The prompt for this story was “Pure,” submitted by lauriempress. This story fits into Chapter 37 of Already in Progress or thereabouts. There are no spoilers.
Rating: Sim-PG, for sim-swearing
Dramatis Personae
Ernie the Spoon, a big man in the crime world
Leonid Andrews, a mild-mannered criminal mastermind
Setting
A dark, bare back room in a mostly abandoned warehouse. A bare bulb swinging gloomily from the ceiling provides the only illumination. Ernie the Spoon and Leonid face each other across a table on which is an unwrapped brick of a crumbly white substance. There are several similar but still wrapped bricks on the table.
ERNIE THE SPOON (suspiciously): What is this?
LEONID (earnestly): Pure. Is wery, wery pure.
ERNIE THE SPOON: Yeah, but what is it? Columbian?
LEONID: Nyet, I think is cotija. Ah, nyet, neyt, sorry. Is queso fresco. But pure queso fresco.
ERNIE THE SPOON: Kay so fress coe?
LEONID: Da, pure queso fresco. Not to be confusink with resqueson or queso panela. Is much better quality.
(Ernie the Spoon cautiously wets a finger and picks up a sample. He sniffs it dubiously before taking a tentative taste.)
ERNIE THE SPOON: CHEESE! It’s Esmecorrupted cheese!
LEONID: Is wery good cheese.
ERNIE THE SPOON: I said I wanted some of what Bambino the Cherub had at his party!
LEONID: Da. Was cheese.
ERNIE THE SPOON: The way they were talking, you’d think they had an Esmecorrupted religious experience!
LEONID: Was cheese.
ERNIE THE SPOON: They said this censor blur was the censor blur!
LEONID: …Is cheese?
ERNIE THE SPOON: But I saw it through the door real quick! It was this brick of crumbly white stuff - (looks at the brick of crumbly white stuff in front of him)
ERNIE THE SPOON: It’s really cheese?
LEONID: Da. Wery pure cheese.
Note: This story was inspired by
this real-life story of a very dumb would-be criminal, and
this list of cheeses was very helpful indeed.