Chapter 5: Bruised Buttocks

[pascal_curious]

 

“What do we do, just wait?” asked Nervous

 

“There is nothing else we can do,” answered Lazlo

 

Feeling suddenly weak kneed and nauseated, I grasped the stair rail.

 

“I need to lie down.”

 

That was it. I had had enough. I was ready to just lay down on the ground and die, and probably throw up a few times in the process. 

 

Despite my sudden desire to expire, I allowed Nervous and Lazlo to help me back down to the sofa, where the TV was playing “The Man Show” to no one.

 

As I lay in misery I tried to keep my mind off the intense pains that were now radiating from my lumbar spine to my navel. Lazlo and Nervous had camped out in front of the bunker on some lawn chairs and I could hear their conversation drifting in through the screen door. I tried to focus on their discussion without much luck. I would be fine for ten or fifteen minutes, listening to them speculate as to what was happening to Vidcund, and then a pain would hit. Even the inane comedy of “Most Extreme Elimination Challenge” wasn’t enough to distract me from my suffering. I kept imagining myself in a scene much like the one in “Alien” where the alien sprog burst from Kane’s body in a gush of blood and guts.

 

Exhaustion eventually won out over agony and I found myself falling asleep between bouts of torment. I welcomed the moments of sleep, even though they only lasted about ten minutes. A few hours of snoozing and groaning passed and I found myself being awakened not by monstrous discomfort, but by shouting coming from outside.

 

“Pascal!” shouted Lazlo through the screen door. “He’s back! They brought Vic back!”


 

 

I rolled myself off of the sofa and waddled outside. Slow as I was, I only saw Vidcund standing in the middle of the road, rubbing his backside. He looked to the sky and saw the now tiny speck of light speeding toward the horizon. A horrified look of comprehension came over him and he screamed  a blood curdling, girly shriek. 

Lazlo and Nervous whooped and hurrahed in celebration of Vidcund’s triumphant yet unceremonious return. I vaguely remembered being shoved out on to the road, cushioned only by my buttocks and my butt twinged with sympathy.

Lazlo and Nervous wanted to know every detail of Vidcund’s adventure and hounded him with a million questions. Understandably, Vidcund didn’t seem to want to remain out in the open and headed for the safety of the bunker followed closely by the giddy and excited pair. I met them halfway to the house and gave Vic a knowingly sympathetic look before I buckled over in pain and fell onto the sandy ground