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“Wet Detective”

“Now, for the next ten minutes, write down whatever comes into your mind,” our Education teacher said to us all. The clatter of twenty-five keyboards reminded me of a waterfall. I don’t think this is what she meant.

We open on the detective’s office, which is behind a waterfall for some reason. Everything in the detective’s office is wet.

Their desk is wet. Their typewriter is wet. Their chair is wet, and the leather squeaks at the slightest move of their wet body. The paper is wet, in a newspaper, in a book, in a file, it’s wet, and it’s a miracle anything still holds ink or even shape. The detective’s shoes are wet. Just absolutely sopping wet, like somebody poured two glasses of water into them before they put them on. The detective’s socks are wet. Their feet? Wet as it gets. Their trousers — clean, tightly pressed, with a firm crease exactly where it should be — are wet. Their feet, their knees, every hair on their legs, and the legs themselves? Wet. Their underwear is wet. Their lower half squeaks slightly as it shifts, uncomfortable from wetness, in their wet chair.

Their shirt is wet. Their long trenchcoat is wet, as is the coat rack it’s hanging on. And just as the detective starts, briefly, to consider the poor choices they’d made that brought them here, to this wetness, there’s a knock at their door. Which, you’ll realise, is wet, because it’s behind a waterfall, which is not traditionally a place that keeps things dry. Wait, is it traditionally a place that has doors? No, it’s not, is it. Maybe the knock is at the waterfall instead of at the door. Knock knock. Splash splash. Wet wet.

God, everything is wet. It’s so wet. Why did the detective accept this posting from the agency? What made this seem like a good idea? Should probably open the door. No, not the door, the waterfall? Splash splash. Come in, the waterfall is wet.

Wet footsteps. It’s not a wet dame or a grizzled wet business man. It’s a firefighter. A wet firefighter.

The Bowl of Petunias (III)

They1Who? say it’s best to parody yourself before somebody else can.2Oh, me.

Johnny Nightmailman3You know, of the Upper Noxalia Nightmailmans. is not Mondo Goodbody in many of the ways a person could not be Mondo Goodbody. Johnny Nightmailman4The Nightmailman family is both widely known and well respected, though Johnny, as far as he knows, is the only member of his family to live in the City of the Golden King since his aunt, Rowena Nightmailwoman moved away to take care of her own auncle, Patr Nightmaildeliveryemployee. is not a carpenter. Johnny Nightmailman5Johnny Nightmailman’s father, John Nightmailman, once called it the City of the Golden King the Flying King’s Folly. After today, he will never call it anything else. does not carve wooden ducks, or even know about birds, really.6Fuck, do you know how hard it is not to know about birds when you live in a flying city? Johnny Nightmailman7The Nightmailman family made its significant fortune several hundred years ago when its then-patriarch, Ronny Daymailman, decided on a whim to lie about why he’d overslept. wasn’t even awake8He was the opposite: Asleep. when the City of the Golden King fell. This was the case because Johnny Nightmailman9You know, Johnny Nightmailman. was a man of the night. And not for the reasons his family name might suggest.10A member of the Nightmailman family was no longer expected to work as a nightmailman, and Johnny Nightmailman was ill-suited to the executive offices.

Because Johnny Nightmailman11Who was very happily employed by a legal firm as an interpreter of several lesser-known languages and dialects, including Second English, Mmm, Endee, Dendagon Coverup, and and whatever the hell it is they speak over on Snork. liked to walk. Hundreds of years of nightly mail delivery, and then another hundred of executive walk-and-talks, Johnny Nightmailman12Whose great-great-great grandfather once walked for six months to deliver a package to a man who died two months after he left. liked to joke, did that to your genetics. He couldn’t help himself. At least once a day, Johnny Nightmailman13An only child if ever there was one. walked the total circumference of the City of the Golden King. Now, the City of the Golden King was not that big. It was no Old Needle,14Old Needle used to be called just The Needle, and was called that for having been built in the long, long stretch of liveable land between an active volcano and the Ice Flats of Bun. But with the volcano extinguished and the Ice Flats shaved too thin, The Needle got the chance to expand into something nobody reasonable still wanted to call The Needle. But what else to call it? You know how it goes. it was no Chiro,15Nobody remembered why it was called that. no City in the Flaw,16Everyone knew exactly why it was called that. no Apotheosity.17Apotheocity? But a city was a city, and Johnny Nightmailman had seen every floating cobblestone of this one. Johnny Nightmailman’s friends sometimes joked that if he could fly, he’d use that ability to see some of the cobblestones he’d missed and then go back to walking. That he wouldn’t know what the point was, what to do with it. Straight back to the ground. But a self-imposed mandatory daily two-hour walk did things to your schedule, to your rhythm, so the walking shifted to the night, and so Johnny Nightmailman, interpreter, nightly mail delivery heir, and walker was asleep when the City of the Golden King fell.

Twenty seconds after the birds noticed, Johnny Nightmailman18Whose family would, they would come to realise, not particularly miss him. was awake as quickly as he’d ever been. And in the one way in which Johnny Nightmailman was like Mondo Goodbody, he did think he was flying. And so all he could think when he realised he wasn’t was, “Well, that makes sense.”

  • 1
    Who?
  • 2
    Oh, me.
  • 3
    You know, of the Upper Noxalia Nightmailmans.
  • 4
    The Nightmailman family is both widely known and well respected, though Johnny, as far as he knows, is the only member of his family to live in the City of the Golden King since his aunt, Rowena Nightmailwoman moved away to take care of her own auncle, Patr Nightmaildeliveryemployee.
  • 5
    Johnny Nightmailman’s father, John Nightmailman, once called it the City of the Golden King the Flying King’s Folly. After today, he will never call it anything else.
  • 6
    Fuck, do you know how hard it is not to know about birds when you live in a flying city?
  • 7
    The Nightmailman family made its significant fortune several hundred years ago when its then-patriarch, Ronny Daymailman, decided on a whim to lie about why he’d overslept.
  • 8
    He was the opposite: Asleep.
  • 9
    You know, Johnny Nightmailman.
  • 10
    A member of the Nightmailman family was no longer expected to work as a nightmailman, and Johnny Nightmailman was ill-suited to the executive offices.
  • 11
    Who was very happily employed by a legal firm as an interpreter of several lesser-known languages and dialects, including Second English, Mmm, Endee, Dendagon Coverup, and and whatever the hell it is they speak over on Snork.
  • 12
    Whose great-great-great grandfather once walked for six months to deliver a package to a man who died two months after he left.
  • 13
    An only child if ever there was one.
  • 14
    Old Needle used to be called just The Needle, and was called that for having been built in the long, long stretch of liveable land between an active volcano and the Ice Flats of Bun. But with the volcano extinguished and the Ice Flats shaved too thin, The Needle got the chance to expand into something nobody reasonable still wanted to call The Needle. But what else to call it? You know how it goes.
  • 15
    Nobody remembered why it was called that.
  • 16
    Everyone knew exactly why it was called that.
  • 17
    Apotheocity?
  • 18
    Whose family would, they would come to realise, not particularly miss him.

The Bowl of Petunias (II)

Let’s see how much I can extract from this premise.

Mondo Goodbody does not expect the City of the Golden King to fall. That is to say in the first place that, to Mondo Goodbody, who has lived in the City of the Golden King their entire relatively short life, the thought simply does not occur that the flying city might cease to fly. To Mondo Goodbody, to ask if it could do that would be like asking if water could cease being wet. Mondo Goodbody, for all their strengths as a carpenter, was not one for frivolous thought experiments like that.

It is to say in the second place that, when the thought stops being experimental, Mondo Goodbody’s own first thought is that they’re flying.1Flying, you see, is a thing birds do, and Mondo Goodbody knows about birds. Mondo Goodbody enjoys the idea of their newfound ability immensely, and it is only when they realise their collection of hand-carved wooden ducks has joined them in lift-off that the sun sets on that enjoyment. When Mondo Goodbody’s emotional night of terror sets in, enjoyment might as well never have been in the room.2Unlike every single one of Mondo Goodbody’s possessions, all of which were far more in the room than, Mondo Goodbody felt, they really should be.

Ten seconds after the birds notice, Mondo Goodbody is as scared as they’ve ever been.

  • 1
    Flying, you see, is a thing birds do, and Mondo Goodbody knows about birds.
  • 2
    Unlike every single one of Mondo Goodbody’s possessions, all of which were far more in the room than, Mondo Goodbody felt, they really should be.

The Bowl of Petunias, As It Fell

This came to me between dreams.

It was, on the one hand, quite easy to simply forget you lived in a flying city. Sure, the clouds were quite close, but that just meant the rain didn’t hit quite as hard as it would with more metres to travel. And yes, where a dirt city1As so many derisively called them. might have the occasional body of water running through it, you had a body of air, but to bird was not meaningfully that different from to fish.

To be a citizen of the City of the Golden King2Having been renamed this after the death of the Golden King’s predecessor, the Flying King, who was named that for his uncanny magical ability to make cities fly. meant, for the most part, walking to the store like anyone else, riding your bike to work like anyone else, filing formal complaints with the Department of the Cave like anyone else.3Funerals, bathrooms, and other ways matter was disposed of worked differently, for reasons you can imagine. Life in the City of the Golden King was normal, easy, and pleasant. It was, the people thought, good.

So, when the other hand came and took away those illusions, the City of the Golden King was actually not first to learn the new cosmic truth that, while they weren’t paying attention, the age of magic had come to a sudden and abrupt end. But it was certainly amongst the first to know quite how hard this new cosmic truth could land.4If landing is what you wanted to call it.

When the flying city fell, it was the birds who noticed first.

  • 1
    As so many derisively called them.
  • 2
    Having been renamed this after the death of the Golden King’s predecessor, the Flying King, who was named that for his uncanny magical ability to make cities fly.
  • 3
    Funerals, bathrooms, and other ways matter was disposed of worked differently, for reasons you can imagine.
  • 4
    If landing is what you wanted to call it.
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