by M. R. Holman
really add to the whole scone experience," the werewolf snarled, drool beginning to hang from its jowls.
"That sounds lovely. I'll have apricot preserves on mine please," Bigfoot said with a content grin.
"As you wish, sir. That will be three Crypto Units, please."
Bigfoot set his laptop on the counter so that he could extract his wallet. He placed three Crypto Unit bills on the counter and slid them to the werewolf. Its long black claws pierced the bills and scratched against the stainless steel surface of the counter, causing a terrible sound to fill the café for a moment.
"Have a seat and we'll deliver your meal in just a few moments," the werewolf growled as it turned and slammed the cash register shut with its muscular bushy tail.
Bigfoot picked up his laptop and began to look around the café for an area that would be suitable for blog writing. It appeared that many other cryptids had the same idea in mind. Every other patron of the café had an open laptop or notebook in which they were feverishly writing, or else teetering on the verge of writing in. Bigfoot could not decide if this was enlivening or discouraging. Were they his colleagues or his competition? How could he compete with so much content being produced?
He walked to a small table by a window, directly beneath the neon 'Open' sign and sat down. To his left a centaur poked away at the keys of her keyboard violently, words appearing fluidly across her screen as she typed without pause. Before him, a chupacabra wearing a fedora forcefully pressed the keys of a vintage typewriter, a loud ding issuing each time he finished a line. Two werewolves in the corner conversed in hushed growls behind the screen of a laptop.
"A coffee with cream and a scone with apricot preserves. Enjoy," said a small wood nymph who delivered Bigfoot's order to his table.
"Thank you," Bigfoot said, admiring the spirals of steam rising from his piping hot scone. He took a sip of his coffee and had to suppress a yelp. It was still far too hot to drink. He resolved to let it cool for a few minutes before attempting to drink it again. The scone looked as though it could cool down a bit too. At least he knew the coffee and scones were fresh...
Bigfoot suddenly realized that, aside from coffee and scones, he had come to the café to write. He opened up his laptop and waited for it to boot up. It was an old computer, a Cryptex 500. The werewolves in the corner were using a Cryptex 1100 Plus. The computer finally booted, and Bigfoot frantically clicked the browser tab so that none of the other cryptids around him would see his background image on his home screen: a photo of his fiancé and himself dressed as humans for Halloween.
The text cursor blinked at him once more from the top of the blank screen. He took a deep sigh, and looked around the café again, hoping that an idea worthy of blogging might enter his mind. All these other cryptids did not seem to have a problem writing. Though, now that he really examined all of the patrons of the café, many of them seemed to be talking about what they were writing rather than writing. It was still more than he could do, he reflected sadly.
"... I don't know man, is that really believable?" one of the werewolves sitting near Bigfoot grunted to his writing partner. Bigfoot leaned forward and tried to listen in discreetly.
"It's plenty believable... Listen, why wouldn't a werewolf on Mars not be effected by the moon just because they were on Mars?" the other werewolf snarled.
"Is our moon even visible from Mars? And even if it is, would it appear to be full from there?" one asked with their teeth bared and hackles raised.
"It doesn't matter! In the fictional universe we're creating it would!"
"I was under the impression that we would be writing a hard-science fiction portrayal of a werewolf going to Mars. I'm not sure we're on the same page. It sounds like you want to write more of a soft-science fiction account or even fantasy..."
The two werewolves stopped speaking and just growled at each other for a while. Bigfoot stopped listening to them. Whichever direction they decided to go with that story, he was sure it would be a bestseller. Werewolf fiction was a sure thing.
Book reviews... Maybe he could do a blog reviewing books, he thought. Bigfoot struggled to remember the last time he had even read a book from start to finish. He read a magazine about fly-fishing from cover to cover every month, but he could not remember the most recent book he had read at all. Another idea that would remain an idea...
"Excuse me," the centaur that had been typing so furiously said to Bigfoot timidly. "I've hit a snag and was wondering if I could bounce a few ideas off of you?" she asked.
"Of course, of course!" Bigfoot said, excited by the opportunity to close his laptop and take a break from trying to think of an idea. The centaur rose from her oblong table and gamboled to his, her hooves clipping and clopping off the shiny checkerboard tiles along the floor.
"Excellent. Sometimes it’s best to have a fresh mind to bounce ideas off of after one has been immersed in their work for so long," she said as she sat down across from him and placed her laptop on top of the table. As soon as the centaur sat down, she launched at once into hurried speech.
"So, basically what I'm working on is a screenplay about a centaur in law school that is trying to work a full time job at the horse shoe factory, maintain her position on the centaur track team, support her family back home in Greece, all while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average at the elite Cryptid Law University."
"Uh huh," said Bigfoot nodding vigorously. "Sounds good so far. Go on."
"But there's a twist... the dean of Cryptid Law University, who is a sixty feet tall blue dragon, is secretly in love with her and worships her from afar. He's extremely strict when it comes to school rules, and the rules forbid him to have romantic relationships with students."
"Wow, it sounds riveting," Bigfoot said while she drew a deep breath. He was struggling to keep up as she was talking so fast and the story was getting more intricate.
"So, the dean has to make a choice... Does he resign as the dean? Or does do whatever is in his power to get the centaur expelled so he can be allowed to date her?" she said.
"Hmmm, well I think he should - ," Bigfoot began, before being abruptly cut off.
"What? No, I have that part figured out. That's not where I need help," the centaur said as she shook her head. "Anyways, the dean decides to use his powers to try to get her expelled. The problem is, the centaur knows the school handbook from cover to cover. She knows it even better than the dean does. So every time the dean comes along, towering over everyone with his gargantuan leathery blue wings and spouting fire from his nostrils while accusing her of breaking school rules, she deftly dodges his legal attacks over and over so that she can stay in school..."
Bigfoot nodded even though he was totally lost. He no longer had any idea what she was talking about and was distracted by the television in the corner of the café. It was displaying the nature channel. He thought it was ironic that they would be in the middle of the forest and still keep the television on the nature channel.
"But there's another problem.... The centaur is in love with the dean too. But since she's aware of the rule herself, she also has to make a decision whether she will be expelled, resign as a student, wait until after she has graduated, or attempt to put the whole painful ordeal behind her as she continues to..."
A whiff of his scone and coffee caught in Bigfoot's nostrils. He had almost forgotten about them. Maybe he could review cafés and restaurants, he thought to himself. He did love dining out, and so did his fiancé. This could be a blog idea that was actually worth attempting. His eyelids grew heavy as the centaur continued to drone on and on about her increasingly complex screenplay, which actually turned out to be a trilogy of screenplays, each episode focusing on one year of the centaur's law school. At least, that's what Bigfoot thought she was explaining.
"... but then, another alien arrives, this time in her kitchen, and it tells her that she doesn't have to make the decision at all because he can transport her to a dimension where it wouldn't break school rules t
o date the dean while she was a student. This, of course, contradicted what the first eleven aliens told her in episodes one and two, so she is obviously reticent to trust this particular alien. But then again, it also confirmed what the ghost had told her when she sleepwalked onto the golf course. So, she goes to the spacecraft and the alien shrinks her down and..."
Bigfoot was really struggling to stay awake now. The centaur continued to read on monotonously from her computer screen and he only caught bits of what she was saying. He kept finding himself watching the nature channel on the television over her shoulder. He took a sip of his coffee and tried to think of a way to describe it so that he could review it on his blog. It tasted like.... coffee, he thought. He would need to work on his reviewing skills before he actually blogged about it.
"....and that's how it ends basically. Total annihilation of the universe. But anyways, the snag I wanted help with - was the symbolism regarding the centaur and the dragon dean's visit to the orange grove too trite? I wanted it to be critical of eighteenth century cryptid politics in Central Europe, but I feel like I was a bit too heavy handed. What do you think?"
"The symbolism...?" Bigfoot asked unaware that there had been any symbolism in the story at all, at least in the parts he had heard. He had to concede
