The Unbelievably True Adventures of Pistol Larry

Day 3 in San Sibilia

title: Day 3 in San Sibilia
episode: 00002
date: 2023-03-06
marks: 0/4

Dear X,

I arrived in San Sibilia three days ago. I can’t believe I’m actually here.

I’ll have to tell you all about how I got here because it’s quite a story in itself.

But first, I must tell you what happened to me this morning!

So I’ve been staying in a small apartment above a bookstore near downtown by the river. Across the street is this coffee shop that doesn’t really even have a location of its own. It just kind fills this alley between two other buildings. There’s kind of a kiosk where they brew the actual coffee, but otherwise it’s all outdoors and there are tons of plants and stuff. The outdoorsiness of it makes it feel really extemporaneous and organic and random. I could spend the whole day there. I have, in fact.

Anyway this morning I was leaving the apartment, and outside the bookstore was a small crowd gathered around a street performer. He was jugging and clowning around. I slowed down on my way to the cafe to satisfy my curiosity and glance at the show.

The performer was precariously balancing on a wheel while doing a sword-swallowing, fire-eating ventriloquist act. Not with a dummy or anything, like most ventriloquists do. But—even more impressively—she was capable of singing arietta with an esophagus full of sword.

I was arrested and stopped dead in my tracks, so intriguing and awe-inspiring was her performance.

But then suddenly, at the end of her performance, to the sound of thunderous applause, she lost her balance on her unicycle while drawing the sword from her throat. She wobbled and teetered and the entire crowd gasped and lurched forward as one as though to catch her. But she fell onto the hardtop and jarring herself so, bit down on the blade of the sword. It was absolutely harrowing. The crowd cried in fear and disgust and fell into panic as her broken teeth rolled into the street.

Only for her to jump up with a broken grin and remove her dentures with a flourish. It was all an act! And the crowd breathed a sigh of relief and laughed a nervous laugh and tossed coins into her hat and then dispersed, trying to hide their embarrassment and discomfort at having been taken in by so cruel and grotesque a trick.

Later at the coffee shop that is not a shop I couldn’t stop thinking about the performance. I played the scene over and over in my head. The violent impact, the sickening injury. And I couldn’t help but wonder at the evolution of the performer’s act, at how she ever dreamed of such a terrible finale. Of how she lost her teeth in the first place. Of whether, at some time in the past, her act didn’t actually end in such calamity and misfortune.

And now the question is yours to ponder as well. I’m afraid I may have done you an unkindness by telling the story at all. Tales and songs are infectious things, and can drive a person mad. Remind me to finish telling you about Old Den’Volture some time.

Still me,

Pistol Larry

On the Back of Den’Volture

title: On the Back of Den'Volture
episode: 00001
date: 2023-03-05
marks: 0/4

Dear X,

Where to begin.

I suppose the best place, as they say, is at the beginning.

Which means that I must tell you of Old Den’Volture.

Den’Volture was a young coxswain that fateful day when he steered his boat too close to the fabled Isle of Flowers and became enchanted by the song of the flower maidens. He only avoided throwing himself overboard and dashing himself to pieces on the rocky shore because his rowers wrestled him to the deck and held him there—weeping and crying—until they were all well out ear shot.

Never after was he able to recall the melody or the words of the song. He would startle awake in the dead of night with the song on the tip of his tongue, maddeningly beyond his reach. Now and then a word or three would come to him. Or a single note. Each morsel of memory a gift snatched from the void. Each gift just enough to torment him endlessly.

He started covering his body in ink. Tattoos of single words and phrases. When words failed to come, he covered himself in the images coaxed from his dreams by the phantom song.

In his darkest moods, Den’Volture doubted his memories were anything but the cruel conjurations of his twisted imagination and his own broken mind. But even then he dared not ignore a single revelation. And eventually his body became a living tapestry.

Every square inch of his body was covered once, twice, and thrice over. A dizzying lattice, maddening and inscrutable. Every inch, that is, save for those over his heart.

It wasn’t until years later that on my far flung adventures I started recognizing landmarks and vistas and eventually realized that Den’Volture’s flesh was a map.

As the hidden road born of Den’Volture’s madness rolled out ahead of me over the subsequent years, I finally found myself circling the one uncharted area, the one blank space on the map.

And eventually I arrived at the heart of San Sibilia.

Writing even this much, X, has made me weary.

I will post this immediately, and then I must rest. But don’t worry, I have plenty more to tell, and will write you again soon.

Till then,

I’m still,

Pistol Larry