Tagged: blimp

The Car with the Offensive Stereo

  • by jenquintuple elbows
  • if I may be so bold
  • against her palms
  • they take their shoes off
  • still shrieking at her husband

Tune in next time part 671      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The car with the offensive stereo pulled up at the curb, bass notes so ferocious they shattered all the chalet’s windows. In the ensuing chaos, I worked to free myself from the straps holding me to the gurney. You know how some people are double-jointed? Well, I have quintuple elbows.

As soon as my feet hit the snow, I dashed toward the street. Who cared if I was naked apart from the pantyhose on my head? I had to get away.

The limo, for that’s what was making all the noise, had speakers mounted all over the exterior. I zigged to the right to go behind it, hands clamped over my ears. The chauffeur stepped out wearing enormous noise-canceling headphones, and snagged me by the hosiery. With his other hand he opened the back door, then he tossed me inside and slammed it closed.

Inside the limo was blessedly quiet, although I could still feel Jason’s throbbing music in my bones. A female voice said, “If I may be so bold,” and suddenly the nylon sheath was removed from my head. I could see clearly! And what I saw was my wife, Fleur. She held my face in her hands to stare at me, my cheeks hot and clammy against her palms.

“Fleur!” I didn’t know what to say. So much had happened in the past few days that would infuriate any wife. Any normal wife, anyway.

“You know what most civilized people do when getting into a limousine?” Fleur huffed. “They take their shoes off.”

My feet, along with the rest of me, were bare. Fleur pinched her nostrils closed. “You reek of butterscotch pudding and icicle slugs. The first thing we’ll do once we board the zeppelin is toss you in the shower.”

She pushed a button and told the chauffeur to drive, and just like that I made my escape from the reality TV ghouls, the creepy Alchemist, and Valentina — still shrieking at her husband in the ceiling about whatever odd thing she smelled.

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Throughout The Room

  • by Kent— a floury thing in a three-sided husk —
  • her pants were on backwards
  • without a consultation fee
  • “Here’s a subpoena for you.”
  • into the umbilical ramp

Tune in next time part 208                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

Throughout the room, other Pinks milled around in the balloons. Most had drinks, but I saw one munching on one of their weird delicacies, something called an oscillatta — a floury thing in a three-sided husk — and I wondered if she knew her pants were on backwards. Given how into bizarre forms of insignia the Pinkie Swears were, it probably indicated high rank, or meant no one could ask her what time it was without a consultation fee.

I set off wading through the layer of inflated whimsical orbs to the bar, noting that no one was dancing. They were all wearing earbuds, and some were discreetly bobbing their heads. It was the saddest silent disco I had ever seen.

The bartender held up a hand to silence me when I tried to order. She sized me up, nodded, and then started pouring liquors into a shaker. When the gold-purple concoction was fizzing in a tall glass, she slid it across to me and said, “Here’s a subpoena for you.” She winked. “You’ve been served.”

“Thanks.” I took a swig. It was surprisingly good, but seemed strong as hell. “Hey, I’m a gatecrasher at this thing, not on purpose, but still. Any chance you’d be able to help me get out before the guest of honor returns?”

“Finish your drink, then we’ll talk.”

“After this drink I won’t be able to complete a sentence.”

“Drink up. While you do that, here’s something to engage your mind.”

She laid her phone on the bar, playing a video clip of the presidential zeppelin. It was docking, but I didn’t recognize the mooring stand. The resolution was too low for me to tell who was moving into the umbilical ramp to board the blimp. The bartender wouldn’t let me try to zoom in unless I was also taking a big slurp of my subpoena, which made it impossible to improve the image clarity.

Finally, with the drink three-quarters gone, I managed to recognize one of the faces on the screen. But that was impossible!

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We’d Only Taken Two Steps

  • by jendrew her arm coaxingly through the old man’s
  • he’d bribed a child
  • frightened the old lady
  • The obligatory scream
  • you have to do lots of awkward stuff

Tune in next time part 115                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

We’d only taken two steps down the sidewalk when the presidential zeppelin blotted out the sky. It flew down the street as speedily as a dirigible could, which is to say — not very. Its altitude was so low it barely cleared the spires that topped nearly every building in Pittsburghistan.

“Maybe we can catch it if we run to the roof!” I cried.

Svetlana shook her head and sighed. “Not in my condition.”

Just then an old woman staggered out of the laundromat across the street. She looked up at the red, white, and blue zeppelin in terror. Svetlana in her old man disguise steadied her. The old woman smiled a wrinkled smile and drew her arm coaxingly through the “old man’s” and began chattering in Low-Contrarian. I am much more fluent in High-Contrarian, but she seemed to be telling Svetlana about the time she’d bribed a child to spy on her cheating husband and collect evidence for her divorce.

Svetlana hiccuped a very feminine hiccup, which frightened the old lady. She threw a complicated hand gesture meant to ward off evil. The obligatory scream was coming, I knew, and I had to prevent it. You have to do lots of awkward stuff in my line of work, but keeping the old woman from revealing the truth about Svetlana was one of the most awkward things I’ve ever done.

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“Enough!” Thor Screeched

  • by KentI draw the line at this.
  • past a dingy laundromat
  • equipment bigger and grander
  • withstood the ravages of time in the humid atmosphere
  • “Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!”

Tune in next time part 112                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Enough!” Thor screeched. “Your silly games have kept me quite amused, but I draw the line at this. You will not –”

Whatever they would not remained unstated, as Thor toppled with a blowdart in his neck.

“Get rid of him,” said the broccoli-faced woman. I braced for a barrage of poisoned needles, but instead the two largest vegerebels took hold of me by the elbows and dragged me toward an open hatch in the floor. The one with the kale mask shoved a backpack at me. I put it on quickly, hoping it was a parachute. They tossed me through the hole in the floor before I was done adjusting the straps.

The spire where the zeppelin was moored wasn’t terribly high, so I pulled the rip cord immediately. My landing was quite rough. My chute caught a strong breeze and dragged me down the street past a dingy laundromat and a candle factory before I figured out how to slip out of it.

The wind had carried me farther than I realized, into the university quarter of Pittsburghistan. Across the street from the candle factory was the opera house, which doubled as a research facility. What they researched, I wasn’t sure. The sign didn’t explain beyond proclaiming they now had equipment bigger and grander than before. I entered the empty, echoing lobby, and knew by the acrid smell that their big, grand equipment hadn’t withstood the ravages of time in the humid atmosphere of the region.

“Up here!” called a cheerful male voice. I found stairs at the end of the lobby that led up to where the small man was standing. He beckoned me over to the railing and pointed down to where I had just been. He hopped up and down as he shouted, “Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!”

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I Poked the President in the Chest with the Thumb-Shaped Device

  • by jenthrough the residential neighborhood
  • reloaded at least twice
  • now have caught up with the Hamburger
  • controversy spanning several years
  • as for the possibility of air piracy

Tune in next time part 111                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I poked the president in the chest with the thumb-shaped device the American Ambassador to Contraria had so recently delivered to me. “What’s the deal?” I asked. “If you’re here in person, why have Myxolemia deliver this? I haven’t even had a chance to look at it yet.”

Thor looked at the thumb drive blankly. “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

We both stopped walking down the sloping, darkening corridor and stared at the ridiculous object. I held my finger to my lips and my brother nodded. If we were lucky it was merely a listening device. If we were unlucky…

Thor motioned for me to drop the thumb, but I couldn’t do that. This was a hospital. If the thumb exploded, untold innocent lives could be lost. I darted out a side exit and ran through the residential neighborhood, looking for a suitable place for bomb disposal. Thor jogged along beside me. By the time I found an armor-plated dumpster my reservoir of panic had been emptied and reloaded at least twice.

I tossed the suspicious electronic digit into the dumpster and Thor slammed the lid closed. We darted away to a safe distance and then felt free to speak again.

“We must get to the airfield,” Thor said. “My zeppelin is waiting.” I was so anxious to make my escape from Contraria that I didn’t even ask where we would fly to.

Air Force One and a Half was tethered to the top of a landing spire. Thor and I took the elevator up and started across the gangway. We were more than halfway across when I felt a swaying that could only mean someone was behind us. I turned and saw a cadre of masked and armed villains. I gave Thor a shove and we ran the rest of the way into the cabin of the zeppelin, only to be confronted by more blowguns.

A woman in a mask made of broccoli said, “We now have caught up with the Hamburger Heathen!” She was talking, of course, about Thor. His Presidential Decree of Universal Carnivorousness had not sat well with many vegetarians and vegans. It was a controversy spanning several years, and they’d tried seemingly every tactic in the book in their quest for vengeance. As for the possibility of air piracy, I hadn’t previously considered it, but I couldn’t claim to be surprised.

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Cerise Surveyed the Interior of the Zeppelin Gondola

  1. by jenCharacter – ghost of a bartender
  2. Setting – zeppelin
  3. Object – used condom
  4. Situation – performance art

Cerise surveyed the interior of the zeppelin gondola with some amusement. This was going to be her best installation yet.

Of course, the zeppelin itself symbolized the hopes and wishes of an earlier, less ironically self-aware society. Once its interior was wallpapered with used condoms collected through a year’s worth of dumpster-diving and hard, artistic sex, it would sing. Cerise couldn’t wait to get started.

She hauled the crate of prophylactics up the stairs and set it heavily on the bar. She hoped she had enough staples in the staple gun.

“Remember not to puncture any of the reservoir tips,” she said to herself.

Her words echoed slightly before settling to the floor, and were replaced by a soft scuffing from behind the bar.

Mice would add a certain je ne sais quoi to the statement she was trying to express, so Cerise wasn’t too worried.

“What’ll it be, lady?” came a raspy whisper.

Cerise startled and then saw a vaporous human form behind the bar. He was dressed in a vest and bow-tie, with his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows. He shimmered and wavered as he went through the motions of polishing a glass.

“Damn!” said Cerise. “This completely overshadows the complex interplay of hope, death, globalism, and ecology I was going for!”

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Two Figures Move Along The Catwalk

  1. Character – judge
  2. Setting – zeppelin
  3. Object – nail-gun
  4. Situation – hiccups

Two figures move along the catwalk, one in black robes and one in blue overalls. With his hands up, the robed man turns to face his captor.

“This won’t solve anything,” the judge says to the roofer.

“You put me away for a long <hic!> time,” drawls the man in overalls, menacing the judge wit his nail-gun.

Not long enough, thinks the judge. A low groaning sound permeates the superstructure as the Zeppelin Chambers – literally the highest court in the land – banks slightly to port.

“Careful with that. You’ll kill us all!” the judge implores.

“May <hic!>, maybe <hic!> that wouldn’t <hic!> be such a <hic!> bad thing!”

Oh why didn’t I take my gavel with me at recess? the judge lamented.

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