Sticky Rice, Bare Fingers, and Slippery Chopsticks

Sticky Rice, Bare Fingers, and Slippery Chopsticks

Rain misted across the windshield. The 40th century post-apocalyptic world beyond the 1968 VW Bus lay grey and dripping, but inside the little food truck, it was warm, filled with the rich scent of boiled rice, steamed clams, and buttered cabbage.

Tiny bowls cluttered the table — rice, seaweed, carrots, clams — their contents steaming, fragrant.

BoomFuzzy sat on one of the bench seats, long fluffy purple tail draped awkwardly into the aisle, expertly plucking mouthfuls with lacquered black chopsticks. His skin, the colour of polished ebony, shimmered under the dim golden light, wild grey dreadlocks tumbling down his shoulders. Though he wore a purple tartan kilt and roared in thick Highland brogue, BoomFuzzy was neither fully Scottish nor entirely Faerie.

Born of a Black half-Human, half-Phooka father from Papua New Guinea and a half-Human, half Aswang Mongolian-Chinese mother, raised by Gypsy clans in the misty Shetland Isles of Scotland, BoomFuzzy embodied a patchwork heritage most Americans like GhoulSpawn would never have guessed at a glance. His deft chopstick technique bore the elegance of his mother’s lineage, moving with effortless grace between bowls.

Quaraun perched beside him, wrapped in layers of shimmering pink silk, using his delicate gold chopsticks to scoop food into his mouth, sometimes abandoning them entirely to use his fingers. He moved like a noble, his long silver hair pooling around him like liquid metal, yet plucked rice with his bare fingers as naturally as breathing.

In Quaraun’s homeland, Persia, eating with one’s hands was a sign of wealth, refinement — proof that one’s skin was clean enough, refined enough, to touch sacred food. Utensils, in his mind, were for the dirty and the desperate, beggars not kings. Beggars lacked sanitation and soap and had dirt under their fingernails, thus were forced to lower themselves to eating with forks and spoons, as their hands were simply too dirty to touch food. And because of this the Persian Moon Elf absolutely refused to touch a fork or a spoon. Eating food with his bare hands or drinking it from the dish. Though he would use chopsticks when eating with his Black Chinese husband, BoomFuzzy.

GhoulSpawn watched the couple eat. BoomFuzzy, the often crude and rude Faerie delicately and expertly eating with his chopsticks. Quaraun the always prim and proper Elf, scooping up rice and boiled cabbage with his bare hands.

GhoulSpawn slouched uncomfortably, knees jammed against the tabletop, chopsticks clenched clumsily in one hand. His tall satyr frame dwarfed the tiny confines of the old Kombi Bus, making him look more like an adult trapped in a child’s dollhouse.

GhoulSpawn stared at his chopsticks. After several failed attempts at picking up anything, he took one chopstick and skewer style stabbed at a carrot, missed, and cursed under his breath. He stared at the blunt, not pointy end of his chopstick.

“It’s not even sharp enough to stab food with and eat it off the stick like a skewer,” GhoulSpawn complained.

BoomFuzzy laughed.

“Lad, ya ain’t supposed to stab it,” BoomFuzzy said. “These are chopsticks, not shish kebob skewers.”

“Shish kebob skewers would be easier.”

“Ye look like yer joustin’ wi’ a bloody parsnip,” BoomFuzzy teased, lips pulling back from his gold-plated teeth in a wide grin.

“I don’t get this!” GhoulSpawn grumbled, as he tried picking up rice again and only succeeded in flicking a single grain of rice into the air.

It landed on Quaraun’s sleeve.

Quaraun calmly plucked the grain off with two fingers and popped it into his mouth.

“You are meant to lift the rice,” Quaraun instructed in his precise, book-learned English, every syllable crisp and formal. “Not wage battle against it. And if chopsticks are really that difficult for you, use the clam shells.”

Quaraun demonstrated his point by grabbing a steamed clam, dunking the shell into the rice, scooping rice up in the shell and then daintily eating the clam and the rice out of the shell.

GhoulSpawn picked up a steamed clam and stared at it, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“This is a slug.”

“Glinta,” Quaraun scolded. “You come from an era when food was plentiful and you could sit on your ass bitching about eating what you like and avoiding what you dislike. But we do not have that luxury in our time. Ninety per cent of the planet is buried in ice. Vegetables are a luxury. Meat is nearly none existent, though as an Elf I do not eat meat anyways. Lichen is plentiful on trees. Fungi are plentiful near springs. And with Humans nearly extinct, the oceans have largely healed of their pollution and seafood has been able to make a comeback. We live in a lighthouse, on a beach, in a cove, at the mouth of an estuary, surrounded by a salt marsh, on the outskirts of a swamp. Which mean we are blessed with multitudes of clams, and mussels, and scallops, and periwinkles, and whelks, and limpets, all of which are, as you put it, slugs. Plus crabs and lobsters and kelp and sea lettuce and urchins, and — “

“I get it, the world died, got buried in an ice age and ninety percent of your diet is sea food, and until I can figure how to get back to my own time period, my diet is going to be seafood as well.”

“We are deeply blessed, Glinta,” Quaraun went on. “You do not seem to realize how bad the lack of food really is for most people. We are fortunate because we have the Bio-Dome. But is took me and Unicorn and his UnSeelie Court decades to build it and get it to a point where we could sustain ourselves. And for all of those decades, we had no fruits, no vegetables, no grains, because they simply could not grow in the ice and snow. We spent decades travelling the entire planet in search of seeds in bunkers, plants in greenhouses, then decades propagating, grafting. Glinta, you see us today with grains, vegetables, fruits, but it was not very long ago we did not have that. We had clams. And kelp. And more clams. Clams every meal. Clam stew. Clam chowder. Clam cakes. Clam fritters. Steamed clams. Boiled clams. Baked clams. Nothing but endless clams. No bed of rice to put the clams on. No vegetables to eat with the clams. And even now with production of fruits and vegetables in the BioDome, they are still of limited supply and clams STILL makes up the bulk of our diet.”

GhoulSpawn scowled. His 20th century American upbringing hadn’t prepared him for this 40th century ice age. Back in the 1970s, everything came with a knife and fork — neat, efficient, sterile, mass produced, pre-packaged, bought in store, and a wide range of options. Watching a silk-draped aristocrat eat with bare fingers and a Scottish kilted Faerie dance between bowls with chopsticks, the two of them eating steamed clams, boiled cabbage, and rice like they were the grandest fine dining ingredients the world had to offer, which they were, scrambled his cultural expectations until he did not know which way was up.

“I’d rather have a fork,” GhoulSpawn grumbled, trying again and succeeding only in catapulting a clam into BoomFuzzy’s lap. “And pizza.”

BoomFuzzy roared with laughter, tail flopping, knocking over an empty cabbage bowl.

“Nae forks, Glinta! Learn or starve!”

Undeterred, GhoulSpawn gave up on elegance entirely and cradled the rice bowl to his mouth, shovelling awkwardly with the sticks.

“American manners,” BoomFuzzy snorted, snatching another clam with wicked speed. “Use a fork for mashin’ spuds an’ skewering hearts, aye, but nae for eatin’ sacred rice.”

Quaraun smiled softly, blue eyes gleaming under the dripping condensation. Despite the cramped table, despite GhoulSpawn’s chaos, this messy togetherness warmed him better than any fire. Home was not stone walls and silk draperies, not polished floors or diamond rings. Home was BoomFuzzy’s thick accent teasing across the food-laden table, was GhoulSpawn’s muttered curses over lost grains of rice, was the familiar scent of boiled cabbage and brine.

The VW Bus creaked as GhoulSpawn shifted, trying to tuck his long, goatish legs under the tiny table without kicking over a seaweed dish. Outside, the mist thickened, swallowing the world beyond their battered blue shell. Here, inside, everything was cozy and warm, the narrow benches crowded with bowls and bodies and laughter.

Quaraun reached for another bite with his fingers, utterly at peace, uncaring of what anyone thought of his eating habits. He plucked a carrot slice, popped it into his mouth, and glanced at GhoulSpawn, struggling valiantly with his chopsticks.

“Practice,” Quaraun said. “Makes a prodigious difference.”

“I think,” GhoulSpawn grunted, clutching a handful of rice like a club. “I’ll end up starving first.”

BoomFuzzy let out a hearty laugh and reached over to ruffle GhoulSpawn’s unruly golden hair with a scarred hand.

“Ye’re doin’ better’n Quaraun did his first month wi’ me, Lad. He near skewered me wi’ a chopstick!”

“I did not!” Quaraun protested, pink silks fluttering indignantly.

“Aye ye did,” BoomFuzzy said, licking rice from his fingers. “An’ ye still eat like a heathen wee prince. Fancy manners, bare fingers. Refusing to use cutlery.”

“I am Persian,” Quaraun sniffed. “Forks are for peasants.”

GhoulSpawn shook his head, bewildered, smiling despite himself. Whatever madness this strange little family spun, somehow he belonged.

This story is published in:

• Three Wizards and a Food Truck

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Includes the following stories: Wishing For Lobster Rolls: A Lesson In Why One Never Makes Wishes In The Presence of Wizards The Food Truck's Warm Protective Embrace Absinthe Slushies: An Ode to Frozen Green Fairy Wine Sticky Rice, Bare Fingers, and Slippery Chopsticks Kiss Me FA: Just Another Day in the Ice-Laced Ruins of The GodForsaken City The Bridge of Doom Zwodder: A Drowsy Stupid State of Mind Head Cheese: A Story of Cauliflower, Cruelty, and Carnage Apple Tart and Stargazing Sheer Terror: Rotten Fruit The Candy Corn Cult Vendetta over Vittles Coleslaw To Go With the Lobster Rolls, of Course! BoomFuzzy's Chowder Dilemma Eels Beneath the Ice Why You Should Never Insult the JellyElf in a Street Market Blueberries and Bravado The Curse of the Cloaked Crustacean Dystopia, Doom, and Dark Romance with Custard Pastries in the Parking Lot Snowstorm Sabotage Sea Slugs and Clam Chowder Bread Bowls The Price of Generosity A Mess of Porridge Chocolate Bliss Springtime by the River Springtime by the River: Evening Stolen Midnight Magic Cracked Carnival The Apple Stall in 3 Perspectives Chocolate in the Neon Shadows Mint, Madness, and Motor Parts Spinning Dreams in Silk Quaraun & BoomFuzzy: The Ultimate Power Couple

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The Pink Necromancer, Moon Elf silk weaver & merchant: Quaraun on Noodle Beach. His master chef Phooka turned Lich husband: BoomFuzzy with his 1968 VW Bus Beach Noodle Food Truck. And their on again/off again mad scientist Sheep Demon lover: GhoulSpawn with his 1974 AMC Gremlin time machine. Time Travel setting swings back and forth between 40th century Maine after a comet hit the moon decimating the planet, and the 1970s, Maine. Quaraun in the main character, he and BoomFuzzy are a married gay couple. GhoulSpawn is their shared live-in lover. Art by Wendy Christine Allen.

BoomFuzzy King Gwallmaiic aka BoomFuzzy the Unicorn: Quaraun's husband, BoomFuzzy aka King Gwallmaiic, a Scottish Phooka, who is King of The UnSeelie Court. Quaraun is his court mage and advisor, as well as the only Elf in The UnSeelie Court. BoomFuzzy is a "classic fantasy type" Necromancer who uses sorcery to raise the dead. Being a Faerie he is also an illusionist and master of trickster magic. By profession, he is a Master Chef, owning the global monopoly on restaurants, taverns, pubs, and food trucks. Until his death, BoomFuzzy was regarded as the world's most powerful wizard. He is now a Lich. BoomFuzzy is also half-Human. His mother was a Mongolian/Chinese Human, which is why he wears distinctively Asian outfits, along with a great kilt worn as a cape. Known as BoomFuzzy the Unicorn, he often takes the form of a purple Unicorn. BoomFuzzy's exact age is unknown, though he was well over two thousand years old at the time of his death, and Quaraun resurrected him as a Lich around 500+ years ago, making him close to 3,000 years old. In his BlackBird form he is fifteen thousand years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Quaraun Quaraun the Insane aka The Pink Necromancer: The F2M transgender Persian Moon Elf main character: The Pink Necromancer, Quaraun The Insane, with BoomFuzzy the Unicorn. F2M for those unaware = Quaraun was biologically born female, but transitioned to live as a male; this is why there are stories where Quaraun is sometimes pregnant, in spite of being male and using he/him male pronouns. Quaraun is a Necromancer by the actual dictionary definition of the word, meaning he is a psychic medium who sees and hears ghosts, and uses tarot, spirit boards, and seances to communicate with the dead. By profession he is a silk weaver/tailor/silk merchant. Quaraun is an Elder God JellyFish who takes the form of an Elf to blend in with society. His 12 foot long hair is made out of venomous, stinging jellyfish tentacles. Quaraun is BoomFuzzy's apprentice and regarded as the world's most powerful still living wizard. Quaraun's exact age is unknown, but he is somewhere around 750 years old. In his SunTa form he is twelve thousand years old. The Scared Pink JellyFish that lives in him, is stated to being over two million years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Faeries vs Elves (In The Quaraun Series) A Pink Necromancer World Lore Post

The Pink Necromancer: The Adventures of Quaraun The Insane aka The Twighlight Manor Series

🌸🦄🌸 Furry Yaoi Fiction about Elves and Faeries and Satyrs and Demons and Unicorns and Technomancer Wizards and Liches living in a Lighthouse and surviving as Travelling Merchants and Food Truck Chefs in Cyberpunk Dystopian 40th Century Maine, and Zombie Apocalypse and Time Travel but it’s Slice of Life Vignettes of Mundane Daily Lives of The UnSeelie Court’s Royal Family trying to survive after a comet hit the moon and turned the Earth into a CyberPunk Ice-Age. 🌸🦄🌸

• eBook Editions from this series can be found on: GumRoad

• Kindle, eBook, Print Paperback, & full colour illustrated Hardcover Editions from this series can be found on: Amazon

Main characters: The Pink Necromancer, Quaraun (A Moon Elf) and his husband King Gwallmaiic aka BoomFuzzy aka The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley, Lich King of Fire Mountain (A Phooka/Faerie).

BoomFuzzy is King of The UnSeelie Court;

Quaraun is his Court Mage;

GhoulSpawn (not pictured) is Quaraun’s apprentice.

They are the world’s three most evil super villains, though they do not see themselves as evil. They own the world’s only functioning BioDome and thus hold the world’s monopoly on crops, food, livestock, and fabric, holding the Human population at their sadistic mercy.

These stories are told from their point of view.

 — — Art by Wendy Christine Allen

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Books By Wendy Christine Allen
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Index of the Quaraun novels, novellas, & short story collections on Amazon

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Index of the Quaraun short stories on GumRoad

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An Index of the more than TWO THOUSAND Quaraun Short Stories on Medium

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Index of the Quaraun short stories on Vocal

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This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

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