Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt Page A

or spell book.
    Sorry, Ulvaak. Will an epic poem make up for it?

The Song of Ulvaak

    With a poisoned blade and a list of names
I stabbed and slashed and made my fame
    For gold, I took lives free of blame
    In the city of Gamotia

    Gamotia! Teeming, dreaming jewel
    Streets alive and quick and cruel
    Fighter, warlock, priest, and fool
    Could scheme for gold and glory

    Each of us born, three dice thrown
    Our strength, our brains, our fates alone
    The sky gods chose our path—unknown
    To even them, our story

    Ringed with dungeons, breathing hell
    Filled with weapon, wealth, and spell
    And few who ventured lived to tell
    But those who did—lived well

    My sword was keen, my armor thick
    No fighter’s thrust or wizard’s trick
    Or curse from priest, or thieving pick
    Could pierce my heart of stone

    So off one day I rode and rode
    Into a dungeon’s maw I strode
    Some beast to worry, bait, and goad
    Then kill, to claim a bounty

    Then down a crooked hallway crept
    Across a spiked canyon leapt
    Into a chamber, phantom-swept
    There sat my newest prey

    A hissing demon made of bone
    A rotted tunic, eyes that shone
    Regal, sat on silver throne
    A zombie king, I reckoned

    It made no difference—I’d been paid
    A killer’s contract had been made
    This ghoul’s head, severed, would be laid
    On my retainer’s table

    Then up he sprang and drew a scroll
    And with a voice dry-dark as coal
    Began a chant that pierced my soul
    And froze me where I stood

    I wore two rings—one carved from jade
    And one of mithril—Elvish made
    The first one caused all magic to fade
    The second made me swift

    Not swift enough, or so it seemed
    The ghoul’s eyes, sockets, yet still gleamed
    And then drew close, and grave mist steamed
    Out of his hinge-y jaw

    “Your contract’s null, yet you will live
    I’m not the one your death to give
    That fate awaits—but, like a sieve,
    Your time is running short.”

    He said, “There’s worlds above our own
    We are but fancies, proxies thrown
    Into a dream—not flesh and bone
    We are but dice and paper.”

    I’d long since learned—ignore the dead
    The eldritch legions deal in dread
    And riddles, hexes, teasing, led
    The foolish to their doom

    But he’d touched something long suspected
    And my confidence infected
    Weakened, shook—his words projected
    Louder in that room

    “We’re hero figures for the weak
    Who aren’t yet confident to speak
    To girls, or claim the life they seek,”
    The ghoul said with a sigh

    “And so we wade through blood and gore
    Claim a treasure, bed a whore
    Accomplish deeds beyond a door
    The ‘gods’ have not yet opened.”

    Then all his matter turned to dust
    Away he flew upon a gust
    Of death-fed wind; my body-rust
    Was, all at once, no more

    Back in Gamotia, suddenly
(Or had it always bothered me?)
    I sensed a subtle falsity
    In every face I spied

    Their skills and defects, will and wit
    Seemed paper-thin and counterfeit
    Their fates the same and long pre-writ
    Off in some far-off sky

    The sky! I noticed, seemed to be
    Of crumpled foolscap, torn—and me
    No longer was I a killer free
    To guide my own life’s path
    I sensed, somewhere outside the land,
    A soft and inexperienced hand
    That knew no steel and claimed no land
    Had brought me into being

    And so decided, in a flash
    I’d not be tossed away like trash
    My sword would rend and gnaw and lash
    Against a pudgy god

    [At this point “The Song of Ulvaak” suddenly stops and is replaced by the transcribed lyrics of Phil Collins’s “One More Night,” followed by an embarrassing and desperate love note.]

On a Street
in New Orleans

Peter Runfola

    My uncle Pete was insane.
    I know there was a proper medical term, a specific
diagnosis,
for what he had. A sort of schizophrenia or something. But that knowledge died with my grandfather, who took care of Pete for most of his sixty or so years. * Pete died a few years before Grandfather, which was just as well. Grandpa Runfola was attuned to