A Well-Insulated Adventure Story

Dearest Rodrigo,

Whenever I have needed rescuing, I’ve turned to you. Whether it be from the Chupacabra Pit, the Tiger Pit, the Lion Pit, or the oft maligned but really very formidable Well-Organized and Highly Motivated Maine Coon Pit–you’ve always been there to pull me out and set me back on my feet, alive (though perhaps a little scratched up). And so it was with you in my mind and my heart that I set out to rescue M.

As I mentioned in an earlier letter, his butler heard barking one night and the next morning M was missing. After consulting my sources, shaking down a number of hooligans, and exchanging folders with a number of trench-coat-wearing men in the park, I found out that M was being held in an abandoned castle near an inexplicable geyser in a vast desert.

Getting there was easy enough, if not a bit frustrating. There were at least four bridges, each with an old man tending them, each of whom wanted me to solve a riddle to gain passage. But all of the riddles were the same! This, I fear, is what happens when big riddle companies consolidate power and put the mom-and-pop riddle makers out of business, Rodrigo. There is no variety!

The castle itself was quite beautiful on the outside. Inside, it was in utter disrepair. And there were attack dogs everywhere. Luckily, I remembered your trick for reconfiguring one’s glands through meditation to emit inhuman odors. In this way, I made myself smell like a dog, which allowed me to easily integrate into the pack and extract M without a fight.

And yet, successful though I was, I must admit: I am not satisfied. You see, when I went looking for whoever commanded the dogs, I found that they responded to no present master but to a series of clicks, whistles, and buzzing-noises emitted by their collars. In other words, they were being controlled them from afar. And so we are no closer to finding her.

Were we in the same room, you might shush me now, tell me to speak no more. And while you have abided by this yourself–you have not mentioned her once in all these years–I have seen the ghost of her in the margin of every letter you’ve written me since I first mentioned the dogs who stormed M’s chateau. And so now I will put into words what we both have been too fearful to admit: I believe the dogs’ master to be none other than Mlegan Tamperhorn–my twin sister and your former fiancé, who left your nuptials unfulfilled after disappearing along the Super-Egoterod, a dog-and-sled race much like the Iditarod but with a focus on moral conundrums.

This should be a time of celebration–she who would bring love back to your life and render us a true family may have, at long last, resurfaced. And yet, if it is her, she is working with our enemies. Just putting the words to page is enough to make me sob for hours. Which can be very dehydrating. So it’s good that I have three Halcyon 17oz Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Bottles at hand. At least two of them are filled with the discharge of the aforementioned geyser. It incredibly crisp and clear, Rodrigo. If only life could emulate it, rather than remaining such a murky mess of confusion and betrayal.

Until our next great adventure,
Gleg Tamperhorn