"By the All-Father's beard, have you had this meat? Slides from the bone like a drunken strumpet into my bed, eh? Ha! Yon potatoes are made finer than the ale served here. Oh, the ale! Like the gods themselves have pissed in a mug and the nymphs and fairies thrice blessed it. What would you like? I have every intention of fulfilling you. Well, not you young man, but that tart you have on your arm… Yes, let me show you something. I have a 'tat-tuu' from an Oriental I met on my travels. Many have said it is small and indistinguishable, but I'll tell you it says 'Odin's Great Staff.' What do you say? Some ale and some tender meat for you and for me, eh? Ha!" A girl in a red shit and pressed black slacks, her awkward suspenders covered up and down with clever slogan-clad buttons, came to the table and flanked Filibuster Vigilance. "I'm afraid I'm going have to ask you to leave TGI Friday's…" she said in a soft whisper. "I do not believe they heard you right, vile wench!" bellowed Filibuster. His eyes burned with a spurned anger and the patrons he previously had attended to shrank in fear. "I was talking to you…" the woman said, more forcefully than Filibuster Vigilance would have liked warranted. "Damned wimmen. Damned shift supervisors…" Filibuster lamented as he stormed out of the restaurant. "I've come for your wimmens' tenderly bits," bellowed Filibuster Vigilance. "Your stout tastes like you've shat in the keg and your wenches are unpleasant to both eyes and nostrils. God rape your arse, this place is horrible." Filibuster Vigilance jumped up and his large hairy-knuckled hand shot to the hilt of his broadsword. The long straggly strands of his black hair clung wetly to his sweaty lumpy face. His wild eyes darted back and forth. "All I ask for, all I want at the end of a long day is to quench my mighty thirst with a few flagons of fine beer and a willing strumpet to bed. Oh, how I would show a fine young tart paradise with my throbbing shaft and ample helmet!" As Filibuster roared and brandished his sword, a woman, mild-mannered and calm, approached him. "Sir, I am going to have to remind you that this is no way to act in a bank..." "I begged her.
Begged her.
On knees damp with the warm spring rain." Filibuster Vigilance sat with his arms propping up his head on the table. His eyes were plastic-wrapped with a sheen of tears. His lips quivered visibly like an unsure suicide jumper. "I didn't beg when I was near-death, held at the sword's edge by the gruesome frost giants led by Ymir. I didn't beg when they held my beautiful scrotum up to the flames. The yellowed crimson licks lapping at my baby factories like hungry dogs." He swallowed something soft and big and vulnerable. It seemed to bulge in his throat as his Adam's apple bounced up and down. He knew, if no one else did, that it settled heavily on his heart like a stone. He thought of a witch at the Salem trials, depressed under a board and several pounds of unfriendly and accusatory rocks. "May I get you anything else?" the Denny's waitress asked imploringly, mocking interest and knowing if Filibuster Vigilance said no it would mean a smoke break. "No," mumbled Filibuster. The waitress, too gaunt and bony for her own good, went to suck down a Camel light. "Fuckin' wimmin," chocked Filibuster Vigilance, taking another sip of his orange soda. Filibuster Vigilance gazed down in an awed wonderment. "The purest azure serenity I've had a chance to feast upon since my wanton days in the Chinas of yore…" lamented Filibuster. His eyes began to water and his lip trembled visibly. "A world cannot be that bad when there are sights like this." Filibuster shifted his weight to one leg and lifted his hands to the sky. "Oh, how the Heavens must weep that such beauty is here. Man surely must have built this place, for petty gods would've kept it for themselves. And gods," he bellowed, tilting his face upward and clenching his fists, "gods! How you must feel to know that mortals made this paradise without you. Mortals have reclaimed Eden!" Small hands then shoved themselves into the small of Filibuster Vigilance's back. "Excuse me sir," the lifeguard said, holding his phallic floatation device with all the authority of a shotgun. "If you don't want to go down the waterslide, I'm going to have ask you to step aside for the other patrons." "My, but this mutton is good," Filibuster Vigilance said through the chocking wet sobs. "This time is not my time. By the gods, has this world failed me. Everywhere I have traveled, wimmens push me aside as if I could not satisfy them. With yon meat hammer I can! Men push me aside as well. That too may be of my hammer of man meat! And shift supervisors? Even the harpies on Olympus would make finer company, and harpies I hear eat the plump berries of a man's nethers..." With the final thoughts of castration and Valhalla, Filibuster Vigilance kicked the stool out from under him, dropped his sandwich, and died a quiet death.