"They look really fucking nervous," said Omar with a chuckle as he swigged his beer and incinerated a few gnats with his flaming right arm. "But, you know, Kahli always kind of looks nervous. She must be a really anxious person. I wonder what that's like. And by that, I mean it must fucking suck."
Brahd sighed. "You're just flying high because everyone else lost all their fucking money."
"Yea, Omar, how'd you know she would win, you arrogant prick?" asked Sahdi.
"I don't know, Sahdi, is it arrogance if I'm fucking right?"
Sahdi didn't know how to respond.
"Yea, that's what I fucking thought. Now, all of you need to listen to me, and listen to me good."
It was difficult to truly listen to Omar on account of how terribly he was slurring, and yet, there seemed to be no other option, because at the volume with which flapped the jowls under his living wood and flopped his tongue around in his mouth, there was absolutely no possible way to ignore a single syllable he enunciated. Even if someone really, really wanted to.
"You're never going to get anywhere by listening to anybody, and I really do mean anybody, like, fucking anybody at all. You're not even going to get anywhere listening to yourself. That's the real fucking trip. That's fucking right. In fact, you actually need to listen to yourself least of all. Like, you need to fucking ignore that motherfucker if you want to stand to have a chance of enjoying anything that life has to offer you, do you fucking hear me? You need to step into your own mind, you need to walk up to that motherfucker, you need to look it in its pinky, squiggly eyes and say fuck you, you fucking fuck, fuck everything that you think you are. There's no fucking reason you need to spend even a second listening to yourself and if you do, well then, shit, that's a fucking second that you've fucking wasted like I keep wasting all these awful flies with my awesome, flaming blade-hand. I bet you all want a huge, flaming right arm blade-hand, huh? One that's nice and stiff and rigid like mine?"
Everyone stared at him with their wide, glowing eyes.
"Yea, that's what I thought. Who in the fuck wants a giant, flaming weapon for a bodily appendage? Nobody but a crazy fucking lunatic would want that. Like, you would have to be absolutely, completely deranged and insane to want a big old flaming blade to be your whole fucking arm. But, you know what? You know what?"
Nobody dared to speak. Omar's eyelid twitched.
Omar smiled a wide, painful grin and then he chugged the rest of his beer before smashing the glass on the side of the bar. "Don't worry, Brahd, you can take that out of the winnings you've got to pay me."
"I figured," Brahd said with a sigh.
"Also, can I get another beer?"
Brahd sighed and rushed to the tap in order to fulfill Omar's thirsty request. It took more than a moment to fill the glass, as it seemed to be spurting out haphazardly.
"Wow, that's taking a while," said Omar as he tap, tap, tapped his foot and waved his flaming arm around a little like some sort of a whacky threat. "Not to rush you or anything, I mean, but it really is just kind of taking you a while."
Brahd groaned and handed Omar his beer begrudgingly.
Omar took a sip and smiled, waggling his eyebrows like a cartoon character and licking his lips like a dried out lizard.
"So, um, what were you saying, Omar?" asked Sahdi.
"..What?"
"She's asking what you were going to talk about next," said Philhip, then he blew his nose into a thick, brown napkin so loudly that it sounded almost like an elephant's trumpet.
"Wow, Philh, that sounded really nasty," said Brahd.
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"Yea," Philhip sniveled a bit. "There's just a ton of mucus going through my system ever since we went to the Pit of Despair, I don't know what really happened."
Omar noticed that Philhip was glaring at Brahd as if he did, indeed, know exactly what happened. And then Brahd unintentionally corroborated this inference with his next words.
"Yea, well, if you weren't being such an ass to me going on and on about my failures to cook and prepare a decent fish taco, I wouldn't have dunked your face in the waters and told you to cry out for your elders. But Philh, the problem is that you did. You did act like a real ass and you did tell me, and I quote, that I ought to go to the deepest point in the darkest pit of the dankest ocean and find the oldest, weakest, frailest aquatic being this side of existence in order to properly and effectively cook one piece of seafood. And you went on to say to me that it was only through these specific conditions that I would be able to prepare for consumption a being of aquatic biology in a way that would be somewhat edible and not totally offensive to the mandibles, the tongue, the esophagus and of course the palate. You said that, because you didn't like the breakfast burrito I prepared you the morning of that fateful day. The breakfast burrito, you'd gone on to say, had shrimp that were 'too tough' or 'too popcorn-esque' while also adding that it 'seemed like there were shells in there' although you also had admitted to me that you 'noticed no shells at all during your eating experience and had no tangible evidence that there were indeed shells in the burritos.' What in the hell was I supposed to think when you said that to me, Philh? Was I supposed to think you were my pal, that you were looking out for me and wanted to help me improve?"
"Uh..." Philhip looked around the room for a bit. "...Yes?"
"Yea, well, it's a big fat fuck no for me, Philh. A big, fat, fuck no. Because fuck no did I think you were my pal in that moment, in that moment I thought that you were just a fucking asshole. So I dunked you like the chickenshit little bitch you are, and I knew for a fact you wouldn't do anything about it if I did. Guess what? You sure fucking didn't, except of course to complain to us all that the living wood covering your nose is a little stuffy. So, fuck you, and fuck your stuffy nose, Philh. I hope that it's so stuffy you blow your fucking brains out."
Everyone stared at Brahd in silence. And then, somehow, Brahd stared at himself.
Brahd fell to the floor, and started to crumple in the fetal position.
"What the fuck?!" said Omar as he took a huge swig of beer, and then another huge swig, and then another. Omar was never a champion beer chugger.
Brahd was facing a painful internal crisis that felt like getting his whole body pulled inside out and then wrapped around a big, rubber tire that was rotating in endless repetitions at a faster and faster cadence, regularly ripping and tearing at the seams of his skin as if he were some sort of a deflated blimp of a tauman being. He couldn't believe that he'd lost so much control, that he'd sworn at Philh, that he'd used such obscenities over and over again. He'd indeed lost himself. What would the great Theseosus think in this moment? Especially considering the great lengths he often went to to curb his use of language!
It was truly a dreadful situation that left Brahd feeling like his heart and soul were laid bare before a large, celestial grill that had one goal, and one goal only. That goal being, of course, to serve up his intestines in a processed, patty format along with onion, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and lettuce in a bit of a classic style hamburger.
Then it seemed that Brahd had no thoughts at all, that his head was empty. And Sahdi screamed. And that made Philhip scream, which in turn made the man who nobody liked scream, who then made the strange blank in the poofy clothes scream, and it was at that point that even Omar finally set down his beer, half of which was at this point strewn across his face, and then indeed himself let loose a scream that was four octaves higher than expected given his normal speaking voice.
And of course, they were screaming because of it.
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The first infection of the Curr, at the start of the Currdling, was discovered by an old water elemental who was working their laboratory to examine a strange kind of semi-fungus that seemed to be infesting some of the algae clusters in their study boxes.
The water elemental's name was Phinheas Glombhorchik.
"Doctor Glombhorchik, I've finally gotten the readings back from the lab!" said Phinheas' assistant, Thina. Thina was short and had a high pitched voice that was often compared by others to a needle rupturing one's skull. "They're... well, they're not great, Doctor."
"What does not great mean, Thina? You look nervous. Do you mean that the readings got botched or something? Do we need to take more reliefs and send them back up to the Facilities or something?"
"No, oh my no, though I did already send this up for review by the Facilities three separate times."
"Three times? Gods, Thina, they must be furious with me." Phinheas sighed and took a sip of the handle of whiskey sitting beside him, then he took a murky rag and wiped off his glasses on it. Then, he cleared his throat and sighed yet again. "I hope they don't revoke my license because of this."
"Oh, that's not going to happen at all," said Thina. "Much the opposite, they requested I send it out for re-review because they were second guessing themselves."
The doctor gasped in a baffled surprise. "How? Why?"
"Why don't you just put these slides under your microscope, Doc," said Thina as she adjusted her thick glasses slightly. "You're not going to believe what you see."