|
The Onion's Defense Mechanism 7
Resist the temptation to sing Under the Sea, please...
I heard the machinery clank and rattle somewhere deep within the ship below us, and I could only tell we'd stopped moving because something primal and deep within myself told me so.
The old man looked at me expectantly.
You couldn't see the hairs protruding from his ears from where I was sat, but I knew they were there, from my intimate time with him, as he helped me over from the Devil's Dam. Thinking of that made me blush, which he noted by coughing politely into his hand, almost demurely. This made me blush even more, because I assumed he could only be thinking that I had been, in some way, touched by our encounter earlier. I looked down at the Whitman volume in my lap, which was even more embarrassing, so I laid it aside as subtly as I could. Unfortunately, he returned his gaze in time to see me slip the book in what could be perceived as a sensual manner back on to the side table. seeking some sort of diversion, I looked towards the porthole, to determine how deep we'd gone, only to realise this gesture might be misread as flirting, as I felt my hair flick gently forward over the nape of my neck, completely and utterly drawing my attention from the porthole.
The air was like drapery you'd naively thought you'd get clean by putting it in the washing machines: it was very very soggy, and very very heavy. And paisley. But this was more due to the surroundings than my or the old man's actions. I was mildly alarmed at the thought of thinking any more of the atmosphere closing in on me like the freshly washed drapes, because already I could feel my chest tightening. The thought came to me that he had returned to deal with this very scenario, in which probably hundreds of similar visitors had experienced similar symptoms upon realising the great void now enveloped them, the briny deep, as it were.
He was going to give me mouth-to-mouth, should I exhibit any further symptoms, or even if I hadn't. Perhaps I was already looking a little peaked, green around the gills... Or maybe he'd gotten the wrong impression with my sly maneuvering of the Whitman, always a bad choice of book to be "casually" reading when you're in uncertain company. You might think great big yelps of the soul sound great and interesting, but I've never had a good experience yelping with anyone. Well, that's not entirely accurate.
Anyway. He was advancing on me!
He was making his way, silent, like a wraith, a wraith with its hands out-stretched, but not too out-stretched, so as not to frighten its' prey too much. Like an intelligent wraith that had watched horror films and knew what set victims off running and had studied other, less successful (though not in the film appearances category) wraiths' technique.
Fortunately, for me, he was like a wraith that hadn't been entirely successful in weeding out the bad habits that ruined it for other wraiths (in that his prey, me, was still creeped out), and I leapt out of the loveseat and, I thought cleverly, behind it.
Very clever, it turns out, because as I leapt behind the couch the old man wobbled for one second, the room seemed to ripple, and he burst into many millions, possibly billions of little pieces, which scattered, like a drop of mercury, across the floor and into the number of drain holes hidden at the feet of various pieces of furniture and under corners of the carpet.
The, ehm, tray he had been carrying rattled to the floor where he'd been, just seconds before. It was accompanied by a pot of tea and a cup and saucer. And what looked like a very little pitcher of milk. And a pot of sugar. Not the kind that comes in packets, either. Or at least they weren't presented that way.
"He's good, isn't he?"
A man dressed in a faded grey tshirt and a pair of rumpled jeans stood by one of the bookshelves at the far end of the room. He was in his bare feet.
"He's one of my first attempts, and probably still one of my best, to be honest, at a nanobot." The man beamed, yes, beamed. You might not think it an appropriate verb to use outside of fiction, but if you ever meet a nanotech scientist talking about one of his first nanobots, well, you're likely to see the same grin. And you'll probably describe him as having 'beamed,' as well.
'That's kind of large for a nanobot,' is what I thought, looking back down to the tea soaking after the drain holes.
To be continued...
disclaimer:
So another issue! Wow! Imagine!
Ehm, that's it, that's all I have this week. Sorry.
And not even that comment, though it usually does, inspired any others, so sorry.
See you next week.
|
Yer Weekly Horoscopes.