"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
A large figure is hunched at the small table. Everything about them seems wrong: too big for the room, the chair, everything. The table and chair are some of those folding out-door setups, even though we're inside, technically. Inside is maybe a little generous. We're in a cramped three-sided, slant-roofed room, open on that fourth side to the wind and the rain, which is coming down like God's taking one hell of a morning piss, and running in rivulets across the hard-packed dirt floor. A blue tarp lashed against the roof and one wall is coming free and flapping in the wind like some sort of hell beast. I just stopped for a beer, been riding all day and soaked to the bone and needed to get off the bike for awhile. And now this guy. Or, thing? I glance over my shoulder at it.
"Ha ha ha ha ha. That was a good one Joe."
Its voice sounds like, I don't know. Sounds like his mouth is full of mud. Sounds like rocks grinding together. The guy behind the bar, a few days unshaven, skin a greasy sheen of sweat, a damp red shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, gives a little nod and a chuckle.
"Ha ha ha ha."
It's not even a real laugh, just saying a laugh out loud like it thinks that's what it's supposed to do. The small chair creaks under its bulk as it shifts. I glance over. It's hunched over the table and a small clay bowl of something. It's all round, a round head like a ball. It's dark so I can't quite tell. And its legs and arms are immense, its skin looks ashen, grey, and cracked. Like it's made of stone. Like a man sculpted of stone and mud. It shifts and the chair creaks under its bulk.
"Ha ha ha ha."
The man behind the bar laughs, "Be careful señor, you break another chair!"
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

in Perpetuum
PDF. 2014.

Produced for AMUR Initiatives.