Of Honey and Harlequins (Burgh, Owen)

[ARTI GREENBURGH]

"Castelia City- 75 Degrees and Sunny," read the weather ticker on the southerly side of town. Just outside, a light breeze inlaid with poplar fluffs blew low across the canal. Occasionally, a fluff ventured close to the water, perhaps to gaze upon itself in the reflective surface of the water and admire its own simple, delicate perfection. Vanity came at a price for this drifting Narcissus, as it made contact and became heavily saturated. It was to remain there upon the surface of the water and never again feel the sweet caress of a motherly zephyr. Even the skyscrapers of the city seemed to glisten refreshingly. They no longer desired to be stark impressions left by stolid industry; they wanted to be beauty, a testament to the bone-and-blood hands of an architect who so lovingly designed them to nestle snugly against each other without throwing nature into utter chaos. The day was light and lovely, and bustling Castelia City heaved a peaceful sigh, as if to say, "Maybe life really is wonderful after all."

Maybe it was wonderful for the city, but not for me. I was inside, mop in hand, yellow plastic bucket at feet, slopping up some kid's half-digested Trix. I guess he was so nervous about battling me that he ejected the contents of his stomach. The butterflies must have still been in there, as the kid walked out atop wobbly knees without battling.

What they don't explicitly tell a gym leader is that, not only is he in a pretty heady position of power, but he's also the one-man janitorial staff of his own gym. I get the feeling people wouldn't be so quick to romanticize the job if they knew that. Gyms are high-maintenance and pokemon trainers can leave hellish messes in their wake. A couple years teaching elementary school art classes prepared me for cleaning up after others with nary a complaint. However, there was something weirdly artistic about soaking bile and processed cereal rainbows into a filthy ragmop and spreading it around upon a previously clean surface. It was almost like painting, except I was desperately trying to remove colour instead of lay it down.

I also looked pretty woeful. Now, don't go telling me I didn't. I'm not fishing for compliments here. Tortoiseshell glasses from nineteen-eighty-something, ill-fitting skinny pants cuffed around my knees, and mismatched socks in a pair of brown leather wingtips did not a man of fashion make. But golly gracious, if some swoop-haired fellow toting the self-imposed title of "fashion journalist" came a-shuffling into my gym at that moment, you can rest assured that hipsters would be popping the lenses out of mottled brown frames faster than you can say "Giorgio Armani."

I plunged the mop into the bucket and sloshed it around a few times, watching chunks of cereal dislodge from the knotted fibers. It was only ten AM and I had twelve more hours to go. One thing was for certain: life was not looking so wonderful after all.

[owen]

[cs=2][atrb=vAlign,top][atrb=width,120][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style,background-image: url('http://i52.tinypic.com/14o14qc.jpg')][style=height: 15px; background-color: #FEFE2C;] [/style][style=height: 5px; background-color: #FF9A2E;] [/style] [style=float: left; margin-top: -30px; margin-left: 5px; border: 5px solid #FEFE2C;][/style]

[atrb=vAlign,top][atrb=width,370][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style,background-color: #000000][style=margin-top: 16px; height: 15px; background-color: #FEFE2C;] [/style][style=height: 5px; background-color: #FF9A2E;] [/style][style=margin-left: 5px; color: #303030; text-align: left; text-transform: lowercase; letter-spacing: 1px; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold;]afraid of changing, cause i built my life[/style][style=color: #5E5E5E; text-align: center; text-transform: lowercase; line-height: 16px; letter-spacing: 20px; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 50px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;]around you[/style][style=margin-top: 10px; width: 350px; padding: 10px; background-color: #121212; color: #7F7F7F; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px;]He didn't want to take the Gym Challenge. It was pointless. Most of his life, he had been a researcher's assistant, and now he was a trainer. But... weren't trainers supposed to take the Gym Challenge? Wasn't that their big thing? The big draw? Beat all the gyms, and the champion, and you're suddenly famous? Well, Owen didn't want to be famous. But he was already in Castelia City, and he was standing in front of the gym. He had traveled from Johto, excusing himself from Eirik for a few weeks, saying he needed to just... go somewhere new. Eirik was used to it. Owen would disappear off the map for awhile, and then suddenly reappear as if nothing had happened. So he was kind of a psuedo-trainer. He wasn't really a researcher, though, either. He didn't know what he was. If he had a guitar, he could make a case for being a troubador, but he didn't have a guitar, and he didn't know how to play one, either. So he supposed he was just a wanderer. He didn't know what that meant, or entailed, but that was what he was. He wandered the regions, traveling aimlessly, trying (and mainly failing) to capture pokemon. He wanted to capture all of them, but considering so far he had a grand total of three pokemon... he wasn't doing so hot. Maybe he should give up on that idea, take the Gym Challenge, do something with his life. But he didn't really want to. He wanted to wander around, maybe find a nice guy to settle down with (or girl, if it ended up that way) and just live a normal life. Though, granted, nothing was normal with Owen. He could be more than odd at times, and certainly wasn't the best for "settling down." He liked to stay on the move, and the road was no place to raise a family. So, for now, he'd just keep on keepin' on. With that thought in mind, he pushed open the doors gently. "Hello?" He called, moving a bit farther inside the gym. There seemed to be honey and clowns everywhere. What the heck? This Gym Leader must be one screwed up kind of guy. Spotting a young man mopping up what looked suspiciously like vomit, he called out again. "Hello? I'm looking for the Gym Leader. I'd like to challenge him, I guess. I mean, yeah... that."[/style][style=margin-top: 10px; width: 350px; padding: 10px; background-color: #0A0A0A; color: #AAAAAA; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px;]tag: here. words: 401 notes: I LOEV YOUUUUUUUU credit: template was created by rea of on the edge.[/style]

[/td][/tr][/table]
[/center]

[ARTI GREENBURGH]

I was ripped from my bile-soaked reverie by the sound of a voice. It was as if my re-entrance to the real world was so quick that I had broken the sound barrier. That sonic boom of consciousness prompted an ungraceful muscle spasm which sent me about six inches into the air, my extremities flopping like weighty windsocks.

A man stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking up at me. I searched his appearance for the benchmark traits that defined "individual I should be afraid of:" no visible firearms or heavy bludgeons, no dirt-caked safety orange jumpsuit, no cat-burglar eyemask, and lastly, no t-shirt or sign reading "Death to Burgh" or anything similar.

Behind the man was a backdrop of utter chaos. Enthused harlequins (they don't like being called clowns; I learned that the hard way) danced about in their unflattering yellow suits, each one attempting to outdo the others with increasingly dangerous feats of gymnastics. A dearth of challengers had encouraged them to practice their routines to stave off boredom. They bounced to and fro, filling the air with gaily-coloured confetti and laughter. No wrinkles to be seen upon their foreheads, no worries to be heard in the timbre of their voices. They put on a jolly show, oh yes, and all the while their employer entertained himself with a rousing game of "Guess What the Stranger Ate?" (I had identified the Trix with a fair amount of certainty, but there were a few brown tubular objects which utterly baffled me.)

Two more harlequins careened into the room, one holding the other's ankles to form what those in the business would call "a wheelbarrow." They picked up speed and came dangerously close to colliding with the unfamiliar visitor before veering off to the side at the last minute. I considered holding a meeting that night so I could meticulously outline the meaning of the word "liability," but quickly nixed the idea as I didn't want to get pied in the face.

Though the man at the bottom of the stairs was not at all threatening, there was a good chance he was someone I should've actively tried to impress. Judging by the state of affairs in my gym, however, that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm sorry, sir. What was that?" I asked, offering up a toothy smile which probably looked pretty goony in retrospect.

[owen]

[cs=2][atrb=vAlign,top][atrb=width,120][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style,background-image: url('http://i52.tinypic.com/14o14qc.jpg')][style=height: 15px; background-color: #FEFE2C;] [/style][style=height: 5px; background-color: #FF9A2E;] [/style] [style=float: left; margin-top: -30px; margin-left: 5px; border: 5px solid #FEFE2C;][/style]

[atrb=vAlign,top][atrb=width,370][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style,background-color: #000000][style=margin-top: 16px; height: 15px; background-color: #FEFE2C;] [/style][style=height: 5px; background-color: #FF9A2E;] [/style][style=margin-left: 5px; color: #303030; text-align: left; text-transform: lowercase; letter-spacing: 1px; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold;]afraid of changing, cause i built my life[/style][style=color: #5E5E5E; text-align: center; text-transform: lowercase; line-height: 16px; letter-spacing: 20px; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 50px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;]around you[/style][style=margin-top: 10px; width: 350px; padding: 10px; background-color: #121212; color: #7F7F7F; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px;]Chaos. That was what was going on around me. I watched the clowns with some sort of disdain in my eyes, but gave that up. Thet didn't look dangerous, but when two of them nearly careened into me, I decided to stop glaring daggers at them. It wasn't their fault I didn't like clowns and the gym leader did. Quickly taking in the rest of the gym, I noticed honey. Sticky, gloopy honey. And it was everywhere. I realized with a jolt that I didn't even know what type of pokemon this gym leader had. Making an educated guess, however, with the help of the honey, I figured he must be some type of bug trainer... leader... whatever. I wondered how many pokemon he had, and whether or not my three would be enough to handle the challenge... if he accepted. I didn't really know how this was supposed to work. Was I supposed to start from the beginning, the first town, or could I just start anywhere? Because it looked like I had picked somewhere in the middle and decided it was good enough... or maybe I was just crazy? I didn't even want to take this stupid Gym Challenge, but here I was. Maybe it was just something I had to get out of my system. It was then I realized that the gym leader was speaking to me. He smiled a weird smile, and I offered one back. "A challenge. I'm looking for the gym leader so I can challenge him to a Pokemon battle. That's how it works, right? Challenge the leader, get a badge, et cetera, et cetera?" This guy probably thought I was an idiot, not even knowing how the Gym Challenge worked, but it didn't really matter to me. All that mattered was that I got this out of my system so I couldgo back to being a music-less troubador. "So, um. Can you point me in the direction of the gym leader?"[/style][style=margin-top: 10px; width: 350px; padding: 10px; background-color: #0A0A0A; color: #AAAAAA; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px;]tag: here. words: 325 notes: I LOEV YOUUUUUUUU credit: template was created by rea of on the edge.[/style]

[/td][/tr][/table]
[/center]

[ARTI GREENBURGH]

"The gym leader?" I said and plunged my mop into the bucket with an emphatic 'slop!' "You're looking for the gym leader?" Putting my finger to my chin and pursing my painfully chapped lips, I theatrically glanced around the room.

"Now... if I were a gym leader, where would I be? Ah! I know! Right here!" I gestured grandly, arms open and legs together. It was the posture of a maestro proudly standing before his ensemble as if to say, "I am responsible for this; I am the organizer of this grand performance." What I didn't realize was that the most impressive things about me at the time were the dinner-plate-sized sweatstains on the armpits of my Franz Ferdinand band shirt.

I let go of the mop, hoping the handle would gently come to rest at the rim of the bucket, thus allowing me to descend the stairs and regain the dignity and composure expected of a city's gym leader. It was then that I heard the cosmos say, "No such luck, Artichoke!"

The ensuing events were mostly a blur, but I'll recap the highlights:

• Broom too heavy, bucket tips over
  
• Puke water goes cascading down the stairs like the world's most gruesome waterfall
  
• I lunge at the bucket far too late and slip in the pungent offal
  
• My feet fly out from under me and I see one brown wingtip go sailing through the air, laces a-flutter behind it
  
• Tears and shame

Peals of laughter rang out from the harlequins. I remained supine with glasses askew on my face, the world swimming in and out of focus. A bright orange ticker ran across my mind's eye, but instead of "Castelia City - 75 Degrees and Sunny," it displayed a steady stream of every curse word I've ever known and I few that I'm fairly certain I invented myself. From around my head radiated a rank halo of damp coppery hair and puke-infused mop water, which the lights beneath the stained glass floor were beginning to bake. A defeated whimper rose from the back of my throat. At that moment, I half expected a banner to appear at my feet, bearing the words "St. Arthur the Bilious."