Salutation By Meal

The pedestal upon which I stood rose.

I was lifted up through the floor of the Pegasi fumatory and then the pedestal clicked into place with a faint shudder. I was positioned in a well surrounded by dozens of white Pegasi and hundreds of their scuttling staff. The Pegasi scarcely seemed to take notice of me, though many of their staff pointed their brown, cow-like eyes in my direction. The air was thick with talk.

The language management device built in to the intelligent plastic skin I wore seemed confused by the dense whorls of intermingling babble, and offered only surreal poetic snippets of what it could suss out from the miasma. "Frenzied locution," it said into my ear. "Predisposition for aggravated your plumage has silkened wonderfully good daycleft my estimable numerous counts of a new shampoo."

Greskin Mile slithered out of the crowd and stood beside me. A Pegasi who turned out to be the Master Barrister for the Accused bounced calmly into place on my other side. I was having some difficulty distinguishing one Pegasi from another, particularly as they seemed to wear no clothes and have no given names. Greskin explained that they recognized one another by scent, and that maps of their familial relationships involved model trees whose individual leaves exuded a distinct musk upon being tickled. Greskin added that business cards were even more tricky...

Dear readers,

It's happened: the free version of this sci-fi novel has been taken offline in order to make room for the hard-cover printed edition from Ephemera Bound Publishing, on sale in stores and online come Valentine's Day, 2008.

I regret any frustration. I kept the blog version available as long as I could. Pleasure be sure to check out the fresh edition! See Cheeseburger Brown.com for more information and updates.

Love,
Cheeseburger Brown

P.S. You can read more of my free fiction via my weblog or in the complete story achives.