“A cow? Why the hell was there a cow?”
“Don’t know, but we’re going to be eating steak for a week.”
“Dude,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“It’s cool, I checked it out,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “No discernible craving for human flesh, no gaping wounds or missing parts. Hasn’t been dead that long, either. There’s plenty of edible meat on there.”
“Man, we don’t know how to turn a cow into steak.”
“That’s what the internet is for.”
“More importantly than that, gentlemen,” said Queen Victoria XXX, staring intently into the open refrigerator, “we’re out of beer.”
“Then it looks like you and I are going for a drive,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“You guys can’t be serious,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“Sure are,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Fire up the grill, fatty.”
“The nearest functioning liquor store is four hours away.”
“Then Charlie and I ‘ll be back in eight hours,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “Give you time to carve that bitch up.”
“That’s the spirit,” said the cloned genetics of Chester A. Arthur.
“Aw, come on guys,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“We should probably get more cigarettes, too.”
“No, uh-uh,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “You said you were going to stop.”
“Well, I was, but…”
“I’m not having this discussion again, Charlie. If you buy cigarettes on this trip, I’m hitting you with the car.”
“Fine, no cigarettes,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII with a sigh.
“Good. Now let’s get going.”
“Later, Billy,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Shotgun!” shouted Queen Victoria XXX, prancing her way out of the kitchen.
“Hall closet,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII as he grabbed the car keys from the counter.
Six: Quetzalcoatl Hates Clocks
Quetzalcoatl stared at the clock. The digital representation of the time stared back.
Quetzalcoatl stared even harder at the clock. The time did not blink.
Quetzalcoatl stared as hard as he fucking could at the clock. The clock burst into flames.
Granted, this didn’t stem so much from the staring as it did the clock’s position on top of a lit stove, but Quetzalcoatl didn’t care. He hated that clock.
Quetzalcoatl was not well.
While most deities had eventually accepted the demise of religion, grudgingly or otherwise, Quetzalcoatl just kind of went insane instead. In his defense, it had been hard enough being the winged serpent god of a people that died out five hundred years prior. He didn’t need to be told he didn’t exist on top of it.
This isn’t to say that he didn’t at least try to adapt.
In fact, “can’t argue with science,” was Quetzalcoatl’s first thought upon finding out he was no longer him.
“Well, you can, but then you get murdered by robots in your sleep,” was the second.
“Fucking robots. I bet I can take ‘em,” was the third.
Quetzalcoatl single-handedly fought off six hundred platoons of science-enforcing murder-drones in a stunning battle that wiped out all of Central America and most of Mexico. Land, people, llamas, everything. Still, victory was victory. Quetzalcoatl climbed atop the mountain of broken machinery and re-claimed his godhood, shouting his intentions to the heavens.
Of course, at that point, Quetzalcoatl was half a mile underwater. Lifting one’s head up and shouting from that depth is a pretty good way to drown. Which is precisely what almost happened.
Quetzalcoatl eventually made his way to the surface, his face blue and his lungs saturated with water, motor oil, and llama blood. Grabbing a piece of flotsam, Quetzalcoatl floated in the unnamed body of water he had just created for days on end, the sun beating down on him while sharks gnashed repeatedly at his ass. By the time he made it to New Orleans, he wasn’t really sure what was who or why was where anymore, for no good no way.
Between the lack of oxygen, the loss of blood, and the dementia, the doctors were amazed any of his organs still functioned. They said it was a miracle he was even alive.
The bartenders said the same thing, only they meant ‘cause of all the bourbon.
Quetzalcoatl spent the better part of the next year drinking. By the time he sobered up, he had somehow managed to secure himself an apartment, a car, three girlfriends, and a paternity suit. That launched another year-long bender. By the time he came out of that one, he was down to just the apartment.
“And that, my good sir,” he said to the refrigerator, “is why mustard tastes purple.”
Quetzalcoatl bowed to the appliance and walked out of the building.
Seven: Baked Spit and Broken Glass
“I’m just saying,” said Thor.
“Saying what?” asked Catrina.
“What?”
“Huh?”
“What was I talking about?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“OK, right.”
“Are you OK, Thor?”
“No? Maybe? No. I think there might have been something in the pancakes.”
“I wasn’t aware seething hatred had a physical form.”
“I think it has a lot of the same attributes as spit and flecks of broken glass.”
“Shouldn’t you have noticed that?”
“How was I supposed to see baked spit?”
“I meant the glass.”
“Oh. Yes. It was crunchy.”
“And yet you ate all four of them anyway.”
“I thought… I’m not really sure what I thought.”
“It is utterly amazing that you’ve survived this long on your own.”
“Verily.”
“Well, I’m not carrying you. Think you can make it back to the hotel?”
“As long as it’s not the building that’s on fire behind you.”
Catrina turned around.
“Uh, no. No, that’s the Dunkin Donuts. And it’s not on fire. The guy who works there is waving at us.”
“Is he on fire?”
“No, he is not on fire.”
“Then, yes, I think I can make it back to the hotel.”
Eight: Midgets! Midgets! Midgets!
Thor laid himself down on the couch in the lobby of the Holiday Inn.
“When did we repaint the ceiling with bats?”
“OK, I’m pretty sure eating broken glass doesn’t make you hallucinate,” said Catrina, kneeling next to him. “What the hell is wrong with you, Thor?”
“He was poisoned,” said Mark, emerging from his office. “He’s got a mix of PCP and battery acid coursing through his veins.”
“Dude,” said Thor, lifting his head slightly, “I told you not to x-ray me without asking. It’s weird and, as my boss, I’m pretty sure I signed something saying you’re not allowed to do it anyway.”
“You think my eye can detect poison? It’s an ocular implant, not magic, jackass,” replied Mark, walking toward them. “I was a medic in the war. I saw this kind of thing all the time.”
“The Hybrid War?” asked Catrina. “I thought all the cyborgs that fought in that were turned into calculators and belts.”
“Robot War.”
“Which one? There were, like, seven.”
“Oh, right,” said Mark. He began counting on his fingers and said, “The… fifth.”
“You sure? I thought the hybrids sat that one out.”
“They did,” he replied, arriving at the couch and kneeling next to Catrina. “I was still human then.”
“Oh,” said Catrina. “Sorry.”
“You should be. I’m not one of those Mark I cyborgs that volunteered to have their skin grafted onto a robotic skeleton ‘cause they were too chicken-shit to keep fighting. I’m a good, old-fashioned human, forcibly joined with an x-ray eye and a pneumatic penis because I was too stupid to stop fighting.”