The nightclub had ended fruitlessly. No contact to greet me and help 
me along my way, but | knew other ways to find the path towards 
that ultimate destination. | was making progress, even if it was slow, 
and | had to keep my eyes forward. The next clue was just down the 
street, a little French pastry store that was the fail-safe if the 
nightclub failed. The contact worked there, and if | didn't find him | 
would find where he used to be, goddammit. 


The afternoon sun baking the street side cafés and marketplaces, 
with the throngs moving aimlessly about their lives, directionless and 
lost. But I, | Knew the way. The way towards the destination wasn't 
clear, much less straightforward, but it was there. You just had to 
find it. You just had to know the way. Me? | knew the way. Or a way 
at least. | was dedicated. | was prepared. 


| was on my Mission. 


| leaned back in my chair, the plane finally breaking over the cloud 
cover into the bright light of the sun. First class, with plenty of leg 
room and plenty of room for thought. The other occupants were 
mostly rich businessman who had too much money to be caught 
fraternizing with the lower class. None of them gave me a second 
glance, and | was perfectly fine with it that way. Assholes with their 
noses in the air and silver spoons in their pockets, the lot of them. 


The night club had fallen through, but | had picked up the trail again, 
finding which rat-hole my contact's killer had slinked under, and | 
was on the beat again, inching towards the murderous bastard. 


On my way, another step closer towards salvation, towards my 
ultimate and likely final case. Closer and closer | got, one step closer 
and one step deeper. 


Flipping through the magazine, some drivel about the economy that 
| grabbed in the airport, my thoughts wandered. Almost 


thoughtlessly, | grabbed the pocket watch and flipped it open. The 
ancient hands clicking around in an endless chase around the dial, 
almost as endless and pointless as mine seemed to be. Foreboding, 
to be sure, but none so much as the picture across from it. 


The one woman | ever fell in love with. 
Ms. Sweetie. 


Shutting the watch and clenching the old watch in a fist as the 
bittersweet memories flowed along with the anger, sorrow, joy, and 
regret that inevitably came with them as | once again re-avowed to 
complete this journey. Redd. Redd. Even thinking the name made 
my pulse rise and teeth gnash in anger. Redd, the one person who 
was more of a bastard than my mark. 


| shook my head, setting the watch back in the pin-striped suit's 
breast pocket. | was on my way, after the mess in the city, well on 
my way towards the goal. Soon, | would get to my goal, and it would 
be over. One way or the other, | could finally lay Ms. Sweetie's 
memory to rest. One way or another, we would finally finish this 
long, pointless journey around our hopeless dial. 


One way or the other, someone was going to pay. 
Previous: 9. Mr. Clumsy by Tanhony 
Next: Interval 2 by Salman Corbette 


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Interval 2 


Mr. Appleseed. Seriously, that's my name. And wouldn't you know it, 
whenever | sneeze, cough, or fart, out come appleseeds. It sucks. 
This is, of course, only exacerbated by the fact that | was just picked 
up by the Foundation and now | feel quite the sneeze coming on. 


Hold on, wait, they're not taking me captive. They're taking off my 
handcuffs. What's that they're saying? 


"Ah, welcome back Dr. King." 
Previous: 10. Mr. Mission by Gerald 
Next: 11. Mr. Feather by Light 


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71. Mr. Feather 


Mr. Feather drifts off a clifftop and flutters down four hundred feet, 
passing clumps of hairy grass and rock dove nests, and hits the 
ground at the bottom with a thump. He groans, and pulls himself up 
to his elbows, only to meet the eyes of a short, round-faced girl with 
black hair standing at the ravine. She blinks mutely. 


He stands up, brushes off the elbows of his suit, pulls down the 
powder-blue lapels and straightens the feather from his hat. The 
man is skinny, too skinny, and he looks like a corn stalk, but, 
eminently polite, he leaves his hat off and bows to the girl all the 
same. 


She blinks at him, and Mr. Feather immediately knows what she 
thinks- she’s six or seven, just where things that can’t happen have 
just come apart from things that can happen, and Mr. Feather is one 
of those: men don’t exist who can drift off the tallest hillside in the 
state and not be all broken and twisted. And he got up again. 


The girl turns tail and runs. Mr. Feather smiles and follows her. 
Something is flapping in his chest. She doesn’t know him yet—Mr. 
Feather can always fall and never break. 


At her home, the girl’s mother cooks dinner for the two of them, 
when Mr. Feather knocks on her door. He is, she thinks, so thin, that 
when he gently tells her, “Madam, my car broke down up the road- if 
you don’t mind, I’m very hungry, | have a blood condition-” He stops 
once she smiles a little, won over, embarrassed for his plight. “Well, 
let me look in the fridge, | might have some fruit...” 


Her girl, the black-haired one, stands in the hallway and stares at 
him. He looks at her, but feels a familiar gentle tug in his chest— 
there is a bird living there, and it just woke up. His vision goes a little 
faint-colored, and the girl’s gaze passes through him. 


“Actually, pardon me, madam-” Just as she turns towards the 


won't let me look... 


Ms. H was treated with Class A Amnestic and the remains of her 
legs were amputated. Tissue damage was consistent with the frozen 
remains recovered from the ashes. The mannequin showed no 
unusual properties after being removed from the site of SCP-717. 
The stains on its hands were from black paint found in the 
basement, not blood. No unexpected substance was found in its 
material. 


Contact was established with the SCP-717 entity/entities after a 
second manneauin animated in the basement. Containment 
procedures were agreed upon and SCP-717 was dormant for the 
next thirty years until it became active to negotiate the cessation of 
certain activities. Under no circumstances are any containment staff 
to enter into negotiations with SCP-717. 


« SCP-716 | SCP-717 | SCP-718 » 


refrigerator, it slips and he tumbles over the house’s railing. Out, 
down, over the deck and the manicured suburban lawn- the grass 
hardly touches him. It slips a little further so that when he blows 
towards a chainlink fence and passes through it- now comes the 
interpass, three cars swerve out of his way, a motorcycle slows 
down as he whooshes past. Two car drivers talk when they pass by- 
tumbleweeds don’t grow around here, do they? Must be 
construction. Heels over head and around and around, he falls to 
rest in a ditch full of ivy, and comes back slowly, wincing. 


Sighing, he gets up again, putting on his hat. It wouldn’t do to forget 
it. If Redd is really there when he arrives, he doesn’t know what he'll 
do, but these days the memory of Ms. Sweetie- well, Sweetheart, he 
called her- is enough to keep him going. Sugar and Feathers were 
always a good combination, right? Light, lovable, and halfway 
intangible and breakable- well, no. Not that. For that reason alone, it 
could have never worked. 


Mr. Feather feels for the feather in his hat, adjusts it, and keeps 
walking. With any luck, he'll hitch a ride. Night falls on the highway, 
and he walks and he walks and the birds fly home around him. 


Previous: Interval 2 by Salman Corbette 
Next: 12. Mr. Laugh by Alias 


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12. Mr. Laugh 


So, so, my name is Mr. Laugh! Like 'ha ha! hee hee!’ So I'm in the 
middle of this, this big shopping centre right? Like with strip malls on 
all sides, ha ha? But that's not very funny is it! A few kids were 
laughing at my weird facepaint and the stripes on my clothes, but 
really nothing was very funny and it wasn't very nice of them to 
laugh. It hurt my feelings a little, ha ha. 


| wasn't mean or anything though! | even decided to show them a 
good trick! | said “would you like a hand” to one of the kids, hee hee, 
and then | put my hand out to shake his... but then when he 
grabbed my hand, it came off, and | said, | said, “There, now you've 
got a spare one!” Ha ha! Funny, right? 


Only the kid just screamed and ran away, which | thought, | thought 
was kind of mean, because it was a good trick, you know! A little bit 
painful when it comes off but good! Then | had to get out my little 
sewing kit and put my trick hand back on and, hee hee, clean up all 
the blood because you know | am a very good citizen who would 
never leave a mess in the middle of the street like that! 


Then, then | remembered | was supposed to be going somewhere, 
somewhere important! | had to go down, down to the fair to meet the 
others! Ha ha, silly me forgetting something like that. Silly, stupid, 
worthless clown, ha ha! Ha ha! So | started down the street toward 
the fair when these men in weird coats came in a screaming car and 
asked if | was hurt. They were not funny at all and their screaming 
car made my ears hurt, so, so when one of them came close | 
decided to shake his hand with a buzzer, ha ha! He was very 
surprised when he shook my hand! He was so surprised, his eyes 
popped right out of his sockets! | laughed very hard when that 
happened! It was less funny when they were dangling on bloody 
little cords and he started screaming, but that was okay because the 
other men took him away in the screaming car, so | did not have to 
look at them very long. 


| am avery mean clown sometimes, hee hee. A very bad, stupid 
clown, ha ha! That is a funny joke, even if it hurts my feelings a little, 
hee hee. | know it is funny because Mr. Redd always laughed so 
hard when he said it! Ha ha! Mr. Redd was not very funny, but he 
sure laughed a lot. Maybe HE should have been Mr. Laugh! Ha ha! 
Would that ever be a funny joke! If | ever met Mr. Redd again, | 
would have to tell him what a funny joke | had thought of. Maybe he 
would laugh! Sometimes he stopped hurting me for a little, when he 
laughed. 


| picked up my big floppy shoes and walked on down to the fair. 
Previous: 11. Mr. Feather by Light 
Next: 13. Mr. Purple by Faminepulse 


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13. Mr. Purple 


The pointy tip of my cane was quite thirsty, and the punk sating the 
end of it wasn't doing much as far as quenching went. Yet, steel 
tongue, slavering ruby filth, withdrew from the wound in the tenant's 
skull with a delicate twist, flourish, and charm. The man's shouting 
and whining — the contorted wobble of a recently marred mutt — 
chimed every now and again until his chest stopped moving. The 
steely fang leapt in again and again, perforating the vessel of flesh, 
forcefully liberating the soul. Everything else from then on was 
spectacle: little bits of flesh removing the need for anything as vulgar 
as a chalk outline, lazy strands of emancipated veins like the roots 
or branches of an old willow, a porous face and honed pupils 
entombed in perpetual disbelief. | found myself laughing like a 
macaque with each recoil. Baring teeth, my crooked, gnarled grin 
envied by piranha. 


When it was all said and mutilated, | sat next to the corpse sensing 
the cold glare not of conscience, but discontent. | was still hungry, 
and I'd want to sate that nagging appetite before this convulsion was 
all said and done. The twitch came and went; life came and went. | 
caught at the man's blood vacating the throat, spluttering, stupid, 
and held back a titter. 


| was a hermit in a vague village full of vague people. | was old, 
broken, weathered, with a sour sense of humor. On that trail | looked 
through windows of houses and saw sills with little gardens in them. 
| saw mossy wooden shacks with boards made from ancient but 
obscure trees, built by drifters an untellable amount of time ago. | 
would look at the changing weather, the shifting sky, the dark and 
the light, how the sun would rise and fall, and | would laugh. | 
thought it was funny, how they did such things in such a course, with 
such punctuality. The blue sky, with a big gaping mouth minutes 
from savoring the world. 


In my dreams | jumped up into gray clouds and made a home. In 
this dream my brain was hanging out of the top of a fractured skull 
by the wires, orbited by chickadees singing pop goes the weasel. A 
soft dream that made me wake feeling refreshed and happy, if only 
for a moment, before the thoughts of Mr. Redd returned from the 
miasma in my crippled psyche. | found some solace in the 
silhouettes on walls, friend to an afterthought of a candle, and the 
shadows which would often grace my feet. This shadow would 
always stand silent and waiting for my next move, ever faithful, only 
victim to changing light. 


| grafted the space between my pant-leg and my flesh with the aid of 
mountain air and some novice oxidation. My eye-holes were 
bouncing back and forth; reaming! The clouds played a respectful 
homage as they slowly wafted by; soft grays and impossible purples. 
| pulled the cloth from the oil and winced slightly, noticing the clouds 
were smiling at me and informing me that | should give up. Mr. Redd 
appeared in my mind occasionally to inform me that | was a great lie 
caught between a little truth. 


In my dreams, | was running from something unforeseeable. 
Hobbling; in wide circles around a little grubby hovel with my tail 
clanking between my legs. Lightning striking the ground hundreds of 
miles away punctuated the time between the tips of my footpads 
hitting the ground and the pivot of my heels manipulating soft orange 
dust. | thought that | had long since lost my oppressors’ shadow 
underneath the pistons and gears years ago, but his intuition had 
never failed him. | am always anxious. 


| stirred that morning attentive, and my wits bade me take flight 
through the threshold of the cave where | was resting — little faceless 
god-knows-whats hanging from veins along the walls bade me 
farewell. 


| etched "Liar" into a headstone leaning on a cliff | came across, 
although I’m not sure why. | set the crude visage of a headless 
peacock which | had produced from my skull to perch the top. There 
were a few wind chimes nearby hanging from some petrified cacti. | 
pulled back a leather hatch leading down into a hole nearby and 
rested my head on the organs inside. 


The pounding heat turned the few hairs below the horizon into the 
fabled river of death. Masses of pulsing, wriggling agate-skinned 
maggots curdled and churned there. | made-believe once that | had 
flown off into the rot, towards the black shores of fingernails. | would 
fly there; high, up towards the brain, and commit the full tilt of a 
nosedive deep into the bowels - trailing with stygian blood — killing 
Mr. Redd and myself. A bittersweet daydream, even if things never 
went quite as expected. 


The sun was present that day, as was the rain; friends they were to 
soft glowing golden clouds. The dusk signaled me to put on my 
footpads — it was a night for a walk. | went down into the city so that 
something might find me there. | had not exercised in a long time, 
and | was starting to malfunction. | opened my mouth and "fix by 
sigh why night" let loose: my usual incoherent jumble when | try to 
vocalize. | didn't mind the tongues, and it didn't really matter when 
no one else was around. So I'd walk a mile or two down to a dive 
muttering this gibberish, muttering this "alarm invention at what time 
| descry why try" and tilt my hand over my cane as if performing for 
the dirt. No, | didn't need to flatter the dirt, not Mr. Purple. Mr. Purple 
was pretty and he knew things! 


Occasionally | would stop, and scowl into the trees. | knew they 
were out there: Mr. Redd’s shy and malefic shadows.