#just picked up rabbit feed and the lady that sells it told me that *i* smell like smoke

[kifu]

Actually starting to feel real sick from the neighbor burning a pile of wet leaves the size of an elephant on our eastern property line ... when we've had a 15+mph west wind the past couple days. The smoke had infiltrated our cars, our house, and our lungs and I'm feeling bleary-eyed, scratchy, and out of breath.

[unsettlingshortstories]

Premium Harmony

Stephen King (2009)

They’ve been married for ten years and for a long time everything was O.K.—swell—but now they argue. Now they argue quite a lot. It’s really all the same argument. It has circularity. It is, Ray thinks, like a dog track. When they argue, they’re like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. You go past the same scenery time after time, but you don’t see it. You see the rabbit.

He thinks it might be different if they’d had kids, but she couldn’t. They finally got tested, and that’s what the doctor said. It was her problem. A year or so after that, he bought her a dog, a Jack Russell she named Biznezz. She’d spell it for people who asked. She loves that dog, but now they argue anyway.

They’re going to Wal-Mart for grass seed. They’ve decided to sell the house—they can’t afford to keep it—but Mary says they won’t get far until they do something about the plumbing and get the lawn fixed. She says those bald patches make it look shanty Irish. It’s because of the drought. It’s been a hot summer and there’s been no rain to speak of. Ray tells her grass seed won’t grow without rain no matter how good it is. He says they should wait.

“Then another year goes by and we’re still there,” she says. “We can’t wait another year, Ray. We’ll be bankrupts.”

When she talks, Biz looks at her from his place in the back seat. Sometimes he looks at Ray when Ray talks, but not always. Mostly he looks at Mary.

“What do you think?” he says. “It’s going to rain just so you don’t have to worry about going bankrupt?”

“We’re in it together, in case you forgot,” she says. They’re driving through Castle Rock now. It’s pretty dead. What Ray calls “the economy” has disappeared from this part of Maine. The Wal-Mart is on the other side of town, near the high school where Ray is a janitor. The Wal-Mart has its own stoplight. People joke about it.

“Penny wise and pound foolish,” he says. “You ever hear that one?”

“A million times, from you.”

He grunts. He can see the dog in the rearview mirror, watching her. He sort of hates the way Biz does that. It occurs to him that neither of them knows what they are talking about.

“And pull in at the Quik-Pik,” she says. “I want to get a kickball for Tallie’s birthday.” Tallie is her brother’s little girl. Ray supposes that makes her his niece, although he’s not sure that’s right, since all the blood is on Mary’s side.

“They have balls at Wal-Mart,” Ray says. “And everything’s cheaper at Wally World.”

“The ones at Quik-Pik are purple. Purple is her favorite color. I can’t be sure there’ll be purple at Wal-Mart.”

“If there aren’t, we’ll stop at the Quik-Pik on the way back.” He feels a great weight pressing down on his head. She’ll get her way. She always does on things like this. He sometimes thinks marriage is like a football game and he’s quarterbacking the underdog team. He has to pick his spots. Make short passes.

“It’ll be on the wrong side coming back,” she says—as if they are caught in a torrent of city traffic instead of rolling through an almost deserted little town where most of the stores are for sale. “I’ll just dash in and get the ball and dash right back out.”

At two hundred pounds, Ray thinks, your dashing days are over.

“They’re only ninety-nine cents,” she says. “Don’t be such a pinchpenny.”

Don’t be so pound foolish, he thinks, but what he says is “Buy me a pack of smokes while you’re in there. I’m out.”

“If you quit, we’d have an extra forty dollars a week. Maybe more.”

He saves up and pays a friend in South Carolina to ship him a dozen cartons at a time. They’re twenty dollars a carton cheaper in South Carolina. That’s a lot of money, even in this day and age. It’s not like he doesn’t try to economize. He has told her this before and will again, but what’s the point? In one ear, out the other.

“I used to smoke two packs a day,” he says. “Now I smoke less than half a pack.” Actually, most days he smokes more. She knows it, and Ray knows she knows it. That’s marriage after a while. The weight on his head gets a little heavier. Also, he can see Biz still looking at her. He feeds the damn dog, and he makes the money that pays for the food, but it’s her he’s looking at. And Jack Russells are supposed to be smart.

He turns into the Quik-Pik.

“You ought to buy them on Indian Island if you’ve got to have them,” she says.

“They haven’t sold tax-free smokes on the rez for ten years,” he says. “I’ve told you that, too. You don’t listen.” He pulls past the gas pumps and parks beside the store. There’s no shade. The sun is directly overhead. The car’s air-conditioner only works a little. They are both sweating. In the back seat, Biz is panting. It makes him look like he’s grinning.

“Well, you ought to quit,” Mary says.

“And you ought to quit those Little Debbies,” he says. He doesn’t want to say this—he knows how sensitive she is about her weight—but out it comes. He can’t hold it back. It’s a mystery.

“I don’t eat those no more,” she says. “Any, I mean. Anymore.”

“Mary, the box is on the top shelf. A twenty-four-pack. Behind the flour.”

“Were you snooping?” A flush rises in her cheeks, and he sees how she looked when she was still beautiful. Good-looking, anyway. Everybody said she was good-looking, even his mother, who didn’t like her otherwise.

“I was hunting for the bottle opener,” he says. “I had a bottle of cream soda. The kind with the old-fashioned cap.”

“Looking for it on the top shelf of the goddam cupboard!”

“Go in and get the ball,” he says. “And get me some smokes. Be a sport.”

“Can’t you wait until we get home? Can’t you even wait that long?”

“You can get the cheap ones,” he says. “That off-brand. Premium Harmony, they’re called.” They taste like homemade shit, but all right. If she’ll only shut up about it.

“Where are you going to smoke, anyway? In the car, I suppose, so I have to breathe it.”

“I’ll open the window. I always do.”

“I’ll get the ball. Then I’ll come back. If you still feel you have to spend four dollars and fifty cents to poison your lungs, you can go in. I’ll sit with the baby.”

Ray hates it when she calls Biz the baby. He’s a dog, and he may be as bright as Mary likes to boast when they have company, but he still shits outside and licks where his balls used to be.

“Buy a few Twinkies while you’re at it,” he tells her. “Or maybe they’re having a special on Ho Hos.”

“You’re so mean,” she says. She gets out of the car and slams the door. He’s parked too close to the concrete cube of a building and she has to sidle until she’s past the trunk of the car, and he knows she knows he’s looking at her, seeing how she’s now so big she has to sidle. He knows she thinks he parked close to the building on purpose, to make her sidle, and maybe he did.

“Well, Biz, old buddy, it’s just you and me.”

Biz lies down on the back seat and closes his eyes. He may stand up on his back paws and shuffle around for a few seconds when Mary puts on a record and tells him to dance, and if she tells him (in a jolly voice) that he’s a bad boy he may go into the corner and sit facing the wall, but he still shits outside.

He sits there and she doesn’t come out. Ray opens the glove compartment. He paws through the rat’s nest of papers, looking for some cigarettes he might have forgotten, but there aren’t any. He does find a Hostess Sno Ball still in its wrapper. He pokes it. It’s as stiff as a corpse. It’s got to be a thousand years old. Maybe older. Maybe it came over on the Ark.

“Everybody has his poison,” he says. He unwraps the Sno Ball and tosses it into the back seat. “Want that, Biz?”

Biz snarks the Sno Ball in two bites. Then he sets to work licking up bits of coconut off the seat. Mary would pitch a bitch, but Mary’s not here.

Ray looks at the gas gauge and sees it’s down to half. He could turn off the motor and roll down the windows, but then he’d really bake. Sitting here in the sun, waiting for her to buy a purple plastic kickball for ninety-nine cents when he knows they could get one for seventy-nine cents at Wal-Mart. Only that one might be yellow or red. Not good enough for Tallie. Only purple for the princess.

He sits there and Mary doesn’t come back. “Christ on a pony!” he says. Cool air trickles from the vents. He thinks again about turning off the engine, saving some gas, then thinks, Fuck it. She won’t weaken and bring him the smokes, either. Not even the cheap off-brand. This he knows. He had to make that remark about the Little Debbies.

He sees a young woman in the rearview mirror. She’s jogging toward the car. She’s even heavier than Mary; great big tits shuffle back and forth under her blue smock. Biz sees her coming and starts to bark.

Ray cracks the window an inch or two.

“Are you with the blond-haired woman who just came in? She your wife?” She puffs the words. Her face shines with sweat.

“Yes. She wanted a ball for our niece.”

“Well, something’s wrong with her. She fell down. She’s unconscious. Mr. Ghosh thinks she might have had a heart attack. He called 911. You better come.”

Ray locks the car and follows her into the store. It’s cold inside. Mary is lying on the floor with her legs spread and her arms at her sides. She’s next to a wire cylinder full of kickballs. The sign over the wire cylinder says “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” Her eyes are closed. She might be sleeping there on the linoleum. Three people are standing over her. One is a dark-skinned man in khaki pants and a white shirt. A nametag on the pocket of his shirt says “mr. ghosh manager.” The other two are customers. One is a thin old man without much hair. He’s in his seventies at least. The other is a fat woman. She’s fatter than Mary. Fatter than the girl in the blue smock, too. Ray thinks by rights she’s the one who should be lying on the floor.

“Sir, are you this lady’s husband?” Mr. Ghosh asks.

“Yes,” Ray says. That doesn’t seem to be enough. “Yes, I am.”

“I am sorry to say, but I think she might be dead,” Mr. Ghosh says. “I gave the artificial respiration and the mouth-to-mouth, but . . .”

Ray thinks of the dark-skinned man putting his mouth on Mary’s. French-kissing her, sort of. Breathing down her throat right next to the wire cylinder full of plastic kickballs. Then he kneels down.

“Mary,” he says. “Mary!” Like he’s trying to wake her up after a hard night.

She doesn’t appear to be breathing, but you can’t always tell. He puts his ear by her mouth and hears nothing. He feels air on his skin, but that’s probably just the air-conditioning.

“This gentleman called 911,” the fat woman says. She’s holding a bag of Bugles.

“Mary!” Ray says. Louder this time, but he can’t quite bring himself to shout, not down on his knees with people standing around. He looks up and says, apologetically, “She never gets sick. She’s healthy as a horse.”

“You never know,” the old man says. He shakes his head.

“She just fell down,” the young woman in the blue smock says. “Not a word.”

“Did she grab her chest?” the fat woman with the Bugles asks.

“I don’t know,” the young woman says. “I guess not. Not that I saw. She just fell down.”

There’s a rack of souvenir T-shirts near the kickballs. They say things like “My Parents Were Treated Like Royalty in Castle Rock and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt.” Mr. Ghosh takes one and says, “Would you like me to cover her face, sir?”

“God, no!” Ray says, startled. “She might only be unconscious. We’re not doctors.” Past Mr. Ghosh, he sees three kids, teen-agers, looking in the window. One has a cell phone. He’s using it to take a picture.

Mr. Ghosh follows Ray’s look and rushes at the door, flapping his hands. “You kids get out of here! You kids get out!”

Laughing, the teen-agers shuffle backward, then turn and jog past the gas pumps to the sidewalk. Beyond them, the nearly deserted downtown shimmers. A car goes by pulsing rap. To Ray, the bass sounds like Mary’s stolen heartbeat.

“Where’s the ambulance?” the old man says. “How come it’s not here yet?”

Ray kneels by his wife while the time goes by. His back hurts and his knees hurt, but if he gets up he’ll look like a spectator.

The ambulance turns out to be a Chevy Suburban painted white with orange stripes. The red jackpot lights are flashing. “castle county rescue” is printed across the front, only backward, so you can read it in your rearview mirror.

The two men who come in are dressed in white. They look like waiters. One pushes an oxygen tank on a dolly. It’s a green tank with an American-flag decal on it. “Sorry,” he says. “Just cleared a car accident over in Oxford.”

The other one sees Mary lying on the floor. “Aw, gee,” he says.

Ray can’t believe it. “Is she still alive?” he asks. “Is she just unconscious? If she is, you better give her oxygen or she’ll have brain damage.”

Mr. Ghosh shakes his head. The young woman in the blue smock starts to cry. Ray wants to ask her what she’s crying about, then knows. She has made up a whole story about him from what he just said. Why, if he came back in a week or so and played his cards right, she might toss him a mercy fuck. Not that he would, but he sees that maybe he could. If he wanted to.

Mary’s eyes don’t react to the ophthalmoscope. One E.M.T. listens to her nonexistent heartbeat, and the other takes her nonexistent blood pressure. It goes on like that for a while. The teen-agers come back with some of their friends. Other people, too. Ray guesses they’re being drawn by the flashing red lights on top of the Suburban the way bugs are drawn to a porch light. Mr. Ghosh takes another run at them, flapping his arms. They back away again. Then, when Mr. Ghosh returns to the circle around Mary and Ray, they come back.

One of the E.M.T.s says to Ray, “She was your wife?”

“Right.”

“Well, sir, I’m sorry to say that she’s dead.”

“Mary, Mother of God,” the fat lady with the Bugles says. She crosses herself.

“Oh.” Ray stands up. His knees crack. “They told me she was.”

Mr. Ghosh offers one of the E.M.T.s the souvenir T-shirt to put over Mary’s face, but the E.M.T. shakes his head and goes outside. He tells the little crowd that there’s nothing to see, as if anyone’s going to believe a dead woman on the Quik-Pik floor isn’t interesting.

The E.M.T. yanks a gurney from the back of the rescue vehicle. He does it with a single flip of the wrist. The legs fold down all by themselves. The old man with the thinning hair holds the door open and the E.M.T. pulls his rolling deathbed inside.

“Whoo, hot,” the E.M.T. says, wiping his forehead.

“You may want to turn away for this part, sir,” the other one says, but Ray watches as they lift her onto the gurney. A sheet has been tucked down at the end of it. They pull it up all the way, until it’s over her face. Now Mary looks like a corpse in a movie. They roll her out into the heat. This time, the fat woman with the Bugles holds the door for them. The crowd has retreated to the sidewalk. There must be three dozen people standing in the unrelieved August sunshine.

When Mary is stored, the E.M.T.s come back. One is holding a clipboard. He asks Ray about twenty-five questions. Ray can answer all but the one about her age. Then he remembers she’s three years younger than he is and tells them thirty-five.

“We’re going to take her to St. Stevie’s,” the E.M.T. with the clipboard says. “You can follow us if you don’t know where that is.”

“I know,” Ray says. “What? Do you want to do an autopsy? Cut her up?”

The girl in the blue smock gives a gasp. Mr. Ghosh puts his arm around her, and she puts her face against his white shirt. Ray wonders if Mr. Ghosh is fucking her. He hopes not. Not because of Mr. Ghosh’s brown skin but because he’s got to be twice her age.

“Well, that’s not our decision,” the E.M.T. says, “but probably not. She didn’t die unattended—”

“I’ll say,” the woman with the Bugles interjects.

“—and it’s pretty clearly a heart attack. You can probably have her released to the mortuary almost immediately.”

Mortuary? An hour ago they were in the car, arguing. “I don’t have a mortuary,” Ray says. “Not a mortuary, a burial plot, nothing. What the hell? She’s thirty-five.”

The two E.M.T.s exchange a look. “Mr. Burkett, there’ll be someone to help you with all that at St. Stevie’s. Don’t worry about it.”

The E.M.T. wagon pulls out with the lights still flashing but the siren off. The crowd on the sidewalk starts to break up. The countergirl, the old man, the fat woman, and Mr. Ghosh look at Ray as though he’s someone special. A celebrity.

“She wanted a purple kickball for our niece,” he says. “She’s having a birthday. She’ll be eight. Her name is Talia. Tallie for short. She was named for an actress.”

Mr. Ghosh takes a purple kickball from the wire rack and holds it out to Ray in both hands. “On the house,” he says.

“Thank you, sir,” Ray says, trying to sound equally solemn, and the woman with the Bugles bursts into tears. “Mary, Mother of God,” she says. She likes that one.

They stand around for a while, talking. Mr. Ghosh gets sodas from the cooler. These are also on the house. They drink their sodas and Ray tells them a few things about Mary. He tells them how she made a quilt that took third prize at the Castle County fair. That was in ’02. Or maybe ’03.

“That’s so sad,” the woman with the Bugles says. She has opened them and shared them around. They eat and drink.

“My wife went in her sleep,” the old man with the thinning hair says. “She just laid down on the sofa and never woke up. We were married thirty-seven years. I always expected I’d go first, but that’s not the way the good Lord wanted it. I can still see her laying there on the sofa.”

Finally, Ray runs out of things to tell them, and they run out of things to tell him. Customers are coming in again. Mr. Ghosh waits on some, and the woman in the blue smock waits on others. Then the fat woman says she really has to go. She gives Ray a kiss on the cheek before she does.

“Now you need to see to your business, Mr. Burkett,” she tells him. Her tone is both reprimanding and flirtatious.

He looks at the clock over the counter. It’s the kind with a beer advertisement on it. Almost two hours have gone by since Mary went sidling between the car and the cinder-block side of the Quik-Pik. And for the first time he thinks of Biz.

When he opens the door, heat rushes out at him, and when he puts his hand on the steering wheel to lean in he pulls it back with a cry. It’s got to be a hundred and thirty in there. Biz is dead on his back. His eyes are milky. His tongue is protruding from the side of his mouth. Ray can see the wink of his teeth. There are little bits of coconut caught in his whiskers. That shouldn’t be funny, but it is. Not funny enough to laugh at, but funny.

“Biz, old buddy,” he says. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were in here.”

Great sadness and amusement sweep over him as he looks at the baked Jack Russell. That anything so sad should be funny is just a crying shame.

“Well, you’re with her now, ain’t you?” he says, and this is so sad that he begins to cry. It’s a hard storm. While he’s crying, it comes to him that now he can smoke all he wants, and anywhere in the house. He can smoke right there at her dining-room table.

“You’re with her now, Biz,” he says again through his tears. His voice is clogged and thick. It’s a relief to sound just right for the situation. “Poor old Mary, poor old Biz. Damn it all!”

Still crying, and with the purple kickball still tucked under his arm, he goes back into the Quik-Pik. He tells Mr. Ghosh he forgot to get cigarettes. He thinks maybe Mr. Ghosh will give him a pack of Premium Harmonys on the house as well, but Mr. Ghosh’s generosity doesn’t stretch that far. Ray smokes all the way to the hospital with the windows shut and the air-conditioning on. 

[superunnatural6667]

The Apple Pie Life (pt.13)

(DeanxReader, Sam, Bobby, Rufus, Crowley, Jody) WARNING: language?? ... "What are your thoughts Bobby?" You asked watching the boys leave. "On?" "Samuel." "Nothing really. He kinda just seems like a dick. Why ya ask?" "I just have a weird feeling about him.... how bout Sam?" "You and Dean both." Bobby rolled his eyes. "We did all the tests, Sam is Sam. He was in the cage with Lucifer and Micheal, I wouldn't blame him if he was a little off." "Your right." You sighed. "Why didn't you go on the case?" "To give the boys some brother time. And I didn't wanna see the Campbell's." You laughed. "I don't blame ya." Bobby chuckled. "So what do you do around here when your by yourself?" "Drink and read. Unless-" there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it." You said standing up. Opening it up and man was standing in front of you. "Bobby I need you to- your not Bobby." He furrowed his brows. "In here Rufus." Bobby yelled. "Oh good Bobby, I need you to help me bury a body." "Alright." Bobby huffed. "You comin girl?" "Right behinds ya." ____ "Thanks Bobby I owe ya one." Rufus said. "Yeah, yeah. Y/N, this is Rufus. Rufus, Y/N." "What is a lovely lady like you doing with a man like him?" He smiled taking your hand. That question threw you off guard. "Are you dumb! She's practically a daughter to me. She's dating Dean you idjit." "Huh...alrighty then so I should probably get going." "Rufus before you go I need you to do something." ____ "You think Rufus will be able to get the ring?" You asked. "I sure hope so." "It wasn't the smartest idea to sell your soul you know." "Thank you captain obvious." "So when do you-" another knock came to the door. "Rufus already?" "I don't know." Bobby shrugged opening the door. "Marcy." "Bobby Singer..." Looking out the window you saw a women, about Bobbys age. Medium length hair, blonde. She handed Bobby a delicious looking cobbler, or something. It sounded she like she asked him on a date. "Is like to Marcy... but uh..." "Oh no big deal, ok. Um I hear your handy. My woodchopper broke, if you wouldn't mind coming over whenever to fix it?" "I'll see what I can do." He smiled. "Great thanks." She said walking away. He brought the cobbler into the kitchen, turning around he looked at you. Your arms were crossed and you were staring at him. "What?" "Bobby she likes you!" You said. "Marcy? No." "Are you def Bobby!? She just asked you on a date!!" You excitingly said. "And I said no." "Why?" "Cause I don't wanna drag her into my life." "But-" "Y/N just leave it at that." "Fine." You follows your eyes. Flipping through a lore book, your phone started to ring. Recognizing the caller ID you picked it up. "Hey babe." "Hey sweetheart, I need you to tell me the other way to kill a Lamia." "What the easiest way was to hard?" You laughed. "Ha ha very funny." "Alright hold on" walking into the kitchen you turned towards Bobby "what lore book were you using for the Lamia?" "The one on the corner of my desk. Wh-" "Police open up." A man knocked on the door. "Balls." Bobby sighed. "I got Dean, you take care of that." You said bring the lore book upstairs. "Dean?" "Still here." "Ok, find salt and rosemary and mix it on a high heat." "Got it, sit tight." Waiting on the phone you heard tussling and screeching. "Fire in the hole." You heard Dean yell. Then more screeching, then quiet. "Dean?...Dean?" "Yeah, I'm here." "Good." You let go of a breath you didn't know you were holding. "How's Sam?" "He's uh...good." "That sound assuring." "Well I don't know Y/N, he still seems off. What about you, how are you?" "Good. Met Rufus, I think he hit on me. Met Marcy, Bobbys neighbor that likes him, and there's police at the door." You explained. "Sounds great. Well I've got a mess to clean up so I'll call you later. Be home when I can, love you." "Love you too." You smiled. Walking downstairs you heard a women talking. Peeking around the corner, there was a women in a police uniform. "Is everything ok?" You asked walking around the corner. "Jody, this is Deans girlfriend Y/N, Y/N this is Jody." "Girlfriend?" Jody smiled shaking your hand. "It's about time that boy found someone." She smiled. "It's nice to meet you." You smiled. "Anyways like I said, I've got a body downstairs." Bobby said. "There's one downstairs? I thought there was only one outside." You butted in. Jody walked over to the window and looked outside. "He's gone." "Balls. Y/N stay in here, don't want you dragged into this." You nodded and closed the door behind them. 5 minutes later Bobby came inside telling you the Okami was gone. "Hey Rufus its Y/N." "Hey darlin' whatcha need." "The Okami is gone... did you stab it with a bamboo knife?" "Yes." "Blessed by a Shinto Priest?" "Yes." "And you stabbed it seven times?" "...five." "Rufus!" You sighed. "What what. I'm sorry." "What was it feeding on when you killed it?" "White single women." You looked at Bobby, eyes wide. "Go to Marcus now." You told him. Bobby grabbed his gun and ran over. "Thanks Rufus." ____ Blood splattered all over Marcy. Her face. Priceless. "Thought your chipper was broken?" Bobby asked. "I said that to get you over here." Marcy said. "Well I guess one night I could come over for dinner..." "I don't think that's gonna happen..." "Story of my life." Bobby said. Walking next to Bobby you looked over at him, wrapping your arm around him. "Your a great man Bobby. It's her loss." You told him. "Thanks girl." He said wrapping his arm around you. ____ "I hear ya son it's just not a good time right now." Bobby sighed. You could hear Dean over the phone, his voice raised. "Hold on Dean there's another call." "Dean call me right now." You said ending the call. "Hello?" "Y/N hi put Bobby on the phone." "It's Rufus." You said giving him the phone. Your phone started to ring so you went upstairs. Answering it you started to yell. "Dean Winchester what are you doing yelling at Bobby!" "He was being selfish-" "He was not being selfish Dean, you are! Crowley still has his soul, we are trying to get it back! We almost got caught by the police for having two body's! And I'm pretty sure Rufus is running from the cops. So next time I'm with Bobby and your by yourself with Sam, you call me if you have a problem. He has done so much for you guys, appreciate it." "Are you done?" "Yes." "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be a dick. It's just this whole Sam situation-" "I got it. Just take an easy ok." "Will do. Love you." "Love you too." "What did Rufus say?" You asked coming into the kitchen. "He was being chased by police, hopefully he'll be brought to Sioux Falls PD." ____ "You have an hour Bobby. Then I call the Feds and tell em he escaped." "Thanks Jody." Bobby said. "If I get fired, I swear." She said walking to her car. "You got the ring?" Bobby asked after closing the door. Rufus pulled the ring out of his coat, putting it in Bobbys direction. He stared at it in disgust. "I'll boil water." You said going into the kitchen. ____ "He's just a bargaining chip. We told us where we can find something of yours." Bobby told Crowley. He nodded toward you, you handed Crowley the phone. "Squirrel." Crowley said. "It won't work, it's just a myth." "I have worker of your that says other wise." Bobby added. You could hear flickering on the other side of the phone, knowing Dean had his lighter. "Fine." Crowley sighed throwing you the phone. Bobby nodded and you walked over to the devils trap. "Don't try anything." You told him. "Nothing to you rabbit." He smiled. Crowley started doing-whatever he did to make the contract go away. "Keep in the part about my legs." Bobby added. "Alright, well I've got bones to retrieve." "Take me with you." "Y/N I don't think-" before Bobby could finish Crowley grabbed your hand, and disappeared. ____ "Hello boys." Crowley said walking towards Dean, and Sam. "Squirrel, brought you something." Dean turned around and ran pass Crowley, right over to you. One hand cupping your cheek, the other grasping your shoulder. "Are you ok? Did he do something to you?" Dean frantically asked. "No, no Dean I'm fine." You assured him. "I asked if I could tag along." "You sure alright? Your ears feel like there gonna pop?" He grinned. "Dean I'm fine." You kissed his cheek. "I'm thinking we should torch his bones anyways." You heard Sam say. "Sam... don't a deals a deal." You told him walking closer. "Listen to her moose." Crowley said grabbing the last of his bones. "Boys." He said standing up. "Rabbit." He smiled taking your hand and kissing it. Then he was gone. "That's so weird." Sam mumbled. You turned around and Deans jaw was clenched. Knuckles, white. "He likes you." Sam laughed. "So he does. That means he pretty much will do anything I ask. Which could be good in the future." Deans jaws was still clenched, still white knuckled. You stepped closer to him, hands wrapping around his knuckles. "But I love you. So there's nothing to worry about." You said. Dean let out a breath and smirked looking down. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into a hug. "Any day now." Sam said. "Go sit in the damn car." You said over your shoulder. Sam rolled his eyes, heading for Baby. "You seem to be the only one that can calm me down." Dean said pulling away. "Lets not make it a habit. Try not to get so mad, or jealous." You smiled. "Well." Dean said grabbing your hand, walking to the car. "I seem to have the hottest girl friend on the planet, so excuse me." He grinned. "That's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard." You laughed. "Yeah it was... gross." "Listen, I'm sorry that I freaked out on the phone. I didn't-" "Your right." Dean interrupted you. "We are the selfish ones, we take Bobby for granted." You nodded agreeing with what he said. "So where to now?" You asked him. "Another case. Calumet City, Illinois." "Can I come?" You asked. "Are you... ready to start taking cases again?" "As ready as I'll ever be." … A/N: idk how I feel about this one. It's suppose to be like Weekend at Bobby's S6E4. @moose-and-sqruille-lover

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic: Ballyhoo – Circus Minimus

Written by Joe Pranevich

Welcome back! Last time out, we started into Infocom’s fourth mystery game, Ballyhoo. Unlike our previous mysteries, this one is not (yet!) a murder. Instead, we have a kidnapping… at a circus! We will have to use all of our investigative skills to find out who kidnapped the owner’s daughter and why, even though the owner doesn’t know we are helping and probably wouldn’t be that thrilled to find out that some random patron was snooping around his circus after closing time. Why are we doing this again? Because we secretly dream of the Big Top ourselves! And of being a detective, apparently. Actually, I have no idea why we’re doing this but someone has to save the girl and so it might as well be us.

I apologize for the small delay in getting this out. We’ve had “plague house” here at the local Infocom Marathon Headquarters and so much of my time has been spent either being sick, cleaning up after others being sick, or both at the same time. It doesn’t make for the best head-space for writing about a fun-filled circus holiday. To compensate, I’ve made this entry a bit longer than usual. As they say, send in the clowns!

Has anyone seen my moongate?

Walk Down Memory Lane

Last time out, I mapped out all of the circus that I could. This consisted of several circus acts including an animal menagerie; Andrew Jenny, the half-and-half person; Rimshaw, the hypnotist; Tina, the “fat lady”; plus the Big Top itself. A guarded turnstile blocked our way further south, presumably to the crew area. While exploring, I performed a hire-wire act in the empty Big Top, scoring me a lost child’s balloon which I must be careful not to drop or else it will fly away. I need to solve some puzzles if I am to advance.

The first “puzzle” that I know of is more like copy protection. The ticket included with the game has tons of fine print on it, but most importantly that three sessions with Rimshaw are included with the price of admission. This includes palm reading, hypnotism, and head-bump reading. I’m going to start this week by cashing in my extras.

While the palm reading reveals nothing but that I am going to have an interesting night, the hypnotism is surprisingly effective. I am cast back, as in a dream, several hours to when the circus was in full swing and I am sitting in the audience. The place is packed and everyone seems to be having a good time. This is a fully interactive dream, so I can interact with it in the usual Infocom way. Suddenly, I hear a rumble and a growl. What could it be? I look around, only to realize that it is my own stomach. I am hungry! (I confirm this with the “diagnose” command, a nice throwback to earlier Infocom games.) Just in the nick of time, a hawker comes to the end of my row selling tofu and peanuts. I yell down that I would like some peanuts and he flashes me the price on his fingers. I pass down that amount of money, but the press of the crowd is too much. My food never arrives and the hawker is quickly lost in the press of the crowd.

I’m still hungry, so I go in search of my peanuts. The crowd is too thick to the west, but I can push my way through to the east. I’m told that the exit is that way and down which is probably a hint. I chase the hawker through several rooms, but never catch up with him. The crowded bleachers form a maze. When I can head in his direction, I do, but I try to find routes down or east when I cannot. Eventually, I end up at the entrance to the Big Top with no hawker, but there is a concession stand set up where I can purchase food. Just as I arrive a monkey– a literal monkey!– lands on my back. I can’t get it off.

Cheeky monkey! (And a very important photo in the history of human-simian interaction.)

Before I continue, I’ll mention that this “monkey on my back” is a callback to the detective who, it is said, also had a monkey on his back when I saw him last. His monkey was drunkenness and it was explicitly a metaphorical monkey. It’s very cute that I am afflicted with a literal one. Regardless of the spiritual implications of the situation, the monkey does not let me leave the concession stand area including by going back into the Big Top. I choose instead to stand in line for the concession stand. Unfortunately, the line is long but shortly after I stand in it, a second shorter line opens up. I switch over to that line and wouldn’t you know it, the guy in front of me invites his friends– and entire baseball team– to cut in front of me. Now I’m in the long line once again. I switch to the short line, but everytime I do everyone else gets the same idea. It’s a puzzle!

Just being patient doesn’t cut it, nor does switching to the shorter line. I have to trick the crowd: if I pretend to get out of line to go to the short line, but instead stay in the long line, the people will cross like lemmings to the other side and leave me with a straight path to the front. I am forced to buy a chocolate covered banana which leaves me with exactly $12.81 in my pocket. I know I’m on the right path because that is precisely the amount of money that I started the game with. There is so much good humor here; it’s a very memorable sequence. Highlights for me are the realization that the audience members are shockingly born exactly one minute apart from each other (a sucker is, as they say, born every minute), plus the ribbing the game gives you as you pick the wrong line over and over again. It is clever enough to point out, for example, that the person you were standing in line behind just a bit ago just got there food. It’s all quite clever and my favorite part of the game so far.

Unfortunately, I make the mistake of feeding the banana to the monkey. He stays on my back and I seem to be stuck. I restore and try instead to throw the banana. He jumps off my back to get it and I am finally free of him, even if I am annoyed about the dead end. Heading back into the circus, still without food, I pass the hawker taking a break near the entrance. He tells me that he eventually gave me a granola bar and the guy sitting next to me still has it. But I didn’t order a granola bar! I need to go back in and get it off of him. I navigate the maze back to my seat and the sequence ends. I have ten more points! What was the purpose of that? Was there a clue to the kidnapping that I missed? I try playing through it all again, but I don’t see a clue if there is one. Could there be something else hidden in the crowd?

I ask Rimshaw to read the bumps on my head and he tells me two interesting bits of information:

For romance, a woman will soon come into my life.

For travel, I will soon visit the grand canyon.

Since I doubt either of those things will happen in this game, are those clues to future Infocom adventures? Rimshaw comments that I like Infocom adventures (how true!) and tells me that his favorite game is Enchanter, so that seems to be a good possibility. I think this is too early for Plundered Hearts to be referenced, but could those be references to Leather Goddesses and Trinity? I have played neither so I have no idea.

A 19th century hypnotist. With angels for some reason.

Interview with a (Former) Lion Tamer

After failing to find a way to get the radio from the bearded lady or how to get past the elephant, I work on passing through the turnstile into the crew area. That passage is guarded by “Harry”, a blind man inside of a repurposed (and burned-out) animal cage. We saw him let Chuckles and Thumb through in the beginning of the game, but he doesn’t recognize me to let me through. Since he’s blind, I can’t just wear the clown mask. I’ll have to come up with an alternative path.

As it turns out, Harry is a plethora of information about the rest of the circus staff. He’ll talk to me about just about everyone, with two special exceptions. In my conversations with him, I learn that:

Chuckles had a lot of pride in his craft, until… what? He doesn’t say.

Tina has tried to lose weight, but Munrab forces her to eat.

The Roustabout fell out of the social safety net and Munrab is forcing him to live in a cage instead of a trailer.

Jenny is trying to keep Andrew on the straight-and-narrow, but Andrew considers her a thorn in his side.

Rimshaw is worthless and we shouldn’t waste our money. (We already know that he’s a skilled hypnotist!)

Gottfried, the new lion tamer, is a glory hog and stays one step ahead of the ASPCA.

Munrab, the owner, is struggling. His dreams are not panning out and he is putting the squeeze on everyone. The circus is dangerous because of his pressure and cut corners.

Harry has less interesting things to say about the remaining staff (like Comrade Thumb) and doesn’t seem to know some names from the manual at all. I also learn that his blindness is caused by being mauled by one of the lions. He even shows me his scars. The two lions in the circus are Nimrod and Elsie. He pointedly tells me that Nimrod refuses the whip while Elsie can only be tamed by it. That won’t possibly come in handy later. I should note that he’ll only talk about this once so you better take good notes!

There is a small puzzle while talking to him, although it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. If you ask about Chelsea, Munrab’s daughter, he tells you that he told you already. If you took good notes and realize that he didn’t do that, you can argue with him, eventually ending in a volley of “did not” and “did so” just like in cartoons. If you switch and say “did so”, he’ll get confused ala the Looney Tunes and say “did not” and then finally he’ll talk to you about Chelsea. At least at this point in the game however, all he says is that he hasn’t seen her all evening. A little underwhelming for the mini-puzzle that I had to pass through to get that information, but at least it was fun. Pointless trivia: this verbal sparring was first used in the Chuck Jones cartoon, Rabbit Fire, in 1951. Nearly 70-year old gags are still funny!

Even after all of those interviews and the trick to talk about Chelsea, none of that helps and I have to keep exploring.

Yummy discarded granola.

Healthy Snack

In my next explorations, I end up back under the bleachers in the Big Top. The entrance was moved since the stands have been put back into place, but I can now climb under the fabric of the tent on the Midway to gain access. Since I have been recently hypnotized, I recall where I was sitting and go there to discover the lost granola bar that the hawker tried (and failed) to give me. I could eat it myself, but knowing that the Fat Lady is trying to be on a diet, I go there instead.

In her room, she has been oblivious this whole time just listening to her radio. Her “room” is actually two connected rooms with her in the center. I am either on her left or her right, with passages to the northeast/southeast and northwest/southwest to cross to the other side. If I try to take the radio, she passes it into her other hand and I have to go to the opposite room to see it again. That much I had discovered last week. However, if I stand on the side with a free hand, I can give her the granola bar which causes her to notice me. She offers me her hand which I– after a moment of confusion– shake in a show of friendship. She puts down the radio in the process and I can head to the other room and grab it quickly, scoring a few more points in the process. Tina is portrayed as “simple” (my words, not theirs), a gentle giant, but it’s not at all flattering. Yes, it’s all for maximum pathos but it doesn’t completely sit right with me, especially since we’ve now essentially stolen a radio from an adult child. I hope at least she enjoyed her granola bar; it probably came from the granola mines of the Great Underground Empire.

That said, the radio is (for now) useless and only plays static. There’s an ad for a classical radio station that I mentioned last time so I follow the instructions to change the channel to AM 1070. That causes a brief burst of music before it returned to static. I try carrying the radio around the grounds to see if it gets reception somewhere else, but I never find any. It’ll have to be a mystery for later.

They’re finally here!

Send in the Clowns

Let’s skip over another one of those impossible-to-narrate sections where I screw around with stuff and nothing much works, but I discover one thing: I can open the balloon and breathe the helium inside. Thanks to my new (and very brief!) high-pitched voice, I impersonate a clown much more effectively and manage to fool Harry. Even though he’s blind, I put on the clown mask just to be on the safe side. He lets me through into the staff-only section of the circus. I hope that the mask is enough to fool anyone I might come across because I don’t have the rest of a clown outfit handy.

There are only two “rooms” back here, but both seem promising:

The east end has Katzenjammer’s trailer. He’s the new lion tamer. Both his trailer and an external baggage compartment are locked.

The west end has a dilapidated trailer with a warped front door. I try to pry it open, but do not succeed. It too is locked. More on that in a second.

The other interesting bit is that there is a pleated cloth wall in the north west. By climbing under the cloth, I arrive back in the prop tent. I also spot a piece of wood that wasn’t there before. In classic adventure game form, I reach down to pick it up and… well, I can’t spoil the joke by explaining it. I guess we’ll do a rare “screenshot of text”!

Profanity is funny!

In any event, the mousetrap and its accompanying cheese are now mine and I am sure that one or both will come in handy in the near future. More importantly, I can now go in and out of the staff area without passing through Harry’s gate, which is good because I am out of helium.

I head back and knock on the door of the trailer. Chuckles only glances at me a moment before letting me in, probably because I am still wearing Malcolm’s mask. (What happened to Malcolm anyway that he lost his mask and hasn’t been seen around the camp? Is that part of the mystery?) In a slang-ridden conversation– all helpfully translated by the circus slang section of the manual– Chuckles complains about “Johnny Tin Plate” (the detective) snooping around, but he’s pretty sure he won’t find their “grift” (illegal gambling) because you have to put “Annie Oakley” (ticket) under the old front. I file that information away. Comrade Thumb is also in there, but he mostly ignores me while staying on his bunk-bed. During the conversation, Chuckles pauses at one point to ask me to close the door, but he doesn’t catch on that I’m not who I say I am and I’m not dumb enough to do more than nod along. I expect that speaking will ruin the disguise. I search and find an ashtray with some ashes in it. Further snooping reveals that it the ashes include some unburned newsprint with a large-font letter “M” on it. Could this be a sign that one of the clowns worked on a ransom note? I haven’t seen the note yet, but ransom notes often use cut up newsprint, at least in detective fiction. After a few turns, he realizes that I am not Malcolm and kicks me out.

Text adventures seem old, but by this point we are only a year before Leisure Suit Larry. That version of blackjack (above) was one I spent many hours on as a kid.

Infocom’s First Minigame

I took the bit about the illegal gambling as my next clue, so I search for the “old front” and find it quickly behind the elephant tent. When I slide my ticket under, a compartment opens up into a gambling hall where circus-goers and staff seem to be having some fun. I’m not sure how anyone finds out about this place to get in, but I’m sure word gets around the seedier circles. My options at seem to be poker and blackjack, but the game doesn’t let you try poker as it is a private game. At first I think I can’t play blackjack either, but it’s just a verb problem. If you type “bet $1” (for example), the game starts.

This looks like Infocom’s first minigame! It’s actually quite simple, only using yes or no questions for all the game mechanics except betting. The maximum bet is $2 and I stick to that because I can always restore if I lose too much. I lose the first couple of hands, but soon the “won” hands stay about even with the “loss” ones. Blackjack is a fairly simple game, but I did not pay enough attention to tell if they accurately simulated multiple decks or did a new set every hand. The only missing feature is “splitting” hands. That’s when you are dealt two of the same card and are given the option of splitting them into two hands (with additional bet) so that they can be played individually. Even Leisure Suit Larry had that, but it’s not a huge deal. In the end, I can’t really get ahead without save-scumming and nothing magical happens when I double my money. If there’s a plot point here, I don’t see it… until I quit.

As soon as I get up to leave, my character gets an impulse to play one more hand. That time, instead of playing as before, there are taps on our feet. It only takes one hand to realize that the taps are revealing the value of the dealer’s hole card! That helps less than you might think and I still lose, but why is something helping me cheat? I sneak a peek under the table and it is Comrade Thumb! Is this his way to repay me for helping at the water fountain? The dealer quickly catching me looking under the table and realizes what is going on. He kicks both Thumb and I out of the gambling den and will no longer let me back in. I hope I didn’t miss anything. I can always restore if need be.

We can’t rewind; we’ve gone too far.

Radio Killed the Text Adventure Star

With no further leads, I embark on another round of searching for new things to do. I start behind the elephant tent near the gambling hall and realize immediately that I must not have tried hard enough before. My first discovery is that I can climb the cage there and then clamber further onto the elephant’s tent itself. It’s dark and I don’t have a destination in mind, so there’s no place it lets me go. The one good thing is that the radio works up there! It does me no good immediately, but knowing the radio works with altitude could be a clue. Climbing down from the cage causes you to fall off and die. Just kidding, you just fall off and bruise your ego, complete with a fake death scene. Cheeky.

The cage itself was my next win. I had thought for some reason that the cage door was on the inside of the elephant tent, that I was seeing the rear, but in fact this is the front. Peering inside– which I assume I could always have done but never thought of it– I see a pair of keys on a nail. Using my tightrope-walking pole, I can poke in and grab the keys and slide them down to me. Not surprisingly, the keys unlock the cage door and inside is a makeshift home for a person. A bit dehumanizing perhaps, but he or she does have a nice pair of cassette headphones which I pocket. There is also a bucket of raw meat which I’m going to assume wasn’t for him, unless we have a werewolf or something. The headphones have a location counter (currently 372) plus play, record, and rewind buttons.

I play the tape and at first don’t notice anything funny. It’s all Jimi Hendrix solos and the author didn’t even bother to find the names of real Hendrix songs. But when I rewind and play from the beginning, there is the distinct sound of Rimshaw hypnotizing someone from locations 124 to around 250. Did Rimshaw use these headphones to hypnotize someone into kidnapping Midrab’s daughter? Does the kidnapper even know that he or she did it?

No one will ever kill this radio star. Well, other than drugs.

The recording feature on the headphones is pretty neat. I am able to climb back up on top of the tent, play the radio, press record on the headphones, and then record as many turns of classical music as I want up until the end of the tape. The system is even smart enough to let me fast forward part of the way through the tape (past the hypnotism) and record only in the latter portion. It’s a pretty neat object, a neat little puzzle, and a clever bit of coding. I’m very impressed! It seems silly, but it’s one of the more clever object puzzles of the Infocom canon so far, which I was not expecting from Ballyhoo. Now I have “music to soothe the savage beast”. That sounds like it will come in handy! I also show the headphones to Rimshaw and he as an unguarded moment where he seems about to panic before he composes himself again. He’s guilty. It’s him and the clowns? I also realize they are too small to fit me so they might be for someone young. Were they Chelsea’s? Does she like Jimi Hendrix? I doubt it. Who did they belong to?

The keys do not just open up the the cage. Trying them around the yard reveals that they also open the gorilla’s cage on the other side of the elephant tent. The gorilla’s name is Mahler and he’s not completely happy to see me invade his space. If I stay too long or get too curious, he “kills” me with a fate worse than death: permanently maimed and forced to act as a circus freak. I am able to locate a trap door hidden under the straw in his cage, but going anywhere near it results in that death. The solution turns out to be the music, although I’m not sure I should do this yet. If you play the headphones, Mahler will snag them off of you and calmly listen to classical music. (Hendrix is not his thing.) That lets me open the trap door, but it is empty except for a red ribbon. What is the significant of the ribbon? I have no idea. Unfortunately, Mahler destroys the headphones as soon as the music stops. I make a note of this detour, but I still expect that I’ll need to hypnotize someone so restore back.

I did not wear a tutu while playing this segment.

Cowardly Lion Tamer

Leaving the menagerie, I find the detective slumped down on the midway. He’s alive, but barely. It doesn’t look like foul play, more like a drunken stupor. He’s still holding his “cure-all” flask and will not let it go. I try to search his coat but I am told that I cannot while he is wearing. He’s too heavy for me to get it off of him also and this could be something to come back to later, if I find some help. Is there a circus strongman around someplace? I was hoping that he had the ransom note in his pocket so I could compare it to the burned newsprint from the clowns’ trailer.

Trying my key all over the place, I discover that it doesn’t unlock any of the trailers or the main office, but it does unlike the storage compartment under the lion tamer’s trailer. It also unlocks the lions’ cage in the western ring of the Big Top. The storage compartment contains a bullwhip which I grab. I now have a whip, a chair, and a bucket of raw meat, plus access to a cage of wild lions. It’s my turn to be a lion tamer!

Letting myself in with the lions, I discover a large podium in the center of the ring and a closed grate to the south. The lions won’t let me near either. Although they are patient, I will get mauled if I stick around too long. My guess is that I am trying to “tame” the lions into letting me open the southern grate. From there, it’s either a place that I need to go or that they do, although I’m not sure which yet. Throwing the meat around calms the lions a bit, but they still do not let me go near the center podium. They do let me open the southern grate, but the game thinks that I am stupid for trying to climb in there so I’m guessing that was not the right call. Instead of tossing the meat immediately, I try the whip and chair. I spend a lot of time trying to find the right verb for whatever real tamers do with their chairs, but I eventually give up. Instead, I crack the whip over each of the lions. This is the point where I should remind you– and wish I had reminded myself– of Harry’s conversation about the lions. He said that Elsie could be tamed by the whip while Nimrod could not. Of course, I have no idea which is which and the game forces me to address them as the “shaggy lion” and the “smooth-bodied lion”. When I crack the whip over the shaggy lion, he gets really angry and kills me immediately. When I crack it over the smooth one, she calms down and goes into her routine. My guess is that is Elsie. That isn’t enough since she isn’t so docile that she lets me past.

And I admit that here’s where I took a hint. I was absolutely convinced that I needed to do something with the chair, but I could find no words that worked. In the process of looking up a walkthrough to see the command for the chair, I realize the real problem was that I didn’t crack the whip three times. The first time is just the start of the act. If you want her to do more, you have to keep doing it. Once she has been “tamed” three times, we can now open the grate again. Why Nimrod lets us now and not before Elsie was tamed will have to remain an exercise for the player. With the gate open, I can toss in the meat and… then what? I find that if I leave the cage and come back, they naturally went through the grate to retrieve the meat and that is good enough for me to be able to close them in. Lions managed! Now I can finally search the center podium to discover a cigarette case hidden underneath. What good does that do me?

It’s a mystery to everybody.

Wrapping Up

With no other leads, I start working on the (literal) case. Harry is still my best source of information for things around the circus and he tells me that the case belongs to Andrew. I take it to Andrew Jenny’s trailer and show it to both of them. Andrew doesn’t respond, but Jenny throws a fit. She fights with her other half, somehow remembering that she was involved in something that she didn’t want to be. Was she hypnotized? How do you hypnotize half of a half-and-half person? She reveals that Andrew and his “fellow thugs” are supposed to meet later this evening by Katz’s trailer. Jenny (somehow?) chases Andrew out of the tent and they are gone. Andrew is involved in this but not Jenny? That’s… logistically difficult. I’ll just roll with it. This means however that the clowns, Rimshaw, Andrew, and Katz are all involved. Is there anyone besides Jenny that is not?

I climb the stairs in their trailer and quickly discover that they are fake intended to lift you over a partition into another part of the otherwise flat trailer. On the other side of the partition is Andrew/Jenny’s half-and-half wardrobe with clothes that would make the Batman villain Two-Face envious. (Do you think he’ll be showing up in Batman Returns?) In the wardrobe is two outfits and I take both. Searching their pockets, I also discover a veil. I have a feeling that this will be enough to impersonate the duo myself. Why would I do that?

And that’s it for tonight. When I visit Katz’s trailer, I am told that it is too early. I spend time instead searching for new things to do but largely come up blank. Here is what I’m still working on:

I can’t find a way past the elephant into its tent. I was thinking that I could catch a mouse with the cheese, but I haven’t found one. Elephants hate mice, right?

I can’t wake up the detective or search him. He’s still dead drunk on the fairway.

I can’t get into either the office or the lion tamer’s trailer.

I can’t get the ribbon without destroying the headphones and I’m not certain I should do that yet.

This is a fun game, albeit a strange one. The circus-themed puzzles are unique for the games that we have played so far and that makes them somewhat more fun than they otherwise might be. Overall, the game is going a great job balancing out its humor with its darker mood. Not everything is perfect, but I’m pretty happy with the experience overall.

Time played: 6 hr 25 min Total time: 7 hr 35 min Inventory: mousetrap, President Taft, bucket, ribbon, skeleton key, newsprint, cheese morsel, ticket, headphones, gorilla suit, $19.81 (plus other stuff that I found but are storing such as the whip and stool) Score: 120 of 200 (60%)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-ballyhoo-circus-minimus/

[dromjournal]

Autumn 2018

I’m a man, middle aged, with a child about 7-9 years old. It’s before the industrialization. We’re walking by a farm/company which are renovating houses and filling the walls with sawdust for isolation. I talk to the head of the company, and he tells me it’s the best isolation there is according to all recent studies in your typical happy go lucky businessman-voice. He is also my landlord, kinda, and I live on a small neighboring farm which I have arrendated for many many years and I have made it pretty good for myself. He is rich and powerful though he isn’t power-grabbing or cruel, but he does see things very black or white. (To quote Mr Darcy himself: My good opinion once lost is lost forever.) My child finds a hutch with rabbits that he feeds some grass through the “fence”, and I notice it’s a small space for such large rabbits (they seem pretty young). I think they’re probably meat rabbits, which makes my child upset because he doesn’t want them to be killed. I tell him he can have ONE to take home/save, and I’m sure it will be fine because there is a lot of them. I open the cage and start checking the gender of the rabbits, because I think it’s more likely the does will be kept alive than the bucks, so I think it makes most sense to pick a buck. There’s only two of them so the kid picks one, though a little sad, and I tell them to go home. But then before I can close the cage a dog looking like a jack russel comes and fast as lightning gets into the cage, scooping up most of the rabbits into it’s mouth (due to dream logic they are now really really tiny) and runs away. I chase after it, and makes it drop the rabbits, but they’re all dead. The owner then comes around with a couple of other guys and notices, get really upset, I tell him I saw the dogs with the rabbits and chased after it. The cage had been overturned (which it had been when the dog jumped in it). It’s a lie, and I can tell he’s suspicious because they question that the dog could flip the cage from the outside, but he doesn’t have any proof of either so he agrees to what I says.

I know we won’t be allowed there anymore. The worker mentions a house/land I semi-recently inherited from a relative at the very north of the country, a long way even by car or train in modern times but a LOONG way to travel without them. I have never seen the place and I know for sure it’s not as great of a farmers land as I got here and mostly forest and cold, but it’s the only choice we got. I go check on the animals and we have a bunch of cows and pigs with piglets and chickens. We got three good draft horses. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to bring them all, but we can’t just leave them to die. I pick up two piglets from their mothers that both lie on their side inside a barn like they are sleeping and bring them outside for the first time, let them run around and jump and have fun. When I’m about to put them back though I don’t know which one is which so I put them down hoping it’ll be fine. But the mama pig gets angry at having a baby that’s not hers, and start squealing angrily and jumping and so does the other pig because of it. They are kinda fighting there and I can’t get inside to make them stop because they are large animals and well, I can’t just get in between. But when they settle down they have trampled the piglets and they are both dead. I feel like hope is lost. I leave, but there is some pigs that also get out because idk if something happened during the fight and some door opened maybe. A man who is a worker at our farm since forever, more or less family, is there. I tell him to slaughter the pigs that got out because I am completely down in the dopes and I don’t know how we’re gonna take them with us anyway. He doesn’t want to but agrees if he get like half the money or something. I agree, i don’t really care either way. I know we have to leave soon because the landlord is gonna come and he’s gonna take revenge. He’s not going to be merciful. We pack a carriage with horses and some cows and stuff trailing behind and start moving, but we don’t get far before we’re suddenly attacked by the landlord and several men with weapons. Our carriage is tipped and (for some reason) our animals felt in the fields are attacked/killed by rhinos. Knowing we have no chance, the older men try to give something to the child, hide him under something and tell him to close his eyes (as I swift pov to the boy) and everything goes black.

I am told a story about a man on Iceland who sold tobacco. He was the only person on the island who got tobacco so he have made a lot of money, and he also have huge chunks of farmland which he arrends to the townsfolk. But with time he turns greedy and doubles the prize of the tobacco  to something the modest people of the town can’t possibly afford. They instead all decide to work through their addiction and stop using tobacco. When he no longer get any customers, the man gets angry and tries to threaten people into buying his tobacco or he will not let them hire the fields, but they don’t have the money either way so what happens is his land isn’t farmed and everyone else have saved every possible piece of food for the winter, as usual, but he have always relied on getting a part of the food from the farmers on his land that now have given nothing - all he got is some cans with herring and it’s starting to get cold. He still have money but it’s useless, as no one will sell their food they themselves need to him. So he freeze-starve to death due to his own greed and stupidity.

I “wake up” outside the mans old cottage, and I can just about see the town from there placed in the middle of a ravine. The landscape as far as I can see is barren and very tundra-like. It’s autumn or early spring, and it’s getting dark out as I start walking towards town. I am a late teenager, a girl I think. It’s not a long trek, especially since it’s downhill, but when I get there it mostly seems pretty much everyone is inside already. Which I can’t blame them for, since it’s cold and dark. There is light in the windows and one place seems to be a bar or something else with party going on inside. There is a strict looking police woman standing outside talking to some people, and I hide in the shadows and between people. It’s not that anyone can tell by just looking at me but I also know that somehow, there is this kind of magic I have and there is people that doesn’t like that and as such I am technically an outlaw. I notice someone walking around on the rooftops, so I also climb up there, balancing at the top of the triangle roof with not too much problem. The person up there swiftly moves and stop me from stepping on the middle tile (with a nail in) as that nail (possibly because it’s metal?) is a trap for magic beings. It would diminish our power and alert them of our presence right away. He leads me from the houses up on the top of the cliff, and there is a rabbit sized hole in the mountain which is his home apparently. He can shapeshift. I can’t, so, shucks.

However, in the town below there is the police woman and someone else and they speak some riddles. The hole is way too small for me, so I sit outside and listen to them coming up with some to amuse myself. After they have figured all theirs out, I loudly tell them another riddle thinking it was just for fun. Instead the police woman’s face snaps towards me as they notice me, and she starts climbing up some stairs to get me/kill me? I’m a good climber tho so I just start running over the mountain. Fuckn rude.

She is getting closer though, more athletic than I am.  But then the other magic person appears from (my perspective) out of nowhere to help me, in the shape of a yappy small pomeranian dog. However as him and the police woman see each other they stop dead in their tracks. Then somehow it turns out they are soul mates. (And it’s that he’s a dog here, specifically, because she’s very much aromantic. Like. They are soulmates but not romantic.) And…. So she doesn’t care about me anymore. Neither of them do. I move back to the hole, and somehow I can now figure out how to get inside it.

And what happens is I once again wake up somewhere else, as someone else. There is a train transporting both humans and cargo in different carriages. I am an adult woman, together with another adult woman who is my friend and a little kid who is my sister or her sister, I’m not sure. It’s modern day. We sneak on board somehow first at the cargo part then through a window and hide in the back with all the luggage, before noticing there is actually some extra seats there. I however move a bit too close and some rude middle aged lady of course decide we are there illegally (well we are but you know still rude, you don’t know our story) and tell someone that come to check everyone’s tickets. The ones in the back are fine, we fake it somehow, it’s just me with a clearly fake ticket. I start talking to distract him and pretend to search for the ticket, but then the train stops out of nowhere and he leaves to go check what is going on.

We look outside. A horse have fallen onto the tracks from (presumably) having escaped from close by. The tracks have got some serious voltage running though them for some reason, and the horse have been electrocuted by stepping on them. If the train hadn’t stopped because of the horse, we’d all have been killed. We get to go outside to the side of the road, where they call for some kind of help. Personally I hitch a ride with a truck I believe, but that causes everything to go black and switch again.

I am a girl again, early teens. I am back on a train. This train looks like the ones you have in the metro rather than go across the country, with a couple people seated a bit of everywhere. I am a witch, people call me so - an older woman ask me to help her son or grandson idk, he have had a disease of the throat and  become mute. I want to help but the magic is just rarely really what you want, it’s trickster-y and I don’t know how to use it properly either way. I manage to give him his voice back, but in exchange the magic exchange his eyes for buttons like in Coraline. The old woman get angry, and the kid is upset, because it was easier being mute than blind. I didn’t mean to have it happen, but now all the people in the train are rioting against me and I once again switch.

I’m a young woman, late teens or early 20s. It’s modern day and it’s a big town, but it feels off somehow and kind of uncanny valley. It’s normal, but it’s not. I feel like I have to keep looking over my shoulder. I find a nursery home and it’s possibly the first place I see people entering so I go inside too, and notice that in between all the elderly there is a tough looking teenage girl with purple hair in a wheelchair acting like one of them. I question what she is doing there, but she gets angry. None of the old people want to acknowledge it, they just kinda ignore what I’m saying like they are afraid to talk about it. I ask one old man very detailed questions to get him to see that she is much younger, but when he actually does seem to realize she stands up and starts hitting him with a wooden stick so he fall down. I feel like something is too off and get the hell out of there, finding my way back to a train station to go “home”. (I am constantly on the move towards somewhere here but I can’t say where this home is) It’s pretty easy to find as it’s in the middle of the city, not to mention very large and almost looks like a roller coaster rather than train tracks. There is several levels. I get on a train, and there is many other people in it. To my D: D: I notice also the purple haired girl in the wheelchair, though it doesn’t seem to be voluntarily as she looks grumpy as ever. The people in this wagon have been invited and they are going on a trip. They’re all pretty young, except two adult people that is the chaperones I guess. The train starts moving, but not for long until it stops out of nowhere, doors opening and suddenly there is these metal bars keeping some people, including me and the person next to me, stuck to their seats. One of the chaperones leaves through the doors, going to find out what is going on. But as soon as they’re out, the door slams shut and the other chaperons stands up and picks a gun out of his pocket. People start to panic, but he explains that this is just a trap and the metal bar things? They catch magic people. The ones that are stuck are magic people and he’s here to kill them only.

The person next to me start screaming bloody murder in anger, and I use the time to use my own magic to create my own gun. I have started learning somewhat how you do it. I also haveno idea how to use it, so I know I’m only buying us time somehow. The guy next to me is shot in the head, and I’m lucky I’m kinda hidden behind some people so I am not next as he start picking off people. And I manage to get out of the metal bindings, but I don’t know how to get away - but the purple haired girl was seated behind me and she is ALSO one of the magics, and she asks for the gun and I give it to her because I’m panicking and I don’t know what to do. She does do, as she take it and shoot the Chaperone’s gun into a million pieces and I think he gets knocked out. The doors open again without him doing whatever he did, and I tell the girl we gotta go, leave. But she is refusing, since she can’t take the chair out as it’s stuck. I tell her she doesn’t even actually need the chair, she can use the magic to move herself. She still claims she can’t though, in a way that is clearly 100% being a shithead that doesn’t want to agree with me and not her actually being honest about it, so I think I end up figuring we don’t have the time and throw her like, onto my back and starts running off instead. She gets really mad because that seems to be her thing. When I let her down on her insistence she have no trouble and no magic to walk at all, and I ask wtf her issue is pretending to be elderly and disabled. I don’t get an answer.

As my sense of magic grows stronger and we get closer to a city again I start noticing we leave some kind of magic residue trail in the air behind us, like colors. I realize we might also be followed through those and it explains how some of these people hunting knew to go after us. I come up with some probably way too elaborate plan tbh to throw anyone following us off. I ask the other girl to split up and just run to the left at what looks like a lot of tall apartment buildings and then hide, expecting fully for this guy to go after me for some reason that had either to do with thinking the other girl would be much easier to capture so it’d be better to find me first, or that I’d be easier so they’d go catch me first. Either way it was all hanging on them going after me and not her. I go to something that might be an old train station, but it’s more a small city official office building by now and the trains placed in the tunnel in the back are just for show. Either way I sneak through to the back where I like, walk on top of the train and then jump up to a second level, sneaking through a window into a storage, then through a window in that room into an office. By then I have created some kind of illusion which is covering me, so none of the workers can actually see me. I think they might be seeing another employee I had briefly seen on my way in. I walk through towards the exit, but I spot the guy (The Chaperone guy) coming just before I step into the lobby and he’s walking through, following my trail like I expected. As soon as he is out of sight I book it, knowing he’s gonna take some time climbing around inside to follow me but he is none the less close, and go where I told the other girl to wait.

She is outside an apartment building by some mountain, not hard to find, and it’s starting to snow. It’s getting dark and we won’t be able to keep running like this. I use my magic once again now to steal a car parked in front of the house - not the nicest one I could find, one that wouldn’t make people look twice. Also pretty sure I specifically look for one that is manual because shit I can’t drive. I feel a bit bad about it because this is not some rich people neighborhood. The girl get in the passenger seat, and I drive away finding my way to a bigger road. The car moves too fast for our trail to be seen, and so we loose anyone tracking us.

I sigh in relief, and keeps driving towards home.