FSHHHHHHH

“Green Garey stop messing with the—”

FSHHH FSHHHH

“Seriously Green Garey stop i—”

FSHHHHH FSHHH FSHHHHH FSHHH FSHHHHHH

“Green Garey you’re making the basket sway!”

“Yaaarg! Ye say that like ’ts a barrrgd thing!”

FSHHHHHHHHHH

The bright pink hot air balloon they had rented was covered in glitter and smelled of old socks, but each tug of the pull string made its magic engine flare up with a pleasingly frightful ring of fire.

They had been sailing after their quarry, the mysterious possible witches, possible skyrates whom had allegedly stolen a something most significant, for a long while. Unfortunately for Pamela, Green Garey had spent the vast majority of that long while playing with the flight pattern of the hot air balloon like a child with a new toy.

“Yaarg…straaarnge ‘ow the baaarglloon is arrrgting right narrrgow. Almost like we be approaching an airrr pocket…some sort of airrg pocket tharrgt is complarrrgtly devoid of wind!”

“Do you mean the Windless Forest, Green Garey?” Pamela winced as she began the fifty eighth sketch of Green Garey’s imagined naked body she’d made in her aching notebook since they’d taken off.

“Ahoy, parrgtner, wharrrgt are these forests ye speak of? I’ve never encountarrred a windless air pocket in all my time sailing the seventy skies!”

“Really? Never? And I thought ye were well traveled.”

“I am! Don’t be a scallopwagon aboarrrgt it!”

“I’ll do my best. Actually, it’s very interesting why the Windless Forest is the way it is. It’s only through decades and decades of study that we even have some sort of idea how they twerk. Basically—”

“Avast! See that ‘p there?” Green Garey pointed to thick gray clouds in the distance.

“Uh, Green Garey, I was trying to—”

“That is ’n ungourdly amarrgnt of smoke, Parrmela. Sometharng barrd is harrpenin’.”

“Okay, Green Garey. Okay. I hear you and I recognize you and what you experience is important.

“So as for how the Windless Forest is the way it is. Essentially, how it twerks is that through manipulations of the quadranglical magnetosis of the hyperborial ganglonicon, the decifinnigus glimmerous is malgmatized.”

Green Garey pulled out a spyglass and grimaced, looking at the apparent clouds and realizing with concern that they were actually billows of harsh smoke, growing closer and closer with every moment. As the wind grew thinner and weaker the hair on his skin trembled.

“To put it in layman’s terms, no offense of course to you Green Garey, but to put it in layman’s terms, imagine that the entire forest is like a large fishbowl full of mayonnaise.”

Green Garey pulled the cord, frantically raising and lowering the hot air ballon in hopes to divert its course. Their path ahead was growing dim and the smell of burning wood and death was starting to permeate his sensitive skyfaring nostrils.

“If you refirgerate the mayonnaise too long it might start separating, so really you want to be careful not to put too much mayonnaise in the fishbowl. You want a decent amount of mayonnaise that you’re confident you’ll be able to eat within a month, because every month after that the mayonnaise will get chunkier and chunky and eventually you’ll just have these big chunks of separated mayonnaise and nobody wants that.”

AHHHCK AHHCK

Green Garey hacked as the smoke grew thick and their vision faded to almost nothing, replaced by a dark gray fog of rough air and strong odors.

“Then again, maybe you want some chunky mayonnaise and maybe you want that chunky mayonnaise right now. Now let’s look at the Windless Forest again to tie this metaphor together. Essentially, the mayonnaise represents how—”

AAAHHAAAAHHHAAACK

Green Garey spit a large glob of mucus over the side of the hot air ballon and watched it disappear as it plummeted to hen knew where. A couple moments later he could’ve sworn he heard it squelch over something.

As Green Garey leaned up and wiped his lips of slime, he caught a glimpse of none other than Bleu Louie sailing upwards on a rent-a-pogo-stick. He was suddenly struck with sharp pricks of fear. Now Bleu Louie was more than just mysterious—he was cheap, too.

“Avast! Parrmela! It be Bleu Louie!” Green Garey pointed a trembling finger in the ashy air.

“There’s nothing there—hack—Green Garey! You’re just trying to—hack—distract me—hack—because you don’t care—hack—about why the—hack—Windless—hack—Forest—hack—is—hack—Windless—hack—but—hack—just—hack—you—hack—wait—hack—I’ll—hack—tell—hack—you—hack—all—hack—about—hack—it—hack hack haaaa—”

“Parrrmela!” Green Garey squealed in alarm as Pamela collapsed to the floor of the hot air balloon in a red faced hacking mess. “Me parrot dragon is harrving trouble breathing in the smoke! I don’t know if ‘e’ll make it!”

The parrot dragon was indeed coughing in a cute and high pitched manner, however it peppered its respirations with curses and racial slurs. Green Garey looked on the verge of tears as the parrot dragon’s beak chattered. Pamela was past the verge of tears, as they had been gushing from her eyes since far earlier, near the start of her hacking fit.

“Parrrmela! Parrrmela! Polly’s stopped breathing, Parrmela! Aye don’t think ‘e’ll make it!”

KRRRKKRSREEEEEEKKKKKKKRRR

Just before Pamela could pass out, a spindly character dressed in some sort of copper tipped leafy outfit crashed an ashy air trike into the side of the hot air balloon, the impact of which launched him headfirst into the basket of the balloon. The air trike peeled off the side of the basket in a crumpled mess and lightly drifted downward like an elegant metal feather.

“Avast! An attack! We’re bein’ boarded! Man—er—woman the cannons ‘fore ‘ts too late!”

Pamela tried to tell Green Garey that he was being foolish, as their hot air balloon had no cannons, but her esophagus was busy contricting and seizing like a vice.

“A’ah, a’hm n’nawut t’trayin’ t’uh d’dew y’a’ny h’hahrum! M’mah n’nayums F’Frinkles, a’ahm a g’ewd m’mayun,” Frinkles sputtered, scrambling to his feet with Pamela’s notebook stuck to his chest. He glanced down at the book and untuck it from his person, giving it a wide once over as he noticed the violent amount of predicted nakedness within. “H’howuleyuh ch’chiyukn’s!! C’cawk h’hayumn!”

Pamela, suddenly realizing what Frinkles was gawking at, shot up on her feet, snatched the notebook, and whapped the man on the nose as if he were a dog and she was a patriarch reading the newspaper from a not so fortgotten era of an alternate dimension.

“Ah’ah’aowuh!”

“Serves you right. Mind your own business.”

“Parrmela! I thought ye were aspiratin’!”

“Green Garey do you mean to tell me you knew I was laying on the floor about to pass out and did absolutely nothing to help me, choosing instead to cry over your zygoted parrot dragon?”

“Don’t ye talk arrbout poor Polly that way! ‘e knew not the ways of this world!”

“Clearly. He seemed to think I was always on my period.”

“Aye. ’twas a hood dragon bird.”

“E’excuhreyut m’e! Y’oo t’toow a’wta n’nowuh b’bayud p’eople ‘r c’cowmin’ yer w’ayee!”

“What’s so bad about them then? Do they also talk like you?” Pamela sneered.

“N’nowuh, n’nuwthin’ la’hk m’e.”

“Well thank cock for that.”

“M’miyuss, ah’ah h’howup y’ew kin b’ s’eroos b’out th’iys.”

“I’m not sure how I’ m supposed to be serious about anything when my paarrrrrgntarrrr almost let me foot tap the garbage pale because he was too busy watching over a cockhamned misanthropic parrot dragon!”

“Did ye just mock me arrrgcent?”

“I didn’t not mock your accent.”

“Parrmela, before ye contarrrginue, aye’ll have ye know that ye are still alive, and somehow seemingly unaffected by the smoke that still surrounds us both. Me parrot dragon has passed on. Fergive me for carrrging.”

“You say that like I was just pretending to choke!”

“Aye calls em like I sees them.”

“Well maybe you ought to consider your depth perception before you call any more of ‘them’ how you see them. You know, since you only have one eye.”

“Aye knew what ye meant! I caught that slAYEght! Don’t parrgtronize me!”

“Arr, blow the man, chuppies, blow the man,” chanted a chorus of faint, skyratey voices coming from somewhere below them in the smoke and clouds.

Pamela’s scalp tingled. She noticed Green Garey and the nameless twangy voiced man were flicking through her notebook.

“What in the cluck stop that you bass turds!” she snatched it away and whapped them both on the forehead.

“Parrmela. Wow. Aye never knew ye saw me in—”

“Woah there Green Garey pump the brakes. I draw everyone like this, and there’s nothing sexual about it.”

“Are ye sure? What about all the drawings where you’ve—”

“Oh, I’m sure, Green Garey. I’m sure.”

“Yaarg! Haarg! Blow, the man,” chanted the voices. Louder this time.

“Say. Do ye hear that, Parrmela?”

“Stop trying to change the subject, Green Garey. You’ve been a perfectly awful partner today. I ought to just quit the Gourd altogether. Go get a fantasy trenchoat and my PI license and a drinking problem. Probably be much happier that way.”

“Don’t say that Parrmela. Ye’ve got a few more hood yarrrs before ye’re prine fer a midlife crisis.”

“A few more hood years?! How old do you think I am, Green Garey?!”

“Arr, blow the man, chuppies, blow ‘im hood!”

“Okay, Parrmela, you had to hear that this time.”

“Green Garey you’re as transparent as an ice sculpture!! Tell me how old you think I am that I’ve only got a few more hood years or so help me cock I’ll throw you out of this hamned balloon basket!”