a nasty and misshapen beginning...

What will follow will only be the nasty and misshapen beginning.... Will you be my friend? I only ask because some excursions require some wrinkle of companionship, no matter the quality. And where we're going, a friend will come in handy. Hopefully, also a hand to hold. I won't lie to you. This will be grim. This will be a bad place.

This place is not a city, but a town. Perhaps not even a town, but a clumsy and rusty abbatoir. The air is always warm, and usually reeks of raw meat. If not raw meat, then the aroma of salt and butter from a nearby citizen's sweat. It must be said: a high majority of the townspeople are grossly overweight.

Another strange truth about this town: a least once daily, a town citizen will die unnaturally. Strangley, this is a bragging right for the town. You greet an upstanding man-about-town on a main street sidewalk, issue a mild and unexciting "good morning"; this man, round, blubbery face shiny and bright strawberry red, becomes quite agitated, his thick eyes popping like ping pongs... He stammers excitedly, "So, who's it gonna be? Who's gonna kick?" His chimpanzee grin melts to nothingness as he perceives your increduity. You have no goddamn idea what the fat goon is talking about. "You stupid, pathetic bastard," he says, quite rudely. "You have no fucking idea what I'm talking about, do you?" You nod sheepishly, but in your coat pocket your fist grabs a cold jacknife, just in case. You notice the fast and ragged pulse of the man's carotid artery even through his thick and sweaty throat as he patronizes you with his definition of "unnatural death". "We include deaths by accident, by suicide, by quick, sudden and unexpected illness, and, yes, death by another man's hand, murder as it's usually known."