A Game of Groans: A Sonnet of Slush and Soot Read Online Free

and black beast. It’s almost as if it was meant to be. Well done, son.”
    “Thank you, Father,” Allbran said, then let one rip. And if ever a fart sounded and smelled contented, it was that one.

GATEWAY
    Until King Magoo M. Magoo outlawed healthy debate, religion—especially the giant parakeet—was the most discussed topic throughout the continent of Easterrabbit. The nonbelievers outnumbered the believers by a ratio of ten to one, but the believers were loud, thus the debates, though they were seldom resolved, were deafening, so deafening that the Earthbound Gods themselves stopped listening, and were forced to find other ways to occupy their time.
    During Easterrabbit’s third Summer, Nestamarley, the dark-skinned God of greenery, was concocting a plant that he hoped would survive the eternal Summer heat and nourish the citizenry of the Seven … no, wait, Five … no, Twelve Kingdoms, a plant that was at once tasty and nutritious, a plant that could be ingested without any preparation, a plant that would change the world.
    He failed miserably.
    Each plant was bitterer than the last, inedible and off-putting. One morning, frustrated after twenty-six consecutive hours of fruitless searching through the wet mud for useful-looking seedlings, Nestamarley set fire to his crop, a crop of nine-leaved plants that were shaped like fans. As he watched the flames destroy his hard work, a thick and herbal yet somehow pleasing scent filled the air, and Nestamarley was overcome with a deep sense of peace, and an even deeper sense of hunger. He smiled, ran his hands through his matted hair, took a deep breath, curled up on the ground, wrote the number 420 in the mud, and wished that somebody had invented television.
    After several weeks of enjoyable experiments, Nestamarley determined that the plant was indeed the cause of this deep peace, and that the best way to deliver the plant’s healing power was to dry it, chop it into tiny pieces, roll it up in a large leaf, light the tip of the leaf, and inhale, and inhale, and inhale some more.
    Word of Nestamarley’s discovery spread throughout Easterrabbit, and, after pouring down a mug of grog, it became the favored manner to unwind after a tough day of slogging through the Easterrabbitian mud. Sadly, like all the Gods of Easterrabbit, Nestamarley passed away (which begs the question, were they actually Gods, but whatever), and with him went the formula for creating this magical plant. There was, however, an abundance of the plant still in existence, the majority of it in a field in Summerseve, so Tyrannosaurus Barker, the first Lord of Summerseve, confiscated it for royal use only, and stored the remaining greenery in one of his castle’s subbasements.
    The plant—which had become known as Godsweede, or simply weede—fell out of favor during the ensuing Barker reigns, and the plants were left untouched for decades, until a long-haired, free-spirited young Lady named Gateway Bully—a young Lady who happened to be engaged to Lord-in-waiting Headcase Barker—stumbled upon the stash. She had no idea what it was, but, after one whiff, somehow knew what to do with it.
    Six weeks later, Gateway Bully—daughter of Hosehead and Mikasa Bully—became Gateway Bully Barker, the Lady of House Barker, and the region’s sole worshipper of Nestamarley. And she prayed at Nestamarley’s temple each and every day, in part because when you live in a world where one-third of the chapters have little to do with the plot, you need an escape, and in part because Godsweede is freaking sweet.
    Today was no exception.
    Gateway sat under her favorite tree behind the castle, inhaling a plump roll of Godsweede, unconcerned that her hindquarters were slowly sinking into the mushy, dirty earth. She closed her eyes and chanted a little nonsense tune that she had composed on the spot: “Ravens eat it, and they leave it. Turkeys eat it. Lambs love to play with it.” The song was so silly that Gateway