Henry, Henry! This is terrible! You need to help that person on the ground!

"No."

What do you mean no? He could be dying! Quickly, help him!

"No."

Go over there and help him, you stupid bitch.

"Okay."

Maybe Henry was crazy. Maybe this was all just a dream. Or a dream within a dream. Maybe none of this was real at all.

But something possessed him to obey the demands of that imaginary voice. Maybe it was because the voice, although squeaky, had called him a stupid bitch.

Henry leaned over the thin, gray haired man on the ground. "Hey? You alive?" He nudged him with his foot once or twice, then looked up at the sky. "Voice, I think he's dead."

Get him something to drink, quickly!

"What? Am I supposed to magically pull a cup of water out of my ass—" Henry stopped when he noticed the river just a few feet away. "Oh, right."

The young man, no older than twenty-three, dragged the older man's limp body to the edge of the lake. After a bit of huffing from the extraneous physical work, he got on his knees. He then took a hold of the man's head.

"Old man, I'm sorry, but I have to do this."

With one swift motion, he smacked the man's head against the water and dunked him. A second later, he pulled him back up and repeated the process until he heard a violent gasp. In a panic, the older man flailed and wriggled free while Henry just sort of stood there and let the guy cough and sputter and do whatever else he needed to do.

"I swear I wasn't waterboarding you. I just needed to wake you up before you died or something."

After getting himself together, the man gave a heavy sigh of relief and stood up before straightening his wild wild west hat. His face, hair, and beard were drenched but there was a smile on his face. "I must have passed out from heat exhaustion! Thanks for saving me. I really appreciate it." He had a Southern accent, slightly gruff, though not much of a strong one.

Henry stood up and gave a small shrug of the shoulders. "No problem?"

"You must be Henry?"

"The one and only. And you must be Dunhill? Father said you two were close friends."

The old man smiled, "Sure are! Henry, it's a pleasure finally being able to meet you. Were you filled in with all of the details before coming here?"

"Pretty much, yeah—"

"Great! I'm going to explain everything to you in a painstakingly thorough manner anyway!"

"That's not really necessary—"

But, Dunhill was off, "So you're now the proud owner of Echo Farm!" Then suddenly he frowned; no, rather, his entire expression dropped and he looked disappointed—grave, even. "I reckon you know why the previous owner left?"

"Yeah, you told me all about it in your letter—"

"A bad storm swept through the entire village. Completely destroyed almost all of the farmland. Poor Rachel packed up her animals and the few things she had left and took off the very next day."

"Well," Henry slipped his hand into the pockets on his trousers. "I'm here to make something out of the wreckage, and I intend to do just that."

"That's the spirit!" Dunhill was back to beaming at the young man. He straightened his hat and turned. "The village is just that way. How about you say we get a meal and check out your new home."

"Sounds good. Let me grab my stuff." Henry walked over to his modest travel bags and bent over to pick them up.

As he did so, Dunhill seemed to be examining something on Henry's backside very closely, very deeply. He stroked his beard and nodded his head in thought. "You know, you look just like your dad from behind."

"… Don't say that ever again. Ever."

After a hearty meal of grits and other extremely Southern things, Dunhill showed Henry to the farm. On the way, he pointed out several shops and houses and promised that Henry would get to meet everyone really soon. He even mentioned that there were several nice girls living in town, to which Henry feigned enthusiasm.

The farm itself was in a sad state, but it wasn't a complete mess. There were several small gravel fields intact, a barn, and traces of wreckage scattered about. Most of the trees had begun growing back, but the soil was torn up in places—a scar left on the earth from the storm.

Henry exhaled through his nose and shoved his hands into his pockets. "You know, it's not so bad."

Dunhill stood beside him. "I'm confident that you'll be able to restore the farm and this village."

"Yeah—say what?"

"Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention it in the letter, but even though Rachel fixed up Echo Village a little bit, there's still a lot more we can do to make this a thriving community. The people here pulled together and started coming up with Restoration Plans for you to complete. You get to be our Honorary Town Coordinator! You get to build facilities—houses, businesses, amenities—to get this town looking lively and pretty enough to attract revenue—I mean, more people."

"Isn't that just another way of saying you're going to make me single handedly build this entire town for you?"

Dunhill roared with laughter and shook his head. "Youngsters these days! Well, I'm heading back out. Feel free to get acquainted with the land, and make sure to get a good night's sleep, because I have a lot planned for you tomorrow!"

"Oh, joy. Well… thanks, Dunhill. I shall be fully rested for whatever fun adventure you've planned for tomorrow."

Henry waved as Dunhill walked off. When he was left to himself, he suddenly remembered the squeaky voice that had called to him from the heavens earlier. Had it really been a dream? Maybe he'd find out sooner or later, but for the meantime he settled in.

It was well into the evening when Henry finished tidying up the small farm. He'd gathered a pile of branches, weeds, and rocks and threw them into the storage sheds. With the farm looking much cleaner, he figured he'd earned a good rest. But just as he was heading back inside his cozy country cottage, something stopped him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a thin white object lying on the ground, trapped under a small branch he'd missed earlier. It was a piece of paper blowing gently in the wind. Stricken with curiosity, Henry picked up the crumpled paper; it was damp and torn here and there, so his best guess was that it was leftover trash from the storm.

But it had writing on it. It was a letter. So, of course he read it.

To Whom It May Concern:

And so he was dead.

That was a very low point for us. Our lives were continually threatened by a situation we had no business being in, a close friend just killed a man and then himself, and more and more we were beginning to wonder if we could trust anyone.

But then I put a magical sausage in Cliff's pants and he came back to life.

Henry read the letter over again. And again. And he tried, so very hard, to understand what he'd just read. The letter was damp, crumbled, and the words were worn and faded a little, but he was sure that's what the letter said. But what did it mean?

And so he was dead… Our lives were continually threatened… beginning to wonder if we could trust anyone…. a magical sausage…

Henry didn't know why, but he kept the letter.

He slipped it into his pocket and headed to bed.