Layers of excrement peel off the walls like clams peeled from shells – not without struggle, but satisfying nevertheless. Something of the waste of one life becoming the sustenance of another. Gobby pops poop into his mouth and chews like he never tasted shit before.

“They had a right rich diet, whoever crapped this out.”

“Shut up, Dobby,” Alexander says, wrenching human expulsion from the walls and smearing half of it over his lips and nose as he greedily ingests all he can.

These past few years have been tough times for the people of Layalexia. What was once a gold-paved land of cow and bee juice has been reduced through folly of the leadership to a place where the sons of once proud men sneak into the septic dens beneath foreign cities to find something to fill their barren bellies with. It was only thanks to the few remaining geniuses of the elder generation that pills had been deduced & mass produced to turn each of Layalexia’s citizens’ stomachs into burning cauldrons of acid so potent that no bacteria from any ingested filth could survive inside them more than half a nanosecond.

Having not eaten in days, Dobby and Alexander clear the walls to the point their rancid stomach acid is ravaging the tips of their throats and would still continue if not for sound above:

“Fine job this. Why don’t they have one of them foreign gops doing it?”

“You know what them lazy guffwits are like,” another voice replies. “Come here to plow the buxom wenches, not fields. Their sodding desert lands are so deprived of sustenance all their womenfolks’ tits have turned into lolling socks slopped full of curdled milk.”

“Yeah, then why the bleppo are them gops in some cushty office while we’re wading through fucking human shit all day?”

“They do speak the lingos, don’t they?”

“I speak a little Varawhili.”

“Alright them. Ashken caramoosh?”

“Ashken… ashken….”

“Yeah, go on. Ashken…”

Alexander and Dobby take their eyes off the light-beaming hole above them from which the voices are coming.

“We should leave,” Dobby silently mouths.

Alexander shakes his head firmly: no. If the cleaners are up above, then the flushing crew’s likely positioned at the grate they snuck in through.

“Ashken… cabadoza.”

“Yeah, well if it takes you ten guffing minutes to say ‘ashken cabadoza,’ you’re not gonna be much good on a trade comittee, are ya?”

“Oi!” A third voice comes from the direction of the grate but is bellowed with enough force to echo through the guff chamber and out through the small hole above. “You two gong lickers gonna chat about guffing Varawhili greetings all day or are you gonna get the clorking pipe on? We got twenty of these gops to get done before lunch time!”

“Yeah, alright, alright, keep your lips dry.”

The light pouring through the hole is slowly eclipsed as the pipe end’s fitted over it.

“We’re gonna drown,” Dobby whimpers.

Alexander thinks for a second Dobby may be right before he steels himself: “Bellneckers we will. They don’t fill the things fully. That’d be a waste of the guff fluid.”

“Yeah, but they got a surplus of the guff fluid now,” Dobby says, voice getting louder as industrial doings outside become loud enough to conceal any sound they might make. “Didn’t you hear what Tash were saying in the Moggy last eveningtime?”

“Shut up, Dobby.”

Alexander starts feeling at the walls, trying to find shit clumped thick enough that it might be possible to use it to clamber upward and keep his head above the ensuing guff fluid rush. He finds a clump high up on the wall that seems promising, but as soon as he distributes any weight to it, the piece snaps off.

“Oh guffing heck, oh guffing heck, oh guff me,” Dobby repeats as mantra.

Alexander grabs the big ripped-off clump and gnaws at it fast as he can. Though his belly’s full to the point of acid almost being forced into his sinuses, this is the last meal he might enjoy in a fortnight.

“Right, here goes!” the third voice says.

Seven-tenths of a nanosecond later, the chamber they’re in is filling with guff fluid, it surging from the gates’ direction, reaching their ankles near-instantly, then a half-second after that flowing through with such force to knock them back against the wall. Both are submerged within the murky water, struggling against the guff current. Alexander thinks Dobby might be crying, though it’s impossible to distinguish guff from tears at this point. From Alexander’s point of view, this chamber might be his death hole, but better that than death via starvation.

At the point Dobby gasps, opening his mouth and letting guff fluid in, the great sucking sound starts above, and the chamber’s fluid is slowly pulled upward. The last drops fly through the hole as Dobby and Alexander collapse to the floor of the now clean chamber, breathing as deeply as if they’d just escaped the womb.

“Right then, get that guff pipe off and let’s get onto the next one!” the third voice shouts.

“Arabencha,” one of the voices above the above hole says.

“Don’t let frog tickler hear you say that,” the other voice says.

“Why? He do speak less Varawhili than you do.”

“That was a near one,” Alexander says, grinning now the danger’s passed.

Dobby’s still gasping for air as the pipe slides off the above hole and light beams back through it.

They take some minutes to regather their strength after the voices have moved on to the next shit hole. Then it’s back out through the grate and on to Layalexia, bellies full and a grand story to regale with at Moggy’s.

The Legendary Sons of Layalexia is due for release through Dead Bird Press later this year.