Two
Sterling
“The earth is flat and the moon landing was a conspiracy designed to distract us from the very real possibility of a nuclear war with Russia.”
A lot of heads were nodding, bobbing up and down in tacit agreement with the slight man’s words. He stood on the stage, his glasses sliding down his nose every few seconds. He wasn’t much to look at. Perhaps that was why no one ever took him seriously. It was a sad state of affairs in this world that being attractive somehow meant you should be listened to. Celebrities peddling weird, harmful vitamins and weird ass contraptions to make your butt more round was the proof. As of today, I had seen no real proof of anyone having a perfectly round butt by using something they attached to a wall and pulled with their legs.
Round butts were mostly a myth. Sir Mix A Lot had gotten it wrong there. At least in the paranormal crowd. Slight was in. Waifish even better. Plus our metabolism screwed us a lot of the time. Our bodies simply couldn’t soften and round like humans could.
But back to the man speaking candidly about why no one fell off the face of the earth when they stepped onto the edge of it. My mind happily fuzzed away from his convoluted explanation and back to the latest conversation I’d had with my sister. Well... not happily. The conversation I had with her was ridiculous and uncalled for, but it made more sense than the world being flat.
I believed a lot of weird shit. It was basically in my job description. After all, I was tied to the phases of the moon and once a month, I grew furry and fanged and had to pick bones and sinew from god knows what out of my teeth for a week after shifting. So if I could change into a werewolf, was it really so hard to believe that things on this world weren’t always as they seemed?
Well… except for the world being flat.
That was just crazy.
My attention wandered back up to the stage, and I studied the short man. He had piercing blue eyes that couldn’t even be tamed by the thick-rimmed dark glasses he wore. His hair swam around his head in Einstein-like fashion and his clothes hadn’t seen the hot side of an iron in forever. Or since his mom’s house. Though it wasn’t a stretch to think he might still be living with his mom.
The cover of his book popped up onto the Powerpoint screen.
“Disc Planet - How the World is Similar to a Compact Disc and Why We’re all Aliens.” It was only $25 bucks on online retailers right now.
I rolled my eyes, stood, and made my way quietly to the exit. It was why I sat at the back of the room in ninety-nine percent of these presentations. Like I said, I believed in a lot of weird shit, but this was just too much for me.
We did these little get-togethers once a month. Everyone in the Society for Nonconformist Beliefs had something to say, so everyone got the chance to say it. Much to my chagrin. Not showing up put you in a bad light with the people who ran this thing, and since I wanted to be here, I did my best to put on a smile and grin and bear the weirdest of it.
This was not to say I wasn’t weird. I wassuperweird. Just not as batshit insane as some of the guys I’d met in this club. But all that was overruled by the good ones I’d met.
One who was sitting outside of the auditorium sipping coffee and grinning over his mug at me. “I knew you wouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes. Shaw!” he shouted over to another guy grabbing some java. “Pay up, asshole!”
Shaw discreetly flipped his middle finger up at both of us before he sauntered over.
Jeremy Barkwood motioned for me to sit down so I pulled a chair out and made myself comfortable. Jeremy was one of my closest friends. He was a dryad and, even though he didn’t advertise it, if you looked hard enough at him, you could figure it out. His skin was nut brown and slightly lined around the mouth and eyes. His hair was a deep muddy brown and his eyes were the color of fresh maple syrup tapped from a tree. His knuckles were slightly gnarled, enough to make you mistake them for arthritic when in fact they were just branches made human-like to make the rest of us feel comfortable and so he could somewhat make a life here in this weird town. He could stay in human form for up to a week, but soon enough he had to retreat into the forest and back to his tree for restoration.
“Hey, Barkman,” I said.
He rolled his eyes because I was running out of tree jokes and puns. I needed to step up my game.
“Hey, Dog Breath,” he retorted. I had to laugh. The thing about Jeremy was that he didn’t give a shit if he used the same insult once or a hundred times. I tried my best to always have fresh material. “So… Flat Earthers, eh?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Bunch of idiots. All they had to do was ask the trees. They couldn’t even do that.”
Shaw finally made his way over, hooked a chair with his foot, and pulled it over to him before he sat down. “Bitching about the Flat Earthers again?” Shaw snorted. “No one cares what the trees think.”
“You need your own personal Lorax,” I said to Jeremy.
Jeremy sipped his coffee and stayed silent, though he did send Shaw a withering glare.
Where Jeremy was dark, Shaw was pale. There were a lot of vampires in this town and a lot of them were pale. Shaw was alabaster. Moonlight pale. Yet, he wasn’t a vampire. I didn’t know what the hell he was, though it wasn’t for a lack of asking.
He was secretive and quiet, but he had a hell of a wicked sense of humor and a brain that science should study. Although, knowing him, he probably had already made plans to have his brain safely stowed away after his death.
“Dude,” Shaw said and tipped his mug in greeting. He was a man of few words, so when he did deign to drop some wisdom on me, I perked up and listened.
“Shaw,” I said in return, but I didn’t have a mug or a glass to tip.
“The girl is over there again,” Jeremy unhelpfully interjected. “She’s looking pretty cute today. Less makeup. You can see her freckles.” His nose wrinkled adorably, but it made him look feminine so I didn’t comment on it. “It’s so weird how humans get freckling. Especially when the sun doesn’t shine here all the time.”
