triggering ‘dragon mode,’ right?”
Parka laughed.
“We don’t care,” the prime said, hoisting his gun at Parka, ignoring the jab about the Honda Odyssey. “We just want a souvenir to take back with us off-world.” He indicated the dying Being in the distance. “This planet is a cursed cesspool. There’s nothing here anymore. But nothing would make us happier than to disintegrate your sorry carapace and take this car into orbit with us.”
Parka spread his wide wings—which didn’t hurt at all—because he thought it would scare them. But it didn’t, at all. He sighed. He realized that sometimes it’s the smallest moments that could change a creature’s life. He had given the Camaro to a human as a prize, and had thought nothing of it. But here he was, about to die from the Worm-Hares after all, and with weird wings. But all the same, he felt good about his generosity, even if Jar wasn’t there to share it with him.
With that in mind, he wasn’t going to back down.
Sharon was motionless, but then he looked in the backseat and started laughing. It was such a quiet, tinny laugh that it shocked everyone into stillness.
“What?” the prime Worm-Hare said, exasperated. Then there was a red dot on his spiny forehead. Parka stared at it.
“Will someone
Then there was a whooshing sound, and a crossbow bolt hit the Worm-Hare’s forehead where the red dot was. The bolt went through his head, blasting into the front windshield of the minivan. The prime slumped over.
Parka turned around. There was someone in the back seat.
“Hey,” Jar said, sitting up, slinging a laser crossbow over his shoulder and looking groggy.
“Christ on a—” Parka said, but he stopped, because he didn’t know what to say. Instead, he ran to Jar and wrapped his leathery, demonic wings around his friend in a familial embrace.
“Look at you,” Jar said, still sleepily. “With wings and stuff.”
“It’s the amulet,” Parka said. The remaining Worm-Hares were forgotten, but they had made their pathetic escape in the minivan. “But, anyway, priorities. How the hell did you get there? You weren’t there all along, were you?”
Jar shrugged. “No, not really. I was in the Being and then… um, I don’t remember much about that, but I saw this sweet Camaro cruising through, and then stop in front of me, and I said to myself, hey, maybe I should hop on board, so I did. And I must have picked up this crossbow. I guess I was on a shooting range for awhile or something?”
Parka had no recollection of the Camaro slowing down enough for anyone to jump aboard.
He disengaged from Jar. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“Well, you came back, friend. That’s the important thing. I’d still be in there without you.”
“The Tree requests your presences,” Sharon said.
“What?” Jar said.
“Ah, the kid, he’s like that,” Parka said. He waved toward Sharon. “Okay, okay, the tree. But first, we need to get a beer.”
Later that day Jack Nicklaus and Dwight D. Eisenhower and Sharon met for a summit over a few of the local beers.
“How’s things?” Jack said.
“Super,” Dwight said.
“Awesome,” Jack said.
Sharon was silent. They were in a basement tavern somewhere north of Albuquerque, at a circular table. It was the off-season, and likely everyone in a 500-kilometer radius was trying to flee the potential blast zone of the Being, so they had the place to themselves. The beer was warm but the off-worlders didn’t care. Sharon didn’t order anything, so Parka had the bartender make him an Arnold Palmer. Toby Keith was playing on the speakers and everything was all right with the universe, at least for a few minutes.
“I’m going to miss Hallows Eve with the gang,” Jar said. “But it’s a small price to pay.”
“Yeah, it would have been fun. I’m glad we dressed up anyway.”
“You know, I wonder if Eisenhower would have won the war faster if he had wings like yours.”
“It’s very possible,” Parka said. The amulet against his chest pulsed like his second heart. The walking sticks swirling around Sharon clicked and skittered.
“What do you want to do after we, er, look at some tree that might very well be imaginary?” Parka said.
“I don’t know,” Jar said, taking a sip of his Budweiser Light. “It’s hard to say. Go back home, maybe. Start over with a new corporation. How about you?”
“Well, maybe I’ll stay here,” Parka said. “I haven’t decided. But I like it here. I still have no idea what the hell happened.”
“With the amulet?”
“A little. But mostly with the Camaro. And the Being.”
“Ah, that’s understandable,” Jar said.
Parka leaned forward, which was awkward because of his wingspan. “What I want to know is… I might not never understand, ever, what’s going on with these walking sticks. But they’re trying to say something, trying to do something. They’re trying to survive on this godforsaken planet we—I mean, not us personally, I mean the mining ventures—sucked dry for resource management. And for what? So we can get more fuel for our transmutators to find more planets to suck dry and destroy?”
Parka was melancholic, but not just for geopolitical reasons. He realized that this might be one of the last times of relative normalcy with his good friend.
“Yeah,” Jar said. “You make a good point. Maybe I’ll stay too. And learn how to properly ride a motorcycle and do a wheelie.” He laughed and then downed his beer. “Come on, Sharon,” he said. “Finish your drink.”
They rode for an hour in silence through the empty desert, and could see the Tree from many kilometers away. A towering, shadowy shape. Sooner rather than later—Sharon wasn’t exactly following a speed limit—they could see the enormity of the living structure. Parka stood up in the car, letting his body poke out of the shorn top, letting his wings free.
“Holy shit,” Jar said.
The Tree was as tall as the highest peaks that the Being had desiccated, many kilometers high. And the Tree was on fire. Smokeless fire. The tree pulsated with orange light. The branches were leafless, but they spiraled in gargantuan yet intricate patterns.
About a thousand meters away, Sharon stopped the car. Everyone got out. The walking sticks encompassing Sharon, or perhaps embodying him, were glowing in syncopation with the Tree. Then it became clear that the Tree was made up of billions of the walking sticks.
There were many other abandoned vehicles all around the Tree in a ring.
“Why are the walking sticks doing this?” Jar whispered.
Parka shook his head but didn’t say anything. He had no idea.
Sharon turned to the two of them and said, “We need you two, the Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jack Nicklaus of interpersonal diplomacy, to carry a message back to your people. You will relay terms for peace.” Sharon began walking toward the Tree.
“Wait, Sharon,” Parka said. “What will happen if we do?”
“What will happen if we don’t?” Jar said.
Sharon paused for a second and said, “My name’s not Sharon.” Then he began walking toward the Tree again.
Parka watched him for a little while, and looked at Jar, who shrugged.
“Who the hell knows,” Jar said.
As the general and the golfer followed Sharon to the base of the tree, Parka swore he heard Sharon, who wasn’t in fact Sharon, humming a tune, one of Toby Keith’s more recent songs about exile on the moon and earthly liberation. Or maybe it was only the sound of the walking sticks and the desolate wind making music together,
