The bartender and wait staff seem really nice. The food is decent enough. So why the one-star review?

My girlfriend and I have lived in the apartment directly upstairs from this space for a little over two years from back when it was the much friendlier — and quieter — Bangkok Thai. When Bangkok Thai (R.I.P.) closed a few months ago and the construction noises began to herald the coming of Cafe Delano, we were kind of excited to find out what the new place would be like. And then the workers started blasting the stereo (left over from Bangkok Thai, I was told), and the bass would rattle our furniture and make glasses of water ripple like the approach of Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park. Figuring that sooner rather than later would be a good time to establish acceptable boundaries with the new neighbors, I went downstairs to explain the physical effects that their music was having on our living space. The first time was no problem. The stereo was turned down and everyone went back to business as usual. The second time, about a week later, ended with the same result. The third time, a few days after that, one of the owners and I got into a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Hello! The low end from your stereo is coming right through the floor and shaking everything we own. Could you please turn down the bass?
Him: Well, you know, this is going to be a business soon and we’re going to have the stereo pretty loud sometimes.
Me: Well, you know, we never had any noise problems with the business that was here before over the last two years that we’ve lived here, and I’ve already had to come down here three times — and you’re not even open yet.
Him: This is the same stereo system; there’s probably a reason that place went out of business.
Me: (Trying to wrap my brain around his straight-faced Bizarro World logic, I tried a different approach.) The thing is, my girlfriend gets up for work at 4 a.m., so… if you want to come upstairs right now, I can show you what your stereo sounds like to us and why this is not cool.
Him: Well, I’ve got to make money. We’ll have to sit down and talk about this.
Me: (Knowing that the building management lists a noise curfew of 10 p.m. in our lease, I figured this was somewhat reasonable.) Fine.

After a few more weeks of construction (and, thankfully, no more stereo incidents), Cafe Delano finally opened on Pride weekend. Trying to initiate a more neighborly rapport with the new business, I agreed to meet up there with a couple of friends on opening night and give it a fair chance. It was after 8 p.m. and the girlfriend was already in bed so that she could get up at 4 a.m. for work; she was making do as best she could because, as predicted, noise had been coming through the floor all day long. But it was Pride weekend and opening day, after all, so we endured it all good-naturedly and without complaint. She had pulled out the sleeper couch in the living room because the sonic intrusion was marginally less potent there than in our bedroom. One positive result: This situation prompted her to look for alternative housing that we’ll soon be enjoying (in a bigger and much quieter place).

Downstairs, I tried a shrimp po’ boy sandwich, and it was, I must confess, pretty tasty. I gave one of the so-called sangrias a try and found it to be tolerable, though it was made with white wine; I wasn’t given any options or told that the red had run out until I requested one afterwards. I asked what kinds of beer were on tap, and I was told that only bottles were available. Really? In this neighborhood? Hmmm…

I reintroduced myself to the owner I’d met before, and the conversation was pleasant enough. As it got closer to the building’s 10:00 p.m. noise curfew that my girlfriend upstairs was so eagerly awaiting, I was relieved when the bartender shouted “last call!” I closed out my tab and was both surprised and saddened when I was told that there was no way to tip on a credit card. Ouch. Figuring at this point that I’d be back again, I resolved to bring some cash down next time I saw her there.

About a week later, when it was my girlfriend’s night off, I convinced her that we should give Cafe Delano a try, since she’d not yet been. We even stopped by the bank to get cash in case the bartender from my last visit was there (she wasn’t). We had an enjoyable enough time and met the other owner, who was kind enough (at the time) to buy us a couple of drinks. It was Mindy the bartender’s first night there and she was really nice (with the scant ingredients given, she makes good drinks). We stayed there until around 11:30 p.m., which could have been a problem if we weren’t currently the only residents above the place who would have noticed the noise. As it turns out, it was a mistake to hang out and spend over $60 (over $80 with tip) at Cafe Delano, because the owner who was being so nice to us this night would use it as ammunition when I would later make a noise complaint. (Apparently, his business partner isn’t the only one well-versed in Bizarro World logic.)

“Later” proved to be last night. I had been in another part of town with friends, but returned to find the girlfriend still awake after 10:00 p.m. — with sternum-wobbling bass from downstairs once again permeating our apartment. It was past the 10:00 p.m. curfew, which the building management had confirmed with us the previous week when Cafe Delano was blasting its beats well past 11:30 p.m. (in spite of not being open and not responding to phone calls or knocks on either front or back doors, ceasing only when the girlfriend jumped up and down on the floor between songs to let the people there know that we could hear them just fine). In her bedclothes and figuring that what worked before might work again, she jumped up and down on the floor. This time, though, the music continued. In fact, it seemed to get louder. Since I was still dressed, I decided to go down and ask whoever was there, face to face and as a neighbor, to please turn down the bass. I expressed that it wasn’t even a volume issue, but the bass was killing us. I was met by the owner from our last encounter, who said there was “no way to control it.” As I proceeded to politely explain to him how his stereo works and how it’s actually very possible to control the level of bass apart from the level of volume, he retorted that he “has no noise curfew” and can, according to city ordinance, “play music up to x (many) decibels until x (long past the designated curfew) time.” He wanted to show me the ordinance, and I just wanted him to show us some common courtesy.

At this point, he proceeded to call me a “hypocrite” since the girlfriend and I had been in there until 11:30 p.m. that one night (again, because we’re the only ones currently occupying an apartment above the business) and that I could “call the cops” if it was such a problem. I said that “it may come to that” and started to walk out. Before I even got to the front door, I heard the owner tell the bartender to “turn it up.”

So up it went (way up) until a little after 11:30 p.m., to pause while Cafe Delano was closed, and resume again this morning at just a little after 9 a.m. — no doubt as a lesson to the uppity neighbors above who dared to beg for some peace and quiet in their own home.

We’ll be moved out by the end of the week, but the tenants who take our place will undoubtedly be faced with the same poor attitude and disregard for comfortably sharing space with others. It’s like being in a dorm room without the benefit of earning a higher education (evident by Cafe Delano’s official website [at the time of this writing] advertising its location on the fictional “Univesity” Avenue in a magical Neverland called “Hilcrest”).

My beef with ownership aside, Cafe Delano really has nothing to offer our immediate neighborhood that isn’t already provided somewhere else (or several somewhere elses) at varying (but invariably higher) standards of quality.

Cafe Delano has no taps, but it bills itself as “specializing” in craft beer. Sadly, such beer is only available here in bottles. Try Local Habit, Jake’s on 6th, #1 Fifth Ave., or even City Delicatessen right across the street if you want tap-fresh and delicious local craft beer for which San Diego is becoming increasingly famous.

Cafe Delano has no dance floor, but it likes to crank its stereo up to a bowel-bursting, bass-thumping 11. Try Urban Mo’s or Brass Rail if this is your kind of scene. (And take comfort in knowing that you won’t be disturbing anyone who’s trying to sleep, as neither of these places has apartments directly above them.)

Cafe Delano has no full bar, but it makes an admittedly tasty enough (though weak) wine and fruit concoction that it calls “sangria.” Want the real thing, though? Ortega’s down the street is better. Or, if you want an alternative to sangria altogether, go for Yu Me Ya Sake House.

Cafe Delano has a pretty small menu for calling itself an “urban eatery.” In a part of town that’s all about urban eateries, your money is better spent at places like Local Habit, Empirehouse, The Fig Tree, Tractor Room, or Urban Eats (which actually does deserve its moniker).

Cafe Delano doesn’t really serve enough good wine or cheese to make it a bona fide “wine and cheese” kind of hangout. If that’s what you’re craving, I recommend skipping this place entirely and going directly to Jake’s on 6th, The Wine Encounter, The Wine Lover, or The Fig Tree.

Having been in Hillcrest for a while now, we’ve seen far worthier businesses come and go in the span of just a few months — it’s a tough market. I don’t think I need to go out of my way to wish any ill upon this place (everyone I’ve met who’s been associated with Cafe Delano, with the exception of the owners, has been professional, friendly, and reasonable), but I don’t see how it’s going to survive if making enemies of its immediate neighbors for the sake of a few decibels is part of its genius moneymaking strategy.

CC licensed Flickr photo of the doomed Cafe Delano in Hillcrest by Robert Glen Fogarty

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Artie had to agree to himself (the only other person who was really listening) that this was not the best vacation, ever. He probably should have retraced his steps and tried another destination when it was clear that the elevator had dropped him off in 1927 instead of 1972. He didn’t have the best relationship with machines in the first place, but there wasn’t much he could do since the Operator had passed away two months ago after 93 years of dedicated service. He had read the weighty manual cover to cover, but thousands of pages of smudged diagrams and arcane equations had slid right off of any attempted learning curve like a truckload of anvils flying over the mountain path to fabled Olympus. Honestly, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Punching in seemingly random numbers and pulling levers on the apparatus often surprised him by responding with any sort of accuracy; it happened just often enough to give him the confidence he needed to truly fail. This Spain situation, he grimly admitted to himself, might be his most radical failure so far.

While trying to count the days he’d been pinching fleas, waving away rallying vermin, and staring down other petty criminals who came and went from the grimy holding cell, Artie’s first visitor arrived. Were it not for the obviously false moustache, the bad hairpiece, and anachronistic sunglasses that the man wore, he might be staring at his own reflection. His better dressed, more recently bathed reflection.

“What took you so long… Artie?” Artie said to Artie.

This wasn’t the first time his future self had been recruited to unjam him from some sticky situation or other. On one hand, it was nice to know that he could count on himself when all seemed lost. On the other hand, it didn’t bode well for his hopes of someday making it back to his own time and place — at least not any time soon. His oldest self he’d so far encountered was, he guessed, probably about forty years older than he was now. This one was a little closer to his current age, though the silly getup made it difficult to discern exactly how much closer.

“Sorry, Artie,” said Artie. “You know how it goes. Some of the gears were worn. I had to replace a bunch of crap in that old machine and cross my fingers really hard before I could even get close to here. You’re lucky it’s only been eight days. I had a few bad turns before…”

He paused, the two Arties shared a look, and nodded in unison. The older Artie banged his fist on the thick metal door behind him, and the lazy young jailer entered, rubbing sleep from his eyes. They exchanged words that the younger Artie couldn’t understand; the cell door was opened, and Artie saw sunlight for the first time in… what he was told had only been eight days, but could have easily been eight times that.

“We know Spanish now? That’s surprising!”

“No it isn’t. Not even a little bit. You’ll see.”

Though the walk back to the hotel was shared, the two men bid each other a friendly farewell at the front door. The casual observer would notice that each entered the same elevator about five minutes apart, but one went up, and the other, down. Which was odd, because the casual observer also knew that this was the hotel’s bottom floor.

[Photo above by wreford / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Caretaker Thompson could tell you the names, dates, and epitaphs of all 8,247 people buried in his quiet little cemetery. He’d been working there since he was 12 — when there were still occasional burials — but now that seemed lifetimes away. While Hope Valley Gardens had changed from private to church to city to county to state and back to private hands since its first resting place had been dug back in 1838 (row 1, plot 1, Caretaker Thompson would tell you), this work had been in the Thompson blood since his father’s father had taken it up upon returning, shell-shocked, from one of the wars and finding it to be the most soothing of a long line of careers. From there, it just seemed natural that his father would take up the shovel, and that he’d soon follow. The tradition would end with this Caretaker Thompson, though, as his lifetime of bachelorhood had produced no offspring. When his time came, he’d probably be the last person buried here in a plot that had belonged to his family since before he was born. It had been paid for when his father was in kindergarten.

There was one unquiet spirit who visited Caretaker Thompson on a nightly basis. She insisted that hers was just one of a number of unmarked and long-forgotten graves scattered here and there before Hope Valley Gardens was officially a sanctified graveyard — back when pioneers were just passing through to places more westward (which seemed to be the direction in vogue in those days). Covered wagons would often make a stop here before traversing the mountains, and this is where the living would say farewell to the ones who had fallen ill or been mortally wounded by hungry wildlife, clumsy misadventures, or provoked natives over the past week. The graves of these left-behinds weren’t usually intended to be permanent, so they were often hastily marked with wooden crosses cut from local timber. While most of the corpses were fetched and brought to re-interment where a family had settled just a few months or years later, circumstances — whether financial or familial — often didn’t allow for such reunions. As years went on and memories of past generations faded, the crude wooden markers would rot to weather, termites, and time. So, too, would the anxious spirits of those whose westward paths were forever halted in this lonely old bone yard.

“Nice weather we’re having here in the land of the living, hmmm?” murmured the ghost of the human being formerly known as Luanne Ellis. “Hello. I’m Luanne. Luanne Ellis.”

Ah, Luanne Ellis. There was no grave with such a name, but yes, the name was familiar to Caretaker Thompson.

“Mmm hmm,” said Caretaker Thompson nonchalantly.

“You… you can hear me? See me?”

“Mmm hmm,” Caretaker Thompson looked up and offered a faint smile, then continued his raking.

“I’m a ghost! My old bones are buried deep beneath the roots of that towering oak! I have no stone of my own!”

“Oh? But I can see you just fine. Are you sure you’re not just lost? Do you want me to phone someone?”

“Pho… what? I’m…” There was a pause, as if the ghost of Luanne Ellis was considering a different approach. “Booo! Booooo!” resumed the voice, shaky with uncertainty.

“Lady, knock it off with the nonsense! Are you trying to scare me?”

“Of course we do our best to try and give you a scare! It’s the only way any of you will ever pay attention to us!” said the ghost of Luanne Ellis.

“Ah,” said Caretaker Thompson, “but I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Well, nuts,” said the apparition, disintegrating into a lazy mist and then soon, nothing at all.

“You really should be nicer to her. She doesn’t get your sense of humor,” said another voice that seemed to come from a place that was simultaneously inside of Caretaker Thompson’s head and yet an uncountable number of miles away.

“Devin Morrison. 1834-1901. Devoted Husband, Beloved Father. Row 124, plot 14. I don’t mean to be unkind to the young lady, but she’s just going to forget it all and bring the same conversation to the table tomorrow night.” Caretaker Thompson sighed, “I’m just trying to jar her into something else to talk about.”

“What have we learned, Caretaker… Thompson, yes? You look different every time I see you.” said the voice of Devin Morrison.

“I am Caretaker Thompson, but you might be thinking of my dad. Or maybe my grandpa. Or maybe both?”

“What have we learned?”

Caretaker Thompson cleared his throat and said, as he’d said hundreds — maybe thousands — of times before, “Old ghosts aren’t always old souls. If one must play with them, play nice.”

With the animated dust of past decades parading through this tired old place to keep him company, it sure made the remembering easier.

[Photo above by unfrenziedspace / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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The Kaiser had us pinned to our trenches for the better part of that dreadful engagement’s final weeks. We didn’t know the end was near (not the end we envisioned, anyway), and our morale was exhausted along with the nearly empty food stores and dwindling ammunition. Without incoming supplies and reinforcements, holding out for much longer was an impossible stretch of the wildest imaginations among us (even that of poor Sergeant Calder, who sang in his sleep, habitually shot at phantoms in the latrine, and claimed to have invented soup). Bombs dropped casually from the enemy’s flying kites high overhead, a relentless barrage of shells, and a never ending rain of machine-propelled bullets made our job just that much more inconvenient. The surrounding bleakscape was a tangled mess of barbed wire spread liberally over a muddy crust (when it wasn’t a muddy sludge) of shattered bricks, maggot-bloated corpses, and other battlefield debris. War was hell, for sure, but it was also an eyesore. What wasn’t rotting was burning or drowning, and the stench of this combination would have been stomach-turning had we not been used to it as the state of what we’d come to accept as “normal.”

Yes, I know I’m rambling. An old man’s earned the right to ramble. You’re young; if you want to live to be my age, you might learn some patience now while it’s still a luxury. Begonia Escargot? Yes. I was getting to that. Getting to… her.

Our secret weapon, hatched up by some think tank turkeys on our own continent far away from the fighting, was a fleet of steam-powered jackalopes that were designed to hop toward the opposition’s line and explode into flesh-liquifying shards of shrapnel before the enemy could overcome its surprise at being hopped at by a fleet of steam-powered jackalopes. The only trouble was that this secret weapon was still on our far-off continent, and we’d long since been flanked and surrounded by the Kaiser’s forces. We were an island in the middle of a “sea of troubles,” as that limey playwright once wrote, and the island was quickly sinking. No, the steam-powered jackalopes would never arrive in time to save us — unless our one great hope could succeed. The hope’s name, of course, was Begonia Escargot.

Begonia Escargot was our side’s best aviatrix with unpluckable nerves and eyes that could spot a poodle on the ground from 5,000 feet above (and woe to the poodle, as Begonia Escargot wasn’t particularly fond of poodles). Her signature biplane was painted a rich purple, and the tally of foes she’d defeated in the fiery firmament almost completely covered both sides of the aircraft. But did such high numbers confirm an immortality blessed upon her by unseen forces, or did they signify that maybe she’d used up her good luck and flew against impossible odds that safe landings could continue for much longer?

Even the top brass who cooked up the scheme to send her on this mission believed that they might very well be sacrificing their queen to save a few pawns, but the desperate truth was that the whole game would be over soon enough if such a risk were left untaken. If the winner of this conflict would soon be dictating the terms of the other side’s surrender, we damned well had to do everything in our power to leverage an unlikely victory. What better gambit to either wrap it up or wreck our chances completely than sending Begonia Escargot, the famous valkyrie, to choose who would be dying that day as a safe delivery of the steam-powered jackalopes to us on the front lines was attempted.

The air fleet made it over the ocean without losing a single soul to enemy machinations or our own miscalculations, but that was to be expected. The Kaiser’s navy was busy blockading various ports along the coast and his air power was focused on mercilessly bombing my pals and me into muddy, bloody messes in our soggy, boggy trenches. That’s not to say that Begonia Escargot’s daredevil team of very skilled madmen and madwomen arrived without encountering a very vigorously oppositional welcoming party, but it was much lighter than predicted.

We found out many years later that disinformation planted by our spies had successfully diverted the bulk of spare firepower to a strategically useless harbor about 500 miles away. This was the Kaiser’s key blunder that turned out to be his undoing. To help nudge him into making such a disastrous decision, headquarters had simultaneously sent a legion of remotely controlled zeppelins painted with obscene cartoons depicting the Kaiser’s mother engaging in numerous indiscretions with various heads of state there. Maybe it’s not the classiest move ever made in our nation’s fine history, but like I said, we were desperate enough to try anything at that point.

With everything going better than planned, it was only fair that something big and deadly horrible would come along to muck it up for us — just as we were daring to hope that we might actually pull off this thing and maybe be home in time for Christmas. As our side had the good fortune to retain the loyal services of Begonia Escargot, dutiful citizen extraordinaire, the Kaiser employed a heartless mercenary pilot from the colonies who nearly equaled Begonia Escargot’s command of the clouds (though his cruelty far excelled hers or, truly, anyone’s). While he’d been commanded to accompany the majority of forces going to chase filth-scrawled zeppelins 500 miles away, Count Vulgaire, Bastard Raptor of the Seven Skies, was delayed by repairs being made to his bullet-riddled death glider. Unfortunately for us, those repairs were completed right around the time that Begonia Escargot’s flock of unfeathered destruction arrived.

The most epic dogfight to take place in that or any war before or since commenced promptly at half-past noon. Several shipments of the much anticipated steam-powered jackalopes had already been successfully delivered to us on the ground, but our necks were craned and eyes glued skyward as we witnessed an unmatched aerial display between these two rivals who had yet to best the other in combat. Begonia Escargot dove to greet Count Vulgaire’s climb, and the fireworks between them were evident even to us insects viewing from our miserable holes in the dirt. We watched the deadly dance for what seemed like slowed-down eons; neither could get a clear advantage as the other seemed to perfectly anticipate whatever maneuver they would make. Occasionally, the Count would break off to gun down one of the transport planes that was loaded with the potentially tide-turning (and highly volatile) steam-powered jackalopes, and they would explode so completely that the wreckage never made it to the ground.

It was after three transports had been so casually vaporized that Begonia Escargot must have made the decision that would turn the battle’s tide — but not without cost. A fully throttled collision between her famous biplane and the Count’s dreaded Bastard Raptor briefly outshone the sun as these two titans burst the sky.

While bodies were never recovered, it’s unlikely that either survived. Still, reported Begonia Escargot sightings weren’t uncommon for the next few decades. I could have sworn I saw her arranging tulips at the flower shop down the street about ten years ago; in the end, I guess it’s just how we coped with the loss.

What won us the war? Begonia Escargot. May she be up in Heaven teaching angels how to fly.

[Photo above by [casey] / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Cal slammed the fridge door shut and sighed. Cradling a half-empty bottle of store-brand malt liquor stamped with generic labeling indicative of months spent in a trans-Pacific cargo hold, he looked to the ceiling as if hoping a sign from heaven might make itself apparent. He immediately wished he hadn’t let his gaze linger upward, as the spotty brown bloodstains from some past crime or another that he saw there were only slightly less alarming than the cobwebs and carcasses of long-dead, long-legged critters that vaguely covered them. Through the thin wall stained with nicotine, vomit, and other undesirable substances, creaking furniture from the neighboring room and the sounds of either human ecstasy or agony drowned out the voice of the newscaster on Cal’s static-strewn black and white television, even though the volume was turned to maximum. At least it also drowned out the bathroom faucet’s incessant dripping of a thick, rusty brown fluid approximating the unhealthy hue between root beer and diarrhea. At this point in his life, Cal had to count whatever small blessings were thrust his way by the universe.

The motel wasn’t highbrow enough to be considered fleabag; even the most infinitesimal of bloodsuckers were more discerning with their taste in lowlifes than the clientele of this shit stain in the middle of hillbilly Timbuktu. And as much as it disgusted him, it was the perfect place for Cal to lie low before the heat died down. With two gym bags full of freshly laundered cash, he should be living large on the beach of some warm seaside village with a name he couldn’t pronounce among people who spoke a language he could pay enough to never be bothered to learn. Unfortunately, a few weak links in the chain between him and a clean getaway threatened to screw it all up, and Cal would be damned to every level of Hell in tiny pieces before he’d ever go back to prison. One of those weak links was supposedly meeting him at the airport 70 miles away. Cal wouldn’t be there, but a few tipped off undercover agents would be. There had been three gym bags of cash, but one was sacrificed to the agents to ensure that this weak link was taken out of the picture before he could give away any more of Cal’s plans to the wrong interests. If everything went smoothly, his blessedly corrupt angels of salvation would give him the signal, and he could proceed with his early retirement only slightly behind schedule.

For now, among the rancid stench of rotten food, the bedbugs, the generic malt liquor, the bloodstains, the spiders, the people fucking (or, he hoped, dying) next door, the bad television reception, and the broken bathroom faucet, Cal consoled himself with one simple thought: no matter how bad you’ve got it, it can always be worse.

Unless, of course, you’re one of the weak links.

[Photo above by Chuck "Caveman" Coker / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Optiminius looked around cautiously as he took a long, slow sip of the alehouse’s savory hogswallow (pretty much water that had been used to boil the evening’s ham supper mixed in with a few secret spices and ingredients, which was then strained and cooled in a keg down at the nearby stream that washed down from melted mountain snowfall). Here at the Burping Peasant, situated conveniently where the trade roads crossed, the volatile tempers of the townsfolk could famously erupt when tall tales of passing adventurers (not so lovingly dubbed “waterfowl-fucking tourists” by the locals) got to be obnoxious beyond patience. Well, that and the ale.

While the Teetotaler was born and had spent the majority of his childhood near here, he’d been gone long enough to be considered a full-fledged member of his current company, which meant he was greeted with the same narrow stares and ominous sneers afforded unpleasantly to them. The hired help, however, was always obligingly polite — as long as the silver flats were stamped with the face of the current emperor and continued to make a satisfying sound as they clinked together in the palms of said help. While the silver flats flowed, so too did the ale (or hogswallow, depending on preference), and this made Optiminius more than a little nervous. The party’s recent trip into the mountains and its lengthy ordeal in the ancient catacombs where the dead were routinely plundered by the living (who could remain so) promised to pay handsome dividends, so old wealth would soon be traded for new; Fulholme and company spared no expense. The straw-strewn planks of the Burping Peasant’s floor were soaked with as much ale as the members of the party could spill — at least half as much as the vast volume that successfully made it into their swelling guts. Shards of unlucky mugs that didn’t pass the test of toasting lay scattered across table and under foot (at any alehouse in the realm, and especially this one, the savvy patron is a thick-soled patron), and boasting in earnest was not long in beginning.

“I’ve seen goblins!” Grunk the Glacierhost shouted as one of many torrents of errant ale flowed unceremoniously down his matted beard. His giant mouth, easily four feet above the tallest and silliest of hats popular in this part of the world that topped the heads of many around him, belched a volcano’s share of fumes and half-chewed rubble.

One of the older (and braver) townspeople retorted: “You’ve seen drunken mirages!”

Grunk laughed and let out a belch that was even more obscene than — and twice as loud as — the one before.

“I’ve seen those, too!”

Fulholme and company laughed (with the exception of Optiminius, who could only offer a faint, uneasy smile), and even a number of the locals couldn’t help but join in. Optiminius began to breathe a sigh of relief, imagining the tense situation had been diffused by the giant’s contagious humor. But he really should have known better.

“Goose buggering barbarian.”

Though another local merely muttered these words under his breath in what where barely half-whispers, Grunk’s superior Glacierhost hearing easily picked them out from the alehouse’s chaotic symphony of drunken revelry. As the giant’s eyes slowly fixed their gaze in the direction of the unfortunate transgressor’s location in the corner, the sounds of celebration diminished into silence.

Just as Optiminius was about to intervene in what was sure to be the last time he’d ever be clobbered by the giant’s barrel-sized fists, Grunk grinned and bellowed:

“It was a swan, you oaf-born oat-tiller! Bartender! Get this man a gallon!”

Optiminius, for the first time in months, signaled for a mug of ale from the surly (but defiantly appealing) alewench. Two sighs of relief were certainly in order.

[Photo above by Alaskan Dude / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Donald spoke m-dip fluently (and, like untold others, secretly), but he found himself wishing, at that moment, that he didn’t. As understanding of their immediate situation made its way into his prideful human brain, he could feel his equally human heart thumping like a steady, ominous soundtrack from an old motion picture.

“Begin query, respect. Tall, advise upward motion, endstopover.” Said the little one to the big one.

“Begin reply, basic. Tiny, upward motion detected. Agreed. Unclear analysis. Heatless. Mechanized or otherwise cold organic. Silent. Deadly? Endstopover.” The big one replied.

Donald snickered like a schoolkid several months younger in spite of himself. Fart humor was always hilarious, regardless of degree or pedigree, especially when doled out by clueless m-dips. His fellow expedition mate John arched his eyebrow; Donald feigned coughing to cover any suspicion that he might be reacting to the seemingly gibberish dialogue spouted forth by the unintentionally comedic mechanical duo.

“Too much dust in this dump,” said Donald, “I hope we can clear this floor and get some sleep back at floor three camp before we have to proceed. Daylight would be helpful. These flashlights are worthless.” He waved a beam over the unrelenting darkness of where one of the fallen ceiling tiles had left a yawning gap. Either the space was deeper than the light could penetrate, or… he didn’t want to imagine what could constitute “or.”

“Why’s your voice shaking, man?” John asked, his other eyebrow arching to accompany its fellow. “This is an easy job. You should have seen what it was like on Charon. m-dips frozen to their tethers and the colonists were feverish beyond their senses. They were trying to kill us all, Don. And it was much darker than a few holes in the ceiling. Waiting for daylight was hardly an option.”

“I’m only eight years old. Being afraid of… rather, cautious of the dark is perfectly appropriate for my designated age bracket. This is my first time on assignment; I just graduated last month. Give me a break, you ass.”

The previous floors they’d cleared had been much easier, and the key’s efficacy had so far been generous in allowing them continued passage upward. This was, however, the first floor they’d found with remnants of what its long-vacated tenants had left behind. A room already picked clean by past scavengers made for efficient progress to the top, but it certainly made one wonder: why was this space left intact?

John’s tone softened. “Sorry, Don. I thought you were at least eleven. Hard living?”

Donald nodded, trying to discern more of the m-dips’ conversation without arousing any more of his expedition mate’s suspicions.

“Forget about it, John. Whether we like it or not, we’re going to be here for a while. Dig in. Find something to read. The flashlights shouldn’t fail to help with that, at least.”

“You’re the boss, Don.” John yawned and picked up a copy of what looked like a soggy, fungus-bloated textbook. “Ah, rats. Martian. I can’t read this crap. Flashlights or no flashlights.”

“And that’s why I’m the boss,” said Donald, barely hiding the sniffle of smugness that punctuated his announcement. “My undergrad was in Martian. Let me have a look at that.”

TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRACTICAL ELOCUTION OF SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES by THOMAS EDISON VII

Donald gulped audibly as he read the title and turned as pale as a so-called supernatural entity, himself.

“Back out. Now. Abort mission. I repeat… fuck it. Get out!”

“Floor three camp?” Asked John, his own voice ending on a higher pitch than usual.

“Screw floor three camp! Evacuate! Out! Vacate! This place is a freaking ghost school!”

Left behind, the duo of m-dips continued their conversation, seemingly oblivious to the hasty departure of their former masters.

“Begin query, respect. Tall, advise apparition response, endstopover.” Said the little m-dip to the big one.

“Begin reply, basic. Tiny, analysis reached: Home discovered. Work complete. Take load off. Endstopover.” The big one replied.

The m-dips slumped over as faintly green steam expelled itself from each one and hovered briefly before slipping quietly into one of the convenient portals to the silent abyss above.

[Photo above by the_matt / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Though no trains went where she was going, she figured she could at least take this one to the end of the line and see how far past that the splotchy-inked transfer wadded up in her tiny fist would take her. It was a bit like an adventure — the sort of thing she’d read about and heard other people discussing in the office break room between shifts. For a change, she’d be the one with a story to tell if they all could make it to tomorrow without tornadoes, earthquakes, or other expressions of an imaginary, divine parent’s displeasure ruining an otherwise lackluster day. The tunnels were braced for almost the worst of it, so perhaps mortality was less imminent than she reckoned.

A subway train assuredly could outrun the wrath of a sleepy pantheon deprived of mortgage payments and meal tickets since the masses stopped tithing. But still she worried. It was easy to worry when a headache like this was an anvil being pounded upon inside her brain — a forge for weaponry against the world. What good’s a sword against determined clouds or mountains, though? None at all. But power against her fellow proletariats was possible. The misery that loves company was the throbbing pulse that fueled the endless pain inside of her pretty (but pitiless) head.

Could she go through with it?

It was certainly easy enough to get off at her usual stop and trudge the gloomy steps back to the unkempt studio apartment that she shared with only the memory of her last boyfriend — who had left her for college (and co-eds) in another country. She could draw the dust-encrusted curtains to shield her view of the impromptu neighborhood dump that had built up beneath her window, watching bad television and drinking enough cheap liquor to pass her into numb oblivion until still-dark morning greeted her with the alarm clock’s prompt to get back to work.

Maybe adventure could wait for the weekend. Or the weekend next. For now, another dreamless night of slumber might dole out just enough caustic comfort to make it to the next dull day. She crumpled up the transfer and threw it thoughtlessly on the dirty subway car’s already formidable pile of casual, end of the day clutter. No deities were invoked to plot this latest defeat, she mumbled to herself in consolation. In this, her apathy was transformed into — an albeit lazy sort of — empowerment. In spite of this, she prayed for tornadoes and earthquakes to bring the adventure to her. She was just too tired to make the commute.

[Photo above by bruceley / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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So as I was ballet dancing on the capstone that set everything in motion, I saw a peculiar thing on the horizon with my binoculars (implanted before the accident). In the sky, there was a battleship shaped like a dinner plate made of steel (like the kinds we had in county lockup before ubiquitous plastic was invented and infused into every aspect of our society from the higher ups to the dregs below). I know it was a battleship because it was fighting with another of its kind, which was a little farther in the distance. Sparks blazed between the two in immense columns of fire and smoke. I was too far away to hear any noises that may have been made, but I could feel vibrations from when a piece of one of the battleships would fall to the ground, which led me to believe that these mammoth aircraft were each bigger than cities. I never told anyone about this, but I can’t imagine I was the only witness to the event. Still everyone else must have kept mum for the same reasons I did (which may not need to be explained to anyone who’s ever been doubted. All children know what it’s like to be accused of some minor crime they did not commit).

As I was dismantling my structure by dancing more slowly against this backdrop of faraway carnage between two behemoths, I stretched my neck too far and found pelicans bouncing off of my gigantic hairdo! Is this something I can expect to happen on a regular basis? Who can say? All I know is that I was more able to disclose the clumsiness of my latter situation than the former. Could I be forgiven for failing to comply with my own standards among the rest of them? Perfection is a disease in itself — not the absence of imperfection. I’ll dive below the oceans deep to come up with pearls when my lungs grow big enough or gills can take their place. I will breathe salt water as well as fresh, and I’ll reveal all wrecks below as they strive to surface. Drowned deckhands and capsized captains will cheer me from their watery tombs. Underwater EVPs will be awash with the strangled cries of the avenged greeting me as their liberator, and I will get rich on the overwhelming evidence of the sea’s indifference to human suffering. Who’s ever given up in the face of cruelty? Maybe all of us from time to time. We convene on ley lines made of tears and sweat and hope and pride — all sins to someone, and virtues to another (sometimes within the same). We hog the jukebox when it’s our turn and hang out to hear our selections and the reactions of those who surround us while awaiting their own vindication. You can never run out of money when it’s still being made. A good place to get more is outside the bar when you’re telling stories about spaceships and ballet dancing, which only happens when you’re drunk and you’re surrounded by drunks. No one remembers why they gave you the contents of their wallet, and you don’t remember how you managed to secure the funds for another round, but you know the next morning that all missions for which each party set out were accomplished with abnormal amounts of compliance from all forces that be: including you and including them.

A chipper dose of hedgehog reality will blindside even the most fickle of ghosts into giving up themselves to the curious. But when the voices echo in your head and you can’t identify their origins, just remember that the ghosts might, at the end of the day, be you.

[Photo above by Keith Marshall / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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Bowling is less traumatic when people are taking fingers off of the polish to keep the eggs at bay. They’re eggs of ethereal essence sent to give us hope and glad tidings around the holiday season. Too many fucking Christmas songs and carolers make the bloodstains more realistic around the door frame where the numbskulls were knocking again last night. When I was sleeping. A nap disturbed is wasted sleep, after all! Could I be more concise when I develop lasers that focus on the bewildered and deliver us upward and over the becoming cellar? A door that leads to nowhere and a ceiling that can never be reached is what Hell and Heaven mean to me.

They’re going to say I write about religion more than the clergy, but that’s because they’ve got a liquor cabinet stuffed with the good stuff, and mine is bone dry. Dry as a polar brain. Wicked as a cellular phone. A bear batting brandy about the beastly banner. Forth and onward! Fourth and sunward! Course and northward! Cursed and canned, conical and comical as much as a smiling jackass on the edge of a very long fall, going down with empathy in my eyesight inside. I see the fall over and over and over again, but it’s nothing I hold against the daredevils. Missed chances to save the day resonate forever in dreams that occur in the wakeful day.

We’re pleased as supermen and saints; sinners don’t go holding down the fort when there’s cheap pleasure to be had in the back seat of an air conditioned limo on a hot summer night. The night’s never hot in the winter, so I guess I didn’t have to really specify. Unless you’re on Venus, where the winters scorch only slightly less than summers. Then again, it depends on your hemisphere and attire worn for the occasion. If you’re going, you should really pack your space clothes in case the transportation isn’t first class enough for you!

We weren’t cut out for imagining much more than the lesser essence of a mothman in hibernation, but there goes the neighborhood when you’ve got omniscient extraterrestrials and fey folk crossing mixed signals near crossroads and crossword puzzles. They’ve got their own languages that keep them talking mysteries to the rest of us. Like a secret code for which no ring’s ever been struck. Stricken? Strictly speaking, a Sopwith Camel could mop up a Zero in the blink of a weary eye that’s not designated to crash into all hands on deck and the bobbing water trap that is an aircraft carrier. But only if Snoopy’s driving. He’s got his paws on the buttons and his mind on his money.

So I went to the bank the other day and they’d run out of quarters. I thought they could just make more, but I guess their machine was down and the government wasn’t coming around to fix it on a holiday weekend. I wish they were more particular about who they let touch their crap, anyway. It was often a fierce admission of guilt by those who had the power to mint money for the masses when we know more often than not that we can’t trust them with the economic flow any more than we could trust a viper in a room full of rabbits. Can we kibitz with the cabal in Canton? I’ve never been to Canton. Do they speak Cantonese there? Midwestern bible thumpers were thumbing their noses at the ne’er-do-wells in charge of plowing, mostly because tractors had been invented ages ago and they felt that people too afraid to get with the times weren’t ready for anyone’s second coming, anyway. Who could be right? Who could be wrong? Do we question the faithless with rings around words that are made for simplistic explanations and casino junctions mostly kept throttled by fingers filled with rich rings. Gemstones and jewelry were kept precious for a reason, but too much cheapens it for everyone. Is it some sick dream that gets us up to snuff and asking where Alaska fits into the equation? I was hoping for more motion sickness as I reared my head up into the clouds and spacemen were taking numbers on the way to the ether, but who could tell me otherwise when I had a tummy full of shrimp cocktails and a brain full of freckles caused by cancer from the bright, bright sun?

I’m speckled full of freckles and I’m reckless as a jackal. Jeepers!

[Photo above by °Florian / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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