Tagged: harpoon

“I Was Nearly Murdered”

  • by Kentsomeone I don’t trust
  • having an innuendo-filled conversation
  • equal parts fever and swamp
  • Americans with a full set of teeth
  • murdered by hand

Tune in next time part 712      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I was nearly murdered by hand-delivered harpoon” is something not many Americans with a full set of teeth can honestly say. “My best friend tried to murder me thusly, and went on to marry my mother” sounds like ravings that would be equal parts fever and swamp gas. Welcome to my life.

“None of the officers know how to regain control of the ship,” Fleur said in a low voice. “We need to know who programmed this control panel, so they can tell us how to override it.”

“I know who it is,” I said wearily. I was in no mood to talk to John. The fact that I’d need to use words like “buttons,” “airship,” and “dance floor,” all of which were part of the Make Everything Sound Dirty Code, didn’t help. “Let’s track down the happy couple. Looks like I’ll be having an innuendo-filled conversation with someone I don’t trust.”

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I Took in the Scene

  • by jensilently wondering
  • he likes to sing along
  • the third weapon
  • fusillade of cheerful inquiries
  • impaled his foot

Tune in next time part 711      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I took in the scene, silently wondering what sort of idiot would install a zeppelin control panel on the dance floor. I decided it was an idiot so idiotic he likes to sing along to songs he doesn’t know the words to. That’s his first weapon: being annoying. His second is failing to understand that he’s not the smartest guy in the room. And the third weapon in this idiot’s arsenal is a fusillade of cheerful inquiries that distracts the actual experts from their jobs and allows something like this to happen. Nay, forces. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was no mere act of stupidity, but one of sabotage!  And I knew just who the saboteur was, too. When we were at the Academy, I impaled his foot with a harpoon during training and he’s never forgiven me (even though I got extra credit for it). He’d followed me throughout my life ever since, threatening me with harpoons (the fourth weapon in his arsenal), stealing my girlfriends, and now, finally, marrying my mother. I didn’t know when he’d had the time to visit the shipyard where Royal Contrarian Airships are built, but it had to be him. John was just the sort of idiot to install a zeppelin control panel on the dance floor of the very airship upon which he would later hold an elaborate wedding reception.

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Below Me in the Churning Water

  • by jentending to her quarrelsome husband
  • transmissions will resume
  • accused of murdering his roommate
  • circuit breakers?
  • hands moving upwards

Tune in next time part 351      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Below me in the churning water, the crew of the Pentagonal Party’s airship clung desperately to the gondola, barely afloat, and tried to fend off the voracious fish. They were doomed, the lot of them, unless Fleur decided to intervene. I knew she would not.

The chances that her half-brother William was actually aboard the vessel were slim, which meant that we needed to be cautious. If he had managed to gain a foothold on the islands we were quickly approaching, we were floating straight into trouble.

“Fleur! Fleur!” I heard Isolde cry from the galley above me. “Where the hell can she be?”

“No doubt tending to her quarrelsome husband,” came Jim’s drawling reply. I wished he would stay at the zeppelin’s controls. We were still flying low across the waves. Too low, in my opinion.

I climbed the ladder out of my harpoonery seat and reached the galley just as Fleur descended from her upper perch.

“Who knows when those traitor’s transmissions will resume,” she said. “We need  to retake the archipelago before they have time to call for reinforcements.”

My brother Jim had been accused of murdering his roommates in both 9th and 11th grades at the Academy, and again later in culinary school. Someone that ruthless and slippery would be an asset in a situation like this, if I thought I could trust him.

Isolde bounced my children in her arms, looking puzzled. “But how can they radio anyone?” she asked. “Wouldn’t those things get all wet? What are they called, the electric thingies — circuit breakers?”

“We can’t take any chances,” Fleur snapped. “Jim, get back to flying this thing.”

She followed him out of the galley and kept an eagle eye on him until he was once again seated in the copilot’s seat, hands moving upwards to grasp the controls.

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In The Past, You Know

  • by Kent“In the past, you know,
  • arrived at the unwelcome conclusion
  • She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.
  • might well have been considered winged sharks
  • couldn’t believe anyone would want to

Tune in next time part 350      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“In the past, you know, aerial combat was among the courtly arts taught in Contrarian finishing schools.” Fleur’s voice carried to me as she ascended to her gunner’s seat and I clambered down to mine. When I reached my perch I also arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that the harpoon gun I was about to employ hadn’t been maintained properly.

“Isolde assured me, before we departed from the carrier, that the zeppelin’s weaponry was in top condition.”

I didn’t bother shouting a reply to Fleur, but if I had it would have been, “She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.” The sights were crooked, the trigger felt like someone had used it as a place to hold chewing gum, and the gun wasn’t loaded. The harpoon rolled around in the gunnery compartment, flung this way and that by Jim’s desperate flight path.

Jim was buying us time, but it seemed to be at the expense of altitude. I hoped the topside gun was in better condition, because our adversary wasn’t likely to present itself to me down here. We were skimming the whitecaps.

Grabbing the harpoon before it impaled me, I worked on getting it loaded. Suddenly we veered so hard to starboard that the force of the turn tipped our vessel sideways. Thus my seat became the perfect vantage to observe as a school of ferocious looking flying fish — they might well have been considered winged sharks, only bigger — burst forth from the ocean. They were the reason Jim heeled us over so drastically. The huge creatures arced over us and sank their serrated teeth into the not-so-armored envelope of the Pentagonal faction’s airship.

And then we yawed back to level flight, and I could see only spume. For those few seconds, that cramped keel-mounted gunner’s nest was the best place to obtain a view of such a singular spectacle, but having gone through it I couldn’t believe anyone would want to.

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“Evasive Maneuvers!”

  • by jenWilliam’s fifth wife
  • (or tethered goats — whatever you’re into)
  • beige comfort food at its best
  • delivery man for the morgue
  • performing a flourish

Tune in next time part 349      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Evasive maneuvers!” Fleur shouted.

“Yes ma’am,” came Jim’s reply. Fleur and I stumbled into the counters as our zeppelin suddenly lurched to starboard. We looked like we were on the bridge of the Enterprise as Jim quickly dodged to port and we stumbled again.

Picking up the mic once more, Fleur said calmly, “The traitorous acts of the Pentagonal Party will be punished most harshly.”

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pentagonal Party. Everyone has. But since things are so convoluted I’ll give a brief refresher. Fleur’s father, the Contrarian Warlord and Supreme Calligrapher William Penn XI has, per Contrarian tradition, eleven wives (one for each of the previous warlords who bore his name, and one for himself). Fleur is William’s firstborn child, born to his sixth wife, Agnes Rose, a full minute before her brother was delivered to William’s fifth wife (and Agnes Rose’s older sister) Rose Agnes. The other nine siblings from the first “brood,” as it is called, arrived over the next several hours. This is how it has always been done in Contraria, with the marriages all taking place at once and the pregnancies all conceived to run concurrently, and may the best man win. Fleur was the first time in recorded history that the firstborn was female. William, to his credit, was pleased to have his daughter as heir. Rose Agnes was not. To her, Fleur’s arrival a mere minute too early was an insult. Her sense of outrage was likely enhanced by long-simmering sibling rivalry between the sisters. Rose Agnes and her bodyguard/lover rebelled and formed the Pentagonal Party, and have spent the past several decades plotting to put William XII on the throne in Fleur’s place.

The warlord tried over the years to placate Rose Agnes. I’ve seen the letters he wrote in his impeccable script. “If you will only cease your hostilities and come home, I will be pleased to provide you with several ponies (or tethered goats — whatever you’re into). Our son will be a duke and will enjoy beige comfort food at its best, as prepared by the palace chefs.” It goes on and on in that vein, but Rose Agnes would not hear of reconciliation. In one of her replies she says that if her son can’t be warlord he might as well be a delivery man for the morgue. Her writings are very melodramatic.

Fleur turned to me and said, “I’m going to man the top harpoon.” Performing a flourishing gesture toward a trapdoor in the floor she added, “You take the one in the keel. We’ll blast those bastards out of the sky.”

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“Thank You,” I Said, Moving in for a Hug

  • by jena nasty slipping, grating sound
  • Perhaps I should elaborate.
  • at the same ranch
  • I’m not a machine
  • hidden beneath the refrigerator

Tune in next time part 145                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Thank you,” I said, moving in for a hug. Aimeloxym allowed the embrace, which I easily turned into a nerve pinch that rendered her unconscious. As her metal eyelids fluttered closed they made a nasty slipping, grating sound.

Perhaps I should elaborate. Not on the sound — I think I was pretty thorough in my description of that. Perhaps I should elaborate on why I incapacitated this woman who had just helped me.

If Aimeloxym had received her espionage training at the same ranch in the high desert that Freya had, it would explain her knowledge of and apparent immunity to my sister’s hypnosis. But it also made her far too dangerous. I couldn’t risk her finding out that “where the treetops glisten” was TinselTown, the year-round Christmas theme park I inherited from my uncle Jinx Damocles when he was presumed dead. I also couldn’t risk her making a pass at me, as so many women in my orbit seem to do. The past few days had been pretty much nonstop sex, and I’m not a machine.

As a rope ladder unspooled from the zeppelin overhead, I took possession of Aimeloxym’s harpoon gun and ran.

Through shadowy alleys and deserted warehouses I sprinted, eventually making my way to the royal pied-á-terre that my wife’s family keeps in this city for use during the annual calligraphy competition. I let myself in and went straight upstairs to the third auxiliary kitchen. I used the harpoon gun to fish out the small lockbox that I kept hidden beneath the refrigerator. Inside was my collection of diplomatic passports, a stack of currency, and a bus pass — quite literally my ticket out of here.

I made my way to the depot and caught the first bus to Harmonia, ancient enemy of Contraria. Being married to Fleur made it dangerous for me to enter the land of the Harmonious, but that’s where TinselTown was, and that’s where I hoped to find Tessa. It was a chance I’d have to take.

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This Was Not the First Time I Had Been Threatened With a Serrated Diving Knife

  • by jentangled in her sweater
  • staring at the sky, stunned
  • but she won’t let you
  • moving in slow, sensuous circles
  • enormous head start

Tune in next time part 143                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

This was not the first time I had been threatened with a serrated diving knife by a woman wearing only flippers, a skimpy bikini, and spiky metal eyelashes. I dashed for the exit, putting as many schoolboys between us as possible. Myxolemia’s flippers slowed her down as well, and by the time she got them off and fought her way through her crowd of admirers, I had an enormous head start.

I pelted up the stairs and into the walkthrough aquarium. The glass tunnel passed through the heart of the giant tank. All around me, glowing jellyfish were moving in slow, sensuous circles. All of the jellyfish in the Contrarian National Aquarium have been trained by my wife personally to dance in these hypnotic patterns. You can ask Fleur a million times how she trained them, and why, but she won’t let you in on her plans. Very secretive is my wife.

As I hurtled past the crowds of tourists staring raptly at the denizens of the deep, I tried to figure out why Myxolemia hadn’t passed along her message to me when she appeared at the hospital. Or when she turned up at the leather goods store. Was it possible that it wasn’t actually Myxolemia, but her identical cousin Aimeloxym?

I burst through the emergency exit and stumbled to a stop on the sidewalk, staring at the sky, stunned. The presidential zeppelin was hovering directly above me. Had Thor escaped his vegan captors? Or was this some power play of Mother’s?

I must have stood there gaping for longer than I realized, for suddenly Aimeloxym was at my side. She had tried to dress in a hurry – her metal eyelashes were tangled in her sweater.

She aimed her harpoon gun at the zeppelin.

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Every Man Has At Some Point

  • by Kentasked to draw a map
  • the worst a beautiful woman could do
  • squeezed his head and arms
  • their gestures of greeting
  • never, ever name your daughter after that woman

Tune in next time part 142                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Every man has at some point been asked to draw a map of his fears, where X marks the worst a beautiful woman could do to him. Usually it’s something about betrayal or abandonment, hardly ever has anything to do with harpoon guns. I didn’t think I had much to worry about this time, though. The glass of the aquarium would surely stop a harpoon. But then I looked at the tip of her weapon, and realized it wasn’t the typical sharp prong but a chunky explosive warhead.

The only reason I could think for the Headmistress to turn on me like that was if I’d somehow garbled the message. I had to try a different code. Grabbing the rude teen beside me, I squeezed his head and arms into the shapes of various ancient runes. The Headmistress aimed her harpoon gun at me, but only lazily. She was giving me a chance. Meanwhile, the rest of the schoolboys were now treating me like a hip-hop star, leading me to wonder if they mistook me for my brother Jason. In any case, their gestures of greeting were elaborate handshakes that interfered with the transmission of my new message.

The Headmistress lost patience with me and fired. I threw my human runic semaphore stylus one way and leapt the other, as the window burst out at us in a surge of brackish water. The Headmistress rode the outflow and landed adroitly on her flippered feet, now brandishing a knife. She tore off her mask and shook out her wavy black hair.

It was the American ambassador, my date to the prom. Myxolemia.

“What should we do?” whined one of the soggy teenagers.

“I have only one piece of advice,” I replied. “You should never, ever name your daughter after that woman.”

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An Entire Field Trip’s Worth of Teenage Boys in School Uniforms

  • by jenthe realm of cryptozoology and superstition
  • through an interpreter
  • to enhance its size
  • staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-luster eyes
  • mere super-dork

Tune in next time part 141                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

An entire field trip’s worth of teenage boys in school uniforms blocked my view of the SCUBA woman. Contrarian schools focus almost exclusively on the realm of cryptozoology and superstition, so their presence here at the aquarium was a bit surprising.

I moved to the side of the viewing port and started to work my way in amongst the hormone-drenched throng, which necessitated pressing myself flat against the wall. As I inched along I encountered a plaque written in Olde Contrarian. I ran the text through an interpreter app on my phone, thinking it might be the message I was waiting for. When the translation appeared, I had to enhance its size and read it again.

Mermaid.

I laughed. Well, that explained what the school kids were doing here. But the SCUBA woman was anything but a mermaid. All the parts I had seen (which was most of them, given the skimpiness of her bikini) were human.

Losing patience, I shoved the nearest teen a few inches to the left and took my place at the window. The “mermaid” spotted me and flashed a quick hand signal, then began her peculiar and complicated release of bubbles again. The code she was using was an old one, and she started off by complaining about how many years it had taken me to finally show up.

I shrugged.

She flashed another quick hand signal, this one much ruder than the first, then bubbled that I should call her the Headmistress. That was great news, except that I didn’t know how the hell I was supposed to pass along my message to her. I stood there for far too long, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-luster eyes, trying to recall the proper pantomimes for Fire, Delight, and Danger.

The boy that I shoved noticed me and elbowed his friends. The whole group began taunting me, calling me every name in the book from perverted ass-clown to pathetic pumpkin juggler to mere super-dork.

I ignored them and finished choreographing my message. As soon as I delivered it, the SCUBA headmistress’s eyes narrowed and she pulled a harpoon gun from behind a nearby chunk of coral.

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I Dragged Myself Backwards

  • by jenlight pollution works in your favor
  • took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid
  • recognize these assholes out in the wild
  • maps, engraving, money, photos, stamps
  • with slowness immeasurable

Tune In Next Time Part 3                               Click Here for Earlier Installments

I dragged myself backwards toward shore with slowness immeasurable, the cinderblocks chained to my ankles digging deep into the sandy ocean floor. The zodiac lurched forward with John in the bow, brandishing the harpoon. Tessa giggled maniacally.

“Run for it!” she shrieked again, mocking me, then guffawed.

Amongst the pilings I tried to find a shadow to hide in, but the boardwalk was awash with blinking neon and apparently light pollution works in your favor when you’re a psychopath. Tessa steered the boat straight at me and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid in the flask she kept tucked in her ample cleavage.

I thought of everything that had been in the safe: maps, engraving, money, photos, stamps, diamonds — John had all of it now. John and Tessa.

If I survived the night I’d need to learn to recognize these assholes out in the wild, save myself the trouble of partnering up with them. Or worse, falling in love.

The harpoon was mere feet from my chest when suddenly Tessa yanked hard on the tiller and John toppled into the sea with a salty splash.

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