Ah, the good ol’ culinary master, Bobby Flay.  Did you know that Bobby Flay used to answer questions, right here on the internet?  In fact, he sometimes still provides answers, as can be seen at this link: 

http://bobbyflay.com/news.php?id=15

Upon learning this, my family and I have brainstormed some questions that dearly need answering, questions to which only the great Bobby Flay could provide answers:

Dear Bobby Flay, I sliced a sea cucumber for my salad and it did not taste good at all!  What gives?

Dear Bobby Flay, I bought one of your pans, and hit myself in the groin by accident. Now my balls are sore. Can I get a refund?

Dear Bobby Flay, I bought a lobster and now it’s looking sad. How do I cheer him up?

Dear Bobby Flay, I bought a squid, and it escaped and is now living under my couch. What is the best type of cat food to feed it?

Bobby, how do you stop from sweating?  How?

Doctor Bobby, I stubbed my toe yesterday and now it’s funny colors. Should I ice it or use a heat pack?

Dear Bobby Flay, help with this issue: is it a lobster tree, or a lobster bush?

Dear Bobby Flay, Do you have a girlfriend?  If so, where is the nearest sinkhole?

Bobby, what are best types of noodles for crocheting?  Please answer, this is life or death.

(I will be very disappointed if his answer does not mention noodlepoint.)

Dear Bobby Flay, I went to a Chinese restaurant and no one was eating the guacamole, so I ate it all. Why do I hurt everywhere now?

Dear Bobby Flay, if the person to whom I gave food poisoning dies, am I still in trouble?

Dear Bobby Flay, my prison wine is lacking a certain panache. How do I kick up the flavor bouquet?

(Perhaps this question would be better directed towards Martha Stewart.)

Dear Bobby Flay, I found a piglet in the back yard, but it’s very hairy and keeps meowing. How long until it turns into bacon?

Dear Bobby Flay, what herb combination does Giada’s hair smell like?

Dear Bobby Flay, where are the top ten places to hide a potato?

If someone could forward these questions on to Mr. Flay, I would greatly appreciate the answers.  Thank you, internet community!

Jenna had always loved the fireworks.

On that magical night, the fourth night in July, the air would feel a little different.  As far back as she could remember, Jenna would join her family in hiking up the tall hill, the only day of the year when they were allowed past the electrified fence.  They would hike up, searching for an empty spot of bare earth amid their fellow citizens.

Of course, there was so much more to the night than fireworks.  Uncle Albert, always clutching his cheap camera to his chest, would be there.  He would spend the entire night with his most prized possession pressed against his eye, only seeing the explosions through the tiny peephole.  The clicking of his camera could sometimes be heard, between the explosions.  Although nobody ever looked at his pictures afterwards, he would have a great time trying to capture the magic of the fireworks.

Jenna’s mother would almost always wander off, partway through the show.  She would take the opportunity to socialize, to share the latest gossip with her neighbors and catch up on the juiciest tidbits.  Her voice would drift past in snatches, little fragments of conversation.

When she was younger, Jenna would cling to her mother’s sleeve, tugging on it every now and then in a vain effort to return her mother’s attention to the displays of light and sound above their heads.  Now, she knew that there was no point in trying, and ignored the bits of chatter that interrupted her fireworks.

Some years, the fireworks were hidden by clouds and rain.  Other years, the engineers didn’t properly calibrate the mortars, and half of the display would be hidden below the treeline.  On one particularly memorable year, proletariat riots had forced the authorities to threaten to call off the entire performance.  Fortunately, a hasty agreement had brought about a one-night cease fire.  That night, the silence between the explosions had been filled with angry mutters of the “opiate of the masses.”

Jenna didn’t care.  As she stared up at the bright lights, blooming in the sky, she forgot about her family’s designation as Naturalized Citizens, 4th Class, forgot about the long hours that both her parents had to work.  She didn’t care that they weren’t allowed on the closer hills, that they didn’t have the best seats and that 1st and 2nd Class Citizens got their own seats, with chairs and nets to keep off the bugs.

Next to her, Grampa suddenly points in the air.  “That one looks like a watermelon!” he cries.  “A watermelon, I’m sure!”  The rest of the family nod along, tucking the blankets a little more closely around his frame.

All that mattered to Jenna, on those magical nights, were the ringing booms that suffused the air, the faint but unmistakable scent of gunpowder in the air, and the glows of the bits of burning phosphor in the sky, briefly illuminating the faces around her on the hill.

Oh god.  What am I doing.

Even now, I’m already regretting my choice.  The words came spilling out of me, nothing like how I had planned.  This very instant, if I could snatch them out of the air, take them back, I would do so in a heartbeat.  What was I thinking?

She’s staring at me.  Hell, everyone is staring at me.  And nobody’s saying a thing!  Come on, people, just because one man is dying over here, you don’t all have to stop eating dinner to watch!  Go back to your conversations, leave me to suffer in peace!

How long has it been, now?  Five seconds?  Thirty seconds?  A hundred years?  I can’t seem to tell, any longer.  Time stretches on, forever, trapping me in this private hell.

Now, as I sit and suffer, I can hear my friends’ warnings, flashing back to me.  Don’t do it, they had said.  There’s still time, it isn’t worth taking the plunge.  Oh, how I should have listened!  But no, I had to forge ahead, had to take that leap, and now it’s landed me here in this mess.

This was supposed to have gone so much better!  I had so many words, speeches, eloquent lines, all memorized and ready in my head.  But when the moment came, all the words tumbled out of me, confused and lonely and clinging to each other in a haphazard jumble.  And it’s not like I’ll get another go at this.  I’ve messed the whole thing up.

Wait.  She’s opening her mouth.  Will she put me out of this misery, end my suffering with a single word?

Yes.  She said yes.

She said yes.

My 10:00 appointment was running late.  I looked down at the clock in the bottom corner of the screen.  Seven minutes past the hour already.  Glancing around the glass-walled cubicles to make sure that none of my bosses were looking my way, I alt-tabbed over to the scores for my fantasy league.

I grumbled to myself.  I was already down ten points, in third place, and my best player had a by week.  As I clicked back and forth between sites, trying to decide who to swap in, I heard a knock from the entrance to my transparent office.

“Yes?” I said, hastily escaping from my league’s home page and returning to the accounting software.  I glanced up to see a small, ordinary man in a gray suit standing at the entrance.

“I’m here for my appointment,” the man said.  “Sorry I’m late.  Well, no, I’m not sorry at all.  I mean, I’d rather be late and know what I do than be on time and in the dark.”

My quizzical look must have clued him in to how little sense he was making.  “Erm, don’t worry about it,” he decided.  He removed a rather untidy stack of papers from under his arm.  “Anyway, I need you to help me work out a budget.”

I took the stack from him, dumping them on my desk without much enthusiasm.  “Here at H&R Block, we make budgeting easy,” I said, reciting the rote speech without any conscious thought.  “Whether you’re budgeting for a house or retirement, we can-“

“No, neither of those,” the man said, interrupting my routine.  “I just need to live as comfortably as possible until June 24th, 2017.”

I looked up from the pile.  “What happens on June 24th, 2017?” I asked.

“Nothing,” the man responded, shrugging offhandedly as he settled into one of the two office chairs across from my desk.  “But on June 25th, 2017, the world is being demolished, so I won’t need much cash after that.”

“Wait, what?”

The man didn’t seem too perplexed by my, well, perplexity.  “Oh, yeah,” he continued, staring blithely off into space.  “Being demolished for an interstellar bypass, you know how things are.  Fortunately I thought to check the records office.”

I didn’t know whether this man was a prophet or insane.  He didn’t seem off, other than his gentle insistence that the world was about to end.  I turned back to his papers, a slightly more familiar territory.  “Well, according to your bank statements, you’re doing quite well, and you have a tidy nest egg,” I stammered.  “Are you planning on continuing at your current job?”

“If I have to,” the man replied.  “I mean, I wouldn’t mind being able to take a year off, get to travel about and see some of this place before it’s all kaput.”

I hit a few numbers, did some calculations.  “Well, you could probably afford to do so, although it would deplete most of your savings,” I concluded.  “Um, I suppose you could put more of your portfolio into stocks, since you aren’t as worried about long-term stability?”

The other man nodded, smiling.  “Exactly the type of advice I was looking for!” he beamed.  “Perfect.  Anything else?”

I leafed through the pile of papers and receipts.  “Stop paying for life insurance?” I guessed.

“Another excellent idea!”

I hit the print button on the computer, and the man rose to his feet, offering his hand as the printer spat out the paper.  “Thank you so much for all your help,” he said warmly.

“No problem,” I replied, still feeling slightly lost as I took the proffered hand.  “But, really, the world is ending in four years?”

At the doorway, the man shrugged.  “The plans could always change,” he said.  “But, at this point, the money’s already been granted, so they’ll have to do it just to justify their expense reports anyway.”

“So what do we do?”

“That’s easy!” the man sang, as he danced out of my office, budget in hand.  “Catch a ride!”

I sat, staring blankly into space, for a few minutes after the strange appointment.  A few other accountants had stories of the crazy people who had come in, needing help.  Most of the time, it was the finances that were crazy, however, not the actual person.  This man had actually had a very good setup, financially.  I checked the name.  Mr. Prefect.

Waiting for my next client, I once again glanced over at my fantasy scores.  However, after a long moment’s thought, I opened up a tab and googled “NASA.”

Author’s note:  This is the conclusion of a story, with 4 parts.  The beginning can be found here.    And here is the previous part.

Flame shot from every crack in the machine, and Daniel felt the scorching heat suffuse the air above him.  Limbs flailing, every system going haywire, the Reaver staggered back, traveling twice its length across the cornfield before collapsing.  Smoke rose from the joints, and occasional, smaller, secondary explosions marked the collapse of internal systems.

Daniel unsteadily regained his feet.  Hammer in hand, he approached the smoking hulk with caution.  The legs had stopped moving, although Daniel could still see small pieces of machinery moving inside the machine, visible through newly opened cracks and holes.  A dark brown, oily fluid was slowly leaking out, spreading across the muddy dirt of the field.

Some of the other young men who had managed to keep clear of the dying Reaver were also nearing the machine.  Their faces were a wash of fear, loathing, and horror, all mixed with a deep-seated savage triumph.  Some of the men of the village would not be returning home.  But this monster, this reminder of the Great War, would no longer plague the village with its yearly visits.

Daniel stood there for a long time, watching the Reaver slowly die.  The other men headed out, searching the field for wounded, checking the remains of the oak grove for any survivors of the explosions.  But Daniel couldn’t leave.  Not yet.  He slowly edged closer to the towering remains.

Approaching one of the largest cracks, at what had once been the top of the Reaver, Daniel slipped his head inside.  Bits of shattered machinery were everywhere, but there were still several thick, reinforced tubes that led, intact, deeper into the belly of the beast.  Carefully avoiding the sharp metal edges of the opening, Daniel slipped inside the machine, following these tubes inward.

After the first appearance of the Reaver, Daniel had continued to pester Elders Jonah and Buie.  Eventually, the old men had told him of the Reavers, of the Great War.  Daniel had learned about the guns, the missiles, the access hatches, and the two-minute delay before the more powerful secondary systems would activate, energizing the monster into a juggernaut of destruction.  But, on his deathbed, Elder Jonah had called Daniel, alone, into the room.

“Boy, I know what you’re planning to do,” the old man said, his breaths slow and labored, as Daniel approached the bed.  Over the last few months, Jonah had wasted away to little more than skin and bones, but his eyes still held the glint of intelligence.  “Buie knew, too.  Despite what we’ve said, you’re still going to fight the fool thing.”

Daniel didn’t bother protesting – not now.  He nodded.  “But, there is one more thing you need to know,” Jonah continued.  He sat up slightly, reaching out to grasp Daniel with one frail arm.  “Buie didn’t know this.  But when we broke that thing, when we smashed it apart, we found out the truth.”

By now, Daniel was further into the machine; the opening through which he had entered was fading behind him.  More tubes, some pulsing from the motion of the fluids coursing within, were coming together, all leading along this path.  Ahead of him, he could hear the sounds of machinery, pumps still operating.

“The Reavers, they aren’t just driven by clockwork,” Elder Jonah had whispered.  “Aye, that’s how they run, but at their heart . . . they were once one of us.”  He sat back, sighing from effort.  “Abominations.”

He had turned to face Daniel, his eyes reflecting a deep-seated pain.  “Kill it,” he gasped.  “Don’t just destroy it.  Kill it.”

Rounding the curve, Daniel stared at the chamber that had opened up, at the center of the Reaver.  A small, cramped room, the floors covered in pulsing tubes.  The many conduits converged at the center, attached to a tank of gently sloshing green liquid.  Daniel had known what was coming.  Despite that knowledge, he still couldn’t look directly at the thing floating within the liquid.  The thing that had once, long ago, been another person.

Daniel raised his hammer, his knuckles white.  “One of us,” Elder Jonah had whispered, as he died.  “Once, they were one of us.”

The glass cracked, shattered, fell apart.  Green liquid spilled across the floor.  The pumps stuttered and died.  The brain of the Reaver sank to the bottom of its chamber.  It shriveled and twitched, dying in the air.  A pathetic thing, connected to an engine of destruction, blind, scarred, and crippled.  Amid the rage, the hate, the anger, Daniel couldn’t help feeling the slightest hint of pity.

He raised the hammer once more.  The Reaver died.

So, quite a while ago, I wrote a short little piece called “Reaver.”  Well, I decided that it needed a second part, which is here.  This wasn’t enough, so here is part three.

You can read the first part here.  

His muscles were already beginning to tire, the stress and exhaustion beginning to overcome the adrenaline.  Reaching the control center, Daniel forced his arms to raise the hammer over his head.  The first overhand blow left a deep dent in the riveted metal plate.  The third swing knocked the bent sheet of metal aside, and he stared down into the maze of pipes and wires glinting inside the monster.

The Reaver was still struggling to regain its feet, the three operational legs churning the cornfield into a muddy pit.  As more young men reached the open hole, each carrying their weapon in one hand as they climbed, a small sack slung over one shoulder, Daniel heard the next boom of fireworks.  Thirty seconds left.

“Hurry!” Daniel called out, as the nearest men unloaded the satchels from their shoulders.  A thin string protruded from the neck of each bag.  Daniel worked to weave the strands together into a thicker cord, keeping the lengths equal as each man lowered his sack into the exposed hole.

Daniel was trying his best to count down in his head.  He only had ten seconds left, he figured.  He hoped that enough of the packages had made it into the Reaver’s inner workings.  “Everyone off!” he shouted, as the last sack was lowered in.  The cords were hopefully close enough to the same length.  He fumbled in his back pocket for the small paper box.

As the other men leapt away, landing among the flattened stalks and struggling to regain their feet, Daniel drew a match with fumbling, trembling fingers.  He only had a second or two left.  Dragging the head of the match along the rough metal plates of the Reaver, he sent a prayer of silent thanks skyward as a tiny flame flickered into life.

As Daniel brought the lit match to the interwoven strings, the mechanical sounds of the Reaver beneath him suddenly shifted.  The secondary defense systems were coming to life.

A moment too late, the last set of fireworks sounded from the grove of trees.  Something below Daniel’s feet let out a sharp hiss, and a rocket streaked from an opening at the front of the machine.  The trees were briefly outlined in orange before the grove vanished in a roaring gout of flame.

A wordless scream ripped its way out of Daniel’s throat.  In his hands, the woven fuse caught, just as the flame of the match reached his fingers.  The strings, each soaked in a mixture of alcohol and gunpowder, burned rapidly, disappearing into the hole in the Reaver’s armored shell.

More of the secondary systems were coming online now.  More barrels were sliding out of the Reaver’s shell, some already blasting scalding steam into the wilting stalks.  Metal shrieked as the machine forced itself to stand on shattered and broken legs, lurching erratically but stumbling forward.  Daniel was thrown from his perch, landing heavily in the mud.

The Reaver reared above him.  The fall had knocked the breath from his lungs, and he lay on his back, helpless as his death turned to face him.

For a split second, rearing over him, the Reaver seemed to pause.  Then, with a deep and resounding boom, the satchels of gunpowder inside its exoskeleton ignited.

So, quite a while ago, I wrote a short little piece called “Reaver.”  Well, I decided that it needed a second part, so here it is: the continuing story!

You can read the first part here.