I don’t know why it happened in that particular time, in that particular context, but 1 day, an unemployed wolf, while sitting in his cluttered living room in a wife-beater, staring @ the newspaper he desperately clung to for a lifeboat from this depression saw a, “¿Have you seen?” o’ a golden-fleeced sheep, offering ‘nough gil to save him from the coming & coming teeth o’ rent fore’er.

& it just so happened that in that time, in that cluttered living room, he remembered 1 o’ the useless clutters his bum o’ a father had left him in death, a relic from his dusty past: the tattered sheep costume.

“I hope you wore your Level 3 Boots. They’re the only way through here ‘live.”

Chicken faces kept pecking straight through crates @ the passing feet like jump scares, spreading wood chunks everywhere. But they clinked harmlessly off the boots’ metal before jumping back inside the darkness.

“¿It’s gotten that bad?” said 1 pair o’ feet.

“Since the `heroic’ death o’ Chicken Well-Done.”

“¿What’ll we do?”

“Don’t know. Nobody’s willing to buy them @ this vitriol–& if nobody buys them, the profits…”

“The Mammonth.”

Suddenly the midautumnmidnight warehouse became e’en chillier.

She stood in the middle o’ the damp soil with a cold hoe clutched to her begloved hand.

“I wonder what the roulette says.”

She pulled up her striped shirt & looked @ the black splotch on her upper arm. It swirled under the drops o’ rail till it showed the silhouette o’ a berry with triangular fringes splaying @ the top.

She looked up @ the spray o’ clouds ‘cross the horizon.

“Looks like good weather for blueberries…”

No matter how much the pink monster grunted, the door still wouldn’t open.

“Let me do it,” said Rocky.

“No… I can do it just fine,” said the pink monster.

So Rocky stood back with his paws crossed till a half hour later, when the pink monster finally gave up in a lake o’ sweat.

“All right…” the pink monster panted. “If you’re so smart… You do it, then.”

Rocky nodded & then stepped up to the door & pulled it open as if ’twere a piece o’ cardboard.

The pink monster jumped. “¿How’d you do that?”

“The door only opens for those with ‘nough thieving experience,” said Rocky.

You can hang on… You can hang on…

He struggled through thin halls with 10-meter falls below, despite his shaky legs, oft handling heavy boxes or stacks o’ papers–¡& not a sheet could fall! He concentrated on the diverse barking from all his customers. E’en mo’ insidious, he filled people’s glasses with liquor, based on complex orders comprised o’ 100 different types. He watched the clock slowly inch upward.

Then his heart leapt when it struck 12 AM. From a door in the shadows, his supervisor came out.

“Good job, Jamar. Here’s your reward.”

Jamar leapt for the bottle o’ Irish whisky–his own bottle for himself.

The Grand Usher sorted the people into their seats. “All right. Keep ourselves orderly or we’ll have to call the whole thing off,” he said ‘hind his cigarette.

Once everyone was seated, the curtain rose with a squeak, revealing a woman in a business suit frowning grimly but calmly into the crowd.

The announcer cleared his throat.

“Madame Deaton, we hold you guilty for owing The Grand Market–all these people”–the announcer waved a hand o’er the seats–“1 trillion ₧, & your time has run out to pay it back. ¿Have you any last words?”

Madame Deaton replied, “Do what you must.”

All o’ the crowd stood, aimed their pistols, & pulled their triggers in sync in a mix o’ stern glares, shaky hands, & gleeful laughter.

He sat back uncomfortably as he gazed @ his new students. Life was always hard for Greenhorns.

He slowly opened the book on his desk as if he were ‘fraid he might cause offense, cleared his throat, & said, “OK, ¿now who can tell me the words to the national anthem?”

The other students only stared back @ him in fear & confusion.

“¿Nobody? O… Well, it’s ‘Free as a Tumbleweed,’ apparently. Let’s move on.”

Meanwhile, outside, the substitute teacher’s voice could be heard ‘mong the dry wind by Zelda, stalking round their trailer with a gun in-hand, fighting back spies.

This would make them friends with him once & for all.

He rushed to his phone to call them to come to his observatory, & then rushed out into the windy night & stared up @ the stars with his hookshot in-arm.

“You’re just jimmying out faces, Jimmy,” said the 1st jerk to arrive.

“Watch.”

He shoot the hook straight up, not @ the moon, but @ the brightest star visible in the sky. It took a few minutes, but it ‘ventually locked onto something. He muttered, “¡Yes!” to the surprise o’ the others.

“He’s just making it up. Nothing happened.”

But they gasped when they saw him rise way up into the sky, shrinking in the distance till he couldn’t be seen @ all.

& from then on nobody doubted his prowess. He only wished he could be there to see it.

They stared down @ the contorted corpse o’ a van, right in front o’ a tunnel.

But as they examined said “tunnel” they discovered that it’d become solid, while still having the appearance o’ an empty hole. Nor was this a mere fake, Wile-E-Coyote style: they were familiar with this tunnel–oft used to get from I-20 to I-12 & knew ’twas real before.

The only clue they had was spray-painted on the ground in front o’ the van: “¡To Herby! ¡Revenge!” only to be interrupted by Orval running them o’er while racing toward his kidnapped 2nd cousin, only to crash into the fake tunnel.

It cursed.

It had to hurry if ’twas going to make it to the Great Semicolon in time; but the only way it could is if it avoided the vicious White Cells, & that was made hard by that stupid timepiece jangling from his striped suit.

¿Why’d he have to be hatched with a pinstriped suit, anyway?

Well, he made it there, but only after all o’ the others had beforehand, leaving the area too crowded for him to stay.

There were no mo’ ats with which to mate. It watched the timepiece & saw it quickly tick toward the end.

“So long.” Boink. Pop. A grave.