Forum:A Really Bad Arkan Fanfic

 No one had before questioned our bowls’ disappearances. No one cared to wonder where they went or why. That is, until I spoke to the Old Lady about these instances once when I was thirsty and bowlless. Goodness knows you simply can’t drink water without a bowl.

 “Never in my lifetime has anyone found out where the bowls go,” the wise Old Lady said, peacefully dusting a bookshelf behind the librarian’s desk. “You should try to figure it out, Brian. You have been Enlightened. Perhaps ask the Hooded Beavers, for they are wiser than even I.”

 A sleepless night came and went. I woke up early that day -- Friday, to be exact -- to check if the bowl had reappeared as usual. It did, and I filled it with water from the tap in the kitchen. I then lapped it up with my tongue, much like a dog, because that is the way my family drank water for centuries. After I was finished, I was tempted to carry the bowl around with me all day to see if it would escape to wherever it resides when not in my kitchen cupboard. I decided it was for the best to leave it here -- what if it went to Darkan, and took me with it?

 Around midday, when I usually take a break from my work at HO, I went to the Dog Park. Only I can enter this park without fear of the Hooded Beavers. I talked to one of my Hooded Beaver brothers and asked for the Gigantic Hooded-Beaver Matriarch. I was not allowed to see her, for who knows what would happen if I looked her in the eyes?

 “BRIAN OF THE ARKVARKS,” her deep voice boomed from below me -- I assumed she was in one of Arkan’s tunnels, “STATE YOUR REQUEST.”

 “I, er, do you know where the bowls go?” my question was awkwardly-worded. So would yours be if you were talking to the Hooded-Beaver Beast!

 “THE BOWLS FROM WHICH THE ARKVARKS DRINK DISAPPEAR AT EXACTLY 8:39 P.M. AST*” was her reply, “AND TRAVEL TO AN UNKNOWN PLACE.”

 “But--”

 “GO AWAY, BRIAN.”

 “I need to--”

 “ BRIAN .”

 Slowly, I walked away from where my Hooded Beaver brother escorted me, unsatisfied. Not even she answered my question, and my appetite for knowledge was growing only stronger.

 On my way back to the HO, I saw a rustling in the bush beside me. An almost-stranger with bright green eyes jumped out from it.

 “Nice face, Siobhan,” I said. Her hair was a gross old-lady white this time round, though. I didn’t say anything about it -- you know... girls.

 “You’re curious about the bowls, right?” she remarked. I had no idea how she knew it. “I have some string here… you can tie it to the bowl somehow. That should lead you to it.”

 Just like that, she dropped the string and was off. I nonchalantly picked up the string and continued to HO to finish the day’s work. If not, I think I’d have to fire myself.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Friday was never a good day for HO. No one at all came, and it got so incredibly boring that the Arkonian Cat-Rats (who were my co-workers) left all at once. I sat there, contemplating my day and thinking about the magnificent Arkan town color. Only I could see it, and it was like peering into heaven.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> After work, I went back home and logged on to tumblr. Four and a half hours later, at twelve in the morning, I powered down my computer and realized I had forgotten one thing: the bowl experiment. It was after 8:39, and I seemed to be out of luck. But then I heard a clank coming from the kitchen counter.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Could it be? Maybe the bowl hadn’t realized what time it was and forgot to leave. I checked, and it was still there. I was in luck!

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> ...Or maybe not. I had the string I received from Siobhan and the bowl, but no way to combine the two. Quickly, I ran around my house looking for something with which to attach the string to the bowl. Duct tape, the god of all tapes, was lying on my living-room carpet. I hadn’t used duct tape in ten years or so. What was it doing there?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Trying not to think about the duct tape too hard, I ripped out a small piece and applied the string to the bowl. Knowing the poor bowl may be punished if it were late to arrive to its destination, I set it outside on the porch steps so it got a head start. I then duct-taped the other side of the string to my porch so that I could easily follow it. I slept for one hour after that and woke up at two in the morning. Casually, I went outside where I was met with the small line of string trailing down Arkan’s one and only street. I stopped, untaped the string, and carried it with me, collecting it as I went.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Finally, I met the final destination of the bowls in Arkan: the Social Well. Tumbleweeds dared not to push me in, for they knew I was Enlightened. It turns out I would not need the Tumbleweeds to meet my fate, though, for when I tried to pull the bowl back up to me, I soon found myself falling into the well.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> ***

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"> Days later, I heard a voice. It was Isabella’s voice. She said something about “Lola” and the “sacrifice” and “Thursday,” and then she said something about me, but I couldn’t quite hear. The Old Lady talked about Darkan, but again I missed the exact details. Someone tried to throw a rope down after me, but I was too short to catch it. It seemed as if there was no way out…

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"> THE END

A Really Bad Arkan Fanfiction by Arkvark


 * Arkan has its own time zone, Arkan Standard Time.