Have Ray Gun! Will Travel! Please Pay Me! (part 12)
I was arrested by the space police on Vandervilk XXVII for smuggling illegal produce. They were fine with the space drugs. They were concerned with the crocodile man I had locked in the airlock. They asked if I was returning a prisoner, I responded that no, I was in fact bringing dinner.
They didn't hold me for long. The penalty for smuggling illegal sentient foodstuffs onto Vandervilk XXVII is an hour in the space prison and a feature length space movie about why you should be a vegetarian instead. It is an old movie. They did not even try to take my ray gun. Perhaps they were dissuaded by the smell of burnt meat.
I am now a free man on Vandervilk XXVII. A free man who has been deprived of his dinner. My emerald green veins burn for need of food. Or perhaps that is simply love nun burning. I am free and green in a glorious city. Rockets scorch the skies. Gigantic aliens walk around me, but I avoid their mighty thews. Those people are just weird.
I am writing this while hunched in an alcove. It is gigantic alien rush hour. The streets have been cleared for hoof and tentacle to pound pavement. The Friendly Peanut cheers for them in Spanish, the forgotten language of the radioactive cockroach. I must get back to the heathen death phallus quickly, before the trail of Dirk Gradient grows cold.
There are clues to be had on this miserable metropolitan dust ball. I just know it. But I am down to my last vial of space drugs, and the different colored pills have broken apart in the vibrational dance of the gigantic aliens. Colors mix together. I fear the vial. It, like my ray gun, is a fearsome force in the universe, bereft of the mighty anchor of sanity. But...it is so tempting.
No. I will wait. Soon there will be food. And the heathen death phallus. For now, I will wait out the gargantuan stampede. The stones overhead shiver and groan. The burning has become an aura of fire, and I remember that it has been a long time since I was last laundered.
***
I have found a hall of self-penitent space priests. They will flagellate themselves for your sins. Their sign proclaims it in neon letters, right above their hourly rates. I cannot believe that I, Clint Corona, mighty space adventurer that I am, has been brought to this. I should be a man! I should see past the burning! But an hour ago I began to leave molten footsteps in the pavement already trodden and compressed by the giants, and I am sure this is not a good sign.
Relief comes in the form of three nearly naked space priests, one of whom is bright fuschia and whips himself with his own tentacles. They drool and giggle as they pray out for my forgiveness, speaking their words to my benighted, accursed crotch. They pray the burning rot away to the sound of slapping flesh. They laugh at my pain. They *laugh*!
My hand spasms in its clutch around at the ray gun, beginning to stun them all. But I must wait and be moderate. The last thing I want is the space police to charge me with Unlawful Assault On a Holy Space Man. That carries a bigger fine than transporting illegal sentient produce! Plus the Friendly Peanut seems to be enjoying itself, goading the space priests on as their stamina begins to falter. Oh, the humanity!
I cannot take the strain anymore. I have removed my belt to tourniquet my arm, tying it till my emerald veins stand out like like the sensuous curves of the heath death phallus' fins. The multicolored, dangerously psychotic space drugs are clutched in my fist alongside my ray gun, my hand shivering with desire. Or maybe that is just the burning again. I can't tell if the space priest prayers are working or not. I must stop writing now. The magic is about to occur.
***
The burning is gone. And I am in a blissful world. It is filled with bunny rabbits and space poodles and oodles and oodles of blistering green space noodles. The noodles have mouths that scream for their bills for prayer. I giggle and gesture emphatically with my ray gun for the noodles to be silent. The world hangs around me like a curtain of gelatin. The burning is gone, but the niggling shouting of the noodles remains.
Begone, stupid foodstuffs! Your attempts at greenness are no match for the blissful emerald of my veins! Perhaps you will be silent if I throw my space money at you!
Throwing space money seems to have succeeded, as the poodles, bunnies, and noodles all collapsed into a gleeful pile. And I ran away. I know it is just the space drugs, but this space trip is getting far, far too real. The gelatin word is parting around me. I cannot think for lack of a mind because my head has begun to detach. I can see the world from where I sit, but it is not the world in which I write this journal.
Please help. The gelatin world claws around me as I crawl through streets. My ray gun is the only real thing. Even the crooning of the Friendly Peanut has begun a terrible whispering litany of hate and destruction, the fervent screams of the evil legume torturing my blistered and bedrugged eardrums. The journal is going away now. I cannot run and gesture and write and scream at the same time. My mind cannot stand that burden. Oh god, the gelatin! I see cherry people!
***
The visions subsided just enough for me to reach the heathen death phallus. Behind me lay ruin and scorched splendor, the sky scorched with rocket smoke and angel tears. I am not sure how much of the apocalyptic scenery behind me was the drugs or how much of it was always that way. I am sure that gigantic aliens do not normally lie screaming in the street clutching the stumps of atomized limbs. So that must be the drugs talking. It is the only logical explanation. The drugs have created the strangest sensory hallucination. My ray gun is warm. That cannot be right.
Oh god. The visions have begun again. I have looked to the sky and beheld a thing of horror. A great, terrible monster falls to Vandervilk, its gaping maw coming for me. It is a horrible thing which I must escape, whether I have found leads on the location of Dirk Gradient or not.
Dirk. Gradient! That is the only answer! He has loosed these horrors on me! He is obviously directing the drug visions in a calculated attempt to drive me insane! Ah ha! But I am too clever for him! Too clever by far!
He has only succeeded in stoking my canniness! I am too canny for him! I will not succumb! I will, instead, leave Vandervilk XXVII. The burning is done, and I hunger. I will live on space drugs alone for a time before I find the next planet with a decent space diner. But needs must when the evils of the space agent attack!
I have strapped myself into the pit of the heathen death phallus' cock and the rocket engines have engaged. I hurtle forward off Vandervilk XXVII, the screams of the hallucinatory dying gigantic aliens left far behind me.
A diner is my destination. A space diner where I will find food. Then I will plan my next move. The burning is gone. And the last of the crocodile men has been left behind. Now there is only me, my ray gun, the Friendly Peanut, and the sensuous curves of the heathen death phallus. The void of space stretches out before me. And somewhere in that void...is LUNCH!
They didn't hold me for long. The penalty for smuggling illegal sentient foodstuffs onto Vandervilk XXVII is an hour in the space prison and a feature length space movie about why you should be a vegetarian instead. It is an old movie. They did not even try to take my ray gun. Perhaps they were dissuaded by the smell of burnt meat.
I am now a free man on Vandervilk XXVII. A free man who has been deprived of his dinner. My emerald green veins burn for need of food. Or perhaps that is simply love nun burning. I am free and green in a glorious city. Rockets scorch the skies. Gigantic aliens walk around me, but I avoid their mighty thews. Those people are just weird.
I am writing this while hunched in an alcove. It is gigantic alien rush hour. The streets have been cleared for hoof and tentacle to pound pavement. The Friendly Peanut cheers for them in Spanish, the forgotten language of the radioactive cockroach. I must get back to the heathen death phallus quickly, before the trail of Dirk Gradient grows cold.
There are clues to be had on this miserable metropolitan dust ball. I just know it. But I am down to my last vial of space drugs, and the different colored pills have broken apart in the vibrational dance of the gigantic aliens. Colors mix together. I fear the vial. It, like my ray gun, is a fearsome force in the universe, bereft of the mighty anchor of sanity. But...it is so tempting.
No. I will wait. Soon there will be food. And the heathen death phallus. For now, I will wait out the gargantuan stampede. The stones overhead shiver and groan. The burning has become an aura of fire, and I remember that it has been a long time since I was last laundered.
***
I have found a hall of self-penitent space priests. They will flagellate themselves for your sins. Their sign proclaims it in neon letters, right above their hourly rates. I cannot believe that I, Clint Corona, mighty space adventurer that I am, has been brought to this. I should be a man! I should see past the burning! But an hour ago I began to leave molten footsteps in the pavement already trodden and compressed by the giants, and I am sure this is not a good sign.
Relief comes in the form of three nearly naked space priests, one of whom is bright fuschia and whips himself with his own tentacles. They drool and giggle as they pray out for my forgiveness, speaking their words to my benighted, accursed crotch. They pray the burning rot away to the sound of slapping flesh. They laugh at my pain. They *laugh*!
My hand spasms in its clutch around at the ray gun, beginning to stun them all. But I must wait and be moderate. The last thing I want is the space police to charge me with Unlawful Assault On a Holy Space Man. That carries a bigger fine than transporting illegal sentient produce! Plus the Friendly Peanut seems to be enjoying itself, goading the space priests on as their stamina begins to falter. Oh, the humanity!
I cannot take the strain anymore. I have removed my belt to tourniquet my arm, tying it till my emerald veins stand out like like the sensuous curves of the heath death phallus' fins. The multicolored, dangerously psychotic space drugs are clutched in my fist alongside my ray gun, my hand shivering with desire. Or maybe that is just the burning again. I can't tell if the space priest prayers are working or not. I must stop writing now. The magic is about to occur.
***
The burning is gone. And I am in a blissful world. It is filled with bunny rabbits and space poodles and oodles and oodles of blistering green space noodles. The noodles have mouths that scream for their bills for prayer. I giggle and gesture emphatically with my ray gun for the noodles to be silent. The world hangs around me like a curtain of gelatin. The burning is gone, but the niggling shouting of the noodles remains.
Begone, stupid foodstuffs! Your attempts at greenness are no match for the blissful emerald of my veins! Perhaps you will be silent if I throw my space money at you!
Throwing space money seems to have succeeded, as the poodles, bunnies, and noodles all collapsed into a gleeful pile. And I ran away. I know it is just the space drugs, but this space trip is getting far, far too real. The gelatin word is parting around me. I cannot think for lack of a mind because my head has begun to detach. I can see the world from where I sit, but it is not the world in which I write this journal.
Please help. The gelatin world claws around me as I crawl through streets. My ray gun is the only real thing. Even the crooning of the Friendly Peanut has begun a terrible whispering litany of hate and destruction, the fervent screams of the evil legume torturing my blistered and bedrugged eardrums. The journal is going away now. I cannot run and gesture and write and scream at the same time. My mind cannot stand that burden. Oh god, the gelatin! I see cherry people!
***
The visions subsided just enough for me to reach the heathen death phallus. Behind me lay ruin and scorched splendor, the sky scorched with rocket smoke and angel tears. I am not sure how much of the apocalyptic scenery behind me was the drugs or how much of it was always that way. I am sure that gigantic aliens do not normally lie screaming in the street clutching the stumps of atomized limbs. So that must be the drugs talking. It is the only logical explanation. The drugs have created the strangest sensory hallucination. My ray gun is warm. That cannot be right.
Oh god. The visions have begun again. I have looked to the sky and beheld a thing of horror. A great, terrible monster falls to Vandervilk, its gaping maw coming for me. It is a horrible thing which I must escape, whether I have found leads on the location of Dirk Gradient or not.
Dirk. Gradient! That is the only answer! He has loosed these horrors on me! He is obviously directing the drug visions in a calculated attempt to drive me insane! Ah ha! But I am too clever for him! Too clever by far!
He has only succeeded in stoking my canniness! I am too canny for him! I will not succumb! I will, instead, leave Vandervilk XXVII. The burning is done, and I hunger. I will live on space drugs alone for a time before I find the next planet with a decent space diner. But needs must when the evils of the space agent attack!
I have strapped myself into the pit of the heathen death phallus' cock and the rocket engines have engaged. I hurtle forward off Vandervilk XXVII, the screams of the hallucinatory dying gigantic aliens left far behind me.
A diner is my destination. A space diner where I will find food. Then I will plan my next move. The burning is gone. And the last of the crocodile men has been left behind. Now there is only me, my ray gun, the Friendly Peanut, and the sensuous curves of the heathen death phallus. The void of space stretches out before me. And somewhere in that void...is LUNCH!
posted by Derek the Bard at 7:40 p.m.
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