The Songs We Share

Chapter 1

The arid, wooden floorboards creak beneath me. I study the first of what is meant to be one of the many saloon rooms I'll be staying in. The condition of the room is... well, I suppose I can't say much about it yet. I haven't done a lot of traveling in my life before, so I don't have a lot of experience with saloon rooms. It's definitely worse than what Pops and I used to live in, that's for sure. The bed at the end of the room looks nice-ish, and the bedframe is quite similar to what I had at home. Adjacent to the bed is a large window draped with red curtains, which is where most of the room's light is coming from. There's also a basic dining-room chair across from the bed. The most eye-catching thing in the room is a small, single-drawer nightstand on the other side of the bed. On top of the nightstand is a candle and a large tower made up of seven different copies of holy texts stacked on top of each other. The texts include the Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon, Quaker Faith & Practice, and The Order of the Chief God, among others. Most of the books are intentionally damaged in some way, with the pages either being burned or ripped out of the book. The damage was most likely done by enraged religious folk who were upset that other religions existed alongside theirs.

I set my guitar next to the chair and walk over to the nightstand. I pick up one of the religious texts off the nightstand and flip through it. Pops once told me that sometimes people hide money in these books to encourage future guests to pick them up. I never really understood the logic behind it. Who in their right mind would be okay with throwing away a perfectly good dime only to have somebody look at their book for 5 seconds? I never thought anybody would be dumb enough to try it, but apparently, it's true. Pops once said he found an entire dollar in one! A dollar!

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any money in the one I had just picked up. Setting it back onto the wooden nightstand, I grab another one and flip through it again. While I expected to find money (or, more realistically, nothing), I discovered something far, far superior to cash; porn. I stop flipping the pages upon landing on the picture and blink in a state of surprise as I stare at the lewd imagery. I never bothered to look at what religion the texts belonged to, so to say seeing drawn porn in a book supposedly intended for devout followers of a religion shocked me would be an understatement. After staring at the image for a few seconds, I flip back to the cover to see what in the goddamn I just picked up.

The book has a hardcover cover that is covered in red textile. Golden text is at the upper center of the book, reading "The Scriptures of Eros" in capitalized, Times New Roman font. The space between each letter is large enough for my pinky to fit in between. At the very bottom, it reads, "Illustrated by Caroline Reed."

Caroline Reed was a well-known artist, with her main claim to fame being that she was a Hellhound, a wild and savage beast who made pretty little drawings, challenging stereotypes and whatnot. While she was quite a talented individual, she eventually turned to a life of crime for some unknown reason. She began robbing trains, travelers, and banks all by herself. The main reason she was able to get away with all of these crimes was because of her brute strength and agile body. She would rip through whatever was stopping her and run faster than any horse (or centaur) could when the sheriff came by.

Because of this brutal crime streak she started, all of the organizations and companies she once worked with ceased their association with her, including book publishers. This book has probably been recalled from every bookstore by now.

This book is probably worth a bit to whoever wants to buy it. Sure, some of the pages are missing or damaged, but most of the illicit pictures are still intact, and that's all that matters to the average man.

And I, in fact, am the average man.

I flip back to the pornographic page I was on earlier and reach for my belt.