Gleeman's Tales

by Matthew Travagline

  After one particularly taxing physical therapy session, you decide that you want to take one of your pain pills to help you relax. An overflow of empty pill bottles litters the counter. Your roommate has set up an Etsy shop and is making sculptures from the bottles with plans to sell them for modern-art rates.

  You finally find two bottles that contain pills. You choose one at random and pop two of the pills into your mouth, washing them down with lukewarm tap-water. Had you looked at the pills you just swallowed, you might have questioned why one was skull shaped and the other was imprinted with a smiley face.

  You are not even aware that you are on the hallucinogenic. It makes sense to you that when you sit down and stare at your blank paper, the blinking word-processing cursor appears.

  Before you, thick waves of fog billow out of the paper. You watch with awe as it surrounds you and pervades your living quarters. You wonder, as any good friend would, if the moisture is going to ruin the integrity of the glue Sam uses in their pill-bottle sculptures, but your attention is drawn back to the paper and your tiny pen-sword dripping black ink into the fog. You twitch your wrist and the ink flows naturally into shapes and images that cut through the paper-fog.

  Hundreds of miles off the Carolina coastline, the crew has settled in for a relaxing final leg of the journey. Between the extended chase from pirates and the hurricane that left everyone bailing for days, they are ready for solid land beneath their boots.

  Waking up to gigantic tentacles tearing at the deck was unanticipated and unwanted.

  Sightings of squid this far north are rare, but not impossible; however, the beasts rarely, so brazenly attack vessels. The others in the crew hack at limbs that rise from the water, though their blades are merely gnats to the squid’s thick arms. A few of the crew unlucky enough to place their ankles or torsos in the path of one of the squid’s appendages find themselves dragged below the water. After five tense minutes of toying with the ship, the squid retreats into the ocean’s depths, its appetite satiated.

  You pick your head up and smooth down your hair. You don’t recall having fallen asleep, but it’s mid-morning at least. Sam walks in wearing a grin to match the sun. You squint a little, then ask, “Why are you so cheery?”

  “I sold your drawing on the Etsy shop,” they say.

  “Wait, what? What drawing?”

  “The drawing you were sleeping on. Drooling on, truly, though I suppose it did dilute the ink in the exact right place for the squid to get a mystifying appearance. Really pops out of the fog.”

  You recall the idea you had cultivated the night before. Where are your notes? You tear through the room turning over every sheet of paper. “Where are my notes?”

  “What notes?”

  “The story notes I was working on when I fell asleep?”

  “I didn’t see any notes. Just the drawing.” Sam pauses for a moment. “Come to think of it, there were some words on the outside of the drawing, but I didn’t take it for notes. If I had thought it was notes, I wouldn’t have sold it. Or I would’ve at least asked you first. Actually, I was going to ask you, but you’ve been out of it for a day or so.”

  “A day? I’ve been asleep for a day?” You cover your face with your hands, finally noticing the smears and stains of ink along the creases and prints of your palm and fingers. “I need that drawing. Email the buyer and apologize, but you can’t sell that.”

  “It’s already gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “You know, gone. USPS gone. Going to some Ukrainian. Guess the buyer’s got a thing for squids. Paid a pretty penny for it too.”

  You are tempted to ask how much they sold it for, but decide against it. You cannot believe your luck. The idea is still solid in your head, so you contemplate diving back in just to write what you have. “Do you at least have a picture of it?”

  “Oh, sure. I can sell you a digital print of it for ten bucks. Already sold a dozen of those, too.” Sam takes your stare in stride and decides to give you a friend-of-the-seller free copy.

  If you had to capture the essence of your notes into a black and grey ink drawing, this paper covers it. The level of detail is amazing. You zoom in on Sam’s phone, in awe of the minutiae the ship and squid. “I did this?”

  “Well, unless you had a ninja-artist come in during the night and precariously place this under your face, the ink still wet enough to mark up your hands and cheek—fuck yes you did this!” Sam tears off into the kitchen mucking around, throwing cabinet doors open and slamming them closed. “Imagine if we can get you to churn out works like this every week,” Sam calls out. “We’d be set. I wouldn’t even have to sell your pain pills. All I’d need is the LSD.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  “Again. No?”

  “I’m not going to take LSD to make art. And I’m not an artist, anyway. I’m a writer.”

  “Writing is art, my friend. And I’m going to be square. In all the years I’ve known you, you haven’t written one drop of a word for a story or novel. You talk about this elusive idea, but I’ve yet to see anything of it. Two tabs and you are making artwork I can sell for three hundred online.”

  “Two tabs? I’m a regular addict,” you moan. You know that you aren’t an addict, but you don’t want Sam to think they can bully you into taking it and becoming a factory of lightning art.

  “No, you’re not, [your name with a cutesy ‘y’ sound on the end], you just need a little creative inspiration in the form of—you know, acid.”

  “Forget it. I’m not going to subject myself to drugs in order to maybe create art that someone in Europe wants to buy.”

  “Fine,” Sam yelled, slamming another kitchen cabinet. “You’d better think about getting a job then because I’m done selling your Oxy. This isn’t Breaking Bad and I’m not your Jesse,” Sam says, throwing in the word, “Bitch,” as an afterthought.

  “Well good. Now I don’t have to worry about getting arrested by Hank Schrader when I come home because your idiot friends blab about your operation to an undercover cop.”

  “What? Hank dies in season five.”

  “Fine, then Gomez would—” you see Sam hiding a smile under their hand. They’re giggling. “You ass! Spoilers! Come on!”

  “Hey, you walked into them. Besides, that show’s been finished for so long, Walt Jr. probably already spent his ‘trust-fund’ money.”

  You throw a pen toward Sam who raises a plate to their face, deflecting the non-lethal weapon.

  ◆◆◆

  Over the next months, you try in vain to reproduce the same vigor with which you illustrated the scene from your story idea. You have it taped to your laptop, tacked on every wall in your room and on the ceiling above your bed.

  Every time you enter the bathroom the LSD bottle beckons you.

  “Give us a shot,” the pills say. Their voices are muffled, though, because they speak from the inside of the bottle. “Look at what you accomplished last time. This time, you might draw the modern Mona Lisa.”

  You flush them down the toilet. You don’t need that kind of influence in your life.

  The next day, walking home through a dusting of snow, you decide that you need to look through your notes again and force yourself to write regardless of whether you have an idea or not. The prospective pen-in-hand warms your cheeks despite the frigid air.

  Walking in the front door of your apartment, you take off your coat and shiver. Except it isn’t jittery nerves that force the teeth-chattering feeling. Closing the door, you see the breath curl before your face inside the apartment. The strong musk of smoke threatens to tie off your throat. “Sam?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “What the hell? Why don’t we have heat?” You ask, only then noticing the metal trash can billowing smoke like a fireplace. “The fuck?”

  “Utilities didn’t get paid this month,” Sam said, flicking their finger over the kitchen light switch to show as much. “Don’t
worry, I already pulled the batteries out of the smoke detector. We’re good.”

  “It was your month to pay the utilities,” you say. “Why didn’t you pay?”

  “Well,” Sam begins, their tone becoming combative. “I was going to offer Corey my stash of glass to cover the week until I get paid; it’s kept the lights on in the past. But what do you know, it was gone. You wouldn’t know anything about half a grand in LSD disappearing, would you?”

  You swallow a lump. Were there that many pills?

  “Since you aren’t lying cold in a morgue somewhere, I can assume you didn’t take them. And seeing as you aren’t sporting anything new, it’s a good guess that you didn’t sell them. No, you wouldn’t get your hands dirty. That’s always on me. So, what did you do? Flush ‘em?”

  You were always taught that honesty was the best policy. You nod.

  “Fuck. You.” Sam goes off slamming cabinets. You smother the flames, noticing the charred remains of paper within. You pick a paper out and see the familiar etching of a copy of your infamous Etsy-sketch.

  “What were you burning?”

  “I was going to apologize, but I don’t even give a shit now. Your story is shit. You should’ve given up on it years ago.”

  You walk to your room, though you have an idea of what awaits you. Barren walls. A blank ceiling. The banker’s box of notes you’d taken since your hallucinogenic trip months ago, empty. A rage you hadn’t felt since Avery emerges in your mind. The conscience that you have been cultivating since juvenile detention all those years ago hides itself in a barren recess of your skull.

  ◆◆◆

  In a strange twist of fate, you find yourself charged with manslaughter. The prosecution has a solid case. Your public defender advises you to take a deal. A few years and you’ll be out.

  You don’t know how it becomes known, since you thought your record was expunged when you turned eighteen, but the judge finds out about Avery. Technically another manslaughter. “A pattern of violence that cannot be rehabilitated,” the judge says.

  During sentencing, the judge drones on about how terrible of a person you are. Partway through their Academy Award-winning monologue, you lean back in your chair and it creaks. A warm breeze hits your face and it doesn’t smell of old judge, but rather of the sea.

  Your head has been covered by a rough canvas sack for days. The jailor only removes it for a minute to allow you the respite only possible from stale beer. You are led up out of the brig. The sun feels refreshing on your sack-face. The breeze squeezes through gaps in the canvas to the delight of your nose. A lead weight is clamped to your ankle chains. They ask you if you have any last words. You don’t. The weight is lifted and placed on the edge. A soft hand presses on your back.

  You are falling. You wonder, only for a moment, if the water will be warm in your final moments.

  “[Slightly formal but prefix] [Your last name].” The judge bangs with their gavel. “Do you have anything that you want to say to Sam’s family?” You look over at the few stony-faced individuals seated behind the prosecution. Only one of them even looks remotely Sam-like. “Well?” You shake your head. You recall what you said at Avery’s trial.

  Sam was an asshole too, though one that you learned to tolerate. You didn’t think it would be appropriate to say such.

  ◆◆◆

  Prison ends up being the best thing that could’ve happened to you. You get three meals a day, don’t have to worry about paying rent and can spend most all your day writing. Your cellmate, Bailey, has an in with the majority of the gangs behind bars. After failing to revitalize your stagnating ideas, you ask Bailey to hook you up with LSD.

  After a year of intensive writing and two near-death overdoses, you finish your novel.

  You spend the next month or two perpetually high in order to draw enough to buy yourself computer privileges. Hundreds of hours of editing and researching later, you send your manuscript out to dozens of agents and publishers.

  Half do not even reply. Of those that do reply, all but one respond with some variance of: “We do not represent currently incarcerated persons. Please query upon release.”

  The last publisher responds with the following message. “Your writing style is solid and we find it hard to believe that you have never written anything before. That said, your story is nothing new. The tale of one ship against the ocean and every other ship out there is one that has been done before. So, we regret to inform you that we will not be publishing The Great Boat. We hope that you will consider submitting future projects to us.”

  ◆◆◆

  The chilled air consumed the fire. Mere cinders marked the niche where the once comforting blaze burned. Gnochi saw Roy bed down for the night without offering him a glance, let alone making conversation. Cleo quietly closed the journal and set about stowing it in her pack. Once done, she nodded to him, then settled down with her head on the poncho. Wordless, Harvey rose and walked outside the cave, not minding the light drizzle. Kib and Cig shared a private word, then Kib stood and promptly exited the cave.

  “Gnochi,” Cig whispered, beckoning him over, “could I share a word?” she motioned towards the cave’s lower region. He followed her into the dark. She placed a hand on his. He felt a familiar touch, a spark of sorts, emanating from her fingers. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I have to give you this.”

  She placed an item in Gnochi’s hand. He stared down at it, but the darkness enshrouded it from his eyes. He turned it over in his hands and fingered its edges. “Is it a fork?”

  “It’s a trident.”

  Without saying more, Gnochi already seemed to understand the pair of mysterious echoers a little more than he did a moment ago. “This was Ren’s?” he guessed. Cleo had updated him on how Cig and Kib were on the run from the pirate responsible for his leg wound.

  “Kib and I were enslaved on his ship. One day we—” she cut herself off. “Suffice it to say that I was told to give this to you.” She wavered like unburdened of a weight, then pressed a hand to the cave’s wall.

  “There’s an inscription,” Gnochi said, feeling the minute carvings in the back.

  “Ren of the Pantheon: With this, you shall command the seas, calm the waves, and unite all who live by the water, under the common law of Oceanmane. It is signed with a ‘G.’”

  “This is why he has been searching for you? Why he mistook Cleo for you?” Gnochi said, seeming to see, for the first time how Ren could make such a mistake. Both young, despite looking different, each held a certain innate power behind their eyes. He wondered if Ren merely attributed the resemblance to their echoes.

  “We were afraid to flee back east into the heart of the Pantheon’s power. So, we’ve been hopping from cave to knoll, getting what work, where we can.”

  “But why me?”

  “A wolf, of all things, told me.”

  Gnochi stared in disbelief.

  “I know what you’re thinking. I’m still not sure myself whether the encounter was real. We were in the middle of the ocean when from the waters jumps a wolf colored white as the froth that sits atop the seas.”

  “‘An opportunity will soon present itself,’ the wolf had said. ‘Escape. Do whatever you can to stay hidden. You and the shapeshifter. Stick together.’

  “‘Who are you,’ I had said.

  “‘One more thing. You must take Ren’s trident: his necklace. It is imperative that you apprehend that and safeguard it until the right person comes to claim it,’ the wolf advised.

  “‘But how will I know who is right?’

  “‘You’ll know,’ it said, and then the wolf up and dove off the deck back into the ocean and disappeared.”

  “Well,” Gnochi said, altogether shocked at the prophetic nature of Cig’s report. “If you think that I am the right person for the trident, then I would be honored to safeguard it for you. Besides, the last place that Ren would look for it now, is with me. Especially considering that he saw my other two pendants.”
Gnochi felt his coat of arms pendant and the Silentorian necklace shift against his chest.

  “It is a heavy burden, but I feel that you are more than capable to carry this weight,” Cig said.

  Gnochi didn’t know how to reply, so he simply sat in the darkness, memorizing the trident’s every contour. Finally, he spoke, “After us, where will you go?”

  “Likely east. Without the burden of this trident, we are free to disappear. And people are more tolerant of echoers across the waters. Plus, Kib and I want to settle down permanently.”

  “There is no way for me to convince you to join our group then?” Gnochi asked, though he was not entirely sure why he did.

  “I might, but with everything that has happened of late, it’s better for us to disappear. Traveling with a Silentorian is not likely to help us blend into the scenery,” she said, chuckling.

  “I suppose not,” Gnochi agreed. “Just know, Cig, that I’ll be forever indebted to you and to Kib for saving my life and sheltering my friends as you so graciously have.”

  “You have to promise that you and Cleo will come and visit should you ever find yourself east of the great sea.”

  “How will we find you?”

  “Seek us out in the Sleeping Maiden’s Inn,” Cig advised. Without waiting for him to reply, she said, “You should get rest. We will all be leaving tomorrow at first light. You and your group have heavy travels ahead.”

  Chapter 40

  Harvey peeked into the cave. With Gnochi settled down, he thought that everyone was finally asleep, so he retreated outside again to the welcoming drizzle. There he sat, dangling his legs over the cliff’s edge. A chilly wind roared through the canyon, plumping up his exposed ankles in goose-flesh. That same wind whistled as it whipped through the scant mountainous trees, shoving them around as though they were mere twigs. A low-hanging cloud battled against the breeze as it struggled to maintain its place concealing the moon. Feeling the faintest presence behind him, he turned and found his nose a hair’s distance from Freki’s moist snout.