ZHAN screams in frustration as he tries to pick up a wrench, but it falls through his ghostly hand. ARA watches with an amused half-smile on her face.
ARA: Just use a ghost wrench.
ZHAN: (Looks at ARA like she just said that bacon could fly.) What in the pickle bottom is a ghost wrench?!
ARA: (says slowly like she is talking to an idiotic giraffe) It is a wrench for a ghost. It won’t fall through your hands.
ZHAN: (rolls his eyes, but seems vaguely interested) And where do I acquire this so-called “ghost wrench”?
ARA: The ghost mall of course!
ARA grabs ZHAN’s hand and flies up through the ceiling. They continue north until they reach the Imoloupe Desert Sand Falls. They fly through the sand and somehow end up in a ghost mall. Everything is transparent and foggy.
ZHAN: Whoa!
Ara: (Smirking) To the hardware store!
At the hardware store
ZHAN: (picking up a wrench) Whoa. I can touch this. How I’ve missed touching things. (Turns to ARA) Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?!
ARA: (Shrugging) You didn’t express your dislike of being a fluid surrounded by solids.
ZHAN: (scoops up an armload of tools. Turns to the rest of the tools still on the rack) I shall be back soon, my pretties.
At the checkout counter
ZHAN: I want to buy these precious tools. (Holds out a wrench for scanning porpoises.)
CASHIER PORPOISE: Is that corn? (muttering to himself) I didn’t even know we sold corn.
ZHAN opens his mouth, but ARA cuts in.
ARA: Yes, you do sell corn, and we would like to buy this armload of corn.
CASHIER PORPOISE: So much corn! What are you planning to do with it if not eat it?
ARA: Build fancy gadgets.
CASHIER PORPOISE (muttering to himself): I didn’t even know that corn could do that!
ARA: Corn has ways of surprising people, doesn’t it?
CASHIER PORPOISE: Yes, yes. Of course. (Slides forward a little rectangle.) Please lick this.
ZHAN: What, why?
ARA (impatiently): They don’t have money in the ghost world. You have to pay by giving them a piece of your DNA.
ZHAN: But ghosts don’t even have―
ARA: Just lick it.
ZHAN: But it’s so unsani―
ARA: Just lick the dumb rectangle!
ZHAN: But―
ARA: JUST LICK IT!
CASHIER PORPOISE (Cowering behind the counter): Here, take all the money! Take all the rectangles! Take the old ugly guy, for all I care! Just please, spare me. I’ll give you all our corn.
ARA: That’s not―
ZHAN: Give her all your corn!
~~~END
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