“They’re not as cool as velociraptors,” was the sullen reply, “and you only let me make the bones for them.”
“We agreed they were too dangerous,” Sparkle Princess gloated.
“I didn’t.”
“Fine, fine, okay. We heard you,” Big Daddy said. “If we nix the unicorns, will you shut up and let us get to more important issues?”
“Husband…” Oceania remonstrated.
“Shouldn’t we vote on that first? You know, like in a democracy?”
“Daughter!”
“This is a ridiculous waste of time. It is clear that I, Thunderdome, should be in charge.” He slammed his fist again, this time punching all the way through the not-table. “I hereby cast as many votes so as I am able. Eighty-nine should suffice.”
“Son!”
“Unicorns would be so much cooler if they had horns everywhere, like armored spikes that shot acid-spitting crocodiles.”
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever agreed with Stinky Kid,” Mr. Mojo said.
“See? I’m not the only one after all.”
*drinks*
Fate, having long listened to the gods’ combined wishes for their finest creation, was ready to act. He slid his beer glass, still half full with autumn lager, to the side and unfolded like the first night engulfing an absolute horizon and left, seeping through the stitching that binds together dreams. Only Mr. Mojo Sex Machine noticed his exit—the others were still consumed by squabbling—and followed Fate to the yearning behind the stars.
There, he watched silently as the First Engineer faded into being.
“Oh. Is that all?” the First Engineer sniffed sarcastically after Fate told him the gods’ specifications. “Impossibly strong yet enduringly delicate. Wise and patient yet filled with innocent wonder and joy. Majestic to behold while looking like Thunderdome. It’s not just impossible, it’s insulting.”
“It has been proclaimed,” Fate said, though his voice was more a reverberation in the eddies of eternity than mere words.
The First Engineer shrugged eloquently. Their delusions weren’t his problem. “I do like the part about dangly bits, though. It makes them modular, redundant, and their genetic algorithms accept inputs from multiple vectors.”
Still thinking himself unseen, Mr. Mojo grinned. At least someone appreciated his brilliant idea.
“It should have already been done,” Fate not-quite-said, showing no sign that he considered impossibility a valid excuse.
“You’re serious?” When Fate nodded the First Engineer rolled his eyes. “Marketing. Always promising more than we can deliver. If I put all that in, all of creation would unravel. Explosively.”
No one says “So be it” quite like Fate, and while he had a half-earned reputation for causing more problems than he solved, Mr. Mojo was actually quite responsible at heart and couldn’t let the universe destroy itself without doing something.
He made his presence known. “I know how to make it work.”
The First Engineer eyed him, a non-engineer, skeptically but Fate nodded assent. “You have only bequeathed one gift,” Fate’s more-than-voice rumbled. “Another would not be remiss.”
Grinning impishly, Mr. Mojo Sex Machine saved the world.
*drinks*
As you might have guessed, that gift was beer. Unlike the other gods, Mr. Mojo knew that not even Fate was the force which turned the wheel of destiny. All of them, even mighty Thunderdome, were simply those who sat so close to the center they could not feel the motion. For all the gods’ grand ideas, light is balanced by darkness, a balance found in all things, even gods, and it is impossible to create something more perfect than yourself.
So when the pressure of living up to the godly, impossible ideals of dignity, productivity, accomplishment and sex appeal prove too much, there’s beer. When you know you need to do something but don’t know what, there’s beer. When you need to start a fire and the only sticks around are the ones up people’s asses, there’s beer.
The First Engineer did what he could, but you of all people should know the gods ask too much. When the world cracks under the weight of their demands, beer lubricates the slide from shining expectations to fuzzy reality. For every stuffed shirt there’s a string of people puking in the bathtub. Hubris dissolved in a warm, amber glow.
But that’s not why I gave you beer.
Light and darkness, darkness and light. I’ve walked many paths—including one which leads to a hermaphrodite named Raoulita absolutely owning it in the slums of Curacao, but that’s not important right now… or ever—and the darkness that isn’t seen devours. Better worlds than yours have blinked into oblivion, swallowed along with what they claimed as their wisdom. The darkness is hungry, remembers the infinite night before the dawn of all souls. More than that, it lurks in the shadows behind your eyes.
So. Humanity. The culminating pride of the gods’ creation. Drunken rage. Blackout sex. Loud, obnoxious not giving a shit. The million morning after embarrassments as what could have been is slowly pissed away in unisex bathrooms. What better tool than beer to lance the boils of self-delusion and numb the pain while the truth oozes free?
The gods made the world wrong and, as usual, I’m the one who has to clean up the mess. Know who you are, know what you are, and you and your dangly bits might yet survive. And if you happen to forget along the way, beer will always be there to remind you.
You’re welcome, and smile. The next drink’s on me.
About the Authors
Bob Brown lives, works, and writes with his two pugs, two cats, and several dozen chickens in Washington state. He is the author of numerous short stories and the recently released children’s book, The Damsel, the Dragon, and the Knight. He is currently working on several projects including a space opera techno thriller with Irene Radford. He is well known in the science fiction convention community as RadCon Bob, due in part to the nature of his work as a Health Physicist at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where he supports clean up of nuclear waste left over from the Cold War. Bob is an avid gardener and a teller of chicken jokes.
Barb Caffrey is a writer, editor and musician from the Midwest. Though “On the Making of Veffen” is her first-ever story about beer, she has written other things, including a novel, ELFY, that will be published late in 2013 by Twilight Times Books. Previous stories and poems have appeared in the BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology (with late husband Michael B. Caffrey), the BEARING NORTH anthology, the Written Word online magazine, Joyful Online, the Midwest Literary Magazine, and at e-Quill Publishing. Find her at Elfyverse (AKA “Barb Caffrey’s Blog”) for discussions of all and sundry, or at Shiny Book Review.
Clayton J. Callahan once got a job he really loved, Professional Story Teller. He was performing at renaissance festivals, civil war re-enactments, libraries, book stores and schools. “What a great job to have!” people would tell him after a performance. Then in the next breath they would ask, “Can you make a living at this?” The answer sadly… was no.
To make a living he has served US Navy on an anti-terrorist team, the US Army as a communications sergeant, worked as a public school teacher, deputy sheriff, and Federal Counterintelligence Special Agent. He has served three tours in the Middle East where people tried, rather unsuccessfully, to kill him.