Avril's Origins
The East has fallen. The proud and stoic society that was to be the envy of the world, the leader of science and culture, the brightest star in the constellation of the planet's nation states has been undone in an astonishingly short amount of time. Never underestimate the power of paranoia, greed and fear to undo the great things of this world. Where science and reasoned discourse among citizens were commonplace just a few years ago (albeit under the scrupulous eye of a police state), roving gangs of anarchistic looters and mafia-like “protection” rackets are now the way of political life. All of the machinery of state has fallen to decay or re-purposed for crime. The mechanized gendarmes once polished and glistening in dutiful service to their communities now roam aimlessly trying to carry out their peacekeeping/crime fighting roles with horribly out of date software and biometric filters, leading to almost random expulsions of firepower. The ID-databases have been corrupted and sold to the lowest bidder, no one feels safe and a complete regression is in full swing. In this complete vacuum of power things like creature comforts and idle entertainment are scant and expensive; reserved only for the wealthy or powerful.
Avril has never had a normal life, even before the fall of the empire. He grew up in a small village named Teflon that had few modern conveniences or distractions. With little else to do, the villagers were prone to rumor-mills, most churned out innocuous or novel rumors, but some of the more vicious rumors involved Avril's mother, Vera Nim; specifically about Vera's penchant for dalliances with unsavory blacksmiths and frequent, debilitating delusional episodes. It is said that the night before she was to finally wed Stetson (the only blacksmith in town that agreed to marry her, and only after a fairly handsome dowry), the village abdomenologist noticed a familiar bulge in Vera's wedding dress. Indeed, Vera was pregnant although she claimed insistently to be a virgin when her father, Fjordnik, confronted her.
Fjordnik had heard her hallucinatory and contradictory stories many, many times before and he wasn't about to let this “immaculate” pregnancy ruin his one shot at getting her the hell out of his house. Fjordnik hid the pregnancy and allowed Stetson to marry Vera, assuaging his conscience by reminding himself of how hard he had worked for that dowry.
Needless to say, a few weeks later, Stetson learned of the treachery and disappeared in the middle of the night with his dowry, and set fire to Fjordnik's wheat field. Fjordnik fell into a deep depression (as workaholics always do when their workahol is destroyed) and retired to a cave in the mountains, leaving Vera to raise Avril alone. Vera was, quite simply, a terrible mother. She considered dirt and pebbles to be the most soul nourishing food since god had made so much of both. She also believed that Avril was a divine gift, since she was a virgin, and treated him accordingly. “Why don't you get your father to clothe you, he can just miracle some shoes for you. Why do you keep bothering ME for these things? I'm a simple virginal mortal with no job and a fucked up psyche.”
Avril is said to have inherited some of his mother's delusional tendencies, as a child he claimed that objects talked to him and that he could raise a new race of pristine hammer based life. He spent hours in fields with his hammers -- ball peins, sledges, claws, cross and straight peins, clubs and cross pein pins. He didn't care for the company of other people and they seemed to be just fine with that. The hardworking villagers of Teflon had no time to indulge the fantasies of illegitimate children of psychopaths; there was farming to be done after all.
Avril and his exploits were still the subject of many gossip mongers, though. There were stories of him building a henge made of hammers, a hammerhenge if you will, with the focal point being the mouth of the cave that his grandfather had retreated to... the mongers claimed that he'd pray and sway back and forth every morning in a trance. That rumor happened to be true, but there were others that weren't... I guess that's a bad example.
The empire fell when Avril was 8. Teflon's backwardness and physical distance from anything of value minerally, industrially, aesthetically and tactically sheltered it from the pogroms and intellectual round-ups that were the last flailings of a drowning police state consuming itself in a fit of destruction. As the empire bloodily imploded far away, the only evidence to the simple Teflonians were the dearth of supplies and visitors from the larger cities and occasional fantastic stories of bombs, bloodshed and strife. Farming equipment could no longer be bought from machinists and had to be jury rigged and hand made. Fancy treats and toys were no longer available. News of the outside world slowly dwindled and disappeared. Teflon steadily slid backward and life became a progressively more of a hardship for everyone there. The village became more insular and mean spirited by the week, but Avril kept to the same squalid behavior he had always exhibited.
Years passed and nothing seemed to get better. Once, a gang of ex-military thugs had demanded payment from the village in return for not razing it. The entire village had a meeting about it in Fjordnik's abandoned wheat grass field. Everyone was worried and panic abounded, eventually the riotousness was quelled and everyone decided to give the thugs what they demanded and assembled all of their worldly possessions: buttons, flaps, mite tethers, bits of leather, wheat husks, good looking dirt, orange peels (which Avril contributed), parts of jokes written on bark and buckets of sweat. The town elder assembled and brought the items to the thugs who were leaning lazily on an old fashioned Anti-Watercraft-Gunship-Thingtm. The scarred and unshaven leader looked at the pile of detritus and said “Is this all you peons have?”
“Yes, it is all that we have of value here.” The elder said shakily.
“Fuck it. We'll take the orange peels, but keep the rest of that crap, I don't think you'd be worth wasting our ammunition.” His soldiers nodded their agreement, 'bullets should be used on something worthwhile, these people will just fester here... they're pointless.' They seemed to say.
The elder let out a huge sigh and his shoulders loosened immediately. “No, we're completely worthless... thank you sir, come back any time. I appreciate your restraint.” The soldiers didn't say another word to him, just turned to go as he was still talking. As they were leaving, one grunt shook his head, “What a waste of time. I'm hungry. Give me a peel.”
Teflon stayed destitute and ignored for several years, many Teflonians counted this as a blessing, but Avril grew bored with the sedentary village. The only things he cared about were his hammers, which he talked constantly, at least when he wasn't forcing dirt and pebbles down his throat to please his misguided fuck-up of a mother.
Years later, there was another outsider to brave the overgrown mountain passes that lead to Teflon. It was a ragged dilapidated carnival, full of half starved freaks and sociopathic carnies willing to ruin anyone they happened across. The carnival was run by Hedgeworm Feller-Eller, an international sensation in his youth, but since disgraced and misanthropic. He set up his circus tents and rides in Fjordnik's abandoned wheat grass field and waited. No one in the village could afford the 0.21 vote entrance fee so everyone just gathered outside and looked at the sparkling, audacious rides spinning, thumping and whirring away completely empty. The carnies just looked back at them with empty stares and impotent hatred.
Avril's first sight of Ratsov was a peek under the tent flap. She was the most amazing sight he had ever beheld. The ringmaster called her name and talked her up to the empty tent, called her the prize of the fandizee jungle tribe which has since been extinguished by geopolitical happenstance... “Yes, ladies and gents, this is the sole surviving artisan of a race that has been lost to history! She can contort her body into ungodly and undevilly shapes and sizes! Watch her detach limbs and replace them in unnatural states! She can fold herself into a crane or a paper aero plane and soar above your heads!” Avril saw her fold knees through ankles and eye sockets in a torrid frenzy of movements, each more impossible than the previous. All the while her face held the impersonal and detached expression of a dishwasher scrubbing filth from a plate. He was transfixed - partly by her deft ability and partly by her detachment. He promised himself that he'd find a chance to talk to her, to produce the best and most perfect sentence with which to woo her, to say one phrase that would compel her to love him. Avril stayed up all night, pacing, thinking of phrases, but none of them sounded right...
"Flutterby Wings and Other Things Couldn't Fix the Strings In My Heart."
"Eyes Are For Gouging When They Fail To See You."
"Hammers Fall Silent When You Enter The Tool Chest."
"Great People Often Destroy Themselves For The Benefit Of Others."
"Faders Fade Better Than Knobs."
Hedgeworm sat behind a rotating stage counting receipts and 'harumphing' to himself. He'd been in this devastated waste land for 6 months and was sick of it, he'd picked up a few balkan freaks (and those were the best kind) along the way, but hardly enough to make it worth his while. Avril waited outside, screwing up his courage for a good 4 hours knowing full well that he didn't know what he was going to say. Everything sounded tilted and crooked, imperfect and childish. Finally he took a deep breath and walked through the tent flap. Hedgeworm was confronted with a diminutive uncombed brat with piercing green eyes and an equally purposeful stride. “I am joining your circus.”
“Really?” Hedgeworm was slightly bemused, and sat back.
“Yes. I will raise and train hammers to do tricks for your show.”
“Hammers?”
“Hammers. I've been breeding them all my life and until yesterday I thought that I would stay in this small village doing just that for the rest of my life. But yesterday I saw Ratsov in your big tent and I knew that I must travel with her, try to live up to her beauty and grace. I must travel with you and I will lend you every talent I possess. My mother says I'm a divine gift. You'd be lucky to have me... I also talk to objects. They talk back sometimes.”
“I see.... that's noble and all, in a Shakespearean sense -- the love thing. But really," Hedgeworm pushed his mass up from the desk and walked slowly over to Avril. "We have no use for trained hammers in the show. We have trained chipmunks, mites, sloths, post holes, pipe fitters and bulb smiths... any more training and we'll become a laughing stock. You said you've bread these hammers for years, right?”
“Right. They're the only thing I identify with.”
“Hrmmmm. Well that makes it difficult.” Hedgeworm paced, pretending he was having some internal dialog or thought as he figured the best way to break the boys spirit. “I tell you what. Our sword, gun, mine and trebuchet swallower just left us to fight a holy war in the southeastern north part of nationstan. We need an eater. Can you eat these hammers you breed?”
Avril was shocked and disgusted, bile filled his esophagus and he fought to gain his composure. How could he eat the very beings he'd been caring for and raising as children? Poor little Nailbender just got born 4 days ago, how could he put this tender little child into his stomach and certain death? His brow furrowed and he looked down - this wasn't supposed to happen. He'd thought this out, the circus was supposed to take him in, the freaks are supposed to stick with the freaks, how could they ask him to sacrifice what he valued and lived for? “I have to think about it, sir. Will you be here for a few more days?”
“It looks like we will; I can't book any more sites until well into next week. Think about it and get back to me, you look like you've got some talent.” Hedgeworm winked, patted Avril on the shoulder and went back to pouring over his paperwork. This is what Hedgeworm lived for, the trip to this podunk little burg was worth it even if he lost a month's gross -- that kid was tortured.
Walking home Avril was awkward and his movements stiff. He was distraught, full of violent or destitute thoughts (alternating). He barely remembered the people he passed or the act of walking into his mother's hovel or his curling up in the corner and drifting to a fitful sleep. His dreams were full of spastic color cuts, urgent screams in made up languages and trap doors. Hammers were everywhere but all of them were dead, covered in vomit or feces, none of them responded to his desperate pleas of forgiveness until the end of his dream. Nailbender, still in his diapers and glistening with after-hammer-birth appeared on Avril's shoulder wearing a halo. “Here are the words you have to tell her, it will be my epitaph and your guiding principle: 'Death Takes A Lifetime.'”
He woke immediately and knew that he must pursue Ratsov, the hammers be damned.
Hedgeworm was waiting below his garrulous sign and staring straight at Avril the moment he rounded the switchback. “Come back, have you?” He stopped tapping his foot and assumed the cold demeanor he had mastered so well.
“Yes, I have decided to perform as a hammer eater for you.”
“MMMM! Delicious news.” Hedgeworm smiled, rubbed his hands together and started barking orders to bored carnies to pack up, “Then we leave tonight, I haven't made a nickel in this backwater town you used to call home.” Hedgeworm had worried about his innate sense about where and how to find freaks, this time it paid off... things were looking up. Finally.
Avril has never had a normal life, even before the fall of the empire. He grew up in a small village named Teflon that had few modern conveniences or distractions. With little else to do, the villagers were prone to rumor-mills, most churned out innocuous or novel rumors, but some of the more vicious rumors involved Avril's mother, Vera Nim; specifically about Vera's penchant for dalliances with unsavory blacksmiths and frequent, debilitating delusional episodes. It is said that the night before she was to finally wed Stetson (the only blacksmith in town that agreed to marry her, and only after a fairly handsome dowry), the village abdomenologist noticed a familiar bulge in Vera's wedding dress. Indeed, Vera was pregnant although she claimed insistently to be a virgin when her father, Fjordnik, confronted her.
Fjordnik had heard her hallucinatory and contradictory stories many, many times before and he wasn't about to let this “immaculate” pregnancy ruin his one shot at getting her the hell out of his house. Fjordnik hid the pregnancy and allowed Stetson to marry Vera, assuaging his conscience by reminding himself of how hard he had worked for that dowry.
Needless to say, a few weeks later, Stetson learned of the treachery and disappeared in the middle of the night with his dowry, and set fire to Fjordnik's wheat field. Fjordnik fell into a deep depression (as workaholics always do when their workahol is destroyed) and retired to a cave in the mountains, leaving Vera to raise Avril alone. Vera was, quite simply, a terrible mother. She considered dirt and pebbles to be the most soul nourishing food since god had made so much of both. She also believed that Avril was a divine gift, since she was a virgin, and treated him accordingly. “Why don't you get your father to clothe you, he can just miracle some shoes for you. Why do you keep bothering ME for these things? I'm a simple virginal mortal with no job and a fucked up psyche.”
Avril is said to have inherited some of his mother's delusional tendencies, as a child he claimed that objects talked to him and that he could raise a new race of pristine hammer based life. He spent hours in fields with his hammers -- ball peins, sledges, claws, cross and straight peins, clubs and cross pein pins. He didn't care for the company of other people and they seemed to be just fine with that. The hardworking villagers of Teflon had no time to indulge the fantasies of illegitimate children of psychopaths; there was farming to be done after all.
Avril and his exploits were still the subject of many gossip mongers, though. There were stories of him building a henge made of hammers, a hammerhenge if you will, with the focal point being the mouth of the cave that his grandfather had retreated to... the mongers claimed that he'd pray and sway back and forth every morning in a trance. That rumor happened to be true, but there were others that weren't... I guess that's a bad example.
The empire fell when Avril was 8. Teflon's backwardness and physical distance from anything of value minerally, industrially, aesthetically and tactically sheltered it from the pogroms and intellectual round-ups that were the last flailings of a drowning police state consuming itself in a fit of destruction. As the empire bloodily imploded far away, the only evidence to the simple Teflonians were the dearth of supplies and visitors from the larger cities and occasional fantastic stories of bombs, bloodshed and strife. Farming equipment could no longer be bought from machinists and had to be jury rigged and hand made. Fancy treats and toys were no longer available. News of the outside world slowly dwindled and disappeared. Teflon steadily slid backward and life became a progressively more of a hardship for everyone there. The village became more insular and mean spirited by the week, but Avril kept to the same squalid behavior he had always exhibited.
Years passed and nothing seemed to get better. Once, a gang of ex-military thugs had demanded payment from the village in return for not razing it. The entire village had a meeting about it in Fjordnik's abandoned wheat grass field. Everyone was worried and panic abounded, eventually the riotousness was quelled and everyone decided to give the thugs what they demanded and assembled all of their worldly possessions: buttons, flaps, mite tethers, bits of leather, wheat husks, good looking dirt, orange peels (which Avril contributed), parts of jokes written on bark and buckets of sweat. The town elder assembled and brought the items to the thugs who were leaning lazily on an old fashioned Anti-Watercraft-Gunship-Thingtm. The scarred and unshaven leader looked at the pile of detritus and said “Is this all you peons have?”
“Yes, it is all that we have of value here.” The elder said shakily.
“Fuck it. We'll take the orange peels, but keep the rest of that crap, I don't think you'd be worth wasting our ammunition.” His soldiers nodded their agreement, 'bullets should be used on something worthwhile, these people will just fester here... they're pointless.' They seemed to say.
The elder let out a huge sigh and his shoulders loosened immediately. “No, we're completely worthless... thank you sir, come back any time. I appreciate your restraint.” The soldiers didn't say another word to him, just turned to go as he was still talking. As they were leaving, one grunt shook his head, “What a waste of time. I'm hungry. Give me a peel.”
Teflon stayed destitute and ignored for several years, many Teflonians counted this as a blessing, but Avril grew bored with the sedentary village. The only things he cared about were his hammers, which he talked constantly, at least when he wasn't forcing dirt and pebbles down his throat to please his misguided fuck-up of a mother.
Years later, there was another outsider to brave the overgrown mountain passes that lead to Teflon. It was a ragged dilapidated carnival, full of half starved freaks and sociopathic carnies willing to ruin anyone they happened across. The carnival was run by Hedgeworm Feller-Eller, an international sensation in his youth, but since disgraced and misanthropic. He set up his circus tents and rides in Fjordnik's abandoned wheat grass field and waited. No one in the village could afford the 0.21 vote entrance fee so everyone just gathered outside and looked at the sparkling, audacious rides spinning, thumping and whirring away completely empty. The carnies just looked back at them with empty stares and impotent hatred.
Avril's first sight of Ratsov was a peek under the tent flap. She was the most amazing sight he had ever beheld. The ringmaster called her name and talked her up to the empty tent, called her the prize of the fandizee jungle tribe which has since been extinguished by geopolitical happenstance... “Yes, ladies and gents, this is the sole surviving artisan of a race that has been lost to history! She can contort her body into ungodly and undevilly shapes and sizes! Watch her detach limbs and replace them in unnatural states! She can fold herself into a crane or a paper aero plane and soar above your heads!” Avril saw her fold knees through ankles and eye sockets in a torrid frenzy of movements, each more impossible than the previous. All the while her face held the impersonal and detached expression of a dishwasher scrubbing filth from a plate. He was transfixed - partly by her deft ability and partly by her detachment. He promised himself that he'd find a chance to talk to her, to produce the best and most perfect sentence with which to woo her, to say one phrase that would compel her to love him. Avril stayed up all night, pacing, thinking of phrases, but none of them sounded right...
"Flutterby Wings and Other Things Couldn't Fix the Strings In My Heart."
"Eyes Are For Gouging When They Fail To See You."
"Hammers Fall Silent When You Enter The Tool Chest."
"Great People Often Destroy Themselves For The Benefit Of Others."
"Faders Fade Better Than Knobs."
Hedgeworm sat behind a rotating stage counting receipts and 'harumphing' to himself. He'd been in this devastated waste land for 6 months and was sick of it, he'd picked up a few balkan freaks (and those were the best kind) along the way, but hardly enough to make it worth his while. Avril waited outside, screwing up his courage for a good 4 hours knowing full well that he didn't know what he was going to say. Everything sounded tilted and crooked, imperfect and childish. Finally he took a deep breath and walked through the tent flap. Hedgeworm was confronted with a diminutive uncombed brat with piercing green eyes and an equally purposeful stride. “I am joining your circus.”
“Really?” Hedgeworm was slightly bemused, and sat back.
“Yes. I will raise and train hammers to do tricks for your show.”
“Hammers?”
“Hammers. I've been breeding them all my life and until yesterday I thought that I would stay in this small village doing just that for the rest of my life. But yesterday I saw Ratsov in your big tent and I knew that I must travel with her, try to live up to her beauty and grace. I must travel with you and I will lend you every talent I possess. My mother says I'm a divine gift. You'd be lucky to have me... I also talk to objects. They talk back sometimes.”
“I see.... that's noble and all, in a Shakespearean sense -- the love thing. But really," Hedgeworm pushed his mass up from the desk and walked slowly over to Avril. "We have no use for trained hammers in the show. We have trained chipmunks, mites, sloths, post holes, pipe fitters and bulb smiths... any more training and we'll become a laughing stock. You said you've bread these hammers for years, right?”
“Right. They're the only thing I identify with.”
“Hrmmmm. Well that makes it difficult.” Hedgeworm paced, pretending he was having some internal dialog or thought as he figured the best way to break the boys spirit. “I tell you what. Our sword, gun, mine and trebuchet swallower just left us to fight a holy war in the southeastern north part of nationstan. We need an eater. Can you eat these hammers you breed?”
Avril was shocked and disgusted, bile filled his esophagus and he fought to gain his composure. How could he eat the very beings he'd been caring for and raising as children? Poor little Nailbender just got born 4 days ago, how could he put this tender little child into his stomach and certain death? His brow furrowed and he looked down - this wasn't supposed to happen. He'd thought this out, the circus was supposed to take him in, the freaks are supposed to stick with the freaks, how could they ask him to sacrifice what he valued and lived for? “I have to think about it, sir. Will you be here for a few more days?”
“It looks like we will; I can't book any more sites until well into next week. Think about it and get back to me, you look like you've got some talent.” Hedgeworm winked, patted Avril on the shoulder and went back to pouring over his paperwork. This is what Hedgeworm lived for, the trip to this podunk little burg was worth it even if he lost a month's gross -- that kid was tortured.
Walking home Avril was awkward and his movements stiff. He was distraught, full of violent or destitute thoughts (alternating). He barely remembered the people he passed or the act of walking into his mother's hovel or his curling up in the corner and drifting to a fitful sleep. His dreams were full of spastic color cuts, urgent screams in made up languages and trap doors. Hammers were everywhere but all of them were dead, covered in vomit or feces, none of them responded to his desperate pleas of forgiveness until the end of his dream. Nailbender, still in his diapers and glistening with after-hammer-birth appeared on Avril's shoulder wearing a halo. “Here are the words you have to tell her, it will be my epitaph and your guiding principle: 'Death Takes A Lifetime.'”
He woke immediately and knew that he must pursue Ratsov, the hammers be damned.
Hedgeworm was waiting below his garrulous sign and staring straight at Avril the moment he rounded the switchback. “Come back, have you?” He stopped tapping his foot and assumed the cold demeanor he had mastered so well.
“Yes, I have decided to perform as a hammer eater for you.”
“MMMM! Delicious news.” Hedgeworm smiled, rubbed his hands together and started barking orders to bored carnies to pack up, “Then we leave tonight, I haven't made a nickel in this backwater town you used to call home.” Hedgeworm had worried about his innate sense about where and how to find freaks, this time it paid off... things were looking up. Finally.