The narrator looked over at the Xmas tree, which was picking its teeth and looking back at him, something that was tough to do with no eyes.
"Seems like the story is getting a bit hard to follow," the tree said.
The narrator nodded.
"Seems like somebody should do something about that," the tree added.
The narrator nodded again, then thought of something.
"What about that other guy?" he asked.
"Other guy?" the tree seemed interested.
"The guy whose job I took. What about him? He was narrating, and then I was narrating, and then you..."
The man paused, not wanting to make things awkward. If you're going to spend eternity in a bouncy-cloud paradise with the carnivorous tree that killed you, you don't want things to be awkward.
"... I killed you," the tree prompted. "Don't be shy. I'm not embarrassed. It's what I do."
"And then you killed me. Shouldn't that guy be able to take over telling the story?"
"He should. But we have to find him."
"We do?"
"Yep."
"We do?"
"Yep."
"How do we do that?"
The tree pointed a few of its branches at the gate.
"Open it."
So the narrator sized up the giant gate that stretched up, up, up into the sky and pushed against it, slightly. The gate swung open easily and the narrator looked into it and saw a man nestled all snug in his bed.
"That's him," he said.
"Better go get him up," the tree said. "It's about time we started this installment."
"So I just go through?"
"Yep."
"Nothing else to it?"
"Nope."
"How do you know all this?" the man asked.
"Simple. I'm a tree."
"Oh." The narrator thought about that, then said "That doesn't make any sense."
"That," the tree said laconically, "Is because I am a tree."
The narrator nodded again and stepped through the gate into the other narrator's bedroom.
"Er... excuse me?" he said. He tapped the sleeping man on the shoulder, and was surprised to see that his hand went right through the man. He tried again, and again was unable to tap, entirely. He held his hand up in the moonlight and realized he could look right through his hand onto the snow outside.
"Hey, um, tree!" he called, looking around for the Gate. It was gone, and he could not see the clouds or the tree.
"Hello..." he said, tentatively,to nobody in particular. Then, more loudly: "HELLO!"
Nothing. He turned back to the other narrator, whose name you might as well know, was Art. It was not short for "Arthur," but rather his name, Art, was long for "Ar," which his mother had named him over the objections of his father, who had said "Ar" wasn't a proper name.
"But it's all he can say," his mother had pointed out.
The narrator leaned over Art, and said again, more loudly, "HELLO!" and was rewarded with Art stirring a little in his sleep and mumbling something about letting the cat out later it wasn't his fault.
The narrator decided to try again but before he could do so, a tremendous clattering noise arose outside, and he paused in his efforts to wake up Art and instead ran to the window where he tried to tear open the sash to see what was the matter before realizing he could just look through the glass instead.
He saw, outside the window, a giant white lizard foot that looked as though it was made entirely of snow. Puzzled, he looked higher and higher, from the toe of the foot that was as big as the house he was in all the way up the leg which towered over them higher and higher and higher until at the very top, in the night sky, he could see a lizard shape blotting out the stars.
"Oh, great," he mumbled. "I'm in ##$*@&$ Fleming-Neon, Kentucky."
*************************************************************************************
Other Sexy Cop checked her instruments. Laser cannons were fully powered up. Fuel was still high. Journey was blasting on the radio and she was not going to stop believin', no matter what.
Her rocket car angled down under her cool, steely, sexy command and she eyed the situation. The giant jellyfish-like monster was undulating on hundreds of tentacles that held it up out of the water, the frothy waves it stirred up pummeling the shoreline of British Columbia, which was just north of Regular Columbia and just south of Canadian Columbia, a country that most people preferred to travel to after Canada became Chinese Canada when Canada, having unwisely invested most of its funds in the railroads, lander on Luxury Tax and couldn't pay up; Chinese Canadians were now waiting desperately for the world to pass Go.
One of the tentacles held, she saw, a man, who appeared to be talking with the jellyfish as it rambled and flowed into shore, ready to wreak jellyfishian havoc on the city, which, she could see, was in a panic, people streaming off the beaches and onto the beaches and into the bars and into the malls because many of the stores were having sales to get that pre-apocalypse shopping crowd in, not willing to wait for CyperPostApocalypse Monday to boost sales.
Other Sexy Cop frowned.
"Okay, Giant Jellyfish," she muttered to herself, and turned up the radio. "Let's see what you're made of." She thumbed the firing button for her laser cannons and heard a gratifying FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONSH! as the lasers blasted out towards the jellyfish, which ignored them as they passed right through it harmlessly.
"Rats," Other Sexy Cop muttered. "Time to try plan B." She hit her radio switch. "This is Commander Other Sexy Cop. I'm here at one of the Columbias, battling a giant jellyfish. Laser cannons are useless against it. What's plan B?"
"Copy, Commander," the voice came back as Other Sexy Cop banked her rocket car around the far side of the Jellyfish. She saw the man waving at her frantically and tried to convey to the man that she was on it, that she was rescuing him, he just had to be patient while she got Plan B going and then he'd be fine, but it was hard to pack that all into a wave of her hand, so she gave up and finished the bank as the radio came back to life.
"I've opened the envelope, Commander, the one marked Plan B. It says, and I quote: Call Commander Other Sexy Cop and ask her what to do."
Other Sexy Cop sighed, and the radio announcer got a little hot under the collar hearing how sexy her sigh sounded.
*********************************************************************************
"7," said the countdown over the loudspeaker, and Frankie jumped up and down to get some of the Nicks' attentions over the guitar solo that continued to echo throughout the jail cells.
Finally, one of the Nicks saw him, there in the middle of the hall.
"Hey, what's that?" he asked. The others all looked, then, too, hundreds of Nicks suddenly staring at him.
Frankie began to tell them what he knew, about how they all got here and what they were going to have to do and how they only had
"6" said the loudspeaker
a few seconds to get everything into action.
The Nicks all stared as he opened his mouth and said:
"...."
"5" said the loudspeaker.
Frankie slammed his paper fist into the floor in frustration. He couldn't talk. He couldn't talk! How could he be a major part of this story... the hero of this story, if he could not talk?
The Nicks watched him.
"4" said the loudspeaker.
Perhaps, Frankie mused, I am not the hero of this story. Maybe I am just a bit player in this one and I am destined to take on a larger role in some other story, some other time?
"3" said the loudspeaker.
No, thought Frankie. I am on the cover of the book, for Pete's sake. How can I not be the hero of this story?
"2" said the loudspeaker.
"Hey, I just had an idea!" shouted one of the Nicks, down the hall. He held up a piece of paper. "Anyone want to see what this could do?"
"1" said the loudspeaker.
The cells all blasted off, a giant ring of jail cells lifting up on anti-gravity repulsors which are a thing that exists in that world, and in mere moments they were just a speck in the sky, far far above the tiny little paperdoll Frankenstein that watched them go.
**********************************************************************************
I just want to take a moment to point out that in the first Nick & Other Sexy Cop story, everyone was saved by a giant choir miraculously singing the world back into place. One might suspect that the bunch of Nicks who were blasted into orbit just now might meet up with some aliens who would let them broadcast, around the world, a reading of the poem that has been hinted at and partially read throughout this story, and that the reading of the poem, which was, in fact, what one of the Nicks picked up, would somehow fix the problems that exist in the world, which are:
1. 11 giant monsters terrorizing the world.
2. Sexy Cop is back and has a rocket and can control satellites.
3. There is a carnivorous tree in Heaven.
But that is not going to happen. The Nicks are not going to read the poem. Nobody is going to read the poem. Are you crazy? Did you think everyone was kidding when they rounded up all the Nicks for writing poetry in the first place? That was not a joke. That was as serious as serious can be.
Nobody.
Reads.
Poetry.
Don't even try it.
*************************************************************************************
Frankie stood, dejectedly, watching the Nicks disappear into outerspace. Behind him, he heard a man say "What's going on back here?" and he looked up to see the desk sergeant staring through the opened door at the empty space where the jail cell used to be.
Frankie jumped up and down trying to get his attention, and the man finally looked down and saw him.
"Well, look at you," the desk sergeant said. "Aren't you the cutest little thing. You're one of those Printable Monsters, aren't you?"
Frankie nodded.
"Let me see you," the man said, and he picked Frankie up delicately, placing the little monster on his hand. Frankie smiled at him. "Well, you are just perfect! You know, I didn't think those things worked. Mine didn't, anyway."
Frankie shrugged and looked in what he hoped was a quizzical manner.
"Say, maybe you can help me?" the desk sergeant said.
Frankie nodded.
"Come on over here," the desk sergeant said and took Frankie back to the front of the police station, where his computer was sitting on his desk. Turning off the game of Solitaire, the man said "I tried to print me one of those monsters myself, and emailed it and printed it and everything, but it didn't work."
He set Frankie down on the desk and peered at the computer.
"I mean, I don't know what went wrong. I thought I followed the directions, but... nothing. I've been sitting here all night waiting for something to happen and nothing did."
Frankie peered at the computer. The screen showed a view of the world from an outer-space perspective. As he watched, it swiveled slightly and focused in on the Gulf of Mexico, where dimly Frankie could see some kind of giant blob moving towards land.
"Maybe..." the desk sergeant said, and leaned forward "If I hit enter?" and he pushed a key on the keyboard.
On the screen, a light flashed down from the upper left hand side of the computer to the middle, a bright whitish bolt of energy that lanced into the water and disappeared.
Frankie watched the screen intently.
So did the desk sergeant.
Nothing happened for a few seconds.
"What a rip off," the desk sergeant said. "$9.99 for that? I'll file a complaint." And in frustration he hit the Enter key again, and again, over and over: enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
enterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenterenter
The computer screen flashed over and over, like a lightning storm, or a strobe light. Or a strobe light in a lightning storm, which would be really cool, I think we can all agree.
Frankie watched the screen. The desk sergeant went to get some coffee.
*****************************************************************************
ALERT ALERT ALERT Sexy Cop's automated warning system went off. She pushed Gene up off of her and stood up, pulling her shirt together and buttoning just two of the four buttons, leaving a generous amount of cleavage visible on top and her flat stomach visible below. She pulled on her skirt and her stiletto heels.
"What is going on?" She ran to the monitors and saw on the main screen a block of jail cells flying up at her, faster than her rocket could avoid it, a sight that was so concerning that she completely ignored the fact that the Gulf of Mexico, on one computer monitor, was simply exploding with giant monsters.
*************************************************************************************
Nick, meanwhile, was sitting on his rocket-equipped couch, listening to some early stuff from The Rolling Stones, and watching the landscape go by below. As usual, Nick had no idea what was happening.
TO BE CONTINUED.
1 comment:
You know, I see people doing that button pushing thing all the time, especially at elevators or when they want to cross the street.
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