Bare-Bones

Eddie stood up from where he lay on the ground. A nap on the dirt, a dirt nap, how nice. Now, he didn’t remember going to sleep on the dirt but, still, it wasn’t bad. The dirt was soft, cool and smooth. More clay than anything. He’d slept in worse. After all, he was one of the lower class left to his own devices beneath a vainglorious, greedy tyrant. The last time Eddie had seen a gold coin King Josef was still little Prince Joe.

He remembered thinking “maybe we could be friends” but, as a little peasant boy, son of a Cooper, he understood that, even were Josef a good person, that never would’ve happened. Once he had tied a string to a stick and cast it into a lake. His father, in a panic, had snatched him up. “No fishing in the king’s waters!” he’d shouted, then explaining that Eddie could be accused of stealing from the crown. They’d executed children for less, said father.

But no time for such foolish reminiscing. Certainly he was doing nothing to run afoul of royalty today. Standing, stretching, Eddie worked on loosening his bones. They were popping more readily, sharply and loudly than ever he’d heard previously. “Weird,” he thought aloud. “Well, time for my morning routine.” Casting about he looked for his pack. “Wait…” It was gone!

Eddie felt more than a little bit panicked. Everything he owned was in that pack! The back taxes the King had levied on his father’s shop when he died were greater than the value of the shop. He technically owed the throne hundreds of gold with interest driving the total ever upwards. Could a tax collector have taken his pack? No. No, they would’ve also arrested him and clapped him in irons so that he could work off the debt, or at least pay the interest with sweat.

Nothing for it but to move, search the area, which appeared to be an autumn forest? Except that there were no leaves on the ground. Was there a leaf tax now? Why else would the landholder take up all the leaves? Can you sell leaves? Oh, or did the king seize the leaves for his own purpose?

None of that made sense but, setting that aside, Eddie didn’t know where he was. “Hello?” he called out. “Hello!?” he called, louder this time. This must be the park at the center of the city, assuredly, for Eddie would never risk the creatures outside the city walls. It seemed impossible that this could be wilderness. Right?

From behind, a voice: “Hi, I’m Bobby, and I’m alive!” Eddie stiffened up. What an odd way to introduce oneself. Turning slowly he saw a chalk white figure in peasants’ garb, not unlike himself though, seemingly, impossibly thin.

“A skeleton! A damned undead skeleton! Ahhh!” cried Eddie, turning and fleeing at top speed. In his mind the bloodthirsty beast had malevolent stars set in his eyes, ready to suck out his soul and send it to hell before its razor-like teeth and sharpened fingerbones ripped the flesh from him for unholy sustenance. This stuck with him for what was probably a mile. This was when he ran off a short cliff and fell into a shallow pool with a loud splat.

He lay there, face down, for a short time, not breathing. Afraid to breathe, in fact. Eventually, however, a new voice came. Whereas Bobby’s was comical, like a clown or a simple person (the pinheads at the carnival were especially silly, if a little bitey) this one was acerbic, moody, nasal and deep. “So. Are you done now? Obviously Bobby didn’t chase you. You calm now? Maybe ready to have a little chat?”

Raising his face from the mud Eddie blew the brown stuff out of his mouth and nose, certainly more than he expected or felt come in. Hey, a little bony fish, one of the ones with the transparent flesh. Wait...

“I’ll take your silence as agreement. That works a little better down here y’know. Can you tell me where you think you are?

Eddie shook his head, loosing even more slurry-thin mud. “I … Cragston City? The park therein, perhaps?”

“Uh-huh. And how’d you get here?” What a condescending tone. Eddie began to get irritated.

“I woke up here. What’s it to you, anyway!?” and Eddie raised up to see a new stranger sitting next to him. This one was naked, more naked than is normally possible because, again, like Bobby, he was a skeleton. “You … you’re dead.”

“Good job. Not everybody gets to this point so fast. Seriously, you’re not running or anything … this time.” He shrugged. “My name’s Norm. What’s yours?”

“E-Eddie. Eddie Cooperson.” He locked eyes, or eye sockets perhaps, with Norm. It seemed so unreal.

“Hey now, you got a look like you wanna kiss me. Maybe there was a time when that’d be fun but, buddy, when you ain’t got no lips it’s just awkward. You’ll see.”

“See … what?” Eddie was beyond befuddled.

“Ah. Great, so you’re still not ready. Do me a favor and keep your codpiece on, okay? I gotta … yeah. Bobby! Get over here, buddy.” In the distance the frantic sound of many small breaks could be heard like a child running through piled, dry sticks.

“I can’t believe how friendly you are. And Bobby … I guess he just, basically, said hi. I just … I’d never seen an undead before. I thought you all consumed living human flesh!”

Norm scoffed, turning back to Eddie. “Oh, they do. I guess we’re all just kinda special here, y’know? Lucky.”

Bobby came crashing through the underbrush and crested the cliff shouting “I’m Bobby and I’m alive!” before falling, vertically, all his bones disjointing and landing in a shallow pile spread across the mud field. “Woo!”

“By the gods!” cried out Eddie. “Is he … is he all right?”

Norm chuckled, not yet finding the words.

“Is he?” Eddie gasped. “Is he all right?”

Now more of a laugh out loud reaction. “No, Eddie, he is not all right. Bobby, get up will you? You’re making this take longer.

With a burbling sound a few of the bones that made up Bobby pulled together. He had half a ribcage now. Some bubbles erupted from where the effort pushed his skull under the mud.

“Well crap, that’s going to take a few minutes.” Norm scratched his jawbone with some fingerbones. “Look, I’m trying to be gentle but we’re actually on a pretty tight schedule here. I know it looks like there’s not a lot of structure, because there isn’t, but some of us take personal responsibility to keep things humming, ya know?”

“Uh-huh…?” Eddie was quite confused now.

“So maybe you have … some questions? Or, and this would be really helpful, some insights?”

“Okay, sure.” Eddie thought. “Oh, where are all the leaves?”

“Leaves?”

“Yes. The leaves aren’t on the trees, nor are they on the ground. Did the king order them removed? Did he take them for himself? It’s odd.”

“Uh, no…” Norm slickly rubbed his bony face with a bony hand. “There never were any leaves. I mean, conceptually, yes, but in reality, no.”

“No leaves?”

“No.”

“So this is not the park?”

“I don’t even know what a park is, friend.”

“I … really? Okay. So we’re outside the wall then?”

Norm laughed. “So very far outside of any wall.”

“How peculiar.”

“Okay, we’ll come back to that. Maybe. My turn now. What’s the last thing you remember?” Norm lowered his gaze, tucked his chin really, but Eddie imagined that it was a sly look where the chin dipped but the eyes looked up at the other person.

“Last? Ah, well, That’s the thing isn’t it? I don’t remember how I got to where I was sleeping under that tree…”

“Don’t worry about the tree or how you got there. Last memory before you got here.”

“Yes, ah, well, I was … coming away from my mother’s hovel. I pay her bills, you see, and her shelter tax had come due. Shelter tax is by the person, so that’s why I don’t live with her any more you see, can’t afford it since dad passed on…”

“Uh-huh. Keep going. Bobby’s almost out of the muck, too.”

“So … I went about to all the places where I do my odd jobs, collected my coppers and a few silver for the deliveries, cleaning, hauling and so on. In all I suppose I had something over the tax total. Uhm … three gold, two silver and eight copper. Well, mostly copper, but it added up to that.”

Bobby pulled himself up out of the muck, turned to Eddie and immediately blurted out “Uhmffk Bdfsm n blaaaarrrgh!” as he vomited out an impossible stream of mud back out into the pool.

“He’s good.” said Norm. “Keep going.”

“Well that’s it. I got the money and went to pay … pay it. Oh no, I still need to pay it but … my pack! I don’t have my pack!” Eddie covered his mouth, feeling something cold in his hand, something hard.

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