Hobnob Standard by Leila Allison

-1-

Famous fantasy realms are ridiculously wealthy– them with their pool parties and scantily clad underage lawsuits in waiting. But for every emerald high rise in Oz there’s a dozen impoverished lands of make believe held together by duct tape and the wages of mental illness. My realm of Saragun Springs is as threadbare and stone soup as it gets, but that might be a-changing. Yes, prosperity and the torpedoing of what little charm we have may be just around the corner. Actually, it is up in the sky–and to paraphrase Dickie Plantagenet, we aim to pluck it down.

Normally, places like the Hundred Acre Wood acquire wealth via book sales, movie rights and characters licensed to pitch everything from pacifiers to coffins. But, as your reality has made abundantly clear, such rewards are not for Saragun Springs. To that we say, screw you, Big Publishing Companies, and may your comic book souls steep in Hell’s septic tank for eternity. And in that spirit of insolence, we recently completed a mission that might make the Springs the financial envy of the make believe multiverse.

A mission that went like this:

-2-

The coin of the Saragun Springs realm is called the hobnob–or hob. Actually a piece of construction paper, indifferently cut into rectangles about the size of a Snickers bar. The front of a hobnob has an ink stamped image of the putrid Spring at the center of the realm that it is named after, and a paw/hoof/hand drawn picture of a hobnob biscuit is on the back, because cookies are easy to draw and we only have the one stamp (which is actually of a bush of some kind, but it looks kinda sorta like the Spring). There are only unnumbered hobnob bills to date because they have no value–but as I stated earlier that might be a-changin’ soon.

Yesterday I held a gathering of some of the realm’s finest minds to announce a solution to our financial woes.

I was seated at the meeting table with my Imaginary Friend, Renfield and lead Fictional Character (FC), Daisy Kloverleaf (nee Cloverleaf).

I sighed. “Daisy, why are you now spelling your name with a K–do you know how many pages of back-editing that will cause?” Daisy appears in many productions; although I may have overstated the amount of work that may have caused if I really meant to do it, I had to ask because managerial nitpicking reminds everyone just who’s in charge.

“To set me apart,” said Daisy, in a tone that inferred her contempt for authority.

Apart from whom–all the other talking Pygmy Goats named Daisy Cloverleaf? Was ready on my tongue, but that’s when Aoife The Irish Hare and our Secretary of Treasury hopped into the meeting.

“Aoife, you’re late for your first appearance in a story,” I said. “I bet Welsh Rabbits keep better time.”

Like all FC’s in Saragun Springs, Aoife is insolent and does whatever she wants, because she has free will in the literal not Christian sense. She snarled at me and I could smell that she had been evaporating Stout at any one of the fifteen pubs and taverns in the realm. (Although poor, we have access to liquor because the person to whom I am Penname has a wildly overstocked liquor cabinet. Can’t have poverty without the presence of alcohol.)

“It’s pronounced ‘EE-fuh,’ Leila,” Renfield said, after I had said something that sounded like “Ay, opie.”

“‘EE-fuh’?” I’d only read the name and hadn’t bothered to check the pronunciation when creating Aoife. “How in the name of Lucky Charms do you get EE-fuh from A-O-I-F-E?”

“And Welsh rarebit is a food,” Daisy added, with a shining smile on her little Goat face. She likes nothing better than catching me in a mistake.

“What kind of food?”

“Melted cheese on toast,” Renfield said.

“Which kind of cheese?” I asked because I am easily distracted by food.

“The yellow stuff, for Jayzus’ sake,” said Aoife, who had hopped into a chair then onto the table.

“Anyway, welcome aboard as Saragun Springs two-hundred and thirty-third FC,” I said. “Hope you like it better here than in the Watership Down branch of the IRA.”

My blood-sugar was a bit off yesterday, a circumstance that often opens the gate to the paddock in which my indiscreet remarks are, well, paddocked.

Whenever something upsets Aoife (such as messing up her name, or calling her any kind of Rabbit or an operative in the IRA–especially after evaporating Stout), she gets up on the toes of her extremely long feet and repeatedly kicks the offender with a motion similar to one of those Michael Flately line-dancer folk. Such happened to me, and as a recent target of her ire I can testify that Aoife excels at kicking. Quick thinking Renfield fetched a Stout from the bar and poured it into one of those water feeder things you see in Hamster cages and placed it beside Aoife; finally a vague sense of order took shape.

“All right kids,” I said, then sighed “Yes, Daisy?” For she had raised her hoof.

“I’m full grown, not a kid anymore.”

“Point taken–and I’m certain that this type of interruption won’t serve to blow the word count for this production.” I stood and paced about the room, doing my best to look wise and inspiring. Unfortunately, nowadays, no matter where you are in the multiverse, authority must understand that the minute leadership turns her back everyone will covertly begin gazing into their phones. Since our Employer pays a stupid sum for the internet, we all have phones–and yes, even hooved creatures can use a smartphone as Earth’s politicians prove everyday.

But I had counted on that. “Since the phones are out, will you all please Google ‘16 Psyche,’” I said, not surprised that no one had feigned innocence. (Actually, Aoife wasn’t on her phone; but she was not paying attention to me as she lay on her back sucking on the Stout filled water-feeder as though it were a baby bottle.)

“It’s an asteroid that NASA plans on sending a probe to–due to arrive in 2029,” Renfield said. “So?”

“Daisy, please read how much metal-rich 16 Psyche is valued at.” After five seconds or so of silence had passed, I added, “Aloud, please.”

“Ten-thousand quadrillion US dollars,” she said. And I knew without seeing it that her little tail was wagging with excitement because Daisy is a devout Capitalist.

“That’s a lot of hobnobs,” Renfield added with a whistle.

“And I mean for us to have a fair share of the loot,” I said. “But we need to go to the Spring to place our claim.”

-3-

There’s a point at which “surreal” must surrender its meaning after too long on the job. So it was normal that our little Sun Pong should be darting about in the paisley sky (caused by Pong and his drunken brother, our Moon Ping), constantly causing moving shadows like time lapse photography, as Renfield, Daisy, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Yours Truly rode in our little electric cart to the foul Spring in the center of our realm. The Saragun Spring is an evil looking little geyser, whose spray casts black rainbows composed of tiny skulls and crossbones in the shifty Ponglight, and its water smells like a heavily used tavern toilet unflushed since Genesis.

As the New Kid, Aoife was supposed to give the backstory, right about now, as is the custom in the realm of Saragun Spring (think of it as an initiation), but she had reached a blood alcohol level scientifically known as all, so we put her to bed and located Peety, who is an interdimensional Cartoon Pigeon about the size of a cheeseburger. In all realms Peety is flat and appears drawn on the surface of the so-called reality he is currently at. He holds his liquor better than anyone in the multiverse (certainly better than an Irish Hare I know) because he was devised as a Cartoon mascot for PDQ Pilsner, a budget beer available only in Peety’s homeland, but he carries a bottomless can of PDQ (sometimes it takes the shape of a mug or bottle–but usually a can) everywhere he goes. His state of drunkenness varies throughout the day, between mildly buzzed to flat out belligerent. Peety communicates only through quotations from slob-coms and action films of the 70’s and 80’s. Animal House is his gospel.

Now, as I was filling in Peety’s backstory for Aoife on my phone as we traveled, I failed to notice that Renfield (who was driving) had taken a shortcut through the Witch HeXopahta’s Enchanted Wood. But when I heard a disgusted breeze, dripping with self righteous contempt coming through the trees, I stopped writing…

“Goddammit, Renfield, why are you cutting through the Woak Grove?”

Yep there they were, lining the path–the Woak Trees, who have multi-hued bark in which popular protest slogans take shape. The problem here (other than HeXy’s twisted sense of humor) is that there isn’t much to bitch about in Saragun Springs. No one is discriminated against, we are all equally broke and our climate is hardly affected by an electric cart. But since it is unnatural for sentience to be content, there’s always something to complain about.

“Shit,” I said, after a Woakcorn came close to hitting me in the head on the heels of my expressing my less than friendly attitude toward them, “I knew we should have put on the bubble top.”

“Hello, Woaks, what’s the cause?” Daisy had to ask.

And in the bark of all the Woaks we passed the words Defund Oxygen appeared on some, and others had #MeC.O.Too and there was also an appearance by Vegetarianism is Murder.

Although I agree with the Woak hatred of the potato heads (for different reasons) they are the sort of group that kicks down the paddock that holds my indiscreet remarks.

“If you guys don’t like it here, move to Venus,” I said. “Your roots are as inbred as the royal family. Ain’t a hell of a lot of cross pollination going on here–if ya catch my drift. Wanna hear a joke: “Knock knock. Who’s there? Funny Woak joke–Funny Woak joke who?’… then silence–get it? It’s like one of those religious pamphlets that says for instructions on what to do to go to hell, turn the page–and the next page is blank–get it? Get it?”

It was clear that they got it. And a hail of Woakcorns fell into the cart. Fortunately Enchanted Trees of any kind cannot speak or chase you. Nor do they have much in the way of throwing limbs. And also working for us is the fact a Goat will eat just about anything plantwise, and Daisy began devouring the missiles as though they were popcorn.

On our way out of the grove I just had to turn in my seat and yell, “How mature was that? That’s like Hens egging the farmer’s house!” The one and only well aimed Woakcorn hit me between the eyes and bounced right to Daisy.

“I’m glad that your head is good for something, today, Miss Leila,” said Daisy. “These are easier to get down when cracked.”

“My pleasure, I’m sure.”

And I could smell the Spring over the next rise.

-4-

“‘I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part’–Otter, Animal House,” said Peety upon our arrival, quoting the movie the same way religious persons quote bible verses.

“Indeed old chum,” I said.

“So what’s the plan?” Daisy asked.

“Have I mentioned the interdimensional vortex beside the Spring? The one only Peety can travel through and back?” I answered with that question, because it was one of the lines Aoife was supposed to say.

Renfield scrolled through this story on her phone. “Nope–lost in the Woak Grove.”

I smiled at Daisy, “Would you mind doing the honors?”

She sighed, thought ahead into the future and waited until this production told, in the past tense, caught up to her in the yet to come, which is now the present ( as you may have already guessed, the laws of the universe are conveniently flexible in Saragun Springs) as… it…will…about…now…

“Hello, reader, I’m Daisy Kloverleaf. Please forgive the abrupt change in tense. But I must, along with ‘breaking the fourth wall,’ because an Irish Hare got loaded and passed out before the third act of our little play. Anyhoo, there’s an interdimensional vortex located near the Spring. And whenever our somewhat addled leader wants to affect change in other sections of the Universe she sends Peety through, as she will now, I assume, do.”

After we waited in the Then for Daisy to return from the Now I handed Peety a silver Sharpie and a spycam and the three of us not named Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon shouted “16 Psyche or bust!”

Peety yelled “Roadtrip!” as he always does when sent on a mission (a word so common in Animal House that even he doesn’t bother to specify the quotation).

“Better write something about whispering instructions in Peety’s ear before sending him across,” said Daisy.

“Good catch, Daisy.”

The odd thing about the vortex is whenever I send Peety through it he returns before he leaves. He passes himself at the portal and for the split second that both Peety’s exist they yell “Roadtrip!” in unison.

Renfield’s phone rang. “It’s Aoife, she came to and tracked Peety’s mission on the mother Chromebook,” Renfield said. “Hmmm, yes, great great, hope you are taking some of the Hare that bit you–hello? Hello?–she hung up.”

“Did she see the picture Peety sent home?”

Renfield checked her phone–“Yes, it should be arriving in our network about…now…”

And on my phone the screen displayed a giant, slowly rotating amorphous rock that looked like a scone. One of the effects of going through the portal is that Peety is able to change his size to suit the location, but can never change it after being selected. In the Springs he’s the size of a Big Mac, but in outer space he’s two miles tall and the Sharpie and the camera were also enlarged. So quite clearly I saw PROPERTY OF PDQ PILSNER AND SARAGUN SPRINGS written in silver Sharpie on the flatter side of the thing.

We all stood quietly, even Pong, in the awe and majesty of the dreams of great wealth to come, albeit decades down the road.

Daisy finally broke the spell. “Let’s go back and get more of those tasty Woakcorns.”

Satisfied that I had finally written a sentence that has never appeared in any realm at any time, I smiled and said, “Whatever you say Miss K.”

Leila