There was a large and green mountain plain, and if you stood there you'd see nothing but sky, sea, and goats eating grass for miles around. It was one man's meager farmland, and his name was Scotch.
He hated everything, that mean old Scotch. At the front porch he hated at his little tattered house he also hated by the way, he rocked his chair he hated that too knocking the wall he detested that damn wall then creaking forward, making the second sound he loathed most of all.
The other sound -- Bleat! -- was an endless ocean wind, an echoing afterthought in the middle of the deepest sleep, a madness that only a goat shepherd would suppress. He hated thosr goats. He hated the blinding sun, and the gothic cloud smearing it.
And out of that cloud was a fluttering dollar bill that snaked through the air, landing on a valley very far away.
Scotch hobbled one-legged out to the edge of his porch. American money. He mumbled to himself the math. A dollar would get him rice to last the week. He can't eat one of these goats, not again. They never looked at him the same. Like he was worse than a tiger and more confusing than a monster.
He grumbled, hopping into his Jeep and drove down to the valley. Scotch hobbled over and picked up the dollar. Then, next to it, another dollar landed. Scotch's geriatric eyes could bulge. He checked the sky, scanning the gothic growling cloud, and saw a rain of cash coming like dragons out of a storm. A fortune! What luck! Scotch yipped and wheezed a toothless gummied grin, grasping fistfuls what he could.
Then a plane, sputtering, breathing smoke and fire crashed into the bluffs. Scotch, a mean and most hateful man, stared down at a pilot hanging on by a few fingers and the duffel bag stuffed with countless dollars hanging on a twig. The pilot was masked, cloaked, and mysterious. He hated the pilot already.
Scotch labored away at hauling the duffel bag up into his grasp. This took hours, a good chunk of the day. He peered over the side, and there the pilot was, still hanging on. He grumbled. That persistent tick.
The pilot swung from one side and leapt higher, making it to the top. Scotch staggered back, laughing, "I tease, I tease! I am but an old fool!"
The pilot tore off the mask, whipping long red hair, and snarled. "How could you do that to people, Grandpa! How heartless and avaricious you are!"
"My poor Roxy, I was blind! What are you doing, crashing a plane? Where did you get all this cash?"
"I was a bank teller. Long story short, I quit."
"That is the best short story I have ever heard," Scotch said, helping Roxy drag the bag into the Jeep. "Hypocrite."
Through dinner, mean old Scotch realized Roxy never offered a cut. He heard her brag on about her heist, but did the math in his head. If he asked for ten percent, of her money, he would be back on his feet with the farm up and running. Roxy sawed through the goat meat and realized Scotch was looking at her funny.
She chuckled, "I'm guessing I should give you some hush money. How does twenty-five percent sound? That's fifty grand."
Scotch shook hands on it, and Roxy having had and will be having a long day yawned her roar. She put away her dishes and taking the knife with her she excused herself early to her room. Tucked in bed, she watched Scotch's back as he sat unmoving from the table, thinking and thinking. She watched as her hand tightens around the serrated knife.
He wouldn't, Roxy thought.
Mean old Scotch hobbled over to his rocking chair and stargazed. Roxy relaxed, no he wouldn't have. She closed her eyes.
"Hello!" Scotch shouted like a madman, but the vast expanse swallowed up the scream instantaneously. Then, sheer silence. "Anyone out there!? I'm about to kill and eat my granddaughter!"
Roxy's eyes snapped open.
She shouted back, "Very funny, Grandpa!"
A giant spider, the size of Scotch, crawled out of Scotch and into the house and said breathing into her face, "I'm not your Grandpa."
She stabbed and jabbed the shrieking spider spurting purple juice until it lied dead. Roxy gasped for air, staggering past a meat suit of her grandfather on the ground. What was that? In the distance, several giant spider silhouettes the size of trees and houses ran sideways. Rustling dispersed birds crying out with alarm.
Roxy panted. What is this place?
She stood there on that large and green mountain plain, and saw nothing but sky, sea, and mammoth spiders eating bleating goats for miles around. Bleat!
Roxy turned around and saw one crawl onto the house. Its eight eyes watch her fondly.
"Trouvaille!" She heard it say.
Roxy bleated with the goats that night.
The next day, Scotch and Roxy were packed and ready to ship back to the mainland. They were dapper and pretty too, smirking their evil smirks, charming the gentlemen and ladies in the city they bumped into by chance.
"I really like your clothes!" Roxy touched a lady's hair and scared her away.
Scotch muttered, eyeing a soldier, a younger muscular man, envying his life. He could have that now if he wanted. But not in this aged and degenerative body. He clung onto the soldier, "Ah, thank you. Show me where the restrooms are, if you'd please."
Roxy sighed with endearment, glum like at a funeral. "Bye Grandpa."
The soldier came back, to whom Roxy smirked. "Hi babe!"
"License says I'm Michael. We are so lucky we found this planet," Michael said. They hugged, all sixteen legs squirming at their ribs, and kissed with excited pincers clicking inside their cheeks.
"So lucky!" Roxy agreed. "I'm still getting used to the two eyes, two legs part, but I think we'll be okay, babe."
ns 15.158.61.48da2
