Tagged: tune in next time

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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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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It Wasn’t Long

  • by Kentgone mad with a moderate amount of power
  • Put some lipstick on. I will, too.
  • all the feathers were in their correct positions
  • “I love you,” he said silently.
  • making me believe in heroes

Tune in next time part 398      Click Here for Earlier Installments

It wasn’t long before a dark, distant shape appeared in the sky. We were, it seemed, overtaking Jim’s zeppelin! I thanked the fisherman and urged him to keep it up.

“Why are you so intent on this airship?” he asked.

“My brother has gone mad with a moderate amount of power and stolen that craft. I have only guesses as to his scheme, but whatever it is he must be stopped.”

“How do I know you’re not the mad brother?”

I looked at him sidelong. I needed him to keep the boat moving swiftly. “You’re doing me a valuable favor, and I appreciate it. Tell me how to demonstrate my appreciation, and I’ll do it.”

“Put some lipstick on. I will, too.”

He handed me a small silver tube. The shade was a bit bright for my tastes, but it wasn’t like I had any of my own.

“And this,” he said, proffering a peacock vest in exchange for the lipstick. Once I’d donned it he inspected me to be sure all the feathers were in their correct positions. “I love you,” he said silently. I took that as a sign that the vest complimented my Contrarian general’s uniform. “Thank you,” he said out loud, “for making me believe in heroes. Now, let’s catch that airship!”

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Happy Anniversary, You Big Dumb Chain Story!

Our illustrious chain story, Tune In Next Time, has reached another milestone! 400 installments, if you can believe it. Soon it will be as long as one of our actual novels. We can’t imagine trying to edit it into coherence, though.

This time, we’ve pulled our inspiration phrases from one of the baby name books in Jen’s vast collection. Some of these “definitions” are rather dire, as it turns out.

As these shared prompts usually go, Jen will take the first phrase and write until she manages to work it in. Then Kent will take over the keyboard, and so on.

  • personification of madness
  • now little used except in the Highlands
  • youthful delight in fine necklaces
  • wreaked havoc on
  • unsuccessful attempts to pronounce
  • the tinkling sound of pieces of jade
  • “Red flag”
  • the murder of her father
  • merely a Cornish curiosity
  • in origin a local

Tune in next time parts 399 & 400      Click Here for Earlier Installments

We sped onward across the waves, the fisherman in his hip-waders and lipstick, me dressed as the personification of madness. The fisherman told me about the garment he’d foisted upon my torso. “The peacock-feather vest is an old symbol of wisdom, now little used except in the Highlands.”

“The Inimical Archipelago has no Highlands,” I said.

“The Archipelago is all Highlands. Just thirty years ago the Lowlands were still above sea level. They’re gone now, of course, lost due to the folly of the Warlord and his dalliance with the American president. Back in those days William Penn XI took a youthful delight in fine necklaces, and that lady president had the finest.”

I knew he was talking about Mother. And I knew that it was she, not the warlord, who really bore the blame for the catastrophe that wreaked havoc on the Great Lakes and, evidently, also partially sank the Archipelago. But it didn’t seem worth arguing that point.

What would this lowly fisherman say if he knew that I was the son of the president he so reviled? Or that Jim, the man we were chasing, was the result of the Warlord’s affair with her? Through the years since the cataclysm there had been several unsuccessful attempts to pronounce Mother dead. Would this man take out his ire on her sons instead?

The catamaran swooped over the waves. The rushing wind and crashing surf were complemented by the tinkling sound of pieces of jade on a strand of silk that whipped in the breeze and curled around the mast.

“The Warlord should have known better than to trust that woman,” the fisherman said. “He even made a speech on the radio where he said, ‘Everyone around me says that she has “Red flag” written all over her, but I can resist neither her charms nor the opportunity to view a calligraphic tattoo of that nature first hand.'” He turned his head and spat into the waves. “Perhaps it’s wrong to judge her so harshly, though. It’s little wonder that the murder of her father left her mind unhinged.”

I had never met my grandfather. He’d been assassinated in Cornwall decades before my birth, in a very mysterious incident known to the world as the Curiosity. But to Mother, her father’s death was not merely a Cornish Curiosity — it was part of an elaborate conspiracy theory she sought to this day to untangle.

“You’re quite well informed on global political history,” I remarked, “for an Inimical fisherman.”

He grinned. “The fishing life here in the Archipelago suits me, but I would not say that I am in origin a local.”

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The Fisherman Winked at Me and Made a Complicated Hand Sign

  • by jenI’ve been doing it my whole life and it’s hard to stop.
  • and paid plenty
  • the more toxin it has accumulated
  • like magnified mops
  • this is just how they unload timber in Canada

Tune in next time part 401      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The fisherman winked at me and made a complicated hand sign that told me he had spent time at the Academy. I didn’t want to talk about our shared Alma Mater. I’ve been doing it my whole life and it’s hard to stop... especially when I keep running into fellow graduates. The Hopscotch Academy exacted a toll from its alumni. I’d paid, and paid plenty, and now all I wanted was the freedom to live my life on my own terms.

“What sort of fish are you catching today?” I asked to change the subject.

“Well none anymore,” the fisherman said gruffly. “But before you came along I hauled in a whole school of Inimical Mopfish.” He opened a hatch in the deck and pointed inside. “The bigger the fish, the more toxin it has accumulated.”

I peered inside and saw a swarm of ugly gray tentacles, like magnified mops with strands as long as my arm. I struggled to keep the revulsion out of my voice. “Are they edible?”

“Hell no. But their toxin is a powerful euphoric, with only a few dozen side effects. Very popular as a party drug.”

I nudged the hatch closed with my foot. Above us the zeppelin had slowed and on the horizon I saw a rocky promontory. “Is that Disco Island?” I asked.

The fisherman nodded, wary. “No offense General, but I’m not taking my vessel to that blighted hellscape. It’s full of mimes.”

“But that’s where my brother is heading,” I said. “And I need to get there, too.”

“You look like a strong swimmer.”

Five minutes later he was lowering me into the water on the end of a large metal hook. “Don’t overthink it,” he said. “This is just how they unload timber in Canada.”

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It Wasn’t Until The Catamaran Sped Away

  • by KentThis is just inexplicable.
  • four-day mission to Moscow
  • outside of the laboratory
  • noticed a strange mark
  • scheme to make some easy cash

Tune in next time part 402      Click Here for Earlier Installments

It wasn’t until the catamaran sped away, leaving me splashing a quarter-mile from the shores of Disco Island, that I considered the effect this dip would have on my uniform. This is just inexplicable. The uniform was the best part of being a general, at least so far. And in light of where my garrisons were located, I doubted I would ever go on a four-day mission to Moscow, so wearing a snazzy uniform was likely to remain the thing that gave me the greatest job satisfaction for quite some time.

As I swam toward the jagged rocks, I monitored the position of the zeppelin. The mimes have no docking spire, but their island’s steep formation was a natural substitute. They had a gangway that could be extended from the mountainside so that visiting vessels could tie up. It was located just outside of the laboratory, meaning I had no hope of getting there ahead of Jim. The airship was being tied fast when I slogged out of the briny waves and clung to the boulders to catch my breath.

As the seawater drained from my clothes, I scouted for a place to make my ascent. The tide was in, but I noticed a strange mark like the imprint of a starfish on a chunk of basalt about seven feet above the waterline. A wave crashed, soaking me again and almost dragging me off the rocks. Even without the cinder blocks, and even though Tessa and John were nowhere in sight, my situation was beginning to remind me of the betrayal under the boardwalk. I missed those simpler times, when my life was put in peril over a scheme to make some easy cash. Now, I hardly understood why any of this was happening.

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Before the Next Wave Crashed

  • by jenShe was fair-skinned and red-headed
  • the other side of the pilings
  • working on a furnace
  • which is a fun thing
  • Mr and Mrs Mint

Tune in next time part 403      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Before the next wave crashed, I clambered to the top of one of the smaller boulders. From there I made my way higher until I was clear of the surf. Hopping like a nimble parkour aficionado, I summited the rock pile and caught my first glimpse of what lay beyond. It was a lagoon ringing a beach of black sand, which in turn ringed the island’s central steep mountain. Sharp dorsal fins cut the choppy water. High above me, the zeppelin my brother had commandeered was being reeled in to the makeshift gangway.

A woman on the beach spotted me. She was fair-skinned and red-headed, like Tessa and all of her sisters. But perhaps her milky complexion was due to the grease paint of a mime. It was hard to tell from this distance. I was wary. The woman walked to a small jetty and untied an outrigger canoe from the other side of the pilings. She shoved it into the shark-infested lagoon, hopped in, and started paddling directly toward me.

When she was 10 feet away from me she stopped. “What the hell are you wearing, Jason?” she asked, dispelling any lingering fears that she was a mime.

I looked down at my bedraggled uniform. The peacock vest had not survived my swim unscathed. Feathers were dripping and drooping everywhere.

“I’ve been working on a furnace,” I lisped.

“All the livelong day,” we said together, which is a fun thing under most circumstances.

She laughed and maneuvered the canoe close to me so I could board. Her prowess with the oars told me that this was most likely Tatiana. In addition to being the sister in Tessa’s family born just after Titania, she was a crew champion at the Academy, and specialized in maritime skullduggery. What she wanted with Jason was anyone’s guess.

As she rowed us back to shore, she said, “Mr and Mrs Mint have been waiting for you.”

My blood ran cold. Myndilynn and Mingus Mint were an infamous pair. Myndilynn was a seemingly sane woman, except for the fact that she was in a relationship with a life-size wooden puppet replica of her late husband Mingus. When the real Mingus was alive, she would sit in his lap and he would pretend to puppet her. After Mingus died under mysterious circumstances, Myndilynn saw no reason to change things. She built a replica of Mingus and still sits in his lap, pretending to be his puppet.

Mimes were bad enough, but those silent bastards in league with the Ventriloquist Syndicate? Unthinkable.

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From the Pier, Tatiana Escorted Me

  • by Kentnothing but dark memories
  • many lives, or only one
  • She nods flirtatiously.
  • back into the family business
  • My colleague won.

Tune in next time part 404      Click Here for Earlier Installments

From the pier, Tatiana escorted me across the black beach and into a cleft in the sheer rock face. The hidden doorway she opened revealed stairs, but not going up toward the stolen zeppelin. We descended for quite a while, my uneasiness growing. I had never met Myndilynn Mint, but I knew Mingus before he married her. We did one mission together, of which I have nothing but dark memories. What had he told his wife about the experience? Had he thought I betrayed him? It surely must have seemed that way at the time. But Myndilynn thought it was Jason being brought before her, which might work to my advantage. In the spy biz it’s good to have many lives, or only one identical twin you can impersonate to evade your enemies.

The stairs bottomed out at last in an echoey torchlit passageway. A minute later I was in an audience chamber where Myndilynn sat upon the lap of the wooden puppet of Mingus, which sat upon a throne of crystal.

“You wanted Jason brought to you immediately?” Tatiana addressed to the woman in the puppet’s lap. The answering nod reminded me of something about Myndilynn. She nods flirtatiously. It seems to be something she doesn’t realize she’s doing.

I doffed my hat with the badge that said “General” and bowed from the waist. Trying not to overwork the lisping, I said, “I assume you are trying to pull me back into the family business?”

Myndilynn nodded again, with that sly quirk of her eyebrow that always happens concurrently. But it was Mingus who spoke, his familiar baritone voice jolting me as I watched the puppet’s jaw flop around in crude synchrony with the words.

“We’ve missed your talents, Jason. I had a colleague who also rapped, but he was greedy and challenged for full control of the wedding division. My colleague won. Former colleague, of course.”

I pretended to stare at the puppet, but my concentration was on Myndilynn. Her mouth didn’t move. And how would she match his voice so exactly?

“Now that you’re back,” Mingus went on, “all will be restored.”

It had been only a blind guess that Jason was mixed up in Ventriloquist Syndicate affairs. Now to maintain my charade, I would have to keep up the bluff.

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I Didn’t Have Time for Any Rap Battles

  • by jenwithout an inflatable octopus
  • raised a single finger and
  • pregnant with her first child
  • , along with my underpants.
  • except when it suited him to be Russian

Tune in next time part 405      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I didn’t have time for any rap battles. I needed to know what my brother Jim was up to. With a sad shake of my head I said, “I’m afraid I can’t perform without an inflatable octopus. It’s in my contract.” I raised a single finger and mimed signing the important paper.

“We’re not asking you to rhyme,” the giant Mingus puppet said. “At least not right now. I thought our message to you was clear. The star charts all indicate that today is the best day for Tatiana to become pregnant with her first child, and that you are the only suitable candidate.”

Not this again! Before I could even voice my protest, Tatiana yanked down my General trousers, along with my underpants. “You said we could use your crystal throne for this,” she said to the Mints.

Myndilynn gave a coy nod.

“Just a second,” I said, dropping the lisp. “There’s something you should know.” I reached for my pants.

“That’s not Jason,” Mingus said, as Myndilynn gave her head a sultry shake.

Tatiana looked me up and down. “If the star charts don’t mind, neither do I.”

John strode out from behind the crystal throne, consulting a large sheet of parchment. I should have known he’d be involved in this. He’s always been super into astrology, except when it suited him to be Russian Orthodox to keep himself in his grandfather’s will.

“The times of their birth are within the same 10 minute window,” he said. “The stars will allow the substitution.”

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I Hoisted My General Trousers

  • by Kenthalf the scientists were seasick
  • “Ooo boy!”
  • scourge upon our taste buds
  • found the voicemail hilarious
  • It wasn’t.

Tune in next time part 406      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I hoisted my General trousers. “Let me see that chart.” I crossed to John quickly and snatched the parchment out of his hands. It was not an ancient document, merely something handwritten on rough paper. Much of it was smudged and very little of the penmanship was passable.

“The research team deserves a medal for this,” John said. “The only coordinates from which they could get the readings were in the remotest part of the ocean, and their vessel had no electrical subsystems. Yet they completed this document, without access to computers and even though half the scientists were seasick.” He laughed. “Ooo boy!” He mimed throwing up, laughing some more. “These science-nerd types, they’re not sailors, apparently.” His sound effects as he acted out another geysering stream of vomitus made everybody wince, the psychosomatic bile rising as a scourge upon our taste buds.

He took out his phone. “You gotta hear this,” he said. “One of them called me, soon as they reached shore. I am so glad I missed the call because it meant I got this message. Oh, it’s a keeper.” He then played us a five-minute recording of a quavering voice giving what amounted to a routine field report which just happened to include mention of a couple dozen people barfing a lot.

By the redness of his face we knew John found the voicemail hilarious. It wasn’t.

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