What Grows Underneath the Mats
“Right there. That’s the- no, that- yes, there. Please speak directly into the mic.”
“Well, first of all, hi, Pa!”
“Mister Othniel. We have sixteen interviews today. I am on my fourth ult-energy. I am not in the business of wasting time. Are you in the business of wasting my time?”
“Um. Thank you for having me on.”
“Your family has sold fried meat on sticks at the Big Meat house for six generations, is that correct?”
“Seven, actually, if you-”
“-Why don’t you set the scene for us?”
“We’re in the upper heights district, in Centralia. Come visit us! We’re the blue building, in between the fishmonger and Algie’s Algae. Don’t go next door, though. Algie still-”
“Mister Othniel…”
“What?”
“Continue. ”
“Well, business was slow. We’d only had three customers. Two cops right at the beginning of shift- veggie sticks, and it was a bluesday, so quarter off. After that, a single student showed up and bought a half-meatstick, extra-crispy. She took over the corner table. Usually I would have chased her off, but I was so lonely and bored I decided to just let her stay.”
“This is all very fascinating, Mister Othniel. Please remember, this is about your personal experience. With magic, not meatsticks.”
“Well, you need to understand the context, Mrs. Shine-Bright. Business is bad on Bluesdays. Even a perfectly-spiced meatstick isn’t enough to make you want to go out in the rain. Not to mention payment day was coming up fast.”
“So you had a plan?”
“I was going to go to Algie and cry. Real big tears. I’d done the same thing four months in a row, so I was pretty much losing hope. But what was I supposed to do? Our cash fund was gone, after The Incident.”
“You didn’t want to try somewhere else?”
“Where would we go? I just told you. We had no money.”
“…Well, I suppose. Continue, Mister Othniel.”
“Well, my sister came back from school late. I guess one of the feral cats broke in and they gave up trying to herd it out of the gates. She came in, bleeding, dripping on the new tile. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she told me she was going to the hospital instead of taking her shift!”
“She was correct, Mister Othniel.”
“But then, who was going to watch the shop?”
“You, I presume. She was injured. Badly.”
“That’s no excuse to take time off!”
“Anyway, after I sent my sister into the taxi, I went into the back and started checking on the fryers. Just as I was through cleaning them, the student asked for a veggie stick.”
“I should have known. She had a veggie stick energy.”
“‘You just want to stay at your table,’ I said, and went to find something to clean.”
“Now, the inside of the Big Meat House is pretty simple. There’s three tables. There’s the counter. Behind the counter, there’s the painting of the Honored Emperor.”
“It was about midnight when I started cleaning the painting. Left, right, left. Just the way Ma taught me. It’s just not done to let dust get on it. How’s he supposed to supervise the meat sticks if his eyes are obscured?”
“I was swiping the rag over his face when an eye blinked and he said, smooth as you please, ‘A little lower, if you would, Othniel.’”
“Obviously, I screamed and went to hide behind the fryer.”
“’That’s a little rude,’ said the portrait, rudely ignoring my mental state. ‘I said lower, not to the floor. There’s still dust on my chin.’ Now, I was trembling and afraid, but I also believe in doing a good job. I sat up. To inspect it, you see.”
“The girl in the corner looked up at the comment, too, which was unsettling. ‘There is dust on his chin… I think I’ve been awake too long.’”
“That’s when I told her to leave. ‘Only sane people are allowed in this shop!’ I think I yelled. She ignored me and stepped closer to the painting.”
“’Are you actually the Emperor?’”
“’Of course not. I’m a cheap print, manufactured to look like a painting. You’re speaking to me because of a latent spell and the impressive miserly spirit of the store owner here.‘”
“Now, I only understood half of those words- my sister was going to school, not me- but I understood an insult when I heard one. ‘I am not miserly!’
“‘You,’ he said. He turned his eye stalks towards me. They trembled. I swallowed. He was almost as fearful as the casts, although the voice sounded a little bit off. ‘It is not an insult. I think it is actually rather… impressive, to keep re-painting a portrait of the emperor with amateur skill, instead of repurchasing one. Although I dislike having the voice of Emperor Peacebringer.’
“’Emperor Peacebringer?’ The girl had ignored all of my signs about what parts of the store were private property and was inspecting the frame. ‘Your family’s maintained this print for that long?’
“‘Obviously not,’ said the Emperor. ‘Now it is only a half-rate portrait of me.’”
“’Everyone, shut up!’ I reached over and wiped the dust from his chin. ‘How? Why?’”
“‘Well, magic has returned, for reasons above my paygrade,’ said the Emperor quite reasonably. ‘As for why, I witnessed The Incident, and I think something needs to be investigated.’”
“I apologize, Mister Othniel, but I need to clarify. You think your portrait spoke because you had been keeping a print portrait around from the Age of Magic?”
“I don’t think, I know! He told me himself!”
“And you trust his word?”
“Well, he was there, wasn’t he?”
“…Very well.”
“There I was, standing dumbfounded in my shop as the Emperor spoke to me and some girl with an ink-stain on her chin. He had the power to speak, and he hadn’t even sentenced me to death or sent me to the debate pits. Instead, he was talking about The Incident?”
“I turned to the girl. ‘Pinch me,’ I said. ‘Or maybe just send me to the institute. I’ve lost it.’
“‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘If I send you to the institute, I won’t get extra-crispy meatsticks anymore. Fabiens Food never gets the sticks hot enough, and the spice mix isn’t even comparable. Not to mention the meat not being fresh! In fact, I’ve been a loyal customer because-“
“Let’s cut the advertising. What did the Emperor say about the Incident?”
“Fine, blame a man for taking an opportunity! The emperor sighed. ‘Your mother was the one that repainted me, you know,’ he said. ‘She slipped on my left chin. I don’t hold grudges, though.’”
“’Of course,’ I said, in case he could send me to the debate pits.”
“He stared at me, eyestalks waving. ‘What do you remember of it, Othniel?’
“I didn’t want to think about it. It had been six years, but it still stung fresh in my mind. ‘She’d been going out to deliver the money to Algie,’ I said. ‘I was cleaning the counter. When out of nowhere, the mermaid…’ One bite. That’s all it took. Do you mind…”
“We have tissues here. Take all the time you need.”
“Thank you. Well, The Emperor nodded. ‘Did you know it was Algie’s idea she bring all of her savings?’”
“I was only a kid then. I shook my head.”
“‘He was very insistent. He claimed he had a new safe at his shop. She agreed, although it was reluctant.’ The Emperor stared at me, raising his eyebrows like that information was important. ”
“None of this was surprising to me, of course. All of our cash savings, chomped by a wild mermaid? Talk about a bad day. Not to mention my Pag… pardon me. I’m just going to take a… thank you.”
“Well, whatever I was supposed to learn, the emperor eventually just gave up on me. ‘The mats, boy,’ he said. ‘You need to check under the mats!’”
“Outside our front window- in the view of the Emperor's portrait- are Algie’s algae mats. I peeked through the window, but I held back. You have to understand, I really don’t like the water. After watching my Ma…”
“Well, the girl with me wasn’t afraid at all. She grabbed the harpoon gun we keep for self defense- we’re still applying a license, it’ll come through any day- and nodded. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it, Honored Emperor.’”
“’If he comes out with that whistle,’ said the Emperor, ‘Run.’”
“Well, that was comforting. But we held to our convictions, and stepped out. The ink-stain was still on the girl’s chin, but I was too nervous to point it out. The algae mats looked real normal, just floating. Nothing like a threat.”
“We leaned over. The girl poked at them once or twice, with the end of the harpoon. Finally, we held hands. I grabbed onto a lamp-post while she used the point of the harpoon to flip the algae mat over, using me as an anchor.”
“At first, it just looked like normal algae. Green in the center, paling to reddish brown. Tendrils reaching towards the center of the canal, where the water’s fresher. But on the bottom, encapsulated in perfect little bubbles… a little glimmer of silver.”
“Now, you have to understand a little about mermaids for this to make sense. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s how they store their eggs. A little bubble of air and snot.”
“Algie must have used the cash, but I guess the mermaids liked my Ma’s jewelry, because there it was. My Ma’s locket- it even hung open, showing her portrait of the emperor. I could still picture it, hanging around her neck, perfect as the day we’d lost her. There was a little speck of blood, right next to where his little eyes stared out at me. Trapped.”
“The girl turned to me, then. ‘Well?’ She said. ‘Are you going to get it back, or not?’
“Of course I rejected the idea. ‘What, are you crazy?’ I asked her. ‘There could be mermaids! Anywhere!’”
“She poked at the bubble again. It kept strong, even under the point of the harpoon. ‘They don’t like Bluesdays,’ she said. ‘And they aren’t here now. Might as well try, right?’”
“We were still there, staring at the locket, when Algie stomped over. ‘Hands off,’ he said. ‘That’s private property.’ He held up his whistle. ‘You’re going to ruin the batch. Get back, or you won’t like what happens next.’”
“The girl didn’t run, though. She swung the harpoon around, fearless as anything. She must have been real tired. ‘I guess we’ll see who likes it least.’, she said.”
“Algie’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. He backed away faster than a minnow in a shark pond. ‘Listen,’ he said. He didn’t say more, though. Guess he didn’t have anything for me to listen to.”
“‘You killed my Ma,’ I said. ‘You took her money! And then took my money, after! You didn’t even return the locket, and at least ten percent of that is silver!’”
“‘Well, not exactly,’ he said. ‘Haven’t I given you four months free?’”
“After that, the harpoon went off accidentally, I suppose. I sure didn’t see it happen. Algie’s still in hospital, but you can visit him if you feel bad about his leg.”
“What about your mother’s locket?”
“Oh, I wasn’t about to swim for it. My sister went in after she got out of the hospital. It was a real mess keeping her cast out of the water, but we managed.”
“Do you have any final comments for our viewers?”
“Come by the Big Meat House! We have a two-for one deal on fried algae and extra-crispy meatsticks! You have to buy something if you want to talk to the Emperor!”
“…Thank you, Mister Othniel.”
“And Fabien’s Food isn’t nearly-“
“Cut.”