...though the graveyards here would have some pretty interesting people in them, I'm sure. With five hundred years minimum entry fee, you'd better. I wonder if ghosts play poker with their years. Playing poker with time.
Five hundred year minimum bet. Four hundred year raise. I see your four hundred and raise you fifty. Fold. I win. Nine hundred and fifty years gone? Nine hundred and fifty in servitude? It's a cruel world and it's a cruel afterlife, buddy...
So our hero arrives with nothing but the clothes on his back. He has nothing to tell anyone, and wonders if this is a place where he was supposed to sell something. "Is that my job? Am I a salesman?"
The inkling of an idea tickled the back of his mind, but was gone in an instant. He had the vague recollection that he was supposed to be here- that there was an important purpose for his visit, but he wasn't sure any more. He gripped his briefcase- had there been a briefcase there before? He wasn't sure, but he gripped it anyway- tightly, and strode in through the gate. He heard a rustle behind him and turned in time to see the gate swing shut with a click.
Who had swung it shut?
He was more and more uneasy about his purpose here. He still couldn't remember his exact job- it was important though. It was-
"Howdy!"
A disembodied voice floated over the gravestones. It had that strange echo that happens in open, silent spaces. 'Howdy' was probably the last thing a voice like that should be saying. Maybe some scary moaning, or, 'I'm coming for you'. But not Howdy.
A man in a brown business suit in a cowboy hat stepped out from behind one of the tallest of the headstones. "Howdy there partna!" he said enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically for our hero's taste. "WELCOME to Home On The Range!"
His attempt at a southern accent was terrible.
Without waiting for an answer, he strode forward and wrapped an arm around our hero's shoulders. "This here is one FINE piece of property! Yessir, one fine place to settle down! You got all types! You got the mormons and the christians and the crazies and the kooks. You got yer atheists and yer- whatchallem'...aaagnastics, and yer smart fellas and yer dumb ones. There's men, women, brunettes, blondes- though I'm partial to a blonde haired, blue eyed lady misself, you got yer straights and yer homasexials. It's no city, but it's a hell of a place. Yessir, a helluva place."
The arm around his shoulders guided him through the yard, while the man gestured with his free arm to the stones one either side. He smiled and winked and tucked one thumb under the suspenders that were underneath of the brown coat. Our hero looked and noticed that they were rainbow colored. He deeply questioned the sanity of this man, but was also very aware of the fact that he being held firmly under his sizable arm.
The man continued, "Well, I imagine you'll want to meet some o the folks, they're not too bad atall, nosir, not too bad atall. Just about the most decent and God fearin' folks you could hope to meet!"
Our hero ventured a question, hesitantly, "I thought- I thought you said that there were agnostics and atheists in here."
The man just smiled wider, "Well aha, we got ourselves a Sherlock Holmes! Yessir, it seems I did say that. Well, they're decent folks anyways. I'd just as soon be friends with a possum as friends with a person, as they say!"
He was sure no one had ever ever said that.
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