chapter one

The bar is a bit empty for this time of day, but then again, most of the regular customers are probably still at home watching television. Marvin Pyre takes a mouthful of his beer. Swishes it around in his mouth a bit. Calmly leans to the side and spits it out onto the floor.

“You’re cleaning that up,” the bartender shouts from across the room.

Pyre waves a majestic long-fingered hand in his direction, which could mean many different things, the top three being:
one: I’ll do as you say momentarily,
two: I recognize you’re saying something by which I am acknowledging with the movement of my hand, or
three: feck off, mate.

Regardless, Pyre does not take another sip of the drink. Instead, he shoves the bottle away and puts his head down flat onto the slightly sticky table before him. His straw-colored hair is a startling contrast to the black tabletop, the pinkish hue of his scalp showing through the thin strands all the more prominent.

“Have ‘ta keep the pillow dry,” he slurs. He’s still got glitter smeared across his mouth, there’s residue of it on the bottle now.

Tohew hums and purses their lips. Taps their fingers on the table, nails making little tak tak tak noises as they artlessly go about it.

“Just because you lost the competition,” they tut, “you’ve been reduced.”

“Reduction is a way of life,” Pyre replies. He shrugs his bony shoulders. “Way of my life.”

“You are pathetic.”

“Never had to be anything but.”

Their eyes narrow. Embracing oneself in the form of the non-binary is hard enough on their score when it comes to The Competition given how the judges every year like to crack jokes about how to refer to them, but they never got this bad about the persistent taste of defeat.

“Save the ennui for your annual lecture series, dear,” they elect to say, rather than buck up mate, at least you didn’t lose because the announcer doesn’t know what to call you and it confused the damn audience.

The door to the pub bangs open and everyone but Pyre turns to look at the elephant walking into the room. Rather, the loud human known as Langston Shanks, and Tohew rolls their eyes as he stomps over to their table.

Shanks tips his hat to them, grins to show off his sharp white teeth, stretches the tanned skin of his face to make himself look friendly. They deign to nod in acknowledgment, which is all the blighter is going to get so he best be appeased with it.

It seems he is, because he slumps into the chair opposite them and grabs Pyre’s abandoned drink, drains it in one long pull. The man has a long neck for such a compact body.

“Are you not embarking on the journey of sobriety?” Tohew asks. Their fingers go tak tak tak on the table a bit faster.

“Nah, that’s PR,” Shanks says. He’s very American in his mannerisms and never would be called a timid man which is probably best. If he didn’t swagger his way onto the International Stage in an imitation of his home country then he’d be squashed as an upstart in mere moments.

Then Shanks leans down to peer into Pyre’s ear, wrinkles his nose and says loudly, “SORRY ABOUT YOUR EX-FUCKTOY WINNING.”

Pyre startles away from the noise and falls out of his chair with arms flailing. He lands like the anemic sack of skin and bones he is: squishy, clattering noises abound, and with no elegance to speak of.

“Your emotional maturity has reached an all-time high,” Tohew says as Shanks leans back into his chair to have a laugh. “As always, you astound me.”

“Thanks honey,” he smiles, tips his hat for the second time.

Tohew bares their teeth at him and magnanimously allows Pyre to use their chair to drag himself up.

STAR-STUDDED EVENT, the fliers say for The Competition. THE DOG AND PONY SHOW OF THE YEAR, the participants call it among themselves. It’s a week-long series of concerts, like the Olympics but without World Leaders making an appearance at the Opening and Closing ceremonies.

The rules are this: hundreds of musicians, actors, dancers, and interpretive performance artists show up at the behest of their country’s dismal Universe Ratings on the television. Hundreds of musicians, actors, dancers, and interpretive performance artists then proceed to make utter fools of themselves in front of a ten camera setup and an auditorium full of people dragged in off the street. Depending on the decibels recorded during the applause when each set is finished, an act is either barred from entering the next round, or thrown into the underground rooms to await their battle matchups.

The battle matchups can get a bit bloody, but no one dies unless they have a blood disease. That’s how an up-and-coming viral hit folkrock solo performer bit it: burst eardrum, bled out right on stage. Terrible for his family, but excellent for ratings.

After the battle matchups, those who are left are able to give their best and whittle down the numbers even more. One left standing in every designation are listed as Graduates, and they get all the money and recompense that comes with Earth being Very Pleased with them.

Tohew is an actor. They participate in Historical Dramas and Shakespearian-type plays, and they always get knocked out before the battle matchups. Pyre was in the audience when the applause didn’t rate for their performance. He clapped harder, tried to whoop, but it was dull and lifeless against the tentative clapping.

He went to the window to wave at them as they were escorted out along with the rest of their theater troupe. They turned back to wave, then gestured down the street. At the usual drinking hole, then. It’s good to have friends.

Pyre himself is a solo musician with the the house band to back him. He got to second place of his division this year, and it’s still not good enough, so he got soused on two bottles of wine on an empty stomach, and there was some yelling in his ear, and now he’s being dragged by Tohew and the loud bloke down the street.

“Are you American?” Pyre asks. His face is mashed into the man’s shoulder. He hasn’t the energy to raise it and identify the face. “Is that why yer so rude?”

“He’s rude because of upbringing and possibly some past trauma,” Tohew says. They minored in psychology in Uni and haven’t let anyone forget it, especially those who dropped out of a promising Law Degree to go to Art School instead like some people they refuse to name.

“Nah, I’m rude cos I’m emotionally stunted and a vagrant.” The man’s voice rumbles pleasantly against Pyre’s aching head. That shouldn’t happen, to be quite honest. “It’s what you said last year.”

Tohew sniffs, digs their fingers into Pyre’s side as they help drag him along. “Evolving theory about what’s wrong with you will always be a hobby of mine.”

“I knew you liked me!”

“I tolerate you. I’ve no idea what Marvin’s motivation for letting you hang around is.”

“Stuck to my shoe,” Pyre says, and Shanks– he knows it’s Shanks now, he recognizes that smoky cracked growl of his– the man just laughs.

“The most persistent of us are, kid.”

“He’s older than you by half a decade!”

Shanks laughs again.

The hotel Tohew booked for themselves is on the rough side of town. The Competition never pays for lodging unless one gets to first place in their selected medium, and Tohew has never been one to toss money down a bottomless pit.

Pyre ended up at the same hotel, but more because no one pays the full rate to attend his lectures, and he hasn’t given a concert in ages, so he’s running a bit slim in the wallet area. Among other places.

Tohew lets Shanks take over for keeping Pyre upright as they get the room door open. Number 148 out of 500, because massive shoebox hotels simply cannot go without having fifty rooms on ten floors and every single one of them molding, the walls slightly wet to the touch.

Shanks drags Pyre into the room after them. They pull back the coverlet so he won’t sweat onto the topcoat of mildew, and Shanks dumps him into a glittery heap right in the middle.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Tohew says.

Shanks looks around instead of answering. Pyre didn’t bring much with him, just a couple changes of clothing and some product left in the bath. The sequins on Pyre’s discarded trousers seem to entrance the man.

Tohew lets him look as they shove Pyre’s limbs around on the bed. He’s too pale again. His hair is too long. They tut and yank off his shoes, flips the dry side of the coverlet over his prone form, then turns to stop Shanks from opening Pyre’s valise.

“We should leave him alone.” And on the final word, they shove Shanks out the door, closing it behind them.

Pyre snuffles into his damp pillow and slumbers on.

His mouth is dry. His tongue is absolute cotton, his lips feel cracked, and his jaw has a crick in it that indicates that this open position he’s in is probably an uncomfortable one.

Thank God the curtains are drawn, is all he can think. Thank you, whichever God is accountable today, for closing those curtains so he can escape the agony of the more unpleasant aspects of the Earth’s rotation.

He cracks open his eyes. One is smashed into the pillow along with the rest of his face so he closes it again. The other gives a good idea of where he is: Room 148, Of course.

Once, many years ago, he asked for a room on the top floor. They put him in the best one, according to the concierge, and he woke up the day before The Competition startled by a deranged pelican smashing through the window. Since then, he’s stayed in Room 148.

Pyre’s neck has frozen. He groans, flexes a bit. He’s too young for these kinds of foibles, especially for a man with a proclivity for glitter. He gathers his arms under him, shoves up, falls off the bed in a big roll.

He hurts all over and his stomach is pitching like he’s on a boat, so he elects to crawl to the bathroom. The piled eggcream carpet gives way to blue tilework gives way to the metal rim track for the shower door.

There’s something inside the shower, so he sits back on his heels, waits for his head to stop spinning, and tries to focus.

There’s a massive egg in there, and it’s stopping him from getting inside, to be perfectly honest. Big and round and slimy and green and oh, it shouldn’t be there, should it? He leans against the wall and reaches with a limp hand to poke at it. The shell gives under his touch like a dried sponge and he jerks his hand back quickly.

It doesn’t move.

He reaches over to poke it again.

This time it rolls at him, catches at the metal track, rebounds violently back into the depth of the shower.
Pyre scrambles backwards on his ass like a crab. Between one breath and the next he’s out of the bathroom and has his back flat against the edge of the bed.

“Hallo,” he tries. More like a whisper than a proper salutation, but it’ll do.

The egg rolls in a circle, makes soft repetitive squishing noises against the tiles.

“Oh my God,” Pyre says. He needs to get to Tohew. Tohew will know what to do, who to tell, how to kill it.

Outside room 316, Pyre knocks and knocks and knocks.

After a good five minutes, Langston Shanks opens the door shirtless and squinting in the hallway light. Pyre takes this in, then begins to have a bit of a fit.

“Calm down, calm down.” Shanks slings his jacket over his bare shoulders and closes the door behind him. Pyre clenches his fists and calms down, but not because Shanks told him to.

“Must you sleep with all my friends?” Pyre seethes at him.

Shanks begins to rummage in the pockets of his coat. A lighter and a black cigarette case is produced. “I haven’t had sex with all of them, don’t be dramatic.”

He can’t help himself; Pyre brandishes a fist at the closed door. “You just slept with Tohew! My friend! And you’ve slept with Inez, and with–“

“I haven’t slept with all your friends,” Shanks interrupts. He lights his cigarette, mumbles his words around his lips clenched on the filter. “That dog of yours, Admiral Whassit.”

“Colonel Palimpsest,” Pyre says, flat.

“Yeah, him. That great old Dane of yours. Haven’t touched a hair on his head.” With a click the lighter is off, shoved back into his jacket pocket along with the cigarette case. Shanks grins and smoke ekes out from between his teeth, out his nostrils.

Pyre’s head hurts. It’s hurt the whole while, but the burst of anger dulled it for a moment. Now it’s back, banging on his forehead and chanting obscenities at his gray matter.

“You’re saying.” And here Pyre has to steady himself, but Shanks reaches out to help and he has to recoil back a step. “You’re saying I should be grateful that you’ve not gone as far as bestiality, is that what you’re saying?”

Shanks’ hand is still outstretched. His smile looks forced. “I was making a point.”

“And what point was that?!”

“That I haven’t slept with all your friends.”

Shanks slowly pulls back his hand, slides it into his pockets. He should look utterly ridiculous standing there in nothing but a trench coat, barely zipped slacks, and chest hair, but he doesn’t. He looks odd, but not ridiculous.

Pyre has to pick his battles. And while he still wants to yell, to fight for Tohew’s honor, he just can’t manage right now.

“There’s an egg in my shower,” Pyre says. Shanks blinks, but before he can reply Pyre keeps talking. “It might have rolled out by now, but there’s a massive egg in my shower and it’s moving.”

Shanks exhales a plume of smoke. It tastes delicious to Pyre, ten years off the cancer stick, so he tries to be good, not inhale, and fails miserably.

“Let’s go see it, huh?” Shanks steps past Pyre, barefoot and under-dressed. He leads the way to the lift like a confidence man on his way to a hit.

Pyre is helpless to do anything but follow him.