Lick Your Neighbor by Chris Genoa

and women run through the forests, there are no streets to follow, no judges to enforce law and order. Disorder reigns, as it has for all time. It is the men and women on this Ship who will create Order out of the Disorder, with the Good Book in one hand and a musket in the other. If I were you, John, I would fear the Harmonious Hand of Man more than the Wild Will of God.”
    Such wonderfully strange ideas. I do however hope that Mr. Ely is careful with who he tells such things too, because if the Reverend ever caught wind of such talk I do believe that Mr. Ely might wake up one morning to find himself in a most disagreeable state. Engulfed in flames.
    Even though I do not agree with many of things Mr. Ely says, he has done much to calm my fears of this new Land, giving me the gift of comfort. For that I am eternally grateful, for no one else on this Ship has given me anything besides their scowling faces to stare at.
    And that is why I shall never tell a soul that Mr. Ely is not the sailor he pretends to be. So what if he had a run in with the constable in Sussex and had to flee England. Are we not all fleeing England for one reason or another? Besides, poor Mr. Ely was falsely accused. His Prick neighbor told the court that he saw Mr. Ely engaged in a most wicked round of vile buggery with a sheep, which is most untrue. Mr. Ely informed me that he was tired from a long walk in the countryside and was merely attempting to mount the sheep and ride her back to his house. Being a rather small man, a large sheep could carry his weight I suppose. But it had just rained, making the sheep quite slippery, and Mr. Ely kept slipping off her and so had to continuously thrust himself back up on the sheep, which from afar could be construed to be buggery. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
    Ely often talks of his friends back in Sussex, a group of philosophers, theologians, scientists, magicians, artists, and similar folk. They would gather together often to play a game called Sink, which involves sinking various objects in water, mud, or, if I remember correctly, giant tubs of pudding. What fun!
    Ely demonstrated the game by throwing a Bible overboard. Once it sank, Ely yelled, “I sank God!”
    Then it was my turn. Ely offered me another Bible to sink, but I wouldn’t dare. So instead I snatched up a rat, which was nibbling on my boots, and tossed him overboard instead. The rat immediately went underwater and I shouted “I sank the devil!” But as soon as I said that, the vermin popped back up and swam back to the Ship. It was quite dark, but by the light of the moon I swear the rat did a backstroke.
    The wet rat scampered up to the bow, and to my surprise, the creature allowed Mr. Ely to gently stroke its wet head with one finger. How strange. Then the rat ran up Mr. Ely’s arm and perched on his shoulder, like a parrot would. Mr. Ely looked at me, smiled and said, “You lose.”
    That I did. But what a delightful game betwixt friends!
    —John Alden

12
Birds of Discord
    T HE DARK CLOUDS MOVED IN, READY to pounce. The wind picked up. A chipmunk, sitting on a tree just outside the Ferdue offices, dashed inside his tree hole home. He came back out holding a tiny umbrella, stolen last summer from an unattended piña colada.
    The main doors of the Ferdue building swung open and Dale came rolling out, alone and still lassoed to the chair. He was traveling backward, unable to see where he was going. Hurtling to his fate, Dale had the dull glow of a man who had ceased fighting the inevitable.
    The only thing that stopped him from flying off the curb and flat on his back was an outstretched penny loafer.
    “I just got fired,” Dale said without even turning around to see who had stopped him. He knew damn well who it was.
    “I sensed you would.” Randy said, “I could smell it in the wind.”
    “How?”
    Randy spun Dale around. Then he reached into the idling Oldsmobile and flicked on the radio. It was a Duxbury AM news station