The Trashscarf Tales

Chapter 5: Gotcher Nose

Coffee.

Bacon, sausage, and ham.

Onions, in with the hash browns, plus a hint of bell peppers.

Butter; snapping and browning cheerfully in the pan, ready for the pour of a pancake, the splat of battered bread, the crack and sizzle of a fresh egg. Maple syrup! Waffles, crisp and light, steaming in the dawn. Gravy, creamy and rich. Toast-- TOAST! Bread in its rebirth, gold to brown to bitter blackness at the edges. Jam, and fresh orange juice, and milk, cool and white. A breakfast, fit for---

Trashscarf woke like an uncooperative surgery patient, snorting and coughing and spluttering as he launched himself up out of the bog. He fell back against the rotting bole of a tree even older than himself. All was darkness. His eyes were screwed shut in an expression of absolute anguish and pain, shading now into a rage that seemed pathetic in the frame of a ruined Waywalker, but no less real.

"Get. Out." Trashscarf exhaled forcefully. "GET. OUT."

"Jest tryin' ta git ya woke up, pardner," said a voice in his head. It wasn't familiar, thank the Way, but the accent was, and Trashscarf's fists clenched.

"Get. Out. Of. My. BRAIN!" he roared. His voice bounced through his head and through the World around him.

"I ain't in yer proper brain, just yer limbic systems," grumbled the voice. It had a folksy, twangy sort of accent that spoke of tumbleweeds and wagon wheels. It was higher pitched than his own, maybe even female, but hard to say. "Only way to reach you when you're that far under..."

"Get out here and face me," Trashscarf panted.

"I'm already on yer face, ya daft idjit."

Trashscarf's panting breaths had at least flooded his system with much-needed oxygen, and he began to feel other things again-- weight of the World, Way underfoot, and, currently, Wetness, and lots of it. He was soaked-- no, more so, sogged, yes, that was a better word. Everything was wet and unpleasant and greasy and itch, especially his upper lip--

He scrabbled at his face, and encountered a mass of sodden fibers. Pulling away his scarf from his mouth, he scrabbled at his face, and encountered a mass of sodden fibers. Pulling away--

He pulled wildly at his face but the matted softness remained, firmly rooted in his upper lip. Frantic patting confirmed what he'd feared... he'd been colonized by a mustache.

"Oh dam nation," he whimpered, staggering around until he sat heavily on a large chunk of spongy soil that farted juicily under his weight.

"Howdy," said the mustache. It seemed to be talking by using Trashscarf's mouth, sort of-- he could feel his lip twitching, but the sound seemed to be mainly in his brain, up between his eyes. The smell of hot coffee remained, powerful, pungent and strong enough to float a horseshoe, filling his sinuses, widening his eyes.

"I don't know whose mustache you are, but you're not mine," Trashscarf growled. "Begone!"

He grabbed a double-handful of the mustache stuck to his face-- it was an impressive sodden soft crescent that would have made a walrus proud, and he was able to wrap his fiber-familiar fingers around it several times to get a good enough grip before making a spirited attempt at pulling his own face off.

His efforts put an end to negotiations for a bit, but when he collapsed back again for a break, his stretched skin snapping back, the mustache spoke up again.

"Look, I'm jest tryin' ta help ya. You done fell in the murk-- but you made it further than anyone else in a mule's age, so, I reckon, you're what I gotta work with, all right? I ain't gonna hurt ya-- heck, I didn't even know you'd be able to hear me, to say nothin' of answerin'. You ain't normal, are ya?"

"Proudly so," Trashscarf snorted, now rudely digging both fingers up his nostrils and trying to pry the soft fibers out.

"Pickin' yer nose, gross," admonished the mustache. "Shouldn't have bothered savin' yer sorry ass."

"I don't have time for this," grumbled Trashscarf, trying to grasp hold of the hairs; they were slippery, and though some of them crumbled away like lichen under his fingernails, a lot more of them still sprouted. "I'm trying to find out what's been going on around here!"

"Well, good!" said the mustache, firmly. "Because that's what needs doin'. Look, you done got yerself so deep in here ya fell over. Yer the only thing walkin' upright I've seen in yonks, so I reckoned I'd help ya. The murk done messes ya up, but sittin' here, I kin filter out most of it, and keep ya goin'. Swappin' out smells and suchlike."

Trashscarf inhaled again-- coffee, really strong good coffee, and a hint of tobacco smoke that was familiar without being recognizable. It did seem to help, a bit, but his vision-- he blinked, and blinked again. All was still blackness around him.

"I'm blind," he cried in dismay.

"No," said the mustache patiently. "It's jest a thing that happens round these parts every so often. Gets all dark for a while. It's called "night"."

"So why the hells did you wake me up with breakfast smells when it's still night?" Trashscarf complained, his reedy tenor wafting through the dark and silent wasteland.

"Lookee here," said the mustache firmly. "You kin either trust me an' do what I tell ya and maybe live through this, or ya can continue to bleat like a two-headed calf on a cloudy night."

Trashscarf considered this. "All right. Get me out of this, and maybe, just maybe, I won't cut my whole head off trying to shave you."

"That's the spirit," chuckled the mustache. "Turn to your left a bit, and go that-a-way."

"It's all bog," Trashscarf said. "Bog and marsh and death forever and ever and--" Another blast of coffee-scent made him sneeze.

"Yeah yeah yeah. It always seems that way. Keep going."

"Keep going where?"

"Call yourself a Waywalker? Don't matter *where*. Just. Keep. Going."

Trashscarf's mouth shut, and he frowned, and worked his upper lip, causing the mustache to undulate... but he took a deep breath of the coffee-scented air, settled his pack firmly, clenched his grip-- around the walking stick, which he hadn't even realized he was still carrying-- and took a step.

It wasn't much of a step, it sloshed around his knees and he staggered a bit, but he took another, and another, and then fell against the curved rough rotting-wood wall of another fallen tree, and, too weak to climb it, just followed it along, hand over hand, until he stumbled out onto a slope choked with old ivy.

"There ya go," the mustache said, not unkindly. "Follow the ivy up, and it'll take ya to solid ground."

Ivy, at least, was familiar, and Trashscarf grasped the leathery leaves as gladly as he'd have followed the friendly fur of one of Barking-by-the-Sea's canine citizens. He scrambled roughly upwards, and then finally hit level ground that was almost dry, and sat down, heavily.

"I appreciate the rescue," he managed to pant out, "But this is far out of my league. Whatever horrible thing happened here, and is still happening here-- it's too late. This place is cursed and dead and there's nothing I --"

"Don't start that all up again," said the mustache, curling Trashscarf's lip for him and making him rub at it frantically again. "An' quit that. Sun's comin' up-- take another look, mister, and this time, see what's really there."

Trashscarf grumbled, rolling his pack over in the ivy so he could sit on it, and looked around. The darkness was, he had to admit, maybe a little more grey than before-- and as it slowly lightened, he could look around him, and his eyes widened.