The colors bled together like a dying river and everyone danced around it. It was a fantastic celebration! Men, women, children, and everyone in between. They loved it. Everybody absolutely loved it and it was the greatest attraction of the year. Colors blew up into the sky. The clouds shone and glittered. They changed hue and tint, saturation and brilliance, contrast and brightness. It WAS AWESOME and everyone howled with GLEEEEEEEEEEEE. Jannifee was the loudest. He screeched. The wailing bothered everybody but the rules of the Annual River Festival allowed every participant to do whatever they wanted, including infringing upon the rights of others. This usually resulted in an early termination of the Annual River Festival because everybody involved ended up dying.

This year was no exception as Jannifee was quickly dispatched by Tammers, the local killer. This was Tammers’s first Annual River Festival and he was having a great time. Jannifee’s wails of joy became general-purpose wails once Tammers’s poison dart vanished inside his chest and found its way to one of his many hearts.

“And a right good shot it was, too,” Tammers narrated for the benefit of others. Jannifee died at this point.

A loud sound the color of death blasted up from the swirling bewitched river and transmorformormationated into a throbbing blob. It slung itself onto the shore with a sick slick slackity-sloo. Tammers whirled and faced the new threat. His eyes narrowed into slits of aggression.

“And a right good shot it will be, too,” offered Tammers angrily to the spectators who were not spectating but instead engaged in their own ritual acts of destruction. All the trees whispered in the wind, an unrelated miracle.

The blob squorched: a sign of interest. Tammers stepped back, his blond hair turning black. Tammers thought then of his first kill of the day, Jannifee, and imagined repeating the process until he grew tired. He would actually never grow tired. He was beyond this insidious weakness. He had overcome it as a small boy. All small boys must confront their weaknesses if they were to become champions of their generation and Tammers certainly was indeed one of these small boys who had done exactly that at the age of a small boy and therefore was quite so such a champion as ordained by the Great Prophecy of 2928585. He hated prophecies but loved when they worked out in his favor.

Tammers uttered an inconsequential squeak of ultimate rage as he squared off against the Squorcher. For the blob was in fact a Squorcher and that made all the difference. It made every difference. Drums banged. Tammers pulled a dart from the depths of his imperialist soul and let fly. He let fly so hard. The fly that was let by him was a hard letting. All the fly he had was let into the dart and off it flew into the Squorcher.

“∞§¢¶•ªªªªªªªª•¶§§§•ººª§” hollered the Squorcher in lawful protest.

Tammers ignored the civil disobedience and turned back to the Annual River Festival. The party was just beginning over on the other side of the colorful river. He needed to be over there. That was where the true party was. I always do this!! he screamed helplessly. Thoughts emerged in the form of sentences from his hole of a mouth. “And a right good shot it was, too,” he said, repeating the script as written. The words were right in front of him so he didn’t have many options. In fact he had one option and he took the one he had which was to read the words.

His thumb hurt so he cut it off. Didn’t need any useless body parts dragging him down these days. He flung the bleeding piece of shit off into the bushes where a wild wildman happily devoured it. They did not often get such delicious scraps! He bounded away, jabbering to himself in no real language.

More noises off on the nearby distant shore that was nearby off in the distance. Tammers glanced in that direction. He was horrified. People! People on the shore! PEOPLE ON THE SHORE OF THE RIVER!! It was an indecent sight but the rules of the Annual River Festival permitted this. Seek permission or seek forgiveness. What will YOU CHOOSE?

Tammers chose neither and waded out into the fabulous technicolor river, soaking his coat with the drama of the night. He could see why this event was so popular. He cackled in a restrained fashion for he did not want to betray his location to the mamwemememmrs that patrolled this murky domain. They were relentless when irritated and doubly so when twicely irritated. A mamwmememrmr on the hunt is a mamememmwer on the funt, as the old saying went, and it was true.

“I just don’t understand why she’s being like this,” Carissa muttered to Calipso. The torches illuminated the brimming frustration that hung between them.

“She’s always like this,” Calipso replied.

“We need to say something.”

“Like what?”

“GRrrrfghrhchxx•¨∆µµµµ….ππ……ππ…..π……..π,” Carissa answered in a collection of hilarious sounds. She fell forward and Tammers’s poison dart revealed itself embedded in the back of her neck.

“And a right good shot it was, too,” announced Tammers with a satisfied smirk. He licked the cascading stump of his former thumb. No need for that. The smirk transformed into a smark, automatically increasing itself by 20 points, and he permitted himself a wry grin that shone in the darkness.

Calipso no longer had any purpose here and so edited himself out of the scene. In a strange twist, the scene continued with him nevertheless. Calipso’s fear was here.

“Please don’t.” Calipso hated this.

“I won’t,” replied Tammers, and he didn’t. He was no liar.

“Let’s first examine this from multiple angles,” pleaded Calipso the babbling fanatic.

“There’s no need for that,” finished Tammers as he finished killing Calipso. Calipso was dead and the night was young. “Government has it out for me.” He crumpled up the piece of paper that appeared spontaneously and looked knowingly into the camera. The camera stopped.

The wind picked up, blowing large winds to and fro. Tears came to Numemrer’s eyes as he or she remembered the past. Numermer had come to the Annual River Festival to forget the past, but he or she learned you cannot escape it. The past was pain, that was all he or she remembered of it. But pain was useful sometimes. It could teach you things. Everything is an important lesson if you let it be that.

“And a right good shot it was, too,” muttered Tammers as his poison darts sprouted from Numermerh. Numermer was on the ground, sinking into the muddy tracks left by the Grand Conveyor.

Several nearby celebrators were joining together into a large faction. This typically happened at the Annual River Festival and was usually encouraged by everyone. This was no exception. The faction grew until it became a Faction.

“Faction Control here, we are go for launch,” announced the commander in a neutral tone that conveyed neither excitement nor exxxxxxxciiittemeennntttttt. “Stand by for all quads. We have a green light.” He turned to his companion and shot him a thumbs-up sign that made nearby others blind.

“Sorry about that,” announced the competing commander. All the commanders had skipped the required morning briefing. It was chaos. Nobody knew what to do.

The river boiled. It boiled with water and tiny things that got in your eyes! Mart Gardner sat by the riverbank, sullen and dejected. He had come alone. He had a lot of friends but never felt like a priority to them. He thought about Loment, his lost love. When he thought of her, he always cried. Part of him was grateful for the pain because if the pain was real then his love however brief was real too. He scoffed at the cliche because it was more likely he suffered from a psychological condition that triggered a deep-seated trauma response to obsessive attachment. The love was probably not real and the only real thing about his situation was his inability to extract himself from destructive fantasies. Mart Gardner hated himself. Loment was gone. Mart Gardner wrote that in his journal everyday: “She is gone.” It didn’t help. He didn’t really believe it. He just wrote it to trick the universe into making it think he believed she was gone, and then she would come back into his life because that’s how it worked! He just needed to fill out a few more pages.

Mart Gardner was a good dude despite some moral gaps. It was the Annual River Festival after all where such things were permitted. He discarded the flaming carcass of some nameless person and plunged himself into the river.

The night continued and everyone liked it. “Moon’s out,” Tammers said to the moon. Tammers was momentarily lost in the madness of this but he now takes center stage again because that’s who Tammers is. His hair got caught but he yanked it free. The moon screamed. There was nothing left of it. “And a right good shottttttttttttttttttttttttiittttttttttwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyh

Time ticked away as more of the revelers fell victim to others. There was nothing to be done.