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vampirejuno · 13 days ago

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Remember that discworld dream I had the other day? Well, lads.... I wrote it. At the encouragement of @catstrophysics, @lilenariinpink and @theygotlost, I present to you...

Something Fishy

His Grace, His Excellency, Sir Samuel Vimes the Duke of Ankh, Blackboard Monitor, sighed emphatically and tried to shoulder his way through the throng. Sator Square was packed with people. Never before in his life, he reflected, had he ever seen such a crowd turn up at six in the bloody morning to watch what was, essentially, a man tossing a dead fish onto the ground. Is this what passes for entertainment these days? he thought bitterly. We used to be a great city when it came to entertainment. After some further consideration of past greatness, he stopped, shook his head, and silently offered praise to whatever god was responsible for making sure it stayed in the past.

It had been a little over a month since the Fish Craze, and already Vimes wished he could permanently ban the import of all seafood into the city. Nobody remembered what had started it, but the fad had spread faster than wildfire, with no fashion-brigade to stop the madness. Everyone had taken it up. Even perfectly reasonable people, the kind that sneered at their grannies for fretting over a broken mirror, would, in all sincerity, say things like, “Thank goodness for another Right Day, I could use the luck”, or, more frequently, “No wonder it all went tits up, it was a Left Day”.

Vimes failed to see the appeal. The whole process consisted of taking a fish (preferably a sardine, though most made do with herring or, in desperate times, even anchovies), tossing it in the air, and checking which side up it landed. At first, everyone did it individually. This had led to much disagreement and, eventually, an event that would go down in history as “Most Organic Weapons Riot”. The watchmen who’d been on duty that night were given two days off to try and wash the smell out of their uniforms.

The following day, the Patrician had announced the instatement of an Official Fish Thrower, which soon turned into “the Offishal Tosser”, or simply “the Tosser”, and whose entire job it was to go into Sator Square every morning, toss a sardine for the city, and announce to the enraptured masses what sort of day they were going to have. It was rumored that the Tosser was a retired magician who had specialized in sleight of hand, and that he ensured the fish always landed precisely according to the Patrician’s specifications. Knowing Vetinari, Vimes thought, the man probably has a spreadsheet planned out for a month in advance.

His musings were interrupted by a current of movement in the crowd, which parted hastily to reveal a figure with a tray.

“Right Fish! Get your Right Fish! Guaranteed Day goes Right! Turn your day ‘round with just one toss!”

Vimes sighed. Only one man would try to sell you fish at the Offishal Tossing.

“Morning, Throat,” he said distantly. There was a commotion at the front of the crowd as people tried to dislodge someone from the Tosser’s podium. It looked like an Omnian preacher had taken advantage of the audience to spread the good word to the unenlightened masses, whether they liked it or not.

“A good morning to you, Commander! Can I interest you in some nice sardines? Three for tuppence, and that’s cutting my own throat!”

Vimes risked a glance at the tray as Ankh-Morpork’s least successful merchant approached him in a hopeful sidle. It was laden with row upon row of little strangely misshapen fish. Picking one up and turning it over in his fingers, Vimes saw the reason for this. Someone had taken some pains to cut them in two lengthwise, discarded all the left halves, and rejoined the things by gluing two right halves together with some mysterious sticky substance. He put it back down and inconspicuously wiped his hand on his trousers. Like many of Dibbler’s products, it was precisely what you paid for.

“Sardine? Seems more like smelt to me.”

“Yes, very fragrant, indeed,” said the merchant without missing a beat. “Perhaps some fish’n’chips, then, Commander? Only ten pence for our brave lads in the Watch!”

I don’t think I’m that brave, Vimes thought. Aloud, he said, “Is that where the left halves go, then?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir. Ah, hello, miss, you look like you could do with a nice nourishing breakfast! Some delicious fish’n’chips to start the day off right, how about it?”

The crowd was so packed now – hah, like sardines in a can – that Vimes gave up all hopes of pushing through it. Most of these people had turned up early to get a good spot and were now whiling the minutes away until the much-awaited Tossing. There was a conversation taking place just behind him, where an argument of Morporkians was standing around, doing what it did best. The current object of ire appeared to be a young man’s drawling voice, which was questioning Tradition.

“-don’t see why we couldn’t put a new spin on it. This is…too restrictive, like.”

“How’s that, then?”

“It’s just awfully specific, is all I’m saying.”

“What are you babbling about, Harold?” responded a higher, slightly irritated voice that instantly filed itself away as “unhappy wife” in Vimes’s copper brain.

“I mean, why’s it got to be a sardine? Why not a, uh,” the young man cast around for seafood-related ideas, “a crab, or something?”

“Come now, that’d never work,” a stout little man next to him laughed good-naturedly. He was smoking a pipe and had the look of someone who used words like “indubitably” and “perfunctory” despite only having a very approximate idea of what they meant. “Crabs are not remotely suitable for the task.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“Well-known fact,” nodded the crustacean connoisseur. “Divination is congenitally tied to the noble art of fishing, you know. It’s called forecasting, after all.”

There were more nods and approving laughs. The man puffed on his pipe with a chuckle, clearly satisfied with the pun. Vimes managed not to punch him.

“Y’know, that sounds about right. Never ‘eard of someone telling the future with a crab,” an old woman nodded wisely. “You never know where you are with crabs. Now, fish, that’s reliable.”

The group pondered this.

“Look at it this way. We’ve had, what, twenty-three Left Days so far – not counting Floppy Friday* – and every single time, somethin’ bad happened.”

The others murmured their agreement. There were several thoughtful comments recounting various misfortunes that the participants had suffered on past Left Days. Vimes pinched the bridge of his nose.

“This is Ankh-Morpork, something bad is always happening.”

“Right, that’s what I’m saying,” nodded the young man, who hadn’t been saying that. “Besides, plenty of perfectly good fortune tellers in the city. A man tossing a sardine on the cobbles is not a valid method of divination, in my humble opinion.”

“Harold, you are embarrassing me.”

“Oh, come off it, Mathilda, you got by just fine without any of this business for thirty years of your life. Now it’s all Sardines this, Herring that, Why don’t we get an ornamental trout lake-”

At that moment, the Offishal Tosser stepped onto his little podium, and the couple was shushed into outraged silence.

* * *

“Come on, before ol’ Stoneface gets here. You know he doesn’t approve of this sort of thing.”

The Pseudopolis Yard watch house was buzzing with excitement uncharacteristic for six in the morning on a Wednesday. Most of the night shift had signed off and the day guard were trickling one by one into the main room. An ever-growing group was clustered in a vague circle, in the center of which Corporal Nobbs could just be made out (if that was your idea of a good time). The men all had the vague air of middle school students asking their teacher about his dog in order to delay math class by another five minutes.

“Might that have anything to do with the fact that, last time, it took three hours and a bucket of armour polish to get the smell out of the floorboards?” Angua smiled. It was a very friendly smile.

“Right, sarge, but… We-ell, you’re…”

“Yes?” The smile widened.

Constable Fernsby shifted uncomfortably. There were a few sniggers. It was true that werewolves had considerably sharper senses than humans and would therefore be able to smell a fish long after it had departed the material plane, but, the sniggers seemed to indicate from a safe distance, you didn’t go around pointing this out to them. Fortunately for the boy, he was saved from any further smiles by a very timely interruption in the form of the Captain.

“Good morning! Everyone had a nice rest, I hope? Ready for another day of work?”

Carrot strutted in, wearing his usual genuine smile and gleaming armor. There was a not-so-subtle change in the atmosphere; a sudden nonchalantness enveloped the room. All around him, the squad commenced their very best impression of the Walls And Ceiling Inspection Division. One or two of the simpler lads even clasped their hands behind their backs and started to whistle**. Carrot sighed.

“Alright, what did you do?... And don’t look at me like that, I can see something smells fishy here.”

This was greeted with one or two coughs and a sudden interest in last night’s heaps of paperwork. Only Lance-Constable Whippet, who had joined three days ago and was, therefore, not yet acquainted with the minutiae of his commanding officers’ tempers, and sergeant Detritus, who could be a little slow on the uptake, met the captain’s inquisitive gaze. Finally, he looked to Angua for help. She shrugged meaningfully.

“Well… er,” said Sergeant Colon, who felt obliged to make some sort of contribution on behalf of his insubordinates, “we was just…engaging in some…cultural activities, captain. To boost morale for the day, like. Er.”

Carrot sniffed at the air – never a very good idea in a watch house, where, at any given point in time, half the men had just returned from patrolling and the other half were emerging from the locker room – and understanding began to dawn.

“Ah, I see. And I expect, Sergeant, that such…team-building activities are best carried out without the involvement or presence of, say, senior officers?”

“Could be, sir. I’m sure you’d know best, sir.” Colon’s big round face was a picture of cherubic innocence.

“Well, in that case, I believe Sergeant Angua and I have a case to attend to. Corporal Thighbiter up at Dolly Sisters needed some help with that Money Trap Lane break-in...”

“Actually, he just sent word the other day – it turned out Mister Mason had got drunk and lost his key again and crashed through the oomph-” Constable Ping bent over slightly from several democratic elbows in the ribs. With a true officer’s tact, Carrot feigned temporary deafness. He held the door for Angua, who detached herself from the wall with one last pleasant smile that could’ve cut steel, and the two stepped out briskly into the safety of fresh air***.

After they had gone, the squad waited a few moments and then turned back to the center of the room, where someone had dragged a mysteriously stained stool from the canteen when the kitchen lady wasn’t looking. Corporal Nobbs was shuffled towards it with extreme care.

The little man**** dusted himself off and scrambled onto the rickety stool. As the other watchmen leaned in closer, he reached into the unspeakable depths of his inner pockets and, with a certain air of ceremony, produced…

“A sardine!”

“Cor, is that real?”

“Dat a very small fish.”

“Where did you get it, corp?”

Nobby basked in the approving murmurs of his colleagues. It had, indeed, been a challenge to find – sardines were very rare these days, outside of the occasional coveted freak shower – but he was nothing if not resourceful.

“We-ell, it weren’t easy, that’s true,” he rolled a dog-end from one corner of the mouth to the other, savoring the moment. He rarely commanded so much attention without attracting a variety of insults and the occasional ballistic eel. “Pays to know the right people, o’course. I have connections, me. Contacts. Ties, even.”

“Aye, but that floral one you nicked last week really don’t suit you very well.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Stronginthearm. All your accessories are made of chainmail! Everyone knows jewel tones are for winter, anyway.”

Colon raised a placating hand. “All right, all right, lads, no need to get all up in arms just ‘cos some folks are a little…stylistically challenged.”

“Thanks, sarge.”

“I meant you, Nobby.”

The corporal threw up his arms. “I go to all this trouble,” he wailed, “I talk to people, I find a contraband seafood shipment from Klatch, I explain matters to the fishmonger – on my day off, too, might I add – I procure a real, genuine, only-slightly-nibbled actual sardine, and this is the thanks I get?”

The watchmen watched, transfixed, as he flourished the fabled fish in their faces. It had, indeed, already been chewed on; the tail was sticking out rigidly and the whole thing smelled as if it was a few weeks beyond consumption, but it was a sardine nonetheless. Most of the lads, coming from humble (and sometimes humbling) backgrounds, felt slightly awed at the idea of Tossing a fish that these days was available only to the very richest observers of the fad. It was, they felt, unbecoming to wave it around like a paper flag at a parade. The damn things tended to be slippery. Probably would be bad luck, they figured, if it was flung down by accident; who knew what sort of fortune that would foretell?

“Where’s the appreciation, I ask you?” Nobby continued in woeful tones. “Every time I’ve Tossed a fish for you lot, it’s landed Right! Now, how many of you can say that, eh?”

The watchmen exchanged doubtful glances.

“Er… Well, you never let anyone else do it, corp,” Ping reasoned. “You just nicks the fish and eats it afterwards.”

“Oh, now, that does it! I won’t stand here and be slandered at!”

“Woah there, Nobby, watch that sardine-”

“If you’re gonna be like that, then I’m not doing it. And good luck finding someone who’ll do it as well as me!”

“Careful with that-”

“And I’m taking the sardine.”

“-not the tail-”

“You can beg, but I won’t change my mind, and that’s that!” Nobby flung out his hand in a grandiose gesture. Unfortunately, it was the wrong hand.

Time slowed to a crawl. Every head in the room swiveled as one, following the trajectory of the airborne fish. It sailed head first towards the front door, which was creaking, doorknob turning, and slowly, slowly opening…

* * *

The Offishal Tosser tossed the fish, which landed damply. There was a satisfying splat. The crowd held its breath as the first few rows near the podium craned to see.

“Today is the fourth of April in the year of the Significant Woodlouse, and it is a… Left Wednesday!” the man proclaimed.

A disappointed groan spread through the crowd. Slowly, people started dispersing with occasional complaints, casting sour looks at the offending fish. Here and there, members of the Gamblers’ Guild were exchanging coins.

Vimes shook his head again as the grumbling current carried him through the square, into the Plaza of Broken Moons, and out to the Patrician’s palace. At last he disengaged himself from the throng and elbowed his way towards the Brass Bridge. It wasn’t far to the watch house from here, but he still picked up the pace. Despite not having official working hours, Vimes liked to get there early in the morning, just as the day shift was coming in, to get a headstart on ignoring his paperwork.

As he walked, his copper mind took over and he mentally leafed through the agenda of the day. Let’s see, what was there… He had that audience with Vetinari at eleven, probably concerning last night’s diplomatic dinner – not that it was Vimes’s fault that he saw the unlicensed thief and that the Klatchian ambassador happened to be standing there, and anyway who drinks red wine while wearing a white robe… Then the interview with the Times at noon… Then briefing the lads on the unsolved contraband seafood case… Then he’d have to do something about the river division, they can’t just keep sinking the damn boat, this is getting ridiculous…

A distant glint caught Vimes’ eye as he stepped off the bridge. Carrot’s shiny breastplate could be seen from a mile away on a clear day, and the captain was, indeed, proceeding along the river with Angua in tow.

What the hell are they doing out? They’re not on patrol today…

Briefly, he considered catching up to them, but then dismissed the idea. They were only a couple streets away from the watch house, and Carrot seemed relaxed enough, stopping to chat with every other passer-by in his usual manner. No emergency, then. On the other hand, they had a batch of new recruits at the main office, the gods alone knew what those yahoos would be getting up to without a senior officer present. And under Colon’s command…

A few minutes later, Vimes was rounding the corner of Lower Broadway and trotting up the steps of Pseudopolis Yard. There seemed to be quite a commotion going on inside; he’d heard the shouting from half a block away. With his hand on the doorknob, mentally preparing his best Not Yelling Voice, he pushed the door open…

…and very briefly saw something shiny flying full speed at his head. Before he could react, the thing clanked off his helmet, bounced on a nearby desk and, finally, lodged itself between the floorboards with a sproinnnng.

Silence fell like a gavel. A dozen horrified watchmen gaped at their Commander, the life quickly draining out of their eyes*****. Sergeant Colon’s face, pale as the moon and just as round, tried unsuccessfully to hide behind his high collar.

Wordlessly, Vimes approached the thing stuck between the floorboards. He crouched down. He examined it. He gave it a tentative flick. It made a noise not unlike a ruler twanging off the side of a table, or a very thin sheet of metal being shaken vigorously. After a moment’s contemplation, he felt moved to speak.

“Well, lads, I don’t think Left and Right suffices anymore. Seems we ought to add a third Day to the list.”

Ahhh. Relief rose off the squad like morning mist. Their laughter had the strained quality that came with trying very hard to pretend that whatever was happening was entirely intentional. At this point, they’d have laughed at anything, as long as it meant Ol’ Stoneface was Not Yelling At Them. Whatever they may think to themselves, the one motivation that all coppers in all the worlds have in common is to Not Get Yelled At.

“Bottom Day, sir?” someone suggested. There was another bout of slightly forceful sniggers.

“Er… Perhaps not.” Vimes gave the fish a few fruitless tugs and gave up. “Alright, someone get this damn thing out of there and, uh…”

“Throw it away, sir?”

“No, good gods, you could hurt someone… Look, just get rid of the…fish and we’ll say no more about it. Fred, a word upstairs?”

With the watch house returning slowly to its normal daily bustle, Vimes went up to his office and sat down wearily at his desk, which was hidden underneath an impressive pile of paper. He’d signed a few dozen forms and…dealt with half a fireplace’s worth of complaint letters last night, but the stacks looked suspiciously bigger this morning. They entirely refused to melt away under his glare.

“Alright, what is this bloody nonsense? I thought I’d made it clear I don’t want any Tossing in the watch house,” he said to Colon, once the man had huffed and puffed his way up the stairs.

“Well, Mister Vimes, I just thought I’d indulge the lads this once. Raise their spirits with some good ol’ cultural team building. For tradition’s sake and all.”

“Tradition? It’s not been two months, Fred!”

“We-ell, they’ve taken to it, sir. Besides, you can’t deny we’ve had crimes happen on every single Left Day since the Offishal Tossings started.”

“Good grief, you could say that about every bloody day since the founding of the city! I thought you weren’t a superstitious man, Fred.”

“No, sir, but the fish don’t lie,” said Colon fervently.

“Ugh. Next thing you know, the bloody Times will be printing it alongside the bloody date in their bloody papers.”

There was a guilty silence.

Vimes stared at the sergeant’s carefully blank face. A single droplet of sweat was slowly making its way down the man’s forehead. The beady little eyes flickered momentarily to a relatively unoccupied corner of the desk.

With a sinking dread, Vimes followed his gaze and beheld a newspaper lying there on top of the forlorn paperwork, all neatly rolled and still crisp from the press. Belatedly, he noticed the smell of fresh ink. At the top of the front page, a small print line proclaimed today’s date to be April 4th, Left Wednesday.

Five minutes later, sergeant Colon walked down the stairs and into a perfectly silent room full of watchmen. His face had the distant look of someone who had just seen a ghost, and was fairly sure everybody else had, too, but would be damned if he’d mention it first.

With nothing else to do, he cleared his throat. This seemed to break the spell; all at once, the room regained its normal level of noise as the coppers went back to their coppery activities. Only Nobby sidled closer and offered up a slightly bent cigar.

“What’s up with ol’ Stoneface today, sarge?”

“Dunno what’s gotten into him.” Colon took the cigar gratefully and lit it, trying not to think too hard about where it came from. “It’s this job, I expect. All this responsibility is wearing on his nerves.”

“Ah, right.”

“I mean, what’s so wrong with a little tradition once in a while, eh?”

“Beats me, sarge.”

“Doesn’t hurt no one, having some mores and values ‘round the place.”

“You never said a truer thing.”

“Ah, anyway, Mister Vimes is just overworked. Not his fault he’s got a bit of a cultural blind spot when he’s cranky,” Colon concluded magnanimously. “Maybe he could do with a coffee and a nice meal. I know I could… Say, Nobby, what’ve we got for breakfast in the cantine today?”

“Fish’n’chips, I think. Er… You alright there, sarge? …Sarge?”

* An unfortunate misunderstanding at the fishmonger’s that had led to the Offishal Tosser being handed a very live fish, foreboding a day of extreme mood swings for the populace.

** This is the social cue equivalent of climbing onto the roof at three in the morning and setting off a barrage of fireworks while waving an enormous fluorescent red flag. Not even a 6’6’’ dwarf could remain oblivious.

*** Only comparatively. This was Ankh-Morpork, after all.

**** Allegedly.

***** Except for Corporal Shoe, for whom it was a little late******.

****** heh.

#discworld #sam vimes #ankh morpork #gnu terry pratchett #i thoroughly enjoyed writing this tbh #apologies for the unfortunate footnote format i couldnt figure out how to do superscript

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