Tagged: tune in next time

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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“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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The Little Man Continued to Hop and Gibber

  • by jenwith an energy peculiar to excited females
  • you are so flamboyantly much
  • A well-played violin
  • he’s always been his parents’ favorite
  • you win $50,000!

Tune in next time part 113                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The little man continued to hop and gibber about imaginary snakes, with an energy peculiar to excited females, at least in my experience. The incongruity prompted me to look more closely and I saw that “his” beard was stuck on with spirit gum.

“Svetlana,” I sighed, peeling the scraggly thing off her chin, “you are so flamboyantly much.”

A well-played violin is precisely what her screeching reply did not sound like. The dolphin sounds echoed throughout the opera house for at least 30 seconds before she finally resorted to human words. “You’re such an asshole! Just because I tricked you into getting me pregnant, stole your clothes, and abandoned you on the train, you think that makes it okay for you to run off with your wife for months at a time?” She huffed and stuck the fake beard back on her face, crookedly. “It’s lucky for me I’ve got Thor convinced he’s the father. He’s always been his parents’ favorite, you know.”

That stung, seeing as Thor’s parents and my parents were the same parents.

Svetlana continued, “You’re such an asshole, in fact, that in the Asshole Olympics you win $50,000! Before you get too excited, you should know that’s only equivalent to the Bronze Medal.”

I didn’t dare ask who took Gold and Silver, but I did feel obligated to tell her of Thor’s current whereabouts. She could hardly trick him into raising my bastard child if the vegetable militants killed him, and that would put me in a very tight spot with my warlord father-in-law.

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The Phony Mustache Portion of the Phony Beard

  • by Kentwhen she found out that he was married
  • I don’t want to smell good
  • duties loomed particularly large
  • the palm-reading psychic
  • into a state of partial suffocation

Tune in next time part 114                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The phony mustache portion of the phony beard blocked Svetlana’s nostrils, and between yelled insults she sucked the actual beard portion into her mouth, buying me a moment to think while she gagged herself into a state of partial suffocation. I wondered if her deception of Thor required specific acts of chicanery, like when she bribed the palm-reading psychic on the boardwalk to lie to her mother about when graduation was that year.

“Hey,” I said, “Thor needs your help. The militant vegetarians have captured him aboard the presidential airship.” Unless they’ve killed him already, I added inwardly. If so, then Freya’s decoy duties loomed particularly large in the future. “They’ll try to force a repeal of the Ground Chuck Act, and who knows how far they’re willing to push things. I don’t want to smell good food on the grill and wonder if it’s the president.”

“Okay, okay,” Svetlana huffed. “I’ll help you rescue your silly brother, since he is the official father of our child.” I nodded, wondering how her attitude about Thor was going to change when she found out that he was married.

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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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“Uncle Vanya!”

  • by KentWhat do you think of dusky pink?
  • News travels fast.
  • I’m sitting in my office
  • coming from Cuba
  • I have a good relationship with the Fahey family

Tune in next time part 116                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Uncle Vanya!” I called out as I hurried toward Svetlana and the agitated old woman. “There you are. Aunt Olga is worried to pieces.” I patted my ‘uncle’ on the shoulder and subtly straightened the false beard on Svetlana’s face. The elderly woman made another complicated hand gesture at me, which seemed more rude than superstitious. Steering Svetlana up the street I kept up the act. “Olga’s still at the car dealership trying to decide on a color. What do you think of dusky pink?”

A truck lumbered past us and a bundle of newspapers thumped onto the sidewalk. “Presidential Zeppelin Hijacked” was the main headline.

“News travels fast.” Svetlana hiccuped again, trying to make it sound manly.

I have a recurrent dream in which I’m sitting in my office speaking backwards to steam open envelopes coming from Cuba, while a woman whose face is hidden behind her fashionable hat tries to hire me to track down her sister. I’ve never known what it means, and I didn’t know what made me remember it just then.

Svetlana hiccuped and said, “We have to get out of Pittsburghistan tonight. But my ride fell through. And the whole country will be looking for us.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Not that I had any kind of plan of my own, but in times of crisis I just remind myself that I have a good relationship with the Fahey family.

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We Turned Onto the Contrarian Equivalent of Rodeo Drive

  • by jenall of those are possibilities
  • trying to enjoy sex together
  • young, dashingly ill-disciplined Ambassador
  • The keen air made me giddy
  • venerable British saddle maker

Tune in next time part 117                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

We turned onto the Contrarian equivalent of Rodeo Drive and Svetlana pulled me into the overly air-conditioned showroom of a venerable British saddle maker. The keen air made me giddy, redolent as it was of rich leather and richer customers.

“This is not a good place to hide,” I said. “My wife’s family shops here all the time.”

Proving my point, young, dashingly ill-disciplined Ambassador Myxolemia strolled in, arm-in-arm-in-arm with Fleur and Isolde, all three of them laughing. Fleur’s cadre of bodyguards loomed behind them. So much for making my escape from Contraria.

“You’d better be on your way, Vanya,” I said to the disguised Svetlana. The last thing I needed was for Fleur to realize this ‘old man’ was really a young woman.

Fleur grabbed me by the hand and took me to a display case of riding crops. “Imagine we are trying to enjoy sex together but it has become boring. Which would you choose to liven things up?”

“That depends entirely on which of us would be wielding it,” I said.

Fleur turned to the obsequious shopkeeper and waved her hand at the crops. “All of those are possibilities. My husband and I will try them now.” She smirked evilly at me then. “I’m sure Svetlana will be happy to provide a surface upon which to test them in exchange for her freedom.”

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The Shopkeeper Unlocked

  • by Kentnearly a hundred
  • flick your eyes at mine
  • hat in hand, towards the partition
  • more remote than our cannibal ancestors
  • Nobody lives forever, so let’s roll!

Tune in next time part 118                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The shopkeeper unlocked the riding crop case, giving Fleur access to nearly a hundred of them. She snatched up a matte black one and said to me, “I’ll flick your posterior with this, each time you flick your eyes at mine. But first, we must try it out on your traveling companion.” Fleur, Isolde, and Myxolemia surrounded Svetlana, who had begun trying on men’s hats in a doomed effort to maintain the Uncle Vanya disguise. She was led, hat in hand, towards the partition screening off the changing rooms. I felt like a coward, my courage more remote than our cannibal ancestors, for standing there just watching them escort her to her torture, but they had us outnumbered and two of them were a warlord’s daughters. Shortly there came three sharp smacking noises followed by three muffled thuds. Svetlana came back with both the hat and the riding crop, grinning.

She hiccuped. Then she removed the fake beard, and with it a latex mask. Before me stood Tessa, the ninja, leering and waving a riding crop.

“What have you done?” I spluttered, unsure how I was going to feel about her answer.

She giggled, then hiccuped again and shook her head. “Nobody lives forever, so let’s roll!”

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My Wife’s Bodyguards Lurched Toward Us

  • by jengymnastics for the monkeys
  • with a patience and a calmness entirely German
  • inside the pocket was a receipt
  • such a quantity of gorgeously colored feathers
  • I need to talk to you about your son

Tune in next time part 119                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

My wife’s bodyguards lurched toward us, their large, hairy hands curling into fists. Tessa smirked. “Allow me to perform gymnastics for the monkeys,” she said, then backflipped toward the hulking quartet.

Mere moments later all four were unconscious on the floor. Tessa searched them with a patience and a calmness entirely German, uncovering a not-so-small arsenal which she secreted away in the folds of her old man disguise.

She stripped the tuxedo jacket off of the largest of them and tossed it to me. It was many sizes too big, but I put it on anyway. Inside the pocket was a receipt from a pawn shop and such a quantity of gorgeously colored feathers that I was startled. Was this man an exotic bird smuggler?

Tessa put her hands on my shoulders and hopped up, wrapping her legs around my waist. “Button the jacket,” she said, meaning to copy the real Svetlana’s old trick of disguising herself as a man’s rotund belly. If there really was a real Svetlana. Perhaps it had always been Tessa in disguise. Which woman had seduced me on the train? Was it the real Svetlana, and if so, was she actually pregnant? Or had it been Tessa, and if so, was she pregnant? Was anyone besides Fleur carrying my child?

“I need to talk to you about your son,” Tessa said, then drew her head down inside the jacket like a turtle retreating into its shell.

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I Waddled Out of the Store

  • by Kentthe blood came out like a balloon breaking
  • Such a generous nose!
  • dismissed the possibility of terrorist involvement
  • “… it’s interesting.”
  • — during an election year, no less.

Tune in next time part 120                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I waddled out of the store, head swimming.

“What about my son?” I muttered. “What do you mean?”

“Not now,” Tessa scolded from under my borrowed tux.

“Now’s the perfect time,” I said. “If anyone notices me talking, they’ll just think I’m some fat, crazy man mumbling to himself. I’m not going to put up with –”

Tessa’s hand moved with invisible speed, striking me on the schozz. The blood came out like a balloon breaking.

“Such a generous nose!” she cooed as I tried to contain the crimson spillage. A pair of Contrarian policemen watched the whole thing from across the street and then resumed their patrol, having evidently dismissed the possibility of terrorist involvement.

“I’b nod kiddig,” I insisted. “Tell be what’s doe ibbordand.” I paused to clear my nasal passages. “What’s this about my son?”

“Well,” Tessa sighed. “He,” she started, then paused for a long time. “… it’s interesting.” She paused for a longer time. “It’s not what you’re thinking. But we’re lucky it’s happening when it is — during an election year, no less.”

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