Actual compliments were sternly frowned upon. Once, it was rumored that Eustace had thrown a gentleman out of the Horny Dragon Pumphouse after the tipsy man uttered: “This ale is excellent, fit for a king.” It was also rumored that Eustace’s beer was fit for the king, but since king Theodore the II was a wine drinker, Eustace had little to do with the monarchy or their choice of beverage. Often after a rowdy game of pinochle, a drunken Eustace could be heard mumbling about how number one liked beer, and that the only reason that number two liked wine was because number two was just that… a number two.
Fallow rose to his feet slowly and groaned his way over to the bar. He had passed out after an especially rousing game of “Drunken Fighting” where the contestants say obnoxious and derogatory things to one another interspersed with blows to the head, shoulders and neck. The game usually ended when one or more of the players, depending upon the number of participants, lay flat on their back deciphering: A: What was said about them, and b: Why where they lying on their back?
Surprisingly rowdy games of “Drunken Fighting” sometimes erupted from the smaller games into a fooforal of a crowd pleasing contest known regionally as “Bar Brawl” The object of “Bar Brawl” was that all members are part of the fun and lasting unconsciousness means ‘You’re out!’
The smell of fried eggs, bacon, and some type of brown substance that was thrown into the fryer to keep it from going bad, wafted up from the kitchen below. Meg, Eustace’s Wife/barmaid/alarm clock could cook for a hundred in that kitchen with grandiose and famous results. On a small scale however, her food usually all came out the same color and consistency as gray. Her cooking was highly renowned and even considered infamous throughout all of Wanderlust, including several remote areas of the kingdom where it has been exclusively imported to be used in trials of manhood. The poet Carlton, after using it to kill a stomach infection that had plagued him for years, was quoted as saying that it was: ‘Edible at best’.
Eustace leaned over the Horny Dragon bar towards Fallow; who was not completely upright yet. Fallow preferred to hide his head in the cradle of his sweaty hands until such time as he could lift said head from said hands.
“Breakfast?”
“Sure.” Came the muffled reply.
“Sweep.” Eustace said turning back towards the appetizing smell, leaving Fallow to ponder exactly what he’d just agreed to.
Sweep… one word with so many meanings. In this instance for example, from the historian Sir Theobald Quatrain the third of Armistice; Philanderer, Philosopher and Philatelist as well as noted historian of Armistice, Wanderlust and Homestead, translated into the colloquial speech on his visit to Homestead previously in the week; Theobald, or ‘Baldy’ to his friends, enemies and mother said, and I quote:
“Sweep (v) - Translated loosely, sweep centers around the inability to express one’s true feeling for your co-worker, family member or hard working peon. This colliquial phrase is used in times of disharmony to explain deep and meaningful feelings to your underlings while still managing to keep face. The Bill Thompson, chief accountant and undersecretary for the Department of Interior Growth In Malignant Foreigners (DIGITMFrs) was known to tell whole legions of his mercenary soldier to sweep villages for “insurgents”."
Theobald is said to be singularly responsible for the famous March 4th uprising at Seascape Deluxe Fishing Village and Tribal Casino, but probably most famous for his lengthy diatribes on the world outside his door, remarkable for the fact that for the first thirty-five years of his life he never once passed beyond his own doorway and never left his house. The strange fact of his self imposed exile, is further compounded by the uniqueness of the seventy tomes written while living there in his self imposed exile. Theobald is the author of such magnificent works as Yarp!! Translating grunts from stray dogs into Common, ten weeks on the Armistice Rag best seller list was Fifty ways to annoy the postman, Even MORE Fifty ways to annoy the postman and his super-gold-awesome-time best seller, Theobald's Dictionary/coffee-table/insect killer, which of course is most popular in the southlands where the large cockroaches have finally met their match with the introduction of his Super-Gold-Awesome-Time tome. After Theobald finally left his house and entered the real world for reasons rumored to the fact that his mom refused to get cable or do his laundry anymore, he traveled Wanderlust, making a small fortune off of the royalties of the rewrites of the books he wrote while living at his mother's.
So, as of the fifteenth edition of the Dictionary/coffee table/ insect killer with new improved colloquial expressions of the bar crowd at the Horny Dragon, Theobald Quatrain the third, noted historian of Armistice, Wanderlust and Homestead is quoted as defining "Sweep (v) ‘Get off your fat ass and start clean’n up the brok’n crockery which you and your drunk’n drink’n buddies helped break, since it's yer misfortune to be left behind to receive the full brunt of the wrath of my wife’s cooking of burnt eggs and soggy bacon and some sort of brown stuff that was about ta go bad as yer payment.’
“In-a-minit’” Came the still muffled reply.
“Before I’m old and gray” which surprised the young, hung-over, drunkard with his head between his hands, because for all intents and purposes, Eustace was old and most assuredly gray, judging from the wrinkles and whiskers of white hair struggling daily to remain on the top of the bar owner’s glistening pate.
Fallow slowly rose to his feet abandoning his bar stool and removed his head from his hands only when he was fully erect. “Can I have a broom?” which, when looked up in the same translations guide referenced before, translates roughly into; ‘Can I have the broom?’
Eustace wandered off into the back mumbling something about needing to catch up on his staring as Fallow slowly cringed at the sight of copious piles of junk and a sticky residue on the floor that certainly hadn’t been there the night before and would probably be there again tonight by some odd transdimensional concurrence. He picked up his broom and looked the place over one more time before promptly falling asleep on one of the barstools. And now dear reader, since nothing else really exciting is happening, we shall leave this tired reveler to his revelry repair.
Chapter 1 - Fallow Awakens
Start from the beginning
