Rance was a shameless mycophile. Had been for years. Wherever he went, he foraged.
The park, the mall, the subway—it didn’t matter. If it had a dark corner, Rance would scour it for spores.
Naturally, he preferred the forest most of all.
So today he could barely contain himself. In fact, within a few hours, containing Rance would prove impossible.
But no spoilers.
Back to the forest.
As Rance ventured into the heart of the damp glade, the dark deepened and the underwood grew thick and mossy beneath his stumbling footfalls.
Soon visibility was so bad he almost tripped over the first patch: a dank little brown and yellow cluster dotted with red specks about the caps and stems.
Lethal.
He quickly stepped around it and walked on.
Next came a dank clump of elongated conical shapes with pointed umbos.
Rance had sampled this variety before and spent twelve hours spelunking the deepest caverns of his skull.
No time for that today.
The third patch looked more promising.
Bright blue buttons with yellow spirals, white stalks, and golden gills.
Clearly edible—though he had never encountered this exact genus before.
By now Rance had been foraging half the morning and was famished. So he sat on a moss-covered log and gobbled a few of the unfamiliar spores. Their taste was mild and oaky, with notes of buttermilk and charcoal. The snack helped assuage his hunger.
But then something troubling occurred.
As he swallowed the third mouthful, his scalp began to tingle.
Reaching to scratch his head, he discovered the part through the center of his hair was deepening.
First a shallow groove.
Then a fissure.
Then a crevice.
Then a deep canyon.
Soon his fingers were probing into the center of his brain.
Naturally, Rance stopped scratching.
But it was too late.
His head had begun to split apart as if an invisible ax were bisecting it in slow motion. Strangely, there was no blood. The split continued through his neck and chest and torso until he was completely cut in two.
Yet the separated sides of him soon sprouted new eyes and ears and arms and legs. Until they were identical. Almost.
Blue eyes vs. brown.
But which Rance was the original? Neither could recall.
Both shrieked and tried to flee. But they were firmly rooted to the stalk of the very spores they had been sampling.
Then the other thems began appearing. A chain reaction of spontaneous mitosis. More and more Rances split into existence, all attached to the same central base.
Each different. Each convinced he was the prototype.
Blonde, brunette, or redhead.
Puffball, stinkhorn, chanterelle.
Black, white, brown, blue, orange, green.
Toadstool, morel, yeast, mold.
Emaciated, obese.
Abled, disabled.
Basidiomycota or Ascomycota.
Male, female, agender, androgyne, bigender, butch, cisgender, genderfluid.
They were living fractal configurations. Offshoots from the same central hub straining to support this vast proliferation while maintaining some semblance of structural integrity.
Then the debates began. Arguments about who was the founding spore. The one true legitimate progenitor. The prime mover. The god particle first ruptured to inaugurate this grand experiment. Each depended on the stalk for nutrients. But each demanded more than the others. Each claiming himself the original Rance.
Elaborate origin myths emerged. Those who challenged them were branded apostates. Excommunicated from the patch.
Then came purges.
Holy wars.
Genocides and fungicides.
The Troubles.
The Terrors.
The Inquisitions.
The Exterminations.
Rance-on-Rance murder reached an all-time high.
Every Rance felt estranged from the others. Determined to prove he was King of the patch. Deserving its greatest glory.
Then one day a genius genus emerged. A Rance unlike the others. He knew there was only one way to dominate the patch.
He ripped himself free. Tearing the stalk apart.
Instantly the whole patch was cut off from its nutrients. All ten trillion Rances began to die.
As the self-proclaimed King Rance climbed atop his withering compatriots, he knew he would remain the undisputed ruler for all time. Or at least for a few more minutes. As the decomposing spores dissolved back into the forest floor.
In future years new spores would emerge from that mulch. Feeding on the bodies of their fallen ancestors. Fragments of King Rance forming the topmost layer of the new stalk.
And as the last trace of sentience faded from his fungoid form,
King Rance was more convinced than ever
that victory was His.
Bradford Gyori has been published in Café Irreal, Ghost Story, and The Museum Journal. He’s written for MTV, VH1, E!, FX and HBO Online and was the head writer of the Emmy-winning series Talk Soup.