95
July 14, 2020 - 285 words
Back to Blom. Blom is who started this thing and Blom should be ending it, whatever comes of Hem and his adventures in the South O’ Things.
Blom sat outside as the Spring Thaws brought the Ravin’ River to a mighty roar. He was smokin’ his t’backer and was peacefully sitting there in the nature zone. Picked hisself a solid wooden bench and peered into the waters of the River, thinkin’ of nothin’ really, just puffin’ away on his nice old smoker and enjoying the songs of the forest.
Year or two now it had been since Glen vanished, disappeared in the thick dark of night with only a note, hastily written and not legible:
Back to the Crown to settle the affairs
- G
That’s all it said. Cryptic for most everyone except for Blom, and some of the other old hands who’d been with them from the beginning and checked in on them in Gilba Gilba from time to time. Can’t remember who they were but they’ve shown their faces in the Ragged Maiden Inn on occasion. Crylax was one. Hem Slonnigum I? Mayhap. Honestly couldn’t remember. Blom’s memory was goin’ and that worried him: the same thought floated across Hem Slonnigum II’s mind the very same moment, and it would have given the young traveller cause to write if only he knew it.
Blom took another puff and savored the sharp honeyed vanilla-sorta smoke that filled his lungs and mind. Memory issues were hittin’ everyone who’d been with them since the beginning. Blom supposed Glen was gettin’ it the worst of all. The Wayward Spirits exacted their toll, and Glen never was able to move on from them when everyone else had.