The rollicking, foamy sea crashed against the pier. The sun hung high over watchful dunes. A hermit crab sat alone in a booth made of cracked, deep-sea wood. From a chilled cup before him he sucked anxiously through a straw the color of rainbows. He was startled into awareness as a seagull, head feathers styled in an enormous bouffant, squeezed into the booth opposite him. “Couldn’t find a better table?”
“I’d like to sit here, if it’s all the same.”
“C’mon. There’sa free–”
“I don’t like crowds.”
“Since when?”
“Always. It was more manageable when Conch was around.”
“Ah, right. I was told you were justly compensated?”
“All the plankton I can eat. A soft plot of shiny sand to nestle in.”
“And shell buffing twice a month. Not that you’re using it, by the looks of you.”
“I’ve been busy, is all.”
“With what, Pince?”
“I’m writing again.”
“Oh? Good. A fine hobby, writing. About what?”
There came no reply, the conversation reaching a sudden armistice. The seagull, oiled feathers glistening like luminous tears, waited for an answer from the very grimy and forlorn hermit crab.
A mustachioed rat wearing a collared shirt skittered over to the booth, breaking their silence. He held two small pieces of chipped wood.
“Is the saltwater treating you well, sir?” he asked artificially cheery.
“Yes,” said the hermit crab, not looking up from his drink.
“And can I offer you anything, my winged fellow? Pellets? Beetle legs? Dried street bread?” The server handed them the slabs of lumber. “Our menu for the evening. If you’ll look here…”
Attempting to point out today’s specials on the gull’s menu, his right arm flailed, swiping him across the beak and dismantling the bird’s bouffant and pinching his plumage. “My apologies, sir! It’s been a long night.”
The hermit crab mumbled an interjection. “It’s afternoon…”
The bird turned quickly to stare at the rodent, his feathers ruffled, losing a bit of their manicured suaveness. “Pal, what the fu—”
“Shall I offer you a few more minutes, sir?” the rat interjected, smiling, attentive.
“I could own you, you little worm-tailed freak.” He outstretched his wigs, padding his feathers back into place as best as he could.
“I will give you a few more minutes, sirs.” He scampered off, but not before offering the hermit crab a small nod. Pince did his best to avoid this exchange.
The seagull cleared his throat with an exaggerated swallow. The swallow of a bird who is not often met with such proletarian cheekiness.
“Prick. My dad could have this pigsty of a restaurant flooded.” Any pig listening would have found this highly offensive.
“It’s okay. Please don’t cause a bigger scene.” His shelled dinner companion hated confrontation in all life’s forms.
“Well, I…er…I should–but whatever. Where were we um…hobbies. What was it?”
“I’d said I’d been writing again.”
“Writing…what?”
“About Conch.”
“Pince, she’s gone. You need to scuttle on. I have. I’m much better for it.”
“You ate—”
“Enough, Pince. We’re squared. I was weak—”
“You mean buzzed, Beaks?”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“Friends in high places…”
“Is that a pun?”
“No. I just…I don’t know.”
“It would do you well to continue not to know, Pince.”
“Or what?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“N-nothing. I’m not myself.”
“Right. I’ve gotta piss.”
The bird stood. Grief and guilt made the two strangers.
“When that cheese-eater gets back, tell him I’ll have the crab.” As the seagull headed in the direction of the shitter, the rat server, still mustached but less artificial in demeanor, removed the polo, tossing it into a nearby trash can adorned with stickied seashell cracklings. He donned a navy-blue overcoat with small holes in it caused by anxious chewing. Quitting smoking had not been a good idea.
Outside the bar, he grinned, placing a large, wrinkled, white feather into the folds of his jacket. If he bet his whiskers on it, it would be an identical match for a similar white feather found precariously within the immaculately cleaned (or so whoever ordered the cleaning thought) room on floor three of Weasel Eye’s Hop and Flutter.
Stuart Linens always got his bird.
~ fin ~
Timaeus Bloom is a black author of speculative fiction from Alabama. A fan of the strange and fantastical, he spends his free time laboring over just what to do with his free time. His short stories have been published in various anthologies and such outlets as Cosmic Horror Monthly, Nightlight Podcast, and New Edge Sword and Sorcery. He is also the co-editor of Howls from the Scene of the Crime: an Anthology of Crime Horror in 2024. He is almost certainly not a wizard.
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