Jellybean Highfive stood at the entrance of the house called Diffident Manor. He walked in reluctantly, stood in the doorway in an unassuming fashion. He had been invited here by invitation.

‘Place looks odd,’ he thought inside his mind, with his thoughts.

“Hello, stranger,” a voice said from in front of him. The voice belonged to a woman –a curvaceous, vivacious, hellacious woman.

“I’m Vivica Hellen,” she said, drawing on her cigarette like a smoker, “but my friends call me ‘Curvy Vivica Hellen.’”

“Because of the…?” Jellybean began.

“…curves,” she finished. “Yes. Because of that.”

“Why are we here?” Jellybean asked, looking around at the quaint, humble insides of Diffident Manor in an uncertain way.

“I got me an invitation, I did,” Curvy Vivica Hellen said.

“Me too,” Jellybean said. “Mine was a little odd. It said…” and he showed it to Curvy Vivica Hellen.

Come to Diffident Manor. Stop. Great riches await you. Stop. Why am I writing this like a telegram? Stop. I just can’t seem to stop. Stop.

“Mine says the same thing,” Curvy Vivica Hellen said.

“Mine too,” Jellybean Highfive said, drawing out a cigarette from his pack of cigarettes. He lit one with fire, began to smoke it cheerfully. “Mine too,” he repeated, this time with extra rasp.

“It’s a mystery. Why are we here?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked.

“You’re here,” a voice boomed, “because I invited you, by invitation.”

Jellybean looked around, but saw no one. He thought how weird that was, then remembered all the ways voices could be projected into the room with a person not present. “Yeah,” Jellybean asked. “But why?”

“Because we need you,” the voice boomed again. “We need you to save Diffident Manor in a desperate sort of way.”

“How desperate?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked. “On a scale of 1 to 12, how bad off is the Manor?”

“10.5, easy,” the voice said. “Maybe 11. I’m so serious. I’m not even lying.”

“That’s high,” Jellbean said.

“Yeah, so…” the voice paused, then continued, “…can I count on you?”

“Sure.” They said together, at the same time.

“Jinx,” Jellybean said, “Jinx.”

____________________________

Ten hours later they stood in the sitting room, having each committed various atrocities combined with acts of goodness.

“The Manor must be saved and it must be by you,” the voice said. “Then you will have a reward of gold.”

“Nice,” Jellybean said, “but who are you?”

“I will tell you who I am,” the voice said, “when you solve the mystery and rescue the Manor and get the reward.”

“The reward of gold?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked.

“Yes. That one.”

“OK,” they both said together, but it was far too pivotal a scene for Jellybean to say ‘Jinx.’

‘Not this time,” he thought. ‘But it is tempting,’ he also thought.

______________________________

Then there was a tumult in Diffident Manor. The entire building began to shake with shaky shakes. Into the room came six ugly giants. Their names were “Essential,” “Important,” “Serious,” “Central,” “C.S. Lewis,” and “Nimrod.” Essential spoke. “This is Important,” he said.

“Nice to meet you,” Jellybean said.

“No, you idiot,” Essential said. “What I’m about to tell you is Important.”

“I knew that,” Jellybean said.

“Hear me and you might live,” Essential said. “Maybe. Go to the bottom of the house, the basement. There you will find three keys. The middle key must be used in the chapel closet, or doom will follow doom.”

“What kind of doom?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked.

“Certain. Doom,” Essential said.

Then Nimrod did strike Curvy Vivica Hellen on the head and she did die. Jellybean felt her pulse and it did not exist. In fury he killed Nimrod with a look, and a gun.

“It’s all right,” Serious said, “I’m kind of a wizard. Go to the cupboard and fetch me a pail of water.”
Jellybean ran, fetched a pail of water.

“Pour it over her head,” Serious said.

“Really? Are you..”

“Serious? Am I Serious?” Serious said. “Of course I am.”

“Do it,” C.S. Lewis said. Then he left, muttering “I have to get to the shed or the whole Manor will fall down at the end.”

“OK,” Jellybean said. He dashed the water on her head. Curvy Vivica Hellen revived. She asked for a cigarette.

They smiled and wondered, ‘What kind of a place is this?’

__________________________________

Three minutes later they were all in the kitchen, except some others had disappeared. There was Jellybean Highfive, Curvy Vivica Hellen, Essential, and Serious. Nimrod was dead.

“Essential,” Jellybean said. “Why didn’t we fetch a pail for Nimrod?”

“Because he got what he deserved,” Essential said.

“But all Nimrod did was kill some one for a little while. Now I’ve killed Nimrod forever.”

“It’s what Diffident Manor wants,” Essential explained. “It’s what Deuteronomical Max wants.”

“Who is Deuteronomical Max?”

“It will be told to you in twenty minutes.”

“What happens in twenty minutes?”

“You mean other than you finding out who DeuteroMax is?”

“Yeah.”

“The Manor of Diffidence will change forever, and we have to stop her.” Essential said. Then he walked into the refrigerator and disappeared in the light.

“Where’d he go?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked.

“I don’t know,” Jellybean said. “But he was the shortest giant I have ever seen.”

“And a good friend,” Curvy Vivica Hellen said. “A good friend.”

“Well, one thing’s for certain,” Jellybean said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to find this Deuteronomical Max.”

“Why?” Curvy Vivica Hellen asked.

“So I can kill him.”

“I don’t think that’s what Essential meant,” she said. “Before he disappeared behind the mayonnaise he winked at me and whispered, “‘It’s so cold.’ What could that mean?””

“We’re about to find out,” Jellybean said. “We’re about to find out.”

____________________________________

Four hours and twelve seconds later Curvy Vivica Hellen and Jellybean Highfive stood in the chapel. They thought about the keys, but not very much.

“I’m so glad we’re here,” Curvy Vivica Hellen said. “So glad.”

“Me too,” Jellybean agreed. “Me too.”

Then all the giants came in, smiling, reading books. Nimrod looked up from a Nancy Drew and ambled over. He gave Jellybean a hug.

“Sorry about the, um, unpleasantries earlier.”

“Me too,” Jellybean said. “Me too.”

Curvy Vivica Hellen said, “I’m the one you tried to kill.”

“True,” Nimrod said. “True.”

They were all smiling. With their teeth.

But also…..with their…

…hearts.

The End

Author’s Note: The powers that be posted this at the Rabbit Room yesterday. For a little context, you can go here for the brilliant Travis Prinzi’s post on why he loved the finale of Lost, and the comment thread of his post where fists fly and jaws rattle arguing over the super-important topic of “Did the Lost Finale Satisfy?” I guess you can see, if you watched the show, where I fall on that. If not you can just enjoy this story for the massive literary achievement it is. Kind of like Gulliver’s Travels. Did Swift write that in fifteen minutes?

His son played with the wrapping-paper tube, a skeletal delight for the grave-robbing children of the world. Usually employed as a sword, or a telescope, the boy had opted for an arm extension.

“A robot?”

“I am not a robot,” his son said, robotically. “Robots are evil.”

“True,” Brant said, moving into the bathroom.

Inside, he looked into the mirror and adjusted his emotion settings.

After it he went, like a galloping horse upon which rides a girlish-sized man in bright clothing. He soon caught sight of it again and hastened to the place where it lay. Its point was embedded in the firm grass and its hinder-parts tottered like an insistent metronome. A quivering glory.

“I have found it,” Jellybean said. Then, like men caught up in profundity often do, he said it again. “I have found it.”

A man with a clipboard came and wrote down something about the magic device. Surely those words were an oracle, and Jellybean longed for them as a man longs for long longings.

“Do you know the way to the Avenue of the Twilight of the Javelins?” Jellybean asked the old man.

“I just work here,” the man said.

“Yes you do,” Jellybean said. “Yes, you do.”

Jellybean Highfive emerged from the corner he had been hiding in with all the concentrated silence of a Junior High band practice warm-up. He untangled his foot, just now clotted with a small paradise of exotic chimes and bells.

He was in this office to steal something important. It is often the important things that want stealing. Very few of the sticky-fingered sort get long in the tooth climbing through windows to pinch potatoes and packing peanuts. Jellybean Highfive was not no uncommon thief. In fact he didn’t feel like a thief at all –but he wanted to feel the feeling of that feeling.

On the previous evening he had seen a dramatic film about a particularly likeable robber and wanted nothing more than to nab something in secret and frustrate the universally wicked police forces of the wicked universe.

“What are you doing crashing around in your own office, Jellybean?” Karl called from down the hall.

His operation discovered, he decided in haste to quit the adventure. He made for the window and, after a few minutes struggling to figure out the operation of the locking swivel, he bolted from the window. His fall terminated three feet down in the overgrown rhododendron bushes that lined the building where he worked.

He did not immediately move. His mind pondered the innumerable excitements of the life of crime. His imagination teemed with happily criminal opportunities. Eventually he peered up from his deliciously concealed hide-away and noticed an opened window.

“Perfect.”

Jellybean Highfive surveyed the room. This took a long time because the questions were detailed. He finished and returned to the table.

“The last time I was here was months ago, back in the late 2000’s. A lot has changed, but some things remain the same. For instance, that waiter still has the same shirt on,” he said.

“I think that’s a uniform,” Karl said.

“I don’t pay you to think.”

“You don’t pay me at all, Jellybean. I’m your boss.”

“Only in a technical sense, Karl.” Jellybean squinted up at the ceiling. “Anyway, I don’t work for you today.”

“You did earlier.”

“But I clocked out, so…”

“It’s still today.”

“Technically, you’re right. But I’ve got a feeling about this day.”

“Is it remorse? Because that’s what I’m feeling.”

“No, it’s orange.”

“Orange?”

“Let me be more specific,” Jellybean said, “I mean the color, not the fruit.”