***
So there was a turf war.
And it’d been six weeks,
not just a couple–
yes, the skyscrapers stood for that long.
And no one called anything “rioting” anymore.
And the questionnaire was about
the current person in power,
someone by the name Monkey,
whose followers all wore
fake ears on headbands.
So Dr. Mizto wasn’t actually asking
what the rioters–rather, the red-fist fighters–
wanted to do to me,
they were asking about Monkey.
Also,
it wasn’t a two-sided turf war.
Monkey had a following,
the red-fist fighters had a base in the forest
–but sometimes just used Dr. Mizto’s brick house/office
since they’d noticed the calming effect
and liked to relax there
even if they had to pay by filling out surveys–
then some people up north were calling themselves the
Honest Banes (Dr. Mizto pronounced Banes rhyming with manes, rather than shins,
but I doubt the group did, since no one did in the Brises and Banes,
just like the ancient humans I based the tree folk on),
and another group
claimed the coast
and wore
no armor into battle
and had no official name.
So apparently
I’d missed a lot,
but what surprised me most
was
Dr. Mizto’s
new form.
They
had given up demon horns and wings
and coal-burning eyes
for a shape roughly like a human woman,
but behind their cluttered desk
with its
haphazard stacks
of questionnaires
between us
and also
candy bar wrappers
and pencil shavings,
it was hard to tell
how accurate it looked
from the neck down.
Also, it wasn’t that accurate
from the neck up;
for some reason
they had a third eye
sideways on their nose,
and ears
in place of hair.
But they greeted me,
asked me to take a seat
and talked
on and on
‘bout the turf war
so I
rubbed my shoes
on the clean tile
until I’d made some stains in a smiley face
and I crumpled my questionnaire
then wondered if I should sneak it into a stack
or keep it forever
and waited
for a gap
in their ramblings–
I guess
immortal demon teachers
don’t get out much
and when they do
the humans have no clue
how to behave
so I was probably
the only person around
not scared off
by their face
or their ramblings
about the predicted timeline
of the turf war:
Monkey would fall to someone,
the monkey-followers would join some other crew,
the shirtless coast people would die when winter came
or give up and join someone else with clothing,
leaving the red-fist fighters
and the Honest Banes
to duke it out
and Dr. Mizto
really liked the red-fist fighters’ odds
but the real interesting part would start
after the fighting
because not a one of these mortals
had a clue about building an effective government,
they probably didn’t know the difference
between an autocracy and an oligarchy
much less the difference between a parliament
and a paired lament
then my gap came
when Dr. Mizto’s desk shook
and a stack tipped over
and they blinked in surprise like they’d forgotten it was there–
so I said,
Dr. Mizto
you don’t look
quite human enough
for them to believe
you’re a doctor.
Then they went, “Really?”
and stood
and stepped around the desk
and yes
they had two arms
and two legs
but they had a bunch of tentacles
instead of feet
mopping the floor
so that was why the desk shook,
their tentacles got excited
about the prospect
of people
doing paired laments
in a parliament.
***
check out my new book (available tomorrow!) at this link
Jordyn Saelor 