“This was… unexpected,” said Phil.
“Huh?” inquired Quetzalcoatl, still hovering before Phil and Bill. “What are you talking about?”
“You appear to have… transformed into some type of… giant, winged snake-man, Quinn. I’m… I don’t…”
“Oh, that, right,” continued Quetzalcoatl. “I guess I forgot to tell you guys that I had a drinking problem.”
Phil and Bill tried to respond to, refute, or otherwise process the statement, but found they could only tilt their heads slightly and stare.
“Also, I almost drowned once. There was some serious head trauma involved with that.”
Again, the statement was met only with tilting and staring.
“And, before that, I destroyed Central America, made the llama extinct, and severely crippled the Department of Science’s robot military.”
Phil raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it and retreated back to his comfort zone of slanted, wide-eyed awe. Bill, however, threw in some gaping, just to liven things up a bit.
“Which should bring us up to speed, gentlemen.”
“No,” said Phil, “not at all actually.”
“Are you sure?” asked Quetzalcoatl. “I was thinking that was a pretty solid recollection of events right there.”
“None of your preceding statements actually explain… anything,” said Bill. “How you… grew wings, for example. Or why your legs seem to have… fused together and become a giant serpent’s tail.”
“Oh, that. Right,” replied Quetzalcoatl, looking down at his new mode of ambulation. “Turns out I’m actually Quetzalcoatl, Aztec serpent god of the wind. And knowledge. And arts and crafts, too, I think. I’m the god of a bunch of things when you get right down to it.”
Bill and Phil retreated to their previously established method of discourse, although, this time, they were tilting and staring like no one’s fucking business. It was impressive.
“Seriously, though, you never figured it out? All that ‘be our leader,’ ‘believe in yourself’ horsecrap you guys kept spouting on about? I just assumed…”
“You gave… absolutely no indication that you were… a fallen deity from an advanced, ancient civilization,” said Phil. “I can say that with… utmost certainty.”
“Honestly,” said Bill, “we didn’t think you were even listening to us most of the time.”
“You talked so damn much it was kind of impossible not to pick up something. Anyway,” said the giant, feathered snake god, spreading his wings and blotting out the sky, “you still with me?”
“I… don’t think we have a choice.”
“Yeah, you really don’t.”
Sixty: Or a Monkey in People Clothes
Catrina and Queen Victoria XXX, shopping bags in hand, stepped from the elevator and began walking down the fourth floor toward their rooms.
“I can’t believe you still have malls up here,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“I can’t believe you only bought three outfits,” replied Catrina.
“I’m not used to this,” replied the queen, gesturing with her bags. “Even when me and Charlie and Billy do go out, it’s like a time trial. Grab what you can and go. I can’t even remember the last time I tried something on.”
“That’s what happens when you spend too much time with guys,” said Catrina, shaking her head.
“They’re not all bad. I mean, they’re like brothers to me.”
“Well, sure. But, I don’t know, I think Charlie’s a little too… uh… I don’t think anyone should be thinking about him like a brother is all.”
Queen Victoria XXX smiled and began to speak, but was interrupted by Chester A. Arthur XVII and William H. Taft XLII barreling down the hallway, rushing past the girls and toward the elevators.
Chester A. Arthur XVII stopped just long enough to grab Victoria by the elbow and say, “The Dunkin Donuts guy is giving away free donuts!” before running off again.
“Alright,” said Catrina, “maybe you can think about him like a brother.”
Queen Victoria XXX laughed and said, “Well, it’s gotta be the same with you and Thor, right?”
“Thor’s more… Thor’s something else.”
Thor came running out of his room in only a towel, shampoo still in his hair, chanting, “Donuts! Donuts! Donuts!”
“Like a cousin who used to eat paint chips,” she clarified.
Sixty-One: It Is, In Fact, His Third
“Sir,” said the completely nondescript bureaucratic drone whose fortune-telling mother hadn’t even bothered to name him due to his fated role in the world, “it appears that Kansas and Wyoming have been taken by the Hobo Empire.”
“So?” said the President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America and Mexico.
“I really don’t see how that’s even close to being the appropriate response, sir. It seems kind of callous and unprofessional, especially given your title and responsibilities.”
“It was Kansas and Wyoming.”
“Today, yes. But those are the nineteenth and twentieth states to fall since Pennsylvania last week.”
“I’m not following.”
“The Hobo Empire has now annexed the entire Midwest and, as of this morning, set the west coast on fire.”
“I’m not familiar with that term, son. Are you trying to say they’re forcibly taking the western states? That they’ve laid siege to California?”
“No, sir, I mean, quite literally, that the full length of the western coastline is aflame. I’m not really sure how, but even the ocean is burning.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“There are also reports that the one calling himself Quinn is, in actuality, the Aztec god of creation and knowledge.”
“Quetzalcoatl?!”
“One and the same, sir.”
“I thought we killed that son of a bitch years ago! I’ll never understand why he couldn’t just accept that he was no longer deific and become human or kill himself like all the others. Instead, that motherfucker destroyed half of Mexico and made me look like a fool.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure that was entirely his doing, sir.”
“We’re just going to have to kill him all over again then,” said the president, his eyes growing wide and glazing over. “We’ve no other choice.”
“How exactly do you plan on doing that, sir? There are still far, far too many civilians for a nuclear strike. And we can’t even be sure that would get rid of him anyway. Quetzalcoatl’s destroyed wave after wave of murder- drones all on his own, and his philosopher army is proving fairly proficient at surviving now as well.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, boy,” replied the president. “We’re calling in a specialist.”
Sixty-Two: This One Goes Out to All the English Majors
