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

I

[touchofcashmere]

Hell. Or well, purgatory at any rate. [but he's sipping on a Bloody Mary so it's not too bad]

It's either boring or horrifying, but we make do.

Stede Bonnet, by the way, pleasure to meet you.

Re: I

[daggerlike]

You've got to be kidding me. [She says it flatly, incredulous.] Why do you think this is Hell? Or whatever.

[If nothing else, there is an instinct in her to figure out where she is and find a way out. Borne from the hundreds of apocalyptic events she's outrun, from an entire lifetime with only one goal: Escape and survive.]

I guess that means there's no way off this ship? So how did we get here? Did you just wake up here as well?

[She thinks about letting the questions stand and ignoring his introduction - it's how she's operated often enough in the past, not wanting to let people know who she is or how she got there. But this... this is a different sort of puzzle. And maybe he'd tell her more of what he knows if she didn't blow him off. So, after a moment, she tells him,]

I'm Sylvie.

[touchofcashmere]

Well at the moment it's because I don't have a better explanation really. People have gone home, I think, and come back, I'm pretty sure- but I've been here since, what, April? I think? Gosh. A long time.

[and feels even longer some days]

Hello, Sylvie! I hope you can avoid as much horrific and lingering trauma as you're able.