©Ernest Hogan 2014
We have liftoff -- Houston, Houston, do you read? Floating. Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace Patrol! In the middle of Burnout's van -- You're ten thousand light years -- The light's so bright -- Seek out new life and new civilizations -- The space -- getting bigger, brighter. One small step for a man. All this information -- such a happy little chip! My mind is going, Dave. Cockroaches, Nigerians, Mayans, reptiles, saguaros, lots of saguaros, everywhere -- one thing, monsters, monsters from the id. Why dress like a saguaro anyway? We will control all that you see and hear. Got to ask them about it -- Can you hear me, Major Tom? I can't follow it all -- Your minds! This is the Undernet. Your stupid, stupid minds! Brainpan fallout all over the place.
Fade to blinding white before I can lock into an old-fashioned Swinging Sixties style look-Ma-I'm-blowing-my-mind-again freeze frame scream.
Mom shakes her head and smiles as a beatifically as the Virgin of Guadalupe. Dad hands me a still-beating human heart. Obie and Doc argue over what to say to me. Califia sends another message from Nigeria, "Believe it all, but trust no one." Lalaita flashes his/her brand new, fresh-from-the-Columbian-mad-scientist's-lab breasts. Vampiko licks her lips, bares her fangs, and whispers, "I love you, Flash, to the year 2000 and beyond."
I got the impression that I was surrounded by saguaros, so what the hell, I asked, "Why do you wear those stupid saguaro suits?"
They all made a twittering, inhuman noise. I eventually recognized it as a peculiar kind of laugher.
"What's so funny?"
They conferred a while, then one said, "These are not suits. We are naked."
I tried to scream, but the blinding light dimmed down to a fuzzy near blackness.
I clicked my heels together three times and said, "There's no place like home."
My eyes opened. I was on a couch that reeked of assorted bodily excretions, in a dim, smoke-filled room.
"It worked," said a woman.
"Nothing like pure adrenalin in the carotid artery to wake a body up," said a man.
It was the blonde and the asian/native/hispanoid from the limo I rode in a millions of years ago this morning.
Vampiko flitted out of the smokey shadows, and said, "We're on soon, mon amour!"
No comments:
Post a Comment