On the street, Petra’s map fills him with confusion. He looks at the bullfrog, who doesn’t even twitch when he approaches.
“Can you tell me how to get to the bank?”
The bullfrog’s throat inflates outward in a mottled yellow balloon.
“Come on, you’ve seen everything here.”
“RIDDIT.”
He knows that he has to go around the ship that towers over him so high it’s mast tears a cloud. Something about turning back is uncomfortable to him.
Argh, what does this mean? Another weird human thing?
He keeps walking, growing dizzy.
Or…is this a me thing?
It’s not like the flood he experienced earlier, rather, it’s like a bird fluttering its wings inside his head.
He passes under the stem of the prow, where a carving of something like spaghetti and meatballs wraps around it like an octopus. Strands of rope mimic noodles that drift in a light breeze. A noodle drifts down and for some reason, his head clears, mostly.
“Alright. To the bank.”
Again, he hears the warbling hoot from the bank first, and then the dry-bone smell rolls towards him.
I don’t know why, but those dusty bones smell…like something bigger and meaner than I ever was.
The loon calls again, beckoning the coins and the croc inwards.
Coffee-security people wait just inside the doors.
“Hello, may I help you?” asks a young man in a large lobby.
“Uh, yes. Hi. I’m looking for Marley…the…chains?”
“Marley Deschaines! Yes. I believe…” He checks a tablet. “You’re in luck. Come with me.”
Dry-bone scents float around the floor like swamp gas, and Big Sal feels a shudder ripple down his back.
I don’t want to be here. But here I am.
He leads him down a bright hallway to an office door with the name ‘Marley Deschaines’ on it and knocks.
“Come on in!” says a voice that sounds like the grave.
The door creaks open, and the scent of red-rose tea rolls out from a young woman in a cardigan, thick-rimmed eyeglasses sitting behind a large desk. The desk has a varnished scent of hardwood.
“Ah! The Hooks croc! What brings you this way?” she says. Then to the man, “Thank you Percy.”
The young man nods and leaves, closing the door behind.
The red-rose…it reminds me of…somewhere. Somewhere nice.
He feels himself relaxing, even if just by a scale.
“I need…bank stuff,” says Big Sal.
Marley snaps her right fingers. “Yes. I can help with that. But first, do you have ID?”
Big Sal nods, and pulls his purse up to open it.
“That purse…that looks, that looks handmade. By…oh what’s her name? May I see it?”
“Uh, sure.”
Setting his wallet on the desk, Big Sal carefully takes the purse off and offers it to Marley.
“Oh, Izzy,” says Marley quietly as she finds the creator’s tag inside. “You never told us you did one out of linen.”
The scent from Marley is of cedar-nutmeg and water-return.
“I…don’t understand,” says Big Sal. The cedar-nutmeg is new, and she seems to be looking into the past.
“Who gave this to you? Was it Isabella Fast?”
“Uh. Yes. It was before the big truck ride. After I…crawled out of the ditch. She gave me soup, bison soup.”
Marley chuckles. “Her hospitality was always, yes, Fast. So, you’ve come all the way from Arcanum Glades? That’s quite the trip.”
“Farther, actually. I flew into Ar…Arcanum Glades from Stinkwater.”
“Don’t know that place, but Izzy was renowned for her handmade purses. Most of them were leather or even silk. This must have been one she kept for herself. Between waitressing downtown and selling her wares, people knew her. Here you go.”
Marley hands the purse back to him.
Big Sal holds the purse in his hand for an extra moment. It’s so smooth and soft he’d barely noticed it.
“It doesn’t smell like anything,” he says, confused at how he missed this.
“Oh, Isabella knew her crafts. She was good at giving people what they needed. But I believe I can help you with something you need as well, right?”
“Yeah. Something called a debit card, I think.”
What…is that?
Shifting the ID in the light, a silver picture of himself seems deep within the card. He had seen that. But it disappears when viewed from an angle. Something else is in there too, seen from a different angle, but it’s more hazy than anything. Something that wasn’t quite defined, but starting to be.
“Those holograms in Ankerton’s ID are pretty neat, aren’t they?”
“That’s a picture, but not from over here?”
“Things change from different perspectives, right?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Marley smiles and shakes her head. “Can I see it?”
Big Sal hands it over, and she copies information from it into a laptop on her desk. She asks him a few questions, and when he doesn’t know the answer, she nods, looks something up on her computer, and continues.
Near the end, she hands him a card that has a loon on the front, and a black stripe on the back.
“You take care, Sal. Thanks for stopping by. And if you ever see Isabella again, tell her I said hi.”
“Thanks. I don’t think that’ll happen, but I’ll try to remember.”
“That’s the best we can do. Tootles and Slightly!”
Big Sal nods, not sure what that means, and Percy appears at the door to take him back to the front doors.
The dusty bone smell has shifted, and instead of scaring him, there’s more of a smell of bones with cooked meat on them, and his stomach rumbles.
I should try making bison stew sometime.
As he walks back out to the street, a FlaminGo bus pulls up beside him.
“Hey Sal! You should get on! Next stop is Hooks!”
Petra waves to him from inside the bus.
“You can cover this, right?” says the bus driver. “Not like the other croc who wanted handouts?”
Big Sal sees the ‘Tap’ near the driver, and presses his Loon to the tap. A warble echoes down the street.
“It’s the Hooks croc!”
Every eye on the bus turns to him, except for one set. Petra sits near the front with a group of children that look both terrified and amazed. Scents of mango, banana and cilantro fill the bus as it takes off.
“Hi Sal, have a seat,” says Petra, pointing at a spot next to her.
“Thanks, but I’ll stand,” he says, holding an overhead rail next to her.
There’s something else on this bus that smells more human than humans. It comes from the set of eyes that remain downcast. It’s only two rows back further.
The kids around Petra all wear the same color t-shirt, orange. In black letters, EVERMORE DAYCARE.
🔍 Want to preview Chapter 28?
Subscribe and it’ll land in your inbox!
🛡️ We respect inboxes. One story, one email. No spam.
Just one offer when an edition is ready.
Chapter 27 podcast drops July 25
Chapter 28 text drops August 1
