Wednesday, November 20th, 2024
From: John Parchment <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
To: Emmett Zuntz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Dear Mr. Zuntz, thou ASCII Mephistopheles,
I hereby tender my resignation to Majicorp Media. When I left my secure-but-boring position as a library clerk, almost three years ago, it was because my dear old friend, your father, Emmett Sr., had read my short story "Behold the Stars," and wanted to work with me to convert it to a video game. The idea of earning points for capturing the constellations with a cell phone camera as a means of introducing children to astronomy was a stroke of genius on his part. The game achieved what I had thought impossible—it convinced children to look up from their cell phones and take notice of the beauty of the cosmos above. Since he passed away two years ago, you have turned his vision of educational and inspiring games into a series of mind numbing doldrums, appropriating the name of the toy your father and I created, for mere matching games such as "Behold the Bug!" and "Behold the Rocks!" which entirely eliminate the need to go outdoors. These games are mere distractions which might entertain a four year old on a slow day, but which deaden rather than inspire interest in the world around us. You claimed that the change in format arose from concerns over liability issues—what if a child were bitten by a snake while turning over a rock in search of an earwig or roly-poly or ant's nest? What if a child were to contract tetanus? What if a customer injured himself while climbing a tree? To which I respond, Phooey. Any childhood which does not involve at least one trip to the emergency room is no childhood at all. If you are interested, I'd be happy to take you out into the woods—we could climb the tallest tree there, and I could give you a lesson in how gravity works.
Your Weltanschauung brittles the leaves of grass, evaporates the creeks that return in spring, silences the meadowlark's rippling song and closes the space in which it sings. You count your thirty pieces of silver; though your hands incarnate the multitudinous oceans, your soul will be ever stained, yet translucent, being hollow.
Consider this a declaration of war, thou silicon-based Babbitt. The dragon, asleep these many years, is awake, her scales verdant once more in the morning rain. Her cave, in that land that some have calléd Mitrúvishar, is empty. Those of us who live or journey there look up in wonder and terror at her flight, her glory blinding us to daily cares, for a moment. In three days' time, you will see her soaring above your little corner of Poughkeepsie, bringing the dance of flames and righteous wrath, to raze down your temple to Moloch and Mammon.
Consider yourself warned.
Jonathan Woodruff Parchment
***
From The Somerset Tribune, page A7, November 23rd, 2024
FACTORY DESTROYED IN BLAZE
SOMERSET, CA—Majicorp Media was destroyed in a fire early this morning. Lt. Reginald Lyons, of the Somerset Police Department, said that investigations were ongoing, and that damage was estimated at $70,000,000. No cause for the blaze, which started at about 3 am, has been determined.
A member of the Somerset Fire Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the blaze appeared to have been started at three areas of the plant simultaneously, suggesting several arsonists were working together. The fire broke out simultaneously in the administrative offices, the factory, and the delivery bays. No trace of ignition devices or accelerants were found at the site. Evidence suggests that the blazes ignited the outer walls of the building and moved inward.
SPD is asking members of the public with information that might help with their investigation to contact the department.
***
From The Somerset Tribune, page A1, November 24th, 2024
ARSON SUSPECT ARRESTED
SOMERSET, CA—Somerset Police have arrested John Parchment on suspicion of arson, charging him with setting the fires at the Majicorp factories yesterday.
Parchment, employed by the company until he resigned this week, sent a letter to Emmet Zuntz, Jr., the CEO of the company, in which he threatened to destroy the plant, three days before the fire took place. On advice of his attorney, Stella Conger, he has refused to speak to the police.
A search of Parchment's apartment turned up no incriminating evidence. The Somerset Fire Department is still investigating how the blaze was started, as no ignition devices were found at the scene. The conflagration's temperatures reached 4,000 degrees F, which would normally indicate the presence of magnesium or other accelerants, but no traces of any such chemicals were found. The fires started at three different points, and consumed the building in less than thirty minutes.
Parchment is being held at the Somerset City Jail in lieu of $1,000,000 bail, and faces arraignment in San Jose Superior Court next week.
***
Monday, November 25th, 2024
From: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
To: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Dear Ms. Dellinger,
My client, Mr. John Parchment, wishes to release this statement to the press:
"I refuse to answer your questions regarding my alleged involvement in the fire which destroyed the Majicorp Media factory earlier this week. Since there is no credible evidence linking me to said inferno, I am certain that all charges will be dropped, and that I will not be in custody long enough to stand trial in any case."
Sincerely,
Stella Conger
Attorney at Law
Law Offices of Conger & Conger
***
From The Somerset Tribune, page A1, November 26th, 2024
FIRE BREAKS OUT AT JAIL
SOMERSET, CA—A fire broke out in a cell in the C block of the Somerset City Jail at 3 am this morning. The origin of the blaze has not yet been determined, and fire sprinklers extinguished the blaze before it could cause any severe damage or harm any of the inmates. One inmate escaped, but Lt. Lyons, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to release the inmate's name. Lyons also refused to answer questions regarding the possibility that the arson at Majicorp and the jail blaze were connected.
***
Excerpt from "Return of the Dragons" by Xía & Silvanus Katahdin, in Egnartiana no. 735, Spring 2025
....As intriguing as those reports may be, the most convincing account comes from Somerset, CA. Belle Zee, aged 6, was awakened on November 26th last year around 3 am by the sound of firetrucks. "I looked out the window, and saw firetrucks at the police department. A green and yellow dragon was flying above it, flapping its wings, and a man was on his back. The man smiled and waved at me, and then they both flew off toward the ocean." There have been two fires in Somerset during the same week in November of this year, both associated with the fantasy writer John Parchment. The first conflagration burned down the factory where he had been employed, and the second was at the jail where he was being held, adjacent to the police department. Officials at the Somerset Fire Department have been unable to explain how either fire started, and there is no proof that Parchment had the knowledge or materials necessary to start either blaze.
No one seems to know the whereabouts of John Parchment, who has not been seen since that night in November.
Perhaps dragons are not extinct, after all.
THE END
Bio:
Fayaway is a gardener, prophetess, and on again, off again member of the postfolkpunk group Medusa's Greatgreatgranddaughters. Hermester Barrington is a retired archivist, a rogue protozoologist, and a deliberately genre ignorant artist, whose ficciones have appeared in Fate, Robot Butt, and Literally Stories. Two of Fayaway & Hermester’s joint publications were recently published in Underland Arcana and HyphenPunk; their next joint project is Come with Me, or, Here Till Here is There, a jukebox musical inspired by their lives together, and featuring the songs of The Incredible String Band.