Unnamed Journal Volume 4, Issue 2 | Page 5

Cantilever Jones Swings Low, Part 1 by Albert Kuhawlik I ’ m sitting in a bar on Tevian-5 that’s not really one I enjoy, but it’s comfortable enough for people in my line that I can consider myself a regular. It’s seedy, but not in an entertaining way. There are some gorks playing Kumba, which is a game I can almost grasp by observation but not quite, and I’ve no intention of learning to speak the gork language since they’re unsightly slimy tentacle creatures who are absolute turds when drunk. I’ve cruised the odd regions of most of the Galaxy, and seen things that would turn your hair three different colors and back again, and trust me when I tell you this: drunk gorks are something you cannot unsee. And the rest of the crowd is like me, freighter captains and hotshots with a certain flexibility vis-a-vis the law, either killing time between charters or waiting on one to wander in. I was in the latter camp, and already it was starting to bore me. Sometimes, no matter the multiplicity of adventures and experiences, this job - every job - involves sitting around waiting to be told what to do. There are those who find existential comfort in that kind of universality, but I am not one of them. I could be in a busier spaceport, like Brana Prime, but I am trying to avoid too much Imperial oversight lately. Recent events have made them not quite suspect me, which in a way is worse than actually suspecting me, because it makes them more paranoid and me less able to see them coming. So I’d rather just not provoke the hammer. Which is why I’m sitting here, in a place that kind of bores me, being bored. {Great start to the tale, Rand. “Bored in a bar that’s boring.” I’m ready to fall asleep, and I lived through this thing.} That is my psionic lizard familiar, Norl. He is annoying, and when he’s not poaching my food he’s off seeking his own, and not being very useful. For example, right now {I do not poach, that is complete he’s flitting about the ceiling of the bar, eating bugs, and giving me no amusement. Bullshit} Also, he interrupts me in my mind, and so sours the flow of my narrative. {Well, if you were a more reliable narrator…} “Oh, really? Why don’t you narrate about hyperspace, Norl?” {…} “That’s what I thought.” Anyway, we were in this bar, the Glug, which is the closest translation of it’s original Tevian name that makes any