The Library, Part 3
By: Turboencabulator
Alice rode her bike up the slope to the main house, muttering mixed oaths under her breath
about living in a building with no storage of work items. She made a note to put it on the
grand list of things to bitch to the new guy about, right between fixing the electric drive on
the front gate and getting a new water heater.
The day was bright and early, but when she pulled along the side of the house, parking near the
side door, she smelled eggs and coffee, and a strange burnt, but not unpleasant, smell. Bumping
the side door open with her shoulder, the sticking bit letting to with a loud pop, she
sauntered up the half-flight of stairs and into the kitchen.
Roland was carefully surveying a cast-iron skillet behind hooded, gunky eyelids, hair a mess
and still in the clothing he fell asleep wearing. He looked over at Alice, grunted good
morning, and turned back, taking out two thin, plate-sized cuts of meat, and pouring coffee in
from a moka pot.
“The hell are you doing?” Alice asked, sitting heavily at a butcher’s block, perched on a stool
like a raven eyeing a new sparkly thing.
“Red-eye gravy.” Roland said, mostly clearly. “Country-style pork fat and coffee black enough
you could lose ink in it.”
The gravy was generously ladled over a huge, fluffy mass of eggs on two plates, with the
slices of pork, and served up, with more sensible coffee.
Eyeing it, Alice gingerly picked up one of the cloud-like rolls of egg, soaked a nut
brown. “Seriously? That sounds, uh, interesting.”
A slice of meat halfway to his mouth, Roland looked up at her, and set it down, leaning forward
on his elbows, expectantly.
She looked around, then asked, “What?”
He gestured to the egg, and she sighed, and ate the lump of egg.
It took them five minutes to clear the plates, Alice soaking up the remaining red-eye gravy
with a slice of sourdough bread, watching as Roland downed his fifth cup of coffee.
“So, we have some talking to do.” Alice said, carefully nibbling at the salty, caramel-colored
crust.
For a moment, Roland hesitated, and then finished his cup. “Serious-type talk?” He asked.
She nodded, and watched as he stood up with a sigh and walked out into the hall. After a beat,
she followed, then doubled back to grab her own java and carefully jogged after him.
Coming up on him in the entry hall, she watched as he began searching through the boxes. “What
are you doing?” She asked, wiping up a near spill dripping down the side of the mug.
“Here we are.” Roland said, hefting a box marked ‘14’ and wandering into a reading room,
setting the box on a table and ripping it open.
Alice followed him in, watching as he unpacked dozens of hockey-puck sized tins in plastic
bags, mason jars with faded, typed labels, and fat rolls of cloth and leather. He unrolled one,
revealing a selection of smoking pipes. One was slipped out, a can was selected, and within
minutes, Roland was starting in on a bowl, a nutty, caramel-sweet smell filling the room.
“Ok. Shoot.” He said.
It was well into the day when Ruby woke up, carefully extracting her rear half from under the
two boys, piled together and snuggling.
She turned and counted again. One, two. One short. She stretched, and went out to do her
business, expecting Gizmo to be ahead of her. Though, she could barely smell him, and did not
hear the pegasus. After looking around, trying to spot a blue fluffy in a dark forest, she went
back in and gave Misty a light bop on the nose.
Misty immediately woke up, holding his nose, whining. “Why yu huwt fwu… gud mownin Wuby?”
“Yeh yeh, wisten, yu nee’ watch Buwwet, keep Buwwet safe an in hewe. Gizmo missin, gun go wook
fow him.” She said, and pointed at Misty. “Sewwiouswy. Yu an Buwwet. Stay. Hewe.”
Misty nodded, and whined, standing up and tottering over to look out the gap in the wall. “Yu
dun fink he went to watch da hoomins?”
Ruby and Misty’s eyes locked, and Misty sighed. “Ob cowse. Weww, weast it nu makin sky-wa-was.”
With a sigh, Ruby nodded and went out, padding slowly around the little cabin, looking for
hints of the missing fluffy’s passing. A breeze kicked up, and she turned to look into it, out
of reflex, only to spot a tiny splotch of blue working its way slowly down the steep hillside,
in shadow and rocks, away from the big housie on the hill.
She froze. Then Ruby felt the old heat rising, her neck getting taut, her flanks twitching as
she grew more irritated. Soon she broke out into what could charitably be called a run, heading
for where Gizmo would meet the treeline.
“Also, we need to get the DNR guys out here to fumigate the lake, the wall isn’t doing shit to
keep fluffies out if people keep dumping them, that bint Clarissa is trying to get me to sign
this place into a fucking homeowner’s agreement, the goddamn six-wheel needs new tires, and
mother of god if I don’t get a reloading machine worth a damn I’m going to start throwing the
slugs at things.”
Roland was nodding along, slowly smoking. “Right. Pick five.”
Alice stared at him for a second, then sighed. “Why five?”
“Makes ya prioritize.” Roland said with a little grin.
She turned, walking to a window and opening it, letting the cool morning air in and lighting a
cigarette. “Well the least expensive…”
“Let me worry about the money.” Roland muttered, tamping the ash in his pipe.
“Fine.” She leaned against the sill. “First, get rid of the bitch. She thinks that just because
her sub-development can see the house, it needs to be part of the HOA. The wall needs something
done to it because of the fluffy dumping epidemic going on. There was at least one last night.”
She leaned her head back against the wall, thinking. “The front gate really needs fixed, and
I’m tired of cold showers. I can manage the six-wheel for a while, the reloader I have works
it’s just fiddly as fuck, so I guess the last one would be putting in some kind of
intercoms. Cell service out here is ass.”
Roland pulled out his cell phone. “Ah. Yup. Well what’s her number?” He said, getting up and
walking towards a land line phone.
Alice watched, vaguely bemused. “393-555-8082. She’s called me so much I have it fuckin’
memorized.”
After dialling, Roland leaned against the table, vaguely bored looking as he
waited. Eventually, a click came over the line.
“Clarissa? Hello, we don’t know each other, I’m Roland, you were interested in getting my
property in your association.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Oh, neat.”
“Oh I understand.”
“Well, you see, the problem is that I don’t give a shit about your property values, what
little there is in cookie-cutter housing. You’re bitching about a building looking ‘a little
drab’ when you don’t have trees in your subdivision. Now, let me be clear, I’m not a crazy
person, I don’t intend to do anything absurd like put up giant penis statues or paint the
building purple. The worst I’d do is maybe put up a mast antenna or possibly some solar
panels. So the answer is no, I’m not joining your little attempt at dictatorship. If I or Alice
hear anything more about this from anyone, I’m installing an entire line of Moai heads on the
hilltop, each one with a different creative expression and all of them wearing Groucho Marx
glasses. Have a good day.”
Roland hung up, and wandered back to his armchair, relighting his pipe.
Alice started giggling, then coughing on her cigarette smoke.
Gizmo was waddling to the treeline when a shouty red blur came out and slammed into his side,
knocking him over and making him half yelp, half cough. In a flash, Ruby was on top of him,
teeth bared and pinning him down.
“Gizmo yu STOOPIT! WHY GO TU HOUSIE!?” She raged, right in his face. “YU TWYIN GET FWUFFS
FOWEBBA SWEEPIES?”
He held his head back, eyes wide. “Nu, twyin find nummies? Hoomin twashies hab bestest
nummies, an smewwed hawt nummies. So went an was cawefuw.”
Ruby was breathing hard, but she had begun to calm down. “Yu wewe wookin’ fow books tu. A’mit
it.”
Gizmo shrugged, wiggling on his back. “Dat was somefink extwa. Can get up now?”
She got off the pegasus, stomping once. “Yu. Da shewtew, nao. We tawk dewe wit Misty.”
With a nod, Gizmo set off for the cabin, Ruby following behind.
Misty and Bullet were playing cloudie-spots, curled up in the dappled shade of a tall tree and
trying to name what the clouds looked like. Bullet generally had the more imaginative answers,
when they were clear enough to be intelligible. Hearing a rustle in the brush, Misty turned,
and started herding Bullet into a little cove made by the roots of the old tree.
Gizmo and a very irritated looking Ruby flopped out of the brush, and after collecting
themselves, trotted over to the cabin. Misty popped out of the roots with Bullet, who was busy
having a staring contest with two different rocks at the same time.
“Gizmo went tu da housie.” Ruby said, in a flat, angry tone.
Misty immediately sat down and huffed, giving Gizmo what he thought was a serious, considering
look. In reality he looked constipated, which surprised nobody, since they had been eating
grass and leaves for a while now.
“Gizmo, dat nu smawt.” He said, grumping. “Da hoomins awweady say dey nu wan fwuffies hewe. If
fwuffies found, it be vewwy bad.”
“Dey did?” Gizmo said, blinkin. “Oh wite. Weww, when was up at da housie, de no-see-waww-fings,
one of 'em was open, an da hoomins wewe tawkin. Dey wanna make da waww highew, so nu mowe fwuffies can get in. An one of 'em said somefin about… needin wots of munnies fow dat and odder fings?”
“Wat munnies?” Misty asked, puzzled. “Is dat a hoomin name fow wockies? Da waww is a wocky
waww.”
Ruby shook her head. “Nu. Munnies is wat hoomins use to twade. Befow wun away, Wuby used to be fowced to fight fwuffies an he’d get munnies if Wuby won. Used to say ‘wed fwuffs get him aww
da gweenbaks’.”
Gizmo started thinking, any harder and steam would come out his ears. “Mebbeh…”
Misty tilted his head. “Mebbeh wut?”
After a moment, Gizmo looked between the other fluffs. “Wat if fwuffs got munnies, den asked da
hoomins tu stay fow da munnies?”
After opening her mouth to complain, Ruby shut it again, face screwed up, thinking about
it. She looked over at Misty, who looked back. They both slowly turned to look at Bullet.
Bullet was doing a handstand, urinating into the creek, an expression of furious concentration
on his face.
Alice crouched by an electric six-wheeler, feeling the treads on the tires. After contemplating
she shrugged, and went to a gun cabinet, pulling out a shotgun and secured it in a mid-console
rack in the six wheeler. Stepping out into the sunlight, she went to the open window on the
house and poked her head in.
“Hey, come on dude!” She shouted. “Got a loaner gun for ya.”
After some consideration she had picked out a small air rifle for him. “Need to fix that .22”
She muttered, and began searching for pellets.
“Can I bring my own?” Roland asked, wandering into the garage with a 1903 Springfield slung on
his shoulder.
Alice stared at it, then cracked a wry smile. “Nice antique. You know how to shoot that thing?”
Roland got in the passenger seat of the six-wheeler, putting one leg up over the front, and
loaded a round. “See that sign?” He asked, gesturing ahead.
She looked, then squinted. “No?”
“Down at the lake.”
After grabbing a pair of binoculars, she sighted down, seeing a water level gauge on the far
side of the lake. “The level marker? That’s got to be a quarter mile away.”
Roland closed the bolt, pulling the rifle up. “Look at the zero in ‘20’.”
There was a loud bang, and for a brief second, nothing happened. Then the middle of the two was
punched out.
He sat up again, squinting. “Hm. Must’ve mis-read the wind.”
She lowered the binoculars, whistling. “Shit, where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“Half it was boy scouts, the other half was my great-granddad. Used this rifle in Korea.”
Roland said, ejecting the empty round, letting it fall into the footwell. “Came in useful
during my master’s work in Latvia, couldn’t speak anything other than some basic German, which
got you dirty looks, but if you could shoot well and bring in game they suddenly got a lot more
interested in communicating.”
Getting in, she kicked the vehicle into gear and drove down. “What were you doing there?” She
asked, shooting him a confused look.
Roland languished in the seat, looking around the new property. “Research for my master’s
degree, going through the libraries looking for some old texts.”
“Sounds like you and the old man had similar interests.” She commented.
“I don’t know.” Roland said, glancing back up at the house. “I can’t tell what he was working
on. I know he was a folklorist but there’s hundreds of thousands of books in there, if not
more.”
“So what’re you then?”
Roland turned back around, looking around as they glided quietly over the trails. “I’m doing my
doctorate work in the history of early printed transgressive literature in Europe.”
Alice just looked at him, and he continued. “Like… when printing first became a thing, it
meant people could duplicate books for a reasonable expense. This also meant anyone with a
press could print things challenging the establishment, or make books on topics that some
authorities wouldn’t want published. I’m actually credited with finding the earliest known
published pornographic novel.”
“Seriously?” She asked, trying to hide another smile.
He nodded, wistfully looking up into the sky. “Oh yes, buried in a vault in Poland, detailing
the homosexual relationships that were established inside a convent when it was sealed against
a plague. It was awful.”
“Let me guess, written by a man who had no clue what he was doing.”
“Bingo. Where are we going?”
“Nickel tour. First there’s a hunter’s cabin that we need to fix up, then we’ll go around the
lake and head back for lunch. The mine is always a hoot.”
Two beady, piggy eyes stared out of the brush at a dumpy mare, the color of dirty wool
socks. She was grazing on clover, singing happily about gud nummies and bestest
tummy-feels. Her haunches and tail were stained brown, and she walked slowly, her hooves not
used yet to walking on anything harder than the spongy padded floor of a saferoom.
The eyes followed her as she picked at the purple-white flowers, until finally patience ran
out. A fire orange stallion carefully crept out of the bushes, slowly making his way through
the meadow until finally he sprung, mounting the mare and pushing her shoulders down, listening
to her squeals and protests as he began thrusting, making deliriously happy little enfing
sounds.
Two hundred yards away, a crosshair is lining up on a pair of tiny, fuzzy, swinging testicles.
Suddenly the mare’s head is blown into fat chunks, and the stallion feels his testicles
vaporize. He falls on his side, screaming, scrabbling his hind legs while his forehooves hold
onto his crotch, spinning him in a circle until he faceplants in the dead mare’s feces-caked
asshole. He splutters, wiping his face off, and looking down at his mangled genitals, pawing at
them and whimpering.
There’s a flat crack, and birdshot fills the fluffy’s chest, putting him out of his misery.
Alice picked up the dead fluffies and tossed them in a hopper on the back of the six-wheeler,
then got in and drove it back down the shallow dome of the meadow, to the trail.
“Two down. Hopefully we’re not going to need to clear out more. If the population’s low enough
when winter hits the herds will be too small to self-sustain well.” She said, faintly
grimacing.
“Is it a specific dislike for fluffies, or more you want to preserve the area?” Roland asked,
nonchalantly setting his scope back to zeroed.
“The second one. I don’t mind fluffies when they’re behaving, but I don’t know what impact
they’d have here, so I’m going to err on the side of caution.” She said, driving along the
shore of the lake. “Besides,” she continued, “Too many fluffs and it’ll make the predator
population explode. Yeah it’d be a self-correcting problem, nature would find its balance
point, but I’d rather not need to deal with more than deer and the occasional coyote or fox.”
Roland nodded, looking across the lake, at the old hunter’s cabin perched up a slow moving
creek. He had the strangest feeling something was watching him.
Misty stared at the silent six-wheeled monster as it carried the humans around the far side of
the lake. He knew what bangsticks were, and what they meant. He turned, looking back at where
Gizmo was attempting to manufacture munnies, from what Ruby could remember of their appearance.
“Dey wewe on papew, an widew dan high… wun side wuz gween wit a buildin on it, de other had a
pictuwe of a hoomin stawwion.” She said. “An dewe was pwetty gween pictuwes aww ovew it.”
Gizmo dug through the trash bin in the cabin. “Hao big a papew?”
“Wike dat candy-baw da 'bos gabe yu dat one time.”
After a bit, Gizmo gasped and dove behind the little desk in the corner of the cabin, coming
out with a crinkled two dollar bill. “Wook!”
Ruby and Gizmo excitedly, carefully smoothed it out, and looked it over. “Dat munnies.” Ruby
said. “Is diffwent munnies, da widdle cownew finies had a ciwcew nexta dem, but dat is da
munnies.”
After a minute of staring at it, Gizmo went back to the trash bin and fished out some paper,
and a stubby pencil. “Hewp howd papew down.” Gizmo said, and began drawing, carefully.
Ruby kept the corners still, moving around Gizmo’s drawing path. “We hab moaw papew?” Ruby
asked, looking up at the desk. Gizmo nodded, tongue out between his teeth, carefully guiding
the tip of the pencil nub on the paper. She turned the bill and the paper over when he was
done, and Gizmo began again, copying as well as he could.
After the first attempt, Gizmo and Ruby earnestly began trying to find more paper, working long
through the day. Misty and Bullet played and watched around outside, and Misty began to learn
how to understand Bullet better. He spoke strangely, and was full of sillies sometimes, but he
was a good friend, Misty thought.
Eventually, the light began to dim, and with a dull groan, Gizmo flopped on his back, letting
his forelimbs splay open, groaning. “Su sowe, su much munnies.”
Ruby slowly counted through the money, losing count after six copies. There were many more, and
she nosed and pawed them into a pile, staring at them, thinking. “Yu think this nuff munnies?”
Misty and Bullet made their way in, curious, a bit dusty from playing in the dirt patch under
the shady front roof of the cabin.
Gizmo huffed, getting up and walking awkwardly, his forelimbs stiff and sore. “Hope su. Nu can
make mowe.”
Bullet looked at the small stack of fluffy-made counterfeit bills. “Hbablunnamoooofblum?”
“Buwwet wanna know how fwuffies awe gunna move da munnies to da hoomins.” Misty said.
Ruby and Gizmo looked at each other. After a minute of thinking, Gizmo shrugged. “Dat pwobwem
fow mowning.”
The four had evening nummies together, formed a fluffpile, and were rapidly on their way to
sleep.
Roland picked through the notes in what was now his office, reading his great-uncle’s painfully
perfect handwriting, attempting to piece together what little he could of the work he was
supposed to continue.
Alice walked in, looking around the office. “Man I forgot how big this place was, it’s like
it’s bigger on the inside.”
Roland nodded, silently, staring over a table covered in sticky notes, steno pads, and index
cards.
After a minute, Alice walked over and gave him a soft poke in the cheek, making him jump.
“Dude, you were more zoned out than my stoner cousin, what gives?”
“Sorry,” Roland sighed, looking back over the notes. “It’s this work, he asked me to continue
it but it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Only he’s left the pieces scattered on all the work
tables in the house.”
Alice shrugged, nonchalant. “Well first get the pieces together. Then find the box. I’m going to
town, need to grab some shit and order that water heater.”
“Right, I’ll be here.” Roland said, then looked around. “I suppose I’ll see what all he’s got
here, at least I’ll never run out of light reading.”
“That’s the spirit.” Alice said, turning around and heading out. “Well don’t go insane, mind the
ghosts, all that shit.”
Roland sighed, and straightened up, beginning a long walk through the building, picking up a
banker’s box on the way.
Over the next hour, he filled box after box with notes, until arriving in the basement, and
finding a wine cellar filled with bottles of reds.
Roland stared, and looked at a clock on the wall. “Yup.” He said to himself, selecting two
bottles, a nice red, and an obvious cheap red, and went up to the kitchen, feeling his stomach
start to complain as he began cooking.
Alice was back two hours later, and drove up to the house in her little Toyota pickup, already
smelling the amazing food. If Roland was going to cook for two, she thought, this was already
going to be an easier relationship to maintain than usual.
She hopped out and went in, finding Roland meandering around outside the kitchen.
“Hey, Alice. Could you do me a favor?” Roland said, looking a bit pale.
“Uhh, what?”
“Go in there and kill that fucking wasp.”
Dead silence, she stared at him, and sighed, pinching her brow. “Please tell me it’s because
you’re allergic.”
He nodded. “If that’s what it takes, I’m allergic.”
“You’re afraid of wasps.” She said, looking around and picking up a newspaper, rolling it up.
“Flying insects in general.” Roland said, leaning in and looking around the kitchen. “I have no
idea why but this falls into the category of ‘oh god I just can’t’ for me.”
“Right, you’re afraid of flying insects, I’m afraid of needles, we all got a thing.” She said,
going in and immediately swatting the bug. “Also this is a hornet, not a wasp.”
“Even better.” Roland muttered, quickly rushing over and tending to the food. “Join me?” He
asked, offering her a glass of red.
She took it, blinking. “Found his wine cellar then. I never saw him drink from it.” After
taking a mouthful, she looked at the glass again. “Well it’s wine?”
“It’s a wonderful Bordeaux.” Roland said, offhandedly. “Probably a second harvest on the sun
side of the bank judging by the earth tones.”
The room was silent, and he turned to see Alice staring at him, one eyebrow cocked.
“I started in culinary school before I switched to history.” Roland shrugged.
“Mhmm.” She said, and took her usual perch on a stool. “So, chef, what’s cooking?”
“Beef bourguignon. Did you ever get to the billiards room?”
She shrugged, sipping the wine. “I mean I knew it was there, didn’t really have much interest.”
“It’s the only table in the house that isn’t covered in papers. And it’s for snooker at that.”
Roland said, sighing. “Guess that was his relaxation.”
“So what’s yours?” Alice asked, finishing the wine, eyeing the wine bottle with mild boredom.
He noticed, grinning a bit, and went to the fridge, pulling out a pilsner, offering the
bottle.
“That’s more fuckin’ like it.” She said, opening the bottle with a pocket knife and having a
chug.
“Pipe, reading, target shooting. Morning tai chi helps a lot. My music collection.” Roland
said, shrugging. “I’m kinda boring. Though I did find a piano so, hopefully he kept that
tuned. Might practice again.”
Alice finished the bottle, and grabbed another, blinking as she peered into the fridge. “You
also are into craft beer. Holy shit man.”
“Try the Hopslam, it’s great.”
She settled back on her stool with an IPA and nursed at it.
Roland turned to look at her, expectant.
“What?”
“I shared, your turn.”
She sighed, leaning further in. “Ok but no judging.”
Roland looked surprised, then confused. “That isn’t my style, there.”
“Right,” she said, thinking. “I do enjoy weed, quite a lot… speaking of which, weed in a wood
pipe?”
He shook his head. “You’ll never be able to clean the resin out of good briar, stick to glass.”
“Ok, so weed, gaming, hunting, bushcraft, and one I’m not going to tell you but I want privacy
for anyways.”
After a beat, he put the lid on the beef and leaned against a counter, pouring a fresh
glass. “Ok hold on. What’s bushcraft?”
She shrugged, swigging on the IPA. “Going out and doin’ survival shit. Making snares and traps,
building log cabins and shelters, camping kinda things.”
Roland nodded, then sighed. “Ok. On the last one. I’ll respect your privacy, but you have a
house to do whatever ‘it’ is. What would cause me to not give you privacy?”
“I want to be able to do it on the property, not just in my house.” Alice said, giving him a
coy smile. “I’m weird.”
“You don’t say.” Roland muttered, then shrugged. “Look, as long as it’s legal and not
destructive, I don’t judge or mind. Just need to figure out a way to make sure I don’t
accidentally cross paths with you when you’re, uh, exercising your hobby?”
“Sweet.” Alice said, then blinked, straightening up, looking at the bottle. “Jesus christ this
is ten percent.”
“You’re the one that picked it.”
Alice covered her mouth and belched. Roland clapped.
Two drunk, giggling friends stumbled through the halls and wound up in the billiards
room. After a slurred, almost-introduction to the rules of snooker, they passed out, Alice on a
chaise lounge, and Roland in an armchair, just after the stroke of midnight.