#god I need to fucking pack it in and teach myself enough about colonialism in disability studies to write like 100 words on

[simscastaway]

I should just go to bed, I’m doing fuck all anyways but it’s fucking group work and they’re meeting tomorrow and- WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU INVITE ME TO BE APART OF YOUR GROUP PLEASE

[rrcooperwrites]

Opus 2

Prompt

You think your new home might be haunted...by a very helpful ghost. Every time you start looking for something you've misplaced, you turn around to find it right beside you.📷

Original Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pdyor9/wp_you_think_your_new_home_might_be_hauntedby_a/

Recommended Soundtrack: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VVhP7IWabP5mZwiP7RhS?si=5afe118203a74645

Start Here

I’m writing down the following lines in the hope that someone will one day read this and pick up on my research. My hope is that whoever reads this, is in a dark place, because the following will convince you that there are some wonders left in this world.

I arrived to my new home, at least for the following year, during a torrential downpour. Cusco’s weather is rather odd. During the summer it rains prodigiously, so not only is everything hot, it is also wet. Walking feels like wadding through a dog’s fat folds. This failed to sit well with my middle-class Lima bred ass, who had never been in this kind of wet hotness.

The weather actually didn’t bother me that much really, it’s just now that I think about it, I hate it. At that moment I could not have cared less if there were sardines raining down. I was about to visit Qenko, a sacred site in Willka Qhichwa, the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

I had busted my absolute arse off trying to get the funding. Ended up getting it from a Canadian university. There, I had come across a rather stuffy old-boor of a man who headed the Archeology department at a small campus somewhere in Montreal. Luckily for me, the stuffy old-boor had a rather delightful French-Canadian assistant called Marie-Claire. To whom I owe a posh dinner and a my-best-effort shag, by the way.

But all my thoughts about money, poutine, shagging, and the pressure of not fucking this up flew away the moment I laid eyes on Qenko.

The monoliths, the object of my study, stood particularly out, they were absolutely gorgeous. Marie-Claire had joked that a lot of them had a peculiar build and teased me that perhaps it was a fertility site. And as adorable as she is, she was also very wrong. Qenko is a sacrificial and mummification centre. My specialty, and also where I would find proof for my theory.

“The Non-Euclidean Geometrics of Monoliths and Their Relationship to Death Magic by Azucena Matias”

It would be my bloody masterpiece. I had all the measurements I needed from satellites, but I wanted to confirm them myself. If that went well, and the measurements confirmed what I suspected, they would converge in a place where I could excavate for items related to death magic and rituals.

On only my third week there, it happened. We found a massive cache of items including a small statue depicting Supay, the god of death. One of our team, an American intern, freaked out and started shouting nonsense about curses upon whomever disturbs a death site, and how those courses target mostly people like him, as in not natives. Which is of course ridiculous. If the site was booby trapped, it would kill everyone equally. And if there was a curse, he was the only foreigner in the expedition, and after all only an American. There’s plenty more where he came from. Although I’d definitely miss his BBQ’s, bloody smoked goodies will kill me one day.

Anyhow, we found the site, cheered, calmed down Paul(the intern), started drinking, convinced Paul to BBQ, got Paul drunk, Paul BBQd, we drank, and drank, I got my hand down a particularly cute lassie’s blouse and a promise to go out next week. So when I collapsed unto my bed at 5 am with Supay’s statue carefully placed on my kitchen counter, I was rather content. This contentment did not last.

I woke up around 2pm, made breakfast, collapsed on my couch, started to pack a bowl(it was Sunday after all) and prepared to have a very relaxed day when I suddenly noticed something. Or rather didn’t notice something, since the thing itself was missing.

My laptop, my stupid expensive rugged laptop with Linux installed and all my fucking documents was still at the dig site. Unguarded. In a third-world country. Pretty close to the jungle. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

I jumped from my couch and bolted to the door, tears were already streaming down my face as I grabbed my keys and put my hand on the door handle.

“Wait!” said a voice. Not an unpleasant voice. But clearly a voice not coming from a human mouth. Also a voice speaking Classical Quechua, which made it rather special. I knew about one-hundred percent of all Classical Quechua speakers, I should anyway, I’m twenty-five percent of them.

My emotions fought each other for supremacy when I turned around. None won. So my face probably looked liked someone who was absolutely terrified but meekly thankful.

A small figure that looked like a tiny beer barrel with bat wings was hovering in the middle of my condo. In his rather large claws was my laptop, looking pretty unharmed.

“Here you go maiden,” it said, “I have brought your annoying magic book over.”

I can’t remember how it happened, but somehow I managed to walk towards the thing, take my laptop and sit down on my couch. I eyed my bowl and noticed that it was full and unlit. This both calmed and terrified me. See what I meant with the mixing of emotions?

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’ve got a peasant’s accent,” the little creature answered, “but no bother, we can fix it. I’ll teach you how to posses the diction dictated by your blood.”

“My blood?” I stuttered, “What do you want my blood for?”

“Want it? I don’t want it,” it said, “What I would like is a glass of beer. which I have noticed you have failed to provide? Hmmmmm, yes, so could you get to it?”

That snapped me. If there is one thing I can’t handle is a proud male voice with a stupid demand. I mean, I listen to my father of course, but that’s because the man doesn’t need to raise his voice to make a point. He just walks you through his arguments like he was on a debate team at Oxbridge, which coincidentally he was once in. And you just either became convinced and it ended or you found faults in his arguments and counter-argued, eventually reaching a compromise. Easy-peazy lemon squeezy stuff.

But someone just barking orders at me, pissed me the fuck off. And something else! Who did this Wish.com Digimon think he is? This was my bloody house, I paid the rent, took care of it, including preserving the colonial details of the house, even if they were an absolute pain.

“Ask me nicely,” slid icily from my mouth.

“What?” said the muppet.

“Ask me nicely to get you a beer.”

“Ask nicely? I don’t have to! I’m a demon! Underling for Supay, the Lord of Death. And you are just a noble girl.”

“Noble…” my ire diminished, “girl?”

“Uhhmmm, yes, didn’t you know? You’ve got noble blood. Which just means you get some extra responsibilities, no extra privileges!”

I reached and daintily put my hands around the creature not letting it get away.

“What is the meaning of this!?” it cried, but I just kept getting closer. Until I had it comfortably trapped in my hands. It had the head sort of like a bat, very similar to a Peropteryx macrotis or lesser dog-like bat. It was just quite bigger, about chihuahua size. It also had some rather big claws but it looked like he didn’t know what to do with them. He also had two small green horns sprouting on top of his ears. All in all, he was pretty cute looking.

I squeezed.

“OH NO! OH Viracocha*! Hold your fucking llamas!” it wheezed.

“Are you going to behave now and be polite, and address me by my fucking name?” I asked.

“Yes,” it answered.

“Do you promise not to harm me?”

“I wasn’t planning to, all I wanted was a beer!”

“Do you promise?”

“I do”

“Do you promise to answer all my questions?”

“I promise”

“Swear it”

“I swear”

“Not enough conviction. Swear by Pachamama *.”

“By Pachamama? But she’s one of my favourites, she used to feed me the choice guavas from her garden.”

“Then it will mean all the most.”

“Hmmm….”

“Do you want me to squeeze more?

“No! I swear… I swear by Pachamama and her delicious guavas.”

I released the little creature and after a few tense moments, I walked over to the refrigerator, opened it up and poured us both a glass of beer. A good hearty lager that I bought from a restaurant in Lima, one of the few comforts I allowed myself.

I put the beer in front of the creature who had now found a spot on my Turkish ottoman and sat itself.

“If you stain my furniture it’s ok, but you’ll have to clean it,” I said while sitting down on my couch.

“Yes mistress,” it answered meekly.

“Don’t call me mistress. Call me Azucena or Zuzu, which is what my friends call me.”

“Yes mistress Zuzu,” it answered while a row of needles that I guessed was a grin spread across its face.

“What should I call you?”

“I’m too low to deserve a name.”

“That’s bollocks. What’s your favourite thing in this world?”

“Beer”

“Really?”

“Yes. Beer. Without a doubt.”

“How about the name Guinness?”

“Guinness, sounds peasant-y”

“On the contrary, it’s a name known around the world in relation to beer. Just carrying that name practically guarantees to be associated around the world over with beer.”

“I like it then!” Guinness said as he puffed his barrel everything outward.

“Although of course,” he continued, “mortal beer can never be as good as The Underworld’s beer.”

As I scoffed, Guinness then took a dainty sip of the beer I had poured him.

We drank all night long.

I showed him Fail Videos.

Guinness explained the mummification ritual to Azucena.

I ordered pepperoni pizza.

Guinness corrected Azucena on her pronunciation of certain things.

By the next day, Zuzu and Gwin(Guinness’s short form name as he called it) were firm friends and we started planning a whole set of adventures in search of the best artifacts, the best girls(and girl bats), and the best beer.

NOTES

* One of the names for the principal deity(disputed) in Incan Religion

Hold your fucking llamas

* Pachamama is an earth-goddess and fertility figure.