Erik's Writings

Chapter 1:

It all began with the words, "It all began," which happens to be quite an accurate method of describing the fact that it all began, for that is precisely what occurred. It all began. Quite a long time ago, according to most authorities. For example, Genesis sets the creation of the world approximately five thousand years ago, the Big Bang Theory puts Day One billions of centuries in the past, and some radical forms of Buddhism hold that there never was anything to begin with, which is about as far back as you can go. It may be that this is a form of self-preservation on the part of the various human cultures, as the believers of any given theory of universal origin would all get dangerously nervous unless the beginning of the universe were set far enough in the past so that they didn't have to think about it.

But this novel isn't concerned with the beginning of the universe. It is concerned with a man named George Bags. It isn't even concerned with the beginning of George Bags because his beginnings were rather dull; he was born in a hospital and grew up in a middle-class neighborhood just like most middle-class Americans. The phrases "rather dull" and "just like most middle-class Americans" prove to be quite useful when describing George Bags. Just like most middle-class Americans, he had two arms, two legs, and a head that seemed to hurt just a tad more than was healthy. He had a rather dull job that didn't seem to pay as much as it could, and he spent most of his free time slouching around in his rather dull apartment thinking about all the wonderfully exciting things he could have been doing if he wasn't quite so middle-class.

As has been mentioned before, this story does not begin with the beginning of the world. Nor does it begin with the beginning of George's life, nor with the beginning of anything else significant other than itself. In fact, this story begins in the middle of lunch.

Lunch, for George Bags, was an Extra-Sized number four Super Value Meal at Burger Barn. This consisted of a BiggieBurger, an extra large soda, and an extra large order of French fries. George never seemed to be able to eat that many fries, but in order to get the larger drink, he needed to Extra Size the value meal. It actually cost him more to get the meal than to buy the food separately, but for some reason George seemed to get an odd satisfaction out of walking up to the cash register and stating, in an authoritative voice, "Number Four." Long ago, he gave up appending "with no onions" for simplicity's sake. Besides, they never seemed to listen to that part anyway, and he was always forced to take them off himself. It was even worse at Kwikie-Burger where because they used chopped onions instead of onion rings, he had to get a fork and spend five minutes scraping them off.

George finished off his BiggieBurger and crumpled up the wrapper. He picked up his Extra-Large soda and frowned at the large pile of greasy French fries sitting on the tray in front of him. He took a long sip of watered-down cola and set to work on the potatoes. He was determined to finish them today.

At this point George's Taiko digital sports watch made one of those extremely irritating beeps that can stop a college professor midsentence even when the watch is clinging innocuously to the wrist of a quiet student who sits in the very last row of the auditorium. In response to this, George did nothing. The beep was one of the numerous gimmicks that George used to remind himself of the various things that he forgot to do on a regular basis. It beeped again, and George squeezed the contents of his fourth packet of ketchup onto a napkin. The alarm was supposed to remind George that this was the absolute last moment he could leave and still make it back to the office on time. The third time it beeped, George again acted as though he hadn't heard it. This was probably because the watch was sitting on his desk in his apartment, approximately 12 miles away. On the fourth beep, George's cat got annoyed and jumped up on George's desk. The fifth beep was rather muffled because the cat had decided to sit on it.

George picked up several French fries, drowned them in ketchup and forced them down his throat. Half of George's fries were gone when he decided that he really wasn't hungry anymore and that it didn't really matter much whether he finished the fries off or not. George took his tray to the trashcan and started dumping its contents inside. He glanced up at the clock and, noticing what time it was, dropped his tray all the way into the can.

George's hand instinctively shot into the trash receptacle, and he started fishing blindly through the piles of fully biodegradable burger wrappers, some of which had already begun to biodegrade. He grabbed something that might have been a handful of greasy French fries, and also might have been a couple of onion rings taken off of a BiggieBurger, and turned his head away in disgust. Looking up, George noticed that several people were staring at him. Quietly, he removed his hand from the trash and walked out of the room.

Once outside of the Burger Barn, George unconsciously wiped his hand off on his pants and started running. As he reached the street, he thought to himself that he really must start using the crosswalks. He also thought that today wouldn't be all that great of a time to start doing so.

It might be of interest to the reader that those were the exact same thoughts that had gone through George's head at that time yesterday. It might also be of interest that at that same time the next day, George will be experiencing a completely different and altogether more interesting train of thought.

Approximately 50% of George's mental activity was usually devoted to coming up with good reasons why he should end his various bad habits. The other 50% was generally occupied with coming up with good excuses why he should do so tomorrow.

One of those bad habits was always showing up late after lunch.

"I am so sorry, Mr. Kawamura. I assure you it won't happen again. It was just the line at Burger Barn was enormous, and you know how the traffic can be on Sandstrom Avenue at this time of day..."

George probably would have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had realized that his lunch break didn't end at 1:00 but actually fifteen minutes later.

Mr. Kawamura frowned, not quite knowing what to say to George. It would be far too rude to inform George that he wasn't late, and while he obviously couldn't take disciplinary action, it would definitely be improper to let George think that he was getting off the hook. Mr. Kawamura decided simply to give him a stern talking to, as he had done yesterday, and on so many previous occasions.

George took Mr. Kawamura's admonishments very seriously. To George Bags, "All right, I'll let it slide this time, but don't let me catch you running in late again, Mr. Bags." meant "You're lucky I need you around here, or you'd have been canned long ago." Mr. Kawamura wasn't about to fire George Bags any time soon. He wasn't a particularly spectacular worker, but he was one of the only employees who was consistently on time.

One of the many employees who was not consistently on time was currently finishing, at a leisurely pace, a BiggieBurger from Burger Barn. His name was Buzz, and he had just watched on, with mild amusement, as George dumped his tray into a trashcan and left it in a fit of confusion.

Buzz watched just about everything with mild amusement, not because he found everything mildly amusing, but because he had learned that if people thought you did, they tended to be nicer to you.

The impression that Buzz gave to most people was that of intelligence and confidence, two traits that Buzz was convinced he lacked. When Buzz was a child, he was never quite successful enough to gather attention. He managed straight B's throughout grade school and consistently placed 12th in the local spelling bees, varsity quiz meets, and math contests. Despite the fact that he consistently scored within the top 10% on all of the standardized tests students are forced to take in high school, Buzz had convinced himself that he wasn't all that smart. To make up for these "shortcomings," he concocted an elaborate scheme to make everyone think he was a genius. His ultimate goal was to be able to deliver 5 minutes of pure bullshit that would leave people thinking that he was brilliant, but also leave people incapable of recalling what it was that he had actually said. It took him five jobs, sixteen drinking buddies, and thirty-one girlfriends to work out all the kinks, but eventually he succeeded.

Buzz walked in late for work again, but, unlike George, he did not seek out Mr. Kawamura to apologize. In fact, Mr. Kawamura was unaware that Buzz had ever showed up tardy. It would have been of extreme interest to Mr. Kawamura that Buzz was consistently late, as he didn't like Buzz very much, but never allowed matters of personality to come in the way of business decisions.

Buzz wasn't a particularly good employee, whatever Mr. Kawamura may have thought. He took unscheduled coffee breaks. He came in late and went home early. But worst of all, he made prank phone calls on company time. This was rather dastardly, considering the fact that he worked for The Phone Company. The target of his pranks was most often George Bags, who also worked for The Phone Company.

"Hello? I'd like to make a collect phone call to my Aunt Hilda."

"All right, what is the number?"

"555-4223."

George paused in surprise. "Is that a local number?"

"Why, of course!"

George was confused and didn't say anything.

"Hello? Excuse me? I'd like to make a collect phone call?"

"Could you...uh...repeat the number please?"

The man on the line grunted with impatience. "555-4223."

"Are you absolutely sure about that number?"

"What?!"

George bit his lip. "I mean, ah, are you sure that that is the correct number?"

"Yes, of course I'm sure! Will you please just connect me?"

George looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching him and quietly disconnected the call. It was just about that time, when George heard some rather hysterical laughter coming from the direction of Buzz's cubicle, so he decided to see what was up.

"Hey, Buzz! What's so funny?"

Buzz stood up and looked at George with a funny grin on his face. "Oh, nothing, just some idiot I had on the line..."

"Hey Buzz? Could you remind me of something?"

"Sure, whatcha need?"

"What's my phone number?"

"I beg your pardon? Did you just ask me for your phone number?"

George swallowed. "Yes, what's my phone number?"

Buzz paused for a moment, as if trying to remember something he hadn't had need for in a long time. "555-4223. At least that's what it was last time I checked. Why? Isn't that right?"

"That's what I thought...thanks." George sighed and went back to work.

One of George's most virulent complaints about life was that it wasn't very interesting. Not that he actually wanted to be caught up in any dramatic, life-threatening disaster; he just wanted to have a few interesting stories for those social gatherings where everyone else who didn't have anything to say was busy getting drunk. He was convinced that if anything interesting had happened to him, he could be quite entertaining. What George never realized was that plenty of interesting things had already happened to George, he had just been so caught up in complaining that he had missed them.

George was not about to miss what would happen to him in the subway tunnel that evening on his way home from work. This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that he was expecting something interesting to happen, for he wasn't.

The first unexpected thing to happen was his pager going off. Since nobody had ever actually paged George before, this caused a bit of confusion.

George felt an odd feeling on his thigh. He wasn't quite sure what it was, so he thought about it for a while. It went away, and he forgot about it. A couple seconds later, the feeling came back. This time, his curiosity got the best of him and he looked at his leg. He glanced at his belt, his pocket, his pager, his shoe, and then back at his pager.

"Oh!" George exclaimed out loud, reaching for it.

"Sorry about that," responded an old lady standing in front of him.

"Oh, I wasn't talking to you."

The old lady looked rather shocked.

"Listen here, buster," growled a very dirty, very disreputable, and very large young man in a leather jacket, "She already apologized to you, so you don't have to be so damn rude about it!"

George stared. After a few seconds of staring, he stared some more. "Y-you d- don't under...der...derstand, I was just saying that-"

He never said what it was that he had been saying, because the young gentleman had rather ungently placed his hand upon George's collar. George stared some more. "No, I think I understand quite well. What you were just saying was how sorry you were for saying-"

He never said what it was that George was going to say that he was sorry for saying because the train had just pulled up and opened its doors. George continued staring, even though the young man and old lady had joined the crowd of people who had begun squishing themselves together for the sole reason that they all wanted to be somewhere else. It was quite a remarkable feat that George was standing at all, given the pressure of the rather large mob rushing the rather small subway door, so it is understandable that he dropped his pager.

George was still staring even after the train had closed its doors and shoved off. He blinked and stared some more. Finally, his eyes began to water, and George stopped staring. When he turned around, he noticed that he was alone. He also noticed that his pager was perched rather precariously on the edge of the train pit.

In order to keep from knocking it over the edge, George advanced slowly and cautiously on his pager. He walked quietly up to within five feet of the edge and then got down on his hands and knees and crept closer. As he was reaching his hand slowly out to snatch it up, it started to vibrate again and fell into the pit.

George said something that is no longer censored on network television.

Figuring that the next train wasn't due for another five or ten minutes, he decided that it wasn't too dangerous to risk ignoring the writing above the thick orange line. After looking over his shoulder to make sure that nobody was in the station, George turned around and began to lower himself onto the track.

The next unexpected thing to happen was unexpected in an altogether different manner. Somebody tapped George in the middle of the back. This so completely startled George that he lost his grip and stumbled downward, knocking his chin solidly on the edge of the train pit, right on the thick orange line which you aren't supposed to cross. Quite naturally, this rendered George unconscious.

Chapter 2:

George wasn't quite sure, but he thought he heard a faint buzzing sound off in the distance. The sound was vaguely reminiscent of a dial tone. He didn't like thinking about dial tones when he wasn't at work so he decided that the sound wasn't actually there. George's mind went away for a moment.

When it came back, he found if full of all sorts of ugly things like overdue bills, smelly leather jackets, meetings at 5:63 sharp, and lots of ketchup. George didn't particularly want to think about ketchup either, so he made them go away. They made buzzing noises as they left.

The buzzing noise was becoming extraordinarily irritating, but it refused to give up its place at the center of his concentration. A thought somewhere in George's head kept blathering at him to wake up and do something about it.

This seemed like a good idea, and George decided that he should definitely wake up and do something about it. Noting this as a particularly conclusory solution, George promptly let his mind go away again.

The buzzing sound was still there when it came back. It appeared to be upset about something. George tried to think rationally about this, but his mind didn't agree with him that that was a particularly good idea.

He pouted. George thought that he had already solved the problem, but the buzzing was still there. Then he remembered that even though he had decided to wake up, he hadn't actually done so and was still asleep.

Something about that conclusion made George think, despite his mind's intentions to the contrary. After a moment's contemplation, he decided that he was indeed asleep.

The buzzing was still there.

Thinking was becoming easier for George as he tried to decide what could possibly be buzzing at someone while he was asleep. It struck him that noise wouldn't be of much use to a sleeping person because all it would do is wake him up. Unless of course the buzzing was supposed to wake him up.

He paused for a moment.

George leapt out of the bed and fumbled with the alarm clock until he found the "off" switch. He attempted to see what time it was. The digital display on the clock read "P:83." George squinted at it until it was 9:30. This would be a very bad thing, but George wasn't wearing his glasses, so he wasn't absolutely sure. After retrieving them from the nightstand, he managed to determine that it was only 8:06. He still had half of an hour before he had to leave.

George leaned back on his pillow, took a deep breath to relax himself, and woke up 51 minutes later.

None of this was in the least bit unusual. George tended to run late in a similar manner just about every day of the week; the reason being that nothing other than the sheer terror that arises from being late was ever powerful enough to jolt him out of bed.

Strangely enough, George was rarely ever late for work, despite the fact that he was constantly running late. Some people might call such a distinction pedantic, but the fact remains that no matter how late you are running, it is still conceivable that you could make up enough time doing things quickly that you could actually arrive on time.

For George, there were a lot of things that needed to be done very quickly.

Amongst the activities that were so quickly done so as to not be done at all that day included brushing his teeth, combing his hair, tying his shoelaces, and eating the breakfast that had been laid out for him on the dining room table.

The fact that someone had obviously spent a ridiculously long amount of time cooking breakfast that morning didn't hit George until that someone called out his name from the kitchen. George stopped dead in his tracks with the front door half open in his right hand, his left hand stuck midway through the process of putting his wallet in his pocket, and his keys dangling from his teeth. Without moving any other part of his body,

George turned his head to look over his shoulder into the kitchen.

There was a dwarf in his kitchen. The dwarf was standing on a stool in front of the stove wearing an apron and stirring a bowl of pancake batter. "Don't just stand there and gawk. Your breakfast is getting cold."

George decided that the taste of brass was too bitter for him and he dropped the keys.

The dwarf put the bowl on the table and stepped down off the stool, wiping his hands on the apron. He put out his hand. "I guess we've never been properly introduced. I'm Bob."

George didn't shake his hand. "Who?"

Bob didn't know what to do with his hand, so he brought it up to smooth his hair. Just as he brought it up to his scalp, he decided that it would be a terribly cliche thing to do and instead just gripped the back of his neck as if it were sore. "Your address was on your driver's license and your keys were in your pocket."

The look on George's face went from blank to confused as he looked at his keys lying on the floor. He looked back up at Bob before he managed to stammer out another word. "How?"

It had become abundantly clear to Bob that this young man wasn't quite awake yet and that he might not even remember the events of the previous evening. "You knocked yourself out in the subway tunnel yesterday. I figured that lying across the rails wasn't your idea of a comfortable place to sleep, so I brought you here." He paused. "This is your house, isn't it?"

George seemed to have recovered from the acute attack of confusion that had immobilized him earlier, and slowly maneuvered his left arm out of the awkward position he had placed it in while trying to get his wallet into his pocket. "Will you please stop doing that?"

"Doing what?"

George picked up his keys and walked over to the table. "Answering my questions before I ask them. It's very unnerving."

Bob grinned. "Whatever you say, Wizard."

Something about the way he said the word "wizard" struck George as odd. It was almost as if he was using it as an official title of some sort. He chose to ignore it as one of the dwarf's many idiosyncrasies. Having decided that he deserved a day off,

George sat down and began to eat his breakfast.

Noting the thoughtful look on George's face, Bob quietly retreated into the kitchen and went back to stirring his pancake batter.

After a few minutes of chewing quietly, George came to the conclusion that his day was going to maintain the current level of strangeness. Once committed to the unexpected, he reopened the conversation with his short friend. "I've really only got one question. What were you doing down there on the tracks?"

Bob made one of those truncated chuckles that people make when they suddenly forget what was so funny halfway into a laugh and that usually come out more like a cross between a snort and a sigh than anything else. "I live there." It was more of a question than a response.

George thought he was ready for the unexpected, but the very fact that he had already taken his own surprise into account left him completely unprepared for such a response. He responded, quite incredulously, "In a subway tunnel?"

The look of confusion on Bob's face mirrored that on George's. "Where else would a dwarf live?"

It had become quite clear to the both of them that they were having a communication problem, but since neither knew how to fix such a problem, they continued on in the same vein.

"In the same places that the rest of humanity lives!"

"Humanity, Wizard?"

The strange emphasis on the word caused George to pause and change the subject. He realized that he'd been talking very loudly, so he brought his voice down to a more normal level. "Why do you keep calling me 'wizard'?"

The dwarf dropped his head as if he had unwittingly insulted George. "I'm sorry. What would you prefer? 'Sorcerer'? 'Magician'? Or just plain 'Sir'?"

George wasn't used to being surprised this often. Instead of responding immediately, he stopped to take a moment to think things through. This was a habit that often provided George with keen insights, but usually not before it was too late to put those insights to work. Bob wasn't going anywhere, however, so George took his time even more than usual.

The words came out slowly and with immaculate diction. "Do you think that I am a magician?"

Bob's response was a flat "Yes."

"Why?" It was a question, but it came out more like a command.

It was Bob's turn to begin thinking. However, unlike George, he preferred to think out loud. "I am correct in assuming that you are a human?"

"Yes." He paused. "Yes, of course. What else would I be?"

The dwarf opened his mouth to respond when something clicked in George's mind. "Wait. Are you human?"

That same something clicked in Bob's mind, as well, only from a different angle. He didn't need to answer, but he said it anyway. "No."

"So you really are a dwarf? Like in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?"

"Yes, except there's only one of me."

George nodded slowly. "I see."

Of course, he didn't believe a word of it.

Chapter 3:

"I don't believe a word of it."

George's plate had been scraped clean of every single trace that might have indicated the recent presence of a very large breakfast upon it. Bob grabbed the plate and took it into the kitchen, not quite sure whether he was upset or not. On one hand, George seemed to have a skull as thick as an unabridged dictionary, yet he had clearly enjoyed the meal Bob had prepared for him. Bob turned on the sink faucet and grabbed a sponge. "I don't see why not." He started scrubbing the already spotless plate and seemed to be addressing it more than George. "I mean, how could you be talking to a dwarf if you were unexposed to magic?"

George lifted his fork into the air with a flourish as he responded. "First of all..." He paused for a second and let the fork dangle a bit between his thumb and forefinger. "Well, there's not really a second point I wanted to make, but that doesn't really matter." Pointing the fork at Bob, he continued. "First of all, I think you're just a short guy with big hands and an oversized cranium." Thinking that a bit rude, he stopped himself from blurting out any further insults and stuck the end of the fork in his mouth. Sucking on the fork to get the last little taste of salty egg off of it, he made a fist with his right hand and enclosed it with his left, cracking a few knuckles nervously. He tried to say something, but all that tumbled out of his mouth was an unintelligible syllable and a mostly clean fork. After trying to snatch it once on its way down and a second time while it was bouncing off of his thigh, he gave up and let it land on the floor with a jarring "thwa- ping-aling." Staring at the fork, George repeated the syllable, but with enough context that it actually sounded like an apology this time. He looked up. "But you can understand where I'm coming from, can't you?"

Bob put the plate on the little plastic rack next to the sink that George had never actually used for drying dishes and walked back to the table, drying his hands on his apron. "I guess it might be a bit confusing for you." He went to go pick up the fork, but George, still feeling a bit guilty, quickly snatched it up and rose to go put it in the sink.

Bob didn't know what to do with his hands, so he started drying them on his apron again. "Would it help if I showed you a simple spell?"

George was genuinely surprised by the offer and took a moment to respond.

"What kind of spell?"

"The easiest one I know is a simple water-summoning spell. Would that do?"

Forgetting that he didn't believe in magic, George tossed the fork into the sink, ignoring the fact that it tumbled halfway into the garbage disposal. "You mean that you can actually create water?"

Bob's head tilted back a bit as he furrowed his brow incredulously. "Of course not! That would violate the law of conversation of matter."

No matter how long George talked with him, Bob seemed to be able to consistently make statements that were totally external to George's projected realm of future possibilities. "How can you talk about physics when you're going to cast a spell?"

Bob found George's conversation to be equally confusing, but he decided against arguing for the moment. "Nevermind. I'll just show you the spell."

Suddenly realizing that he was actually expecting the spell to work, George shook his head, physically mirroring his mental attempt to shake the thought out of his mind. "Speaking of water, I'm going to go get myself a glass. You want any?" He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door.

"No thanks." He rubbed his hands together and looked around the room as if searching for something that he was pretty sure wouldn't be there. "But there are a few things that I'll need for the spell."

George's voice was distorted slightly as it ricocheted off of the unopened packet of bologna sitting in the dairy compartment and bounced around a pickle jar that didn't actually have any pickles in it. "We're fresh out of bat's tongues, but I think I can scrounge up a couple newt's eyes. What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing so obscure." Bob started untying the knot in the back of his apron, but suddenly decided that he should probably keep it on. "I'll need a ring of some sort of metal and a bit of something that used to be part of a sentient being."

George lost his grip on the bottle of water he was holding, catching it just as it landed on the refrigerator shelf. He tightened his grip on the bottle and quickly withdrew his head from the confines of the refrigerator. "You mean like flesh?!"

"It doesn't have to be fresh or anything like that."

"I hope it doesn't have to be human either." He paused. "I have some bologna; will that work?" Picking up the packet of bologna, he scanned the label looking for ingredients. "Is a cow sentient?" Unable to find any ingredients on the label, he put it back. "How about a pig? I'm not sure what's in it."

Bob grimaced. "I was thinking more along the lines of a lock of hair."

Feeling a little more at ease, George retrieved a glass from the cupboard and started pouring himself a glass of water. "There's a hairbrush in my bathroom." He replaced the cap on the bottle. Noticing that Bob had already gone to go get the brush, he raised his voice a bit. "What was the other thing you needed?"

Bob's voice echoed through George's bedroom. "A ring of metal. Doesn't have to be a finger ring." He emerged into the living room, carrying a wad of hair. "A washer or a nut would work fine."

George took a sip of his water and opened the door under the kitchen sink. "I took the faucet apart in my bathroom to try and fix it a couple days ago." Bob could hear clinking noises as George rummaged about. "When I put it back together, I found this metal ring that didn't seem to go anywhere." He stood up, holding a small washer. "I'm not sure what it's for or where it's been, but it is a ring of metal."

Bob flinched and failed to catch the ring when George tossed it to him. "Perfect."

Figuring that there would be a lot of necessary preparation, George went to put the bottle of water away, turning his back on Bob. Bob didn't wait for him. The moment he had the washer, he started the spell. Pushing the clump of hair through the ring, he made a sound with his throat that the most creative of writers would have difficulty representing as onomatopoeia. He pulled the hair all the way through the washer and then put the ring down on the table. Reaching into his pocket, he took out one of those fancy lighters that only require the pressing of one button for use. As George closed the door to the refrigerator, Bob pushed the button and lit the hairball on fire. He repeated the throat noise as George turned around.

George didn't make note of any of this spell casting, only seeing the fire and panicking a bit. He grabbed his glass and quickly tossed the water at Bob. At the same moment, the flames leapt up and nipped Bob's finger, causing him to drop the smelly ball of burning hair. The water splashed all over Bob's apron, completely missing the fire.

George ran forward and stamped out the fire. "What the hell were you thinking?! Were you trying to set the building on fire?!"

Taking his burnt finger out of his mouth, Bob got a little upset himself. "I was casting a spell! And it worked, too. Look at me, I'm soaked!"

George's mouth hung open, halfway through a very rude comment, but the horrible smell got the better of him and he walked back into the kitchen. He went to flip the switch that turns on the fan, but his mind was busy processing the last few minutes, and he accidentally turned on the garbage disposal. A horrendous grinding noise burst from the sink drain, completely ruining George's train of thought. After a few seconds of frantic scrambling, he managed to turn off the garbage disposal and turn on the fan. Slowly reaching into the drain, he pulled out a mangled fork and stared at it thoughtfully.

Recent events being what they were, it took George a few moments before he was capable of thinking about Bob's so-called "spell."

Bob waited patiently as George sat there thinking.

"I still don't buy it."

Bob sighed as he removed his wet apron. "Good thing I left this on."

"Unless you are claiming that the magic unleashed by your spell somehow wove its way into my brain and forced me to dump out that glass of water, I don't see how-" He became lost in his own choice of phrasing and stopped for a moment, unconsciously stuffing the fork into his pocket. "I still don't buy it. No magic came out and caused the water to be summoned." George's head started to hurt as his mind twisted itself into positions that belonged on Ripley's Believe it or Not. "Unless you count the fact that the presence of the fire-" Cutting himself off, George pressed a knuckle into his temple. "But there wasn't any magic."

Bob had been busy carefully folding his apron during George's stilted monologue. "Magic always seems like coincidence." He tied the straps on the back of his apron together, creating a neat little package that he tucked under his arm as he went to get his backpack from the corner of the room. "What does it matter where the water comes from, so long as the water always comes after the spell?" After unzipping his backpack, he began rearranging the contents so as to make room for his apron. "There's no need to violate any laws of physics, or make up any new ones." Bob sighed and pulled a small black object out of the pack before zipping it back up. "Magic isn't a thing that forces anyone or anything to do anything; it's just a simple way of talking about conveniently consistent coincidences." He slung the pack over his shoulder, impressed that he had finished that sentence without stumbling over his own tongue. Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the object in his hand. "By the way, I think this is your pager."

Chapter 4:

George was staring at his pager when he heard the door close. The sound didn't really hit him; it sort of flowed through him in much the same way that water washes over a duck. He pushed the button that called up recent pages and reread the displayed number. The number struck George as a bit strange, but he couldn't figure out why. Despite the fact that it was too long to be a phone number and that there didn't seem to be any sort of discernable pattern to its digits, it was a perfectly ordinary number. He turned the pager over to see if it read anything upside down, but that only caused it to become even more indecipherable. When he had first gotten the page, there wasn't a whole lot of time for reflection. George wondered whether or not Bob would know anything about it.

At that point George realized that Bob's quite recent departure hadn't been on the best of terms. Waves of guilt began washing over him, leaving him with a sick taste in the back of his mind. On an impulse, he suddenly ran to the door, threw it open, and rushed out into the hallway. The hall was devoid of motion, except for the closing of an elevator, four doors down.

George stamped his foot. "Damn!" He really didn't want to part with the guy who had probably saved his life without at least apologizing. Even if he was a little loopy.

George unconsciously patted his pocket to make sure his keys were present while he quickly pulled the door closed. He started running in the general direction of the stairwell. He was still running at a break-neck pace when he came to the door. Turning his head away, he planted his hands on the bar and slammed his shoulder into the door. The door made a satisfying "thwam" as it flew outward only to be followed immediately by an unexpected "thunk" as it bounced back off of something that probably shouldn't have been there.

George stopped dead in his tracks, praying that what he thought had just happened hadn't. Slowly, he poked his head around the corner to see what sort of damage had been done. A tall, tough-looking man was sprawled unnaturally across the stairs. It occurred to George that there probably wasn't a natural way to sprawl across a stairwell, but this man was sprawling in a manner that seemed particularly unnatural, especially considering the fact that he looked like the sort of person who only looks natural while sitting on a very large motorcycle. The somewhat grizzly-looking man lifted a hand up to his head and pulled back the green bandana he had been wearing. His forehead was bruised, but there didn't appear to be any blood. George rushed over to him when he tried to sit up.

The name "Grizzly Adams" kept rolling around in George's head, making a general nuisance out of itself. He tried to ignore it. Since he was already feeling bad for telling off Bob, George immediately began apologizing, speaking at an abnormally fast rate. "I'm really sorry, sir. I should have watched where I was going. This is all my fault."

The injured man winced and placed a large hand gently on George's shoulder. George went silent "It's okay." He lifted his other, equally large hand and gingerly prodded at his forehead. He winced again as he touched the bruise.

George took a few deep breaths and managed to slow his speech down to a normal pace. "Here, let me help you up. My apartment is on this floor; I'll get you some ice for that bruise." He paused. "I'm really sorry."

"Grizzly Adams" popped into George's head again, causing significant irritation. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Thank you. I'm Sebastian, and you are?"

Something in his voice struck George as being familiar. That sensation was immediately reinforced by the powerful aroma emanating from the leather jacket he was wearing. As soon as Sebastian was on his feet, it dawned upon George where he had met this man before. George went silent.

Sebastian paused to gain his balance and then turned to face George. "Well? What's your name?"

George hunched over in an effort to hide his face and muffle his voice while he opened the door. "George." As the response struck even George as being almost inaudible, he repeated himself. "George Bags."

Sebastian went to scratch his head, but then decided better of it. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Hoping that mumbling would keep him from being recognized, George deliberately spoke away from Sebastian as he held the door open. "Probably not."

As a direct result of George's efforts, Sebastian was completely unable to understand him, and became more curious than he had been before. "I'm sorry, what was that?" He paused in the hallway to look at George while he talked.

George repeated himself, a little more desperately, as he walked through the doorway. "Probably not."

The desperation in his voice struck a chord in Sebastian's mind. "Aha! I've got it."

Giving up, George turned his back on him and started walking towards his apartment, muttering to himself.

Sebastian wasn't moving. "You're that guy I met in the subway, aren't you?" He noticed that George was getting steadily further ahead and moved quickly to catch up with him. But the moment he attempted to move faster than a brisk walk, his head started aching again, and he was slowed to a walk. "Wait up! There was something I needed to say to you."

George stopped and turned around with a complete lack of enthusiasm. He looked up and hoped that Sebastian had no desire to take it out on him physically.

After he had caught up, Sebastian paused, patting his bruise gently with the bandana clutched in his left hand. "I wanted to tell you that I was sorry for snapping at you yesterday."

Taking into account the earlier events of the day, George had gotten used to being surprised, but it still took a few moments before the fact that he wasn't going to be pummeled registered properly. George turned around without a word and walked over to his apartment door. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and fumbled the correct one into the lock.

Sebastian looked on expectantly, waiting. When George finally managed to get the door open, Sebastian moved forward into the doorway so that he could keep George in sight. "Look, I'm sure it was all just some sort of misunderstanding, so let's just let bygones be bygones and get on with our lives. Okay?"

George looked at the man standing in his doorway. "Stop apologizing already! Since when is any of this your fault? I'm the one who hit you with the door."

They both paused.

"Anyway, stop standing in my doorway and come inside."

Stepping inside, Sebastian closed the door quietly behind his back. He walked halfway into the living room and paused, sniffing. "What's that smell?"

George responded from within the kitchen. "Burnt hair." He got a plastic zippered baggy from the cupboard. "It's a long story."

Sebastian was never one to push an issue, so he remained silent, hands crossed in front of his waist, fiddling with his bandana. He was still standing there when George came out of the kitchen with a bag of ice wrapped in a paper towel.

"Have a seat and put this on your forehead." He handed the ice pack to Sebastian, who accepted it with a nod of gratitude. He wrapped it in his bandana and went to sit down on the sofa.

George quickly snatched his pager off the cushion before Sebastian sat on it. A thought occurred to him. "Hey, Sebastian? How much do you know about pagers?"

"I had one a while back, but it broke and I never bothered replacing it. Why?"

"Maybe you can help me make some sense of this." George looked at the pager. "I got this page yesterday, and it looks like gobbledygook to me." He handed the pager over to Sebastian. "Is it some sort of code that people use on pagers?"

Sebastian set the ice pack across his lap so that he could operate the buttons on the side of the pager. He called up the list of old pages and looked at the number. When he squinted and furrowed his eyebrows to get a better look, his bruise started stinging, so his stare was a little on the odd side. His immediate instinct was to turn it over and see if it spelled out anything, but it didn't. "Looks like nonsense at first glance, but you never know..."

George leaned over the back of the sofa to look over Sebastian's shoulder.

An idea occurred to Sebastian. "You know, I think this number might be prime." He started adding up the digits in his head to see if they were divisible by three.

George's eye's lit up. "Really? Let me see." He grabbed for the pager, but Sebastian was busy staring at it and subconsciously tried to pull it out of reach. George snagged it between his thumb and forefinger but only had enough grip to accidentally flip it up into the air. Both Sebastian and George tried to grab it, but their hands collided, rendering both attempts fruitless. It landed on the coffee table and made a horrible cracking sound. What looked like a battery skidded across the table.

"No!" George tumbled over the sofa head first and tried to grab the pager while at the same time scrambling to get to his feet. Holding the pager open in one hand, he picked up the battery and dropped it inside. Half of the battery stuck out of the top of the pager as if it were too long to fit.

Sebastian watched on, a bit bewildered. "Are you okay?"

George started searching frantically for the battery cover. If I can get the pager back on in a few seconds, it will keep its memory." After a few seconds of looking about, George located it and picked it up. "Otherwise, the number is lost." He pushed down on the battery with the battery cover. The spring inside the pager was quite tight, so it took a lot of pressure to depress it all the way. Just as he was about to lock the cover into place, his fingers slipped, and the battery sprung out of the pager and into the air. George snagged the cover before it hit the ground, but the battery landed in Sebastian's lap.

Sebastian quickly handed it back to George, who wasted no time before making a second attempt. He succeeded this time, and took a deep breath before checking to see if he'd succeeded in saving the number. "Damn!" He threw his hands up in desperation, tossing the pager up into the air in the process. It landed on the coffee table again, and just to add insult to injury, the battery sprung out and pinged George on the kneecap before falling to the ground.

"Damn!" Stomping his feet on the ground didn't seem to make him feel any better, so he repeated himself. "Damn, damn, damn, damn!"

Sebastian had risen from the sofa and placed a hand on George's shoulder. "Calm down, man. It's just a number."

Even though he shook off Sebastian's hand nervously, he did calm down a bit. "I know, but there was just something about that number that seemed important to me." He made a pathetic whimper and Fosberry flopped onto the sofa. "I'm not even sure why it seemed so important." George didn't want to admit what was probably the real reason. There was just something really pathetic about losing a number when it had been the only page he'd ever received. He draped his arm over his eyes.

Sebastian wasn't the sort of person to give up that easily, however. He came from a long, proud line of stubborn, ruthless jackasses and devoted all his inherited attributes to increasing the general happiness of the universe. His family didn't really approve of the purposes to which he devoted his energies, but they couldn't help but admire the skill with which he did so. "Listen, George. If it's that important, I'm sure we can reconstruct the number. What do you remember about it?"

Raising the arm hung across his face, George looked at Sebastian. "Not much." He dropped the arm again. "It seemed to have a lot of sevens in it."

Since the only thing Sebastian could remember about the number was that it was odd, in more than just the numerical sense, he made the decision to change subjects as quickly and as unnoticeably as possible. "I'm sure that if it was important, whoever it was will call back." He sat down in one of the chairs positioned around the coffee table.

George's response was to do absolutely nothing, but it was a really emphatic nothing.

Through his experiences with angst and the sort of people who tend to have a lot of it, Sebastian had learned that one of the best things to do for someone in a less than happy mood is to get them bitching. "So you were going to tell me about the burnt hair?"

George let his arm drop off the side of the sofa and dangle there before flopping his head to one side to look at Sebastian. "Oh, that."

It occurred to Sebastian that George had probably had more than just your typical bad day, but urged him onward anyway.

George sighed. "The hair was the dwarf's fault."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. He had worked out a few plausible scenarios, but none of them had involved dwarves.

George realized that a little bit of back story would be necessary. "I suppose I should start with breakfast, which I don't normally eat because I don't normally have someone to cook it for me." Pausing, he decided that even more background would be necessary. "Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that it all started in the subway last night. With you, in fact." As he began to sort out all the various and sundry bits of experience that he'd accumulated over the past forty-eight hours, the big picture started assembling itself. None of the elements seemed to be connected to any other elements, other than through the fact that they had all happened to George Bags. He sat up. "Not that it was your fault or anything; it's just that I ran into you right about the same time that I got that page."

Sebastian was a quick learner, but he was having a difficult time trying to figure out what was going on in George's head. He left his expression carefully neutral, waiting for George to start making some sense.

As things began to coalesce in his head, George started to doubt the sensibility of the story he was about to tell. "You know, it might not be the best idea for me to tell this story right now; it's a bit on the loopy side. Let me sort it out in my head."

Despite the fact that he still hadn't a clue as to what was going on, Sebastian leaned back in his chair, satisfied with his accomplishments so far. The room fell into silence.

Almost.

A faint scratching sound could be heard from somewhere indistinct. It was followed soon by a not-so-faint meow coming quite distinctly from the front door.

George furrowed his brow and then looked about the room. When he finally resolved the fact that his cat had indeed left the apartment somehow, he jumped up and walked quickly to the door. After he opened it, he looked down at the gray tabby standing in the doorway. "And where the hell have you been?"

The cat returned the look, and although it didn't say anything, the effect was more or less the same as if it had asked George the same question. It bent down and picked up a squirming little figure before trotting proudly into the room.

George looked at the figure clutched in the cat's mouth and completely failed to make any sense of it. "Um." The tabby passed the threshold of the door's swinging radius and plopped its prize at his feet. "Maybe that story isn't as loopy as I thought." George shook his head, trying in vain to restore normality. "I think you should come take a look at this." He shook his head again, but it didn't change the fact that his cat had just deposited a very real and only slightly damaged gnome at his feet.

Chapter 5:

"I'm telling you, it's a gnome."

"I don't think so. Aren't gnomes supposed to be bigger?"

"No, you played too much D&D as a child. Gnomes are actually really small."

"I thought those were called…hm. I can't seem to think of the name…something silly, like cookies, but that's not it." Sebastian scratched at the bush of mostly black hair on his chin. "Brownies."

"Have you ever seen a brownie with a beard?"

Sebastian looked George straight in the eye for a moment. "Have you ever seen a gnome with a goatee?" They both paused in thought for a moment. The unasked question, "Have you ever seen a gnome?" hung in the air for a while.

The two humans stood in silence until George shook his head and spoke again. "Well, whatever it is, I don't think it's a brownie."

"You know, there's a really simple way to settle this problem." George and Sebastian stared at each other because neither of them had been the one who spoke. George looked at the cat for a moment before he realized what he was doing. "I said: there's a really easy way to answer your question."

George avoided looking at the diminutive figure standing at his feet. "Really. What's that?"

"You could always ask me."

The blunt logic of the statement kept both George and Sebastian quiet for a moment. The silence was broken by a sharp, clear, and unambiguous "meow." Somebody was hungry. In a last ditch attempt to preserve the status quo of George's world view, his brain decided to pretend that nothing supernatural had happened in the past two days and that the best course of action would be to go in the kitchen and feed the cat.

For the past few seconds, Sebastian had been trying to decide on the most appropriate thing to say to the unexpected visitor. He had immediately rejected staring blankly like a fool as a bad idea, but since everything he thought to say seemed exceedingly inappropriate, he did so anyway. Eventually the awkward silence got the better of him and he spoke. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Sebastian." He descended to one knee and offered his hand for a handshake, even though the idea seemed a bit silly.

The gnome arched an eyebrow at the gesture, but only for a moment. He took one of Sebastian's fingers in both hands and made an attempt at a handshake. "The name's Samuel."

Sebastian smiled. "May I call you Sam?"

The gnome immediately let go of Sebastian's finger. "No. Samuel."

A soft clatter came from the kitchen as George dropped the now-filled food dish onto the floor in front of the cat. He tossed the empty can into the trash and wiped his hand on his pants. The act of doing a mundane chore seemed to have helped him somewhat, and he now appeared ready to deal with the situation. "Hi, Samuel. I'm George."

Nobody said anything for a few moments. Eventually Samuel decided to speak up. "So who's your feline friend with the horrible manners?"

George looked at his cat and bit his lower lip. "Her name's Erwin." The inquisitive looks were not a surprise. "It's a long story. I thought she was a he when I named her. People usually just refer to it as 'the cat.'"

The room settled into silence and was greeted in much the same manner in which one might greet an old friend that doesn't have anything to say despite the fact that he's been in Cambodia for five years.

When things in George's head fell into the right orientation, he gave a little start and then went to close the door. "Why don't you come in and have a seat on the…uh, on whatever you want to sit on." George noted that Samuel hadn't really moved very far before stopping and standing where he was. "I'm really sorry about the cat; I seem to be doing damage to lots of people today."

Samuel harumphed once. "I'll survive." He reached up and ran his hand through his short black hair to smooth down a wispy colic. The moment he took his hand away, it popped back up. "I just wish I knew what happened to my hat."

Sebastian immediately began scanning the area in front of the door. When it became apparent that there weren't any miniature hats lying around, he turned around to go find the cat, who seemed to have disappeared some time ago.

Samuel shook his head and clucked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. "Don't even bother. You large people wouldn't be able to find a thimble in a shag carpet."

Sebastian, who was a little better at dealing with unusual circumstances looked almost a little hurt by the insinuation, while George didn't seem to understand.

Samuel straightened out his plain white T-shirt and stood up straight. "Anyway, as I was about to say; I came here to find a man named George Bags, who was accidentally placed on the wrong end of a very powerful spell. From the looks of things, I've come to the right place." He glanced at Sebastian. "It also would appear that I'll have to bring two people back with me, instead of just George."

George was dumbfounded. Up until now, everyone he'd dealt with seemed to be as confused about things as he was. Here was someone who appeared to know exactly what was going on. Questions started bubbling about in George's head, but there were too many of them for any to be of use him.

A smirk spread across Samuel's face. "But first things first. Has anyone else read the number you received on your pager last night?"

George didn't always respond well to authority, but for the moment, he was glad to let someone else take control, even if he didn't seem to make any sense. "Just me and Sebastian. And he only just saw it this morning. Wait. How'd you know about my pager?"

The smirk grew into a grin. "You'll find that I know a lot of things. For now, that will have to suffice." Samuel couldn't keep his face muscles that tense for long, so he settled for a look of mild amusement. "Get your pager. I need you to get rid of the number on it, so that it's unrecoverable. This is very important; no one else should see that number."

Sebastian and George looked at each other. Shaking his head, Sebastian chuckled. "I don't think that will be a problem."

Samuel raised an eyebrow, but the expression was lost on the two humans who had a difficult time reading the gnome's tiny face. "It's not a question of what you think. That number has to be destroyed. And while you're at it, you should do your best to forget what that number was. I understand that this is difficult, but it will be best for everyone involved if no one ever sees the number again."

George's relief to have the situation taken out of his hands didn't reach forever, and this seemed to be a good enough place as any to cut it short. "There's nothing to worry about, so stop your fussing. The number's long gone. It's off of my pager, and I never got a good enough look at it to remember it anyway."

"I think it might have been a prime number." The look Samuel gave to Sebastian made him lose his train of thought. He stumbled over his tongue as he tried to remember what he was going to say. "But then again, I might be wrong."

Samuel let his eyes trail from Sebastian to George and back again before saying anything. "Good. That makes my job easier." Despite the gnome's size, he had quite a commanding presence. "Now it's my job to get you to headquarters safe and sound. To be discreet, we'll be taking a cab, but don't expect me to do this for you more than once." He spoke the last sentence as if it were the last line in a cheesy science fiction novel, crossed his arms, and waited for a response.

He didn't have to wait very long. "W-w-wait a minute." George walked over to where Samuel was standing and looked down at him. Samuel craned his head back to meet George in the eyes, and somehow managed to make it seem as if he were the one that was looking down. George dropped down to the floor and sat with his legs crossed underneath him. "You've got some explaining to do before we're going anywhere."

Sebastian came over and sat next to George, eagerly anticipating Samuel's explanation.

"First of all, I want to know what you're talking about with this 'powerful spell.'" George didn't give the gnome a chance to answer. "Secondly, where and what is 'headquarters.' I also want to know what my pager and that number has to do with anything." He paused only to take a breath. "And finally, how have I gone my entire life disbelieving in magic only to run into a gnome and a dwarf in the same day!"

Samuel looked at George. It wasn't the penetrating stare that he used to shut people up, nor was it the kindly, yet firm, look of authority that he'd carefully cultivated over the years. He looked at George as if he had hit an unexpected roadblock that required a few more minutes to bypass than he would have liked. "I understand your reluctance and confusion, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to give an explanation that would mean anything to you right now."

George wasn't too happy with Samuel's response, but he was all out of questions for the moment. He dropped his chin onto his chest.

"So who is this dwarf that you mentioned?"

"What?" George looked up, misjudging the gnome's height by about a foot, and had to readjust his line of sight downward a bit. "Oh, him. He's just some guy I met on the subway."

Samuel seemed satisfied by the answer. "So, are you ready to go?"

George sighed and stood up, much to Samuel's annoyance. "Two questions. First: how long will we be gone?"

"You should be back before the end of the day, unless something else comes up."

George didn't like the sound of that, but he continued. "Second: if I go with you, do you promise to explain all of this to me?"

Samuel sighed. "I'm probably not the person best-suited to explaining these sorts of things. But, yes, someone will explain it all to you eventually."

"You're sure? About the spell, the pager, and the dwarf? Everything?"

"Um. I don't know about the dwarf."

George smiled. "Good enough for me." He extended a hand to Sebastian. "So are you coming with?"

Chapter 6:

The light above the elevator doors marked "4" blinked off, and the number 3 became illuminated. A loud groan resonated through the cramped space as the 3 blinked off, and the 2 failed to light up. The elevator squeaked softly to a halt, and the 1 flickered on, accompanied by a pathetic shuddering beep. Before the doors had opened completely, the gnome headed out, walking much faster than either of the two humans in the elevator would have expected was possible.

George glanced at Sebastian before following Samuel into the main lobby of the apartment building. Even though the humans walked slowly, they got to the door long before Samuel did. The gnome ran a grubby, but well-manicured hand through his disheveled hair and grumbled something to himself as Sebastian held the door open for him.

When George came upon the street, an eerie sensation washed over him, as if he'd walked into an Italian restaurant and everyone in the room was eating a hamburger. It was the same street he'd lived on all his life, but something was abnormal, and it was more than just the fact that it was darker than usual. There weren't many vehicles on the road, but George attributed that to the fact that it had been raining earlier.

"Is it just me, or is there something strange going on?"

Sebastian replied from behind him, a little closer than George had expected him to be. "I think it's the cars."

George squinted as he looked at a passing pickup truck. "I think you're right." A tiny compact two-door sped by. "They're all really big or really small."

Sebastian nodded. "Yeah, strange."

A loud whistle pierced the atmosphere of contemplation. George looked down to see Samuel standing on the edge of the curb, waving his hand at a passing cab. The taxi driver, who looked suspiciously like a twelve-year old to George, completely ignored the gnome as he drove past.

Sebastian walked to the curb. "Here, let me flag one down." He stepped into the street and raised a hand, shouting "Hey!" at an approaching taxi. The cab was travelling faster than was safe on a wet day like this, and the driver took no heed of Sebastian, splashing through a puddle and nearly drenching him with muddy water.

George could have sworn that the driver had green skin.

Samuel gave Sebastian a look that could have frozen the clouds in the sky. "I can handle it just fine." He put two fingers to his lips and blew a whistle, as loud as any human could produce and twice as high-pitched.

An oddly shaped taxi swerved across two lanes of traffic to squeal to a halt in front of the trio. The roof of the cab had been modified to allow for several extra feet of ceiling over the driver's seat. The door swung open and out stepped one of the largest sentient beings George had ever seen. He was a hulking brute, at least eight feet tall, with a huge nose in the middle of his face. His head was quite bald, but the lack of hair on his scalp was quite made up for by the tufts of wispy white hair sticking out of his large, pointed ears.

The cab driver grinned as he saw Samuel, his gleaming white fangs showing up in severe contrast to his dark brown skin. His voice was deep and loud, but somewhat endearing. "I almost didn't recognize you without the hat, Sam." He gave a little chuckle at the end of his sentence.

The gnome glowered at the use of his nickname, but tried to force a smile anyway. "I had a little accident." Samuel sighed. "But that doesn't matter; I have to take these two gentlemen with me to the usual place. I trust you'll keep quiet on this issue, provided a little extra incentive."

The giant let out a loud, booming guffaw before replying. "Sure thing. You know me."

George and Sebastian were staring unpolitely when the driver took notice of them. "What's the matter with you? You look as if you've never seen a black ogre before." He laughed again and opened both passenger side doors. "I'll be your driver for the duration of your trip. You can call me Sidney."

Three small steps unfolded out to the curb as Sidney opened the front door. Samuel immediately climbed up onto the front seat. Several seat belts of varying size were set into the seat back.

Sebastian got in first, sliding over to make room for George, who was somewhat slower in responding. Sidney closed both doors and jogged around the front of the car to get in on his side. His head came up to less than an inch from the raised ceiling. "So Sam, I was doing some thinking about what Zack said last time, and I think I've patched up the problem in my theory."

The cab pulled out onto the street and joined the rest of the traffic. Sebastian looked out the window, taking note of the direction they were heading. George sat silent with his arms closed, trying to figure out what was going on.

Samuel cleared his throat. "I don't think this is the best time to discuss your theories, Sidney."

The ogre seemed genuinely hurt for a moment, but after a few seconds of holding his face in a frown, he burst out laughing. "Alright. We'll talk some about my crackpot ideas some other time."

George piped up from the back of the cab. "Who's Zack?"

Samuel shot Sidney a sour look. "No one you need to know about right now."

Now that he had some time to think about it, George began to wonder whether or not this was a terribly good idea. But since he'd never really planned out what he would do if the world turned itself on its head, as it so recently had done, he didn't have any better ideas. Finally his doubts got the better of him. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to last much longer without some sort of explanation."

The gnome sighed and shook his head.

"Well?" George was getting a bit impatient. "I'm sorry, but I'm trying to undergo a paradigm shift of massive proportions here, and I'd like at least a little input as to which universe I've stepped into."

Sidney looked over at Samuel and raised his eyebrows. "What's wrong with him?"

The air of authority that had surrounded Samuel when he first came into George's life had slowly begun to melt away. There wasn't a whole lot left of it at this point in time. The gnome's shoulders dropped. "Alright! I'll try to explain."

Sebastian, who had been quietly following the conversation while trying to see where the cab was headed, sat up and devoted all of his attention to Samuel.

"You have never really seen magic before. As a result, you've never seen gnomes, elves, dwarves, or ogres up close before. Maybe you've seen one off in the distance, but never enough for you to become aware of their existence."

George cleared his throat. "You better start telling me something I don't already know. Of course I've never seen a gnome before. What I'd like to know is where you all came from." He paused, but didn't let anyone interrupt. "I mean, I assume that you didn't just come into being yesterday. So what I'd like to know is where you have been hiding all this time? I mean, how many of you are there?"

Grimacing, Samuel brought his hand up to his head, expecting to find a hat there. When he realized what he was doing, he ran his fingers through his short hair. "Look, please let me explain. I'll try to do my best, but I've never actually met a normal human before, so it's difficult for me to understand where you are coming from."

George leaned back in his seat, listening.

"We've always been here, on Earth, as have all the other supernatural species. It's just that normal humans can't see the magical. That's humanity's curse."

Leaning forward, George interjected, "You mean to say that you're invisible to humans?"

"No. You just don't see supernatural beings. You're always in the room next door, or on the next subway train, or just around the corner from us. That's how the curse functions. You will not become aware of magic."

Sebastian stuck his hand in his coat pocket as he pondered this latest bit of information. After less than a second, he pulled out his bandana, which had become soaked by the leaking bag of now-melted ice he'd put away earlier.

George asked the question that was on both humans' minds. "Then why are we here?"

The leading question was just what Samuel had been hoping for. "That's where the number on your pager comes in. It was part of a very powerful spell, one designed to lift the curse on a human. It's very secret; most people don't even know that such a spell exists. The spell is usually saved for very important humans: ones who might be useful to...us."

"Us?" Both humans had responded, but Samuel ignored them nonetheless.

"But there was an accident, and you were placed on the receiving end instead of Dr. Weinberg. We couldn't just let you run free, so I was instructed to bring you back to headquarters with me."

Things in George's mind lined up for brief instant, and a flash of insight passed through his head. "Is that why Bob kept referring to me as a wizard?"

Samuel raised one eyebrow. "Bob?"

"Just some guy I met. A dwarf."

"Ah, yes. That would make sense. Most of the humans we employ become experts in the field of magic, and are often referred to as wizards or magicians." Samuel seemed to be regaining his composure and sat up straighter.

George tried to construct a consistent model of the universe, since his old one had quite clearly been demolished. He could grasp the idea of magic functioning, and the existence of dwarves, gnomes, and other fantastical beings wasn't far behind, but he was having some difficulties with humanity's curse. No matter which way he sliced the turkey, it still made his head hurt. "How many magical beings are there?"

Samuel paused a moment in thought. "Hm. Supernatural, sentient beings? There are probably around several hundred million."

George choked on something that he'd eaten several days ago. "Jesus! How the hell could I miss that many people!"

Sebastian chuckled. "Now there's a thought."

Everyone in the car looked at him.

"I wonder what Jesus would have to say about all this."

Chapter 7:

The rules of the universe didn't seem to apply to George anymore. He and the rest of humanity had somehow managed to miss several hundred million individuals for centuries on what appeared to be sheer luck. It reminded him of some story he'd read in high school about a chimpanzee's foot or something of a similar nature. The words "Humanity's Curse" echoed back and forth through his head, somehow missing his brain entirely. Finally he couldn't help it any longer and he heard them again. "So who exactly cast this curse, and when?"

The immediate reply was a deafening guffaw from the driver's seat. Sidney continued chuckling even as he tried to talk. "You're okay in my book, man. You know that in all my life, I've never heard that question before? And for the life of me, I can't figure out why not!"

Samuel shook his head where no one could see it and waited for Sidney to come down a bit. "That's a dangerous question, George, and you might not want to hear the answer."

Sidney chuckled again. "Sammy, you talk as if you knew the answers yourself."

"Sidney, please." Samuel seemed a little upset by now. "They can't tell me everything for security reasons. They probably don't even know themselves." He sighed and turned to the humans in the back seat. "You must understand the delicacy of our operation here; we can't even let you know where it is that we will be in a few minutes."

A horn blared from behind them. Sidney adjusted his rearview mirror and then looked over his shoulder. "Damn fools on the road nowadays. Look at how this guy tailgates me. As if I weren't speeding enough for his tastes already."

George turned in his seat to look out a window for the first time during the ride. They were driving down a two-lane freeway somewhere outside of town.

Sebastian was still stuck on Samuel's last comment. "How are you supposed to keep us from knowing where we are? All we have to do is read a road sign."

The half-sized red coupe with the extremely tinted windows that had been cruising along a couple inches behind them suddenly swerved across the solid no-passing line and pulled up next to the cab.

Samuel laughed, seeming somewhat less upset than he was a few minutes ago. "Just try it. There's one coming up in less than a mile.

The horn blared again, this time from right next to the taxi. When Sidney looked over, its window had been rolled down and a very thin arm was pointed in his general direction. Its middle finger was nearly twice the length of a normal finger, and every inch of it was being displayed for careful observation.

Sebastian was squinting his eyes as he looked ahead of the cab. "You're right, I can see it from here, but I can't quite read it yet.

As George tried to make out the face and body of the finger's owner, it quickly retracted to the sound of a much more impressive horn coming from directly in front of it. The little car shot forward towards the oncoming semi truck at an unbelievable rate of acceleration. It swerved to get back into the right lane in front of the cab, but the truck managed to clip the rear of the vehicle, sending it swerving out of control. The semi didn't even seem to notice the collision, but the driver of the little red coupe wasn't able to get his car back onto the road before it slammed into and knocked over the sign at which Sebastian was still squinting.

Sebastian fell back into his seat and stared at the back of Sidney's head, which hovered well above the back of the seat in front of him. "Samuel, did you do that?"

Samuel chuckled. "Keep driving, Sidney. The guy deserved what he got." He turned to face Sebastian even though he couldn't see over the seat on which he was sitting. "Not directly." I cast a couple spells on the cab that would keep you from looking at road signs, but I had to keep you from paying too much attention while we were leaving town by myself."

Sebastian's mind chewed on this new bit of cud for a while before responding. "If I try to look at another sign, will something just as drastic happen again?"

"Probably not." Samuel turned to face forward again and leaned back in his seat. He wasn't using the seatbelt, even though there was one his size built into the car. "Who knows what will happen, but you won't be able to read it."

George leaned closer to the window and looked for another sign, but Sebastian wasn't able to shake his own misgivings and consciously avoided looking.

The next few minutes passed in silence until George spoke up. "I see another one!"

Sebastian almost looked out the window but stopped himself. "Don't look at it. Who knows what will happen?"

The warning was ignored, but the sign passed by without incident.

There was silence for a few moments, but eventually Sebastian had to ask. "Well, what happened?"

"Nothing." George's reply was spoken slowly, as if his mind was too preoccupied to bother spending any energy on speech. "Most of the letters had fallen off the sign." An abnormally long pause passed. "Unless you know of any place called 'L NG L.'"

"El Uhngle?"

"Yeah. L, N, G, L. All the vowels are gone, and probably a few consonants too." George stopped looking out the window. "Well, anyway, it's only three-hundred and fifty-C miles from here."

Chapter 8:

George shifted in his seat, trying to get more comfortable. The novelty of his situation had gradually lessened, allowing the discomfort of sitting in a taxi for almost an hour to set in.

The ogre who was driving the car was enthusiastically talking to the gnome who had dragged the two humans into this mess. Sidney was trying to explain how special relativity didn’t actually contradict his theory; it just needed a little modification. Samuel wasn’t particularly interested.

George tried to slide closer to the door, and sat upright with a jolt as something jabbed into his rear from the seat cushion underneath him. He leaned all his weight on his shoulders as he lifted his posterior into the air long enough to pick up a key ring with several oddly shaped keys on it. They were round keys, like the ones that open cabinets, only larger. Attached to the ring was a store-bought keychain that read, “ED WOOD WASN’T A FAIRY, HE WAS AN ELF.”

Sebastian was leaning over, attempting to read the keychain. George tilted it so that his friend could read it better, shrugging in the process. “I certainly don’t know what it means.”

After a moment, Sebastian shifted back into his previous position. “I think I know what it’s talking about, but it doesn’t seem very funny to me. Sidney’s last fare probably left here.”

Glancing at it once more, George tried to get the cab driver’s attention. “Hey Sidney.”

The ogre had ceased talking to Samuel, and had begun talking at the gnome, who was trying in vain to get a view out of the window that encompassed more than the sky. “I have to go back and work out the math, but my theory is definitely correct for low velocities. It should also work for relativistic speeds with only minor modifications.”

“Sidney?”

Despite the fact that George wasn’t trying very hard, the driver heard him this time. He turned his head to look at George. “Yeah?”

But before George could show him the keys, Samuel interrupted him. “Hey! Keep your eyes on the road. Our exit is coming up.”

Sidney snapped his head forward. “Is it this one?”

“No, the next one.” The gnome ran a hand hesitantly through his hair. “Remember, it’s not paved.”

The ogre’s shiny, bald head nodded once. “Here?”

“Right.”

“Wait. I thought it was supposed to be left.” Sidney wasn’t very good at keeping a straight face, fooling no one but Samuel.

“Right. Left.”

The ogre was showing an awful lot of sharp teeth. “Right? Left? Make up your mind!” He turned the taxi off to the left, without waiting for Samuel’s response.

Samuel was quite confused. “Left!”

The cab bumped down a dirt road, heading around the back of a small hill. “Right.” Sidney snorted a bit to keep from laughing.

The gnome was a bit upset by now. “Wrong! Left, godammit!”

Sidney couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out with a guffaw that only lessened slightly in volume as it decayed into gales of laughter, unusual only in the fact that it was coming from one being, and not a roomful.

The two humans in the back couldn’t help but chuckle as well, not because the joke was particularly funny or original but merely because Samuel was such a stuffed shirt that he still didn’t recognize it as an attempt at humor.

As the cab continued along the dirt road, Sidney went back to talking to Samuel.

George looked at the keys in his hand, shrugged, and stuffed them into his pocket. “Remind me to give these to Sidney before we get out of the cab,” he said to Sebastian.

Samuel fumed silently when he finally got the joke, ignoring Sidney’s attempts at scientific speculation. “Stop here.”

The car came to a stop next to a pile of dirt and rocks that probably shouldn’t have counted as a mountain, but did.

Sebastian was very curious as to how the tiny gnome was going to pay for the ride, so he leaned over the seat to watch.

Samuel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a very fat wallet. Much of the wallet’s thickness was taken up by the rather large wad of cash that he took out of it. Samuel unfolded several, normal-sized bills of indeterminate value and gave them to Sidney. “Keep the change. And remember not to speak to anyone of this location.”

Sidney chuckled as he took the cash. “I don’t know why you bother reminding me. I wouldn’t be able to find this place on my own anyway. That’s some spell you must’ve cast on it.”

At this, the gnome actually allowed his face to squirm into a full-blown smile. “I…we do our best.” With that, he pulled on the handle to the door and gave it a solid push with his foot.

Much to Sebastian’s surprise, the door swung out with more than enough force to keep it open. George had already exited the vehicle by the time Sebastian got out himself.

As the cab pulled away, George noticed something. Or rather, he noticed nothing. There wasn’t anything of interest to be found anywhere within sight, which was, of course, quite interesting as far as George was concerned. “Um. Where are we?”

Samuel sighed. “I’ve already told you. That’s classified information.”

Sebastian found himself a bit uneasy as well. “I don’t think that’s what he meant.” He pulled his wet bandana out of his pocket and began ringing the water out of it. “What sort of place are we headed to? And where is it in relationship with here?”

George nodded. “This place is so desolate that I’m not even sure it counts as a ‘here.’”

The gnome ignored them both as he pulled a cellular phone out of his pocket and dialed a number on it. After a silent moment, someone picked up the phone on the other end. “We’re here. Drop the hider.”

George went to go sit on a rock as Samuel put his phone away. When he sat down, there was a large metal door behind him. He stood up immediately and glared at the door as if it had just pocketed a butcher knife and was whistling innocently to itself. “Uh, Sam?”

“Samuel.”

George’s eyes never left the door. “Whatever. Where did this door come from?”

Sebastian furrowed his brow. “What door?” He took a step towards George and the rock that had been carefully blocking his view of the door no longer did so. “Jesus! Has that been here the whole time?”

“It most certainly has.” Samuel retrieved a small card from his fat wallet and walked up to the door. “Do you think we’d leave it unguarded? There’s a spell on the door to keep it out of sight.” He slid his card through a slot next to the door about a foot off the ground. A larger slot was positioned at waist-height. The door slid up into the rock in which it was embedded. It was about fifteen feet tall and at least seven feet wide.

Samuel stepped inside and gestured to the two humans, signaling that they should follow suit.

When the two humans stepped inside, they found themselves inside an elevator. Sebastian took note of the buttons on the wall and Samuel’s height relative to them. “Which button should I push?”

The gnome reached his hand out and pressed one of the buttons that were placed near the floor. The elevator started up with a mechanical whir and a couple squeaks. He did not answer the question.

The room was filled with the sort of silence that arises when everyone stops talking for a moment, and suddenly the fact that there’s a lot of noise about becomes more than apparent.

George listened to the sound of the lift descending underground. “Hm. Does this elevator run on magic?”

The elevator squeaked once and continued whirring.

Samuel looked at George. After a pause so pregnant it seemed likely to bear triplets, he blinked. “Why on Earth would we run an elevator with magic? They run just fine without them.” The gnome turned away from George and returned to staring at the door, muttering to himself. “That’d be some spell.”

The elevator squeaked again and clunked once while George tried to adjust his brain. He opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment an ear-shattering squeal broke the air, signaling the lift’s arrival at the requested floor.

The doors slid apart to reveal the back of a wall. After a moment, the wall shuddered and started to stutter its way up. It creaked to a halt only a couple feet above the floor. Samuel walked through without a word or a glance to the two humans. His footsteps echoed off of the walls as they faded into the distance.

Chapter 9

Neither human spoke a word. The fluorescent light in the ceiling of the elevator flickered and dimmed.

George looked at the light streaming in under the door, which brightly illuminated his feet. He continued staring at the checkerboard tile floor just outside of the elevator until he realized that he had let his mind go blank and that he’d lost a minute or two. He hated when that happened.

He lifted his head and caught Sebastian's glazed stare. "What?"

Sebastian didn't respond.

George cleared his throat. "What are you staring at?"

Sebastian blinked rapidly and cleared his throat as he returned from whatever plane of contemplation he’d been on for the last few moments. He opened his mouth and paused as if he had forgotten how one would be likely to communicate with such an organ. "I'm finding it a little difficult to believe that Samuel brought us all the way out here just to desert us in an elevator."

The sound of footsteps made its way into the elevator.

George bent over to look under the door and almost bumped into a little girl who was poking her head through the gap. He sat down on the ground hard.

The girl was lying on her back and had pushed her head and shoulders into the elevator. As she proceeded to pull herself further inside, she grinned at the humans. "Hi!"

Sebastian reached out a hand to help her up. George was still sitting on the floor.

"Hello." The effect of a biker and a telephone operator speaking the same word at the same time was more than a little startling to the newcomer.

Still, she brushed it off as easily as she might wipe a hand off on her cutoff jean shorts, which she also did in order to allow Sebastian to lift her into the air and deposit her on her feet. "Thank you." She brushed her unkempt and somewhat knotted hair back to reveal a pair of pointed ears. "Sam sometimes forgets that not everyone is under two feet tall." She paused to remove a very large key chain from her belt, the sort that a janitor might have. She giggled to herself. "Okay, I admit it. Sam has never forgotten anything of the sort. He just likes to sort of pretend that he doesn't. It makes him, I don't know, feel that' he's behaving more like he's supposed to." She quickly picked out a key and pushed it into a keyhole that was positioned at eye level for her. "It’s like he thinks that he's not supposed to care that everyone else is taller than him, so of course, he's always worried about it. A bit of a sore point with him. Otherwise, he's a nice guy." She turned the key to the right and punched a button.

Sebastian opened his mouth to say something, but it was rendered inaudible as the door rumbled completely shut. The elevator produced a loud squeak and a shudder as it started moving upward. Just as George was returning to his feet, the girl quickly pushed another button and the elevator stopped with a shock that made him lose his balance. He grabbed the wall to steady himself as the elevator started up in the opposite direction.

When the elevator stopped again, the girl turned the key all the way back to the left and slammed her fist down on one of the buttons over her head. The door slid open without complaint. She looked at Sebastian, who still had his mouth open; though he was no longer saying anything.

She shook her hair out of her face. "Now what was that you said?"

Sebastian cleared his throat and spoke very softly. "Are you an elf?"

"Either that or a Vulcan." A second fey creature was leaning against the wall outside of the elevator.

George might have also mistaken him for a child if he had looked anything at all like one. From his sour expression of suppressed amusement to the Microsoft polo shirt peeking out from underneath his lab coat, there was very little of him that was at all childlike. Still, the fact that he was just short of four feet tall made him seem somewhat incongruous to George. His pointed ears, accentuated by the buzz cut he was wearing, didn’t help matters either. The elf stepped into the elevator and shook George's hand. "Hi, I'm Dr. Zachary Rosenblum. I see you've already met Daisy."

Daisy poked Zachary in the rib. "Give them a break. They've probably never seen an elf before."

Releasing George's hand, the elf exchanged similar pleasantries with Sebastian. "So which one of you is George Bags?"

"The small one." George hadn't noticed Samuel's presence until he had spoken.

Zachary looked down at the gnome and then up at the motorcyclist. "So that makes you...Sebastian?"

The elf didn't give him time to respond. "I don't suppose either of you is a theoretical physicist?"

Both humans shook their heads in response.

"Experimental?"

"I don’t think so. Unless..." George looked at Sebastian and stopped. "No. Definitely not."

Dr. Rosenblum was about to ask a third question, but Daisy cut him short with a look. It wasn’t a terribly aggressive stare, but it cut his complacency enough to warrant a subject change. "So I’m sure that all of this has been horribly disconcerting for the both of you. I’m not entirely certain how you’ll be able to help us, but I’m sure we’ll figure out something." He turned about and ambled back into the hallway.

The building reminded George of nothing more than a university building. The barren halls and inwardly opening doors seemed designed for heavy foot traffic. The doors were placed at irregular, but almost periodic, intervals, each possessing a tall, thin, reinforced window. George listened to the sound of his sneakers squeaking on the tile floor as Zachary continued talking.

"We’ll have to get someone to explain everything to you." The elf closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head vigorously. "And when I say ‘everything,’ I do mean everything."

George noticed that Zachary’s shoes were also squeaking on the floor. In fact, he could hear the sound of everyone’s footsteps. Despite the size of Sebastian’s boots, his footsteps registered approximately the same volume as Samuel’s.

"I’m not really sure how one goes about explaining the universe from scratch to somebody who’s never really lived there…hm. ‘Here.’ To somebody who’s never lived here before."

Daisy wasn’t wearing shoes.

Zachary chuckled. "That’d be an interesting study. ‘The Effect of the Lifting of the Curse on Select Human Specimens.’ Too bad I don’t know any psychologists."

The male elf turned a corner and went through a set of double doors. This hallway had a blank cement floor and piping travelling along the edge between the wall and the ceiling. All footsteps ceased to be clearly audible. George was suddenly reminded that they were underground.

"Anyway. Since we’re very short on personnel around here, I may have to do most of the explaining myself." The elf stopped walking and opened an unmarked door with no windows. Just before entering the room, he turned to Daisy and Samuel. "I’d love to have you two to help me out, but somehow I think that being shut up in a room with two humans while I try to explain to them the details of curses, hexes, spell-casting, general relativity, and extraterrestrial politics is not your idea of a fun evening."

The remaining two non-humans nodded their heads in agreement and turned to walk away.

"Oh, but one more thing. Have you guys seen my yellow key chain? The one with my cabinet key on it?"

The gnome grimaced, but didn’t turn back. "I told you to keep that someplace safe."

Zachary smiled and shouted after him. "Relax. I cast a homing spell on it, just in case! It’ll show up eventually!"

Sebastian’s eyes opened wide. "George!"

George flinched.

"You forgot to give those keys to the cab driver."

"Shit." George fished the key chain out of his pocket and reread the inscription again, slowly shaking his head. "Ed Wood…"

"Hey, thanks buddy!" The elf reached out and snatched the keys from George’s hand. "Come on in, guys. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do."

Zachary preceded the two humans into the room and plopped down on the only non-folding chair in the room. The seat had clearly seen better days. Its yellow padding was peeking out through several holes in the green upholstery. It squeaked and dropped a couple inches when the elf sat on it. About the only functions that still functioned properly, if noisily, were swiveling and rolling. "Have a seat. You can call me Zack."

After the two humans had seated themselves in much sturdier chairs with less personality, Dr. Rosenblum began narrating. "Where to start, where to start?" He leaned back with a squeak. "How about in the beginning…" Zack grinned. "It all began with the words ‘It all began.’"

Chapter 10

The elf rolled his chair over to a large metal cabinet and inserted a key into the lock. After jiggling the handle for a few moments, he managed to get it open. The inside of the cabinet was actually a bookshelf, and it was from one of these shelves that he pulled it.

It was pretty thick, but not very flashy. It had a cheap binding and looked like it had been printed and assembled at the local copy shop. It began with the words "It all began..."

"This book is the most important printed work ever," Zachary continued. "I stress the word 'ever' because I'm not using hyperbole here." He flipped through the pages. "Not the most important work in English, or in Western civilization, or even from this planet." The elf looked George straight in the eye, making Sebastian squirm a little in his seat. "The most important work ever."

Sebastian cleared his throat. "May I take a look?"

Zachary handed the book over, but didn't interrupt his monologue. "There are many copies of this book, but they're all kept under tight wraps. I'm lucky to have this one. The book contains absolutely everything there is to know about magic or the supernatural, as well as a fair amount of the natural world as well."

At that point, George shifted in his seat and interrupted the elf. "I'm still having trouble with this magic thing. It doesn't seem to do anything that wouldn't have happened otherwise."

Grinning, Zachary leaned back in his chair to answer. "You're absolutely correct. It doesn't actually violate the natural laws of the universe. It also doesn't require that they be modified in any way." He paused. "Try to look at it like this: the universe is unfolding at a more or less steady rate. At any point in time, you can look back and see what has happened, provided you've recorded a sufficiently detailed history of past events, correct?"

Sebastian briefly looked up from his book and nodded.

"Now if you look back into the past, you may notice some coincidences that occur universally, without exception. You might notice that everyday someone says 'fritterhappy' at noon, it rains. So many things can possibly happen that there are bound to be several such incidences that coincide with regularity."

George nodded, and Sebastian continued thumbing through the book.

"So within the scope of your history, the act of saying 'fritterhappy' at noon can be viewed as actually causing the rain."

George didn't get a chance to protest as Zachary continued.

"And I'm not talking about physical causality, which isn't really a very well defined concept to begin with. What I mean is simply that every time someone says 'fritterhappy' at noon, it rains without exception. So if you were to go out and say 'fritterhappy' at noon today, it would rain."

This time, George refused to allow the elf to continue. "Wait a minute. I thought the assumption here was that all these coincidences happened in the past. You wouldn't be able to use that knowledge since you're in the future."

The speed with which Zachary answered George's comment belied the fact that he'd been waiting for exactly this question. "Precisely the problem. This technique would only be useful if one had a history that applied to this time and this place; a history of the here and now."

"A history from the future," said Sebastian as he closed the book, "...like this one."

Zachary leaned forward and retrieved the book. "Exactly. Somebody from a future time has taken an excruciatingly detailed history of the history of the Universe and compiled a list of all the relevant and useful coincidences." It was returned to its innocuous position on the bookshelf. "The data in the book was sent back in time to someone who could use it. Nobody knows who wrote it, what planet they came from, or why they chose to impart this information on a people who lived countless millennia ago. Much of the information is simply passed on by word of mouth, but the book is the final word on the subject matter."

George's tongue finally caught up with his brain with a violent reaction, cutting Zachary short. "Bubuwait!" He paused to catch his breath. "That makes no sense whatsoever! If you send all that information back, people will start saying 'fritterhappy' even more than before, and all those new times wouldn't be accounted for by your so-called history."

Zachary snorted. "I think you misunderstand the nature of time. What do you mean by 'before'? You have to be careful when you use English to talk about time because time is imbedded into our language in ways we don't even notice. You can't say that after the book is sent back, people will behave differently because the book hasn't been sent back in time yet! The history used in making the book is the same history that includes the book appearing in the past, as well as its frequent use."

George said nothing.

"In science fiction terms: you can't change the past through time travel. That really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. You'll have to take my word for it, but I assure you that history is immutable. I could go on for hours about it, but I won't. You've got enough to assimilate as it is."

A heavy silence descended upon the room. It had enough inertia to keep Zachary and George quiet, but it would have had to try much harder if it intended to keep Sebastian's mouth closed. "I think I have a working understanding of magic, but that doesn't even begin to explain everything."

Sighing, Dr. Rosenblum leaned back in his chair. "I don't suppose it would. There are lots of ways I could go on, here. What specifically do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, how did I miss all of this in the first place? Elves, gnomes, magic...it seems pretty blatant."

"The simple answer to that one is, well...for lack of a better word: simple. Someone cast a spell on Homo Sapiens a long time ago. A curse, to be exact. Humanity is cursed to simply be unaware of the supernatural, and since the other sentient species on the planet use magic quite frequently, it seems as if humans won't see us either. Although, technically speaking, elves and dwarves aren't actually a different species from humans; they can breed to produce viable offspring."

The other human finally spoke up. "So basically, the way this works is that in the future, somebody was reading through a galactic history textbook and noticed that whenever someone sang The Star-Spangled Banner backwards while standing on his head, all of his descendents simply weren't in the right place to ever see magic?" George opened his mouth and closed it. "I mean...I can understand rain, but this stretches the imagination a bit much. Talk about a coincidence!"

"I know, it is a bit strange," Zachary replied. "I haven't quite gotten used to it myself. But to increase its believability an order of magnitude or so, it appears that the spell has only successfully been cast once. And the spell has some exceptions. Not all humans are restrained by the curse. Of course it turns out that the defining feature amongst those humans is that they had all read a particular number at a specific point in the year."

Sebastian gasped. "The number on your pager!" He turned to Zachary. "This has been bugging me all day long, and I had just about given up on it, but maybe you can help me out. I don't care what the number is, but I need to know: is it prime?"

"Actually, no. It's divisible by 97."

There wasn't so much of a knock at the door as there was a severe beating of the door.

Zachary leaned forward as if he was going to get up, but then decided better of it and slouched back. "Come in!"

The door swung open, and George was almost not surprised to find that he had to adjust his line of sight downward to see who it was.

The newcomer was just over three feet tall and very skinny. His face seemed to be composed entirely of sharp angles with large, inhumanly pointed ears. A pair of Buddy Holly-style glasses were perched on his elongated nose and made his eyes seem even bigger than they were. He turned to Zachary and said, "We've got another one."

Dr. Rosenblum sat upright in his seat. "Another message?"

His ears twitched. "And it's in English this time. Apparently they're fast learners."