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

[tossmealifeline]

I'll do pretty much anything you could possibly want. No job is too small! It's practically my motto.

[ Could he work with well wishes alone? Hm, maybe. If there's no money, he can't work for donations. ]

[businessorlibation]

Okay...why?

[Something's not really making sense here. You don't just offer to do anything for a stranger.]

[tossmealifeline]

[ It is very astute that the world often doesn't work that way. ]

All I ask is that you remember my name.

[ He won't. He's pretty sure he won't. It doesn't mean he won't stop trying. After all, does have one follower. ]

[businessorlibation]

Yato.

You don't need to do anything for me, to make me remember. Names are important.

[He brings a certain amount of bias to the table in that regard; he chose his own name.]

[tossmealifeline]

It would be much easier if it worked like that.

[ He's done a lot of jobs over the years, he'd have a ton of lifelines if he wasn't so cursed in that area. ]

Yato's the one that matters. That's the one Hiyori remembers.

[businessorlibation]

If you say that name matters to you, I'll remember it. Johnny Summer wasn't always my name, but it's the name I've chosen. Whoever else I've been before, I've left in the past. I hold onto my name as a matter of pride.

[tossmealifeline]

[ He nods his agreement to that. ]

Someone I knew gave me this name by accident, but I like it. [ He won't say how that happened, it's too much of a hint to something unpleasant. ]

I don't think it's a bad thing to leave things in the past. [ Heaven knows he did. ]

[businessorlibation]

There's people here with all kinds of different names. Friday, Jinx, Six, Skulduggery. No one's going to think Yato is strange or question you about it.

[A pause, he glances at Yato's drink.]

Do you like that? I can make you something else, if not.

[tossmealifeline]

[ Oops, in all the conversation he's gotten distracted and if he's even taken one sip of the drink it would be surprising. He does so obediently, letting it sit in his mouth for a moment. ]

I like it. [ He smiles. ] Thank you for your offering.

[ He wouldn't want to seem ungrateful. ]

I've long stopped questioning how humans get names.

[businessorlibation]

Well, not everyone I just named is human, strictly speaking. Skullduggery's a skeleton, for example. Gal Friday's a faceless servitor created by the Captain. I think Jinx and Six are, though.

[tossmealifeline]

I would know even less about how non-humans get their names. What do you mean by a servitor?

[businessorlibation]

The Captain created her. I don't really understand it, myself--it's magic and I'm woefully mundane.

[He melodramatically holds a hand to his forehead.]

[tossmealifeline]

I wouldn't think humans could do magic, at least, not the living ones at any rate.

[ If one defines what shinki do as magic, that could be true. He sips his drink again. ]

[businessorlibation]

That might be true in the world you're from, but we're not exactly there right now. In other worlds, there are people who can do things you've never imagined.

[He smiles wryly.]

[tossmealifeline]

Things I've never imagined? That could be fun. It'd be great to be surprised like that.

[ Being in a whole new world is a different experience already. ]

Then again, I never thought I'd end up on a cruise ship with free crab legs. I could eat those all day.

[businessorlibation]

Right? All sorts of new experiences here. I'd never tried sushi before arriving on the ship.

[He'd also never killed anyone before arriving here; not all new experiences were good ones.]

[tossmealifeline]

Really? Sushi is great. You have to get one of those huge platters so you can try everything, it's the best way to have sushi. Even better if you can get someone else to pay for you.

[ That wouldn't work here, but the sentiment is the same. Free food is always better than food you have to buy yourself. ]

[businessorlibation]

There's a restaurant further down the promenade where the sushi comes to you on a conveyor belt. A wholly novel experience for me. I was fascinated the first time someone brought me there.

[...okay, he might have also been quite taken with the person who took him there, but that's beside the point!]

[tossmealifeline]

Oh conveyor belt sushi! Also pretty great, especially if they're all you can eat. [ Which if there's no money they must be, right? ]

I don't get to have that often, but sometimes Hiyori makes me something.

[businessorlibation]

Well, now you can have it any time you'd like, here. Sushi, pub food, drinks. You just have to deal with all of everything else that comes with being here. The murders and ghosts and the like.

[tossmealifeline]

[ The ghosts aren't the least bit remarkable to him, after all he's from the Far Shore. His whole world is ghosts. ]

What do you mean by murders? [ Hang on now, he's completely given that up. ]