Welcome to the serialized story of Mr. Harmless Bullet! A new chapter will be published every Wednesday (FREE to read). For audio - scroll down.
Genre: satire, absurdist comedy, adult humor (16+)
Written with the Tristan Tzara method - read about it here
Complete story, chapter by chapter:
Angela Marrant
CHAPTER 10. NO ANSWERS.
Two hours of sleeping passed swiftly.
I felt like one of Tolkien’s heroes, stuck in a fantasy land thousands of miles from home with a war approaching. I stretched out, then stepped cautiously onto the wet surface of the raft and began to cross it, half sliding, moving to a meditative part where half-naked Hamilton was sitting and reading instructions on a bottle of scotch.
A real wildfire gripped my veins; the danger clutched my lungs - I lived on the edge, experiencing the most peculiar vacation ever.
I made a mental note to ask Captain Happy about Martha as soon as I saw him. Meanwhile, I stood in the middle and drank a twenty-year-old bourbon, which I got during my soft passage near King Hamilton. Satisfied, I waited until our next stop: I was too curious to meet a local cook.
On the shore, among the palms and wild bushes, the strange bag first came into view, followed by the bone of what seemed to be the arm of our local cook. I waited in a friendly manner to see the whole personality of this invisible creature. To be honest, I was expecting a steaming pot on a massive iron stove and a smiling lady with a big spoon.
But there was nothing.
The raft cautiously left the shore. I looked at the unmoving shadow, dressed in a hat, sporting a cute high-bridged nose and blazing downcast eyes. That strange being was the famous cook of Gunung Kinabalu.
The hat on her head deserves a special mention in my story… To my surprise, it was made of black plush—a cross between a bucket and elegant feathers—shining in the sun, something that Escrava Isaura, a sweat-hearted white slave, would recommend on GetASAPWorthy Adviser app if she’d been real.
The hat made the woman’s head look surreal, dragging my imagination where I wasn’t ready to go—to the puzzling, often eclectic crime novels written by Travis Knight, or probably, to the grotesque, give-me-rum absurdly-hot stories of Angela Marrant.
With a sad, faint expression, the creature in a hat introduced herself, “Hello! Miss Downhill Tasty.”
I prayed to God that her exceptional name wasn’t the reason for her futuristic, almost geometric shape, her white baby hands with blue stripes, and the very casual mahogany-colored hair on each toe.
I squinted at her as if doing so would bring a larger portion of food on my plate and asked, “So, what’s for dinner tonight?”
“Marmalade from algae,” she replied, concentrating on her heavy basket, “This is our tribal Grace of Thirty Wounds knife. I got it from my father, who spoke his final word twelve birdsongs ago.”
She held a sharp blade, licking the sides of it in slow monotonous torment. I leaned forward and inhaled the strong smell of fish from the basket.
“People have to eat something… I guess healthy marmalade fits perfectly in our daily routine!” I over-enthusiastically declared. “Frankly, I’ve never heard of marmalade from algae. Some mix of cement and dead crocodile?”
“Don’t insult her cooking abilities, Doc. At first, she usually washes and soaks the remains of dead Pyrrophyta and Chlorophyta, then cooks it with sugar in open vats into a liquor, which then thickens into a jelly.” Captain Happy gave me a patronizing glance.
I shifted in my corner uncomfortably: my blood sang from the hunger, and my heart craved a new direction in the wild ripples of life.
Captain scratched his ribs and laughed, “But you are right, her cooking killed twenty-two warriors last month.”
The wind carried his confession direct to Martha’s box, which was still dangling under the water. Soon enough, the loop of the breeze returned a low whistling cry, filling the air around us with hatred, impatience, and starvation.
I wasn’t alone in my fears!
“If you die,” Ms. Downhill Tasty interrupted my thoughts, “it will be like being blinded on a sunny day for our Kingdom. It’d bring extinction and grief. I’d suggest you wait until we arrive at the Warrior Farm, though. I’ll cook a wonderful meal for you, Doctor, from freshly grounded corn crumbs.”
I frowned, shocked by her confession, then rose from my place, bent down over the open basket, and grabbed the jelly. I clenched the stolen piece of melting marmalade in my fist and pitched into wet oblivion with a sickening sense of desperation.
When I recovered from drowsiness, I found myself tied up to a gold spike in the middle of the raft, with Martha hovering anxiously around my head. She proudly described how she saved me from seventy-eight razor-toothed piranhas, finding my lifeless body hanging on a hook of her box underwater.
“Was there anything edible in my hand?” I asked.
“No,” she answered, hiding annoyance in her eyes. She licked her upper lip, which was covered in malachite-like color, then sighed, “But it was sweeter than at home…”
I glanced to my left. The dinner party was in full swing: Captain Happy had fallen asleep, and Ms. DownHill Tasty stood and stared at the four Hamiltons, who were sitting across from her open basket, chewing green marmalade with rude intensity. Sticky drops of the bizarre meal rolled down their chins, necks, and bellies.
I wanted a bite of it.
Of anything. Just once.
to be continued…
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