Books: An Abridged Existence (excerpt)

The ship is manned by outlaw mushrooms. One even has a peg leg. Another has a hook. However, they are uninterested in the man, and take him to the nearest port to be sold as a slave to the rich sultan who rules there. The man is bought, and put into a harem. He is adorned with the finest silks, and softest veils. However, the sultan takes no notice of him. But the sultan’s wife does. At night she comes to him, and throws him into a large, warm, pot of water. He is boiled, and then is placed onto a rug. The rug falls to the ground.

The sultan’s wife is not pleased. So he is thrown back into the harem with all of the other girls. However, someone notices that he isn’t a she, and he is thrown into a pile of sand, head first.

He pulls his head out of the sand and is face to face with an angry badger, who has a hook for an eye and a patch over one hand. They become best of friends, and both become pirates. They sail the seas deflowering gold and stealing women from rich and powerful merchants.

Then one day, his friend the badger pirate is killed by an errant spoon. The man vows revenge on the spoon. He promptly has the spoon beaten with hammers, and cuts slits at the tip of the spoon’s head. The man keeps the spork under a glass case in his trophy room, as evidence of what happens to those who kill badger pirates.