Jirou got his first itinerarium for a birthday; it came with a package of little starter journeys, but they never quite made it past the planning phase. Since then he’s been saving up from his job at the game store, and today he’s brought home his first real pilgrimage.

He plops it down in the sand of the glass torus and watches it struggle to its feet. Its feet are bound in sackcloth, and it carries a heavy stone on its back. He taps the glass. It stumbles forward, eyes on the false horizon, to begin its slow and endless loop.

Jericho has an eye made of mother of pearl, and keeps the real one in a raven’s beak; in this way, though half-blind, he watches the world.  Jericho’s left arm is iron and his teeth sprung gold and ivory.  He keeps his brain beneath a crystal dome, that his thoughts might stay sharp and clear.

Only Jericho is permitted to employ such bindings.  Only Jericho can harness the truths thus unlocked.

“Mercy,” begs the young mage they drag before him, two fingers cut to stumps.  But Jericho keeps his heart far away, in a box on the floor of the sea.

Spirit oil is cheaper than you’d think, but there are lots of dead people.

Proper rubs down the pneumatic screen-door closer with it; it works okay. Of course, the dead ask him for things whenever he goes out to the porch now.

“Remember my names,” they wheeze in tiny voices as he carries out a plate of steaks. “Curse my enemies! Regret as I regretted; live as I never lived!” Proper doesn’t mind. The screen door closes a lot easier.

He does try asking what their names were. They just mumble a lot, and get embarrassed when they can’t remember.

There are six other people currently following Tristan and Mowbray dislikes all of them. They’re redundant. Why do they show up in person? Mowbray has the most experience, and issues regular updates on tristansgarbage.tumblr.com and twitter.com/tristracker. The latter are even geotagged.

Granted, one might interpret the sporadicity of updates to mean that Mowbray is delinquent, but in fact Tristan has merely taken up with a man and is too infatuated to follow his regular jogging route or buy Colgate Total Whitening Plus toothpaste. There’s little cause to worry, though, Mowbray knows. Tristan will come back to them. One way or another.

The giant lived, and sued, and won, and now Jack’s living the settlement: five years of indentured servitude.  He plugs mouseholes in the castle walls, chases dust beasts, finds things under the couch.  Once in a while he has to ride a vanishing pat of butter desperately around a hot skillet.

The giant laughs at that, spinning in his enormous motorized scooter.  Jack understands it was the largest single Medicare expenditure in state history.  The gantry supporting his neck was purchased used from NASA.  Things could be worse, Jack supposes:  he could be Mrs. Giant.  Somebody has to change those diapers.