Fortune Monsters

Twelve o’clock, Monday, and one half of Bobby Beach was littered with flowers, soft and big enough to serve as pillows for the beachgoers, who were too busy running from the army of spider crabs that spat acid from their claws and had claimed the other half of the beach. To understand why this slightly abnormal scene was unfolding that day, you’d need to understand the lives of the two men whose paths crossed for the first time on Bobby Beach.

Wade was a slim, nimble, bright-eyed, tidy-haired one, with a constant spring in his step and an unflinching little smile on his face. How he kept his hair tidy was anyone’s guess, given his unfathomably dreadful luck. When he strolled out of that house on his way to Bobby Beach that fateful Monday, he had experienced…

His back door disintegrating into dust.

An allergic reaction to said dust.

His antibiotics turning him blind for half an hour.

Another odd vision of that flying thing, its visage obscured by clouds, but certainly made of noodles.

His piano exploding upon recovering his eyesight.

Being called ‘a living curse’ when the guy he called for help tidying his house recognized his voice.

Cooking bacon without a fire starting for the first time in years, only for the bacon to taste mediocre.

In the span of twenty-seven minutes.

He was in a wonderful mood. That was part of what got him kicked out of town after a couple of weeks, wherever he settled. Disaster followed Wade, and his fondness for cracking jokes like ‘if the weather’s going to kill me today, might as well live it up!’ while his clothes were on fire only made people even more certain that a localized apocalypse would visit them if he stuck around.

Luke was a sparkly-clean (as in, there were literal sparkles on his suit), scruffy-haired, wide-eyed, fidgeting, constantly-looking-over-his-shoulder one. His was an unfathomably incredible luck. Upon waking up that fateful Monday from another dream of that swimming thing, its visage obscured by the ocean’s darkness, but certainly made from spaghetti, he had:

A phone notification telling him his deliberately abysmal short story won first prize in a writing competition.

The best smell that had ever existed permeating his room.

A box containing a PS5 chucked through his window, which sustained no damage whatsoever thanks to the mountain of pillows that had popped up beside his bed.

A flower with all the colors of the rainbow on his shelf.

The wind sending another winning lottery ticket through the hole in his window.

Birds repairing the hole in his window.

Trimmed nails.

All before he’d climbed out of bed.

‘No, no, no…’ Luke muttered the word a hundred times as he trembled wildly, his shaking hand chucking the phone against the wall. He heard his mail slot from downstairs snap, undoubtedly a new, fancier phone. He leapt from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and a tiny trampoline burst from the floorboards to break the fall. He seized the parcel with blistering wrath, and tore it open to find he was wrong. It was a little box of truffles with a cute little bow. With a new, fancier phone.

‘They’ll see! They’re all gonna see!’ Luke hissed to himself, his breath quickening as he relentlessly tapped the wall. ‘I can’t do it! I can’t do it! No! I’ll stay right here and read! That’s what I’ll do!’ He slumped in a blue, infinitely soft chair, soft enough to blissfully swallow one hole. Deep breaths. Distant squawks of gulls. Faint rumbling of waves.

‘Nope, too boring. Too still.’ He got ready to walk about town.

So, off they were, Wade and Luke, both coming from the corner ends of town. Wade to go sightseeing, even as the clouds above him turned black as death. Luke to take his mind off things with fresh air, even as flowers sprouted from every step he took. Wade met a few friendly faces that turned into screaming ones, Luke met a few friendly faces that turned into bedazzled ones. Until they reached Bobby Beach and bumped head-first into each other.

‘Sorry! Get a little daydreamy sometimes!’ Wade chirped.

‘No, don’t.’ Luke sighed, rubbing his head. ‘Hitting my head is the only normal thing that’s happened to me in years.’

‘And that’s the quickest it’s taken for an ache to go away!’ Wade gaped in wonder and tapped his own forehead. On it, Luke saw the echoes of a burn scar disappear. His head whirred with confusion, but he folded his hands in his pockets and turned around.

‘Well, you’re lucky.’ He spoke quickly. ‘Better to be normal, though. See you.’

‘Wait, what did you mean by “only normal thing” back there?’ Wade called after him as he started walking away. ‘You seem pretty normal to me.’

Luke sighed, turning back with a twitch in his eye. ‘I am normal, just leave - good god, there’s a crab spitting acid on your shoe!’

‘Huh.’ Wade chuckled, picking the spider crab up and ignoring the way its shell made his fingers bleed. ‘Hey, little guy! Wanna be friends?’

‘Are you high or something? How’d that even happen? Crabs don’t produce acid!’

Wade shrugged, giving the crab’s nose a poke with his pinkie. ‘We know more about space than the ocean.’

‘Oh, you are ridiculous! Now, if you’ll excuse me – OH GOD, THERE’S HUNDREDS OF THEM!’

‘Huh. Guess there are. Woah, pretty flowers!’

Only now did they become aware of the cacophony around them. The entirety of the beach Luke stood behind was engulfed in bright pink-and-red flowers. While the scuttering relatives of Wade’s new friend had swarmed upon his half of the beach. There was also a weird, faint slurping sound in the pair’s heads. Luke grabbed Wade’s hand (which made him laugh for some reason), forcing him to drop the still-drooling crab and pulling him across the flowers as they ran.

By the time the beach was totally abandoned and the local crab catchers summoned, Luke pulled a still-giggling Wade atop a roof just to be safe.

‘What’s your problem?!’ Luke snapped, catching his breath. ‘Crabs that could kill you all over the place and you’re laughing?!’

‘Pretty sure if I did die, the universe would bring me back.’ Wade chuckled, patting Luke’s shoulder, who flinched.

‘That stung!’

‘Oh, sorry!’

‘Do it again. Wait, don’t do it again!’ Luke got up, dusting himself off. ‘Look, I got business.’ Luke was confident that the more he lied, the more convincing he’d gotten. Fortunately for him, Wade was the kind of person who was utterly convinced by him. The only kind.

‘Oh, okay. But I gotta ask.’ Wade stood up, a little spark in his eye. ‘Why pull me out of there? Everyone else runs.’

Luke cleared his throat, shoving his hands back in his pockets. ‘Well, you didn’t seem to see any danger. Someone had to be the adult.’

‘Yeah, but I could see the…’ Wade scratched his head, looking for the words. ‘Worry?’

‘Acid-spitting crabs! Of course I was worried!’ Luke flushed, clearing his throat again.

‘So, why do flowers follow you?’

Luke looked over his shoulder a dozen times before swiftly muttering. ‘It’s a curse with zero monetary value. Why do impossible crabs follow you?’

Wade shrugged. ‘Fortune, I guess.’ The f-word was all Luke needed to hear for bells of longing and dread to ring in his skull.

‘Okay. Let’s never see each other again.’

‘Okay!’ While Luke sprinted straight back home, Wade waved his knees where he sat and hummed a little tune. What was there to be so sad about, he thought, when he’d seen that flash of care in the eyes of a stranger.

Twelve o’clock, Tuesday, Bobby Beach. They saw each other again.

‘You stalking me?’ Wade asked with a grin.

‘You’re stalking me! I wanted a quiet day at the beach, and you show up with your damn crabs again!’

‘But there aren’t any crabs.’

‘Not yet. Or maybe it’s a different thing every day with you!’

‘Oh, that much is true.’ Wade chuckled. ‘It’s not just animals, either. Natural disasters, holes opening beneath me, fire…yeah, fire’s a favourite of my fortune monster.’

‘That explains the freshly barbecued clothes.’ Luke muttered. ‘Wait, “fortune monster”?’

‘Well, you got a special fortune, right?’ Luke clamped his hand over Wade’s mouth the instant the f-word left him, eyes wide and frantic.

‘No, no, no, don’t let anyone hear about a fortune.’ Luke hissed. ‘I need this to stay between us.’

‘Well, if it’s privacy you want…’ Wade winked, directing Luke to a neat little corner of the beach, under a red, arch-shaped rock. Luke sighed, sitting on the sand, diamonds poking out of the edges where he slumped. Wade grinned, planting himself right next to Luke, tiny cacti propping up from the sand around him.

‘I’m Wade.’

‘Luke.’

‘So, fortune monster?’

Wade clasped his hands together, then shook them a little because they stung for no reason. He took a big gulp of air, narrowed his eyes, then spoke in a low, relishing voice. He spoke of a nigh-formless thing he’d seen in dreams for years, of flailing noodles shrouded by clouds, of what he could tell, as signalled to him psychically through these dreams, was the source of his fortune. Luke gasped, clasped his own hands, his wide eyes now doubly wide, triply wide. Because he had seen the same thing in his dreams, too. Ever since his life turned magnanimously lucky, he’d beheld it, and he knew what it was. An alien, falling to Earth by mistake, the flames of atmospheric entry ripping it in two, its pieces fading like ghosts from the physical distance. From sheer random chance, it psychically latched itself to Luke, and must have done the same to Wade, and its power, to warp one’s reality, had consumed their lives, and would continue until-

‘Wait, my dreams are just…seeing some noodle thing in clouds.’ Wade looked puzzled for once in his life. ‘How can you tell it’s an alien from roughly the same dream?’

Luke rubbed the back of his head. ‘Um…hard to explain. It just gave off those kinds of vibes.’

‘Wow…’ Wade nodded his head in wonder.

‘And by the way, it’s made of spaghetti, not noodles.’

‘Totally wrong, but you do you.’

Luke fidgeted a little, his voice slightly softening. ‘You don’t wanna laugh at me, believing all that?’

‘Nope.’ Wade beamed, even as the cacti around him starting growing and pricking his backside. ‘I mean, if our lives are…our lives, then who’s to say there’s no such thing as aliens? Hey, you hear it, too?’

‘What?’

‘Like…slurping noises. Sounds like it’s inside my head, but it feels out there as well, y’know?’

‘Like…whenever you and me get close?’

‘Could mean we’re drawn to each other.’ Wade teased.

‘You were stalking me!’ Luke jabbed Wade’s chest, then clutched his finger as it stung from the thorn that had spontaneously burst from Wade.

‘Nah.’ Wade chuckled, winking. ‘I think we just both wanted to get to know someone we had a thing in common with.’

‘Well, how would I have known you’d come back to the beach?’

‘Lucky guess. You’re a lucky guy, after all.’

‘I’m really not-’

Wade suddenly fondled one of the diamonds. ‘Hey, can these work like skipping stones?’ And before Luke could say a thing, Wade tossed it. It skipped a million times and created a rainbow bridge over the water.

‘Wow!’ Wade cheered. ‘Whenever I try that, it just plops in there and explodes!’

Frowning, Luke snatched a cactus that was right behind Wade and chucked it. It plopped in the sea without skipping once and exploded.

‘Crazy.’ Luke said breathlessly. ‘I can’t remember the last time something went wrong for me.’

‘I…can’t remember the last time something went right. Until yesterday.’ Wade smiled softly. A strange silence ensued, filled with the muffled slurping of some unidentifiable thing.

‘Why don’t you like it?’ Wade asked gently, once his laughter died down. ‘All your crazy-good luck?’

Luke sighed softly, folding his hands over his lap and staring into the glittering sand. ‘Wherever I go, too many people find out. They stalk and they bribe and they insist. Slapping fake smiles over their faces like I’m some schmuck that desperate for affection. Anything so I’ll be their friend, and they can reap some of that sweet, sweet fortune. Until I find another home, and it starts all over again.’ His eyes suddenly felt so much heavier. ‘And with your luck…well, I wouldn’t blame you if that’s what you want, too. Least you got a good excuse.’

‘Okay, making rainbows with diamonds is amazing and all.’ Wade rested a hand over Luke’s shoulder. It stung, but not enough to make him pull away. The brushing of little waves against sand, even the squelching in the pair’s heads had somehow become so much fainter. ‘But maybe there’s people who’d just like to be your friend?’

‘Like who?’

‘You know.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Been called worse.’

‘A hundred-percent insane.’

‘Still not running away, though, are you?’

‘Maybe I’m a masochist?’ Luke threw his hands up, laughing weakly. ‘Maybe I want your fortune to rub off on me, so people will leave me alone.’

‘Well, people always chase me out of town.’ Wade smiled despite the absence of happiness in his story. ‘Because they’re scared of just that. So honestly? I think we’re kind of destined for each other.’

‘Okay, never say destined again. Weirdo.’

‘If it’s so weird, why are you laughing?’

Laugh they did. And share, and cause a few more watery fireballs. Until they were given a sudden lesson in the importance of paying attention to your surroundings and not being so caught up in your alien-related mad fortune-filled life that you fail to notice half the sky being bathed in golden, heavenly light, and the other half smothered in darkness, both forces starting to crackle and thunder like an eruptive storm. By the time the noise began, it had been like this for fifteen minutes. Only now did nearby shrieks of beachgoers register in their ears.

‘Oh.’ Luke leapt to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘First the crabs and flowers, now this. Is our…do you think our proximity is causing this? Our fortunes’ proximity?’

‘Hmm.’ Wade tapped his chin, which suddenly grew a thorn, which he quickly pricked off. ‘We could meet tomorrow, same time and place. Experiment.’

‘Experi-and risk endangering the entire town?!’ Luke exclaimed.

‘Fair point. Meet up…far away from people?’

Luke sighed. A long, drawn-out, tired sigh that indicated his decision was already filled with longing and regret. ‘Deal.’

Twelve o’clock. Wednesday. Bobby Beach. Completely devoid of any Lukes or Wades. No, it was ten o’clock in the morning when they met, this time on the cramped, overgrown-with-greenery and slightly-stinking-of-cow-dung road leading to the town’s main entrance. The sign on the right side hollered: ‘WELCOME TO BOBBY BEACH, NO CRABS ALLOWED.’ It was a splendid meeting between the two, aside from the fact that the man-sized Venus fly trap that sprang from the dirt to pursue Wade had a severe reaction to the tiny golden stars that floated around Luke, causing an eruption that left the sign ruined, the road with a man-sized Venus fly trap-shaped hole in it, and a noise complaint from a guy who lived off-grid.

They went somewhere even more remote. A village utterly abandoned, mainly due to it being the last place Wade stayed at before his most recent move. They accidentally filled an empty café with a swarm of hornets squirting out baby spiders. Clashing against rainbow beams that scattered all over the place like lights from a disco ball. Eventually collapsing the building into a miniature black hole that Luke managed to close with some scissors. Didn’t stop a property damage complaint from a guy who lived off-grid (even though he didn’t own any of the places that got destroyed).

They tried the top of the nearest cliff, ten miles away from Bobby Town. Only ten minutes of talking passed before the seagulls tripled in size and started breathing fire everywhere, and rock golems, bursting from the earth to shield Luke, became so roaringly enthusiastic in their efforts to smash the gulls, ended up smashing a good chunk of the cliff. Causing a mild inconvenience complaint from a guy who lived off-grid.

There’s only so many times you can provoke a guy like that. Well, him and a town of people who read the eyewitness reports from said guy and realize these disasters are all happening because of two fortune-bearing guys meeting up.

Luke awoke the morning after the cliff to see his wardrobe stuffed with trophies with the finest ale in them, his tie tying itself up for him, and a mob before his house, bearing signs saying things like ‘JUST A GRAND. OKAY, MAYBE FIVE.’ He gripped his chest, sweating, panting, eyes bulging. But he looked closer. It wasn’t money most of them were after. Most of the signs said stuff like ‘NO FORTUNE APOCALYPSES HERE!’

Luke stepped outside, clearing his throat and trying to remain calm. ‘Okay, what’s the issue here-’

‘YOU AND THAT WADE ARE GONNA SINK THIS WHOLE TOWN!’

‘TRASH OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD?! WE’LL TRASH YOU!’

‘I’M NOT REALLY IN IT FOR THE TOWN, I JUST WANT A PS5 OFF YOU.’

That third of the crowd who’d come for luck were furiously shoved aside by the other two thirds, storming at Luke with knives, bats, and pans. Luke rolled his eyes; his fortune had always made him impervious to harm. The knives turned to dust before they could cut him, the pans turned into butterflies and the bats bounced off him like he was a trampoline. He strolled through, groaning as he pondered his next moving place. Until…

‘Wait! Are you going for Wade, too?!’

‘YEAH, WE SENT THE OTHER HALF OF THE MOB AFTER HIM!’

Meanwhile, Wade was torn from slumber and his human-sized trash can (halfway through last night, he suddenly woke up to his house in ashes and the bed eaten by bugs) by wrathful hands that chucked him to the ground.

‘OW! I prefer bacon for breakfast, not gravel!’

The mob, wielding the same instruments as those bothering Luke, didn’t take kindly to Wade’s preferences. He scrambled to his feet, gasping and panting and ignoring the squirrel nibbling his ear. With such catastrophic luck, he was bound to die at the mob’s hand. Well, he thought. Had some of the best days of my life, way better than the day these guys are having, so joke’s on them.

Until, when he’d lost all stamina and a knife was hurtling towards his throat, Luke leapt in front, the knife popping into pixie dust as it struck him.

‘Luke! How’d you know where I was?’ Wade exclaimed, elated.

‘Um…I didn’t. Luck, as usual. Now, c’mon!’ Taking his hand once more, Luke barrelled down in the beach’s directions, hollers of crowds and crackling of flame growing louder behind them.

‘Huh, where did they suddenly get torches?’ Wade puzzled.

‘Crap, it’s happening again!’ Luke cried. A rainbow had manifested, right above Bobby Town itself. It sundered the sky, turning it into a miasma of spinning black-and-white clouds spouting fireballs at each other, embers flickering in their thousands above the pair. Meanwhile, mile-wide cracks in the town were slowly bursting forth around them, an army of spiders and an army of bunnies waging the squeakiest of wars after emerging from said cracks. The squelching in their heads was positively thunderous by the time they reached the beach. And it smelt of meatballs.

‘What is this?!’ Luke fell to his knees, not bothering to pluck the needles he’d gotten from holding Wade’s hand. ‘Dammit, what do we do?! I can’t leave you to get killed by those maniacs, but just being close is enough to rip the place apart!’

‘Woah, look!’ Wade pointed up…and Luke saw it, too. A squirming, flying thing, obscured by clouds, but clearly made of-

‘Noodles! It’s our fortune monster!’

‘No, it’s down there!’ Luke pointed at the sea, where a shadow under the water had taken the same shape. ‘Wait, I get it! It’s in pieces! Two pieces, and they both manifest when we’re close!’

‘If we just grab them, maybe we could make the fortune monster stop this?’

Fortunately for them, the mob was too busy fending off bunnies and spiders to reach them. Unfortunately, Luke was sprung harmlessly from the sea the second he stepped in it.

‘My luck’s not letting the slightest discomfort happen! How do I get down there?! And how do you reach the sky with your luck?!’

Wade snapped his fingers, grinning. ‘We rub off on each other!’

‘HUH?!’

‘You get bad luck from me touching you, I get good luck from you touching me; we do enough touching, we could make it!’

Luke wanted to call Wade crazy, but the calamity around them dampened his willingness to protest. A good bit of touching later, and Luke had ‘cursed’ Wade with a flying carpet, supplied with turbo thrusters and a small mountain of cushions atop the carpet. And Wade had ‘cursed’ Luke with a jetpack that would only work underwater, and a diving suit crawling with baby crabs and sticky seaweed.

‘Just…one thing, before we do this.’ Luke took a breath, his panicked eyes slowly softening. ‘With everything…why are you so happy all the time?’

‘I mean…’ Wade shrugged, smiling. ‘If the universe is doing everything in its power to bring you down, what good is there in being sad? All the bad stuff…it makes the good stuff even sweeter.’

Luke was glad the scuba mask hid his smile. He felt a little silly.

Up went one, down went the other. Blistering winds manhandling Wade’s body as he clung to the carpet, biting cold engulfing Luke as he delved. The squirming, wriggly thing, both its halves, growing bigger and bigger, while the sky manifested little meteors and the sea’s surface tore itself more and more. Gravity reversing itself as Luke’s fortune tried to pull him back up, him clinging to rocks with all his might. Thorny vines bursting from the earth, reaching miles above to seize the carpet and pull Wade down. Luke realizing his fortune had given him a little too much luck, because he could see crystal clear in the dark bottom of the sea. Wade realizing his fortune was a little too awful, since he could grab one vine, blow off its pain, release the carpet, cut the vine loose, thrust it over his shoulder, entrap the flying half. Luke manhandling his half, feeling a dozen slimy things skitter through his fingers, until he latched onto some giant, squishy ball, groaning as he realized…

‘It’s not spaghetti?!’ Luke was not exactly amused when he and Wade returned to the beach, shoved the pieces back together, and beheld what was apparently not the Flying Spaghetti monster. The sky was back to normal. The ground was back to normal. The mob was taking a break due to bunny-related exhaustions.

‘I did tell you it was noodles.’

‘Oh, whatever – hey, FNM? If you can understand us, can you take our fortunes back? I don’t want to live like this.’

Wade shrugged. ‘I’m fine with this, but…it’s kind of a public health hazard, so…’

The Flying Noodle Monster blinked its eyes thrice, a symbol of gratitude the pair had no way of interpreting, then clapped two noodles together, then sped off into space.

‘How do we know that changed anything?’ Luke looked over his shoulder again, shivering. ‘It might’ve just left us with…’

‘Hey, none of this is burnt anymore.’ Wade remarked cooly, wearing a little smile as he observed his clothes. ‘And your suit…it’s not sparkling.’

Luke froze, looked down, and a little smile of his own started to grow.

‘Heh. Guess it’s not.’