T w e n t y S i d e d

The stadium is one big mossy Blood Bowl ball, and at long last, after many abuses and grim spectacles, it’s been punctured. It drains slowly in the moonlight. All that action–all that potential for action–vanishing into the night. But there’s still one bug hiding under that vast deflated canopy, and as I enter the subterranean locker room, there’s two.

“Perv,” I say. “Everybody’s gone home.”

“This is home.”

“That’s a bit maudlin, don’t you…” Then I notice the battered Morg n’ Thorg patterned sleeping bag. “Oh. That explains a lot.”

“I’m a long way from Potatoeville, coach.”

He scoots an inch down the bench. That’s more accommodation than I’d expected–I sit down.

“It’s never going to get any better,” he says, “is it.”

Should I tell him? Hell, why not. I’d been planning to wait until he was in a more stable frame of mind, but just look at the little bastard. He’s stable, alright–he’s sunk to the nadir like a big fat cannonball and I wouldn’t task ten men and an elephant to budge him. Not without the right leverage.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Half Time CH16: Split End”

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.

I’m wrestling with the most gut-twisting and unfair dilemma of my misspent life, and it naturally follows that I’ve taken my ethical contortions to the bar. I’ve a hazy notion that a few stiff ones will push me out of my deadlock. They won’t, obviously; that’s just a thin pretext for the usual moral procrastination and substance abuse. I’ve reached the point where I can observe and label my failings with the keenness of an ornithologist.

That’s the bother, isn’t it? Knowing what’s wrong with your life is certainly helpful. It just doesn’t require the same skillset as fixing it.

“Bartender, give me something really disgusting.”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” wheezes the man beside me.

The voice is painfully familiar. I do one take, then–as the evidence filters through the inebriation–a double-take. That besotted fop sitting next to me, red-eared, red-cheeked, and with the wispiest peach-fuzz hint of grizzled stubble on his chin–he’s the coach of the Surf Somethings, and he looks as bad as I do.

“What?” he says. “So I’m having a couple. Elves can’t get drunk.”

“I think they can,” I say.

“Can they? Shit.”

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Half Time CH15: The Big Game”

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.