Pamela opened her eyes. Well, she tried to. They were crusty. So much so that her eyelashes were cemented together. Her bones felt like one big ache, and her head felt like it was a tomato that’d been exploded.

After lying in bed for another miserable hour and a half, which managed to feel like less than a second, Pamela dragged herself out of bed and spent another hour and a half attempting to make herself presentable, though the only person she truly intended to present herself to was indeed herself. This harrowing task left her feeling quite famished, so she shuffled like a sardine to the skytrain dining hall. The line to which unfortunately dragged three cars behind.

Pamela had made her way to the last skytrain car of the line before the dining hall, and the absence of coffee in her system was starting to feel more like a malignant lizard slithering through the folds in her brain and munching on them. And then everything got exponentially worse.

“Pay’umlaw? ‘sayut y’ew?”

Pamela looked away and tried to cover her face. She’d been spotted by Jebediah, who was eating a burnt piece of toast at a table by himself.

“P’ahmoolawuh! I’yus meyuh! J’eyuhbuwudayehwah!”

Pamela picked at her left ear, fishing for some earwax. Unfortunately it was much less plentiful than she had hoped, therefore making her apparent inability to hear Jebediah somewhat less convincing. Then again, Jebediah was more than a bit of a rube, so Pamela figured she could play it off with body language as if she’d just yanked a twenty pounder out of her ear canal.

“Pa’yumlowah! P’eyumahwalah! O’wuhvurr h’eyah!”

Pamela’s eyes darted over for just a moment and locked with Jebediah’s. Now she knew it was all over. It was but half a breath before he stood there, far too close to her for comfort.

“Pah’mwela! G’ewud m’arniyung.” There were bits of burnt toast strewn all over his face, almost as if it could digest them through osmosis.

“Oh, Jebediah,” Pamela sighed, “I didn’t see you there.”

“N’awt a p’uhrawblum n’awut ah pr’awubuwalemuh.”

Pamela’s eyes darted around the floor, as if she could use them to pick up the drawling, incomprehensible syllables tumbling from Jebediah’s lips like a frothy fount of buttermilk.

“D’ew y’oo h’ayuvawuh a’nayuh koo’weyustyawns ‘bawut y’awur n’oo p’awsiyushawn?”

“Actually, yes. My, erm, my standard issue Loyal Gourd slingshot fell apart the other night, and I was wondering if I could get that repaired or replaced or…something.”

“A’wuh, y’ewuh d’awun n’eeyud a s’layungshawut! H’eyur,” Jebediah produced a box of standard issue Loyal Gourd rubber bands, “Th’eyus a’ruh w’hawut y’ew n’eeyud!”

Pamela clasped the soggy box of rubber bands and sighed, wondering why cock had seen fit to replace with these her crossbow, “Thanks, Jebediah.”

“A’yun nay thayung e’yulsuh a’yee c’ayun heyulpuh yew w’iyuth?”

“You, uh, you don’t have any sleeping scrolls on you, do you, Jebediah?”

“N’awuh, ah’yum ah g’awubblayur, a’yus i’yut w’eruh.”

Pamela swallowed air in discomfort. So Jebediah was a gobbler? Well, that explained some of his oddities. Like his strong neckbeard and the odd way he bobbed his head when he walked. Gobblers, unlike normal people, followed the turkeys, whom supposedly inhabited the skies above along with the chickens. It was up for debate whether these magnificent turkeys actually existed, and even if they did, whether or not they deserved reverence over the chickens was contentious at best. That didn’t keep gobblers from existing, of course.

Gobblers also refused all magick, whether it be something as benign as a sleeping scroll or as humbling as a well-endowment enchantment. This made them extremely vulnearble as a sect of people, however on they survived. Some turkish theologists theorized that this itself was proof that the turkeys were watching over them.

“W’wayuh d’ew p’eeyuhpawul a’wulwayees s’tawup t’awlkin’ tuh me wh’eyun ah te’yull ‘m tha’yut?” sighed Jebediah as he sulked away. Pamela hadn’t even noticed she’d stopped talking to him, she’d been wrapped up thinking to herself about gobblers and how strange they were. She was glad he’d left, though.

Bored, Pamela fidgeted through her pockets. She found the crumpled napkin from the other night, and her drawing of the old man/penis. After overcoming the embarassment of wearing the same pants two days in a row, Pamela stared intently at the sketch. Amazingly enough, she found that once again memories of her conversation with him, in all its meanderingness, flowed through her mind’s eye like beer on tap. And hood beer at that. Pamela sighed in satisfaction, eliciting some awkward stares from those around her, including a hushed turkish prayer from Jebediah.

It took entirely too long for the line to relent and for Pamela to grace her nose with the olfactory bliss of the dining cart. However, it was only moments later that she was being told in no uncertain terms that they’d just run out of bacon, ham, turkey, biscuits, rolls, croissants, eggs, cheese, orange juice, potatoes, pancakes, waffles, and even the nice little cubes of butter that were often given out at cafes. Luckily enough they still had some coffee available, albeit it was decidedly overroasted and the attendant glared at Pamela as if she were committing a crime by ordering it. She also generously recieved a few leaves of lettuce and a meager cup of plain yogurt as consolation for missing out on a true breakfast, though again there was this uncomfortable air of ‘I shouldn’t be doing this for you’ emanating from the attendant that left Pamela utterly flummoxed.

Pamela plopped by an open window seat and resumed daydreaming, picking at her sparse plate as if she were barely hungry at all. She watched the clouds dancing around below the skytrain, and gazed in awe at beauty of the suns risen above the whoreizon. Ouch. Perhaps she’d gazed in awe at the suns for a little too long.

“This seat taken?” exhaled a voluptuous voice.

“Huh?” Pamela did a double take, realizing that this voluptuous voice was, as is usual, attached to a voluptuous lady. “Oh, sure, whatever.”

“Whatever? How laissez-faire,” smirked the lady, taking her seat with a tantalizing plate of biscuits and gravy in her gloved hands.

Pamela opened her mouth to say something, but instead all she could do was stare at the biscuits. They looked quite round and, indeed, perky as well. What Pamela wouldn’t do to shove one of those big biscuits in her mouth, she knew not.

“Want some?” the lady chuckled as her biscuits spilled over eacother at the touch of a fork.

“Oh? No, no, it’s fine,” Pamela jabbered, cutting a slice off one of her grapes and eating it with a forced smile.

“Come on, just take a nibble. Look at how big they are. There’s no way I could handle all that myself.”

Pamela tried to politely push away the enormous biscuit, but soon her mouth was salivating as it closed down on warm, fluffy hoodness.

“This is amazing. No wonder they were all out of biscuits when I went to order.”

“All out?” the lady snorted, “They weren’t all out! I was five people behind you in line!”

Pamela nearly choked on shock alone. “B-but the lady said—”

“Which lady?”

“That one over there,” Pamela rudely pointed to the rather brazen looking cafe attendant.

“Oh. Well, she’s kind of a vitch. You never want her to serve you. See that guy next to her? He’s hood. And that other lady’ hood too. They’ll give you, like, twice what you order sometimes just for shits and giggles.”

“Huh. Who knew,” Pamela mumbled through mouthfuls of biscuit, “Wow, this gravy is nice and thicc.”

“Yea, slides right down the throat, doesn’t it?”

Pamela nodded enthusiastically.

“You don’t take this skytrain a lot, do you?”

Pamela shook her head decisively.

“It’s nice. Beautiful views,” the lady leaned over to look out her own window, her cleavage puffing itself up somewhat unintentionally in the process, “And great service, when you know the right people. So what’s got you headed to WestNorthSouth Caldonia? Twerk?”

Another enthusiastic nod.

“What do you do? You’re not a witch, are you? Wizard? Warlock? Hood. Those magick types give me heartburn.”

Pamela chuckled politely, slightly choaking on the biscuit.

“Lawyer? Doctor? Cluck, are you a consultant or something? You didn’t quit your job to become a farmer, did you? Those kids always give up in half a year you know, just with the changing of the seasons. People from WestNorthSouth Caldonia count it as a migration cycle at this point. Whatever. I give up, what do you do?”

“I’m a member of the Roy—erm, the Loyal Gourd.”

“Ahh,” the lady tsked and sighed, “They demoted you, didn’t they?”

Pamela looked at the floor for a second, noticed it was covered in old candy wrappers, and looked back up to the lady. “Yup.”

The lady plopped the last bite of biscuit into her mouth and swallowed without a chew, smiling smugly. “How strong are your forearms?”

“Excrete me, misirrah?”

“Service in the Loyal Gourd takes quite a toll on people. Look at that guy over there—” she pointed to a feeble, older man with both his arms in slings. He was lapping up some pea soup like a dog.

“Cluck’s sake,” Pamela nearly inhaled her bite of biscuit, “What happened to him?”

“Weeks and weeks of around the clock hand waving. Waving hello to literally everyone he sees, every time, without fail. He used to smile at them too. Before he sprained his face, that is.”

“My cock,” Pamela sighed, “That’s horrible.”

“You should fare a little better than him. At least you’re young, you’ve got time to acclimate your body to what the position demands. I’m just trying to warn you, it’s not all double sunshines and quadruple rainbows.”

Pamela finished off her biscuit and stared at the table, which the lady’s ample chest happened to be nicely resting upon. “So, what do you do, misirrah?”

“Why, I am an artisté. I delve deep into my own psyche, looking deeply at everyone and everything I see to paint and sculpt the human form in ways that glorify the universe and bring me ever closer to self-apotheosis. I put my whole soul into every squeeze of the brush and pressing of the clay, and it shows in the end result.”

“Oh. Is that very lucrative?” Pamela’s interest piqued.

“No, not at all, and terribly so. Despite the immense spiritual value of my twerks I cannot say that they sustain me, as it were. I do what all great artistés do when fate gives them the middle finger.”

“Cry?”

“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Drown your sorrows in mind altering substances?”

“No. Well, sure, but—”

“Take out your frustrations on those around you by generally being unpleasant to spend time with?”

The lady stood up and slammed a fist on the table, “Can you please just let me finish?!”

The dining car went silent as everyone stared at her and murmured things about lacking impulse control and being rude and oh well you know she’s an artisté so that explains it. She looked around the room, glaring back, and daintily reseated herself.

“Thank you. What I do, is, I teach.”

Pamela nodded. Some of the still captive audience muttered that that explained the outburst even more.