The zombie cowboy is impervious to your bellowing outrage, and starts wiggling about in order to bring its mouth and your toes in happy biting range.

You draw your pistol – aye, it’s a fine morning for shootings – and fire it into the zombie’s right eye. It makes a satisfying ’spock!’ sound and splurges eye juice and brain bits on your shins. The zombie pays this fine act of violence exactly zero heed.

It clutches at your foot, not yet decomposed enough to have lost its muscle strength, and turns out to be immune to your kicking too. Stomping has slightly more effect, in that you succeed in breaking its elbow, but it isn’t until you stomp on its fingers – and your own foot – that it lets go. Mostly due to broken fingers. And arrr, you’ve gone and stomped something gross onto your shoe.

The zombie plucks at your socks without effect.

You give the poxy little snot a good boot in the mouth. Your boot comes out with teeth stuck in it.

A stormtrooper, a sticker bearing the logo of a security company stuck crookedly on his arm, stops at your side. Behind him, the blazing form of another zombie finally collapses in a messy, rancid undead-but-finally-dead heap. He looks at you. He looks at the zombie cowboy whining at your ankles. He looks at you. You attempt to smile disarmingly, but this only reveals your missing teeth.

He sighs, and muttering something about not being able to find good trolley boys these days, he blasts the zombie cowboy. It doesn’t jolt the zombie, but sets it on fire. The zombie ignores the whole being on fire thing. The stormtrooper ignores the whole burning undead at his feet thing and sizes you up.

“You mind telling me what happened to our trolley cowboys?”

FIGHT!

The cowboy narrows his eyes further still, which makes him look like he’s been squirted with lemon juice. You raise your eyebrows. He raises his, and realise he has no practice doing so, narrows his eyes again. Now that you’ve had time to study it, you realise he isn’t very good at the stare, either. This would be why he’s a shopping trolley cowboy.

He releases the reigns of his trolley snake, and they roll away unheeded. He drops his hand to the holster at his hip. You tense, ready and waiting.

Before you can act, a second trolley snake comes charging in and smashes into the cowboy with such force he’s crushed against the wall. Something crunches audibly on impact. He gurgles once, and dies.

Oh.

Well then.

You turn from him, intending to head into the store, but are confronted by a second cowboy. Who is also dead, quite obviously so. You can tell from all the bits sticking out. This cowboy lets out a terribly, mindless and chilling moan.

“Braaaaaaaaaaaains.”

It shambles towards you, arms outstretched, eager to slurp your thinking muscle up.

a. Climb!

b. Er, I think they have some brains in the store, I’ll just go check for you…

c. QUICK DRAW SHURIKEN!

You whip out your pistol and fire. Nothing happens. Er. That’s not right. You peer down the barrel. Yep. Still loaded. Oh, no, wait. There’s some gunk in the hammer. Again.

You whip out your other pistol and fire – bang! – and plant a bullet right in the weasel little cowboy’s head. Oh yeah, you still got it. As he drops and the trolleys careen out of control across the road you turn away, already reloading. This you’ve learned – never, ever, never, EVER reload later. Especially not with a gunked-up second.

Once you’re securely armed again, you cross the street, picking the crusty bits out of your contaminated pistol. You’re nearly at the door of the supermarket when something latches onto your ankle.

It’s another cowboy. Who is also dead, quite obviously so. You can tell from all the bits sticking out, and the fact that it is pinned, quite literally, to the wall by twisted trolley wreckage. This cowboy lets out a terribly, mindless and chilling moan.

“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaains.”

a. Arrrr!

b. My name isn’t “Brian”, you’ve got the wrong pirate!

c. Shoot the limey little landlubber.

FIGHT!

You are a ninja. Booyah.

You are out of milk. Bugger.

In other circumstances, this wouldn’t bother you, as you’re lactose intolerant. But your overbearing uncle Retsudo is visiting, and he must have milk with his rice. You’re not sure why. You suspect it is one of those entirely arbitary whims that exists purely to vex you, and he insists upon having it so just because he can. He’s head of the clan, and you’re not his favourite nephew, so, well, what can you do? Better get some milk or he’ll “instruct” you as to a new ninja technique with hands on training. Your toes still hurt from the last time.

The bus pulls up at the curb and you disembark. The driver accepts your nod with a disinterested stare and pulls away, leaving you standing in front of the supermarket.

You’re patting your pockets to ensure you didn’t leave your wallet on the bus – you have a lot of pockets – when you hear the clatter and rattle of charging trolleys, and look up to see a snake of shopping trolleys in the reigns of an underpaid cowboy bearing down at you.

You execute a lightning fast flip, twist over the trolleys, swing around a street lamp and land behind the cowboy, who has just hauled his wayward flock to a halt. He raises the brim of his hat, squinting about for several long moments before finally noticing you behind him.

His eyes narrow. A thousand yard stare in the high noon sun.

a. What, you’re such a lousy cowboy you can’t even herd a shopping trolley?

b. Return fire with a dramatic stare made entirely more menacing in your ninja mask.

c. QUICK DRAW SHURIKENS!

You are a pirate. Arrrr.

You are not sure where you are. Arrrr.

This is the usual state of affairs, and you’re perfectly comfortable with that. Waking up in unfamiliar alleys with a crust of dried vomit down your front and the smell if piss, probably yours, in your nose are the hallmarks of a night spent drinking and drinking and possibly dancing a jig and definitely drinking. You should always do what you’re good at. Arrrr.

You’re really good at hangovers.

Apart from you, this alley appears to be empty, which is a shame, because you have a great and pressing desire for cocoa pops and absolutely no desire to get them for yourself. A crewman would have been useful about now. Bloody pirates. Having no other alternative, you peel yourself from the ground, which takes some fenangling given the ground is rather sticky, and stagger out onto the street.

Sunlight. Arrrgh.

Supermarket. Arrr? Ah!

You work on putting one foot before the other, yeah, just like that, stupid sea legs don’t work so well on dry land, nothing to do with the hang over at all, no, not at all, and that rattling jangling sound is just, is just, is not actually a hangover side effect, hang on-

You look up to see a snake of shopping trolleys in the reins of an underpaid cowboy bearing down at you.

a. Arrrr!

b. Attempt to dodge charging trolleys.

c. Shoot the limey little landlubber.

FIGHT!

As of right now, Ecstatic Days is under ninja law.

Not in a bad way, mind you. I’m not here to install an oppressive regime and take away your liberties, hell no. I come in peace. See?

As a gesture of my good will, I’ve worn white so as to stand out from my surroundings and not inadvertently sneak up on and scare the bejeezus out of you. White is also the colour of peace. Andfuneralsandweddingsandtableclothesbutwhatever.

That aside, I am not here without a purpose.

It has come to our attention that in the eternal feud between ninjas and pirates, pirates are getting more than their fair share of attention. Yes, Jack Sparrow is mighty fine, but come on, seriously now, his halo of awesomeness has spread further than can be realistically justified. Pirates just aren’t all that. No, really, they’re not. There’s certainly no call to go about dedicating entire anthologies to them.

Pfft. Look at ‘im. What a tosser.

Therefore, it is only my duty to rectify this gross imbalance and enlighten you as to the supremely blisteringly supanova awesomeness of the ninja when compared to some poxy hairy pirate with bad breath and sweaty palms. Let the re-education begin!

Thank you, Jeff, for letting me shout from your rooftop, and for the gift of the extra day. It’s been an extraordinary week and I’ve learned a lot from the discussions. Thank you to the marvelous audience for your intelligence and perspicacity. I’d also like to thank my family for patiently and resignedly putting up with my preoccupied air and the many hours at the computer this week.

I don’t have an active blog but I occasionally post at the site of the excellent Aqueduct Press Blog. I have a novella coming out from Aqueduct later this year and my short story collection very shortly from Zubaan in New Delhi. I will announce these on Aqueduct and also on my website.

I’m greatly looking forward to the other writers on this blog, including the mysterious X.

I now crawl tiredly back under my rock. All the best,

Vandana