bang

[WP] A mediocre wizard searches for items to boost their power. He/She finds a strange hut which has a 'special goods for sale' sign. They enter..."What's this hideous thing?" "It's an item you can use without incantation...It's called a gun and there's much more I can show you."

*****

My friend and I were catching up at a beer festival. We rarely intend to see each other these days but we often do anyway. We’re both attracted to real ale offerings like iron filings are to a strong magnet. You can imagine cartoon characters sniffing the air and levitating towards the sweet, woody smell of the foaming beer. The splashed puddles and sloppy tables.

He’d come to this festival with his wife, I’d come alone.

We’d been college roommates years ago. Tried brewing our own beer once — had the idea to start a brewery based off the profits of that first run, earn our fortunes through the drink we loved — but it‘d ended up like canal water and stunk out the halls.

Now he sold guns and I was an extra in toothpaste adverts. I’ve always had good teeth.

We sat either side of a used wine barrel, near a squealing carousel, sipping our turbid brown drinks. We weren’t that old but it seemed like everyone around us was a child.

His wife left us alone to ride a Ferris wheel that loomed over the festival like a mechanical dragon. His wife and I don’t get along and usually one of us makes an excuse to leave. Today it was her.

“So,” said my friend, continuing his story, “I said to him, ‘sir, are you trying to get to a convention?’ He was dressed like Gandalf, you see. The long beard and cloak. And wrinkles so deep that if he’d smiled his nose might have fallen into them.”

But the old man hadn’t been trying to get to a convention, my friend explained.

”Your sign outside said special goods for sale,” said the old man. “And I need something very special.”

“I sell guns, not wands,” replied my friend — only realising later that it was a staff that was gnarled in the wizard’s hand, not a wand.

“Guns? Are they your special goods, then? And what do these guns do?”

”They kill animals and people, mostly. Or scare them off, if you’re a bad shot.”

At this point my friend became anxious. This was someone’s father, grandfather, escaped from a home. Should he call someone for help? Who?

“I don’t need to take a life, I need to bring one back,” said the old man, his eyes shimmering blue. “That’s why I’m here. For special goods. Please.”

”My specials today were rifles. They also take lives. Sorry.”

The old man sighed.

“I really am sorry for you loss,” my friend said. “It’s never easy losing someone. But time heals pain and…” He cut himself off — the old man might not have that kind of time left and my friend felt insensitive. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who has lost a loved one.

“It’s been lifetimes since she died,” said the old man. “I’ve journeyed a thousand realities. Pasts and futures. Each one has a different way of killing people. None have a way of bringing them back.”

And with that the wizard sighed and turned.

​

”Then what happened?” I asked wiping foam from my mouth.

My friend paused, as if unsure of his own memory. “That was it. He left.”

I sat there for a moment, my head fuzzy with alcohol. “So he was just… what? A crazy old man?”

My friend shrugged. His wife trotted up to us then, flashed me a curt smile.

”Have fun?” I asked.

”Air was fresher up there at least,” she said. And to her husband, “Come on, it’s time to go.” And to me, “It was good to see you.”

I waved them off and ordered another ale. A lighter one, the colour of straw catching the last of the sun.

​

I’d met a girl once, on the set of a movie. Back before I flashed any smiles to sell toothpaste. It’d been a zombie film and she’d been one of the undead, but even covered in prosthetic scars and with an extra mouth on her neck, she was beautiful. It was the way she talked to me, maybe, that was beautiful — but that single beauty dominoed down every other aspect of her.

That’s how love works. The things you love infect the things you don’t until you love everything. Until everything is zombie.

I sat at my barrel-table, alone now, drinking my beer as life moved on around me. As it always did. The wheel rose and fell, the carousel horses chased each other endlessly, the evening yawned itself into being. Then night would come, and then day, then night.

Eight years. And the only reality I’ve searched for her in is this one. But I’ve searched many, many containers for her. Red plastic cups, today.

I picture myself as that old man. Still looking for a way to bring her back. Only I’m looking for it in drink, my old man beard dipping into the cup and coming out empty but for froth.

Why can’t the wizard accept the death? It’s reality, not fantasy. She’s not coming back.

Maybe, I think, he has to find himself in one of those realities before he can start on anything else.

I took a final sip, finishing the beer. The bottom was sour and bitty and not particularly pleasant. But I drank it all and got up onto my unsure feet. Let the cool air breeze over my face.

Then I turned away from the festival and began the long walk home.

*****

THE END.