A parent’s wisdom was a precious thing. Oftentimes, you didn’t appreciate it when it was fresh. I wasn’t as close with my father as I would have liked us to be, but I didn’t let that tarnish what good memories I had of him, nor the life wisdom he’d imparted to me. One of the sagacious dollops he’d shared with me as a kid stood out above the rest: happiness is wanting what you have.

It had only grown truer and truer with the passage of the years.

Before you could have any chance of finding happiness, you needed to have a semblance of inner peace to build on. Troubles were toxic; inner troubles, most of all. They rotted our joys from the inside out.

I think that’s why Joe-Bob was a bottomless pit of resentment and need. He had no inner peace, and he clung to ideas of happiness that were either impossible or downright cruel. I wasn’t entirely sure if ghosts could be hungry—Daiism said they could be, Lassedicy said they didn’t exist, while Andalon had no idea one way or the other—but, what kind of frown wouldn’t turn upside down when presented with the feast of their dreams?

So, that’s why I’d suggested the feast.

In hindsight, I wished my family had been there, or at least that Jules had been. That way, she could glare at me and tell me, “You were wrong, Dad. You were totally, absolutely, spectacularly wrong” in that way she did it, with her arms crossed in coldhearted disapproval, and that would have been proper, because I would have deserved it.

Big time.

The other dopplegenneths and I quickly went to work setting up the feast. The activity had an appeal all its own, and everyone except Joe-Bob had watched it in fascination. It started with the table, a grand ellipse of black wood that gleamed in the golden light of our unmoving afternoon sun. We raised the table out of the ground like a sheet or a parachute, pulling the ebony surface up and out from the grassy earth.

The feast was a fantasy, and there was room for everyone. Eunice the green dragon sat next to Spence, who sat next to a bird-man by the name of Robert. All five of myself were scattered among the group. Esmé’s spiderweb robe trailed behind her chair. There was a red lion with a face like the Sun. There was a werewolf in a tuxedo and a robot prince of glass and steel. There was a kobold in a robe, and a gerbil with a cape, and men and women and children of all sizes, colors and shapes. All in all, there were nearly thirty of us.

The me I was currently inhabiting sat next to Andalon and Kreston—both on my left, both in their “base” forms. Topher’s cockatoo gryphon friend sat to my right, chuckle-clucking as he softly bantered with his young ward. Had Embertail not been as charming and endearing as he was, his stand-up-comedian-esque demeanor would have been rather annoying, but, thankfully, it wasn’t. Also, Embertail was “super ultra floofy”, as Andalon had so aptly put it and that was definitely a plus. He was like a bean-bag, only better—fuzzy, fluffy, and warm.

You would think that, being a dragon and all, Eunice would have been the tallest guest, and she would have been, were it not for Joe-Bob’s latest change of form. Even in paradise, with his every wish only a sip or splash away, he just couldn’t settle. After the black dragon form and the gryphon form that came after it, just while we were setting up the feast—creating the furniture, discussing what food to feature—Mr. O’Houlighan kept going back to the fountain, invariably dissatisfied with the latest version of his heart’s desire. As I said, he didn’t have a foundation of inner peace to build on. Each time he came away from the fountain, he would return to it even angrier than he had been the time before.

As for the food, all of me were in unanimous agreement that fusion cuisine was the way to go, and we pulled out all the stops. Sushi with vinegar rice, topped in prawns or tuna; rice rolls stuffed with salmon. Fugu sashimi—properly prepared, of course. Fried rice with eggs, peas, and onions, and bean-sprouts barely born. Almond-crusted trout; rice-stuffed squid simmered in soy sauce. Filet of sole. A mountain of sourdough bread, made the old fashioned way, like they did in the specialty bakeries downtown. Vegetable stew with carrots, mushrooms and elephant yams, fibrous and jiggly. Elpeck Katsu up the wazoo—chicken and pork cutlets fried in breadcrumbs—paired with shrimp and vegetable tempura. The drinks were anything and everything anyone could imagine. The smell of alcohol hung over the feast like a piquant haze.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Just in case anyone felt the need to use the wishing fountain, we’d disassembled it and bottled its fluid in a glass carafe, magicked to never spill, even when knocked over. The carafe stood in a place of pride at the center of the table.

And the sweets? Oh, we had the sweets! Cinnamon-dusted slow-roasted sweet potatoes, encrusted in crumbled sweetcrackers and shortbread. There was fruity gelatin with cotton-candy lightness, sponge cake stuffed with chocolate cherry purée. And cookies! By the Angel, the cookies!

And the best part? Andalon’s reaction. You see, just like eyes or stress, Andalon hadn’t come with a built-in understanding of the concept of food.

“Mr. Genneth,” she’d asked, “what’re you doing?”

“Eating a cookie,” I’d answered. She’d seen me eating one, and not just any cookie, but a chocolate chip cookie—Big Choc brand.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s really, really good.”

And it absolutely was. The chocolate was artisanal. The real cookie it was based on was made with chocolate grown on farms on the Burundi coast, where the trees bathed in the tropical sun and the salt of the sea-breeze. The chocolate was scattered in chunks around the dough; the outer surfaces were rigid and dusty, but, within, they gave way and turned soft and gooey.

I swallowed.

“The dough is kind of like that, too,” I explained. “It’s made of an ever-so-slightly spongy matrix with an outer surface covered in crunchy scales, and together, they combine to give a wonderful mix of different textures, all of which are blended together perfectly—and it’s as sweet as can be.”

“Can Andalon have a cookie?” she asked.

“Of course you can!”

And before we knew it, Kreston handed one to her.

Andalon had been hesitant at first, scrutinizing the cookie with a furrowed brow and then took a single, cautious bite. For a moment, her expression went taut, and then melted like the cookie’s chocolate on her tongue. Her eyes fluttered as she wolfed the Big Choc down, and then started babbling incoherently in rapturous delight as soon as she’d swallowed.

Andalon had finally found god, and his name was Big Choc.

She leaned forward and reached for more.

“Hell yeah!” Joe-Bob bellowed from a third of a turn down the table. “This stuff is the bomb!” He pulled in one of the several plates of beef yakisoba.

Currently, Joe-Bob was ogre-shaped; a dusky ogre—sixteen feet tall if he was an inch—covered head to toe by a shaggy coat of wine-stain-colored leaves, save for his face and his hands and feet. His ogre-body had a boulderous belly and muscle-chiseled chest, and had come in dire need of a large loincloth. Thankfully, we’d conjured one for him ASAP.

At the moment, the ogre was sitting on his knees, with his feet facing the sky—squalid toes wriggling in the grass. He sat next to Esmé, and towered over her fey grace. She kept on staring at him in disgust, particularly at his use of his loincloth as a table for placing extra food.

If Mr. O’Houlighan had wanted to be the center of attention, he’d succeeded with flying colors. The ghosts seated near him shot angry glares his way, and for good reason.

He made a mess, and not just of his meal. Things spilled out of his mouth in a constant stream: droplets, quips, crumbs, and insults. The ogre didn’t hesitate to use his size to his advantage, laying an arm on the table to wall off platters from the others, or shoving his neighbors out of their way to reach for something that had caught his eye, and then deposit it onto his loincloth.

Opening wide, he lifted the platter of beef yakisoba and tilted it down, sliding the food into his mouth. His tongue ran laps around his lips and the two stubby tusks that jutted out from his lower jaw, flicking spittle as he lapped up stray sauce.

“So, yeah,” he said. He picked up a chunk of chicken katsu the size of a man’s leg. “These fuckin’ assholes are killing us by the dozen.” He belched—a marvelous sound. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the doctors or the government—or the doctors and the government—are responsible for this damned plague.” He made air quotes with his giant fingers as he said the word “plague”.

Across the table, Eunice huffed inky smoke plumes, flaring her ear-fins in anger. “How dare you say that!” She spread her wings. “My husband works here! Doctors are trying to save people’s lives!”

“Lady, Lizard, whatever you are,” Joe-Bob replied, “the whole world is a scam. Believe me, I know. Pussyfoots like you don’t know what the real world is like.” The leafy purple ogre thumped his chest. “But I do. So, know your damn place, and stay there!”

Joe-Bob reached for another platter of beef yakisoba, grumbling under his breath.

Eunice growled, but her rider—young Spence—ran his hands over the green dragon’s flank. She drew her head close as Spence muttered something into her ear.

Both of them broke out in sniggers and snorts. Soft white smoke wafted out from Eunice’s nostrils.

The ogre rose up on his knees, gonads rustling against the grass. His shadow loomed large over the table.

He bellowed. “What’s so goddamn funny?”

Spence shook his head.

Joe-Bob scowled. “You…” he pointed a beefy finger at the boy, “you disrespectin’ me, boy?” He puffed up. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Beside him, Esmé glowered as she reached for the plate of beef yakisoba that the ogre had been eyeing.

Joe-Bob’s neck cracked as he lowered his gaze onto the queen of the ancient wood.

All eyes looked up at him in worry.