WEEKLY STORY! October 1-7, 2025

A Fortified Base Full Of Trout

On top of a mountain in the middle of the country of rocks, there was a fortified base full of trout. The base was called Fort Trout—a quite reasonable name indeed. The base was not lacking in sustenance and its general presence confounded outsiders. One day a strange young fellow named James came across the mountain and said "I would like to climb that." He did.

The precipitous peaks made James appear miniscule in comparison. Then a rattlesnake bit his foot. He shouted "ouch" and lifted his foot. James immediately fell into a hole concealed by leaves and snapped his neck. A distant man journeyed to the hole and looked in to James. "Is thy foot injured? Or is it thy brain?" James didn't speak the man's dialect, and was puzzled at his words. "Me feets getted ouchied! Me neckses getted snappy-snapped!" The man responded in a rather patronizing manner. Yes, he did so indeed.

James watched the man walk away, walking towards the fortified base full of trout, or so James thought. "Me sees a nugget of de lead and me licks it. Me see a puddle of de mercury and me licks it. Me like licking things me sees when they not good for me tongue." James was in the hole for a while, until his stomach roared in suffering pain. "Me belly yearn for flavor beyond the rocks of the ground." James sat in the hole and starved, and died of thirst. His body, left behind, rotted into the earth and from it emerged a plump and plentiful plum tree. James liked plums. His feet did too. Some say he died of starvation, some say his brain just stopped working because of a mere lack of intelligence.

Anyways, one day far away a trout rained down on the tree. A plum, a trout. A meal. James's bones were unearthed from the earth and his skull was placed inside of the plum tree. Dark magic has its ways quite often though—the tree came to life and quite resembled a demon. Despite being in tree form, James's brain still starved and he quickly died. That was that, and then he was burnt.

His tree's fruit—the plums—were disgusting. And burnt.