The merry men sought out to find their way back home. Back home to a time when peace was one and one was all. When there were no wars and the raw desire for humanity existed. All they ever wanted was to see these things again but they couldn't even have that. They had been ridiculed by the town elders because of their naive and unrealistic stance and their views. They knew not the reality of death, pestilence, suicide, emphysema, hatred, and other great things. People wondered why they should return, for they were more out-of-place than when they left their incidence.
       Thomas Hardley rode in first, he was followed by Daniel Rudocca, and finally by Skip Wrighter. They were the "fallen-men" but their showcase and appearance on the hot day was one to remember. Thomas Hardley rode up to the stable on his brown horse and jumped off. The other two men followed him. He gave his horse to the attendant and looked around at the barren town.
       "What happened to this here place?" asked Hardley.
       "The plague," answered the horse attendant.
       "What plague? I didn't hear 'bout no plague!"
       "Well, sir," said the horse attendant, "it wasn't so much a plague in the sense of disease or death, sir. It was sort of an occurrence which I'd rather not talk about. Actually, I should not talk about it. But everyone is okay, you've got to believe me."
       "What you talkin' 'bout boy!" shouted Hardley who had the young man by his collar. "You better tell me now before I claim ya fair to another 'air."
       "C'mon, Hardley," said Wrighter, "leave the man alone. Don't you see that he's shaking."
       "I don't understand a word, boy!" Hardley screamed, ignoring the other two merry-men.
       "Sir," said the horse attendant, "I really can't. It would be much better if you didn't know."
       "Know what?"
       Before the horse attendant could speak, Rudocca took out his pistol and shot six rounds into the attendant's chest. Rudocca started laughing madly.
       "Why'd you do that?" said Wrighter.
       "Because I'm a-aimin' to please my woman right, motherf*cker," said Rudocca, who now fired three more shots into his victim.
       "Calm down, Dan!" said Hardley. "We ain't here to kill nobody. We just here to have our questions answered. And you a fool, boy! You shot our only reliance for the answer. Why I do declare, you ain't nothin' but a Southern boy raised outside of Dela Croix and I ain't fixin' to be outduked by such a Southerner as yourself, boy!"
       "Okay, man," said Rudocca, "sorry, I'm a-just-a havin' fun."
       "Well, don't have fun on my time, boy."
       The three men walked into a deserted saloon and inspected the place for survivors. The sight of rats almost made Wrighter throw up. Rudocca took one up and chewed off the head and spit out the blood unto Wrighter's shoes and started laughing.
       "That's not funny," said Wrighter.
       "Skip, you a damn-sissy-girl," said Rudocca.
       "Shut up, boys!" commanded Hardley. "I do declare that I hear a noise comin' from the stairs."
       The three men walked closely to the stairs. Rudocca and Hardley went to one side while Wrighter stayed on the other. All guns were out. They inched in closer and saw a woman crawling down the stairs from the top floor.
       "Help me," she said in a soft tone.
       "Are you okay ma'am," said Wrighter who went up the stairs and grasped the woman in his arms.
       "Skip!" screamed Hardley. "Don't do that! You a crazy, boy! She might have the disease and you can't hold her!"
       "Don't you see she's dying," said Wrighter.
       The other two merry-men went upstairs and helped Wrighter bring the woman downstairs. She was bleeding massively from her right knee and her face was filled with some weird purple soot. Her dress was torn and she was sala- vating like crazy.
       "My name is Carolina Manuel Esteccitamos-Rolandas," said the woman as she coughed up blood.
       "You don't have to talk, ma'am," said Wrighter.
       "I have to," she began coughing some more, "are you the guys they sent here to...to...to help us out. You're too late."
       "What happened, boy," said Hardley.
       "I'm not a boy," said the woman. She gave Hardley the finger and fell to her death.
       "Ha ha ha!!" laughed Rudocca. "You a damn fool Tommy-Boy! She gave you da finger."
       "Shut up, boy!" shouted Hardley. "Or I'll claim ya fair to another 'air!" He became distraught. He knew he couldn't find the answers and he was running out of time.
       A dildo crashed into the saloon's window and fell on Rudocca's head, killing him instantly.
       "Nooo!!!" screamed Wrighter.
       "That's the answer!" said Hardley. "Damn dildos are killin' everyone in this here Southern town. They call it the plague of come. Now I see why. Come, Skip, we must leave this here town before it claims our fair to another 'air, Turkish boy!"
       Yes, it was true. Skip Wrighter was a Turkish boy. He was never a Southerner and did not even have Southern manners or Southern respectability. It was the one only thing keeping him away from himself. He always dreamed about how consummate his life would become if he became the perfect Southerner but now he realized the truth. He was no one and he could not define his consummate well-being being a Turkish boy raised in the South. He knew what he had to do.
       "I have to kill you," said Wrighter.
       "Have you gone mad, boy!" said Hardley. "You best getti' out-a my sight before I claim ya fair to another 'air!"
       "I've been getting it wrong all these years," said Wrighter, "I always looked up to you but I never realized it until this moment what my very own existence meant. Within reality of whatever death, suicide, pestilence, and emphysema means, we don't justify ourselves by our actions. Sh*t, we can't justify ourselves by our actions. We are no more merry-men than we are grave- robbers, robbing and raping the dead. Although dead flesh is quite tender. I have no more muscle-relaxants in my face and I'm not really who you think I am. My name is General Ulysses S. Grant. And I'm a Northerner from the great states. I was sent on a mission to find this Southern plague and use it on you rotten Southerners and your Confederacy."
       "I can't believe what I'm a hearin', boy!" said Hardley. He drew his gun and warned: "I gives ya ten seconds to get out of my sight. If you don't you'll be doomed to death by my loving care and affection, meaning I'm a-aimin' to shoot out ya gullet, brother-man!"
       Ulysses S. Grant walked out of the saloon. Hardley kneeled and pilfered the blood money from Rudocca's pocket. He went outside and lit up a salamander stick and began smoking it. He looked around. Yes, "Southern Death" was all around but he knew the truth. He knew it well. It was hidden but it was with him alright.
       He walked into the open and a sniper shot him in the head. He fell to the ground. The world became faint to him now.

       Legend has it that the gunman who shot down Hardley, the leader of the merry-men, resembled a possummed moo-cow. How much fact can be drawn from this conclusion? Who knows. Anything is possible in the South.