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Club 4000

Cuckoo, Malagron and Ruby 3 are deliciously late for the party at Club 4000.

"I've gorged myself on kelp cakes and creamed jellyfish all day in preparation for this event," says Ruby 3, rearranging her iridescent toga in the glare of the Pod Lift window.

"I've already purged twice today!"  exclaims Cuckoo with a wink, "Gag reflex ready to go!"

Malagron quietly rolls her eyes in the direction of the stars.

At the destination, a hidden metal door on a silent, impenetrable wall whooshes open to reveal a glamorous and lively affair. A sea of lithe, toga swathed bodies gather at endless buffets of every imaginable delicacy under the Seven Suns. Pale and elegant arms reach out for handfuls of exotic meats and cheeses, sumptuous confections and champagne overflowing from marble fountains.

The party winds around a cavernous, conical hole that cascades to an unknowable depth.

"Look! How beautiful the Emesisian Portal is! It is as smooth as the surface of Raspix. Oh my, I bet my insides will look so graceful pouring into the Pitch!" squeals Cuckoo.

Ever the Queen of Purge, Malagron thinks sarcastically.

Ruby 3 was looking around wildly for Lil Wayne, too distracted to behold the E-Portal and the tray of bio-engineered zebra sliders floating by.

She gently pats the hollow skin under her eyes with the tips of her middle fingers and disappears into the melee.

Cuckoo pulls Malagron swiftly from station to station, taking mouthfuls of this and swigs of that.

Cuts of beasts they've never seen in the flesh are accompanied by educational holograms to better appreciate the exclusivity of the thing. Whole tables done in a singular color - reds, purples, yellows, black and white.

Some like to be creative in their purge, expelling monochromatic bile or infusions with metallic matter.

Malagron cares not for art and so mixes her red wines with white; lavender tropical oxen cheese with fire-spice curly fries.  Down the hatch then down the hatch, as the saying goes.

They meet Ruby 3 at the edge of the Portal, dejected looking and taking no pleasure in her expulsions.  

"Lil Wayne is here with someone else, see?"  
She points to an amorous pair across the cavern. They hold hands, then purge, then kiss.

"And look how immense she is!  You can't even see bone."

Malagron, feeling a tinge of empathy says, "You're too good for him, Rube. I mean look at that Earth Cow....  I bet she still has her first set of teeth!"

"Yeah, you're right, ha."  Ruby 3 wipes away a mixture of sad and vomitous tears. "I need to move on."

Cuckoo pulls a silver purging implement from her purse and heaves spectacularly into the Great Portal.

Thick red waves of undigested excess swirl down into the dark. She lifts her head with pride and dabs at the dribble on her smiling lips.

"Now, who's ready for round two?"

A Soft Shower of Existence 

I saw a Memory Wave once of a place I couldn’t fully comprehend.

Imagine a large institutional building, bustling with important looking people in plain white uniforms.

Others are laying in beds connected to tubes and machines.

It sounds threatening but although the people in the beds are unwell, they are being cared for, treated.

They receive visitors who often bring flowers - a sort of reward for their weakness, I suppose.

The white uniforms are there to help and it is clear they are motivated by an altruistic sense of duty.

If the bed people expire, they do so peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.

The compassion is real, I feel it with all my heart ...

The monotonous voice of the woman speaking stops and she opens her eyes. Tears are streaming down her face onto her white silk blouse. Each drop a little circle of clear through the diaphanous fabric.

"Blip goes the Wave. Fuzzed out cold, just like the idea of compassion," she says stirring from hypnosis.

"Dr. Reyes, do you ever feel like you don't want to go on in this world?"

She uncrosses her stockinged legs and thrusts her glass forward. The doctor obliges her, pouring out amber liquid from an opaque decanter.

"I sometimes don't like the world, Ms. Oppenheimer. But I am not ready to leave it just yet."

"Gerard thinks just like you. So positive, almost happy to be alive. I feel like I simply endure."

She shivers and pulls her heavy wool coat tightly around her neck. Outside, large and ominous shadows move in the night sky. They are miles above the earth. There is no safety anywhere.

"You should take inspiration from Gerard perhaps. Live while you still have your health. Life is so tenuous, let him love you. There is nothing else really … "

Dr. Reyes trails off, shuttering the window to block the shadows from view. The shrill sound of the Death Sirens penetrate through the glass.

"I'm trading Inhibitor Drips for cliches I see," says Ms. Oppenheimer, laughing for the first time in days.

"I hope you are saving enough for yourself - the Vultures have been circling heavy since the start of the outbreak. The Sick is spreading from the Surface up," says Reyes.

"I appreciate your concern Doctor," she says absentmindedly as she rummages through her purse. She pulls out an elegant silver tube and twists it to reveal a red-tinted pink lipstick. "But I am perfectly fine. I have lived 38 years on this garbage heap of a planet and have not even had so much as a sneeze. A privilege being born into A Class, I'm the picture of health."

She glides the lipstick expertly over her mouth without the aid of a mirror and smiles widely.

"Do you like it? It's called Pink Mist."

"It's the color that coats the world, Ms. Oppenheimer. I find that a little sadistic. But what do I know about fashion?" says Dr. Reyes, attempting to play along.

"Tomorrow calls for rain - heavy rain. It will wash the reality down the sewers and we can forget about death for one moment," says Ms. Oppenheimer sensing the doctor's discomfort.

"I should go. I'm meeting Gerard for drinks at some wild new place down below. The danger will be palpable I'm sure," she says dryly, setting down the empty glass.

"Next time, we will discuss your penchant for self-destruction," Dr. Reyes says half joking.

They both stand and Ms. Oppenheimer reaches out to touch the sides of the doctor's face.

"You look very handsome with your new glasses. Oh, I'm sorry, that's inappropriate of me."

Doctor Reyes guides her gently by the shoulders to the door and says playfully, "I'm quite used to your precocious manner I'm afraid. Be careful down there, please."

"See you in a week’s time, Doctor. Stay Well."

Her eyes glass over as she disappears into the elevator.

"Stay Well," he responds.

The Doctor reopens the shutters and watches hopelessly as the cull birds weave through the darkness.

………………………………..

The Vultures, black and metallic - created by a secret and nefarious organization. Vicious death machines with profound sensory systems delicate enough to perceive the slightest vulnerability; violent enough to dispose of a human life in seconds. A delicate red spray, a body (flesh, bones, muscle, blood) reduced to a soft shower of existence. An explosion that radiates center outward by an unseen mechanism. They could penetrate a wall without a trace of destruction.

They just got in. It didn't matter how. There was no mercy in their operations and it was understood by all that their presence was necessary for the continuation of the human race. Survival of the fittest, the good of the many. There was no room for imperfection ...

………………………………....

Ms. Oppenheimer stops the elevator halfway down. She takes the moment to sob uncontrollably in seclusion.

After a few minutes, she soaks up the tears with her sleeve and attempts to compose herself while setting the lift in motion.

What if those things up there can sense the sickness in my soul?

"Then there would be no one left," she says out loud, eyes fixed in a blank stare at her reflection in the glass.

The elevator stops quietly and the door whisks open to the chaos of The Surface.

The alarm sounds and Ms. Oppenheimer instinctively opens a large plastic parasol.

She walks off into the night as a soft pink mist falls gently all around her.

Medieval Galaxy 6

Timothy is sitting squarely in the center of the floral print sofa in the living room. They never used this room much so it felt formal and uncomfortable but Cassandra was in the middle of one of her stupid lectures. When she's done, he thought, I can go back down to the den and finish Medieval Galaxy 6 once and for all. Yes, just one more level to complete.

He suddenly zones back in ".......and you believe whoever is speaking at the moment. It's a terrible affliction. You can't think for yourself and you haven't any opinions of your own. You're like one of those sea cucumbers that can change their skin color to hide in plain sight. You absorb your surroundings and adapt the mindset of others because you yourself possess no original thoughts. You are unaware of your own desires even. You are a hollow tube, a blank slate upon which anybody can write! Do you not care? Do you not have a shred of self respect?"

"I suppose I don't," says Timothy, looking dejected. "Then why do you love me?"

Cassandra juts out her lower lip and forcefully exhales air causing her wispy blonde bangs to flutter. "You can't help who you love. It's not about whys and logic. There's no science, you just do or you don't and all the analyzing in the world can't unravel it, okay?"

"I do really love you Cassandra. And that's my own opinion! I feel it in here." He points to his chest.

Cassandra, who had been standing the whole time, sits down on the ottoman with a thud. She places a thumb and an index finger on the inside ends of her eyebrows and slowly rubs outward.

"Of course you love me, nobody is disputing that here Timothy. It's just that when the Stevensons come over for euchre night, I don't know, would it kill you to have something intelligent to say?"

"I have intelligent thoughts, I guess I just don't know how to express them," Timothy mumbles, fiddling with the tassel on a decorative pillow.

"Read a book- a real book not one of your comics, go to the museum, get some new friends. I don't know Timothy. Just please come up to my level, I'm dying for somebody to talk to," says Cassandra, without any sense of delicacy.

"And maybe quit it with that Middle Ages Galaxy thing or whatever.....it's likely furthering the decay of your brain. Video games are for children and addicts."

"It's Medieval Galaxy," says Timothy, his eyes narrowing, "Medieval Galaxy 6."

"That's beside the point really....I just....I........my GOD! Timothy!"

His name came out in a frightened shriek as Cassandra fell backward off of the ottoman.

Timothy was up and now towering over her with a menacing expression she had never seen before. Strangely, he appeared to be growing taller- taller and wider.

The room was quickly becoming dark and the furniture was disappearing to an enveloping black mist. He was well past ceiling height now and there was a loud snap as the spectacles popped off his inflating head. Cassandra dropped to the carpet in shock, it was all happening so fast.

The mist started to swirl violently around her now paralyzed body on the floor.

"TIMOTHY!" She tried to scream but no sound came out.  

Timothy can't hear you anymore, whispered the sinister fog now permeating through her skin with an agonizing burning sensation.

The living room was gone, the floral sofa, the perfectly arranged pillows, the photographs of happier times- all gone. In their place was a vast and black netherworld.  

Timothy and his plaid button-down shirts, casual khaki slacks and sensible footwear, had morphed into a demonic and terrific monster. He was three times his size now and sporting powerful muscles pulsating with a networks of veins. His skin was grey and wet looking and his hands were shaped into dangerous four-pronged black claws. He held them up eye level, really taking them in before throwing back his horned head and laughing maniacally.

"Cassandra," said the beast the way one does when making a proclamation, "I sentence you to ONE minute in the Dark Underworld. Just so you know, one minute will feel like 1000 years to you, and you will never for a moment be at rest and the pain and suffering will be relentless. You will feel tired without sleep, hunger without satiation, fear without comfort. I’m going easy on you Cassandra, I could have done two minutes but you don't deserve that. So, you will roast in the hottest pit of fire for a millennia- I mean, you will experience all the pain of burning but your body will not die. Imagine the sensation of a million little worms eating you from the inside out because I'll throw that in too! You will never know love, you will never remember what it is like to not be alone. The only feelings you will have there are remorse, guilt, despair, anger, shame! Just when you think your descent is over, another layer of suffering will open up to you, now go! Demogorgon, the Decider of Fates shall be your guide through The Seven Circles of Hell!"

A fiery cavern opens up to swallow Cassandra as Demon Timothy laughs even more maniacally then before.

The second hand completes a full revolution on the clock in the kitchen.

The black fog slowly dissipates and the living room becomes a living room again. The crumpled body of Cassandra stirs. She opens her eyes cautiously to the brightness of the afternoon sun streaming in through the sheers. The surroundings are familiar- the sofa, the pillows and the photographs are just as they were. Cassandra, however, is quite different.

Timothy is downstairs in the den, on Level 8, with 3 lives left. It’s going to be a good day.