“You could have told me it was going to rain,” Bernard grumbled at the bald man sitting at his table, reading his newspaper.
Startled, Nervous turned around to see Jesus, in his pajamas, standing in the doorway. A light rain was falling outside. Nervous hadn’t noticed it.
( Read more... )
Vidcund stormed down the stairs and across the back porch of the Beaker compound. He crossed the small length of property between the back patio and the radio towers. The foundations for the huge towers had always been an excellent hiding place for his vehicle, whichever one he happened to be driving. He climbed into Pascal’s Jeep, started the engine and drove out across the desert without headlights on, just in case anyone might be watching.
( This chapter is inappropriate for all humans, most primates, and some amphibians. It should never be read by anyone. Ever. )
When Nervous Subject awoke he was surprised to find himself in bed. It wasn’t his own bed, which is what surprised him the most.
Nervous Subject choked up a lungful of water.
Well, at least I am not dead, he thought, at least I don’t think I am dead.
He became aware that he was on his back and soaking wet so he couldn’t possibly be dead, right? He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the figure hovering over him. A few blinks later the face came into focus.
“Jesus!” Nervous exclaimed, and promptly passed out.
“Oh Hell,” grumbled Bernard Carlton.
Vidcund Curious heaved and retched into the toilet of the Beaker family’s bathroom. He hated the pregnancy sickness. It always seemed to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moments. He continued to kneel in front of the toilet, his face just above water inside of the bowl, waiting for the nausea to pass. There was always the danger that being perched with his face in the toilet might just send him into new spasms of puking. Sometimes it seemed like an endless cycle. Puke, see and smell the puke in the toilet, puke again. He bit down on his tongue, determined to keep it from rearing up and forcing him to throw up again.
It only took a few miles for Nervous Subject to realize that going out for a jog in the desert heat might not have been such a good idea; at least not for his first time out. He had gone through his bottled water about one mile back and now wished he had stopped at the Area 52 grocery to get more. Now, the grocery and any other sign of civilization were over two miles in the other direction. Nervous was sure he wouldn’t make it back those two miles. Maybe starting his personal transformation from a sedentary, beer drinking, and occasional herbal cigarette smoking schlub should have been a bit more gradual.
( Read more... )
Nervous Subject opened one eye and looked at the alarm clock. 5:57. He groaned and rolled over, turning his back on the clock, and pulled the covers over his head. He very much wanted to go back to sleep but knew that it would be pointless to even try. In a few minutes Loki would be bellowing down the stairs for Nervous to get his lazy ass out of bed.
Nervous flipped the blankets aside and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He yawned and stretched while he mentally went over his plans for the day. It was going to be the first day of his new exercise regimen. It was all part of his personal transformation. He figured that in order to feel strong he had to be strong. It wouldn’t be enough to simply stand up to Loki’s words, He needed to stand up to him physically. He needed to become the alpha male.
( Read more... )
Amber went to the cupboard, poured me a glass of scotch and sat it in front of me. I downed the entire glass in one and pushed the glass back to her across the island counter.
“Another please,” I croaked.
Amber looked apprehensive.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “You still have to go to work.”
“I’m sure.”
While Amber poured, I picked up the next item from the yellow envelope. It was a ragged, faded envelope addressed to my father. It was post marked December 1978.
Amber handed me my second glass of liquid sanity and I drank it down. Bolstered by artificial sense of bravado that comes from drinking fine 15 year scotch, I emptied the tattered envelope of its secrets.
( Read more... )
When Nervous Subjects woke up, he was face down on the floor, his left cheek resting on the cold stone tiles. He felt like his brain was swimming around inside his head, repeatedly and painfully bumping into the inside of his skull.
Originating from somewhere very near him, Nervous heard a slow drip. It was then that he realized his pants were wet. He hoped desperately that he hadn’t peed himself. A quick sniff of the air was enough to put his mind at ease until he could investigate further.
I was lazing about, a few hours before having to leave for work. Sprawled across my bed, staring at the ceiling, I tried to decide how to get the hero of my novel out of a particularly sticky situation. I had put Andy down for her nap and the house was quiet. It was the perfect time for such a mental excursion. I finally decided that what my hero really needed was a tattoo of a great red dragon across his chest. I was contriving a way in which hero could acquire such a tattoo (and bust some heads in the process) when the phone rang. I lunged for the handset on the bed side table and caught it after the first ring.
“Hello?”
I looked in on Andy to make sure that her sleep had not been disturbed. She looked up when I entered the room but quickly lost all interest and went back to sleep.
“Hi Pascal, It’s Amber,” said the voice on the other end.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I was wondering, I know you don’t have to be at work for a while yet and I wanted to know if I could come over a bit early. I have a few things I need to give to you.”
“Really?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what she might have that she would need to give to me.
“Uh, sure, that’s not a problem” I told her. “Do you wanna come over for some lunch? I was just about whip up some bachelor chow.”
“That would be great.”
I could tell she was excited but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
( Read more... )
Amber was sitting on the floor with Andromeda playing with the Wibbly Wobbly Wabbit Head when there was a knock at the door. She hadn’t been expecting any deliveries or any visitors. She put Andromeda in the Pack ‘N Play with her Wobbly Wabbit Head and went to the door. Standing on the other side of the glass was a bachelor’s dream come true; a lovely young girl in a French maid’s costume. Amber thought for a moment that it might be a strip-o-gram for one of the guys. The girl’s skirt was almost obscenely short. The tops of her black thigh high stockings peeked out beneath the frilly black skirt. Amber considered not answering the door for a moment. She didn’t want to be stripped for, at least not by someone of the same gender. As offensive as she found the idea, Amber opened the door to greet the young woman.
The only noise around the Beaker dinner table was the sound of silverware on china. It was a seemingly pleasant family scene like any you might see on a 1950’s TV sitcom. The son, Nervous, was absorbed in inhaling his potatoes while his father, Loki, picked through his piece of salmon, inspecting it for any tiny bones that might have evaded detection during the cooking process. The ever diligent wife and mother, Circe, pushed her green beans around on her plate, deep in thought about what she should prepare for the next evening’s meal.
Or not.
I was elated as I left work. The worries and fears of the past few months were finally gone and I had the weekend to devote entirely to my daughter before the worries of the next big project began..
I announced my triumphant return to the bunker with open arms, as if expecting a hug, and shouted, “Lucy, I'm home!”
( Read more... )
“I should really be going, I am sure you have things you need to do and I have housework that needs tending to,” Amber said as she rose from the kitchen stool. The scotch we had been drinking gave her cheeks a lovely pink glow.
“As much as I hate to I have work that needs to be done for tomorrow. I have presentation I need to make. The company I work for is bidding on another government contract.”
“If you have to go into work tomorrow who will be watching Andromeda?” she asked curiously.
“If Lazlo or Vidcund are off they take care of her, if we all have to be at work, like tomorrow, I will call ‘The Nanny Van’ and they will send someone over to keep her. Usually that old cow Sophie Miguel.”
“Is she that bad?” Amber asked.
“She is really good with the baby, but otherwise she is completely useless. Last week she caught the stove on fire. It was a lucky thing that Lazlo got home when he did, or the house would have gone up in flames,” I explained.
“Oh my! That’s terrible. How on earth did she do that?”
( Read more... )
Finally!
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you,” she asked.
“No. I think you are probably quite sane.”
“You believe me?”
“Maybe. Tell me what it looked like.”
“It was just like something out of one of those old UFO movies from the fifties. It was a round disk with yellow and red circular markings. There was a ring of green lights around the outer edge of the disk and the lights all flashed in sequence around it. That was the flashing light I had seen.”
( Read more... )
Morning broke over the seemingly peaceful desert haven of Strangetown. Birds twittered in the palm trees. Butterflies glided on perfumed breezes over the flowerbeds. Sleepy eyed children woke to the smells of blueberry pancakes. The sun crested the distant mountains to the east, bathing the tiny oasis town in golden beams of light. A dog barked a playful warning to a passing mail carrier and a cat pounced from a neighbor's windowsill onto a feather fluttering in the breeze. Lazlo Curious stood naked in his bathroom and wept.
Thanks to the help of Circe, Nervous, my brothers Lazlo and Vidcund, and one Sophie Miguel from ‘The Nanny Van’ our lives resumed some semblance of normalcy after several weeks. It was a huge adjustment for us all. We managed by using a dry erase board to schedule each week so someone would always be home. I had arranged it so that I could continue working from home most days and the days I had to be at the lab Sophie stepped in to care for Andromeda. Lazlo pitched in by caring for Andy on his days off. Vic even seemed to warm up to her, I know I caught him snuggling her at least a couple of times.
After about six weeks I had become accustomed to being awakened by hungry wailing several times a night, therefore I was very surprised to be awakened in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning by someone pounding on the front door.
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"Is this baby thing what has you so upset?”
Vidcund didn’t answer verbally but pulled his shirt up to reveal his marred abdomen.
Circe softly ran her fingers over the raised pink scar tissue. Vidcund’s abdominal muscles jumped at the surprise of her gentle touch.
“You mean…” she stammered. “… Not you too?”
( Read more... )
Andromeda Lesath Curious arrived on this planet at 3:48 AM on November first. I named her after Andromeda, the beautiful daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, also our nearest large neighbor galaxy, and Lesath, Scorpius's Upsilon star.
( Read more... )
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