Tevun-Krus #35 - Best of '16

Six-Feet-Under Boyfriend - A Short Story by @MadMikeMarsbergen

PART ONE: THE VOICE FROM BELOW

1

When Doo-Tana was a little girl, her best friend was the shadow who lived on the mountain. Pebusa was his name, and he was supposed to be the great god Glasomil's evil brother, only Pebusa hadn't seemed so evil to her—he seemed misunderstood, and lonely.

Like herself.

But why was she thinking of that? She was supposed to be working.

She lifted the bone-axe over her head and brought it down into the stone before her, chipping off a fifty-pound portion. She hopped back to avoid having her toes crushed. Doo-Tana gave the tool in her hands a reproachful look, wondering if a stone-axe would have been more precise and smashed off a smaller chunk. Now she'd have to break up this big piece to get the little pieces she'd wanted in the first place. She got to work on that mindlessness, couldn't help getting lost in her thoughts while she did so.

Her shadowy friend, Pebusa... He disappeared one night, the same night some people had died in her village. She'd told him the names of the people she thought had deserved to die, not really understanding death quite like she did now, and he'd done it. Doo-Tana felt as though she'd lost the bestest friend she'd ever had. But a part of her felt—though she couldn't quite explain it; it was just a feeling—that Pebusa had never really left Peburia; he was just different now, somehow. When she'd walk to the top of Mount Pebusa, hoping to see him there, she'd swear she felt him—invisible, yes, but still there nonetheless. And every time she'd see her own shadow extending beside when walking or running, she imagined he was in it, travelling alongside her wherever she went.

As Doo-Tana grew older, she'd make the pilgrimages up the mountain less and less, and she'd imagine Pebusa's shadowy form woven within her own more infrequently. But she never truly forgot, no. How could she? A constant reminder was the fact that nobody believed her when she'd tell them she had spoken to Pebusa, the great god of shadow. She was just a stupid little girl, and why would she want to speak to him, anyway, when she could instead lie about talking to the great god of light, Glasomil? They said it was more outrageous than tits on a bull—which didn't make much sense to her, as everyone knew about the titted bulls of Brmea.

But those were adults for you.

Oh no. She was an adult now, too, wasn't she? Twenty years old. Funny how quickly time passes when you age, she thought to herself. I only hope I don't become so cynical.

Coming out of her reverie, Doo-Tana sighed and wiped the sweat off her brow. Her gaze went to the mountaintop. Mount Pebusa. The name never changed, even after its namesake vanished.

She whistled for Slimy. The stegosaurus lumbered over, grunting and snorting, stopping here and there to nibble on some grass and flowers, and strip leaves from small trees. She whistled again and he grunted in response, shook his head, tore a branch off a tree, munched it down, then spread his back legs and lifted his spiked tail. He wiggled, wheezed, took a dump. With that finished, Slimy jogged over to her, awaiting his burden.

Doo-Tana dropped the stones into four dinosaur-leather cloths, then tied each into closed sacks, using the same cord to string together two of the sacks. She strung together the other two. She lugged them over to Slimy and placed each length of cord across the dinosaur's body, in between the rows of his kite-shaped plates, so he had two sacks hanging in balance on each side of his body. Then she walked with him to the drop-off site, which was basically a large pile of sacks, some of them split open.

The two repeated this routine a few more times, as did the other workers. It was hard work, but necessary. If the villages didn't get their stone, the people wouldn't be able to have fancy gadgets like stoneputers, and they'd have to rely on outdated tech. Doo-Tana swore she'd never regress back to a shitty boneputer. Those had been slow even when she was a kid.