Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a town, where you might describe as, in the middle of nowhere. There was a mountain to the North, a forest to the South, fields of crops to the East, and a path to a bigger, more substantial town to the West.

In this town, called aptly ‘The Crossroads to Fucking Nowhere’ by its citizens and every lost traveller, who’d passed through, was in fact named ‘Hinterlands’.

To Mayoral Assistant Lee, both names were terrible, and definitely not appropriate if a tourism business was ever to begin.

Thankfully for us, dear readers, nobody ever particularly cared what Lee thought. I suspect, as the town mortician, that he probably has a forename, I have no desire to learn of it. Mayoral Assistant Lee has not passed through my doors, and likely never will.

You see, fellow readers, Mayoral Assistant Lee is immortal.

It may have taken me several decades to extract the full story, and another several weeks to compile this, but I have finally codified the official, biographical account of Mayoral Assistant Lee’s journey to immortality.

If I was going to proceed in the standard fashion, typical of these things, I would begin with the stories of his parents: how they met; their whirlwind romance, and the particularly omen-laden night that Mayoral Assistant Lee was born.

However, that is not relevant to this story. He was born in March forty years ago on the tavern’s main table, like most other children, unfortunately, and was the most average child imaginable. He was not good at sports. He was not good at arts. He was not good at science. And he was not good at maths. He was average when it came to every subject and activity one could possibly think of, and nobody ever thought to waste their hard-earned sweets gambling on whether he would take first place at the end of year exams.

I should know because I won many sweets, betting on myself.

Mayoral Assistant Lee finished his education, taking the median place in the official order of students, and then locked himself away in his home for the summer, while all the other students found themselves employment.

By the autumn season had arrived, and the leaves on the trees had matured into a golden yellow, his mother had found herself dragging her son to the biggest building in the village: the town hall.

For you see, the town hall was home to the town mayor, as well as the central bureaucracy of the town.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mayoral Assistant Lee’s mother barged right in, kicking down the front doors and marching herself straight into the office of Town Mayor Frederick Hindlebirth Johnson.

“I demand you give my son a job!” she was reported to have screamed. Witnesses, and by witnesses I mean Johnson, have reported that the scream in question was so loud, so monstrous, so destructive and universe-ending, that the scream could was heard all over the town, causing ears to bleed and cattle to drop dead, in their pens.

Town Mayor Frederick Hindlebirth Johnson looked at the raging mother in front of him and conceded. From then on, Mayoral Assistant Lee had officially become Mayoral Assistant Lee.

Though he had to complete several trials first, all explained well out of earshot of his mother: take several exams first; sit through several interviews; go through multiple work experience shadowing days; work as an intern, whose role was to act as a tea brewer; act as the messenger and be spit at whenever bad news was delivered; be buried under heaps and heaps of paper as he worked his way up the career ladder, and finally be awarded the position of Mayoral Assistant, in a ceremony Mayoral Assistant Lee had to organise himself.

Nobody, of course, told his mother this. She would have a fit.

I, dear reader, have come to learn that in life, an exceptionally talented parent does not necessarily produce an exceptionally talented child. It is one of the mysteries of life that I have pondered over for days, weeks, fortnights, and years: how the fuck does his mother scream so loud?

Regardless, Mayoral Assistant Lee was now deserving of his name, truly, being the Mayoral Assistant.

It is now, where he temporarily leave the story of Mayoral Assistant Lee to focus on the man whom he serves.

Town Mayor Frederick Hindlebirth Johnson was a man born into luxury and power. His father had been mayor, and his father before him had been mayor. The position of mayor, despite being a democratic position, had been hereditary, as nobody else, in particular, had run for the position, other than the Johnson family.

Town Mayor Frederick Hindlebirth Johnson, himself, was a man who was obsessed with only one thing: trashy, paranormal romances. From morning until night, he wrote these stories, inserting himself as the main character, creating beautiful, voluptuous women who would fill his fantasy harems. The tsundere was his favourite character archetype, and when Mayoral Assistant Lee had finally risen in the bureaucracy to match his title, Town Mayor Frederick Hindlebirth Johnson had worked seven years writing out his ultimate fantasy: a sexy, red-head vampire, called Serenity, would be ruler of the world, commanding himself and all her subjects to bow down to her, and he would do so with pleasure.

Mayoral Assistant Lee had once stumbled upon several drafts of his novel, and had described the incident as, “terrible enough to make [me] want to invent bleach, centuries early, just so [I] can pour some into [my] eyes.”

Looking past that, it is time to discuss why you, dear reader, are here. You have obviously come to be regaled with tales of the all the stupid shit that Mayoral Assistant Lee has done, and has survived.

Read on dear reader, if you dare.

Note from the mortician: I fully understand the need for better healthcare. I understand that babies being born in taverns, due to irresponsible parenting, is a travesty. Proper access to medical treatment is a human right, however, it is just a shame that if such a thing actually happened, business would decline. I am a mortician, after all.