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Only two gold pieces!
Where was I? Oh, that’s right. Being bisected by a chain-link fence.
There’s a certain giddying freedom to be found at the top of a fence. You can look out over one side, or the other. The pavement might look the same either which way - in this case it looks like gold, because, well, it is gold - but something’s, you know, it’s different. It’s not just the relief of having reached the end of an exerting climb, or the anticipation of the drop that’s to come. It’s about transgression. After all, nobody climbs a fence without having some nefarious deed in mind - or in memory. Or maybe it’s about transition. If you can stick the dismount with your shins still intact - gold’s meant to be pretty soft, right? - you can leave behind the scene you’ve grown tired of, or perhaps that’s grown tired of you; you can pursue the limitless potential of the unknown. Freedom. Fortune. Not being dismembered by a half-dozen furious tramps.
The last point on that particular list of Big Dreams tugged at my mind as I sat atop that fence, assessing its symbolic potential for a future newspaper editorial. It tugged at my leg, too, because the aforementioned half-dozen furious tramps were hanging from it, gamely attempting to drag me back down from my perch on the threshold - the threshold of destiny itself! Well, I wasn’t too sore about that, I did kind of spill their hooch, and is it not written that no man shall come between a bum and his moonshine? What I was a little sore about was the pressure exerted by the weight of six men at the point where the thin metal rail I was sat on met my crotch.
Eesh, sorry, fellas! Uncross those legs; it ain’t half the disaster it might sound - a few years decomposing in the ground, you got precious little left to call precious down there, believe me. Ever wondered why Skeletons are faster than Zombies? Well for one thing, they don’t gotta worry about wearing a jockstrap. It ain’t always a picnic - just ask my buddy, Steve the Sexually-Frustrated Skeleton (‘I’m all bone’, he’ll sob into your collar, ‘except where it counts’) - but at moments like these, with the weight of the world hanging from where it simply has no business to hang, let’s just say that there’s two bundles of nerve endings you’re thankful the worms took care of.
Anyway, it was quite the predicament. Here I was at the top of this fence. Destitute, admittedly. An associate chiefly of tramps - not exactly what you would call a man of status. And, yeah, also technically unliving; a foul abomination supported only be the fell magicks of Necromancers.. but determined! Willing! Ready to pull myself up by my bootstraps, even as my enemies tried to drag me back down into the mire by… uh, by my bootstraps. If I wanted to move up in the world, I sure as hell needed to get down from here - and do so free from the clutches of those mescal-soaked marauders.
It was time for a little creative destruction. I took hold of the ‘bo-burdened limb with both hands, braced with my other foot, and pulled. And pulled, and strained, until suddenly there was an almighty ‘pop!’ And then the guys who’d had me by the leg, well, I guess you could say now they just had the leg. And nothing to stand on…
‘How’s that for generous, fellas?’, I yelled. ‘You want it so bad, you can keep the damn thing!’
Or I should have, anyway. That would have been awesome! What I actually did was lose my balance almost immediately and fall headlong over the other side of the fence.
In this edition:
- Match reports from our ever-expanding stable of willing d̶u̶p̶e̶s contributors!
- Lebe’s blow-by-blow account of a bumper double Play of the Day!
- Honest-to-goodness, actual standings tables!
- The debut of our all-new cartoon, Stomp the Press, courtesy of the estimably talented Jack Rags!
- And more!
Roger Knightly
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