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TEST DRIVE MEME #8
1. but times have changed for sailors these days
[you wake up.
it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.
the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:
Dear Passenger(s),
As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.
At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!
See You Real Soon!
Sincerely,
Gal Friday
you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.
you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]
Welcome aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!
[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.
after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]
2. tried to amend my carnivorous habit
[the space inside John's where the piano normally sits is mysteriously vacant today. as a matter of fact, the entire piano bar is silent, without so much as a muzak-inspired interpretation of Uptown Girl to hum along to.
the piano itself seems to have disappeared... for the most part. unlucky, unsuspecting passengers who enter the cabin hallway, step out onto the lower decks, or find themselves in one of the other narrow corridors of the ship, may find themselves suddenly facing down a silent, unmoving grand piano. it takes up too much space to squeeze by comfortably...
and then, the cover lifts, exposing what looks to be... teeth?
yeah. yeah, those are its teeth. and it's coming right for you.]
3. that American creation on which I feed
[it had been a difficult October for bahamanuel, the bahamanal. its territory had changed utterly, becoming alien and strange. new predators were encroaching on its hunting grounds. its position in the natural order is under threat. and so, nature finds a way.
the old timers know to be wary of large piles of clothes, but even they won’t think to look twice at the tiny lumps of garish kids’ swimsuits and sundresses - until they feel something latch onto their leg, and then several more things, and anywhere from ten to twenty balled up clothes piles try to take down their prey.
the young must learn how to hunt, after all.]
no subject
"Sadly you still cannot get something for nothing. Our panacea is prevention and cure both - and terribly addictive. It heightens both aggression and psychosis. It should have been discarded."
A bitter, and angry expression. Eleanor masters herself after a moment. "No free lunch, I'm afraid."
no subject
There's understanding there, a weight of despair in the syllable from a man who has seen people, family and friends and patients, suffer from alcohol, and cocaine, and opium. "Of course. Did the doctors of your time know it was addictive before, or did were they ignorant, or did they refuse to believe it?"
no subject
Eleanor takes her hands from the sink and gestures at her helmet, which rises into the air to float around her, seemingly under its own power.
The look on her face is sad and distant.
"The doctor who pioneered it was concerned solely with discovery, at first. I am told she had a change of heart, far too late. By the time she knew what had been wrought, it belonged to men of business, and their prayer is simply 'let the buyer beware'."
no subject
He's seen stranger things than floating helmets by this point, but he still stares for a moment or two. "That's a clever trick," Watson says, warily. "But if I say 'of my time,' it is because I am very much used to comparing myself to people here from other times and place. I came here from London of 1892, if that's a familiar city and calendar for you."
no subject
It's a bit before she speaks.
"I was told it was the year nineteen sixty-eight. That my home was founded to escape a world ravaged by war and hatred. My mother spoke of bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, city-slaying weapons that snuffed out millions of lives in an instant, deployed in the name of saving yet more lives, which drove many under the waves to the city of my birth in an effort to secede from such madness."
"...I have to ask what you mean by other times and places, Doctor. It sounds fantastical, and the idea that the history I know has been fabricated more believable. I would rather not believe that."