Chapter 5

Well ... the past week was very satisfying ... and that could be said by either of us. Ceiling kept us in restorative ... I’d love to have the recipe ... I could make billions ... but ... no. Ceiling tells me that the herbs won’t grow on earth. He’s lying through his tiles ... but ... one might as well talk to the walls. ‘No,’ is what Ceiling said ... and that’s that. Sam is no help at all.

The sun rose ... the Damsel files landed ‘plop’ on the floor at breakfast and it was all business.

Chaos.

The fucking you get for the fucking you got.

Assigned a green card rescue, I passed the portal ... that was when I discovered I’d been just a trifle hasty. I had no ‘box.’ No extra clothes, no saddle, no bridle, no sword, no extra cash. Nothing. I was going to have to go to work. Had I companioned JW I would have my own box with the implements I’d need. Stubborn pigheaded willful ... ass.

“How you got passed me, I’ll never know. You got business, younker?” asked the bank guard. “No? ... on your way.”

It has been said that rice paddies used to use human manure to fertilize the soil. As a good modern Japanese, I poo-pooed such a spurious rumor. I poo-pooed until the full ‘honey cart’ rumbled by. It splashed ... on my feet.

The cart ‘horse’ was a woman ... the pickup ‘Shovel man’ slapped her on the ass with his wood blade shovel.

“Watch where yer going, woman.”

He scooped a cowpie and tossed it in the barrel. That displaced some “night water.’ At the next house he picked up the ‘night soil’ pot and dumped it in the barrel.

Interesting.

I followed along ... curious. He picked up and emptied a pot at every house and scooped every cow splat and horse turd in the road. When he reached the end of the village the woman turned the cart around and did the houses on the other side of the street.

On this side, there was a coin under each pot. He put the coin in a waist pouch and made a mark on the door post. Reaching the other end of the street he continued out of town to a farm ... the farmer bought his barrel of shit. BOUGHT! ... what he’d been paid to pick up. Collected money coming and going. For shit!

The farmer poured the barrel contents into a huge clay ‘settling’ pond, washed the barrel with water and set the ‘clean’ barrel on the cart.

The pair continued on the road until they reached an uncomfortable dwelling ... ruins ... with a suspiciously sturdy roof. The cart was dropped out back. There was a stream and the woman scrubbed the man ... he scrubbed her, paying close attention to her hair, and they started inside.

“You seemed mighty interested in what we were doing, young fella,” he said.

“I was curious,” I said.

“You wasn’t planning on robbing us?”

“No, it wouldn’t be honorable,” I said.