|
|
|
Bacteria 1 |
| Written by mick beville | |
| Friday, 30 May 2008 | |
Bacteria
"A meteor shower, passing within a few hundred kilometres of planet earth, space rocks, some the size of large buildings..." Jack barked as Steve mocked the announcer on the car radio. "It's ok," he continued, "nothing that exciting could possibly ever happen in such a dull place as Braemar." The last of the daylight had gone as the old Ford slowed to cross the railway track in the industrial estate. In it's headlights packaging from a Big Mac meal lay strewn across the full width of the asphalt, a prompt it seemed for Steve to wind down his window and eject a cardboard coffee cup. "Ten minutes Jack. Ten minutes and I'll give you your very own Mc Happy Meal." Jacks eyes immediately turned from where they had had been fixed on the night sky, his ears pricked and far from being impressed with the promise of a food, his reply came in volley of barks: "Don't you get it... you thick stupid man" he yapped, angrily. "Something terrible is about to happen to this car... and we have to get out of here... and like immediately." "Chill Jack.... I hear what you're saying" replied Steve. "I'll pull over and you can **** your leg against a tree." Jack dropped his head on the seat and placed his front paws behind his ears in frustration
Steve pulled off the road and watched as Jack leaped from the car and sprinted alongside the chain link fence. Turning up the volume on the car radio Steve was just in time to hear a caller from Western Australia explaining how the cosmic activity was causing great herds of emus to stampede across his property. He laughed out loud when the next caller insisted that Nostradamus had predicted this very event and that it would be followed at the next full moon by an invasion from Mars. "The Aliens are coming" Steve shouted. Jack wasn't frightened of Aliens. There was the big yellow backhoe that came to dig the trench in their back garden. Fearlessly Jack latched onto its metal jaw and hung on for grim death as it lifted him four maybe five feet above the ground before dropping him again. Steve turned down the car radio and called out to Jack. But Jack had decided that he wasn't going anywhere. "He might look cute" The man in the pet shop had warned two years earlier, "but remember, you don't raise Jack Russel's, they raise you." ‘Prophetic words' thought Steve, as he left the car and walked along the fence line. "It's ok boy." He said with a reassuring pat "Let's get you home and give you a nice juicy bone" "You just don't get it, do you?" barked Jack. "Even a dumb animal could figure out that something really bad is going to happen to that car and I for one, don't intend to be inside it when it does." With a heavy sigh Steve reached down and took Jack by the scruff of the neck. "A man has only so much patience. I tried it the nice way, but you just wouldn't be in it" Jack whimpered and whined but it in spite of his protests he still found himself being tossed back inside the car. "Now don't you dare move a muscle" ordered Steve as he drove off
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures' thought Jack and before the car had reached the asphalt, "Holy mother... What is that awful smell?" Steve asked, flinging open the door. Seizing the moment Jack ran across his lap and leapt out into the night, leaving behind him a not so little pile of doggy doo on the seat and before Steve could finish saying "holy shi..." a meteor as big as a tractor shed had struck his car.
Glorious colours the helix ascending, scenes of memory timeless and clear. Silent, painless, effortless movement, questionless answers uninvited appear. Fragments of matter, molecules, gasses, defusing, arranging, rehearsed in their dance, gravitate, copulate, shackle their partners, and conspire in creation with chaotic chance.
An odour of sour milk danced, as if on a shimmering breeze, with a rhythm that wove pleasant and dreamlike though Steve's senses. All about him giant bug like creatures were busily attaching themselves to tall sky scraping grasses, their iridescent shell like bodies creaking and groaning as they chomped powerfully into the vegetation. The breeze took him close to a giant red eyeball but before he could touch it an enormous eyelid swept across causing turbulence that saw him cart wheeling back into the atmosphere. It felt strange. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before. There was no past. No future. It felt as though his mind was floating weightless at the will of the breeze. And the strangest thing was... It didn't feel like a dream at all... It felt real.
"How can you be sure it's not a chick?" Ted asked, dipping his straw into a soapy puddle. Billy didn't answer. Instead, using the bulbus third eye that extended from the top of his forehead on the end of a stubby tentacle, he sharpened his concentration. What looked like armour on the wrist of one of his four long scrawny arms was a chip of quartz and with the most subtle of tweaks he deflected the sunlight from the crystal, back up into the shadow at the edge of the grasses. "Fill your lungs Teddy boy; he's heading our way." Ted had been recruited into Billy's artillery because of his amazing lung capacity. A stray gene from a local glass blowing factory had been the reason for his exceptional puff, but like most other mutants he had no conception of the parallel universe that existed on the outer edges of the drainage ditch. The size of Ted's brain -about half that of one of the six grains of quarts that Billy had encouraged him to swallow in order to keep him from floating away at the mercy of the breeze - made him the perfect subordinate. Billy on the other hand was a natural leader and prided himself in his ability to read the breeze. ‘The breeze giveth and the breeze taketh away' he would say often. It would be mostly to himself but occasionally someone in the band would utter an encouraging amen. Ninety percent of Ted's translucent gel like body was made up of one single lung and in his excitement he had already inflated it to almost four times its normal size. "Wait for it." said Billy as he loaded his two catapults with grains of silica. "And remember, when I give word; I want nice big bubbles. Here he comes... wait for it. Three-two-one... blow them bubbles Teddy boy." There followed a tense second or two of inertia before the first of the bubbles appeared from the end of Ted's straw but then in no time at all there were dozen of them rising steadily into the atmosphere. "Keep ‘em going" Billy called out, as he fired his silica projectiles into the air. The first of the bubbles had exploded some distance in front of Steve but in only a matter of moments dozens more were exploding above and below, showering him with wet sticky fall-out. A sensation of gravity gripped him and he slowly drifted earthbound. "You got him Billy, you got him good" said Ted. "Oh ****..." replied Billy. "I got him alright, but that old ***** ‘Nemesis" is about to bite me on the bum." He was of course referring to the breeze, which just for the hell of it, had taken a ninety degree change of direction that now had Steve floating towards the billions of ravenous E. coli that were congregating outside the ‘House of Moove.' It was believed by the E. coli that the house of Moove had been sent down to them in ancient times by the divine ‘Moove,' in-order that they should gather their and worship in her name. The strawberry flavoured milk that had once flowed from the ruptured walls of the carton had formed Lake Sustenance which stretched as far across the valley as the eye could see. This again was further confirmation to the bacterial tribes that Moove was good. "What's happening" Ted asked, as Billy beat his fists on the ground. "The *****..." Billy continued. "Every time... every lousy time I get something happening, she has to have the last word." Ted had no idea what Billy was ranting about. "Go get the boys" Billy growled "and a long rope. And make it quick, before them gutless blood sucking enzyme factories turn him into carbon dioxide. Organic food was the E. coli's fuel and at least once every thirty minutes they would produce a spiting image of themselves. Billy felt sure that after an age of drinking strawberry milk, a foreign body like Steve's would make a welcome and refreshing change to the menu. Billy would have to get his weight just right. To heavy and he would sink, too light he might float around all day. Billy sat on a rock and started to remove silica and shell-grit from his body. ‘It was a rough science' he thought, as he removed another piece before jumping up and down to test his gravity. The elevation of the hillside gave him a good clear view out over the lake. His people - most of who were wiped out in the great winds of eighty six - had been hill people. Billy new these slopes like the back of his hand. The only other surviving member of his family was a cousin called Benny. Benny had three left feet that encouraged him to walk in acentric circles. Billy had taught him a kind of one step backward two steps forward waltz motion that with a considerable effort gave him a modest direction. As Billy watched Steve descent towards the lake, a slight panic gripped him "Where are those boys. If they've forgotten the bloody rope..." He had no sooner spoke than they were upon him. "I got the rope Billy, just like you asked" said Ted, excitedly throwing it onto the ground. In reality the ‘rope' was a large coil of silk thread that had been masterfully salvaged from a spider's web. Billy's gang were a motley crew of no remarkable intellect, other than their complete loyalty to Billy. "This is the plan" he said, tying one end of the rope around his ankle before climbing inside the straw. "When I give the word, I want Ted to give one almighty puff and blow me out over the lake. Hopefully I'll land somewhere close to the target. Keep a tight hold of the other end of the rope boys, and as soon as I get my four hands on him, I want you all to pull us clear of the blood suckers." The admiration for Billy's bold plan was audible, and as he gave the thumbs up for Ted to start filling his enormous lung, the Cyclopes twins began to simultaneously give the count-down. Ten-Nine-Eight... Stamping their feet boldly on the gravel the others joined them in the count at seven - Six- Five- Four, The air was electric with expectation Three- Two- One... when they reached zero, Ted's lung imploded at one end of the straw while Billy exploded out of the other end. He was flying through the air like a speeding bullet. In fact, he flew so fast that if it wasn't for the rope being the exact length, he would have completely overflown the lake. "Oh ****..." he cried, as he felt the rope pull on his leg; and then, "Oh ****" again as his leg popped and parted company with his body. Lying on his back, on what felt like a very comfortable water bed, Steve watched in wonder as Billy tumbled screaming out of the sky to land head first in the sour milk next to him. The sound of Billy's screams had attracted the E. coli and several millions of them could be heard salivating as they wriggled their ravenous bodies towards them. The only piece of Billy that was visible above the lake was his frantically kicking leg. Steve tried to pull him out, but after being kicked several times, he gave up. Half way through plan B, which involved tying the rope around Billy's remaining leg, the first of the E. coli got too close for comfort and in desperation Steve thew the dislocated leg towards them. He watched in horror as their ejaculating spiky mouths bit and injected enzymes into its flesh reducing it to a ***** banana looking like shake. Copyright 2008 mick beville |
|
| Last Updated ( Friday, 30 May 2008 ) |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
via Email