On the corner of West Marine and Olney Avenue, left uphill turns are permitted without stop and the building which once housed the Hair Emporium frequented by ancient Finnish and Norwegian ladies who parked their long Deville’s and LTD’s outback for monthly perms and gossip under the capped driers is now defunct.
The building was purchased three years ago, not by a recent beauty college graduate as Irene had hoped for, but by Zeik, who had coincidentally given her $12,000 over asking price for the 750 square foot shop at the Eastern corner of the Fultano’s Pizzaparking lot, an outdated family establishment that played up to MossyOak wearing hunters and loggers who enjoyed sports whether their hallowed local high school teams, or college foot or basketball along with the pro and yearly super game. Patrons came in with dirtied nails, the working bunch, to drink local brew-pub, brown bubbles and eat the taco pizzas with cornmeal dusted crusts, very similar to eating pesticide preserved olives and meats on sawdust planks.
Oldest town west of the Mississippi, Astoria proper, though clearly marked as an antiquated bygone of the Chiberean kingdoms, was a place not only rich in diversity, after all, it is one of the few in which all of the species still live in close proximity, but also happens to be one of the kingdoms’ only alt energy centers. Here, humans, elves, dwarfs and animals are not yet entirely genetically crossed nor have they killed one another in their pursuit of the life giving mana, this fact owed to an early Finnish setter, Yari Ranta who had discovered a way in which to breed the hard, glassed mana crystals from the World Tree into his favorite strand of cannabis. A process that hadn’t been successfully copied elsewhere as the plant-crystal mixing seemed to depend on the brackish watered mud of the estuaries to take hold.
A sticky, red-haired wonder with sharp rebirth of these trace and once thought to be limited crystals reproduced in each leaf. Yes, before knowing the unrefined crystals tore through and punctured lungs, flattening many a life-giving pink balloon in less than a year, there were those employed in the fields whose alveoli had taken a beating and lives ended quickly--much faster in fact than the slow death of the asbestos of the 1950’s. And so there were those, especially the dark elves, who liked to hire humans whose work-ethic egos were easily stroked and coaxed into the fields for “real man’s” work, and this really was a much more ethical death based on its speed alone, the elves often mollified one another.
Today it was well known that special care had to be taken in burning down the nettle–like, itchy stalks for consumption amongst all of the pink-lung creatures despite their many differences in intelligence, breeding powers and physical capabilities. A time when all species had wised up to the dangers of the process and it had become too difficult to find those who would enter the fields and harvest, without some safety measures in place. Still, mostly the humans, and to a lesser extent the dwarfs, took on this labor.
Typical in-trade wage was not monetary, but enough mana to maintain their families along with free, Monday night, family-sized pizzas and beers at Fultano’s in lieu of health insurance. And, this was a battle these workers were proud to have won! The elves had found proper socialization and propaganda ads run during games had easily convinced these lesser subjects that health insurance was really only for the weak and feeble-minded. What they hadn’t expected is that these—especially the human’s—would become a ticking-time-bomb bunch vehemently hateful towards the idea of the elves who seemed all too happy to subject themselves to dental cleanings and cancer screenings, their thin frames and long, clean nails a definite sign of weakness and really quite appalling to the working types.
Zeik Rockos had named his dispensary, Mr. Nice Guy, painted the outside a brilliant blue and had it shrink wrapped with scenes of old-timey fisherman with giant salmon and checkered hunting vests, their eyes wide and happy under the banner of now extinct hemlock’s with elk still stupidly standing in fields.
The Tibetan bells he’d found in a nearby abandoned farmhouse tinkled as the door opened. A strange cross-breed entered, did not look him in the eye, or say a word.
A nervous Zeik, launched into his usual explanation of how he was of mixed breed, talking to the back of his first cannabis-crystal customer of the day.
“You know my people hailed from the ancient Seaside village south of here—you know, Seaside. “
No answer, or response, just this strange creature bent low at the glass display case eyeing vials and envelopes of different strains.
“The place where Lewis and Clark had boiled the sea waters for salt, made friends with the Clatsop Indians who didn’t seem to mind they’d stolen Chinook elders’ sacred canoe’s when they crossed from Dismal Nitch.”
Nothing.
“At least these are the human’s I hoped to link my DNA to, and the haploids have shown some Japanese ancestry as well as coastal elk after the first mixing,” he announced as his thin lips were stretching to a big toothless smile.
He shook his head, stood up and turned, approached the register.
The dwarf in front of him, red patchy hair in clumps around his scraped up horns emitted a strong, stoner odor. His brown corduroy overall’s covered in drying wetlands mud and when he smiled, open mouthed and snorted in response to Zeik’s ego-shat about his heritage, he saw the cannabis boss was immediately blown back and protected his nose, which brought him to full-belly laughing.
“You know it’s the rut right? I’ve been self-anointing and it doesn’t help that Jax and his busting loud yelping just shot urine all over my hoofs,” the dwarfish creature offered without apology.
“It’s not the piss I’m worried about, it’s the dragon breath that’s melting the shrink wrap off the building,” Zeik waved his arm in a shooing manner hoping this guy would pay up quick and be on his way. Though he really was curious about this guys’ genetic mash-up the story wasn’t worth the deadly pong.
Photo Credit: Robert Nelson/unsplash