Cold As Ice

Saladolsa's snowy season has, to this point, been one full of profound discomfort and chill. The temperature barely broke into the double digits most days and Fernando's large office windows were drafty portals to a frozen hellscape of blowing, gritty snow and patches of ice.

Fernando did what he could to keep the store clear of impediments to entry: he ventured outside to clear away the drifting snow and made sure to scatter salt over what his orange snow shovel could not remove.

One evening, the phone rings. "Hello, Dominion of Movies."

"Yeah, I wanted to let you know that we'll be keeping out the movies we got from you an extra night."

There is a pause just long enough that Fernando takes this as a cue to respond. "Alright, that's fine--" he begins, only to learn that he had inadvertently cut off the woman, one of Fernando's best customers.

"Our car just won't start," she continues.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Fernando says when he realizes what he'd done.

But the woman takes this to be an expression of remorse for her car troubles. "No, don't be. There's nothing you could do about it. We'll come in and pay the late fees tomorrow probably."

The jilted not-a-conversation continues with Fernando only now responding to her inoperative car woes. "That's fine. It's like two degrees out and I feel like you're not the only one. Don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry?" she asks, sounding confused.

"Wait what?" Fernando also asks, and assuredly confused.

"Maybe we should start over," the woman says.

"Probably." 

There is a pause of five or so seconds.

"Okay," she says with a nervous giggle. "Our car won't start, so we can't get back the movies we rented until tomorrow."

"That's fine," Fernando responds. "It's hateful outside and I don't blame your car for not starting. Don't worry about the late fees, since I wouldn't want to go out into this crap either."

"What, really?" she asks.

"Yes, really. Just don't let it spread that I'm not a heartless bastard."

She laughs. "You are the best. Thanks so much!"

"Welcome. Stay warm." Fernando hangs up, then looks around the thankfully empty store.

"The epitome of social class," he mutters, returning to his seat.

Fail Gully

“Hey, what's this movie Epic like?” asks a sixteenish-year-old one afternoon.

“Epic? It's like Fern Gully for the new generation.”

“What's Fern Gully?”

Fernando is at a loss for words, and the customer instead decides to rent Olympus Has Fallen.

Bless Me

One day Fernando rests upon his throne and looks out his viewing portal at the great wide world surrounding the Dominion. Across the street, a backhoe which has sat half-buried in a hole for the last two weeks continues sitting. Traffic passes, trucks and semis and sedans. A young man walks along the sidewalk.

Wait, a man walking along the sidewalk? That doesn't happen in Saladolsa, not ever. Or in America, for that matter. And he....Fernando leans forward in his seat and squints to get a better view. The young man wears a checkered, button-up shirt. A navy blue satchel is slung over his shoulder. And his hair....

Fernando leans back in his chair, eyes wide, and looks around his office in shock. The Aryan!

He immediately changes the subject in a conversation he has with his e-companion, Lucretia. “The godmongers are in town! One of them's across the street. What should I do if it comes in? I need a character.”

The Aryan has by this point stopped before the insurance place across the street from the Dominion. He peers through the business's window, then turns the doorknob and lets himself in. Fernando hastily appends to his chat, “Oh yes, he's entering businesses. Just slithered into the insurance place across the street.”

Lucretia answers, “Oh boy. Break out the Russian mobster guy.”

Mobster guy...? Nicolai! There's a name and a face that Fernando does not consider too often. His memories of that man are still...quite fuzzy. Break him out, though? Of where, jail? Was he in some kind of legal trouble? Fernando much prefers not to engage in felonious conduct, if he can at all avoid it.

He also posits his question to others present in the internet world. Cortez responds with a vote for Vinny. Vinny is an asshole. He shit Lorenzo's bed and needs to get his ass kicked. Vinny's pad, though, is a sprawling and chaotic deathtrap. The last time Lorenzo and his posse visited, they would up trapped on another plane of existence entirely.

Vinny is a dick, and Nicolai had tallied more votes by the end of election season. There may have been some stuffing of the ballot box, but that's democracy for you.

As Fernando prepared the tools needed to break out this character from his long absence, the chimes over his door tinkle. A young lady enters, with mousy brown hair and slightly crooked front teeth. She wears a sensible blue cardigan over a white button shirt with a plaid skirt. She bears a satchel identical to The Aryan's, from which publications and papers and pamphlets protrude. “Hi!” she chirps.

“Hello,” Fernando says. His voice is a strange half-gargle, like he is trying to do a bad Slavic accent. This was not as it was meant to be! The Aryan was to have paid Fernando a visit for Round Two! Now he has to converse with a woman? Madness!

Fernando plays it cool and clears his throat. “How can I help you?” he asks, smiling.

“My name is Elizabeth, and I'm visiting everyone here in town to ask if they would like to donate any money to a missionary nurse program.” She rifles through her satchel and withdraws a stack of five books. She does not extend any of them Fernando's way, nor make an immediate sales play. “It's so strange that you own a video store here, in a town this small. How many people are there here again?”

Hmm. Either she was lucky in her guess, or she had been briefed at some juncture on Fernando's existence and credentials. Rather than being a contrary fucker as with The Aryan or Mad Cultist in earlier years, Fernando opted to treat this visitor like a customer. He's never done that with the godmongers.“Oh, around four hundred,” he says, tilting his gaze upwards and to the side. A sizable Guardian Spider lingers in a corner of the office. “Maybe a few dozen more if you count the suburbs.”

Elizabeth laughs. It sounds almost, but not quite, genuine. “So I have a question for you.”

“I may have an answer.”

Now she fishes out one of her tomes, a spiral-bound cheap piece of shit that purports to be a cookbook, the same title which The Aryan bore last year. It made claims of “hearty homecooked meals in minutes.” She places it in Fernando's hands. He opens it to the table of contents, as he had given up on his oxygenarian lifestyle shortly after taking it up last year. He has no willpower.

And, mmm, what a collection of culinary masterpieces. Macaroni and cheese. And meatloaf. Oh, blueberry pie and breaded pork chops. Truly Jacques Pépin would be hard-pressed to match this caliber of comestibles.

“Would you consider yourself to be more the cook or more the eater?” she asks Fernando as he browses the cookbook.

The Keeper arches an eyebrow. “I am of the belief that you can't be one without also being the other.”

Elizabeth laughs again. “Surely you must favor one over the other.”

Fernando shrugs. “I switch it up. Keeps things from getting too stale.” He places the book face-down upon his counter.

Elizabeth smiles and looks Fernando in the eyes. Fernando smiles back. After around five seconds, his visitor tells him, “You seem like you're really intelligent.”

“Well, that depends on how we define intelligence. It takes all sorts and styles of knowledge to truly be considered all-knowing.”

“Are you a Christian, by chance?”

“Afraid not.”

“Catholic?” Weird. Fernando had always assumed the latter to be a subset of the former.

“Sorry, no.”

Elizabeth's smile grows wider, and her voice pitches up a quarter-octave and takes on a guttural undertone, as though her throat did not want to allow the following word to pass her chords unobstructed. “Atheist?”

“Atheism is too strong a position for me to take.”

Her body relaxes a little. “Agnostic?”

“No, I believe that there exists some all-encompassing purpose behind things.”

Her lip quirks. “Skeptic?”

That's a new one. “About most things, yes. Proof ought to be had before conclusions are made, on any topic.”

Elizabeth gives a little sigh and shakes her head from side to side. “I give up. What are you then? Buddhist?”

“All of the above. I live by my own set strictures and rules and don't believe it is ethical for me to use them to unduly impact the lives of others.”

“Oh, it seems like you're a very moral person who seems to put a lot of stock into logic and thought,” she murmurs, withdrawing another book. “This is a book of philosophy and aphorisms, and the history of all kinds of moral and religious movements. It will change the way you look at the world, I promise.”

No doubt, since the book's subtitle makes note of freedom having been under attack through the ages.

Fernando takes the book from her, then immediately sets it down. “Ah, there's the rub. I also believe in quid pro quo in my moral dealings with others.”

Elizabeth smiles at Fernando. “'There's the rub,' that's from Hamlet. Did you quote Shakespeare on purpose to me?”

“I hadn't planned on it, but great minds sometimes do think alike.”

Here Elizabeth begins to quote that particular soliloquy at Fernando. Sling, arrows, misfortune, dying and sleep, the rub, all of it up until the shuffling off from the mortal coil. It's certainly more Hamlet than Fernando had ever bothered to memorize. “Well done!” he says, and genuinely.

“Do you do a lot of reading?” she asks after giving a small curtsy.

Fernando has fielded this question previously and has a canned response on hand: “Indeed so. Roughly equal parts fantasy and nonfiction.”

She withdraws a third book. This one has a placid scene of some tropical paradise emblazoned on the cover, a stereotyped palm tree-at-sunset, waves-washing-on-the-beach image. “Here is another book. It has a number of stories, both real ones and fiction. They're great for relieving all the stress in your life. Surely you must have a lot of it, running your own business.” She flips it over and puts it in Fernando's hands, then slides her finger across the cover to the barcode and price on the back. “As you can see, it is normally priced at nearly thirty dollars, but really anything you can give would be appreciated so very much. Most people give somewhere between twenty and twenty-five dollars for this.”

“Well, truth be told, I'm feeling pretty good about my life right now,” Fernando says, adding this third book to the growing pyramid. And this is true, for later that selfsame week Fernando would embark on an excursion to magical, faraway lands, one which had been planned into his life-schedule since February.

“Everyone runs through rough patches.”

“This is true. But, I feel adequately equipped to parse them through on my own should they arise, or perhaps with the help of my friends.”

Elizabeth's smile falters now, and Fernando sees the merest hint of desperation in her eyes. She hands over one of the two remaining pamphlets in her hands. “Would you like a prayer book? Really, any donation at all is appreciated.”

“I'm sorry. I don't have my wallet on hand here, and I can't take anything from the till. You understand.” Fernando makes an internal promise to provide a burnt sacrifice of amendment to Gord the Lawgiver as penance for his lie. Though, in Fernando's defense, his wallet was not immediately on hand; it rested in his back room, upon his comfy futon.

Now she hands over the last item in her grasp, a feeble postcard with a generic Christian blessing/greeting writ upon its front. The postage is not even paid. “A postcard, then? Even a dollar in loose change could help me with my program.”

“No, I'm sorry.” Fernando uses the postcard as the capstone of the architectural masterpiece of glossy, pulped wood.

Elizabeth shovels the stack back into her arms, holding it against her chest. “In that case, thank you for your time. May God bless you.” She makes the sign of the cross in midair with her free hand, then sweeps that arm wide. “Jesus will return soon, in His Second Coming! I don't know exactly when it will be, but all of the signs are here!” Her rapture swells, as does the volume of her voice, as she passes her edict down upon Fernando. “I will pray for you, that you will find the path to salvation before it is too late.” Then she turns and leaves.

Fernando stands behind his counter for a moment or two after she departs, then returns to his seat. That went much better than expected. Nicolai didn't even need to make an appearance.

One thing, though: isn't Find the Path a druidic spell? Methinks somebody is flirting a little too closely with paganism!

Ponies

Ponies are pretty nifty little creatures. They're pint-sized horses, lovable and scruffy all at once, achondroplastic dwarf equines which have been enslaved and bred over generations for humanity's labor and amusement. The internet has a queer fixation in using pony-like creatures in various image-based memes, brought about by a bizarre subculture of adults who adore the new iteration of one particular show which originated in the glorious 1980s, when men were men and cartoons were full of more corn than the lowest-grade dry cat food.

These ancestral ponies were chubby and stocky creatures, as I recall. I never really watched the show, of course; I'd been more the type to sit down in front of He-Man or Dungeons & Dragons because what are expected gender norms, especially to a five year old, but I recall the original show rather vividly despite this, all thanks to the product tie-ins, those girly toys with brushes and stickers which bedecked the shelves of the toy aisle opposite awesome action figures (so dolls, except for boys. What are expected gender norms?). They resembled actual ponies, come to think of it. Not that I have anything against the art direction in the new cartoon, mind; Lauren Faust does simply marvelous work in her own style. But her creations are hip and lithe creatures, more like horses than fat bumbling ponies. Horses are cool too, but this is about ponies.

Bill the Pony from The Fellowship of the Ring, could you imagine if he'd been streamlined and sleek and athletic and charming, the cool alpha male of the equine pack (er...herd)? It just wouldn't work. Ponies are meant to be the ungulate world's jesters, much like pigs are the misunderstood and somewhat creepy ice cream truck drivers and alpacas are the curvy bikini models everyone wants, nay needs, to hug.

While we're on the subject of ungulates, tapirs are woefully underrepresented as anthropomorphized creatures. Llamas, giraffes, rhinos, deer...those all exist in the worlds of animation and video games, but tapirs are limited to, what, the Pokèmon Drowzee (which isn't even meant to be a tapir, but rather a baku!)? I hereby propose this as the new cutting edge in animated entertainment:

Imagine a world, grim and dark and dystopian, ruled by a ruthless and authoritarian syndicate, a committee made up of representatives from the major mammalian orders. Fighting against this machine of oppression, a band of guerrilla warriors (not gorilla warriors; no, the token gorilla would be like a pole dancer or something) who have had enough with their shitty lot in life. A tapir, a fossa, a hyrax, a nutria, and a slow loris, with a binturong injected for comic relief. They blow up things and piss off the Powers That Be until shit gets serious enough that the Council of Hate puts itself at great risk and by retaining the mercenary services of the most perfect and amoral killing machine imaginable: Man.

Anyway, by the series finale every one of the main characters has died, except for the human, who just lights up a cigarette, enjoys it, and stubs it out on a skull trophy collected from his first victim, that brave tapir.

Hollywood, call me.

Urine Trouble

 “Hey, have you seen this movie?” The speaker is a semi-regular teenaged customer, fourteen or fifteen or thereabouts, and he asks Fernando the question on a rent-one-get-one-free day.

“Which one is that?”

“This Life of Pee here.”

“Life of Pi.”

“Pee, pi, what's the difference?”

“I think you'll find that uric acid is rather different from the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.”

“Whatever. They shouldn't spell it different from how it's pronounced then.”

While Fernando cannot and will not argue against some of the abject silliness found within English spelling, he still responds in this instance with all the snark he can muster. “I'll get right on telling the Greeks they've been doing it wrong these past three thousand years.”

Fernando's guest brushes it off like it ain't no thang. “Is it any good?”

“Apparently it's a kid on a boat with a tiger on a journey of self-discovery, or something like that. I've also been told that it's much better than I'm making it sound.”

“Have you seen it?”

“No, but some year I'll get around to it, probably. Maybe.”

“I just don't want to get a movie if it'll be boring.”

“Have you seen Gremlins?”

“No...when did it come out.”

“1984.” When Fernando sees mistrust start to creep across the lad's features, he hurries to append, “This thing is a Christmas classic. It should be required viewing for everyone every year, right next to the old animated Grinch and stop-motion Rudolph, and Peanut's Christmas.”

“...It's June though.”

“How can we say that one movie is better-viewed at a specific time than any other? Down that road is nothing but arbitrary tomfoolery. Whatever happened to Christmas in July?”

“...But it's June.”

Fernando waves a hand in dismissal. “July's a crappy month anyway. Don't listen to anything nice you've heard about it. Moths and cloying heat, that's what it offers the world. Christmas in June is the new thing.”

“Fine, fine. I'll get it.”

One corner of Fernando's lips curls upwards in a satisfied grin.

Survey Says

-Ring ring ring-

Fernando leans forward in his chair to read what the caller ID has to say. “Out of State.” Meh.

He crosses the office and lifts the phone off the cradle. “Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

“Can I speak with the person in charge of your web pages and internet presence?”

Unfortunately, Ramshackle is out on vacation so he cannot take this call, at least not immediately. Fernando possesses the means to get in touch with him, but is only to do so under the direst of circumstances, and only after the quality of communication has met a minimum standard. “I have a few questions for you to answer first, before I'll put you through. What is your favorite flavor of coffee creamer?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is your favorite flavor of coffee creamer?”

The man is silent for a good five seconds, then he disconnects the call.

Limitations

One of Fernando's acquaintances, Narcisa, enters the store one afternoon. He had not seen her in many a month, for she had been quite busy juggling her numerous life-happenings including college graduations, work, and raising children. The first thing she says to him after he emerges from his back room with a fresh cup of coffee is, “Never have kids, Fern.”

Fernando sips at his cup of molten sex. “I actually don't think I can, unless they've refined a surgery to let me.”

“Oh, Fern, I didn't know. I'm really sorry to hear that.”

Fernando stands still for a moment, puzzling through her response, as it took him off-guard. Then comprehension bloomed. “What...? No, no, I'm not saying I'm sterile, I'm saying I lack a uterus.”

“Oh, duh,” Narcisa says. “You can tell I don't get most jokes.”

“In all fairness and honesty, it wasn't much of a joke to begin with.”

Invitation to Disaster

 “Hey, do you want to come to my graduation party?” a young lady asks of the Keeper one day as Fernando fills out a rental slip for her. She is one of Fernando's most regular of regular customers. “I would have sent you an invite but, um....” She looks down at the floor. “I actually don't know your name. You're just kind of the movie store guy to me.”

Fernando shrugs and laughs. “Happens a lot, actually. 'Movie Store Guy' is apt enough, considering names probably started as labels based on what people did way back in the olden days before electricity and indoor plumbing.” He scratches his cheek. “When it is? I can't guarantee I'll be able to go, I'm afraid. Work kind of gets in the way of most things.”

“It'll be June 7^th.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I definitely can't go then. I have a wedding to attend over that weekend.”

“You're getting married?” she asks, studying Fernando with no small amount of surprise. “I didn't even know you were engaged.”

“Well that would be one hell of a surprise if I were. No, I misspoke. Actually I'm standing in a wedding for my best bud. Thank you for the invitation, though.”

“It's okay! You going to get somebody else to run the store then?”

“Nah, I'll shut it down. It ain't gonna be no thing.”

Fernando's guest giggles, pays for her movies, and leaves.

Metaphorically Speaking

A high schooler approaches the counter with a small clan of buddies one day. They have been in the store for about ten minutes now and have shown no signs of wanting to rent or buy anything. Instead they have been giggling, shoving each other against the movie racks, and generally being annoyances.

“Hey, you're like a nerd right?” he asks. Behind him, his buddies chortle.

Fernando swivels his chair about to face the gathered youngsters. “I consider myself more than just a simile, actually.”

“What...wait, what does that mean?” asks one of the other teens. A third one punches him in the shoulder and they tussle for a few seconds. Fernando watches in silence until they finish up.

Once he has reclaimed what vestiges of attention they possess, he says, “It means I consider myself to have more than just the qualities of the object or a superficial similarity thereto. I consider myself to be said object. Though that does imply that there exists a distinction of some sort, in which an object could have the qualities of an object without actually being such an object.” Fernando ignores the kids and starts talking to himself. “If something is 'like a red cube,' does it necessarily have to be a red cube though?

“Considering that the statement is true, and not something I say just to make a halfassed comparison that really isn't one. The language doesn't require it. But if it's close enough as to make a worthwhile and meaningful metaphor....hmm. Maybe I'm being too literal.

“'Like a thundercloud.' Faces obviously aren't thunderclouds, but there must be some commonality between angry people and cumulonimbus. It will be an abstract commonality, and it could well be wrong because it requires people to agree on what qualities a thundercloud has, and an angry face has. It would be meaningless to somebody who has never seen a thundercloud nor been told or having learned that the idiom is what it is.

“So why have and use idioms at all if they require abstraction and possible untruth? It just leads to muddled communication unless all parties know what the deal is. I suppose that's why proper research papers or essays or whatever are written in the style that they are. No-nonsense and generally unfun but unambiguous in what they need to get across. The other kind is a...a self-congratulatory puzzle. That's why good writing makes warm fuzzies pop! Because the reader has to figure out on some level or another exactly what the writer is conveying, and it's a small personal triumph once that shared knowledge clicks! A treasure chest which is unlocked by the vagaries of words and meanings. Awesome.

“Hmm.” Fernando's thought-train tapers off at this point, and he refocuses his attention on the here and now.

“Oh, well then,” he remarks to nobody in particular, as the teenagers had vacated the premises. Our hero has reasoned out something marvelous, though, and so he is content.

Old Friends

 “I've been meaning to ask you,” a regular customer says to Fernando one day long ago, perhaps six months after he had taken on the mantle of Keeper. Fernando stiffens, because even by this point he realizes these words are rarely a prelude to something he wishes to experience.

“What's that?”

“Why's there a crab and octopus on top of your TV?”

Fernando looks over his shoulder into the office, where there are indeed a bathtoy crab and a bathtoy octopus resting atop the television. “Those are Crumbles and Octorok. They watch over the store when I'm not around.”

“Come on, really,” she insists.

“Well, if you must know, they were passed into my keeping. Neither of them is technically mine. They belong to some friends and are used to bless nerdish debauchary and so forth, and by that I mean they tend to be thrown around a lot. I actually don't think either of them have ever gotten wet, except for maybe via Pepsi or something.”

“Nerdish debauchary?”

“Dungeons and Dragons. Satan's game.” Fernando pauses for a moment. “Y'know, I'm still missing Kafka.”

“Kafka?”

“Yeah, he's a cockroach. I have no idea where he vanished to.”

Fernando's guest's face screws up in disgust. “They make cockroach bathtoys?”

“No, no. Kafka was actually from a cheap-ass dollar store magic trick package-toy-thing. I think one was supposed to be dexterous enough to make him a surprise. Practically that meant we would wait until someone turned his or her back and then we'd put Kafka in an obvious place.” Fernando's vision blurs as he retreats into the mists of time. “There was also an obviously fake pencil which never fooled anybody, but we still went along with it because why not.”

“Well, I hope you find your cockroach then.”

Alas, years later Kafka is still absent. Our little cockroach had grown into a strong, independent cockroach man. Maybe he settled down with a nice cockroach lady and birthed a brood of mini-Kafkas. Maybe he fell in with the wrong crowd, suffered a heroin overdose, and died alone and unmourned in a secluded alleyway.

Maybe, just maybe, he's still trying to find us, too. Godspeed, Kafka. Godspeed.

This Is Not an Update

Fernando sat down in front of the computer one Thursday and opened the Open Office document in which he keeps Chronicles. He scrolls through, checking titles, searching for the content upon which the world's masses wait with superhuman patience. He comes across one which he thinks will work, but it turns out he'd already uploaded it and changed the title at the last minute.

Fernando reaches the end of his document. It's far, far too early to put up “Annual Abscondments IV,” even though Fernando is out nine movies already in 2013.

Fernando leans back in his chair and scratches his cheek. It seems he lacks in product. This could only mean that he's gone for a minimum of two weeks without running across any indignant customers, moronic telemarketers, outlandish mirth, or inept blackmailers.

“Christ. This never happens,” Fernando says aloud to his Dominion, which lies empty at this early hour.

That's when the string of three trucks belonging to Fernando's electric company began pulling into the store. They stop in the middle of the road before the Dominion, not even bothering to pull to the side. Men in coats bearing their master's sigil climb out and gather near the trucks in a small circle. One of them points in the vague direction in which the Dominion lies. Could there be something amiss with Fernando's power flow, something that requires three trucks with bucket lifts to repair? That would be quite the tale!

But, no, after their short palaver they return to their vehicles and pull back out onto the highway. Interesting event averted.

Fernando presses his lips together and looks to the top of his television, where a line of mini-Maoi, a red-orange octopus with a harelip, and an orange crab with a funky mouth lair. He addresses the crab, “I don't care. I'm gonna write it up.”

Fernando pauses. “And I may as well tell the story of the time whatsherface asked me about you guys. I don't think I've done that one yet.”

So he writes this, and the other one as well, and another week's content is generated. Huzzah!

Brofist

One Monday in February was a sad Monday, for it was one on which his distributor failed to process one of Fernando's orders in anything resembling a timely fashion. It was not a pissant direct-to-DVD film either, but Skyfall, the long-awaited and highly acclaimed Bond flick. Arguably, this was the biggest release of the month.

It was with a heavy heart that Fernando accepted that he would need to make a midnight run to Inuitland so he can snag some copies and have them available for his customer base. The original plan was to head up there with Alfonso after the weekly roleplaying session ended, but that changed when Cortez and Ronaldo volunteered to accompany Fernando on his late-night sojourn.

They transformed and rolled out, heading straight to Mal-Wart district, an adventure beyond measure, for it was one in which Fernando escaped the Dominion's tentacled grasp for a short while. While he was out and about, Fernando figured he'd get some other shopping out of the way. Cart in hand, the trio passed into the bowels of Mal-Wart.

It had been Suit Night, so Cortez and Ronaldo were at their dapper best, looking quite professional indeed as they trailed behind Fernando as the Keeper went on his madcap collection. Cat litter, check. Onions, check. Crackers, check. A hodgepodge of inventory settled in the shopping cart's basket. Crowning it all were four copies of Skyfall, provided to Fernando by a genial albino.

The checkout lady did not want to be there, not in the slightest. She scanned the content's of Fernando's shopping cart in disinterest, until she came upon the DVDs. “You must really like Skyfall, huh?” she asks.

“No. This is for business purposes.” Fernando said these words of response as two suited men flanked him. The woman perhaps thought Fernando to have criminal connections, for she surrendered this conversational thread and little more was said until Fernando bade her a good night after paying.

The night was still young (only about 2:30 AM) and a night of All Flesh Must Be Eaten had just been concluded. It was time to consume vast amounts of unhealthy food! The original plan was to pay a visit to Taco Bell, but that place was closed, even the drive-thru. Well, McDonald's would just have to do. Ronaldo steered his vehicle into the drive-thru and the group waited for someone to take the order.

Three minutes of silence later, no order-taking was forthcoming, and someone else had pulled up behind Ronaldo. Cortez suggested telephoning the place to inform them that someone awaited service in the drive thru, but Ronaldo pshaw'd the notion. “Let's pull around and see if anybody's even in there,” he said.

So they did. As the car passed the window at which the money, under most circumstances, changed hands, the three passengers saw a skeevy man with a scraggly mustache at work inside. When he noticed the car, he ducked out of sight as if ashamed or worried for his life.

“Fuck this. Let's go to Hardee's,” Fernando said from his place in the back seat.

“I'm poor, and Hardee's is expensive,” Cortez objected.

“I don't care. You're carting my ass around. I'll buy the food.”

“A monster Thickburger does sound good....” Ronaldo dreamily whispered. So it was decided. To the nearby Hardee's! The lady in the other car at the McDonald's went her separate way. Farewell, Anonymous Drive-Thru Woman!

At Hardee's, rather than heading directly to the drive-thru, Ronaldo pulled into the parking lot behind it. The three climbed out of the car and stood before the gently glowing menu.

“I'm thinking of trying that jalapeno chicken sammich,” Fernando says.

“I dunno. Monster thickburger is a thing,” Cortez answers.

“Right, but two of those for one of those.”

“You don't know how big they are.”

“No, but it won't be the size of a McChicken or something. This is Hardee's, not a place which doesn't want to take your money.”

“It's a fair point,” Ronaldo admits.

“You guys do what you want. I'm for a thickburger,” Cortez says.

They reenter the vehicle, pull out of the adjacent parking lot, and realign the car in the drive-thru. A man cheerily cleaned one of the large windows in the dining area while a Beatles song blared over the builder's exterior speakers.

“Hi, welcome to Hardee's! What can I get you?” a cheery female voice asks out the drive-thru speaker.

Ronaldo leans over to the speaker. “I'd like four jala--”

“No, I changed my mind. Make it six,” Cortez says. “And some bacon ranch fries.”

“Sorry, six jalapeno chicken sandwiches--”

“Six you said?” the woman asks.

“Yeah, six. And an order of bacon ranch fries.”

The nice lady repeats what Ronaldo had told her to verify the order. Everything seems in order, and the final cost comes to about twenty-eight dollars. “Thank you for choosing Hardee's!” the woman says at the exchange's close.

“Thank you for not being McDonalds,” Ronaldo answers.

The food takes some while to prepare, but it's fine. The three sit in the car and share laughs and merry tales of how the evening had progressed to this point. The frightened man at McDonalds was compared to someone Ronaldo knows from work, a man he described as “a pedophile who talks as if he has a pine cone up his butthole.” When the food arrives, Ronaldo pulls aside and parks in the Hardee's parking lot once more so that the food might be enjoyed without worrying about crashing the car or traffic regulations.

And such sammiches they were. Oh, their splendor. Heaped with delightful hot pepper goodness and slathered in a mouthwatering chipotle sauce, hot and fresh and as satisfying as, in Fernando's own words, “Like a woman's hand in a llamaskin glove.”

Because it was 3 AM, these words were seen as the most hilarious thing on earth. Cortez conjured cans of Vanilla Coke from some nether dimension and a right and proper feast was had.

'Twas a good good night. But, at its end, Fernando returned to the Dominion, copies of Skyfall and bag of cat litter in hand: the ultimate hero's return.

Recursive Marketing

A pair of young ladies enter the store one evening. One of them drops off some movies she'd rented the day before and the two of them fan out into the store to peruse Fernando's wares. They select four tags and bring them up to the counter.

It being part of Fernando's job to engage in merry banter with his customers, he does precisely that with them. The topics include Fernando's age and how he looks “about forty,” and how the Ice Age movies might be best served by stopping to make more of them before they suffer the fate of Land Before Time. In the midst of this conversation, one of the girls peers into the office and asks, “What paper are you writing back there?”

“Paper?” Fernando looks over his shoulder at his monitor, where Open Office is up for all the world to see and his Chronicles are spread over the LCD screen. He was putting finishing touches on another of his tales when the girls entered. “I haven't written a paper in like a decade.”

After it dawns that his answer is enough of a stretch as to constitute an outright lie, Fernando amends his response, “Okay, maybe six years. Since I graduated from college, anyway.”

“Oh, so what is it then?” she asks. “I'm sorry, I'm just nosy.”

“Oh, it's nothing. Just a thing for my weblog.”

“You have a weblog? What's it about?”

“The crazy things I experience on a frequent basis. You wouldn't believe some of the people I deal with.”

“You should give me the address so I can check it out. Maybe I'll get a couple laughs out of it.”

“More than a couple, I hope,” Fernando answers as he jots down the website for her. “I like to believe I'm wittier than that. That said, not all of the stories are bad ones.”

The second girl chimes in at this point. “Do you have many video games here for newer systems?”

“Uh...just some stuff for the X360. Nothing too new.”

“Do you have Dirt or Skate?”

“W-what? Are...are those drugs?”

The girls look at Fernando, who looks at the girls. Then the second girl breaks out in laughter. “They're games! Oh my god, 'Are they drugs?'”

“Okay, you know how I just said that not all the stories are bad ones? Stuff like this, where I look dumb, these get put up too.”

So cheers, ladies!

Transmitido en Español

Fernando has just returned from his back room and is about to begin eating his dinner. A vehicle pulls in. This irks Fernando, for he very much does not like being watched when he eats and he feels rather peckish at the moment, and with his luck the people who pulled in will dick around the store for half an hour and leave Fernando's meal sublimely tepid and in need of a re-microwaving.

The chimes jingle and a small army of six people enter. Their ages range from 20-something to eight or so. Five are male, with one female around the age of 10 or so. Strangers one and all, wearing camouflage overcoats and hats, Fernando is not made enthused by their presence.

The oldest among them speaks. “Hola. ¿Cómo estás?” One of the other boys, teenaged by the looks of him, chortles.

“Bien, pero no sé por qué usó la palabra 'estás.' Yo no conozco ustedes, y ustedes me no conocen. ¡Pero bienvenido a la País de Video!”

Utter silence. The young man who addressed Fernando in the Latinate devil tongue looks at our hero in dumbfounded awe. Chortles McChortle's mouth has dropped open.

Fernando looks around at these strange people. Life had taken a less wearisome turn, it seems, for there was trollish fuckery to be doled out. “¿Que pasó?” he asks.

“Holy shit, I didn't expect you to actually answer, man,” says the twenty-something guy.

“¿Por qué no?” Fernando asks, using what he recalls from Spanish 202: Intermediate Spanish II to the utmost. The last time he had utilized Spanish to any meaningful degree was when he visited Italy during his study abroad, back in the olden days before Fernando had real adult responsibilities. There is a great and amusing anecdote involving the biggest bitch Fernando has ever encountered wrapped up in his travels to and from Naples and Pompeii, one which he shall perhaps share with the world at some juncture. As for now, all that needs to be said is that Fernando's amateur Spanish served as an incredibly useful supplement to his infantile Italian among the older people with whom he dealt. For comparison, the zenith of his Italic mastery is represented by the time he bravely changed around a few words in the timeless query “Where is the bathroom?” when he asked a young woman in Pompeii, “Dov'é l'scava?”

The nice lady answered him in English, bless her heart forever.

Leaving behind that overlong anecdote, the twenty-something then asks Fernando, “Um, what do we need to set up an account here?”

Fernando responds to this in English, mostly because he doesn't know the Spanish words off the top of his head. “I need you to fill one of these out,” he says, pulling out a membership application. “And I'll need to see your driver's license.”

The guy does not put up any argument, perhaps because he remains intimidated by Fernando's facility with tongues. By this time, the rest of his crew had spread out into the store, browsing to their hearts' content. They select a couple of older-ish movies (Straw Dogs and Just Go With It) and bring the tags up to the counter. Twenty-Something, whose name, Fernando learned, was Benin, has filled out the application to Fernando's satisfaction and listened attentively as the Keeper shared with him the rules which governed the lease of the Dominion's inventory.

The rental slip was completed, money exchanged hands, and the six strangers left the store slightly less stranger-some than when they had entered.

“¡Hasta luego!” Fernando shouts to them as they depart.

Despite the fact that these six seemed to be itinerant slayers of deer, they returned Fernando's movies on time. Small victories.

End of an Era

Fernando made the mistake of ordering Bloodlust Zombies from his distributor about a year ago. He is not an infallible man in selecting which DVDs may populate the Dominion, despite what everyone seems to believe, but this seeming error worked out most splendidly in the end, for that movie had one of the highest returns on investment out of anything he's ever picked up. A sizable number of the people who rented it reported misgivings to Fernando when they returned, but none of them blamed Fernando for their choice. Deep down, they knew the fault was theirs. Bloodlust Zombies just wasn't the film for them. It is the metaphorical crooked pot forever in search of its matching lid.

One day Fernando is combing through his inventory in search of things to stick in the Adopt-a-Movie Box, for the Great Film Migration will soon be underway and he needs to find space for all the movies about to be shunted to the far corners of the store. As Fernando sifts through his cases, he stumbles across his old friend, the worst zombie movie anyone's ever seen.

He picks up the case and studies it. Alexis Texas is there on the cover holding an ax, spatters of fake blood strategically obscuring any naughty bits that might otherwise have been visible through her so-white-it’s-translucent shirt. While Bloodlust Zombies had done its part in fattening Fernando's pocketbook, the sad fact is that no one had rented it for the past four months or so, and it was not exactly a paragon of film history that needed to be kept at the store for posterity.

People misunderstood it. Fernando himself was guilty of this prejudice, he realized after it was far too late to change things.

A metaphysical tear trickles from the corner of Fernando's eye as he contemplates the difficult choice he faces. Finally he says the dreaded words he knew must be said: “Yeah, it's time.” Maybe they provided some small measure of comfort to this poor, unfortunate victim of his ruthless culling. He tucks it under his arm alongside Conviction, Rabbit Hole, and a few others. They're all placed into the Adopt-a-Movie Box with superlative reverence.

One of Fernando's regular customers comes in a couple weeks later. “Hey, I see you've restocked the box here,” he says while Fernando processes the rental tags he'd brought up to the counter.

“Indeed so. It's a pretty broad variety this time around. I pulled a lot of them from the ass end of the new release racks.”

“Hey, I don't think I ever saw this one,” the man says, pulling one of the cases out. Fernando is around the corner in the depths of the office retrieving movies, so he does not immediately see which movie the man has retrieved. “How much for these again?”

“Four bucks,” Fernando answers as he returns to the realms of light and happiness.

“Cool. Add this one on for me then. Four bucks isn't that big a loss if it happens to be astinker, right?”

Fernando now sees which item his customer is considering for purchase, and it is indeed the world's most not-zombie zombie movie. “No, no it is not,” says Fernando, who takes the case, places the disc inside, and relinquishes his ownership over one of the Dominion's most infamous fixtures.

If you truly love something, you need to be willing to let it go. Sometimes things need to move on, to spread their wings and travel to lands unknown and to see sights as-yet unseen. Fly on, Bloodlust Zombies. Share your special brand of happiness with everyone across the land. Give others the blessing of your inestimable company. Find your crooked lid videophile soulmate.

I will always treasure the time we spent together.

Consolation Prize

The phone rings one evening, an evening which coincides with the opening day of hunting season. The caller ID reads “Out of State.”

Fernando picks up. “Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

A male voice on the other end says to Fernando, “Yeah, do you have any Playbox 64s?” Off in the background, Fernando can hear someone else trying and failing to stifle giggles.

Oh, alright. A prank call, is it? Fernando can deal with that and up the ante besides. “No, I'm sorry. I did just get a new shipment of Coleco-Dore Odysseys, though.” Fernando lowers his voice conspiratorially. “We're talking some serious hardware here. I mean serious.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?” It doesn't sound like the young man wants to play any more, now that he has awoken the slumbering dragon of improvisation, grown over countless sessions of D&D.

Fernando has, however, found his stride. “This is the shit used to run ballistic missile simulations, man. This is the shit used to guide ballistic missiles! Top of the line stuff I managed to get smuggled in from Best Korea, yaknowhatI'msayin?”

“Dude, we just want to rent some games.”

“Yeah, but I'm offering you something better than games. It's fucking immersion.”

The young man finally finds some improvisational fortitude and challenges Fernando's fictional assertions. “What kind of games you got for it then?”

“Oh, you know. Nuclear ballistic missile stuff and first-person shooters. You like Red Dawn? With this you can play Red Year! It also comes with Tetris.”

“The hell...?” Fernando hears the background voice say.

“Now, I can't let this go for a mere pittance, no, but I like the cut of your jib. You seem like an upstanding and trustworthy kind of guy. Come down and put down a two hundred dollar, non-refundable deposit, and I'll get you one of these state-of-the-art systems as soon as possible.”

“We could just come down and get it right there,” says the first voice, thinking he has caught Fernando in a tapestry of untruths.

This is not so. “What do you think I am, stupid? I'm not giving myself radiation poisoning by keeping the systems on-site. What do you think they run on, C batteries? Please. You come down, put in your deposit, and we will continue negotiations at that juncture. Remember, the code-phrase is, 'Uncle Rufus loves sudoku.'”

Fernando hangs up, his mission accomplished to his great satisfaction.

Restructuring

Hello. I am Nicolai Dobokov, taking over for Fernando Stevens. He is tied up at moment, secured in chair for own safety. Suffered nasty head blow. Am here as spokesman from Domain of Films to talk about recent restructuring done on thirty-first October.

Night before, on thirtieth, Nicolai, Vladimir, and Boris come into store late at night to rearrange aisles, create caves for children's movies and horror to better corral any capitalists if time comes to remove them. Other aisles rotated and spaced apart to make hourglass floorplan instead of previous aisles. Labor takes maybe forty minutes. Many husks of Defense Arachnids fall from between old shelves where could not be reached by Fernando.

Sleep happens, morning comes. Nicolai puts on fancy three-piece suit, adjusts tie, goes out into world to set things up. Heads on social media outlets to announce changes at Domain of Films but not too many changes. Also makes note that trick treats can be had for boy and girl American children and big pot of beef stroganoff has been prepared for adults.

Resnov arrives not long before opening, helps Nicolai put on finishing touches to grand reopening. Has stroganoff, says it is delicious. Of course it is delicious. Nicolai made it.

First customer of day is man returning movies rented night before. He enters Domain and Nicolai says, “Привет!”

Man looks at improved layout of store, looks at Nicolai, places movies on countertop and leaves. Does not even make chance for offer to eat stroganoff.

Little while later, phone rings. Nicolai looks at call identification, sees is woman customer in Fernando's logs. He picks up phone. “Hello?”

Woman hangs up. Okay.

Next person does not come in until after Resnov must leave for other obligation. Is affable older gentleman which Fernando reveals during question has told him stories of time in Korean Peninsula. Nicolai greets him same way as first man.

Second gentleman looks at Nicolai with surprise, then says, “Well howdy howdy. You're looking sharp today!”

“Am always sharp. Is job to look sharp. I am Nicolai Dobokov, managing supervisor of Domain of Films.” Nicolai extends hand and the two men shake.

“Managing supervisor, huh? Who are you managing for?”

“Elite organization. You are here for renting of movies?”

“Oh, you bet! Do you still have two-for-one today?”

“Is good plan from old owner, no need to terminate. Good way to retain custom.”

“Well, alright!” The old man goes out onto floor, searches through new labyrinth of shelves. Finds movie SuckerPunch. “This one looks racy.”

“Is not what cover shows. Not really, anyway. Actually has plot deeper than shallow pool.”

“The cover makes me think it's a bunch of fourteen year old girls bouncing around in schoolgirl outfits.”

“нет, is not so. You are thinking of different sort of films produced by Motherland. Are trying to crack down on distribution of those. Have standards in our work.”

Man rents that movie and three others. As Nicolai fills out rental slip, man lifts lid of crock pot full of stroganoff. “This smells delicious.”

“Is beef stroganoff. Help yourself if you like. Is what's there for.”

“Don't mind if I do!” The man fills small styrofoam bowl and takes bite with plastic fork. His face twists in ecstasy. “Oh my!”

“Is good?”

“Can I take a bowl of this home to my wife? She has to try this.”

“Absolutely. Can provide bags for you to try keep from spilling. Here, I tape second bowl over first too.”

Man leaves and things are happy. Then trick treat time starts and group of four adolescent American children come into store.

“Trick or treat!” they say all as one. They make double-take when they see Nicolai standing behind the counter, looking resplendent.

“I see good costumes. You are having candies? Take two, if like!”

“Wow, thanks!” They scrabble through Skittles and Milky Ways and Paydays. One young man notices pot of stroganoff. “What's that?”

“Beef stroganoff. Is delicious. You want some?”

He looks at pot longingly. “I'd like to, but my mom would kill me if she found out I ate strange food.” Boy in question is fourteen or fifteen years old. When interrogated in back room later, Fernando says he totally forgot that children in America are discouraged from eating unpackaged food during Halloween. In Russia, trick treats are bottles of vodka and if child dies from mercury poison, is God's work. Nicolai does not know this cultural difference. Fernando allowed to keep toenails as result of cooperation.

“Is sad times. How sneak razor blades into stroganoff? Would be obvious! Poison also bad idea because do not get return customers that way!”

Four young Americans laugh and leave. As they go, one girl in group says to other girl, “That guy is awesome!”

Да. Is truth.

More trick treaters come into store as time passes. Most of them look upon Nicolai with mixed awe and happiness, for they find accent endearing and stroganoff delicious. Group of three boys come in for trick treats dressed as Batmen and Jokers. One says to Nicolai, “Hey, can we rent all the Batman movies for free?”

“Hmm. Is worth considering. Let me think for moment on this. Meanwhile, have candy or stroganoff.” They do and more culinary joy is spread through Nicolai's cooking.

“This shit is amazing,” says Joker-boy.

“Thank you. Is nothing much.”

“How did you get it to taste so good?”

“Practice and skill. Nicolai has many talents. You need man killed? Am not so good at this, but can send word to Vladimir or Resnov. Payment is reasonable, satisfaction guaranteed.”

The three share uneasy look. “Um...we'll think about it.”

“Good. Should still be here when you decide.”

While this happens, Nicolai goes on social networking site now and again to post updates on glorious revolution at Domain of Film. Woman comments on one update with words of surprise: “What???? Who owns them now!?”

Nicolai responds in similar way as with older man from before. Other people who are fans of old Dominion comment as well. One girl by name of Luisa asks questions of Nicolai which are awkward for him to answer. He cannot say too much, else will experience question and answer session like Fernando in back room.

Other girl named Adonia expresses concern that customer base will find Domain of Films hard to remember if place called Dominion of Movies so long. Nicolai responds that conversion is simple, like sensible metric system instead of capitalist Imperial clusterfuck. Dominion of Movies becomes Domain of Films. If other group like Italian mafia or yakuza come in sometime, will probably rename place Realm of Videos.

Short while later, first woman from before responds again. Nicolai is not sure if serious because she claims to have known back-room Fernando “very well” and threatens Nicolai with “ppl” that she knows, then says Nicolai is unwelcome in town. Is very bad spelling and grammar. English Nicolai's second language, but what is woman's excuse? Nicolai does not understand this hostility! And why cannot civility happen? Civility more profitable than murder most times. Cannot make deals with dead men, only mail body parts to immediate family for intimidation factor. Also, Nicolai goes through Fernando's logs, learns that woman who claims to be best friends with man in back room has never been to store. Bizarre.

Close to end of night, two pretty girls come into Domain. Are wearing workout clothes like have just come from gym. Nicolai greets them in proper Russian way and they look at him and make mad giggle sounds. “Oh my god,” says one of them. “You're for real?”

“Am not imaginary, and have not drunk enough vodak for you to be imaginary either. Can help you find something?”

“Um...do you have The Hunger Games in?”

“Certainly. Have heard stories played of hunger games before. Good comrade once sent to gulag and forced to survive harsh Siberian winter eating twig-and-snowmelt stew cooked on cooling bodies of people who died night before. Came back changed man.”

Girls look at each other. Taller one of pair covers her mouth with hand and gasps, “Oh my god, you're amazing.”

“No, am Orthodox. You speak truth otherwise though. Would offer you stroganoff, but all eaten earlier. Is sad, because was very good.”

Tall girl laughs. “You should totally do this every day.”

These words confuse Nicolai no small bit. “I do. Is not like I am different person day to day. Have had discipline beaten into me with rusted iron rod since age of two. Sent out to woodshed once when four. Smart enough not to need second time there. Howling of wolf and bones from last child there taught me.”

Nicolai lets girls also take some trick treat candy. Are dressed up as people coming home from gym after all.

At closing time, Nicolai shuts blinds and locks door, then goes into back room to write this report to send to Motherland about feasibility of keeping grip on store. Hopefully will hear back soon.

До свидания!