TEST DRIVE MEME #7

[sailmods]

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.



physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

Comments

"Hawkeye" Pierce | M*A*S*H

[notinflictthem]

This is your paradise

For the first time since the war started, Captain Hawkeye Pierce doesn’t wake up to the sound of choppers. Or being summoned to the operating room. No Radar telling him Henry needs to see him. No buzz of mosquitos, no uncomfortable layer of sweat. Air conditioning. Soft sheets. Is he in Tokyo? No, if he’d drunk enough to forget being in Tokyo, he’d be nursing a far worse hangover. No sound of Trapper breathing. No conversations outside the tent. Hawkeye opens one single eye.

Huh.

This has to be a prank. Trapper’s carried him into some brass’s hotel room while he was sleeping, that has to be it. Some brass’s hotel room with… an ocean view.
A couple of minutes later, after getting the letter and finding some weird looking brick on the bedside table, Hawkeye steps out in his red dressing gown. Boots laced, dog-tags dangling on his chest, he throws his arms out and calls out-
“Alright- haha. Very funny. I concede to the superior comedians. You got me good, John- now where is this, and am I going to have to foot the bill?”

There ain't no need for ya

It’s a dream. Obviously it’s just a lovely, very detailed, incredibly realistic dream. Aside from the fact that Friday has an entirely blank face instead of looking like Grace Kelly, it feels like a dream tailored especially to him. An entire store of tropical print shirts? Sure. His robe gets left in his room and replaced by the most garish shirt he can find. Pool? Free booze? Lovely, thank you, he orders an actual martini- with vermouth and two olives- and sets himself up on one of the deck chairs, a straw hat placed firmly over his face. Time to pickle himself. By the time he wakes up, he wants to be preserved for future generations to study.

“Would you mind moving over? You’re blocking my sun. These melanomas aren’t going to grow themselves, you know.”

Go straight to hell boys

It lasts maybe a couple of hours. Then his hands start getting twitchy.
The ship doesn’t have a very big infirmary, but it’s an infirmary all the same. And more importantly, it’s better stocked than he’s seen in any army camp. Half these medications he’s never even heard of before- Ibuprofen? Typical of a dream to fudge the details. Find him poking around the cupboards, running an inventory of the supplies.

“Do you have a reservation?” he asks, or “Iron and magnesium supplements? What are they treating; humans or bridges?” or “oh you're just in time; we just had a slot open for a 2:00pm trepanning.”

There ain't no asylum here

(Wildcard. Go nuts show nuts whatever)