"So, what would it be, my droogie? Messel a eegra with an starry pal from under the stall?" says the man with a voice more befitting of a court jester than a highschool student. Must be a theater kid. Those are always up to weird shit.

"I have no idea what the hell are you talking about," I say. My bunghole is itching in anticipation of being cleaned. Are you entertained yet, dear reader? We offer nothing but top quality content for you. "Look, if you have paper, can you not be a dick and just give me some?"

The man on the stall next door gave me some lame-ass anime laugh, something like "fufufu" or some weeb shit, confirming that he is, in fact, a theater kid. The worst kind of kids. The bad boy in me wants to give him a wedgie and dunk his head in the toilet. But something inside me also thinks this will give him a boner. Again, theater kids are weird.

"Could I? Yes, yes I could. But, my appy-polly loggies if I'm wrong, and I'm hardly wrong, but wouldn't it be more fun to have a malenky wager instead? a bitva of wits, all or nothing, for the paper of arse wiping?"

"I speako no weirdo," I say. "If you wanna talk to me, speak like a normal, God fearing person. And hurry up. My shit is getting dry and I don't wanna moist some cheap single-ply toilet paper to improvise a wet wipe." Seriously, gonna ask Brayden to cut me some of his premium tp stash. I know his family has some of that mythical 5-ply paper. Feels like cleaning your ass with a pillow.

"My droogie, I assure you that I'm not baddiwad in me gulliver. What I'm trying to skazat is, I, too, have but malenky precious vaysay paper. Not enough to share, at least!" says the man, followed by another weird bout of laughter.

Okay, so he doesn't have much toilet paper either. Fine, guess I'll use one of my cotton socks. Not the first time I use a sock to clean up some body fluid.

I'm talking about blood. Get your head out of the gutter.

Just as I'm about to take off my sock and give you all a sweet feet shot, the boy pipes up, gesturing wildly from under the stall. "Do not waste you precious platties, my droogie. There is no need for that. If you want my paper, we can filly for it. A good ol' bit of gambling, if you will."

"I prefer to use my sock, thanks," I say. If you can take anything from this chapter, is that you should never trust people that have a @yahoo mail account, only add mustard to their hotdogs, or are/were theater kids. They are all trying to deceive you and will destroy you and anything you stand for.

"It's a simple game, really," says the boy, followed by another sinister laugh that is anything but simple. His hands disappear for a second, only to reappear a few seconds with what looks like a dagger. Upon closer inspection, I can safely say it is, indeed, a dagger. A stiletto, to be precise. What the shit? I know this is a public school but damn. You can't even shit in peace without being mugged around here. On the plus side, if you are terrified shitless of knives, as I am, the best place to be said terrified shitless is while sitting in a toilet. Fucking theater kids and their flamboyant murder weapons.

"Dude, what the fuck? Get that shit away from me!"

His other hand appears, this time holding a clump of single-ply paper, barely enough to clean 1 and ½ asscheek. He wasn't lying when he said there wasn't enough. "The eegra is simple, really. I have, in my rooker, all the toilet paper in the cantora. With my nosh, World-render, we shall take turns stabbing at the ball of toilet paper. We are only allowed to take as many sheets of paper as we stab. You can be cautious and only stab odin or dva sheets, or go buckwild and try to stab them all! do, however, be careful not to go all the way... and stab the rooker beneath!"

He plunges down the stiletto in one fell swoop, penetrating three sheets of toilet paper. Nowhere near his hand, but definitely not enough paper to clean up. Really, tp is made of rice paper and a can-do attitude, because it dissolves with only the oil of your palms.

This seems like a dumb game some shitty shonen anime would pull. So, the more paper I stab, the more I can use to clean the entrance to my cave of wonders? Well, I'm willing to... take a stab at it.

The boy puts the knife down on the floor, making all the icky bathroom germs climb into it. I doubt this bathroom has been properly bleached since the Regan era. Bicth just made a poisoned dagger! "Come on, my droogie. Take it. It's your turn."

I take the dagger, and as soon as I do it, the world around me crumbles to nothing. The walls of the bathroom stall fall over like dominoes, only to reve—oh, God dammit.

"Son of Adam," says the figure sitting on a throne in front of me, the stupid smug look of a pasta goddess.

It is to note that, while everything else disappeared into swirls of magic, the toilet was spared. I am sitting in the throne of thunder right now. Half-naked. My staff of milk and honey at a quarter-chub. I try to cover my giblets up, but not fast enough. "Jesus Christ."

"Not Jesus, but Farfallah," says the goddess, legs crossed while looking down at me. Why is it making me harder? "A distinction I'm forced to make every time we meet, it seems."

"Can you give me some privacy? You gotta let a man shit in peace."

Farfallah pauses for a second, hand scratching her chin in thought. "No. You see, son of Adam, what you have in your hands is a powerful relic from my world, World-render. A dagger wielded by knight Astromel of Torquemada. It was once used to kill-"

"Don't care," I say. "I'm using it to win some tp to clean my asshole. Which I can't do without you bothering me."

Farfallah leans forward, either for emphasis, or to catch a glimpse at my wee-wee. "Fool. Have you not realized yet? The one who gave you that knife and the interloper who stole my relic are one and the same!"

Ah, yeah. Kinda forgot about that. There are like four plot-lines I gotta follow. Finding an interspatial thief is far down my priority list.

"Is this knife by any chance the relic you seek?" I ask. "Cause you can grab it, do like a glacier and fuck off this world."

Farfallah gives me the same "fufufu" laugh with her hand covering her mouth, as if I'm a peasant. Which I am. I'm at half-mast now. Am I into degradation? "Fool, compared to my relic, that is but a can opener. But you are now face-to-face with a dangerous criminal. Do not let your guard down, son of Adam. He is a trickster, and the only way to defeat a trickster is to out-trick him. Defeat him. Pay away your life debt. I'm not going to say I believe in you, but you are my champion. Do not let me down."

The walls of the stall begin to reconstruct, and the darkness recedes to let the fluorescent bulbs shine their mediocre light on me.

"Wait!" I say just before Farfallah disappears once again. "Do you have some toilet paper I can use?"

The last few remnants of darkness go away in a puff of dark, inky smoke, but not before giving one last resounding "No."

Great. Back to square one. But at least I know that the guy in the stall next to mine is not a theater kid, but an interdimensional theater kid. Fun.

So, he's a trickster, right? Contrary to popular belief, the only way to trick a trickster is not to be a bigger trickster, but to be as brain-dead as possible. Can't outsmart you if you're running on pure instinct.

"Chop-chop, my droogie. Are you ittying to make me wait all day?" says the stall guy. "Time is of the essence!"

So, the more sheets I stab, the more paper I get, right? And be careful not to cut the hand. Thing is, the ball of paper is in his hand. I guess he wants me to take it and do it over my hand now. Fat chance. I'll take a paper out of Bart Simpson's book, and, well, knife goes in...

I stab the ball of paper all the way to the bottom. The guy senses it and removes his hand at the last second, but not without getting a nick on his palm. Would you look at that? All the paper got stuck to the blade. Maybe thanks to the blood. I think I won!

"You gloopy nazz!" he yells, whatever the hell that means. "I'll yeckat my fists into your zoobies! You were supposed to skvat the ball first and then stab it with the nosh!"

"You didn't say that, I think," I say, finally feeling the coarse paper licking my chocolate starfish. Delicious. "All I heard is stab the ball of paper. Never heard anything about having to hold it myself. Or at least I think so. Can't really understand much of what you said. Where did you learn how to talk like that?"

Shit, as I thought. This little paper was not enough. I'm still at least 33% dirty.

Lucky for me, stall-boy puts down a book between us. "Gloopy mastodon. I learned how to govoreet real horrorshow like your world's youth from this book. I mean, our youth, for I am from this world as well. Now, give me an appypolly loggy for drawing my krovvy, cheater!"

The book in question is, to the surprise of nobody, "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Nice, more paper.

I grab the book and rip out a page. Hey, in times of war...

"Hey, that was mine!" yells the boy. But it's too late. I'm already clean and ready to go.

I go out of the stall and go directly to wash my hands. Just in time, for the boy also exits his stall. And boy does he put the "tall" in "stall." I think he is, by far, the tallest boy around. And lanky as well, with a white button-down shirt, black pants with suspenders, and pale as a ginger ghosts. He looks like the spirit of a malnourished 1920's newsie, with dark hair, eagle nose, and eyes that shimmer like rainbows. Yes, very normal Earth boy shit, indeed.

But, honestly, I don't care. All I care about is cleaning my hands for twenty seconds like a good little goober and going out and... there are no paper towels to clean my hands on.

I turn around to see the stall boy with all the paper towels in hand, grinning and bleeding. "How about two out of three, my droog?"