Xtreme nachoZ

The letters were orange and gold and black, and about an inch high—which meant they took up quite a large chunk of the real estate on the rear panel of the shiny foil bag.  

“Zesty XplosionZ of cheeZe Xstacy” they said.  Smaller letters below elaborated upon the concept, in similar language.  
There were even larger letters on the front of the bag:

“cheeZe Xtreme nachoZ” they declared.  “(™),” they noted.  

“Wendel,” said Mr. Simmers, balancing the bag proudly and delicately between two pudgy hands, “You are the best.  The very best.”

He held the bag forth.

Wendel Werner Wilson, expert writer of promotional copy for snack food packaging, took the proffered bag and examined the writing.  It had come out well.  He liked the font they had used for the Xs and Zs.  Definitely stood out.  And the brilliant oranges and blacks of the promotional text were set off quietly and nicely by the staid square of nutritional information, and—of course—the brand logo.

Mr. Simmers smiled a broad, bright, bleached smile, and held out a pudgy hand.  His eyes were bright as he caught Werner’s gaze.  Sweaty palm met sweaty palm.  They shook.  

“I wouldn’t trust my copy to anybody else,” said Mr. Simmers.  “Really.  Thank you.”  

The phone rang, prompting an apologetic face from Simmers, and an understanding nod from Wendel.  If you’re the Man in Charge of the West Coast branch of one of the largest manufacturers of Zesty snacks in the world, you have limited time, even for one of your best employees.  

Mr. Simmers picked up the phone.  His brow creased in a frown; his eyes focused on something that Wendel could not see.  The writer quietly took his leave.  

The corridor connecting the chief’s office with the illustrious spaces inhabited by the Marketing Department was lined with posters of past triumphs of TanGy GoodnesS™ and SpiCy SenSationS™.  Wendel touched one or two in habitual reverence as he passed.

And then he reached his office.  

His office; his climate-controlled office with the big mahagony desk and the large bay window looking out over the city; his office that he had earned through his own merits, working his way up through the ranks, no matter what his parents or his counselors or his ex-girlfriends had said; his office at the most prestigious end of the hallway, right across from the art department.  He sighed in satisfaction as he entered, and ran a finger lovingly along the darkly polished wood of his desk; Wendel Werner Wilson’s big spacious office.  

And now, there was more writing to be done.  A new brand of organic chips to work on—rich, balanced Melds of Natural Herbs and Spices, he thought—and, of course, the CheeZe XtreMe II text to draft out.  

Wendel set the bag of chips down on his desk.  Tonight, he would take it home, to join the rest of his masterworks upon a large shelf in his living room.  

The computer came to life with a soft purr when he clicked the mouse to wake it from power saving mode.  The blinds over the bay window were drawn, as always, to prevent glare on the computer screen.  The huge leather chair behind the desk, set at just the right height in relation to the keyboard to ward off carpal tunnel syndrome, welcomed and enveloped him as he sank into it.  

“Ye FUCKING Gods!”

The exclamation, muffled and a bit squeaky—but still clearly audible—seemed to come from somewhere beneath Wendel’s posterior.  

Wendel rocketed out of his chair.  

He swiveled swiftly on his heel, almost lost his balance, and caught himself painfully by jamming the edge of his hip against the desk.  

“Thank the Gods and praise the Mother!” said the voice, still squeaky; no longer muffled.  

There was a leprechaun, somewhat flattened, lying amid the wrinkled leather expanse of the seat of his chair.  (Wendel knew that it was a leprechaun because it was about six inches high, wore green from head to toe, and had a miniature bottle of what was sure to be something alcoholic clutched in its hand.)  

“I suppose,” said the leprechaun, “that this counts fairly as catching me.  I don’t have the strength to move for a little while, anyway.”  The little creature shook his head sadly.  “Fuck,” he said, “Capture by way of ass.  Wait ‘til the folks back home hear about this one.”


“The problem,” said the leprechaun -- whose name, it turned out, was “Jack—just Jack.”

“The problem,” Jack said, “is that I don’t have my pot of gold handy anymore.”

“Oh?” said Wendel, who was growing quite impatient—he had work to do.  

“Well, I have the pot,” Jack corrected himself, gesturing from his perch atop Wendel’s desk, leaning against the mouse, “It’s just that I gave all the gold to the poor in Botswana.  That was all Jenny’s fault.”

“Jenny?” asked Wendel.  

The leprechaun took a swig from his bottle before answering.  “Fairy I know.  Sweet lass.  Hellacious in the sack.  But damn her bleedin’ heart!”

“I see,” said Wendel.  

The leprechaun reached for another chip.  This was something that he had done that had annoyed Wendel—he had ripped open the bag of cheeZe Xtremes and started nibbling on them.  It wasn’t that Wendel couldn’t replace the bag—but the leprechaun’s habit of nibbling away a little bit of a particular chip and then tossing it to the floor with a strength that belied his size was beginning to grate on the copy-writer’s nerves.  

An earlier rant on the leprechaun’s part about the circumstances of his capture hadn’t helped, either.  (“One nap in a thousand years,” he had said, “The one time I let down my guard, and I get caught by your big fat ass—lose some weight, man!”)

“I do owe you something, though” Jack said, sighing.

“How about three wishes?” said Wendel.  Leprechauns weren’t the copy-writer’s specialty, but he did have some dim childhood memories about three wishes being part of the bargain when leprechauns were involved.  

“Banned by the U.N.,” Jack replied.  “Resolution number 7-6-5-something or other.”  He shrugged.  “Understandable.  You think that nuclear weapons are bad, you should see some of the stuff that people have done with wishes.”  Jack munched on a chip meditatively.  “There was a time when I would’ve just given you the empty pot, but perhaps I’ve mellowed with the millennia.  I feel like I owe you something.”  

Jack looked at the package of chips, inspecting letters half the height of himself.  “You write copy for these things, you said?  What a depressingly empty thing to do.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” said Wendel testily.  Coming up with the precise words to convey the delicious ecstasy that awaited consumers when they cracked open a bag of the company’s latest offering in the realm of crunchy goodness was a tremendously satisfying career.  

Wendel didn’t want for anything, really.  Money wasn’t a worry.  He lived in a nicely furnished luxury apartment in a good part of town.  He had a big screen TV.  There was an empty place in his life in the girlfriend department, but somebody who appreciated the subtleties of wordsmithing for snack products would come along eventually.  Surely, she would.  

The leprechaun clapped his hands, cutting off Wendel’s brewing rant before it had a chance to begin.

“I know just the thing!” he said, “I’ll have Jenny set you upon a quest!  She’s got all sorts of quests lined up for brave young heroes like yourself.  Just think of it.  Something that will make your life matter!”

“I don’t—” Wendel said.  

“And I’ll make sure that it’s something that requires plenty of exercise,” the leprechaun added cheerfully.  Then he snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving Wendel alone with his bitingly defensive retort half-cocked with nowhere to go.  


“You don’t really look like the hero sort,” said the fairy critically.  “But I suppose it takes all types.”

Jenny sat atop Wendel’s flatscreen TV, legs crossed, her lacy wings fluttering with determined energy.  

Wendel had decided to dismiss the whole affair with the leprechaun this afternoon as a fantasy—a daydream, or perhaps even a hallucination induced by too much work.  He had been going non-stop for a good year now.  Hadn’t even taken a sick day since—well, he had never really taken a sick day.  Wendel hadn’t felt like he needed a vacation, but perhaps he did.  It was definitely a bad sign when you started seeing things.  And this afternoon’s affair with the leprechaun was definitely a hallucination, if it was anything.  

Then the fairy showed up.  

She sat on top of Wendel’s television.  The room was dark—Wendel had been watching a fairly decent TV movie when the fairy had appeared and turned the set off—the major source of light was a faint, shimmering glow from the fairy.  

“Hmmmm…” Jenny continued.  “There are just so many things to be done.  And you do have a bit of Magic in you.”

“Magic?” said Wendel.

“Magic,” Jenny said.  “Really, advertising isn’t that much different from fairy glamour.  You take something mundane and cloak it in illusions so that it appears to be something wondrous.  Or at least sexy.  Magic.  Goddess knows that ‘IntenZe burstZ of phreakY phlavR’ has nothing to do with what this bland crap really tastes like.”

(Jenny had found the chip collection first thing, sitting pristinely on its shelf, and she had promptly broken into the ‘rioT of ridgeZ’ potato chips—the fairy even seemed to have picked up the leprechaun’s nasty habit of taking one bite and disposing of the rest of the chip somewhere on the floor.)  

Jenny munched a chip meditatively.  “You know,” she said after a little while, “you can really tell that a woman doesn’t live here.”

“I keep the place clean,” said Wendel testily.  

“That’s not what I was talking about,” Jenny stated, “The energy here just screams ‘one man, lonely.’”  

She snapped her fingers, and her hair—which seemed to shimmer between blue and green and blond and red and several other colors—bounced with the motion.  “That’s it!” she said happily.

Jenny’s wings beat faster, becoming a blur, and she rose into the air.  Her body began to glow brighter.  It was an odd sort of glow, because it seemed to suck the light out of the rest of the room.  

“Wendel Werner Wilson,” Jenny said, her voice deep, and unnaturally loud.

“Wendel Werner Wilson,” she said, her body shining brilliantly through her gossamer spider’s web and flower-petal garments, even as the rest of the room grew black as midnight.  

“Wendel Werner Wilson,” she said, filling his vision, her voice thundering in his ears.  

“I shall give you the ability to see the world in Metaphor, Wendel Werner Wilson, Human, Hero.  And I shall set for you three tasks.  And when you have completed the tasks, you shall find your True Love.”

And then, without even so much as a poof of smoke or a thunderclap, she was gone.  

“Three tasks?” said Wendel weakly.  “See in ‘Metaphor’?  My true love?”

He rallied his courage.  

“Wait a minute,” he said, rising from where he had been sitting on the couch, “Why not just the true love?  I mean, I caught the leprechaun, right?  Why the tasks?  Does this have something to do with that ‘meaning’ stuff?  My life doesn’t need meaning.  I told the damn leprechaun…”

The television was off.  The room was lit by the soft glow of streetlamps outside.  There was no answer.  He was alone.  

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do…” said Wendel, sinking back into the couch.  

“Jenny?”

Still, silence.  


“I am to rescue the Princess from the Ogress,” Wendel said to himself as he put toothpaste on his toothbrush the following morning.  

“No,” he replied, “I am to go to work, and I am to write about ‘Rich Melds of Organic Flavor.’

Work didn’t go well.  Words refused to come.  Wendel knew that there was something inside of him that spoke of rich fields of organic grain giving rise to subtly flavored bounties of spices, but that something refused to manifest itself in write-able, marketable form on his computer.  

Wendel turned to the World Wide Web, seeking inspiration in bookmarks dedicated to the web sites of the snack food industry.  There was a merger between two major chocolate manufacturers that he should have been interested in.  But the words danced and shimmered on the screen, devoid of meaning.  

In desperation, Wendel pulled up the cheeZe Xtreme II files on his computer.  Here was something exciting, inspiring; here was some writing he could sink his teeth into.  

The trouble, really, was that it wasn’t him.  It was that life had been decidedly weird around him all day, and it was just too damn hard to concentrate.  

For example:  Wendel had no idea why Ms. Janson, the receptionist, had been walking around carrying a huge cross on her shoulders.  There were a few lower level copy-writers in the cubicle spaces down the way that seemed to have lost their faces.  And Mr. Simmers hadn’t shown up for the usual 10 o’clock pep talk with Marketing.  When Wendel had gone in to check on him, he had found a little boy huddled in the corner of Mr. Simmer’s office.  The boy bore a vague resemblance to the chief.  Perhaps a son?  Or grandson?  The man himself was nowhere to be seen.  

Lunch hour finally, thankfully arrived.  There was a sandwich shop that Wendel liked not a far drive from the office.  What Wendel needed was a nice big ham sandwich (two slices, on wheat, with just a little mustard and plenty of lettuce) and some human counsel.  And so he went in search of his friend Ted, from the art department.  

There was a monkey in Ted’s office, throwing pencils around, screaming something about rain forests.  Dining alone suddenly seemed to be the better idea.  

When Wendel got into his car, he realized that he couldn’t remember where the sandwich shop was.  He did know, however, the exact set of onramps, interchanges, off ramps, and boulevards to take if he wanted to drive to the palace where the princess was being held captive.  

Wendel sighed at put the car into drive.  If that was the way that things were going to be, that was the way that things were going to be.  


The palace was off a broad surface street and then another broad surface street, at the top of a small hill, at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Wendel stood on a stone walk leading to the front gate.  It was a pretty big palace, and a pretty grim palace as well.  About as grim as a sprawling, middle class, suburban ranch style palace could get.  Its cold stone walls loomed over the surrounding houses—it was two stories tall, which was odd for a ranch style home, but it did help with the looming.  

The sky had been blue when Wendel had stepped out of his car; the weather sunny.  But the palace’s windows were the color of lead, and the sun didn’t quite seem to reach beyond the sidewalk.  

Chilled was what Wendel felt.  Shivering, arms wrapped tight around himself, he advanced up the walk.

Jenny was there, sitting on a twisted lawn ornament:  a faded little elf that had been battered by a hundred dreary Christmases.

“So this is seeing in Metaphor,” said Wendel.  

“Yep,” said Jenny.  “Like it?”

“My friend, Ted, is a monkey,” said Wendel.  

“Makes sense,” said Jenny.  

“I was happy with the way things were.”

“Now, things are different.”  

“What would happen,” said Wendel, “if I just refused to rescue the princess?”

“In that case, you’d be stuck in Metaphor forever,” said Jenny cheerfully.  

“Ah,” said Wendel.  “I had a feeling that it was something like that.”  

Jenny nodded, satisfied, and vanished.  

This ranch house had a thick wooden gate, of course, bound in iron.  And towers.  Several towers, on top of the extra story, reaching up into a leaden sky.  

The gate made the expected hollow booming sounds when Wendel applied his fist to it, though the echoes seemed thin, strained, as if they stopped at the limited margin of the sidewalk.  

Time passed.  Wendel raised his fist to knock again, but had to step back instead, as the gate swung outward.  There was an Ogress standing on the other side.  

“Waddaya want?” the Ogress said.  She had tired, yellow eyes, and scraggly teeth, and she stooped as she stood.  

“I’ve come to rescue the princess,” said Wendel.  

“Rescue the princess?”  The Ogress looked at him hollowly.  “Who’d bother with her?”

Wendel gave the most determined, brave, confident stare he could muster in return.    

“Fine,” the Ogress finally said.  “Whatever.”  

The Ogress stepped back.  “The little bitch is in her room,” she said.  

She wandered off, then, into the dark places beyond the gate.  Wendel spent some moments gathering his courage, wondering just how risky Jenny and Jack would allow this quest to become.  And then he followed the Ogress into the palace.  

It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior, even after the unnatural lack of sunlight outside.  The Ogress was sitting down by that time, in a faded easy chair in the cob-webbed living room, staring at the wall.  She moved her mouth mechanically, and Wendel realized that she was softly whispering.  

“Useless,” she whispered, and her wispy voice echoed from the walls, gathered strength, gathered numbers.  A chorus of feathery voices caressed his ears:

Useless.  

Hopeless.  

Stupid.  

Slut.

“Feels like home,” said Wendel, thinking about his parents.  

He looked at the Ogress.  She seemed to be ignoring him, continuing to focus her attention on the wall, and yet her mouth moved on, conjuring whispers.  Wendel shivered, and turned away.  

A staircase lead up into darkness.  The princess would be upstairs, of course.  Wendel ascended, his loafers creaking on the rotting wood.  

The princess’ room was at the end of a dingy hallway, past a broom closet, past a large bedroom that looked like it might belong to two ogres.  The faded remnants of a poster depicting a young man with black eyeliner, electric guitar slung across his front, clung to the door.  

Wendel knocked.  

Worthless, said the whispers.  

There was a pause, some rustling, and then the door opened a little way.

“Who are you?” said a small voice from beyond the door.

“Name’s Wendel,” said Wendel, “Just here to rescue you.”

Whatever, said the voices.  

“Oh,” said the princess.  “I think that it’s probably too late for that.”
Too late.  

“Probably,” said Wendel.  “No point in it really, is there?”

Nope.

“No point,” said the princess.

“Not a point in letting me in,” said Wendel, “Not a point in keeping me out.  Mind if I come in?”

The princess slowly, hesitantly, opened the door.    

She was small, and had dark hair, and was old enough to have breasts.  She gestured him in, waved him to a peeling wooden chair in front of a peeling wooden desk.  She sat on the bed.  The bedcover was old and ragged, and spotted with fresh blood.  

“Sorry,” the princess said, “just carving my name in my wrists again.”  

She regarded the blood.  “There are bandages in the bathroom,” she said.  

Wendel went and got them, and bound her wrists.  

“They’re lying, you know,” said Wendel.  “The whispers.  Your parents.  What they say isn’t true.”

“I know,” said the princess.  Her eyes were tired and empty.  

Wendel realized that he had no idea what to do.  The silence grew uncomfortable.  

So he left.  

Told you so, said the voices.  

The gate closed with a creak and a squeal and a thud behind him.  


Wendel sat on the brown grass between the curb and the sidewalk.  Noon had come and gone.  The house loomed behind him, casting shadows that bothered the hairs on the back of his neck.  

“Less sitting around,” said Jenny, “More rescuing.”

 “I’ve been there,” said Wendel, “Nobody can come in and take it away.  You need to rescue yourself.  You have to make that decision inside yourself to move beyond it, and then you can.”

“The next time she carves her name in her wrist,” said Jenny, “will be the last.”

Wendel felt fury rising.  He turned to the fairy, who was hovering near eye level.

“What the FUCK am I supposed to do then?” he shouted.  

Jenny flew back a few inches in surprise.  Then she zoomed straight in to Wendel’s face, beating her wings fiercely.  

“Words,” she hissed, “That’s how you work your Magic.  That’s why people buy your stale little chips—use it for something useful for once.”

Words.  Metaphor.  Magic.  

Wendel laughed, a bit hysterically.  

He knew what he had to do.  


The mall seen in Metaphor was…something else.  

The sickening, mind-clogging muzak; the migraine-inducing flickering of the fluorescent lights; the colors; the sounds; the shopper zombies wandering the floors aimlessly, bulging bags hanging from decaying wrists.  

Wendel went in and got a small hand-mirror and a permanent marker and was out again as quickly as he could.  

Back in the car, he sat and thought, and then carefully wrote a spell across the back of the mirror.  


The door to the palace was locked and barred when he returned.  The windows were cold and leaden; the sun was setting.  

There were no stones on the lawn.  Wendel went back to his car, dug some change out of the ashtray.  He did some guesswork, and tossed a coin at a window, high up in a tower.  He waited.  Then tossed another.  The princess opened her window and leaned out.  

“Tie some sheets together,” said Wendel.  “I need to climb up.”

“Why?” asked the princess.

“Rescue attempt take two,” said Wendel.  “Just roll with it.”

It was getting quite dark, and a cool breeze had turned downright cold, by the time the princess had gathered and tied the necessary sheets and let them down.   Wendel grabbed ahold of the sheet-rope.

Wendel strained.  The sheets stretched.  Wendel didn’t budge.  

Maybe it was just the wind, but a certain set of soft, whispery voices seemed to be laughing their ghostly asses off somewhere up above, beyond the open window.  

“I’m stronger than you think,” Wendel muttered.

“Some people can lift a car when they need to,” said Jenny, in his ear.  “It’s because they need to lift the car, and because they refuse to believe that it cannot be done.”

“Glamour—magic—draws strength from the power of belief.” said Wendel.  “I believe in words.”

Then he took in a deep breath.  “Just do it,” he whispered.  

“Just do it,” he said aloud.  

“Just do it!” he shouted, his voice full with the power of thunder.  

Powerful arms—Wendel’s own powerful arms—pulled him up the sheet rope, his feet wrapping, bracing, kicking.  

Wendel took the dead absence of sound when he reached the top for stunned silence on the voices’ part.  

“This is not forever,” he told the princess, once he had caught his breath.  

“I know,” said the princess; “It’s long enough.”

“You are radiant light,” said Wendel.  

“I am a pale ghost,” said the princess.  

He gave the mirror to the princess.  She took it.  

“Read the back,” said Wendel.

She did.  

“It’s not Shakespeare” said Wendel, “it’s pretty clichéd, too.  I’m basically working with slogans here.  That’s what I know.  But sometimes clichés are true.”

The princess turned the mirror over and looked within.  

The ghost of a smile played upon her lips.  

“Thank you,” she said, her voice small.  There was just a hint of hope in it.  

Wendel kissed the princess on the forehead, and climbed back down.  Jenny was waiting for him at the car.  

“What’d you write?” Jenny asked.

“The trick to advertising,” said Wendel, “is to take a small little kernel of Truth—of positive truth—and build around that.  Usually you use it to take an ordinary product and and find something true about it that makes it seem like a treasure.”

“And?” said Jenny.  

“The mirror takes an ordinary person and shows them something true about what’s inside.”

“She’ll make it,” said Jenny.  

“She has a shot,” said Wendel.  

The voices were silent.  Wendel drove away.  


Bed sounded good.  Jenny had other plans.  

“That was three tasks,” she said.

“Morning is an excellent time to worry about task two,” said Wendel.  

“Drive,” said Jenny.  

They drove—on a broad swath of concrete that cut through towering spires of steel and glass.  Demons and sprites lurked in the shadows of underpasses, gibbering bits of poetry at them as they passed.  The coils of a great serpent lay across the center divider.  Its head was wrapped about an ‘End Freeway’ sign; it glared at them with baleful eyes as they passed.

The freeway became highway, and then pavement gave way to sand as they reached the ocean.  Wendel parked the car, got out, began to walk.  

Murky waters crashed in the night.  The overcast sky above glowed a dull, muddy brown with light reflected from the sodium lamps of the city—artificial moonlight.  The sand sucked at his shoes.  He took them off, threw them over his shoulder, holding them by the laces.  

The tide was going out.  Wendel reached the firm, wet sand left by the retreating waves.  Walking became easier.  

“Why the beach?” Wendel asked.  “Odd place for a fairy tale.”

“You’ll see,” said Jenny.

Wendel composed a contrite reply in his head, but the fairy was gone.  

“I hate it when she does that,” he said, to nobody.  

“Tell me about it,” said a grunion, flopping, gasping for breath on the sand.  

“A bit out of season for you, isn’t it?” said Wendel.  

“Late up until the end,” said the fish, and then it died.  

“Hope that I wasn’t supposed to rescue you,” Wendel said.  

He stared at the dead fish for a little while, feeling that maybe he should say something over the body.  What did one say over the body of a dead fish?

Somewhere, in the darkness, a stomach grumbled.  It wasn’t Wendel’s.  

Wendel turned.   A Troll loomed up out of the night, its decaying mass cast in freakish clarity by the light of the glowing sky. The Troll’s body creaked and crinkled and groaned as it moved—it seemed to be composed of plastic six-pack rings and styrofoam cups and empty foil bags that once might have contained snack foods.  

The Troll reached out with one great hand.  The fingers were tipped in discarded hypodermic needles that oozed dark fluid, and webbed with empty nacho-chip bags.  Wendel recognized some of his own work on the Troll’s palm, looming at him out of the night.  

“Dinner,” the Troll said, referring to Wendel.

The oozing needles swept toward Wendel’s face.  

Dodging seemed like an excellent plan.  Wendel implemented it swiftly.  The Troll’s massive hand, smelling strongly of rot and decay and stale nacho chips, rushed through the air where Wendel had been a split second before.  

“You’re quicker than some,” said the Troll.  His words sounded strange, like his mouth didn’t open and close properly, and there was a crinkling sound whenever he moved his plastic jaw.  

He made another grab for Wendel.  The writer stumbled backwards, fell flat on his back.  The wind whooshed out of him.  

“Clumsy, though,” the Troll commented.  

Wendel couldn’t move, couldn’t breath.  The troll bent down; the sharp tips of needles caressed Wendel’s cheek, oozing slime.  

“Tasty,” the troll rumbled.

Plastic teeth closed around Wendel’s neck.  They weren’t especially sharp plastic teeth; the Troll worked its jaw, attempting to grind them into Wendel’s flesh.  

Somehow, Wendel managed to squeeze a garbled scream around the crushing pressure on his windpipe.

After some moments of grinding and screaming, a little detached bit of Wendel noted that this wasn’t getting him anywhere.  The screaming stopped.  That pleasant clarity that comes when one is undergoing trauma—when a Troll is trying to rip one’s throat out, for instance—came over Wendel.  He needed a plan.  He had a plan.  

“Give a hoot,” Wendel gasped, squeezing the words out with all his will, putting as much of the force of his Magic into them as he could manage, “Don’t pollute.”

The Troll recoiled.  Judging by the new and different pain, Wendel guessed that he had taken some chunks of throat with him.  

Wendel gritted his teeth, and struggled to his feet.  The Troll roared and beat its chest.  It raised a great, clawed arm to strike.  

“Pack it in,” Wendel said quickly, ignoring the fact that speaking made his smashed windpipe burn like fire.  

The Troll hesitated.  

“Pack it out!” Wendel snapped, advancing.  

The Troll flung its arms up in front of its face and dropped to its knees.  

“Reduce,” Wendel stated firmly.  

“Reuse,” he continued, spreading his arms wide, his voice gathering power.  

“Recycle!”  Wendel thundered.  It felt like the force of the words would blow his abused windpipe right out of his throat.  

The Troll howled in pain and terror.  And then it exploded, smattering Wendel and the beach with foul smelling junk.  

Wendel thought about fainting.  But he knew what he had to do.  

There was a lifeguard station nearby, stationed on a rise in the sand, silhouetted against the sodium sky.  It was flanked by a pair of metal trashcans.  Gathering all the trash and packing it into the cans took a long, long while.  Worries about horrible infections brewing in the open wound on his neck kept Wendel’s thoughts occupied throughout the drudgery of the work.  Maybe he’d never be able to speak again.  

I wonder what sign language is like in Metaphor, he thought to himself, as he put the last piece of trash in a can.  And then he collapsed into the sand.  Consciousness slipped away somewhere into the night, beyond the waves crashing upon the gleaming sand.  


Wendel woke to sunlight and something cool on his forehead.  

He gave the light some time to wash over him, and then opened his eyes—slowly, cautiously; one at a time, to ward off the glare.  There was a blur of motion, and then Jenny was hovering in the air above him, a huge (for her), damp washcloth in her hand.  

Wendel felt his throat.  The pain was mostly gone.  

“Jack and I took care of the bite,” said Jenny.  “You’ll have a few scars, though.”

“Thanks,” said Wendel.  

“And you won’t catch anything,” said Jenny, “You moderns are always so worried about that—little bit of fairy Magic and leprechaun’s Luck took care of it.”

“Thanks,” said Wendel again.  

He thought some more.  “I could have been killed,” he said.  

“Yep,” said Jenny.  “Not much of a mighty task without the risk.”

She did have a point.  “What was that thing, anyway?” Wendel asked.  

“Spirit of…not so much the trash, but the spirit that allows people to litter this beach,” said Jenny.  “I was impressed with the way you defeated it, by the way.  I thought those slogans had lost power a long time ago.”

“You were watching?” said Wendel.  

“Oh yes,” said Jenny cheerfully.  “Like to keep tabs on you.”

“And you felt no need to give me a hand?”

“As I said, not much of a mighty task…Anyway, it’s best if these things are defeated by somebody at least partially responsible for creating them.”

“I don’t litter,” said Wendel.  

“But you created the bags in the first place,” said Jenny, “And you know what people do with them.  People are responsible for a lot more than they usually take credit for.”

It was probably time for a venomous response to that, but Wendel found that he didn’t have any.

“Is the thing gone for good, then?” he asked instead.  

“Nope,” said Jenny, “but the beach will be cleaner for awhile.  And you’ll give thousands of people a little extra joy when they don’t have to step in somebody’s lunch on their way to take a swim.  You’ve done good.”

“Great,” said Wendel, rubbing his throat, sitting up slowly.  The beach did look a bit cleaner, brighter—more sparkly—than when he had seen it last.  “So what’s next?”

“Easy,” said Jenny, “Find your True Love.  Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” said Wendel.  “I think I dropped my shoes somewhere around here...”


“I thought that True Love was just in fairy tales,” Wendel said.

“Well,” said Jenny, “There are a lot of people who could be your True Love.  And True Love doesn’t actually last forever in most cases.  But I can guarantee some good cuddling, good sex, and at least a few years of loyal companionship out of this, and that’s just about as good as anybody gets.”

“Oh,” said Wendel.  That didn’t sound too bad.  

Still.  

“How am I supposed to find her?” he asked.

“That’s the trick isn’t it?” said Jenny, “Especially in these cities you moderns have made.  So many people.  So many choices.  How to find the right one?”

“Exactly,” said Wendel.

“Ah, but the first step is to stop worrying about the ‘right’ one,” Jenny said.  “Judgment and love have nothing to do with each other.”

“And the other steps?”

“Why ruin the fun?” said Jenny, and then she had disappeared again.  

Wendel stood, all alone, at the edge of a vast jungle of concrete and glass and steel.  The city was beginning to wake up to the dawning light.  Figures emerged from buildings, their forms tall or short or twisted or beautiful or ugly or strange.  Wendel sighed.  True Love would be nice, but right now, being able to not see things in Metaphor, even for a moment, seemed even nicer.  


Wendel drove through a dreamscape, stopping when he ran out of gas.  He left his car, pinging softly with heat, along the edge of a sea of asphalt that heaved and swayed and shimmered in the midmorning sun.  

He was tired and thirsty and hungry.  

He wandered the concrete wasteland until he found a diner.  A waitress who was sometimes an ethereal sprite and sometimes a grinning ogress took his order.  

A Demon slid into the booth opposite Wendel while he was waiting for his food to arrive.  

“It’s useless, you know,” said the Demon.  

“I thought I dealt with all that back at the princess’s” said Wendel.  

“Oh sure, you’ve left your parents behind,” said the Demon, “but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re fat and pasty.  How long has it been since you squeezed your fat gut into a swimsuit?  How long has it been since the sun has touched anything below the neck line, hmmm?”  

Wendel couldn’t remember.  

“Thought so,” said the Demon.  

Wendel looked out the window.  The spires of distant skyscrapers rippled in the greenish light.  It seemed like the entire diner was underwater.  

“I have money…” began Wendel.  

“Yes,” said the Demon.  “You have some money.  You’re middling successful.  So are a lot of guys.  And there are a lot of middling successful white guys with 10 times the looks, charm and wit of you.”

Wendel looked at the table.

“Any woman who’s marrying for money would be looking up a few tax brackets,” said the Demon.  

“Oh,” said Wendel.  

The Demon rose.  “The best thing to do,” he said, clapping Wendel on the back, “is to give up and start working on your masturbatory technique.  ‘Cause that my friend, is all you’ve got.”

He gave the writer a long, sympathetic look, and left.  

The waitress came back.

“Would you—” said Wendel.

“I’m seeing someone,” said the waitress shortly.  “Here’s your breakfast.”

A pile of greasy eggs, two pulsating lumps of sausage, and some pancakes soaked in butter and syrup stared at Wendel malevolently.  He regarded them dismally, then began to eat, feeling acutely the tons that each slice of food added to his fat, pathetic bulk.  


Wendel wandered between rows of pulsating TV screens, his way hampered by the zombies shuffling past—he was in the mall again, somehow.  Or a mall.  There really wasn’t much of a difference between one mall and another, even in Metaphor.    

“It can’t be impossible,” said Wendel, “I’ve rescued a princess and defeated a fucking Troll for Christ’s sake.”

“Really?  How’re you gonna find somebody in a town this huge?” said an Imp on a TV screen.  

“Trust me,” continued the Imp, and a hundred identical copies of him, at different volume levels echoed him.  “It’s hopeless.  A statistical impossibility.  You’re alone.”  

Wendel passed out of the electronics boutique, and into the barren wastes of a wing of the mall that was still under development.  The muzak was faint here; the lights dim.  ‘Coming Soon’ posters loomed over him.  The floor was littered with construction debris.  

A small girl sat on the edge of the empty husk of a fountain.  Wendel approached, seeking the wisdom of the young.  The little girl saw him, screamed something about “the fat man” and ran off into the darkness.  

Utterly defeated, the writer sat on the fountain, and put his chin in his hands.  

“I’m just going to be stuck in Metaphor forever,” he said.  

At some point, the mall closed, and the lights went off.  He was left with the flickering sodium glow of street lamps, filtering through a set of double glass doors far down the other end of the hallway.  

Wendel imagined his true love.  She would find him here, he knew.  Perhaps she would have lost something, dropped it while shopping here (though she wouldn’t be the sort to shop here often).  And the something would be important, and she would return for it, and here Wendel would be.  

Wendel wondered what clever, witty thing he would say to attract her attention.  

Here in this empty mall.

With the doors quite probably locked for the night.  

“What you waiting for?” Jenny said, from a perch atop the fountain, “You expecting the answer to find you?  Just waiting for that beam of light to come down and the woman to step out and say ‘oh, I’ve been looking for you all my life?’”

 “Actually…” said Wendel, “That is the way that it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?”

 “Women just don’t find this whole waiting for them to make the first move sort of stuff sexy,” Jenny said.  “You wait for Ms. Right to find you, you wait forever.”

“Oh,” said Wendel.  

“So go out there, you idiot,” said Jenny, “and find the woman.  You just have to ask.”

“Last time I did that, she said that she was seeing someone,” said Wendel.

“Then ask someone else.”

“It’s just that simple?” said Wendel.

“It’s just that simple,” said Jenny.  “Probably the hardest thing that you’re ever going to do in your entire life.”

“Yep,” said Wendel, getting wearily to his feet.   “Probably the hardest.”

He paused before setting off down the long hallway, towards the exit.  

“The original cheeZee Nacho cruncheeZ brainstorming session was pretty damn hard, too,” he said.  “Impossible to figure out where to put the capital letters…”

“But you figured it out,” said Jenny.

“Yep,” said Wendel.  

He set off down the hallway.  He hoped that the doors weren’t locked from the inside, too.  


“So,” said Jenny, from her perch atop the brand spanking new flat screen monitor, on Wendel’s desk, half nibbled chip in hand, “I hear tell that you and Sarah broke up.”

Wendel looked up from his writing (he was developing copy for the return of the CheeZe Xtreme line with CheeZe X3).  

“We did,” he said.

“Any regrets?” asked Jenny.

“Three months of going through the wonderful world of dating in metaphor—remind me never ever to wish that I could sink into the floor again—and then three years of a relationship that just ended?” said Wendel.  He smiled.  “No regrets.”

“Mm,” said Jenny.  

“You were right, said Wendel, “Some good cuddling, good sex, and a few year’s loyal companionship.  Who can really ask for more?”

He thought for a moment.  

“And she had excellent advice on the Organic Ecstasy line, too,” he said.

“Worked for an organic juice firm, right?”

“Yep,” said Wendel.  “Neat woman.  Good times.  But…”

“But?”

“She said it was time to move on.”

“Ah,” said Jenny.  “Jack said the same thing.  Want to go metaphor to find ourselves a couple fresh ones?”

“Ah,” said Wendel.  “Thanks.  But no thanks.”

Jenny put her chin in her hand.  “So it’s just you and the…’cheeZe X3’, is it?”

“For now,” said Wendel.  “Mr. Simmers is actually thinking about retiring, and I’m thinking about moving on after he goes.  He counts on me, you know, but there’s this ‘Save the Beaches’ coalition that really needs somebody to polish their flyers.  And they know some people in the ‘Save the Dolphins’ campaign…”

“Good boy,” said Jenny.  “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“You do that,” said Wendel.  

He took off work a bit early that day.  He wanted to hit the gym, then go catch the sunset at the beach.  Who knew, maybe he’d meet somebody there and they could go for drinks afterwards.  Not that he was in any rush, but hey, you never know when you’ll meet a True Love…


~ PeteVG