Dead Boys by Gabriel Squailia

with it?,’ and found a solution for all of us in a system of time-debt, a solution for which he cannot be held accountable, for if he exists as a person and not as a moneyed phantom behind a mask, who is he, and more importantly, where? Oh, there he is, over by the bar; he’s taken his mask off at last, hello there Maggie! Let me finish, God’s bodkin, it’s not as if you have somewhere to be; why patience is in such short supply around here I’ll never understand. As I was saying, yes, an economy based around an ephemeral commodity is a danger to whomever uses it, an incomprehensible mess that we can only hope is understood by its architect, for we’re unable, and therefore we spend what we have in a constant rush, before the poor sod whose sentence we’re spending is freed, we drink it away because we’ve come to believe that this impossible currency really exists, because we’re so complacent that we let eternity be reshaped by its artificial pressure, and why? Because our lives prepared us for just this eventuality, and that’s why the Magnate wins, because long before our deaths we’d already been trained to let him. All right then, Chuck, the question you’ve been so patiently interrupting me with, let’s hope it’s a good one, let it rip.”
    “Why thank you, Matthias: since you’ve got this all worked out, tell us, if you were the Magnate, what would the basis of your economy be?”
    “Teeth,” said Matthias, slapping open an encyclopedia to a discolored diagram of the human mouth. “Yes, boys, that’s right, yes, teeth, they’re simple, yet difficult to forge, yes, Issa, that’s right, and we all came down with a mouthful, so it’s fair.”
    “Her teeth?” said a corpse with flesh the color and consistency of beef jerky. He waved a pair of pliers at the woman who was leaning, stiff as a plank, against the bar. “I’ve no doubt they have fillings, Grum, but that’s not in the rules, now, is it?”
    “I say the rules is what you make ‘em, Grim!” croaked his eyeless compatriot.
    “I say that’s anarchy,” said Grim, settling down to remove her wedding ring. “Bits that’s attached are hers by right. You can have her belt, though.”
    “Hey,” shouted Remington to no one in particular, “they’re robbing this lady! She can’t move, and they’re taking all her things!”
    No one paid him any mind. “Settle down there, boyo,” said Grum, pulling her belt free and starting on her pantsuit. “We’ve led her safely from the river to the bar, we’ve bought her a drink for her troubles and another for when she wakes, and she’s gone and had her rigor mortis, all of which makes her belongings legally, ethically, and in all other senses, our property.”
    “They call it the Dead City Welcome, so they do,” said Grim, holding the wedding ring up to one eye. “Lucky you escaped it yourself, lad, or you wouldn’t have those lovely dungarees to trade for swill!”
    “Get you a good rate for ‘em if you’re of a mind to trade,” said the Grum. “Even a back pocket will get you nice and toasty for a week or more.”
    “Hair of the three-headed dog, Alfie. Hey, kid, that floozy at the far end, is she on the fresher side of the expiration date, or have I got worms in my eyes? Send her one from me, then. Old habits die hard, am I right? It’s a pity men don’t. Though you know what they say about hanged men, don’t you?”
    “Have you seen Leopold?” said Remington to a barmaid the color of a deep bruise. “He has a floppy neck. Or Jacob? He’s mostly made of leather. Or Adam and Eve? They don’t have heads, and they were here just a minute ago, but everyone’s gone now.”
    The barmaid slid a drink in front of him with a chunk of rotting potato floating at the top. “A minute? You’ve been nursing that pint for a solid week! You’ll make some new friends, hon, just sit still a few more days.” On either side sat rows of corpses with swill dribbling from their sides.