The Nematomorpha

Felix Sombrero didn’t say anything. Challenging a superior in front of others was practically castration and challenging a superior in front of prisoners was castration. So he waited until after taking the pair to the cell to speak his mind.

“What the…” While Felix and Lithuania had a very comfortable working relationship, Felix knew how far he could stretch it, so he recomposed himself. “I’m sure you have your reasons for locking them up and it would a great weight off my shoulders if you would share your thoughts with your second in command every once and a while.”

“They were lying Felix. Well at least hiding something, which is as good as lying. And… there’s something special about these two Felix; you can feel it. And how else were they able to survive so long in the woods? They weren’t even armed… And, yes, I do think they are well intentioned, but considering the circumstances we can’t take any risks. If they fess up, I’ll be happy to release them. Will you be able to sleep tonight now?”

Felix smiled and dismissed himself.


For being a prison cell, it was quite comfortable; for being guests, it was inhospitable; for being inside with thick concrete walls between them and the pandemonium of the woods, it was luxurious. In any case, winfry was upset.

“This is ridiculous! How can they do this to us? What did we do to them? What could we possibly do to them? It’s her – it has to be her – and she puts us in prison! How are we supposed to do anything now? This is ridiculous!”

winfry was pacing the room like hornet trapped in a cup. isa was a bit taken a back; this might even be worse than when he would flip out in the woods. “winfry, calm down. If it’s her, then everything will work out.”

“No it won’t! Nothing has worked out the way that damn book says! It’s just played us into this whole dramatic irony. How can we trust it. Why on Coralende did we trust it! All it’s done is pull our strings for show. It’s using us isa. It’s absurd. We shouldn’t be here at all. It doesn’t make any sense! Nothing is working!”

isa tried again to pacify winfry’s pacing. “But it does make sense. How can she trust us. We’re”

“terrible liars. I know that. I know it’s wise for her to put us here, I know that, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. We almost die or worse doing what that blasted book told us and then we finally found who it told us to look for and we end up in prison? That’s heinous. Even if it’s logical, it’s still absurdly aggravating. That book is pulling our strings! It’s laughing at us right now. Bugger that blasted book!”

“Come on now winfry. Just because you’re not in complete control doesn’t mean the book is malicious. Everything is going to be ok.”

“I don’t want to hear it isa. I know the reasons just as well as you but they don’t make me feel any better. Don’t dead people have feelings?”

“Sometimes I wish they didn’t.” She said it quick but quiet looking winfry straight in the eyes and then she turned away. “And I like to think that I’m just as alive as anyone else if that’s alright with you.”

winfry knew he didn’t want to say that but he felt it so he said it. He also felt full-force isa’s cold shoulder chill him to the bones as she turned to face the wall to hide her tears. And he knew he would apologize, eventually, but he felt like fuming in the corner.

What was happening to him? Since when was he so ruled by his emotions? This time he didn’t even have the excuse of the quilaire; he knew it wasn’t doing anything. It’s just that, it’s just that all this librem business was all so sudden. Yeah that might be it. winfry was bright but he needed time to fullly absorb things before he was comfortable with them. It had hardly been two weeks after he received the book when they were forced to flee nilbmah which was a whole nother can of worms he was dealing with too. Before their exile, the book had left a stream of predictions about their departure and the need to search the woods for someone, all of course signed uncannily from winfry winster himself. He had tried writing in it himself but no writing utensil would leave a mark on the book. All his efforts got him were sarcastic comments from the book about being tickled. Yes that first week was when the frustration started to seep into him. After being told, for at least the fifty-second time, “When you are uprooted, the woods would be the place to root yourself,” he threw the book against the wall cursing its puns.

But before his frustration could really take over, he made a break through. It happened that when, all those years ago, winfry first set about to write a myth to save his country, he took up his father’s pen. It was an almost elegant fountain pen made from a pale wood with gold finishings and an unadorned nib. But winfry soon abandoned the pen after all the ink got spent on infertile ideas destined for the trash. He rediscovered the pen when searching his desk for writing utensils to try on the librem. But at this point, fountain pens were so out of date and fashion in nilbmah, winfry hardly knew where to buy more ink for it. So there it sat on his desk, with only a few remnants of the fingerprint-stains from its former vitality, dryer than a recently run dryer and winfry’s frustration continued to rise high tide.

Then it happened. winfry was at his desk wagging his passive aggressive battle with the librem, when the book shot out some sarcastic comment that winfry simply could not resist responding to and the first thing he got his hand on was the fountain pen. It all came out of nowhere soaking down through the pages. It was a complete rush. Afterwards he had to go to the bathroom to clean himself up.

But figuring out how to write in the librem only complicated the issue. Some things would go on the page, other things wouldn’t; some things he wrote down altered reality – he made things out of then air, he prevented himself from being hungery for a day and half and once he even got isa to change her mind about which café they went to but maybe she was only pulling his leg, but most things only elicited the book’s mockery. So there was even more that he didn’t know and his frustration sprouted wings and started unstrapping his inhibitions.

That was it really. Not knowing. Not being in control. winfry needed to be in control – especially when he was stressed. So that was the hair worm that had slimed under his skin. That was his wide-awake nightmare. That was lighting his fuse. That was tipping him off the edge. That was scaring him pale.

But knowing what was running him wild didn’t make him feel any better.

That’s probably what winfry was thinking or at least that’s what I would have been thinking if I were him.

But I’m not. winfry that is.

…

“isa, I’m sorry”

“I know you are,” she didn’t even look up, “but it doesn’t make me feel any better… Don’t men have feelings?”