I wrote this chapter while traveling through the Australian outback.  The sheep that appears in this chapter was originally supposed to be a wallaby, but then I realized I know very little about wallabies.

And featuring more vague references to obscure Indy films and other stuff that worked its way through my brain as I sat writing and staring vacantly at nothing in particular.  And none of it is designed to fill up space or anything…

Chapter 4 – Livestock on Parade

Shifty awoke and immediately wished he hadn’t.  Small beavers or very large squirrels were gnawing away at his head.  That wasn’t the worst of his problems; he suddenly became aware of the pinky-sized harpy poking him with a cocktail umbrella.

“Shoo!”  He whispered, the beavers taking an extra large chunk from his right temple.  The harpy cackled evilly and thrust the point of the cocktail umbrella deeper into his pelvis.

Rolling over, Shifty managed to dislodge the party favour and its annoying wielder.  Sighing, he laid his head back onto the relatively uncomforting pavement.

“Baa”

He blinked.  He listened for a moment, certain he had heard something.

Nothing.

Eyes closed, Shifty tried to drift back into unconsciousness.

“Baa”

This time it was a more forceful bleat.  Shifty’s eyes opened reluctantly.  He knew this was going to be one of those things he should probably ignore but some irresistible urge was forcing him to go through with it.  Temporary insanity perhaps.  Bracing himself, he looked.

At the seven centimeter sheep that now stood grazing on a piece of clover poking through a crack in the pavement.  It looked up at him.

“Baa,” It repeated.

Shifty blinked himself into a wave of nausea.  When the ground stopped spinning he realized that the beavers had run off and the sheep was calmly chewing a tiny mouthful of clover.

“Baa” it reiterated through the clover.

Shifty sifted through his brain until he vaguely remembered following Glidge to a very secret pub.  It was so secret there had even been a secret knock, secret password, secret handshake and secret tango.  He’d almost messed up the last bit of the secret tango when he’d tripped over a dead mackerel that had inexplicably found its way onto the dance floor, but he thankfully managed to pull through in the end.

At the moment, he wasn’t as concerned about that as he was about the apparent infestation of tiny woodland creatures and what they’d been doing while he had been unconscious.

Slowly, Shifty raised his hand, palm towards his face.  It was all brown and disfigured; bits of skin were hanging idly off as if it had been chewed by a large herd of either beavers or squirrels.  Shifty was both alarmed and disgusted until he remembered to remove the glove.

There his familiar creased palm stared back at him.  He screeched in alarm, turning away from the offending limb.

“Baa?”  The sheep said, looking up from its clover to regard him in a quizzical manner.  Shifty dared another look at his palm and heaved a sigh of relief when it didn’t look back at him.  It then occurred to him that he hadn’t had his palm read in…well; actually he’d never had his palm read. 

With that in mind, he cautiously worked his way into a sitting position.  After an hour or so had passed, he finally managed to stagger to his feet.  Triumphant, he took a step in the general direction of nowhere in particular.  He then stumbled several steps in the opposite direction, painfully righting himself with the help of a conveniently placed brick wall.

“BAA!”  Perhaps afraid of being left behind, the tiny sheep bleated mournfully, took a few paces in his direction, then got distracted by a newly discovered blade of grass sticking through a different crack in the pavement.  The tiny ovis munched happily at the blade of grass until the moment it suddenly winked out of existence.  Coincidentally, it was the same moment Shifty realized the creature was a figment of his imagination.

A series of aimless meanderings later, Shifty found himself, by some strange coincidence, standing near a ramshackle caravan.  As luck would have it, beside the caravan was a big sign proudly proclaiming “Rams Plead.” 

Shifty took a moment to wonder about all the bizarre references to livestock he’d been encountering since whatever time he’d regained consciousness.  He then forgot what he’d been wondering about and realized again that he was standing beside a ramshackle caravan.  Not only that, but beside the sign was a rather irate looking farmer, clutching a rope that was tethered around a rather indifferent looking ram.

Before he could consider that there might be some sort of weird conspiracy, or possibly livestock festival in town, a young woman, of the female persuasion appeared.  She was dressed in a ragged caftan and spouting words that made even Shifty blush.  His ears went into denial at what they thought came out of her mouth, so what he ended up hearing went something along the lines of:

“Oh bother, not again.”

Then she descended down the steps of the caravan, hastily rearranged her caftan, then did the same to the sign.  When she was finished, it said something completely different.  Unfortunately Shifty forgot how to read at that very moment, so he never did find out what the sign now said.

But the farmer could read.  Possibly.  Whatever he saw on the sign made him more irate, and he began mumbling something about not being able to find a good livestock confession and trudged off, dragging the ram along behind him.

“You there!”

“Eh?”  It took a moment for Shifty to realize he was being addressed.

“No beggars or solicitors allowed.  Bugger off.”

“I’m no beggar!”  Shifty defended himself.  “I think…”  He wracked his brain in search of the correct memory.  He eventually found it buried under the theme song for a movie that didn’t exist and was briefly disturbed by the fact that he’d memorized something that would undoubtedly drive him insane as the annoyingly catchy chorus repeated itself over and over in his head until he wanted to drill a hole in his skull to put himself out of his misery.  He blinked suddenly.  “What was the question?”

But he was talking to nothing, for while he stood swaying slightly in the breeze, entrenched deeply in his mind; both the girl and the farmer had disappeared.

“Oh, a caravan!”  He exclaimed, coming out of his trance.  With no time to waste, Shifty trudged up the steps and rapped on the door.

“Madame Bohemia, The roving gypsy.  Seer of all things seen, palms read, fortunes told, potioner extraordinaire…Oh bother, it’s just you.”

“Have we met?”  Shifty asked, confused.”

“Yeah, I mistook you for a dirty old beggar and told you to go away.”  She said sarcastically.

“Oh right.”  Shifty suddenly remembered.

“You’re not trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner or anything, are you?”  Madame Bohemia asked suddenly.

“Um, no?”  Shifty guessed since he wasn’t quite sure what a vacuum cleaner was.

“Oh.”  The gypsy said reluctantly, “That’s too bad, I really could use a new one.”

“Sorry.”

“You want something?”  She asked.  “Soap maybe?”

“Soap?  No, I need my palm read.”

“Oh.”  She looked disappointed.  “I suppose I can do that, let me see your hand.”

Shifty held it out, carefully.  He was afraid that scary eyeball would be back and it would freak her out.  She seemed like a nice lady, a little dirty though.

“Right.”  She said.  “Now if you could, um, remove your glove.”

“I did.”  Shifty said, confused.  He held up the tattered leather for proof.

“Ew!”  She backed away, returning a moment later with a can of something that bubbled and steamed.  “You’re going to need to clean off some of that dirt first.”

Shifty did as he was told and soon Madame Bohemia was telling his fortune - or just making stuff up that was vague enough to pass for a fortune.  Either way, he hardly understood what she was saying.

“I still don’t understand that bit about the chickens.”  He protested as he was being ushered out of the caravan.  “And when you said I needed to watch out for rabid muskrats falling from the sky, did you mean today or later this week?  Cause I just started this new job and that could be a bit of a setback.”

“I just read it, I don’t interpret it.”  She sighed.  “Besides, I saw career change in your future, so maybe the muskrats will be opportunistic.”

“Well, as long as they don’t sing or anything.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Now pay me or I foresee great pain in your future.”  She held out her own palm expectantly.

“Wow, you are good.”  Shifty said, impressed.  He dropped an extra coin into her hand before falling down the stairs and stubbing his toe.  He reflected on how much greater the pain would have been had he not paid, climbed to his feet and limped off to work.

~/\~

A/N: It just got stupider from then on, so I had to put it out of its misery.  I’m getting more and more random with this.  Good thing it’s just a writing exercise.