The Tuneless Ballad of Rostay Toonany and Chemo Destrapè

Clowns and claustrophobes both. Masters of microbes and microbiomes—and bonhomie. Too much probiotic nonsense squelching their wheelhouse one day, and they took to fisticuffs.

Oh, what a dastardly day for all! The day the two friends took to winging and knuckles. The magpies alighted on the witch alder to watch. The eastern cottontail hare trained their mysterious obsidian eyes on the row. The red efts and copperheads ignored each other in utter transfixion—neologisms were created for the event—so rare it was.

Rostay Toonany landed sharp jabs, but Chemo Destrapè eiger to be done with the punch-out threw a barrage of roundhouse lefts and uppercuts and dinged Rostay’s temporal lobe—bumping about in his skull—trebly charged, in a timbre of orange and reds.

The bestiary cackled, hissed, and meeped.

It was bitter day that—the day of the bust-up. But Chemo’s arms were raised forevermore in victory and infamy—the day the protozoan roared.

“Write every day. Habits are things you get for free, without requiring any special work. Set a daily word target. Make it small. 75 words a day is a novel a year.”

— Cory Doctorow