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The Lesser of the Two Evils
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The Duke of Saxe-Weimar's hunting preserve
"Yuck!" Seth Turski stared morosely into the pot he'd just snatched off the campfire. The hot cereal didn't look all that bad, but the burned smell was enough to give the dry heaves to a coyote. He was probably going to need sandpaper to get the pot clean again.
Dave Mora looked up from the plate balanced on his knees, where he perched on a chunk of firewood in front of his tent. "Oh, boy, you gonna eat that?"
"Guess so. I didn't bring anything else. It's that or hike back to town without any breakfast."
Jan Brinker went on washing up. "Be glad you have a choice. Plenty of times I didn't. What happened, anyway?"
"Didn't stir it enough. I got busy breaking camp, and forgot it for half a minute too long. The heat goes through that tin pot's bottom before you can blink. It doesn't weigh anything in my pack, but I swear, this thing's an invention of Stan." He took a spoonful and made a face.
"Stan? Who's Stan?"
Seth snorted. "You never heard of Stan? Well, there's Satan, and then there's Stan. Stan is the lesser of the two evils. The Prince of Dimness. Lord of the Fleas. Perpetrator of petty plagues. The wannabe of wickedness."
Jan looked back at him. "I don't think I ever saw anything like that in scripture. Do they preach that at your up-time Sunday school?"
"Oh, heck, no. It's just something Grandpa used to come out with back up-time, when stupid things went wrong. Just a tall tale of his. He blamed stuff on Stan, to get it off his chest, I guess."
Dave waved his fork. "Oh, like they talk about gremlins and kobolds over at the labs? What's Stan supposed to do?"
"Well, you remember when your folks would be driving down the main drag in Fairmont, and every traffic light you came to, it'd turn yellow just before you got close enough to go through? One of the works of Stan."
"Oh, yeah. Hey, I can think of one. How about when I was late getting started on a book report last month, and they thought some guy from Flanders had it checked out, but it was really in a pile waiting to get checked back in?"
Jan grinned. "Perhaps he put something slippery on the steps of the school bus. My sister went flying off and caught the hem of her dress on the hinge. She spent sewing class repairing the rip, instead of working on her lesson."
Saint Martin's in the Fields, Rudolstadt
That ends the preview. Probably in the middle of a sentence. Sorry.