Dr. Krumbunculus sat by the window and sighed, staring absentmindedly at his half-opened newsscroll, nursing his cup of coffee as it fogged up the glass. He looked down at the muddy streets below, watching the unwashed masses trampzing about like heathens, and felt his stomach grow weak. He’d always pictured himself becoming one of those crazy old wizards who lived in an eccentric house in the woods, shrouded in mystery and enchantments, surrounded by copious books teeming with knowledge.

Krumbunculus then looked to the familiar confines of his apartment. Indeed, he was surrounded by books—books that held little to no knowledge, in fact, books that probably lessened his knowledge due to their extremely carnal nature. Yes, sure, he got a lot of use out of them—most of the spines looked about ready to snap, and many of the pages were just about stuck together—but it was something that didn’t align with Dr. Krumbunculus’ own vision of himself, and it made him sick to his stomach. Whenever he looked in the enchanted mirror, Krumbunculus told himself that he was looking at an esteemed wizard. But the more he lived his current life, the less he felt this was true.

He looked back at his newsscroll. The story today was about some infamous masked whoever. What a bunch of blimey nonsense, he figured.

BZZT BZZT

Someone was calling on the magickaphone. Krumbunculus cleared his throat and took another swig of coffee, really tasting the whiskey in it this time. Then, he raised his lips to the round mouthpiece of the magickaphone and spoke to the small green goblin perched inside.

“Hello?”

In an instant, that small green goblin transmitted his message through telepathy to the small green goblin inside whatever magickaphone had called Dr. Krumbunculus. That small green goblin then repeated Dr. Krumbunculus’ words in Dr. Krumbunculus’ voice. This quite clever mechanism had the effect that it almost seemed like whomever was on either line was talking right into your ear, though the gremlins often had a slight accent.

“Krumbunculus? Krumbunculus, is that you, Krumbunculus?” garbled a jowl-ridden voice, “Krumbunculus, do you know what time it is? We’ve got lots of product to move today and I’m not doing it all myself! Handmade owl mugs don’t sell themselves, old man!”

“Cock’s sake,” Krumbunculus groaned, “I’ll be right over there, Jimothy.”

“Sure, sure, right over there, right over there, uh huh, okay. Yea, you’ll be right over here, alright. You know what I don’t like about you, Krumbunculus? You know what I don’t like about you? You’ve got no business acumen! No drive! You’re like a wrinkly wet noodle!

“Hen, man it’s not my fault you’ve got no charisma! It’s not my fault your commission’s been so low, is it? None of my other guys sell less than three times as much as you, ya know! I’m really doing you a favor just lettin’ you twerk for me! I mean hen, are you trying to get evicted? I’m not paying for the hours you’re not here twerking for me!”

“You know what, Jimothy?”

“What, Krumbunculus? What do I know? Do I know that you’re getting a buzz in your morning coffee, and that you have been every day this week? You realize I can smell the whiskey on your breath, right? I mean hen, man, you ever brush your teeth?”

“Actually, I cast a teeth cleaning spell years ago to permanently keep my teeth clean and my gums healthy, but—”

“Oh, look at me, I’m Krumbunculus, I’m a wizard, I use magic, blah, blah, blah! Who gives a shit?”

“You know what, Jimothy?”

“What? For cock’s sake, what? I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what but you just won’t stop jabbering!”

“I quit, Jimothy. That’s what.”

“You quit? Quit?! You can’t quit, you clucking bass turd! You can’t quit, because you’re fired!” Jimothy promptly hung up.

“Well shit,” Krumbunculus downed the rest of his rapidly cooling coffee and looked back out the window wistfully as the gears of his mind began turning and churning. How beautifully transient life was. One minute, he had a job he hated, another moment, he was blissfully unemployed.

KN KK KN KK

Krumbunculus tightened his robe and glanced as the rotting wood door as it clicked open. In lumbered the large, slovenly elf that was his landlord, Denny. The unbearable elf-stench curled Dr. Krumbunculus’ eyelashes as Denny plodded forward, a grimace on his face.

“Alright, Krumbunculus. It’s been two months. Where’s your rent?”

“R-rent?” he stuttered, scrounging around the messy room, looking for some semblance of a payment, “Can I give you an IOU?”

“I’m going to assume you misunderstood me,” rasped the elf, stepping closer to Krumbunculus and shaking the apartment in the process, “It’s been two months. Where’s your rent?”

“How about this,” Krumbunculus whipped five coins out of a nearby jacket pocket, “I give you five chickensfeed now, and then five chickensfeed tomorrow, and then—”

“Five chickensfeed? Hen, Krumbunculus, you ought to just give me a stained napkin if that’s the best you can do!”

“I mean, I do have a lot of those. Do you really want one?”

“No, you knob, I was being facetious! Now do you have the money or don’t you?”

Krumbunculus scavenged through a couple piles of junk before looking back up at the elf and smiling, “Nope, sure don’t.”

With a bellow of rage the elf grasped Dr. Krumbunculus by the neck, hoisted him into the air, pushed open the nearby window and tossed him out of it, sending him plummeting two stories down adjacent to a big bale of hay. He could hear his joints crack, and felt like he’d definitely sprained something. Before Krumbunculus could even cast a spell to unsprain himself, some of his few prized posessions, including a small glass sculpture of himself, tumbled forth from the window, shattering to bits.

“Consider yourself evicted!” Denny shouted out and slammed the window shut.

“Motherclucker,” Krumbunculus sighed, watching passersby stare, point and laugh at him, including a small child asking their parents why a man made of wrinkles was laying in the mud looking pitiful.

Krumbunculus sat in a heap, wondering just what he could do, considering he was now not only unemployed but without a home. He figured there was a spell that could help him with this situation, but his big book of spells had unfortunately enough landed in a nearby witch’s large boiling cauldron. Which, actually, gave him a bit of an idea. Krumbunculus approached the witch, who did not look as stereotypically witchy what with warts and wrinkles and a cat and all as they looked like a young man in a cape and a pointy hat.

“Say, uh, you’re a witch, aren’t you?”

The witch turned and adjusted his spectacles, “Did you really just ask me that, sirrah?”

“Excrete me?”

“I was askin’ you if you really just asked me if I’m a witch. What’s that about? You see me outfit. You see me boilin’ cauldron. Do you think that for some reason I’ve no business bein’ a witch?”

“No! No! Not at all! You’re obviously a witch, I mean, I was just trying to start a conv—”

“Oh, you’ve started somethin’ all right. You’ve definitely started somethin’. You wanted to start somethin’, you started it right on up. First you ask if I even am a witch, now you’re saying I’m obviously a witch, I mean, where do you get off, old man? Who made you the divine judge on who is and is not a witch, and why am I privy to your foul perversions?”

“P-perversions?”

“Don’t just parrot my own words back to me! There’s no need to be so condescending. I swear to cock, it’s about high time the male witches of society got some modicum of respect. You know, just because I don’t ‘ave tits doesn’t make me less of a witch, guy. Not that you’d understand that. I know your type.”

“My type?”

“Oh yeah, coming ‘round ‘ere, askin’ if I’m a witch, an obvious question with an obvious answer, smirkin’ the whole time like you think you’re better ’n me. Oh, I know your type well, old man. Maybe male witches used to slink around in quiet shame when you were a young lad, but the times have changed! No longer are we relegated to the shameful side of witchery! I’m a full witch, just as much of a witch as any other witch, and you better watch yourself or maybe I’ll turn you into a newt!”

“A newt? Pfft! Hood luck with that,” Krumbunculus smiled, “I cast a protective spell against being turned into animals by a witch many, many years ago.”

“Oh yea? Did you? Well, did you take into account that it would be a male witch castin’ the spell on you? That gets some people off guard, it does, the fact that I’m a male witch and all.”

“I don’t think it makes any difference in the slightest that you’re a male witch, it’s just a simple protection spell I had—”

“You don’t think it makes any difference?! Are all my experiences invalid to you, oh old man of the ivory tower? From what I can tell, nobody treats a male witch with any respect—either that, or they treat me with too much respect, and treat the women of me coven with less! It’s disgustin’ either way, it is! How dare you try and gloss over my entire life’s experiences jus’ because you don’t think they matter!”

“That’s not what I meant, I was talking about how the spell—”

“It’s all about you, isn’t it, old man? You, you, you. You just can’t quit talking about yourself. You know, they say narcissism is on the rise in Caldonia. I’d say you’re a prime example. Self-centered bass turd. What about me? What about the plight of the male witch? Have you ever really sat down and considered the struggles I go through on a day to day basis, and how they might be different from your own priveleged existence?”

“Now, I mean, I did just lose my job and get evicted, so—”

“And why is that, I wonder? Maybe because you’ve got your head so far up your own ass that you can’t for a moment consider another person’s point of view, and as a result act outrageously aggressive towards any perceived slight or misstep from the person you deem as wrong or unworthy!”

“W-what?”

“There’s somethin’ you need to understand about me, hood sirrah. I, as a male witch, cannot walk five yards without some well-endowed lady throwing herself in my direction, askin’ me if she can be a witch. And you know what, sirrah? She almost never wants to be a witch. She’ll lead me to some alleyway or somethin’ an’ start groping me! The amount of times I’ve been groped through this male witch cloak are inconceivable to someone as small minded as you. Hen, sometimes it’s men doing it! They’re brazen! At least the women like to put up a facade. The men just walk by a say, ‘Mm, male witch, that’s hot,’ and start grabbing at you like you’re a piece of meat! At least the women cluck with your head a little first to get you comfortable and invested!”

“That, uh, sounds very…strange.”

“It’s not strange! It’s traumatic is what it is! Why are you minimizing my trauma?”

“I’m n—”

“You know what? That’s it. I’m gonna curse you.”

“Please don’t. I’ve already had a rough day.”

“Oh, you’ve had a rough day? Try being a male witch, you hamned joker.”

Krumbunculus cleared his throat with a weak sigh, “Look, young man, I—”

“That is enough!” the male witch produced a magick wand from somewhere in his cloaks and waved it ominously at Dr. Krumbunculus, “Curseus youeus Ieus doeus!”

And suddenly, Dr. Krumbunculus felt everything change. He could feel his skin stretching like clear plastic wrap over a freshly baked cake. He could feel his back cracking and reshaping, flailing around like it was a fish’s and indeed not an old man’s. A cool wetness doused his eyes, and then a burning pain seared through them. He crumpled to the ground in a weak, twitching heap, wondering just what in the cluck he’d gotten himself into.