Tagged: scuba

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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“Come With Me”

  • by Kent“Is this an ocean menagerie?”
  • something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to
  • shot him in the mouth
  • a converted fireman
  • young ladies usually are

Tune in next time part 140                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Come with me,” I said to Freya. She flung herself onto her ersatz Claus and shook her head, a perfect, petulant tantrum. It might have been adorable when she was two, and apparently the white-bearded man laying underneath her had much laxer standards.

I wrote her off. She knew she’d have mother to answer to later, and apparently she didn’t care. I had to move quickly, as the tattoo admonished. Quicken my steps, as mother had scolded.

The message inked on my chest was not meant to be taken literally. I knew, for example, that the glistening treetops it referred to were branching bioluminescent coral formations on view at the Contrarian National Aquarium. Handy that it was three blocks away.

Admission was free. I headed down three levels to the proper tank, and stood gazing at glowing, gently swaying fronds, like a deep-sea rave where someone subbed horse tranquilizer for ecstasy.

“Is this an ocean menagerie?” asked the red-haired lady beside me. It sure sounded like a coded phrase, but I had no countersign that went with it. She must be meeting up with a different operative. I nodded, because the correct answer to her question was, “Yes.” This exchange was something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to acknowledgement of a coded signal. She set down her shopping bag beside my feet and wandered off.

Whoever was running their game, I would like to have shot him in the mouth with a squirt gun full of bleach. I stepped away from the bag so its intended recipient wouldn’t feel the need to do anything drastic when he showed up.

Half an hour later, I was still alone at the viewing window, with only the abandoned shopping bag for companionship. Maybe I misread the situation? Maybe the red-head was the headmistress? Worth a glance in the bag to figure it out, right?

The bag contained a jigsaw puzzle, or at least I hoped it was just one puzzle’s worth of pieces. Of course, the moment I picked it up was when more people entered the exhibit, so I couldn’t just leave it.

But something else distracted the arriving throng. I turned back to the glass and saw a diver in the dark water, using a converted fireman‘s breathing apparatus in place of real SCUBA gear. Apart from the breather, the diver wore only a bikini, and she wore it well. I noticed an odd pattern to the way she released her bubbles, but my view was quickly blocked by a few dozen high-school boys pressing their noses to the glass. When they swim in skimpy costumes, young ladies usually are an irresistible lure for teenage boys.

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