On a winding gravel road there lived a hobo.

It was a typical country road, one lane with trees either side just big enough for two carts to pass eachother and wheelruts so deep you could take a bath in them.

The hobo was almost as typical as the road. A long scraggly beard, lopsided hat, boots worn thin and of course, the secret hobo’s tattoo on his ankle.

The hobo’s name was Possum Jack, and on the Monday morning that we join him, Possum Jack was in the middle of a tradition as old as humanity itself - he was trying to recover from a hangover.

Possum Jack had a special technique you see… garnered from years of abusing mushroom cider, charcoal rum, and whatever else he could get his hands on.

His technique started with the opening of one eye. He chose his right eye, partly because it was itchy, and partly because he’d traded away his other eye in a game of Two Tack with a demon the night before.

His right eye blinked open… so far so good… next step was to lift his head, which he completed without even a whiff of a headache. He slowly shifted his arm, testing, probing, as he searched for a bottle of elderflower vodka that lay just beyond his reach.

If I can get that… I’ve won, he told himself as he stretched further and further along the bed of pine needles he’d slept on until his calloused fingers closed around the mouth of the bottle. I’m safe. He nearly wept as he uncorked the thing, tilted his head back and…

Some idiot started whistling.

The tune was familiar - Ten Nights out on Turker Town - it was beautifully whistled. But… it also acted like a spark to the bonfire of a hangover that had been lurking in poor Possum Jack’s mind.

His throat went dry, his ears started ringing, his nose bled, and his head felt like a horseshoe being beaten under a cobbler’s gaze.

He let out a snarl and jumped to his feet. The jolt sent his hangover into another spasm of blinding pain. But Possum Jack didn’t stop. He was going to make sure the whistler felt at least four sevenths of the pain he did.

As he ran his fists wrapped themselves in a blinding green fire. Stoneskin curled around his body and…

He caught up to the whistler, hurled a ball of fire at them and watched with a grumpy kind of smugness as the whistler’s backpack, clothes, and finally hair went up in flames.

‘That’ll teach ya,’ he murmured, slightly sad he hadn’t brought the bottle of vodka with him.

The whistler once again interrupted Jack’s peace by screaming. It was loud and high-pitched, almost like a kid being burnt alive.

And that’s when Possum Jack realised that yes… his ears were correct… he’d just burnt a kid alive.

****

While Possum Jack was really good at throwing fire at people, he was less good at getting fire off them.

First, he tried offering the burning kid a drink of his vodka. Which, being alcohol, caught fire, burnt Jack’s throat as he tried to make the most of it, and finally exploded the bottle, sending smithereens of glass and burning alcohol raining down of Possum Jack and his unfortunate victim.

By that point, the kid was out of hair, eyebrows, and probably the ability to reproduce so Jack did the only thing he could. He threw the kid into one of the carriage wheelruts.

The wheelrut was deep and slushy, the perfect mixture for quenching fire.

It was also an oozing pit filled with a thousand years worth of horse dung, piss, and the occasional dead badger.

By the time Possum Jack fished the boy out the poor kid’s body looked like it’d aged a hundred years.

He dragged the kid up, into the forest and dumped his body into a crystal-clear creek. The thing clouded up for about ten minutes, but eventually the boy was clean. Possum Jack hoisted him up, and took a good look at him.

‘Goddamn, I’m sorry,’ he said to the boy, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve made you ugly for life.’ Then he did the only thing he felt he could do in the situation, he tipped his hat said, ‘Welp, best of luck.’ And he started on his way.

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****

Except he wasn’t alone.

The kid was following him. God knows how. It was kind of stumbling and mumbling as it moved. Possum Jack hoisted his swag higher on his back and quickened his pace.

He did a long walk that day under the beating sun and the whole way the kid never lost him. Eventually, Possum Jack spotted a gnarled pine tree with the picture of a campfire carved into its left branch. Jack quickly turned off the road onto a track that couldn’t be seen.

He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled, ‘stupid kid.’

Down the path, next to a cliff, he found a campfire around which three other hobos sat, one with a floppy hat, another with his elbows sticking out of his shirt, and the third prodding embers beneath a can of beans. The man with the beans winked, ‘If it ain’t old Possum Jack. Didn’t think you’d be still with us after last night.’

Possum Jack tried to wink his one remaining eye but wasn’t very successful.

‘You know me Toni. Can’t kill a weed.’ Possum Jack eased himself onto his bum. His legs were stiff as old tobacco.

‘God, I haven’t walked that far in a long time.’ he mumbled to himself, untying his swag and pulling out his goatskin full of water, ‘There was some kid bothering me you see…’

‘What was that about a kid?’ said the hobo with the floppy hat.

‘Ahh nothing,’ said Possum Jack, ‘just…’ he trailed off, his single eye widened, his face contorted. There, sitting down at the fire, was that burnt-ass kid.

Jack wanted to cry. He wanted to disappear in a puff of smoke. Instead, he hid his fear and disgust and held up his hands, pointing them at the kid.

With a click of his fingers flame sprang from his palms, creating neat little balls of flame, ready to pulverise the little squirt.

‘Go on,’ Possum Jack said, ‘who are ya? Why have you been following me all day, and what’s with the damn whistle?!’

The kid stopped whistling. The darkness seemed to crawl on his face as his blister-coated lips moved apart.

‘I want to know about Sparrow.’ the boy said.

All sound died away from the clearing they sat in. Even the fire seemed to dull. Each of the men around it rolled up the right leg of their pants. Just above their ankle sat a tattoo of a tiny sparrow in flight.

‘Why do you wanna know about him?’ Possum Jack asked, ‘He don’t mean nothing to you.’

The burnt boy laughed, it was clear it pained him, ‘I been on the road three years old man, and every hobo has a different story to tell about Sparrow if you can get em drunk enough.’

Possum Jack stuck his nose in the air, ‘I’m not talking kid.’

‘Oh yeah… they said you’d say that.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘All the other hobos,’ the kid laughed again and blisters on his throat popped, ‘but they also told me that you’re the second best teller, and the first best don’t talk much.’

A small smile crept onto Possum Jack’s face, ‘You been on the road three years huh? Welp, I reckon that just about makes you a fully fledged hobo.’

Possum Jack pulled out a pan, added some spices, dried beans and water. The kid took off his backpack and threw his beans into a billy with a little dried meat, water and gravy.

They placed their meals on the fire and Possum Jack inhaled, ‘Wow kid, that smells damn fine.’

‘Tastes it too, a little coriander makes all the difference,’ the kid said.

Possum Jack nodded his head sagely, like he knew what coriander was, ‘You know kid, everyone's got a hero. The knights have Artimus Steelfist, the wizards have Marvin Stormtongue, heck, even the business types have Piggy.’ He took a long pause as he tapped a little leaf into his pipe, ‘Everyone needs a hero kid, and us Hobos, we’ve got Sparrow.’

The kid’s eyes were glowing, the scathing look dropped from his mouth.

‘You see, Sparrow’s the greatest of all hobos. And the greatest of all heroes, because you see he was free… like us. He didn’t have no obligation to fight, he could go where he wanted, the road was his home and he made love to demons and angels alike. He started wars, and finished a few of em too. Hell, in the end even the gods had to bow to him.’

‘You’re telling it wrong,’ said the guy with the floppy hat.

‘Excuse me?’ Possum Jack said, his tone indignant, and his finger worming a steaming bean into his mouth.

‘You’re telling it wrong,’ floppy hat repeated, ‘you’re meant to start at the start, not the end or you’ll end up starting to make us all confuzzled.’

The kid looked from Possum Jack to the floppy hat man and back again, ‘Alright, if you’re so sure, you tell it.’

The floppy hat nodded, ‘Well, it starts when Sparrow was born. He weighed about the same as a bag of rice, and he had this golden screw on his belly button.’ Floppy hat lifted his shirt to show a golden screw which had been glued with acorn-sap to the woolly area of his belly button, ‘Anyway, he went…’

A branch snapped and out of the darkness came a hobo without a pack, shoes, or even a tattoo of a Sparrow on his foot. His eyes were crazy and his hair was long, and when he spoke the fire seemed to tremble before him. His skin was the shape and colour of rock.

‘You want to know about Sparrow?’

The kid nodded, ‘but these guys were just…’

‘These guys don’t know the truth.’ the crazy man said, ‘they weren’t there when he burned.’

‘You gotta start at the star-’ Floppy hat started to whine, but as he spoke the fire roared into the shape of a dragon, and wrapped itself around the man’s throat until he shut up.

The crazy man’s eyes were almost feverish. He seemed to be staring at ghosts.

‘You want to know about Sparrow?’

The kid's eyes darted from the crazy hobo to Possum Jack, who was struggling to keep his breathing calm.

‘Who is this guy?’ the kid whispered.

Possum Jack gulped and then his eyes met the kid’s, ‘He was there, when… when it happened.’

‘Okay.’ the kid said, ‘I want to know about Sparrow.’

‘Good.’ said the crazed hobo, taking a seat on the campfire. The flames sizzled around him, but he seemed completely unbothered as he began his tale.