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My Commandeered Catamaran

  • by jennegotiate the terms of his surrender
  • liquid French toast
  • shoes I never want to walk a mile in
  • … nothing but tai chi.
  • anything except mustaches

Tune in next time part 397      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My commandeered catamaran raced across the waves. I kept my eyes on the sky, searching for Jim’s zeppelin. Assuming I was able to find him, would I be able to negotiate the terms of his surrender? Or would we fight until one of us, hopefully him, was the color and consistency of liquid French toast? Jim’s feet are small, making his footwear shoes I never want to walk a mile in, but this had little effect on his fighting prowess. The Academy tried to make him learn various martial arts, but he would do nothing… nothing but tai chi. My brother was a tai chi master, and in hand-to-hand (or foot-to-foot) combat, he was invulnerable to anything except mustaches. And I probably didn’t have time to grow an adequate one before our inevitable showdown.

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The Exterior Staircase of the Prison

  • by Kentthrusting his feet out toward the edges
  • He urinated forever
  • the color of ocean spray
  • punched the yellow button
  • to have the knowledge but not the tools

Tune in next time part 396      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The exterior staircase of the prison was one of the most terrifying descents I’d ever made. The steps were steep and slippery, as well as flimsy. About every fifth or sixth tread was missing. But I had to move fast so I wouldn’t miss my chance to catch a ride.

A flotilla of megaswans was just coming abreast of the islet as I reached the bottom of those steps. They were as unsubtle as promised, as big and gaudy as parade floats but far more seaworthy. Spotting the first fishing boat in the megaswans’ wake, I jumped and waved my arms to get the operator’s attention.

The fisherman veered toward my position, steering by thrusting his feet out toward the edges of the catamaran’s structure. I was relieved that it had been so easy to obtain transportation, but immediately had to doubt my good luck as the fisherman opened his trousers and began relieving himself. He urinated forever, a prodigious stream the color of ocean spray. He was so intent on this activity that I wondered whether he’d even noticed me at all.

“I need a ride,” I called out. The man finally closed up his pants and looked in my direction.

He punched the yellow button attached to the mast, which caused a gangway to unfold across the rocks of the tidal zone he’d just finished contaminating. “Come on aboard, then,” he said.

Hurrying before he changed his mind, I said, “Thanks. I’m surprised you’re willing to pick up hitchhikers from the prison.”

“Normally I would not be.” He gave me a squinty look. “Where to, General?”

“Follow that zeppelin!” I pointed into the sky, but Jim’s stolen airship of course was nowhere in sight. The fisherman cast off anyway, and I wished I knew if we were heading the right way. So often I’m doomed to have the knowledge but not the tools to act on it, but here I was with the opposite problem. I had a speedy boat, but no idea where it should take me.

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The Zeppelin Docking Spire Atop the Prison

  • by jenballoon releases and candlelight vigils
  • If you’d asked me three years ago
  • took a bite of a donut
  • Black. Like a tattoo.
  • dark blue eyes and a beautiful belly

Tune in next time part 395      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The zeppelin docking spire atop the prison was the traditional spot for balloon releases and candlelight vigils on important Inimical holidays. There was a small yet ornate royal viewing box. I left Fleur and the babies there with a contingent of warrior monk nannies to await the arrival of the next zeppelin. If you’d asked me three years ago, or even one!, if I would ever worry about anyone’s safety as much as my own, I would have laughed while I took a bite of a donut. Now, the children meant everything to me. I had to stop Jim, and I couldn’t do that with my wife and six infants in tow.

I tried to explain my reasoning to Fleur and she gave me the darkest look. Black. Like a tattoo. “You had better not be running off to meet a lover with dark blue eyes and a beautiful belly to carry your children.”

That was awfully specific.

“I must stop Jim,” I said. I kissed my wife on the lips, and all six babies on the foreheads. Then I straightened my General cap and bounded down the stairs to make my way to the shoreline. The megaswans were on the move.

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“Come With Me”

  • by KentTomorrow, I infect him.
  • unnatural and unusual
  • I suggested putting on 15 pounds
  • interspersed with the flashing colors of magnificent silks and furs and feathers
  • “Don’t juice my fruit.”

Tune in next time part 394      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Come with me,” I told Fleur. She stood and put the blue panda head on.

We ascended the winding stairs up from the prison’s basement, the monk contingent trailing along with the brood. I muttered my dark intentions toward my brother on the way up. “Today, I catch him. Tomorrow, I infect him.” Jim had a well-documented susceptibility to the wet-willy virus, an unnatural and unusual delusion that rendered him willing to obey any command if told it would cure him. He never did forgive me for the time I suggested putting on 15 pounds.

Of course, the zeppelin was gone. Jim had stolen it.

“Is there any other way off this island?” I asked. The blue panda nodded.

“Well?” I prompted.

Fleur’s muffled voice said, “Now is the annual migration of the megaswans, whose passage through the water creates mists and ripples interspersed with the flashing colors of magnificent silks and furs and feathers.”

“Swans have fur?”

“Megaswans. But, not really. It’s faux.”

“Okay. How do we ride them?”

The panda shook its head. “Oh, we can’t.”

“Don’t juice my fruit.” I doubted she got the reference, it being Academy slang. But it seemed she understood the intent.

“When the megaswans migrate, the fishing fleet sends its catamarans into the shoals around the prison. We can hitch a ride if we can get down to the shore.”

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As Brothers Do

  • by jenliked to tease me and torment me
  • Darling, what’s wrong?
  • the two Mrs Overtons
  • strangest sense of detachment
  • no human intervention

Tune in next time part 393      Click Here for Earlier Installments

As brothers do, Jim liked to tease me and torment me. His hypnotism of my wife fit this lifelong pattern. While most people would expect the husband in this instance to be overcome with concern and say vapid things like, “Darling, what’s wrong?” , Jim had learned during my affair with the two Mrs Overtons that that wasn’t my style. He would expect me to maintain the strangest sense of detachment, the sort that no human intervention could perturb. How should I subvert his expectations and thwart his cunning plan?

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I Knew It Would Be Useless To Ask

  • by Kentthe diamond in the hoo-ha
  • and a big kiss
  • if the opera house isn’t your proper hemisphere
  • living near the Nile
  • unsecured thigh high stockings

Tune in next time part 392      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I knew it would be useless to ask, but I couldn’t restrain myself. “What is this mission of Jim’s?”

“He couldn’t tell me the details,” Fleur said in a hushed voice. She hunched down in the panda suit and put a paw over her mouth, so the infatuated giggle-fit couldn’t get out. I saw it in her eyes, their intense blue made preternatural by the color of the costume. “What most surprised me was how sexy he looked in my gown,” she murmured behind her fuzzy blue paw. “You know the one I mean, with the sapphires across the chest and the diamond in the hoo-ha. Jim put that on, then left me with nothing more than a hearty thank-you and a big kiss on the lips.”

“Wait, Jim kissed you?” I asked. She nodded, her eyes rolling back in delirium at the memory.

“Does that make you jealous?” she stage-whispered.

In fact, jealousy was not what the news inspired. But I was going to be angry at Jim if my suspicions proved accurate. I wondered if he had bothered to develop a new trigger phrase. I licked my lips before speaking.

“Shouldn’t your husband be jealous about such things? You act as if the the opera house isn’t your proper hemisphere.”

Fleur sat up straight and stared blankly ahead. I thought, Dammit, Jim! She’s my wife, not a sleeper agent!

This was a possible clue to his mission, because he’d learned this hypnotic technique while he was living near the Nile and associating with a particular band of software pirates. He was probably headed for a rendezvous with those scallawags, and I wanted to intercept him. Maybe the fancy bejeweled gown would slow him down?

Peeking inside the blue panda costume, I confirmed that Fleur still wore her garter belt, but virtually nothing else.

Well, brother, I mused, let’s see how fast you can run in unsecured thigh high stockings.

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The Spy’s Words

  • by jentried to get to sleep again
  • separated from his wife after falling in love with a young actress
  • struggled with the question of last names
  • musky cologne with a hint of whisky
  • the poop problem

Tune in next time part 391      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The spy’s words reminded me that Fleur and Jim had been alone together for quite some time, one floor above my head. My curiosity was roused, and no matter how much I wished it had tried to get to sleep again, it stayed awake. Jim was a source of never-ending drama in our family. The first time he married, he separated from his wife after falling in love with a young actress on his honeymoon. The second time, he and his young actress wife struggled with the question of last names and who should take whose, and their marriage ended after only a month. Now he was married to Esmerelda, but, as always, had a roving eye. And the last time I’d seen Esmerelda she was having sex with my father. Did Jim know about that?

I menaced the spy for a few more minutes so that he wouldn’t know his remark got to me, then I signaled to the warrior-monks holding my children to follow me up the stairs.

I was half-expecting to walk in on Fluer and Jim banging it out, but that isn’t what I saw at all. When I entered the room where I’d left them, there was no sign of Jim. Fleur sat at the table, wearing Jim’s blue panda suit and a dreamy smile. The panda head sat beside her half-mug of coffee.

“Where’s Jim?” I asked.

“He’s on a mission,” Fluer said with a happy sigh. “Did you know that this mascot suit smells just like him? Musky cologne with a hint of whisky.”

“Why are you wearing the panda suit, Fleur?”

“Jim had to borrow my clothes for his mission. He couldn’t very well wear the panda suit. You know, because of the poop problem.” She patted herself down with her big panda paws. “There’s no trapdoor in this thing, and Jim needs to be able to move fast.”

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I Loomed Over the Acrobat

  • by Kentdistributed bellbottoms and cocaine
  • what they would later discover to be toothpaste
  • they get quite good at it
  • trouble with the opposite sex
  • kissing for an hour, or how ever long it is

Tune in next time part 390      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I loomed over the acrobat, initiating a staring contest to keep him cowed while I thought this through. That he’d lie about who sent him was hardly surprising, but he was trying to pin something on Svetlana or Lyudmila specifically. He’d learned a lot about them, just about everything except for their names.

He blinked. I sneered triumphantly, but in truth my corneas felt like salted raisins and I was glad to be able to shut my own lids for a moment. But I had to project strength. I was a General!

There were several possible groups this French (if he was really French) fop might be working for. There was the Fifty-Fours, who distributed bellbottoms and cocaine along the circus-train routes. There was Hepcat Peccadillo, a radical artists’ collective that forced the evacuation of three different embassies, flummoxing bomb squads with what they would later discover to be toothpaste. There were too many others to list them all. These organizations recruit the misfits and loners, they get quite good at it over the years, focusing on subjects whose fashion sense causes them trouble with the opposite sex.

I fixed my prisoner with a steely gaze once again. “What did she promise you, then? How did she compel your service? Was it money? Prestige? Or carnal rewards?”

He smirked. “When next I see her, we will be kissing for an hour, or how ever long it is being enjoyable to be kissing. That seems like a long time to me, but she made her voice very sexy when she said it and I agreed.”

Now I knew he was lying. Neither of the sisters would have been able to say that with a straight face. They hated kissing.

“You might want to stop wasting my time,” I said in a low, menacing voice.

“And you might be curious to know what has been going on in your absence,” the acrobat/spy simpered.

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Animosity Between Lyudmila and Svetlana

  • by jenstill held some liquid
  • watching her all the time
  • not good enough to own such a fancy car
  • hot, reeking scent of their blood
  • Like a real gentleman.

Tune in next time part 389      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Animosity between Lyudmila and Svetlana boiled over from time to time, but however much froth and steam they created, the vessel of their joint hatred still held some liquid, and there was always the danger that it would erupt again. That animosity traced back to their circus days. Due to their extreme flexibility, the ringmaster treated them as a single unit. It was difficult for the sisters to always be in such close quarters: entwined together inside a single suitcase: limbs intertwined as they were made to share a single cot, a single shower cubicle, a single berth on the train. Each felt that her sister was watching her all the time, watching and judging. It all came to a head when Svetlana was awarded Employee of the Month, an honor that included a medal ceremony and the keys to a new Lada. Lyudmila was incensed. She felt that Svetlana on her own was not good enough to own such a fancy car, that the two of them were a package deal, and the only reason Svetlana won was because she’d lately been sleeping with both the ringmaster and the lion tamer. Lyudmila confronted Svetlana about her perceived duplicity, and the sisters began to fight. Being contortionists, their fight choreography was like nothing anyone had ever seen before, and they quickly drew a crowd. Before long they each had black eyes and nosebleeds. The hot, reeking scent of their blood enraged the performing animals. The lion tamer and his wife, the tiger tamer barely kept their cats under control long enough for the ringmaster to disperse the audience. In his fury, the ringmaster fired both sisters, and threw them out with only the costumes on their backs, and no severance pay. Like a real gentleman.

But if the sisters had been fired from the circus and never worked together again, then how could my French prisoner have eaten fish with them on the train? Unless he had been lying to me all along.

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“What Was Her Name?”

  • by Kentby the time the moon sank away
  • other worker won employee of the month
  • tradition would dictate cod here
  • indeed a hero in the eyes of these men
  • the fact that she had eyelashes

Tune in next time part 388      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“What was her name?” I asked the captive. “And don’t waste any breath describing her double-jointed pinkies or the fact that she had eyelashes. Just tell me her name.”

The monastic babysitter cadre whistled and cheered. It seemed I was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men.

“But do you not see?” the French pantomime performer implored. “I never learned her name. And they were quite alike, the sisters, it is true. Only one clue did they give to me about which was which, and that was when we dined together in the train en route in the nighttime to our next show. My angel she ate happily the salmon, but her sister was saying tradition would dictate cod here. And they argue, about this fish and about things I do not know. Only for a moment do they quarrel, and my angel she becomes très quiet, upset to be reminded that the other worker won employee of the month. By the time the moon sank away, I had promised her I would do anything to see her smile once again.”

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