After Dinner

The dirty dishes loom large over the quiet and kitchen. Gertrude and Parish prepare to get to work, grateful for one another's company as they ponder the questions on their mind. Perhaps others will join them soon...

Rag-and-Bones enters the kitchen, chuckling softly. He'd snuck right into the bed & breakfast in his cunning disguise, easy as pie! Nobody knew that he was Yazeba's arch-nemesis, destined to destroy the world!

His disguise? He was wearing a...skeleton costume over his actual skeletal body. The costume's filling was cotton, enclosed in a plastic shell, and thicker than it should've been; it made him look...not muscular, since he had no muscles, but like he'd been chugging milk non-stop to develop incredibly large bones.

And it was hot wearing this disguise. No, he didn't sweat, but his marrow felt "wacky" if he exerted himself too much.

He stops when he notices Parish and Gertrude. His beady (fake) eyes scrutinize them coldly, along with the towering stack of dirty dishes.

"Don't you all have slaves...I mean servants...to handle this mess? And how many dishes are there?!"

He disdainfully pokes a stack of gooey plates with a doubly-bony finger. The stack wobbles to the left...then the right...then a plate slides off and falls to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces.

The skeleton glares at the shards as if they had somehow harmed him.

"Ah, no great loss. I'm sure they were cheap anyway. And destruction is necessary; you can't create without first destroying something. Even a painter ruins a blank canvas when he begins a masterpiece. And...uh...anyway...."

"My name's Cal Cium. Call me Cal."

Parish looks over at "Cal" and then back to Gertrude. "Well it was.' He murmurs then turns back to the skeleton. "We all help out here, Mr Cium. Many hands make light work after all." Parish looks the skeleton up and down. "Did you not find dinner to your liking? Looks like you could use some meat on those bones."

Cal tries to hide his disgust at Parish's suggestion to help clean. Such mundane, dirty tasks were for peasants, not people of his stature!

Then Amelie and Gertrude rush around to clean up his mess, and he smiles. So helpful, selfless, and apparently naive! They'd make excellent minions!

(He currently only has one minion, a rat named Ratto. The rat is burrowed into his skeleton suit around his right hip, hopefully sleeping, or at least lazing. If Ratto hopped out of his hiding spot and made a ruckus while Yazeba was around, the witch would know his true identity in an instant!)

"Oh, you all are so...useful. Alas, I would aid you, but my...uh...arm bones are a bit creaky."

He raises his right arm and makes a (he hopes) surreptitious creaking noise with his teeth, but this shouldn't fool anyone.

"And you know, I've had this problem for some time, but I've heard that Yazeba's spellbook has all sorts of fantastic spells. Perhaps one of you can direct me to it? Or better yet, retrieve it for me? No need to bother Yazeba; I'm sure she has enough on her plate running this bed and breakfast. And I'm certain her spellbook has something to heal me!"

Cal glares at this robot (?) and shakes his head so hard he actually does creak, totally for real this time.

"WD-41? Now, I'm not familiar with this, but I am familiar with WD-40. And that's not supposed to be used on living creatures! It's to help with rust, to loosen up metal things, to lubricate, and so on. I may be a skeleton (a bigger skeleton, don't judge me), but I'm still alive!"

"Plus, you say it's not available in stores, which is very suspicious. If it's so great, why can't the public purchase it? I bet it's harmful, perhaps even fatal! I have a mind to contact the EPA, the FBI, OSHA, DARPA, maybe even NIAMS!"

In his agitation, he flails his arms around...and again knocks over dishes. This time, it's not just one, but an entire stack. At least ten plates smash onto the kitchen floor, scattering shards everywhere.Again he looks at the pieces as if they were at fault, but then realizes he should tone down his outrage. Breaking a single plate was one thing; breaking ten was quite another. He didn't want to completely alienate these folks; after all, he still needs minions.

"I am..."

Five seconds pass. Then ten. Then fifteen. This was harder than anticipated.

"...sorry for the mess."

He doesn't offer to clean up, though, maintaining some of his elitism.

It's clear Cal has thoroughly irritated the group. But is he going to back down? He is not.

"Hypocrisy! I thought this was supposed to be an accepting group, yet you cruelly ostracize me over a few broken plates! And that's after trying to poison me with this black market WD-41 substance!"

"I'll show you all! Nobody insults Ra...Cal Cium!"

He grabs the bottle of dishwashing liquid (Dawn Ultra? Or does Yazeba keep some weak off-brand stuff?) and rushes out of the kitchen!

"Let's see you all clean those dishes now! You'll never get that grease off without soap!"

Too late, he considers the possibility that there's another bottle in the cupboard, or wherever. Or that resourceful folks could find a way to still clean. Or that the sink was possibly sudsy enough, and no more dishwashing liquid was needed.

Details! He was still a daring, dangerous thief who'd cunningly derailed the group's efforts. He clomps down the hallway, holding the bottle tightly under his arm like it's as valuable as a diamond.