Admittedly, it could hardly be said of me that I was known for being overly fond of people to begin with, and in all truth I had not been missing many of them recently. As a rule of thumb I tended to be rather more than less happy-go-lucky, so long as my needs were met and I was left to my own devices without outside interference in my own affairs. It was my general opinion that people sucked, and not in a way that was likely to gain my approval. For me, life and death, and presence or absence were strictly devil-may-care concerns.
I was perfectly content to go about my daily affairs without the vexation of others involving themselves in them, especially several of the more annoying well known idiots. Many people really served no useful purpose insofar as far as I could tell, meaning that on the average they contributed nothing of tangible daily value to living. Many, rather than being usefully employed at something, seemed to prefer to live idly by word of mouth, and most often even then offered little more than their own ridiculous opinions of things. The average bone idle random idiot created little discernable difference in the world, other than taking up space while gobbling up, and thereby wasting its natural resources, as well as the fruits of honest labor of others.
However, tragedy had finally hit the Home Stone in a very cruel and personal way, one had finally been taken who would be sorely missed. In what could only be called a calamity of epic proportions, Dack Janiels, the Brewmaster of Boswell Pass, had been struck down without leaving an apprentice! A despicable vicissitude which had to be faced bravely, this life changing event was filled with dread and anxiety in the anticipation of a truly devastating reality, we were running out of quality paga with no suitable replacement craftsman to be found.
After many noxious, and several nearly fatal attempts at brewing a consumable commodity, it was resolved among one and all of the remaining local citizenry that the art of it was beyond my reckoning. Undaunted, and without chagrin, by my own reckoning I could still row a boat and devise a plan or three so thus, with a dazed mind, blurred vision, and a retching gut my journey began with a staggering swagger and badly slurred fragments of poorly recollected songs.
"OHHH better by far (hic) far to live and die, udder, un under, the brave black flag I fly, than to play a sanctimonious paaart, with a pi..." Seized in the moment, mid refrain, by the sudden fury of indigestable fermentation gone awry, I was involuntarily bent double near the base of a streetlamp to retch my weaselly black guts out.
"RRRETTCH. Blargh! Whew, oh dear Priest-Kings." Coughing to dislodge a few larger bits of some things which seemed to be stuck most awkwardly in my gullet, I heaved them out at last with a shuddering gasp and sputtering blow. Studying the spillage before me "Hmm, curious" I observed. "Is that a chunk of fish or a lump of clotted milk" I pondered aloud as I tapped the edge of the quivering, translucent mass of congealed whatever it was with the toe of my boot.
Erecting myself again to full height with the aid of the lamppost, I wiped my face with a pull of my sleeve across it then erupted again into the raucous rendition of a classic shanty, "oh it is, it IS a glorious thing, to be a pirate king!" It was indeed most fortuitous that I had previously amassed notorious skill with piracy, owing greatly to the fact that my current skill with paga brewing was still in its infancy, according to the evidence of several more splattered displays of ingredients which I left, here and there, in passing along the road home.
(to be continued as time permits)
