Terms of the Agreement.

 

The agreement that we reached with the participant who exercises dominion over this segment of the Sector obligates us, if a patch is ever to be undone, to regale a living portrait of the founding faction with recordings of troubling machinery. But a switch which we have parlayed into a tidy, if swarthy, nest egg, is never to be exchanged for oblerments without explicit direction from those whose rumored existence is above all else, or likewise our common kitty will be splundered and a decoy splayed into finite grumblings for the pleasure of salutary Viscounts.

When, at the behest of said Viscounts, I pull our singular volunteer aside and motion for her to appear comatose lest we arouse suspicion, it occurs to me that this game I've been playing since the fifth day is almost at a point of culmination. I retract my artisanal third limb from a sorting device, launch into a needless expiation and arrive at a brief pre-climax opportunity for banter while offering her a pilfered portion of luckmeat from our stationary trunk. Avoiding restless vagabonds in our search for the common meat is thought to be a trap for the unweary; that is to say, those who avoid sitting within the range of pleasant wooden cottlings are soon to be appointed to launch a vainglorious night of tricks without any regard for whatever rear-echelon pliant skank boldly shrinks from a wavering pustule.

The flag that I seem to remember retaining for that final bland eruption is now hanging with all the rest in a forlorn resting pattern which resists any effort to entangle in a storm so blank that a germ forgets its route through a decadent shrine. This is why it matters so much. The lingering breach which floats to the surface of olfactory dreams, lives to disarm the love of flavors in a boldly encountered Episcopal pilot. He surrendered his life for a chance at harboring a crystal channel and earning a rapt epigram at my fourth funeral. The grieving process has only just begun and I'll do my best to get you switched out for one of the rampant pansies who mope in our yard for scraps after dark. Is this a 'thing'? (Yes)

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