Lost: The Lost Episode

gavin cardigan walked into the pub and called out a greeting to the owner. "hey, danny! what's on the menu tonight?"

"carne guisana," replied danny from behind the bar, already pouring an ale for his best customer.

"thanks, hoss," cardigan accepted the beer. "i don't know what carne guisana is, but you've never been wrong."

"gavin, come here!" marian elfman anxiously waved cardigan over to the table where his friends usually sat. "burkie's giving us a chance to figure out where we are!"

"really?" despite the mention of burkie's name, cardigan was intrigued. like the others, he was frustrated by their handsome creator's refusal to identity the place where their story took place.

"burkie created some clues for you guys to figure out where you are," special assistant hepzibah explained.

"clues?" cardigan's irritation with burkie continued to escalate. "why can't the bloody fool just start one of these chapters with 'cardigan entered the pub, closing the door behind him to shut out the biting chicago wind' or something like that?"

"why does it always have to be cardigan, anyway?" sierra charles wondered. "why can't one of us start off one of these chapters?"

"that's a good question," danny blake agreed as he delivered cardigan's carne guisada and flour tortillas. "why can't a story begin with Mysterious Lurker or somebody else, hepzibah?"

"um, well, i think it's because burkie likes the name gavin cardigan." she tried to think of a more reasonable, er, reason. "plus, it gives gavin something special to do. you know, since he's not a vampire or dead guy or anything."

"confound it, woman, i am not dead!" benjamin franklin slammed his pint down on the table. "how many times must i explain this? i am not dead!" he snatched his spectacles off his nose and began to rub them furiously with a cloth, glaring at burkie's assistant.

cardigan took an bite of his carne guisada, letting the tender beef and bold chile flavors pacify his emotions. "so, what are these clues?"

marian spread out a sheet of paper with three clues on it:

E + R

A target for bullies

It's the real thing on Wall Street

"that's it?" cardigan drained his beer in annoyance and signaled danny for another.

"E-R..." sierra charles mused. "erie, pennsylvania?"

"you could do a lot worse than pennsylvania," benjamin franklin said proudly.

The Lurker shook her head, her fingers twisting her blond locks around. "no, that's not burkie's style. if it were erie, he'd probably give us a clue about prince charles or van gogh."

"too bad," tucker lamented, strumming a D-minor chord on his guitar. "lots of rhyming potential with 'erie.'"

"thank buddha," danny muttered. "erie sounds positively dreary."

"see what i mean?" tucker grinned.

"wasn't wall street one of the clues in the movie National Treasure?" taylor young wondered out loud. "what was the name of that church located there?"

"trinity church!" marian exclaimed. "is there a city called 'trinity' somewhere?"

"not a well-known city," sierra answered. "but there's a trinity university in san antonio, and burkie is from texas."

"there's also a trinity college in connecticut," taylor pointed out.

"and in florida," The Lurker added.

"and dublin," tucker noted.

"oh, ireland would've been fun," marian pouted.

danny dropped off cardigan's second beer. "what about the bully's target? a wimp? a wuss?"

"i was thinking a nose," said The Lurker, whose own nose was growing out to pinocchioan proportions. "you know, that's what a bully aims at when he hits you, right?"

"we have an ear and a nose," cardigan pointed out. "and...trinity?"

"it's Haiti!" marian jumped up and starting doing her victory dance and making all kinds of jubilant faces. "there's a book called The Faces of God: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti!"

the others stared at her incredulously.

"haiti?!"

The Lurker started giggling. "can you imagine the black darter skulking around haiti with his blow gun? i almost wish we were in haiti."

"i didn't know you giggled," danny looked at her with surprise. "i took you for more the smirking type."

"it's not haiti," s.a. hepzibah informed them as she stood up to leave.

"then what is it?" taylor asked.

"that's for you guys to figure out."

"how are we supposed to do that?" sierra complained. "we don't exist once burkie logs off his computer."

"sure you do...somehow," hepzibah shrugged. "you can leave your guesses in the comments section. see ya!"

cardigan drained his beer. "why can't anything be simple?"

william shakespeare came over to bus the table. "as i always say, sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

marian rolled her eyes at him. "you didn't say that; dr. seuss did."

"the man was a genius," shakepeare acknowledged as he carried the dirty dishes away, muttering lines under his breath. "to be or not to be/to flee or not to flee/a bee is not a flea/but i will flee to be..."