. He walks briskly into the building, emerges from the elevator and enters the offices of the law firm at five to nine. Alyssa, the office manager, pointedly looks at her watch as he walks past. Another day in paradise, he says to himself.

   Ten A.M. at the coffee stand downstairs, the news is on: “…several more shootings reported this morning. This is a bit unusual, even for Los Angeles, here’s what people are saying on twitter…”
   “…well John, I do think there’s something going on here, I’m thinking it might be al-qaeda, or maybe the drug cartels are going to war in LA…”
   It's a bit odd but David doesn't dwell on it, street violence certainly wouldn't be permitted to spill over into the nicer parts of town.

   Around 11:00 David has sorted and delivered the mail, made all requested copies (and collated and sorted, and thought I spent four years in college to do THIS a dozen times), refiled all case files and loose documents that the lawyers are done looking at. He’s swept the floor and collected all the random paperclips. He’s even lined up the pens so they’re all lined up in a row on the table. He sits down to try to think of something else to do, and at that moment Alyssa walks in. She’d be attractive if she weren’t such a bitch – She’s only a few years older than David. Blonde hair in a ponytail, cute black collared shirt and knee-length pin-stripe skirt. With only a brief disapproving glance at David she steams out again.
Though she’s no longer in the room David jumps up and paces around looking for something to busy himself with. Minutes later he receives a call from the temp staffing agency whom he technically works for,
   “Is everything alright, David?”
   “Uh, yeah, why?
   ”Well, we just received a call from the office manager over there, she said you didn’t seem to be working very hard…”

   As the day goes on, the support staff are increasingly speculating about just what IS going on out there. – the lawyers themselves seem oblivious, all too drowned in the pursuit of “billable hours” to notice. While delivering and collecting things from secretaries’ desks, David notes that many of them have the news up on their computer monitors. It’s peculiar news, but it doesn’t make the day go any faster. If anything it makes the day seem even slower, as David becomes impatient to go on lunch and have an opportunity to catch an uninterrupted news report. The clock slowly ticks around to noon.
   Finally it’s twelve and David rushes off downstairs and across the street to the food court. As he wolfs down his thai food he catches snippets from the television despite the crowd around it – “…eyewitnesses report ‘dozens and dozens’ of shots fired…” “…the police department is still saying that there’s no reason to panic, though they have added that people should not travel unnecessarily in Los Angeles today.” “…here’s an interesting new report John, we’re getting reports now of CDC vans – that’s Center for Disease Control – near some of the accident sites.”
   An eyewitness describes how one of the shooting victims was "acting crazy" and kept coming at the cops despite being shot "dozens of times." the news anchors speculate it might be some new drug. Just before the end of lunch there's actually footage from a news helicoptor of someone (their face blurred) walking lurchingly down a street as people run away. A police car peels in and the officer is seen shouting from behind his door, two more squad cars swoop in beside him and the blurred figure starts towards them. You see muzzle flashes from the police's hand guns and the figure doesn't seem to hesitate. The police pour a continuous fusilade of fire on the figure, and though the news has blurred out a wide area around them you can tell there are clouds of blood being knocked off. Finally the figure stumbles to the ground but still appears to be moving. The channel cuts to the anchors again, who seem visibly shaken, at a loss for words for a moment before desperately launching into inane babble.

   David returned to work a bit shaken himself. This was no longer and odd distraction on the news, this was becoming quite concerning. Office staff no longer tried to hide that there were more interested in listening to the news than doing work. A senior lawyer came out and yelled at everyone for not working. David noticed the offices of the firm's partner's were empty. Soon it was in the news that the national guard had been called out, and as columns of humvees moving down the streets were shown on the new, one by one empty chairs started appearing behind desks as secretaries came up with excuses to go home to their families or just plain left.
   By three most of the support staff had disappeared. Unfortunately since David’s immediate supervisor was Alyssa, he knew he was unlikely to get permission to leave early. Finally around three thirty, with nearly no support staff remaining, David was walking past with a box of files when Alyssa emerged from her office looking flustered and distracted.
   “Hey, um, everyone’s going home early today. You can, um, clock out and go home” she said as she locked her office door. David straightened out his work area, grabbed his coffee travel mug, and was out the door. None of the lawyers had moved.

   Overhead dark clouds scudded across the sky on September winds as David entered the parking garage. As he exited, he called his mother and sister, and found out they were home already. He called his girlfriend but she didn’t pick up.
   Unfortunately the drive home was along the 91 freeway, just south of Los Angeles county and jam packed with traffic out of LA on the best of days, and on this day it was barely crawling. David sat in the mired traffic and listened to the radio, no longer noticing that no stations were playing music.
“we’re here in the Channel 7 newscopter over Crenshaw Boulevard and it looks like there’s a general disturbance down there, lots of people running around…” came in amid the background beat of helicopter blades “…there appear to be several people covered in blood and, oh god, one of them has just tackled a woman and … we’ve got her zoomed in on the camera here and she’s struggling, and, I can’t tell but it looks almost like he’s biting her. And now she’s not moving and he’s running again. He’s come up on the cars backed up at the freeway onramp now Ron. He’s trying to pull the driver out of this car it looks like. And someone else just grabbed him from behind to pull him off. Okay now there’s two men trying to hold the crazy one down, he’s gotta be on drugs or something Ron he’s giving them one hell of a time … oh it looks like the woman he attacked earlier is okay, some neighbours are tending to her and it looks like she’s getting up now and… oh my god she just lashed out at them, I don’t believe this Ron. Now they’re running away. She’s running toward the onramp and … okay now people are getting out of their cars and running up the onramp to get away. The men who were trying to subdue the first man are running up the onramp as well, they appear to be bleeding and the first man doesn’t seem to have been slowed down. I don’t believe this Ron, this is madness.”
   David eyed the bumper-to-bumper traffic around him nervously. It was essentially not moving. The people in the other cars were looking around nervously themselves, no doubt listening to the same reports, and having the same thoughts.
   “…there’s a veritable stampede down the highway now, Ron, cars can’t move and people are getting out and running—“
   “—where are the police Jerry can you see any police there?”
“Yes the police have arrived at the base of the intersection but, I think the situation is just getting out of control here Ron, the police are spread too thin. This immediate situation here would take a number of cars to secure the area but, you know, there’s still ongoing situations throughout the city”
   “What about the national guard, have you seen any of them yet?”
   “No Ron, they just got called in an hour or so ago so they’re not suited up and out on the streets yet. Also, Ron, in this case right here the police car can’t drive up the onramp past the abandoned cars either”
   David nervously tapped his fingers on the wheel, and felt sweat trickle down his back despite the car being well-cooled by the AC. He tried calling his girlfriend again but the network was busy.
   “Ron, we’re watching a police officer engage one of these … people. It looks like he just emptied his pistol’s magazine into the man and he’s still coming. Now he’s using the tazer and the crazy is down …. And he’s back up as if nothing happened. Officer is backpedalling quickly. Two more squad cars just got here. Many many shots fired. If you’re broadcasting the live feed from the camera, I’m sorry you’re probably having to blur out a lot of blood. I can’t believe this though. Okay it looks like the man is down.”
   David noticed several cars pulling onto the highway shoulder to try to get ahead, but within minutes that avenue was completely clogged as well. A few motorcycles weaved through the stopped cars. One motorcyclist even looked like he was bleeding on the arm.
   “Oh we’ve got a bad looking situation here Ron, people are stampeding on the 5 north from just north of downtown, and I'm assuming it's the same south of the city, this can’t end well. As you know the highway is raised above the street level here and you can’t easily get off where there isn’t an offramp. I don’t know how this is going to end, there’s people chasing the crowds from both sides. And it looks like a number of elderly or otherwise, a number of people haven’t gotten away in time all along the way and have been attacked. On the city streets the police are forming cordons around places order is breaking down but this situation on the roads Ron…”

   Just then the first runner went past David’s car. He realized his heart was pounding, and at this realization that the events on the radio were catching up to him, he suddenly felt faint. There was the sudden sound of numerous car doors as the people around him started to get out. Almost in a trance he found himself opening his car door to step out. Someone attempting to hurry between cars was stopped by the opening door and cursed angrily at him before squeezing past. He looked in the direction the crowds of people were coming from and could just see an ever increasing crowd coming along. In the air above, a news helicopter passed over, flying low. He grabbed his phone, shut the car door, locking it out of habit, and began jogging in the direction everyone was going.

   As he made his way with the surreal procession of people weaving between cars on the freeway, David’s phone rang, it was his girlfriend Jessie.
   “Jessie! Where are you??”
   “Hey I’m alright, I got down to Travis’s here in Aliso Viejo. You should come down here too it sounds like all hell’s breaking loose in LA right now.” David was relieved to know his girlfriend was with his best friend down in southern Orange County, 30 miles or so south of the LA border.
   “I’m going to meet up with my mom and sister, and then I don’t know what we’ll do. It’s crazy though Jess, I’m currently walking down the freeway!”
   “Oh my god you’re what?? You’re on the freeway?? It’s on the news! The freeways! You need to—“ the line cut out. He tried calling her back but the network was busy again. He began to feel even more uneasy about no longer having the car radio piping breaking news to him.
It would only be a few more miles to his mom’s house. Funny how what takes only a few minutes to drive can suddenly feel so great a distance when you’re on foot. Earlier there had been a few motorcycles weaving between cars but they had all either gotten ahead by now, or perhaps gotten on offramps in search of less congestion on surface streets, or simply become mired in the crowds.
   The crowd here was channeled along the freeway by high walls on either side. Slowly the crowds got thicker as more people moving faster from further back caught up. David and others found themselves inadvertently picking up the pace as they were surrounded by more and more people in a greater hurry. He heard an older woman cry out as someone rudely shoved past her, but the shover didn’t take notice. He passed a woman pulling two small children along by the hand – the children both looked terrified, and were constantly jostled by people hurrying past. A few people were bleeding, and David found himself wondering whether it was from scratches they got in their mad hurry, or actual contact with the berserkers. Every now and then a news helicopter would rumble overhead, and, most alarming of all, gunshots rang out in the distance frequently.

   Quite suddenly people began colliding with those in front of them, forward progress apparently stopped somewhere down the line. Thousands of voices expressed alarm and confusion. People continued to try to jostle their way forward through the crowd. Amid a great amount of shoving, people actually started moving backward, though many stubbornly tried to keep their places. Then the rumours flying around congealed into one statement: “they’re in front of us! Go back! Go back! They’re in front of us!” There was panic and screams. More people were still coming up from behind, and the crowd became more compacted. David climbed on the hood of a car simply for lack of space, but also to see ahead. The crowd was being pushed back for the next several hundred feet ahead, with more and more people clambering on top of cars to get away. Forward of that it looked like a moshpit from a rock concert -- the crowd was a thrashing turbulence. Periodically people got through the turbulence and would dash off forward to the offramp that lay a short distance beyond, or continue down the freeway. Beyond the distrubance thre freeway was still packed with abandoned cars and a desperate crowd beyond the disturbance ever more desperately fleeing. David could tell many people were getting hurt by eachother in their desperation to get away.
   Looking back in the other direction, it was just more compacted crowds for about a mile, but beyond that the freeway was ominously empty. Movement brought his attention back forward, and he saw that the compressed crowd had suddenly burst forward past the turbulence. All down the line people started moving forward again, but David stayed on top of the car. From where the turbulence had been he still saw people suddenly falling down, or jumping out of the way of something David couldn’t make out. The momentum of the crowd faltered and David could see once again a break in the crowd there with the forward edge of the crowd once again trying to retreat from that point. He saw several people a the front of the crowd get pulled down screaming but he couldn't see what was there. A few intrepid people dashed over the tops of cars in the area. Finally the crowd pulled back and David could see that the way between the cars had become blocked by piles of bodies. To his horror he saw a person, covered from head to toe in blood, lurch up from the pile and lunge madly at the crowd. Once again the crowd lurched backwards.
   Looking back the other direction it looked like the back end of the crowd was getting closer as well.
   Just a short distance ahead of David someone kicked in a maintenance door in the wall. Like the drain pulled in a bathtub, the surrounding crowd all began rushing for the narrow exit. People fell to the ground in the rush and were could be heard shrieking as people continued to hurry over them. David hoped desperately they were not being trampled to death. Several desperate scrabbles broke out in the narrow doorway, with punches thrown. Several other doors had been found in the wall at various points and David could see identical situations happening at all of them. Looking at the front line of the crowd David could see it was coming back faster now, with what appeared to be more berserk blood covered people wildly attacking the crowd. Evidence of how far forward the crowd had been was plainly visible, as the roadway for several dozens of yards further on was riddled with bodies and splashed with crimson blood.
   Making it through the nearest door looked like it would require a lot of fierce jostling with the crowd, but it surely wouldn’t get easier before the murderous berserkers got this far. Just as David was about to try to wade through the crowd he spotted the woman with the two children nearby. She was clutching them to herself looking terrified, and they were both bawling.
   “You need to get out that door!” he shouted at her above the din of panicked voices. She stared at him helplessly. “Here let me help you!” he shouted, and reached to pick up the larger child. The child looked at her and she nodded, so he permitted himself to be picked up.
   David was able to make it about a car length, with the woman and other child right behind him, before he found the crowd absolutely impassable. He placed the child on the hood of the car and then climbed up himself. The woman passed up the other child and then followed herself. They were able to do this to get ahead a few more car lengths but then there were already people clambering over the cars and to attempt to go over them meant risking getting shoved off. This close to the doorway the crowd was moving fast though, so David turned his back to the crowd and tried to push backwards through the mob, holding the one child and with the woman and other following closely behind. He almost tripped, and, looking down, saw someone’s arm and a lot of blood on the ground. A finger moved and David looked away, feeling sick. Forward progress was difficult on account of the ferocity with which terrified people were pushing back from the violent end of the crowd. Blood curdling screams sounded terrifyingly close in that direction.
   With renewed vigor David threw his back into the crowd. Someone elbowed him roughtly in the head, he felt someone else hook their arm behind his neck to lever themselves forward of him. All around him people were desperately scrabbling. Suddenly he felt the people on the doorward side of him disappear and himself roughly shoved in that direction. He didn’t bounce off of another person this time but felt himself fall down onto a sloped embankment, slippery with churned up ice-plant. He rolled down the embankment a dozen feet, doing his best to protect the child. Finally he came to a rest in a pile of squirming people. People were scrambling, scratching and kicking. He tried to get up but another person landed on him knocking him further into the pile. He was able to push the child to the edge of the mass of people, and after a little more struggling in the crowd managed to get to his feet on the edge and stumble free. He was covered with scratch marks and throbbed in several places from kicks and elbows.
   Looking back at the mass he was greatly relieved to see no bloody zombie-like monsters, it was simply people getting pushed out the door, sliding down the slippery embankment, and then panicking when they found themselves all in a pile on the bottom. As people got pushed to the edge they picked themselves up and either ran away or looked for friends and loved ones they might be with.
   David found he had lost track of the woman with the other child before he went through the door, and didn’t see her in his immediate scanning of the situation, but he had done his part to get them off the freeway and now he had to look after himself. Turning around, he found they were next to a suburban street. The owner of the nearest house was busily nailing planks over his windows. Not sure exactly where he was, David ran in the direction most other people seemed to be running.

   Running down the suburban street, David tried calling his mom again but the network was still busy. In front of a number of houses people were hurriedly throwing possessions in cars. There weren’t many cars on the road here but every now and then one would come squealing around a corner. David came to an intersection with a geyser of water shooting up in one corner where a fire hydrant had been bowled over by a car. He went left to try to continue in the direction he had been going on the freeway. A short distance down this road, however, he saw people running back towards him, and he realized the offramp that had been ahead on the freeway was probably down this way, spilling the freeway’s chaos into the neighborhoods. He backtracked and ran to the intersection and took the road that lead further into the city. A steady stream of people were still coming from the direction of the freeway.
   A national guard humvee rumbled towards and past him, with a uniformed soldier riding in the roof hatch with the large roof mounted 50 caliber machine gun in front of him. Feeling a little safer because of this, and with a painful side-ache from running, David slowed down again to a brisk walk and tried to picture in his mind how to get home from here.
   His sense of safety and distraction were soon shattered by the staccato of the heavy machine gun. First there were several short bursts and then it fired continuously, accompanied by the smaller sound of what must be the other soldier’s M-16s. David began running again. The gunfire faded away into, what David realized suddenly was a general background din of sirens, people screaming or yelling near and far, dogs barking, and frequent isolated bangs. Every now and then more heavy machine gun fire could be heard at various places. It sounded like it was particularly heavy near where the offramp had been.
   I think they’ve contained it on the freeway. God I hope they have David found himself thinking. The crowds of refugees had increasingly thinned out the further he got from the freeway, with some coming and going in opposite directions at intersections. He passed a body face-down on the lawn and just hurried quickly past it.
   He heard a shout of profanities up ahead and saw a man in a business suit backing away from a figure that was lurching towards them. David looked backwards but it was a long ways to the last intersection, he didn’t want to lose that much ground and time with things having every appearance of getting worse by the minute.
   There was only one of the zombie-like figures, it wasn’t moving very fast, and the street was broad, David decided to take his chances trying to dodge around the figure. As he got closer, he could see that it was a middle aged woman. She appeared to have some severe bite marks on the upper arm, but otherwise looked physically normal. She had a vicious unthinking feral look on her face though, and moved in an awkward lurching fashion. The man was still backing away from her, uselessly shouting “No! Go away! Shoo!” at her.
   David came up on them, staying on the opposite side of the street. The woman noticed him and seemed unable to make up her mind to stumble towards him or the man. While she was thus distracted the man edged around until they were on opposite sides of her, and then they both ran past her and down the street. The man became winded and had to stop running long before David, and soon David was on his own again.
   Despite the horrors he had already seen, David was stopped in his tracks when he came upon a house that had several bodies in a bloody mess on the front lawn. Their positioning seemed indicate they’d been trying to walk towards the front door, and moving his eyes towards the door itself, David saw that a table at been upended in front of it to create a barrier, and behind it, just in front of the doorway, sat a man with a grey mustache, trucker cap, Vietnam era camoflauge jacket, and brandishing a shotgun, with another slung on his back. As soon as David hesitated the man aimed the gun at him and called out “you god damn better keep walking!”
   David didn’t need a second invitation, he was on his way! He turned onto a familiar street at the next intersection, home was only a few blocks away! He stepped out of the way of a man carrying a rake – the pronged end of it was alarmingly bloody. It was no longer safe to walk in the middle of the road, as what cars there were usually came screeching down the street at a reckless speed. Everyone going anywhere seemed to be in an urgent hurry.
   Up ahead three figures were pounding on the front door and boarded up front windows of a house. From their ungainly movements David could tell they were “infected.” David also noticed that the front windows were smashed in on several of the houses that hadn’t boarded them up. Some of the shards of broken glass had blood on them.
   David tried to quietly hurry past the three on the other side of the road, his heart pounding, but to his horror first one, turned and looked at him, and then the oter turned and all three started quickly shambling towards him with drooling slack mouths and vacant eyes. He turned to go the other way but saw two more climb out of a broken window in that direction, heedless of the broken glass, and start to head towards him. He frantically looked from one group to the other. The figures were able to move surprisingly fast considering their ungainly gait, and it would be hard to get past either group without being potentially intercepted. He could dart between the houses, jump some fences, and come out on the other side, but there were too many unknowns with that plan – he might end up cornered in a backyard, or even be set upon by an unfriendly dog that had been worked up to a frenzy by all the chaos. He prepared to try to run past the two that had come out of the window.
   He ran towards them on the same side of the street as they, so that at the last minute he could veer around them in the street. As he prepared to run to the other side and pass them, a body he hadn’t noticed lying facedown on an overgrown lawn on that side picked itself up with the unmistakable movements of a the infected. David took a quick look behind him and confirmed that those three were closing in on him from that side. This was about to be very close.

   Just as David was beginning his run to get between the two window zombies and the new lawn zombie, he heard the screech of tires right behind him and three loud thumps. He couldn’t help but glance back again – a police car had come skidding to a halt right on top of the three zombies, which it must have bowled over.
   “GET DOWN!” the driver shouted. David hit the asphalt as the officer aimed an M-16 out the patrol-car’s window and unleashed a quick burst at each of the two zombies. The shots were aimed at their heads, and David noted that though they were each hit several times in the head – each hit marked by a sickening sort of crunch and cloud of red—they didn’t seem terribly deterred. They were alarmingly close and continued approaching. One of them, who looked to be a young man wearing a “hurley” shirt and backwards baseball cap, appeared to be having trouble seeing straight, David tried not to look at his one eye that was dangling out of his head. Two more bursts of gunfire just about destroyed both their heads, and they both slumped to the ground in pools of blood.
   The officer tossed his gun back on his passenger seat and hit the gas, hitting the lawn zombie and sending him flying. He landed in a broken and crumpled state, but was still moving so the officer moved his car relatively close and took several single shots at point blank range at its head until it stopped moving. “get somewhere safe and stay there!” shouted the officer to David, before speeding off.

I've often found it disappointing that nearly all zombie movies seem to skip past the beginning, fast forwarding to a point where everyone is already desensitized to the whole situation. I've been wanting to write a story that takes us through the very beginning of it, as the rigorous iron of social norms (such as office ettiquette) slowly gives way to the complete breakdown of society. For example I think the tremendous taboo against murder would prevent even adequately armed people from actually shooting a zombie until they were absolutely forced to, as social taboos are eroded. If I continue the story I was thinking I'd mirror the rescue of the child with David less prone to look out for others later on, as well as a key moment when he first has to kill a zombie himself.
   Also, in pondering how it would actually unfold, I was really struck by how the freeways would act like a wick or fuse, first becoming completely clogged and then becoming the panicked stampede, with some "infected" people with minor bites or scratches carrying it ahead like sparks before turning themselves.

Part of my continuing coverage of the Coming Zombie Apocalypse, this story is preceded by Patient Zero and followed by 28 Hours Later

   Hearing footsteps approaching, Numbat quickly grabbed her shirt and pulled it on over her pale pink skin. This shirt had a black and white checkered pattern on the soft hair of the outside surface. Thus presentable, she was back to making faces in the mirror when her friend Thylacine knocked on the edge of the log that was her home and then ducked in the entrance.

   "You know, if you keep making faces, one of these days the wind will change and your face will be stuck like that!" Thylacine said. Numbat just stuck her tongue out at her and went back to putting on her eyelashes. Thylacine, Thyla for short, had an elegant dog-like face and was wearing a fine brown outfit with black tiger stripes.
   "Have you met the new guy, Dingo?" asked Thyla, making a sour face.
   "No I've been in my log all day."
   "It's getting too crowded around here I don't like it. Maybe I should move to Tasmania"
   "Then we'd have to call you... the Tasmanian Tiger!" Numbat veritably squealed with the excitement of alliteration, and poking fun at Thyla's tiger stripes.
   "Hrmph, these stripes are quite dignified!" protested Thyla a bit sulkily.
   "Oh I'm sure I'm sure" said Numbat while brushing her bushy tail. "Hey have you seen Bunyip?" she asked, changing the subject.
   "No, I haven't seen him. He's probably avoiding dingo as well," mused Thyla. "We really ought to put up a fence."
   Numbat rolled her eyes at this proposition. "A dingo fence?? Anyway, I was just headed out to see if I could buy a top-hat from Ibis. Since last time you saw Ibis you tried to eat him, I think I better go alone."


   While Numbat was walking along the path, whistling and carrying a pink parasol through the sun dappled shade of the eucalyptus forest, suddenly she heard a voice calling to her.
   "Hey, hey Numbat!"
   She looked around saw little Platypus coming towards her from the direction of the billabong. Platypus had a small pink nose, big yellow eyes, and a curly tail.
   "Oh hi Platypus, how are you?"
   "Oh I'm good I'm good. Want to help me play a prank on Roo?"
   "Why would I want to do that?" asked Numbat, narrowing her eyes. Though she loved a good good-natured prank she was opposed to mean spirited ones and didn't quite trust Platypus's motives.
   "Well," said Platypus, and then whispered his plan into Numbat's long fuzzy ear.
   "That's an entirely hare-brained scheme!!" exclaimed Numbat. "So I'm to dress up like Thyla, and you're gonna dress up like Bunyip? ...how are you going to do that?"
   "Well, I think no one really knows what Bunyip looks like, so I'll come up with something" said Platypus with a wink.


   When Numbat got home to her log that evening she took off her black and white checkered shirt and put on a brown one with black tiger stripes, like Thyla's. But so as not to be recognized she got out her makeup and gave herself a big black bandit-mask band around her eyes. Then she tried to make fierce faces in the mirror for awhile.

   Numbat found Roo standing in a clearing reading a book. There were even some bushes nearby to sneak up on her through, this would be perfect. Numbat snuck up carefully through the bushes. Roo would be so shocked, but then would surely forgive Numbat once she realized how silly Numbat looked while dressed up like Thyla. And Numbat couldn't wait to see Platypus all dressed up like legendary swamp creature Bunyip. She started to snicker but then clamped a paw over her mouth.

   Numbat reached the edge of the bushes and got ready to burst out. She did her best to pull her face into a pointy expression and got ready to run out with her arms in the air yelling "aaaaaah!!" ...and then the wind changed.
   Somewhere aways off a human played a digeree-doo, a hollow log that made a queer buzzing sound, and it was the first time this had ever happened, and all across the land it caused the wind to shift and the animal's hair shirts stuck to them.

   Roo did shreak, and bound off, but then she came back and had a laugh with Numbat and then they had tea. Platypus never came through with Part 2 of the plan though. When Numbat finally found Platypus she found him down by the river looking very silly indeed. He had a duck bill on his face and some sort of flat paddle of a tail. Numbat had been feeling bad that she couldn't seem to get her makeup off or get out of the striped shirt, but upon seeing Platypus she couldn't help but laugh. She tried to stifle it to be polite but then kookaburra bird came and laughed and laughed until Platypus sulkily went and hid in the river and told Numbat to go away.

   And the numbat has looked like a striped bandit ever since, and the platypus looks like nothing else, and the kookaburra is still laughing, the dingo drove the thylacine to Tasmania (though unfortunately man has since extincted the Tasmanian Tiger), and still no one has seen the bunyip.




***

See Also: previous post about numbats

   Every comment to this entry gets a numbat picture! (well, one per person)

   If someone wants to draw (or edit an existing picture of a numbat) so she has black and white checkerboard I'd be highly amused and may include it in the entry!

   furzicle will be writing about Platypus's side of the adventures.

972 AD, Jorvik, England –Olaf mutters some curses as he realizes his old leather boots are doing a terrible job of keeping his feet dry.  He pauses at a corner and looks around.  He’s lived in Jorvik for many years, but the heavy misty rain is disorienting.  Narrow lanes of wattle houses, walls woven of sticks, meander about in a labyrinthine manner.  He runs his hand through his thick tangled red beard.
            Woodsmoke curls from rough holes in many of the damp thatched roofs and swirls around the grey soupy sky, but the dark silhouette of a large stone tower looms over the rooftops, and Olaf takes his bearing on it. The soggy roadway squelches under Olaf’s feet as he walks down one of the narrow lanes.  He passes the crumbling ruins of what was once the wall of a building, it must have been three stories tall in its day, but no one builds things like that anymore.  The stone is green with lichen and moss. The locals say a people called the “Romans” built these things.  Surely some kind of giants, muses Olaf, as he pulls his wool cloak closer and hurries through the rain.
            Olaf stops in front of a rather broad building, its shaggy thatch coming almost down to the ground on the sides.  A sign hangs in front, a slab of wood with a crescent moon excised out of it.  As good a sign as any in a place where few can read.  Olaf pulls back the ox-hide covering the door and ducks into the dark interior of the Crescent Moon Ale House.

            "Ah there you are you old rogue!" Knut stands up behind a table and waves his friend over. He can’t stand entirely though due to the low roof. He's not merely tall, and he's not fat, but he's big. Proportionately big. Seen by himself one might mistake him for a normal-sized person, but then one sees how he dwarfs the people beside him. His curly blonde beard does nothing to diminish his eternally good natured countenance however.
            Olaf smiles sheepishly and then lets out a grumble as he seats himself. He waves over the serving girl and orders some mutton, bread, and ale.
            "So how's that chair coming along you were working on?" asks Knut.
            "Oh, I've almost got it I think." He's not a carpenter, but the goal-oriented fellow is determined not let a simple stool get the better of him.
            "I'm going to make a stool that will last a thousand years!" he proclaims loudly it startles a nearby grey bearded, one eyed old man in a broad brimmed hat.  Olaf quickly occupies himself with taking a large swig of his juniper ale, studiously avoiding eye contact with the old man.

            The mutton and bread arrives, and the conversation turns, as it so often does, to the good old days. When Knut and Olaf were young Jorvik was an independent kingdom ruled by northmen.  Now they had an earl in a tower and a disputed throne in faraway London.
            “Next thing you know we’ll all be speaking that English!” muses Olaf.  Knut rumbles with chuckles at this idea.
            “Never, it’s far too ugly a language compared to Norwegian” he assures Olaf, who had to agree.
            Knut notices Olaf grimacing and shifting uncomfortably in his chair.  "You know, Olaf, you might feel better if you ate a vegetable now and then." Comments Knut, with stew dripping down his beard, and a wooden spoon in one hand.
            "Bah!" scoffs Olaf "rabbit food never did a man any good! ... besides I have a better solution."
            "Whatsh that?" asks Knut, a leek hanging from his mouth.
            Olaf produces a small round smooth stone. "This stone I bought at the market today. These things are supposed to cure any poison." He plunks it proudly into his ale tankard and toasts with it.
"It was found in the guts of a cow," explains Olaf, while Knut curiously peers into Olaf's wooden tankard. "…but how does it get there?" asks Olaf, tapping his forehead knowingly, "cows don't eat stones!” It's the very embodiment of the magic of digestion... or something!" he finishes a bit lamely, reluctant to put forward any advanced theological theories on the subject.
            "So.. you're going to swallow that??" asks Knut incredulously.
            "No, no, no, you just put it in your drink and its powers are absorbed by the ale," says Olaf, absently examining the joints on a nearby chair.

            A few hours and several tankards of ale later Olaf is stumbling home, when he feels the call of nature. He quickly ducks down a narrow alley between two houses that leads to the riverbank.  The overhanging thatch from the two roofs nearly touches.  He hurriedly drops his trousers and squats over a muddy pool by the bank as his bowels begin to rumble. Maybe the magic stone is starting to work, he wonders, for --I don't mean to alarm you dear reader-- but it's been a few days since he was last able to make a bowel movement. A noise erupts from his posterior that is so rude even Olaf feels a little embarrassed.  Somewhere nearby a small child begins to cry. His excretion quickly disappears into the anaerobic depths of the muddy water. Olaf hurriedly pulls a handful of straw off the nearby roof thatch, wipes his rump with it, tosses it into the river, and then hurries into the night.

   To the west the sun is setting in a glorious display of oranges and reds, but no one pays it any mind. All 14 souls aboard the fishing schooner Kestrel are instead ranged along the higher end of the tilted deck, transfixed on the towering thunderheads to the east. Below the monsterous clouds jagged cracks of lightning flicker and flash in a grey wall of rain. The Kestrel bounds over ominously large rollers, propelled swiftly by the stiff breeze. Coming down hard into the trough between two waves a blast of salt spray douses everyone on deck, but no one flinches.

   "I reckon we ain't outrunning that thing" says Zeke, ignoring the water dripping from his face. Jacob turns and squints at the narrow black band on the horizon.
   "Aye, I reckon we're four miles out from the nearest shelter," says Jacob, wiping some of the water away from his eyes. "Four miles of that rocky lee shore to stay off of to get there."
   At a strange buzzing noise aloft, all eyes turn upward, and soon many a mouth is agape. Accompanied by a distinct humming noise, blue light flickers from the ends of the gaffs and masts.
   "What... in ... the ... blazes ... ??!" Thomas Johnson trails off.
   "Saint Elmo's Fire," explains the grey-bearded Henry Watson. "I seen it once before, when I was in the South Seas on a whaler. Some say it's electrics. Some say ... it's a portent"
   "Portent of what?" asks Jeb. Henry just gazes out at the approaching storm. Jacob anxiously clasps the pendant his wife had given him, a little ship's wheel set in a green stone.


   "ALL HANDS TO TAKE IN SAIL!!" The command suddenly jerks them all into action, the fascinating electrical phenomena almost entirely forgotten in a moment. Mad hurry or no, the masts can only take so much strain, and with the wind increasing, Captain Tadger can feel the strain as if it were his own back. "IN OUTTER, INNER, FORE, TWO REEFS IN THE MAIN!" And the mate is among them in a moment sending people scrambling to do the necessary work. The men run without complaint to execute the commands, knowing their lives depend on it.
   As a blast of cold rain hits them, the Mate clasps Jacob by the shoulder and says "You and Zeke, I need you to storm-furl the gaff topsail," and then he vanishes into the rain to help hold down the lines known as "widowmakers" on the jibs as they're hauled down.

   Jacob and Zeke immediately scramble to the shrouds, which, by way of decaying horizontal "ratlines" forms a relatively taut rope ladder up to the top of the mast. Halfway up, a strong gust of wind pins Jacob for a moment to the shrouds, and then just as quickly the boat crests one of the increasingly large waves and the mast, like a reverse-pendulum up in the sky, swings them outward. The wind howls through the dripping rigging.
   The shrouds, while broad at the base, all come together at the small top platform most of the way up the mast, which means they're very narrow near the top. Another gust of wind nearly twists Jacob around the flimsy ladder. He reaches up to pull himself onto the platform (really nothing more than two short horizontal beams to stand on) but nearly loses his grip on the wet wood. The precarious perch tilts and whirls wildly through the wet sky. Very carefully, he gets his arm around the mast above the platform, and hauls himself up. He steps around to the other side to let Zeke up, and together they set about folding in and wrapping up the gaff topsail as tightly as humanly possible. The ever increasing wind blasts and screams around them and fights to pull the canvas out of their hands. The mast groans with every roll and gust. As Jacob finishes the last knot, hanging on to the knot itself for dear life as he ties it, he realizes it is now very dark, the storm having swallowed them into its midst. Suddenly everything is illuminated by lightning that seems to be all around them at once, and the crash of thunder is immediate. In the momentary flash Jacob sees Zeke just below the platform, swinging wildly on his way back down the shrouds. The mast lets out another unearthly groan. As Jacob carefully lets himself down onto the narrow shrouds (keeping both arms firms around the mast as long as possible), the boat swings so far over he is sure he's about to be dipped backwards into the sea. As it comes back up he starts making his way down the shrouds, fighting the centrifugal force that seems to be pushing him in every direction but down. In a flash of lightning he sees the deck below disappear under roiling water as a wave crashes over it.
   As Jacob approaches the deck, he begins calculating how he was going to get from the base of the shrouds (which, naturally, run to the rail and actually connect to chain-plates down the side) to somewhere of relative safety without getting swept overboard. Suddenly there is a loud cracking noise somewhere above him and the whole mast quivers and jumps.

   55 BC - Londinos of the Catuvellauni roared up the hill towards the hillfort of Breahinga. Led by several horse drawn chariots, the charging mass of Catuvellauni made a fearsome sight. Most of the warriors ran on foot, their wild hair flowing behind their mostly-naked bodies. Fur or leather wouldn't do much to stop an arrow or spear blade so it was considered by most more valuable to unencumber oneself, though many warriors carried a small wooden shield strapped to one arm.

   Upon reaching the walls, the charioteers wheeled their vehicles around as their riders hurled javelins over the walls. A light shower of rocks came back at them but many of the defenders were saving their stones for the massed infantry to come into range.

   The armor-clad Catuvellauni leaders skillfully leapt out of their chariots as they passed the front ranks of infantry to join the charge. Only the richest nobles could afford iron swords and armor and Cassivellauni, leader of the Catuvellauni, gleamed gloriously as he led the charge of the final hundred feet with his shining sword held aloft.

   The sky darkened as several hundred short javelins (barely more than short relatively straight sticks with sharpened flint spearheads attached) were hurled through the air at the defenders on the wall. Like a swarm of bees the dark silhouettes of hundreds of stones and rocks came out to meet them and quickly began crashing amid the attackers.
   Someone to Londinos' left was hit in the head with a dark rock, falling with a sickening crunch, but sheer luck left Londinos unscathed and the battle-frenzy left him unphased.
   The massed attackers reached the rough wall undeterred and began scrambling up it. Most of the first up the wall were easily knocked off by the defender's spears, but between the defender's that had been killed by javelins, and the simply overwhelming number and ferocity of the attackers, it was only moments before Londinos and other were on the wall fighting with their own spears.
   Londinos couldn't tell if it had been thirty seconds or thirty minutes before he found himself panting among the low thatched cottages inside the hillfort with no more enemies to be found.

   The Trinovantian king Imanuenti had been killed, but unfortunately, his son Mandubraci had escaped.

   54 BC - Londinos gazed up at the Cantiaci hillfort. Just one more just like the dozens that had fallen to the Catuvellauni host over the last few years. Cassivellauni, it seemed, was making war more or less constantly with nearly all the neighbouring tribes, and, proof of his military prowess, rather than sap his people's strength the constant wars had steadily increased the Catuvellauni territory and prestige.
   A delegation of could be seen descending from the hillfort holding aloft branches of truce. Londinos smiled proudly to know that their reputation was enough that they might not even need to fight any more to gain victory.

   "The Romans are back!" word quickly spread through the small army as the delegates began to converse with Cassivellauni. Londinos had heard of the strange giant armor clad army that had come to the shores for a brief time the year before but hadn't had a chance to see them before they had left, and hadn't been entirely sure they were just some myth the tribes to the south had invented to scare those to the north.
   "The Cantiaci and the other southern tribes want us to lead them in war against the Romans!" the second bit of shocking news spread through the army. Legend or not, the Roman threat was not one anyone was about to take lightly, and any animosity towards the Cantiaci was quickly forgotten as the army hastened into the welcoming hillfort to prepare an even bigger war.

   Londinos stood atop the hillfort's ramparts and watched the approaching army with apprehension as it marched from the south. Several pitched battles had proven that stones and throwing spears largely bounced off the armor-clad Roman soldiers. The make-up of their army had been truly shocking to behold - every single one of them wearing an iron helmet, armor of metal bands, very large iron-reinforced shields, and even swords! Even the javelins the Romans hurled were straight and uniform with an iron tip. And they were even designed to crumple on impact so they couldn't be thrown back! How could anyone fight a foe like this?

   Even so, the sheer mass of the united tribes of Britain could probably have pushed them back. Unfortunately, however, the treacherous Trinovantes, along with five other tribes, had switched sides to ally themselves with the Romans. Londinos wondered angrily what honeyed words the Romans had used to entice the tribes to betray their homeland to these strange short invaders.

   After being pushed back in earlier battles, Cassivellauni had retreated across the dark river Tamesas, which provides a major natural barrier between the south and the rest of the island of Britain and is only fordable in a few places. Spikes were placed underwater at the few fords, but still the Romans managed to get across the river, though at least they had been forced to leave their huge stone-throwing machinations on the far bank.
   Led by their traitorous Trinovantian guides the Roman army had inexorably marched into the heart of Catuvellauni territory. With 4000 chariots (what would have seemed an astronomical number before the Romans arrived with their hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of soldiers), Catuvellauni had ambushed, and harassed the Romans across his land, making maximum use of the mobility of the chariots against the infantry in a guerrilla war.


   As the dark mass of Roman legionares flowed closer across the rolling hills, the perfect order of their lines and columns could be distinguished. Londinos anxiously eyed his pile of stones and throwing spears. If only the tribes had remained united. If only the other tribes hadn't listened to the insidious words that would divide them all apart...

---

   As it happens Cassivellauni himself was forced to agree to the terms of Roman general Julius Caeser - to pay tribute and give hostages - and then the Romans left again. But 97 years later it would be on the pretext of these surrender agreements that Emperor Claudius would launch another Roman invasion that would subjugate Britain for the next three and a half centuries and forever change it.

   Londinos, whose name roughly translates to "wild one," would go on to settle on the banks of the Tamesas, which you may know as the Thames, and his little farmstead would be known as Londinion...

972 AD, Jorvik, England - A light rain falls as Olaf walks down a narrow street. On either side he passes narrow houses made of wattle (woven twigs) and posts. Woodsmoke swirls out of special openings in the thatched roofs. Over the rooftops to the north can be seen one of the few stone buildings -- a mysterious people known as "Romans" had built various amazing stone buildings across the land that were still standing nearly 500 years after the Romans left. In this case the tower had once been part of the gatehouse of a Roman fort. What had been a gatehouse tower to the Romans had been the royal palace of the Kingdom of Jorvik more recently, but even that was nearly twenty years ago. Now Jorvik belongs to the kingdom of the Anglish and Earl Oslac rules from Jorvik's tower.

   But the former glory of Jorvik isn't much on Olaf's mind as he traverses the smelly trash-filled streets. He's a large grizzly fellow with a huge red beard. He ducks into the dimly-lit interior of a tavern.
   "Ah there you are you old rogue!" his friend Knut jovially greats him, standing up from behind a table. Knut has trouble standing completely straight in the low room due to his immense height. He's not merely tall, and he's not fat, but he's big. Proportionately big. If you were to see him by himself you might not realize it, but when there's something at hand to scale him by one notices he's simply huge. His huge blonde beard does nothing to diminish his eternally good natured countenance however.
   Olaf smiles kind of sheepishly and then lets out a grumble as he seats himself. He waves over the serving girl and orders some mutton, bread, and ale.
   "So how's that chair coming along anyway?" asks Knut, taking a guess at the source of his friend's groans.
   "Oh, I've almost got it I think." says Olaf with determination. He's not a carpenter, but once beginning the project the goal oriented fellow will not let a simple stool get the better of him.
   "I'm going to make a stool that will last a thousand years!" he proclaims so loudly it startles a nearby man with a grey beard, one eye, and a broad brimmed hat, and then takes a large swig of his pine ale (hops would not be used in beer making in the country for more than another 400 years).

   Various finer points of viking stool making are discussed as the mutton and bread arrive. Knut, with stew dripping down his beard and a wooden spoon in one hand comments
   "You know, Olaf, you might feel better if you ate a vegetable now and then."
   "Bah!" scoffs Olaf "rabbit food never did a man any good! ... besides I have a better solution."
   "Whatsh that?" asks Knut with a leek hanging from his mouth
   Olaf produces a small round smooth stone. "It's a bezoar stone I bought at the market today. These things are supposed to cure any poison." Grizzly though he may look, Olaf has enough discretion not to go into detail at the dinner table about the intestinal discomfort he's been having lately. He plunks it proudly into his ale tankard and toasts with it.
   "They find those things in the guts of cows and other beasts don't they?" inquires Knut curiously, peering into Olaf's wooden tankard.
   "But how does it get there?" asks Olaf knowingly, "cows don't eat stones! It's the very embodiment of the spirits of digestion... or something!" he cavalierly declines to deeply study the theology behind it.
   "So.. you're going to swallow that??" asks Knut incredulously.
   "No, no, no, you just put it in your drink and its powers are absorbed by the ale," says Olaf, absently examining the joints on a nearby chair.

   A few hours and several tankards of ale later Olaf is stumbling home, when he feels the call of nature. He quickly ducks down an alley and squats over a muddy pool by the bank as his bowels begin to rumble. Maybe the magic stone is starting to work, he wonders. I don't mean to alarm you dear reader, but it's been a few days since he was last able to make a bowel movement. A noise erupts from his posterior that is so rude Olaf feels a little embarrassed, and somewhere nearby a small child begins to cry. His leaving quickly disappears into the muddy water. Olaf hurriedly pulls a handful of straw off the nearby roof thatch and wipes his rump with it, and then hurries into the night.