Pyrubloppianquanozoxian

  Geno pumped his fist in the air as he scanned the order details on his screen. 

  “Finally!”

  Things had been dreadfully slow at the stone shop. It seemed all anybody wanted to buy these days were basic garden pavers or buckets of gravel. It’d gotten so bad that he’d been forced to lay off the Brustetta sisters last week. They were two of his oldest and most loyal employees, but he couldn’t afford to carry their salaries anymore. But an order like this could turn everything around. Maybe he could even rehire one of the sisters.

  He opened his desk drawer and grabbed the key to the valuable stone shed, then stood and headed out into the shop with a pep in his step. Stacks of stone lined the walls, but he paid it no mind. Only the cheap stuff was kept out in the open. And there was nothing cheap about the stone in this order. 

  The warm morning sun greeted him as he stepped through the open loading bay door. Piles of unprocessed stone filled the large lot. Geno’s last remaining employee was crouched nearby, a rhythmic pounding ringing out as he hammered away at a large rock. The man never shaved, and sweat dripped from his bushy beard. He wore tattered, mud-crusted jeans, and his leathery, muscled arms were on full display in a stained white tank top. His appearance left a lot to be desired, but the guy was cheap and worked hard. 

  “Morning, Brian,” Geno said as he walked by. 

  Geno’s eyes were fixed on the sturdy shed nearby. His entire supply of rare stone stayed locked up there, and he smiled as he approached. He raised the key and inserted it into the lock.

  “I don’t know if I’d do that if I were you, boss,” Brian called out. 

  Geno paused and looked over his shoulder. 

  “What? Why?” 

  Brian set down his hammer and jogged over. He wiped sweat from the back of his neck and looked down at the ground sheepishly. 

  “I’ve uh… well, I’ve been unloading noxious farts in there for weeks,” Brian said. He lifted his eyes and stared hard at Geno. “You step inside, you may never step back out.”

  “I… what?” Geno removed the key and turned to face his employee. “How would you even get in there?” 

  “Everyone’s got a copy of that key, boss. Sorry, I thought you knew.” 

  That alone was distressing news. The value of the stone in there was close to half a million dollars. 

  “And you use that key to… to fart in the shed?” 

  “I never go all the way in. I crack the door enough to kind of squeeze my butt into the opening and I just fire it off, ya know? And then I slam the door and-”

  “Why?” Geno shouted, interrupting. “You work outside! Why not just fart out here?” 

  “It’s these new pills, boss,” Brian said, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a prescription bottle. “Doctor says I need’em if I want to keep from goin’ bald.” 

  Geno snatched the pills and squinted, trying to read the label. Pyrubloppianquanozoxian. He’d never heard of it, but then again, it seemed a new medication popped up every day.

  “Noxious gas is the main side effect,” Brian said. “If I farted out here, it just might kill the grass, birds, who knows what else.” 

  Annoyed that this was taking away from his earlier elation at the expensive order, Geno shoved the pills back at Brian. 

  “Get back to work,” he barked. “And put your shed key on my desk!”

  Grumbling under his breath, Geno turned back to the shed and unlocked it, then pulled the door open and stepped inside. 

  He gagged. A stinging pain spread through his chest, and his eyes watered, a burning sensation making it difficult to keep them open. He stumbled, nearly falling over, but caught himself against the wall. The air was filled with a green haze, but through it, he saw something incredible. Something impossible. Right where the Cristallo Quartzite was supposed to be, his most beautiful and expensive stone, was something else. 

  Geno’s eyes rolled back in his head. He pitched over backward, knocking the shed door open and falling out of it, unconscious before he hit the ground. 

  He awakened to gentle, rhythmic beeping. It took him a moment to get his eyes open, and his groggy mind was slow to identify where he was. A hospital room. Wires connected him to various machines, and two plastic tubes pumped oxygen into his nose. Outside a window was a starless night sky. He’d been here a while.

  A figure stood next to his bed reading his chart. 

  “Doctor?” Geno croaked. 

  The woman lowered the chart. She affixed him with an icy stare. 

  “No, Mr. Leone. My name is Alicia Saltado. I represent the Pyglorp Pharmaceutical Group. I was informed that an employee of yours takes one of our drugs, Pyrubloppianquanozoxian, and that you may have come into contact with said drug?”

  The memory of that terrible stench and the pain that accompanied it came rushing back. 

  “Something like that,” Geno said. 

  She nodded, then bent down and pulled a packet of paperwork from her bag. 

  “We have some forms you need to sign. NDA, MOU, EIN, LOI, all standard stuff. You get it, you’re a businessman.” 

  Geno shook his head as she extended the stack of papers in his direction. He sat up and started pulling tubes and wires out of his body. 

  “I gotta get out of here,” he muttered. 

  “It’s in your best interest to sign, Mr. Leone. I’m here to make sure you’re protected.” 

  He scoffed and swung his legs off the bed. 

  “My protection, huh?” he said with a humorless chuckle. He stood and walked to the small closet, thankful to see his clothes inside. “Listen, I’m not an idiot, I know how the world works. You’ve got nothing to worry about from me, okay?”

  She made no attempt to avert her eyes, so he shed the hospital gown and started to dress. 

  “It’s important we know every detail of what happened, Mr. Leone. Paramedics found you on the ground in your shop, and your employee, a Mr. Heartly, stated that you took his medication by mistake and passed out.” 

  Geno frowned. So that was the story Brian told? He must’ve dragged Geno out of the heat before calling 911. As for leaving the toxic farting out of his report, it made sense. 

  “Yup. That’s what happened,” Geno said, buckling his belt. 

  He headed for the door, eager to get out of here before a nurse or doctor showed up. In his experience, once the medical professionals got their hooks in you, there was no end to the maladies and infirmities they’d conveniently discover. Best to avoid them altogether.

  “You’re certain there’s nothing else?” the woman asked. “You’re in an awfully big hurry.” 

  He shot her a withering glare. 

  “I’ve got work to do,” he said. “Not all of us have billion-dollar profits and five thousand percent markups on our products.”
  
  Poking his head out and confirming that the coast was clear, Geno left, thankful that the woman didn’t follow.

  Under cover of darkness, Geno stood outside the shed. It was just past midnight. For hours, he’d sat at home debating if he should come. Surely he was being foolish. Surely he hadn’t actually seen anything inside the shed earlier. It had just been a hallucination brought on by the toxic fart-smoke. That was the only explanation that made sense. 

  Why then were his hands trembling as he placed the key into the lock and twisted? He heard it click, then paused, pulling on a gas mask. Then he opened the door and stepped inside. 

  The dark shed was still and quiet. Geno turned on the light, but was met with nothing but a few stacks of precious stone and the green haze in the air. 

  He left the door open, hoping to vent some of the toxic fumes, then moved deeper into the shed. 

  “Hello? Are you in here?” 

  Why did his heart hammer so heavily inside his chest? It was foolish to anticipate the impossible, and yet he lingered. Just when he was about to give up and leave, something moved from behind a stack of marble slabs.

  “Man of flesh. I was hoping you would return. I long to share with you the wisdom of stone.” 

  He watched, dumbfounded, as she stepped into view. A female figure made entirely of Cristallo Quartzite. A living sculpture, the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen. The stone was semi-translucent, giving her a crystalline appearance. Her head was featureless, devoid of eyes, nose, or mouth.

  Breaking from his stunned state, Geno spoke. 

  “What are you? How are you alive?”

  She examined herself as if considering the question for the first time.

  “Something in the air is different here. A chemical compound unlike anything that’s ever existed. It bonded with the stone and brought my essence to life.” 

  Her voice emanated from deep inside her form.

  “Just be glad you don’t have a nose. You wouldn’t appreciate that chemical compound so much if you did.” Geno said. 

  She took a tentative step forward. 

  “I possess knowledge known only to stone and earth. Will you hear it?” 

  Geno slowly nodded. No moment in his life compared to this one. He’d been satisfied running his stone business, but his destiny was much greater than that, it seemed. 

  “Humanity must-” the avatar of stone began.

  “That’s enough of that,” a voice called out from behind, interrupting. 

  Geno whirled around to see Alicia Saltado. She was flanked by two burly thugs, each of them clutching jackhammers. 

  “What are you-” Geno said, shaking his head.

  Alicia kicked him in the groin, and he collapsed in a heap. The two thugs rushed into the shed, tackling the avatar of stone to the floor. 

  “You can’t do this!” Geno said, twisting around to watch in horror as they readied their jackhammers. 

  “We’re well within our rights here, Mr. Leone,” Alicia said. “Pyrubloppianquanozoxian is a proprietary formula, as is anything created by coming into contact with it. That includes this… thing here.” 

  The jackhammers roared to life, a rapid-fire THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD shaking the shed as they got to work breaking the avatar of stone apart. 

  Geno tried to help, but he was still wracked with pain. Alicia knelt on his back, keeping him from interfering.

  “Wait! Stop!” the avatar screamed. “I have the secrets of the earth. You must hear them! They can save humanity! They can stop disasters and bring forth an era of peace and prosperity unlike any-”

  Her words cut off as her head broke into pieces. Whatever force brought life to her was gone. 

  Geno cried. He watched, powerless, as the thugs swept up the remains into black trash bags. 

  Alicia slid a check into his pocket, then patted him on the back. 

  “This is to cover your loss of materials and time. We also threw in a rather generous amount to compensate you for any troubles this may have caused.” 

  She stood up, looming over him as the thugs exited the shed. 

  “And remember, when sickness or illness causes your spirits to droop, you can always count on a great drug from Pyglorp Pharmaceutical Group.” 

  She chuckled to herself as she left. 

  Brian didn’t show up for work the next morning. When Geno tried to call him, he got a recording that stated the number was no longer in service. Even his social media profiles had disappeared. Geno searched through his filing cabinet for the hiring paperwork, hoping to find a next of kin or emergency contact he could call. But the paperwork was gone, stolen in the night. All traces that Brian had ever existed had been wiped clean.

  Geno busied himself with a small project, his mind troubled. He was old enough to understand this was the way of the world, but it didn’t mean he liked it.

  “Hola, Geno,” the Brustetta sisters called out in unison. 

  He’d rehired them this morning, right after confirming with the bank that the check from Pyglorp was real and the funds were en route to his account. He gave them a half wave as he walked out of the shop and strode toward the shed. 

  Using three nails to ensure it stayed in place, Geno hammered a handmade sign onto the shed door. He stood back and studied it, then shook his head. How unreal, it seemed, that the last 24 hours of his life had led to him needing to erect such a message in the workplace. 

  The sign stated in bold red letters: NO FARTING IN THE SHED.