Things Done

Clinton Mathers was perhaps the most unfortunate journalist in existence. Under his new circumstances, he was also the lowest-ranked. He had done what no journalist was ever supposed to do in the new land he was in. He hadn’t been aware of the new rules, but it was expected of him to pay close attention. Whatever it was, he’d been punished for it.

“You, Mr. Mathers, have committed a great offense,” the king’s main advisor had declared angrily. The monarch himself was too affected to speak coherently, so he simply sat back in his throne giving evil eyes to the poor reporter.

“H-H-H-Have I?” Mathers had stuttered, like the redundant idiot he was.

“Is it not an offense to record the activities of the prince after he requested that they not be acknowledged by any third party?” the advisor raged on, doing the dreaded technique of answering a question with a question.

“I apologize. I-I didn’t know it was really important! I mean, I didn’t see any other journalists there, and I thought that was pretty weird—strange, Your Majesty! Er, no, Your Honor. Er, Your…Your…”

“Go on,” the advisor directed him, irritated by the trouble.

“I thought it was sort of strange that no other journalists were there, but I considered it better for me. You see, in my country we record every movement by famous persons such as yourself. People enjoy knowing that the leader of their country is human, too.”

“You are no longer in your country,” the advisor responded, spitting out his words with impressive distaste. “Here in Victus we pride ourselves in awarding our celebrities the privacy denied in other, more primitive, locations. The paparazzi are not to be feared here. That has been our solemn vow for decades, and yet you! You come and ruin it all!” Mathers cowered under the intensity of the rebuke.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, scared out of his wits. “I didn’t know the rules were different.”

“Every visitor is required to read this brief compilation of every rule written in the history of Victus,” the advisor admonished, holding up a book thicker than War and Peace. “Every visitor so far has complied with our small request, save you. What makes you so special?”

“I’m, uh, a reporter?” Mathers tried one last time. The advisor’s response was to fling the text at his head. He barely dodged it. The royal official left him to converse with the king in harsh, whispered tones. Mathers waited anxiously for his punishment. Laws from his country protected citizens against cruel and unusual punishment, but, as he was quickly learning, things were very different here. He was starting to wish he’d read the rules.

“We have decided on your punishment,” the advisor announced, returning to stand before him. “Three trials are common use in our country for the treatment of vagrants such as you. You will experience these over a span of three days. This is the first, and this is the question. A trial of logic.” He ushered the audience out of the large room to keep whatever he was going to say secret. Soon, it was only the king and the advisor. Guards were unnecessary because, as was often the case, the security had taken one look at Mathers’ scrawny self and fought smiles.

“Can I have some sort of hint as to what this is?” Mathers asked just to say. He felt he had to say something to fill up the silence. He was sure it would be ignored or otherwise unanswered.

“Silence!” the advisor glared, as expected. “You come to a new land where it is forbidden to lie. You are not aware of this, as you have not read the rulebook, and tell a lie anyway. Consequently, you are apprehended by the police and brought before the king. He offers you an ultimatum: you are to say one final thing before you are executed. If it is a truth, you will die peacefully through an overdose of sleeping gas. If, however, it is false, you will be burned to death in a room of fire. What do you say?”

Mathers was unnerved by the question because of the obvious parallels it had to his own situation, so his mind was boggled from the beginning. He had feared that whichever answer he chose would be his fate, so he nervously answered, “My hair is brown?”

The advisor and the king stared at him with contempt. The answer was far from correct and his hair, they noticed, was also more of a dirty blonde. He was taken away to a holding cell to await the next day and the next trial, which went no better.

“You are lucky this test has three trials, and so several times during which you may attempt to redeem yourself,” the advisor had growled as Mathers was led in. “Now the second, the trial of trickery. You are trapped at the gates of the Underworld. You come across two guardians sitting to the side of two doors. One door leads to happiness, while the other leads to eternal torment. One guardian, as you know, can only speak lies. The other can only tell truths. You would not like to fall into torture, so you want to reach the good door. What question do you ask to which guardian?” The advisor looks a little put-out, as if he expected Mathers to get this one down pat. He probably assumed that his phrasing allowed for the easiest answer ever. That was not the case.

“Er, do I ask the guardian on the right which door leads to happiness?” Mathers stammered. The advisor and the king both stared at him again, now wondering about his intelligence. The advisor then called the guards to take him back to his cell.

“Your next trial,” he announced, “is a trial by water. Be prepared. It is your last chance.”

Mathers was too afraid to ask what would happen if he failed that trial, too. Now he sat in his cell depressed and distressed. It was obvious that he had no chance of succeeding if his previous two attempts were anything to look back on. Even now he had no idea of the answers he could have said instead. He left his dinner at the corner of the cell, convinced that he had only one more night to live, and settled into a nap. He had never been one for sleep, though he enjoyed it. His life had always been too busy. Now, as he neared the end, he thought it would be nice to at least appear well-rested at his funeral. He sank into a deep snooze.

Hey! he heard someone call out to him. Frowning, he commanded his unicorn to halt and turned to see an outrageously handsome man coming up from behind. His frown deepened. He had read somewhere that only the faces of people you’ve seen before showed up in your dreams, and he would have known if he’d ever seen such an enviable person before.

If you want to pass your third trial, the suited stranger continued as he neared, take this. Spread it over your body before the trial and you’ll be saved. He pressed a vial of some sort of white powder into the dreamer’s hands, gave him a warm smile, and then snapped his fingers.

Mathers awakened to the sound of the guards calling him out for the final test. He looked down at his hands, disoriented, and was surprised to find a bottle of powder in his hands. Where did that come from? It had small holes at the top, so he figured it was salt. For good luck, he dusted it all over his body. It was known that a little salt over the shoulder brought luck and safety, so a lot of salt over both the shoulders, arms, legs, and pretty much everywhere else should bring immense luck and safety. He needed both if he were to survive. Even if he didn’t make it, at least he felt well-rested.



“So we meet again,” the advisor declared unnecessarily, “for the third and final time. The third trial is always the public one, because it decides a lawbreaker’s fate. The terms of the trials change every year, and you’re lucky that your crime did not come at a time when we entertained the trial by fire. You’re pale enough as it is.” He mistook the dusty salt for overwhelming fear. Mathers, who really was turning pale, did not feel the need to correct him.

“This third trial?” he asked worriedly, looking at the swimming pool below him.

“This third trial…ah, perhaps you aren’t lucky after all,” the advisor remarked with a sickening, sadistic grin, “for this third trial requires you to be held underwater for five seconds without getting wet. When we pull you out you must be completely dry.” His grin widened.

“What?” Mathers screeched, turning even paler. “How does that work?! I’d have to be some kind of superhero or something! I can’t do that!”

“That should have been considered before the rule was broken,” the advisor said simply, trying and failing to wipe the smile off his face as he ordered the guards to harness Mathers to the contraption.
Mathers, by this time, was terrified. He knew he was going to die, and he used the brief respite to remind himself of his whole life, everyone he loved and everything he had to be grateful for. Unfortunately, this insight into his life left him more depressed than before. He only had his senile father left, and he was no great joy. His friends were a joke—as in, he had none. And things to be grateful for? Did a bed that had finally been fumigated for all the fleas and bedbugs count? His job was no picnic, especially when it dragged him into situations like this one. No, Mathers did not think he had much to be thankful for. With no one to miss him, death might just be a blessing in disguise. He took a deep breath as he was raised above the water and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, preparing for the end.

The plunge was colder than he expected. He almost let out all of his precious oxygen at the startling chill, and he was lucky that five seconds was a short time. He bitterly wondered why the Victus countrymen couldn’t at least maintain a warm temperature for their pool, especially if a poor man was about to be unceremoniously dumped into it. His life did not flash before his eyes; he chose to go backwards, and he was still in his tumultuous twenties when he was fished out. Mathers felt himself hanging there for a while, fully expecting the advisor to release a rude cackle as he gave the final sentence. There was, however, silence, and it lasted for a long time.

As he began to feel uncomfortable, Mathers opened first one eye, then the other. The advisor, king, guards, and audience were all staring at him with disbelief. He stared back, confused.

“This has only happened twice before,” the advisor said finally after exchanging a long glance with the king. “And though it is entirely out of the blue, I must acknowledge this as fact. You, Clinton Mathers, are hereby released from punishment. Please enjoy your freedom wisely and do not repeat such foolishness, or you will be sorry. There is no chance of a second pardon.”

Mathers let out an audible gulp in reply as he wondered what the policy was for second-time offenders. He was brusquely escorted out of the castle by burly guards before he broke out of the daze. Once he did, a wide smile broke across his face.

“I’m free!” he couldn’t help but shout. “I’m free! I’m free! I love you, Dad! I love you, fleas! Oh man, I am so free!” He skipped around like a little girl, making his way to anywhere far from the castle that put him through so much stress.

“I’m glad you like it so much,” a voice said. Mathers opened his eyes wide as he tried to place where he’d seen the handsome man before. He would have noticed it, he was sure. Beautiful people didn’t talk to him often.