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

[lightconductor]

"A pleasure, Dr. Pierce."

Watson shakes his hand, his grip firm, eyebrow raised at 'handsome,' but it's more invitingly playful than really concerned. "Ah. Well. I haven't had to perform any operations, but we've had our share of other injuries. Cuts and bruises, broken bones, once an amputation. When it's bad, it's bad. It's been me and Tendi, mostly, and she's not quite a doctor, but she certainly has the medical experience."

[notinflictthem]

"Nothing better than a capable nurse, and it's a relief to hear we've already got one here- I don't have the legs to pull off the outfit."

Another flash of a grin, and Hawkeye gestures for Watson to sit.

"Well, you'll have another set of hands around here anyway. I've been working in a MASH unit for the past year or so, I can't imagine cruise ship drunks will give us more work than a war."

[lightconductor]

That startles him. "You're military?" For a moment, Watson pauses, halfway to sitting down, before he gives himself a shake and settles into the chair, leaning his cane against his leg in a practiced way. He takes a breath.

"I was as well, though I was a field surgeon. That was... a good decade ago, now. Well, we certainly see more than cruise ship drunks, but even at our worst, it's been... a different sort of horror than that."

[notinflictthem]

"Not my choice, believe me. Sure, some of the fine folks I worked with were the type to bleed red white and blue- made doing their blood-work an absolute nightmare- but I got drafted. Went from working in a regular hospital to stitching up kids who got shot or blown up by other people's kids."

Watson gets a nod at that, and Hawkeye busies himself with sorting his small collection of supplies.

"It's important work, though. A decade ago- tail end of WW2 right?"

[lightconductor]

A flicker of despair passes over his face. He still hasn't really got over there being one "world war," let alone enough to number them.

"No, I'm afraid it was the second Anglo-Afghan war. The war you're thinking of would be... rather after my time." Watson gives a polite little cough, and a faint smile. "I was wounded in the line of duty in 1880, as a matter of fact."

[notinflictthem]

"...You don't say."

Where Watson had despaired moments ago, a look of awe crosses Hawkeye's face.

"The eighteen- that's incredible, honestly incredible- what was it like? I mean, hellish, of course, but- there's so many questions I want to ask. It's like you're a history museum come to life- presuming you're not lying of course. Wow- it must be amazing seeing all the medical advancements that've happened since your time."

[lightconductor]

"I'm still rather excited about antibiotics," he admits, because he is. "If we'd had something like that -- well, in all honesty, as many men died to infection or disease as did bullets. At least as many. I was nearly one of them. Typhoid swept through the hospital at Peshawar while I was recovering from being shot."

It's not the sort of thing he often admits to a new acquaintance, but, well, one army surgeon to another. There's something of a shared horror there.

"I'd only just graduated from medical school when I signed up. Damn fool thing to do, looking back, but at the time I didn't seem to have much in the way of a choice." Money. It's always about money. "I suppose telling me what war you've managed to get yourself pulled into won't mean anything to me, but I'm curious to hear all the same."