“Whatever they bring, you eat it.”
Nick Renner swelled in the chest, and glared at Ambassador Jaffe. “Hell, I’ll eat just about anything to land this deal. We need the oil rights, and these guys need the legitimacy.”
The ambassador, a thin, pale man with a black brushstroke of hair, leaned closer to Renner and whispered again, “Some of the cuisine is just a little, different. But you can’t afford to offend Sinaga—the “chief”, got it?”
Renner nodded with a wink.
They sat at the end of a long table of rich, dark wood. Cushions surrounded the table on all sides; the highest ranking of Guntur Sinaga’s advisors sat on these pillows dressed in traditional clothing. All wore head scarves or turbans, sashes of rank, and most had at least a pistol resting in a leather holster at their side. A small mouse of a man wearing no sidearm slipped onto the cushion next to Renner.
“Hello, senator is it? How was your arrival?” the man asked.
Renner glanced at Jaffe. “Fine. Roads are a bit, rough. Could probably use some TLC.”
“Senator Nicholas Renner, allow me to introduce Pramana Kitishe. He’s our contact for Sinaga’s organization.”
“Please to meet you, Mr. Renner.” The small man bowed his head in slow reverence. “Would you mind, what is TLC?”
“Tender-loving-care, looks like—”
“—what the senator is saying, Pramana,” Jaffe interrupted, “is that he thinks Uncle Sam might be able to offer some assistance in the way of infrastructure improvements. Roads, bridges, hospitals, schools. Yes?”
Pramana’s lips curled into a little wiry smile. “Ah, yes. The Americans are ever so helpful with their…what is it?” He touched one thin finger to his lips. “Deep pockets.”
Servants clad in brown hovered like mute bees, ferrying loaded plates to the table and then empty plates away with no sound. Guntur Sinaga sat at one end of the table, laughing and talking heartily, but watching Renner with one eye the entire time—at least Renner felt as though he was stuck and wriggling on Sinaga’s pin-hole gaze.
Once the servants floated the last of the dishes from the room, Sinaga motioned for quiet around the table. Pramana stood from his pillow next to Senator Renner, and dutifully floated to his leader’s side. Sinaga was a lined man, his face set with deep, black cracks and rimmed with a hoary beard. When he smiled, his teeth showed in three distinct colorings: a dead brown, stained yellow, and bright gold. He carried the look of someone who had seen much in his life. He motioned Pramana to his side, and the little man obliged.
Pramana nodded and turned to Renner. “Sinaga would like to know what the distinguished gentleman thinks of the dinner thus far?”
At this point, Renner pushed back from the table and pulled at his waist. “Delicious. I must complement the cooks,” he said, adding, “and his Excellency for the hospitality.” Renner nodded toward Sinaga.
Pramana smiled broadly, “Yes, wonderful. You should know that desert will be even more special. A true…delicacy.”
Renner leaned toward the small man. “When can we discuss—”
“Ah,” Pramana interrupted, “we will have plenty of time. For now, simply enjoy.”
Before the senator from Missouri could respond, the servants returned with covered silver platters. They moved in concert, filing in from the palace kitchens and taking positions around the guest at the table. Each servant slipped his right hand around the handle on his platter’s cover, and they snapped these off with a quick and uniform motion.
On each platter, a collection of five large tobacco-hued roaches lay drizzled with a translucent red sauce in the middle of a bed of green leaves. Renner flinched slightly, but returned to a certain stoicism when Jaffe nudged him under the table.
“I’m not eating a god-damn bug,” Renner whispered.
Jaffe flushed white. “Please, Nick. This is important.”
“I’m not eating that shit.” Renner spoke louder this time.
Without calling attention to himself, Pramana slipped from Sinaga’s side to the space next to both men. “Gentlemen, is there a problem?”
Renner’s face deepened a few shades of red. “Thanks for the offer and all, but I think I’ll pass on…um, dessert.”
“Sir, this is a fine…delicacy. Our intention is not to offend.” Pramana took a slight bow after speaking.
Jaffe leaned closer to the large man and whispered, “C’mon Nick.”
Pramana looked at Sinaga, and then back at Renner. “Sir?”
Sinaga’s voice sounded, this time in plain, but clear English. “Do you not eat…how is it…decay in your country?”
“He intends the word, mushrooms,” Pramana said.
Renner turned to Jaffe. The ambassador nodded, raising his eyebrows. “Well, yes. Where I’m from—well, when I was a boy we’d hunt for Morel’s, these big mushrooms that would spring up overnight. We’d fill a bag, bring them home, fry them in butter…” His eyes shimmered with the memory.
Sinaga, still unsmiling, said, “In my country, one would not eat the decay—mushrooms. It seems we have some differences in cuisine.” He nodded then, like a slight bow—an acknowledgement of his guests, but not necessarily an act of respect.
Pramana watched the old leader for a moment, the room hovering in dense silence. Finally he rose, looked at the Americans, and said, “Simply a cultural misunderstanding. Gentlemen, perhaps we should retire for the evening.”
Jaffe paced the floor in Senator Renner’s room, a spacious stone cavern lined with beautiful tapestries. Renner now without his jacket and with his tie hanging loose about his neck, sat on the king-sized bed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. Both men exchanged a number of nervous looks before one broke the quiet.
“Look Bill, what did you want me to do? Suck down some prehistoric-sized cockroach just to please a two-bit tribal chief—”
Jaffe stopped in mid-pace, turned to face Renner, and shook his head. “Yes, actually. I thought that was exactly what you planned to do. Remember—‘I’ll eat just about anything’?”
Renner’s fat fingers pushed through his grey hair. “Hell, that was before the kook’s brought me a bug to eat. A god-damn bug. Besides, we smoothed it over, everything will be fine. God these people are like parasites on this country.”
“I hope everything will be fine. Nick, parasites or not, these guys have the power. Whatever you do, make sure not to offend him again. We need—” A sharp knock on the door interrupted Jaffe’s words.
Renner quickly held up one hand and mumbled, “Scout’s honor” before turning to the door.
Pramana entered followed by a servant carrying a silver platter. “Mr. Renner, our esteemed leader would like to make amends, so to speak.” He snapped at the servant who promptly brought the platter forward. “I hope you find this a little more to your liking.”
Renner and Jaffe exchanged a quick glance. The servant held a tray with small strips of a grey substance that looked like worms doused in a sauce similar to the one from the roaches earlier that evening.
“The senator would be happy to try this.” Jaffe nodded at Renner. Pramana remained at the door. “Nick?” Jaffe prodded.
The big man pushed off the bed and approached the tray. He pinched a strip of grey between two fingers, held it for a moment, and slipped it into his mouth. His ruddy face had faded to a faint pink, but the hint of a smile shaded his mouth as his usual color returned. “Delicious, what is it?”
“Sir, our esteemed leader wants you to feel at home. This is our version of the…how did you say…Morel.”
“Well, my compliments. Thank you.
Pramana bowed, snapping once more to the servant who left the tray on a small table before leaving. Pramana then looked at both men, and said, “I will let our esteemed leader know you are ready to discuss negotiations in the morning,” before slipping out after the servant.
Renner woke with a subtle dizziness in the quiet darkness of the confiscated palace. He lurched into a sitting position, and his head swelled and throbbed with the motion. Thoughts tried to form in his brain, but his skull seemed stuffed with foam—light yet dense. Groping for the side of the bed, Renner squirmed onto the floor.
“Bill…” he muttered, calling for Jaffe, “Bill…I…uh!” Renner struck the side of his head with the heel of his hand, trying to knock loose the growing pain. He managed to rest for a minute, doubled over on the floor with his naked feet and hands pressed onto the stone. Usually the cold on his toes would fire a shiver through his body, but Renner began to sweat, convulsing with sharp kicks in his stomach.
He crawled on hands and knees, helpless like a child, toward the heavy wooden door of his room. His fingers caught the edge of the dark wood and crawled up toward the metal latch, but his body convulsed again, and Renner dropped to the stone tile. After the waves of cramps passed, Renner struggled to his knees, pushed up the latch and pulled the heavy door, dragging it as his body flopped backward.
With the door just open, Renner wrenched through the gap, staggered into the hallway, and stumbled toward Jaffe’s room. His mouth tried to form words, but the sounds slowed to muted mumbles in his throat. Renner raised the chapped knuckles of his right hand to rap on the ambassador’s door, but another spasm seized his body. He collapsed in a crooked pile on the plush corridor rug.
The big senator from Missouri was finished with pain now. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the growing fungus began to break through any open orifice in the large man’s skull. His eyeballs began to push from their sockets—two wide orbs like golf balls thrust from their homes by a yellow-grey foam. The dingy fungus also crept through the man’s sinus cavities and through his nostrils, ears, and mouth like little fingers punching and stretching from any space they could find to grow up and out. Slowly, over the course of the next few hours, the parasitic fungus devoured most of what made Nicholas Renner—his brain, organs, everything.
In the morning, Ambassador William Jaffe opened his bedroom door and gasped. Senator Nick Renner’s body, now nothing more than a vessel for the parasitic infestation, lay in a motionless heap on the hallway carpet. The fungus that began its work in the night now stretched toward the walls and ceiling in long, graceful ribbons of grey. To Jaffe, the whole scene was unreal—just a strange sculpture mocking the Missouri senator with alien adeptness. Jaffe found himself transfixed, locked in some repulsed curiosity, staring at the bizarre corpse.
“Ah, Mr. Jaffe,” Pramana called as he walked with deliberate but casual pace from the far end of the hall. “Oh, yes. The senator.” Pramana shook his head as he closed the last few feet to where Jaffe stood in front of the abomination.
“Good lord…” Jaffe whispered.
“A most unfortunate accident.”
Stunned, Jaffe eyed the small man. “Accident?”
“I’m afraid so. Our local mushrooms can be ever-so-dangerous when no prepared properly. Poor Mr. Renner must have fallen victim to an underdone bit of mushroom—I believe you would call this one Cordyceps—one with intact spores. They will, unfortunately, grow quite quickly to a mature fungus, devouring the host from the inside out.” Pramana shook his head slightly as he looked at the body and then Jaffe. “This, Mr. Jaffe, is why we rarely eat the mushrooms of our country.” His mouth grew into a smile that made Jaffe’s skin quiver. “I will report this, make arrangements and all apologies,” he said as he turned to leave. “Oh, and Mr. Jaffe, our esteemed leader says he is ready to discuss matters. Should I tell him the senator is unwell?”
(originally appeared in Morpheus Tales #1, Summer 2008)
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