The Majesty of Choice

Friend

"So what I've determined is that when it is dark, and you don't know where you are going," Patrick says, "You should probably just stay home."

"We have been walking for three and a half minutes," Gerard replies.

"Yeah, but someone needs to doubt this whole adventure of yours or we're going to die."

"I don't need more than one person being a cynic here, okay?" Gerard replies, and Patrick just assumes that Gerard is talking about himself, but the truth is that Mikey, Patrick, and Gerard are all completely full of doubt. Only Gerard has the striving courage in himself to know that this will all be worth it. Patrick doesn't have that. So Patrick has the right to have as much doubt as he needs.

"So do you have any plans on how to deal with ogres?" Patrick asks,

"Well, my immediate goal is to not run into any ogres at all."

"That's really reassuring. But what do we do if we do run into ogres," Patrick asks.

"Well presumably there's going to be a serious language barrier, given that neither of us speak ogre," Gerard says, "So my assumption there is that instead of trying to reason with an ogre, we just run the fuck away."

"How fast are ogre's though?"

"You know, I could never find a textbook that detailed the average rate at which an ogre can run per minute, but I'm assuming that however fast it may be, our will to not die will let us run faster."

"Your strategy is to just run?" Patrick asks.

"Well, sort of."

"This will be fun," Patrick says. "When do we sleep?"

"Soon," Gerard says.

"This couldn't have waited until the morning?"

"I don't know how long this fairy will be in Giantville. It looked like some sort of gathering. It might go on for a few days or a few hours. He could be gone already and I won't know. I may not be able to guess so well the next time he moves."

"How did you guess this time?" Patrick asks.

"It wasn't too hard. Big furniture tells the way."

"Big furniture?" Patrick asks.

"Yeah well, when I saw him, he was surrounded by huge furniture. Either he's a tiny ass fairy, or he's in Giantville."

"How did you see him?" Patrick asks. "Magic mirror?"

"Do I look like I'm made of money? Where the hell am I going to buy a magic mirror?"

"Well how else could you know where this fairy is?"

"Magic book," Gerard shrugs.

"Book?" Patrick asks, "Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no such thing as a magic book."

"Oh so there's no fairy smart enough to create a magic book? If they can market magic mirrors, then what's so outlandish about a magic book?"

"Well seeing is believing man," Patrick replies. "Show me your magic book. And that is not an innuendo by the way."

Gerard nods, and reaches into his bag, pulling out Mikey, but he's hiding because when Gerard shows Patrick the book, Mikey's face is nowhere to be found.

"How does it work?" Patrick asks.

"Well," Gerard says, "speak to it."

"You've got to be kidding me," Patrick groans.