After the S. S. Dripspout endured that forgettable terrorist attack, the captain took it to the nearest port, so that everyone could get off the boat and call their accountants to get some new shoelaces on order, and also so he himself could get comfy in a well-known cardboard box with a bottle of riverwater by his side. The nearest port, it transpired, was Nesodi Iveent, the Mary Sue of cities, a place destined for more lopsided antics, but not yet—the captain was unable to negotiate a successful docking at the city, since half the place had turned into a forest due to a fight at a party the other hour, wreaking havoc on the city's sock puppet industry, and so the city folk—Iveentites, if you will—had no time for cruise ships and no place to entertain the disoccupants, and so they threw diced onions at the Dripspout until it went up the coast, north to Symphony No. 2 in D Major, a little beach town well known for being a hidden gem that's gone underrated for years, and which was swamped with prawns and tourists. Please not that there was no overlap between the prawns and tourists.

Anyway, here at No. 2, Captain, Limonade, and Phil disembarked, having had quite enough with boats for the moment.

“Let's go somewhere,” said Captain, “that's a less boatlike place that what we've dealt with of late.”

“There's a boat store,” said Phil.

“That's a legitimate question,” said Captain, who then opened a manhole and peered inside, looking for a small amount of grated ginger root, or some spare copper wire. A pathologist came by and sternly closed the manhole, and taped it shut so that no one would ever try to peer inside again. Captain was very insulted by this, and tried to buy a library, which you can't do because they're public buildings. Also he couldn't afford it. Who can?

Limonade was listening to neither of them, and he went over to get his picture taken with an accordion, which was an impressive feat since most people get their pictures taken with a camera. See what I did there? I believe that's called a “pun.” That sort of thing is punishable in more sensible circles, but never mind for now. It was a tourist town, and that's just the sort of thing folks got up to.

“Okay,” said Henriope the accordionographer, “that'll be sixteen fifty.”

“Oh,” said Limonade. “We don't have... things. There was robbing, y'see.”

“I don't see,” said Henriope. “Sixteen fifty.”

Now Captain and Phil came over too, and they also wanted their pictures taken, so Henriope took all their pictures, and then said, “Forty-three fifty for the set.”

“Forty-three fifty what?” said Captain.

Henriope said, “Forty-three fifty please.”

“We haven't got any pleas,” said Captain, “save this: please let us off the hook for this one, eh?”

“Hook?” said Henriope. “Who said 'hook?'”

“You did,” said Limonade, “and you might want to rethink that strategy.”

“Oh! Hum!” Henriope laughed and became dolphinesque. “You're out of the water, fenlows! Get estranged! This one's gonna do the whole charade!”

Bunberbuss Alphond, the flying squirrel apprentice, and Telemetamorphotogenic, the troll weaver, came out from behind the spittoon and didn't have a headache. Now, just in case there's any trouble with the comma usage, let's be clear—two people came out from behind the spittoon: Bunberbuss, who was a flying squirrel apprentice, and Telemetamorphotogenic, who was a troll weaver. These are normal names, and you know exactly what they mean—hell, half of you probably have an Uncle Telemetamorphotogenic that you only see at Christmas, and they're all the same guy.

But Captain, Limonade, and Phil didn't know what their names meant, or even what they were, but the new duo was very loomy and had been brung forth to procure the forty-three fifty of something—anything. It was a tourist town, after all, and tourists make great targets. Unbeknownst to any local-dweller, however, Captain, Limonade, and Phil weren't tourists, and weren't stretch goals, either, and these two lacks of identity complemented one another in the worst fashion possible—that is to say, in the evasion of Bunberbuss and Telemetamorphotogenic's monetary procurement, the three fenlows went in three different directions.

Bunberbuss chased Captain in a forward direction, but Captain stepped into a funeral home, throwing Bunberbuss off his trail. He congratulated himself, and thought about giving himself a medal—

“You! You there! The one with several hairs!” Sliding down the pole came Total Thomas, the funeral home's director, who wore nothing but the greatest oldies to ever hit the airwaves. “You're hired. You're hired as hell. Get to work and back!”

“I better be getting paid twice as much as last time,” said Captain.

“I,” said Total Thomas, “offer slavery.” He bowed, revealing the the answer to the fourth panel of Kryptos.

Captain shrugged. “It's as done as a bagel.”

Total Thomas went to assay the butcher's work, while Captain transcrobe the whispers of the corpses into hieroglyphics carved into uncooked spaghetti strands. Movo the cook had some water boiling, and as soon as the carvings were done, they grabbed all the spaghetti and threw it into the pot—it was a very big pot so there was no need to break the spaghetti in half like a goddamned savage—and they all gathered around and waited exactly ten minutes and one second for the spaghetti to be cooked as perfectly as they used to in the Nineties, and when it was, they poured it into the well.

“That's good,” said Total Thomas. “That's as good as a—as a...” He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word for “fishmonger,” failing, and then he gave up and gave Captain the long-foreshadowed medal to celebrate his success, and also threw Movo into a meat grinder to be punished for their sins, and then finally called the main office to place another order for some fresh orphans. Captain punched out and called it a day, went to head home—and then Bunberbuss saw him come out the back door, and resumed chase.

During the meanwhile, Telemetamorphotogenic chased Phil. They went right up the main street, right up to city hall, and Phil ran inside and went to the mayor's office. The police rode up on yaks and threw lassos on Phil, and he was trapped and ensnared thoroughly by the lassos, but he started chatting with them, and before long befriended them, and they began to do his bidding. At Phil's command—well, it was politely requested, really—the lassos captured all the police and threw them in the freezer, and then captured all the secretaries and threw them into a pickup truck, and then captured everyone else—everyone else in the office, not everyone else—and threw them up in the air, where they founded a new city and created a new society, one without laws, but rooted in creative expression, so that all they did, all day, every day, was paint paintings and say poems about the paintings, until one day Vuculent Rod painted a painting so great that no one could think up any poems about it, and so Vuculent Rod sewed up everyone's mouths so they'd never say a poem about his paintings because his paintings were better than any poem could ever express, and to even try would be like a dagger in his heart, like a thigh in his eye, like a stew in his Studebaker, and then, when everyone tried to get scissors to cut open their mouth stitches, Vuculent Rod went ahead and sewed all their hands together—and then, just to really sure, he sewed all their feet together, too.

Telemetamorphotogenic was not distracted by any of this and entirely tackled Phil, except the lassos called one of their friends, a rope, and Phil rode that to safety. Telemetamorphotogenic wasn't paid enough to deal with ropes on top of lassos, and so he rented a cabin in the woods instead.

As for the third one, Henriope went after Limonade.

“Oh,” said Limonade, “the third one's always got so much riding on it.” This gave him the idea of a lifetime—he climbed up onto a cardboard box, the natural enemy of plesiosaurs, and then with a “Giddy up!” he spurred the box into wildly careening through the grocery store. A lot of parents were shopping with their kids that day, since the kids' school had taken the day off, and so since all the kids had crossbows they fired at Limonade, but the box was wily and wove between the flying bolts, until it came to a stained-glass window. The stained-glass window told no tale.

“Boss,” said the box, “I'm optionless!”

“When it comes to options,” said Limonade, “none's as good as one!”

“Then,” said the box, “today, I'm the one that does!”

With a vikingesque battlelike cry, the box leapt through the window which shattered and crashed into a thousand thousand gleaming pieces, and on the other side was a vital cricket match. Now, since the main rule of cricket is that if a cardboard box leaps through a stained-glass window, then both teams automatically lose, both teams automatically lost. They had bet against and for themselves, and now their fortunes were annihilated, but they were influxed with restraint. As for the fans, unaccustomed to this novel interruption, they went into double absolute conniptions, and threw every knife at Limonade and his box. Limonade caught all the knives in another, second box—one specially designed for knive-catching. Limonade saw that Henriope was getting close, so he ran up to the tenth floor, where the books and TV department was, and then would've run out of money, if he had started with any, but a friendly mannequin wasn't there, and so, deep down inside, he had to use the bathroom, where Henriope was waiting for him.

“The price has increased,” said Henriope to Limonade, “to fifty fifteen, to cover tolls and fees incurred during the chase.”

“You make it sound like the chase is done,” said Limonade.

“You have nowhere left to turn,” said Henriope. He brandished three finely-crafted marlins, who proceeded to invent BASIC. “The brisket is ready and ducks don't live here. Almost several beagles can see the sun. Once, there was a bad song—but it's gone now.”

Limonade saw the he was really at the end of his rope. But—wait a minute! That wasn't his rope, but Phil's, passing through! Limonade leapt and grabbed it, and clung aboard as Phil jetted by like a lucky jellyfish and they were soon out of Henriope's reach.

“Go back for Captain!” said Limonade. “We can't leave a man idle!”

“I don't know how to steer this thing,” said Phil.

“Now he tells me!” said Limonade as the rope ran over a studio audience, silencing their scheduled laughter.

Phil crashed into the clock tower—not the clock part—just some regular stone facade bits. All the ropes broke and Phil and Limonade fell down, but they landed on someone's feet, and so brushed themselves off and blended into a crowd that was headed toward a new art exhibit, featuring Vuculent Rod's latest and final masterpiece.

Alas, they hadn't gone back for Captain, and so, the chase successful in the end, Bunberbuss dragged him before Henriope. They tied up Captain with golden HDMI cables and threw him in a Faraday cage. There was no symbolism to the devices chosen this time; they simply used what they had handy.

“You owe me,” said Henriope, punching madly on a calculator, “fifty fifteen. No! Fifty sixteen. Cough it up at once—or else!”

Captain had not the inclination to portray the weak end of this conversation. “You bluff!” said Captain, playing the hand someone else had been dealt. “Or else? Or else what, pray tell?”

“Or else,” said Henriope, with great menace across his facial region, a visible expression of internal emotions, “you don't get your photographs!”

“Fiend,” growled Captain. “That's an almost unendurable fate.”

Henriope laughed a maniacal laugh that he had been practicing a lot in the off season. “Then, eat the doom that's served to you!”

“I said,” said Captain, “almost unendurable!” He stood to his feet and glared at Henriope. “I spit on your offer! Keep the photographs—you think I care? You think I'll be given to woe, without a keepsake of today?”

Henriope grew darker. “Is that your desire?”

“Those are secrets,” said Captain.

“Then keep your secrets,” said Henriope, “and I shall keep your 'graphs. You feign virtue now, but there shall surely be a time when you miss these memories dearly. In that moment, I shall have my vengeance.”

And so Captain, Limonade, and Phil went back to not vacationing while Henriope's evil laughter echoed in the distance. To this day, folks in Symphony No. 2 in D Major say you can still hear his laughter far off on a quiet day after eggplant parmesan for lunch.

So, anyway...

What city is this supposed to be? I don't know—well, I do, but it doesn't matter. Here, it has no name. It has no history. It's just a place to be for a moment. The grim city, where it rains all the time. Where everyone is tall and thin—not normally, but stretched out and narrow. Smears. Rain on windowpanes splatters the detail, all is lost, and the sky is blue—the dark and heavy gray-blue of endless clouds and endless rains. Not those of sorrow, but of the comfort of division. Their spell is cast for cold and warmth both, for light and dark. Well—okay, okay, you got me. Maybe some sorrow after all, a joyous and indulgent and selfish sorrow.

This was all lost on Jum Burie. She passed through it indifferently, found a hotel that had been made just for her, and checked in. She was seeking. She looked past everything and everyone. She took her key without a glance and went to her room on the top floor, where the window overlooked a busy intersection, and she drew the curtains, and she got into bed, under the covers, and went to sleep for the first time.