AMKent books

Part 8

The dandelions are making me cough; they keep getting up my nose, and I hate mouth breathing as it dries out my teeth and makes them overly sensitive. We have to walk through this ice tunnel that protects the passage from nefarious spirits. It hasn’t fallen since its creation 300,000 years ago. So, it would be really weird and anomalous if it fell today, during this quest, which is realistically going to be linear and not like a fantasy tale.

Wizard: “These spirits you see flying above, they are what you guys call poltergeists and ghosts. They can sometimes fuck around outside the realm and terrorise people, they are real assholes, jesters, tricksters, shit-stirrers.

They seem to be trying to whisper things to us. Hey, one just said I look better as a mushroom, bitch!

Me: “I just got called the ultimate chud for dating a mushroom, what the fuck is a chud?”

Wizard: “Huh, they haven’t said anything about me. Unlucky guys.”

They have been saying you look like a paedophile since we walked in.

Wizard: “That’s about me? What dicks, I like cougars, I am the complete opposite. I’m like, a matureophile.”

Crazy, they built a magical ice barrier, but they couldn’t soundproof it.

We all keep walking, apart from Melanie, whom I am holding in a pot. After about 5 minutes, we zone out the voices, and it becomes kinda soothing.

Me: “So, have you ever had a relationship?”

I look at the wizard, and after about ten seconds of pure silence, he turns around and realises that I am talking to him.

Wizard: “Damn dude, yeah. She was tall, real tall, she used to say I have nice hands.”

What happened?

Wizard: “She cheated on me with her area manager. I never stood a chance.”

Well, I mean, at least you got to date a tall, modelesque woman for a bit…

Wizard: “No, she was ugly as sin. It was tall in a freakshow kinda way, not like a catwalk model thing. Yeah, she wasn’t fat or nothing, but she was built like a wardrobe. Real stocky, strong shoulders.”

For a guy who is not exactly in wonderful shape himself, you are pretty critical about how people look.

Me: “Where did this fixation on looks come from?”

Wizard: “It’s a long story, guys, but I was bullied in high school.”

Early years and school can be brutal; it sticks with you. I remember my mum gave me a bad haircut, and all the girls said I had Shakespeare hair for months.

Me: “Yeah, I got told I had a pigeon chest in P.E, all the boys used to say I wouldn’t live long because my heart was a pigeon’s.”

Wizard: “Damn, I guess we all had it. Makes me feel better, thanks guys. I like your pigeon chest, it defines you, and Melanie, there is more to a person than their weird hair.”

…

Me: “W…What did they call you in school?”

He cocks his head to the side slightly and clicks his tongue.

Wizard: “Nothing that unusual or creative. They would say I looked like the love child of John Wayne Gacy and the melting guy from Robocop. They used to call me Calvin Klienfelter because of my wide hips. Once, the popular Japanese girl told me I had hands like a serial killer called Tsutomu Miyazaki. They’d just say silly generic shit like I had inherited Mozart’s scat fetish without the talent, or that my philtrum was non-existent, so I probably had foetal alcohol syndrome. One of the boys would tell me, because of my receding hairline at an early age, that I must have Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. One girl got me dumped by my girlfriend because she told everyone that she snuck into the nurse’s office and found my medical reports, and it said I have a curvature of the penis shaft due to plaque build-up known as ‘Peyronie’s disease’. Damn, it feels good to talk about it. Saying it all out loud like this makes you realise how childish and pathetic these insults were. Haha, like when they said I was stopped at the airport when I went on holiday to Spain because they had to check my bag, and they meant my colostomy bag. Or, or, when they said I was the only guy with near pure genes from homo antecessor. Damn, what lame idiots, like come up with something new, you, you stupid turds.”

Ah, the standard playground insults.

Me: “Yeah, well, you are a wiza… practitioner of the occult, and a qualified mechanic. So, you really showed them.”

He stops dead in his tracks and turns to face us both completely.

Wizard: “I gotta tell you guys about the reunion. Like Jason, the asshole, you could see how rattled he was when I told him I was a mechanic.”

Nice, good for you.

Me: “Hah, yeah, bet he is unemployed or something.”

Wizard: “hahaha, nah, even lamer, he works for NASA. Like, doing gay little rockets n shit. He is sitting there talking about space shit, looking through telescopes like a fucking dweeb. Then, Betty is a lecturer at Oxford, teaching dweeb shit about maths, like 2 + 2 = 4, Johnny has 4 apples haha.”

Yeah, nerds haha.

Me: “Kinda explains the insults.”

We all continue through the ice tunnel, which actually does not break, because it hasn’t for 300,000 years, and why would it suddenly do that now? Anvil is brutalist, very communist soviet union, but the swirling sky full of colour gives it a disarming vibe.