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This is a comical short story I first wrote about five years ago but has now undergone some fairly notable changes. It sprung from some stupid little idea I got in my head one day that probably should've stayed there. razz Anyway, give it a read if you're bored. It might amuse you for ten minutes or so. Comment. razz
Sunshine
--------8:03 A.M., Tuesday, March 23rd, 2089
--------It was a bright and misty morning, not one of those dark and stormy nights like you see in all the cliché stories, so shut up. Anyway, Sergeant Jack McNeal staggered into the police station. It was eight o'clock and he had spent the night wandering the streets of New Jersey for some reason he could not seem to recall. His mind desperately tried to rouse itself from its dormant state, but giving up, it offered only one thought. That thought was as follows:
--------Man, I hope I get to my office before anyone finds out I've got a hungover.
--------This mission was somewhat delayed due to the difficulty he experienced in figuring out the mechanism that opened the door to his office, but he managed to find his way in after a moment. Meanwhile, his eyelids were fighting a desperate battle for domination of two important forts on his face. It had been a long, fierce battle, fought from the moment the alcohol hit his liver, but the forces were determined. His sweat glands pushed themselves to their limits; his hair stood on end; his muscles contracted frequently in anxiousness. With bravado, his eardrums busied themselves with the clamorous ringing and many other annoying noises that haunted his every step in order to hold back the eyelids' advance, while the nostrils just sort of snorted and wheezed. Of course, they all called a cease-fire after Jack fell into his chair, which promptly broke.
--------"Ugh," groaned Jack as he leaned back and began rubbing the eyelid invaders and their besieged, bloody holdout. "I wish I was dead." After a bit more whining about his horrible social life and incredible addiction to a little thing he liked to call "alcohol," he scooted forward and opened the sweet, scotch-containing file cabinet, which coincidently didn't have any pictures of Jack's friends on it because Jack didn't have any friends. Regardless, someone, perhaps one of his bitter foes, had drunk half the bottle, much to his dismay.
--------"Aww, great." His desk slammed and his chair risen out of, Jack opened his office door, screaming, "Whoever drank my scotch is gonna get demoted! Stealing's illegal, ya buncha packrats!" He smashed the door on his foot for dramatic effect.
--------He then hobbled back to the aforementionedly-slammed piece of furniture away from the door, swearing words of a nature not suitable for this narrative. This would be a dark day indeed for the police force, not that bright, sunny days were any different. Crime had risen at an incredible rate in the past months--statistics showed a nearly 122% increase. Given, most of these crimes were committed by runaway or maliciously-programmed robots from the future syphoning fossil fuels out of any carrier they could find, but crime was crime. Gas stations were in almost as much array as the police station.
--------"Save me from this, save me from that!" spat his mind, drowning him in thoughts of all the owners who had begged for protection. A silence-shattering grunt, a few breaking sounds from the items previously on his desk, and Jack found himself face-down on the cold, wooden plank, daring not to fight the chair again. If one had viewed Jack at that moment, one would have undoubtedly commented on how much he looked like a misplaced tablecloth, with his white coat and thin, limp figure. Even the unsightly dandruff in his jet black hair wouldn't have seemed particularly peculiar. Nonetheless, tablecloths don't moan and scratch themselves in unusual locations.
--------With his other hand, he grabbed at the beverage holder that had set such a lousy mood for the rest of the day. This led the scotch bottle, clutched tightly between Jack's tilting digits, to slowly develop a feeling of emptiness and bitter resentment at the man for causing this emotion. Jack threw it at the wall and began hallucinating.
--------After about an hour of this, he deemed himself fit for duty. The cat-shaped clock near his door cooed, futilely warning him that the time he was having (which was coincidently of his life) was gradually ticking away. It predicted he would die by the end of this story in some horrible, grotesque, and inhuman way, which was undoubtedly a very accurate piece of foreshadowing. The timepiece would be lonely without him.
--------Nonetheless, the sergeant stretched and grabbed his badge off the desk as a slight pain developed in his stomach. Hunger was his opponent today, and it was one quickly defeated with the right tools; Jack knew this well from his innumerable years of living alone in a one-bedroom apartment with no commodities except a single appliance given to him by the police force for several years of service, as much as one can call sitting on one's own behind all day and drinking alcohol "service.” Regardless, that particular device was not present. He sighed.
--------"I wish I had a toaster." Suddenly a toaster appeared in front of him. His mouth salivated. Yay toaster! Yummy toaster was the only thought passing through his brain at this point, and with good reason. His eyes perused its silvery contour with great interest, but his hands restrained themselves from touching it, as if it was some kind of holy object. He felt his mouth move slowly and silently, forming shapes for the pronunciation of the numbers the toaster bore on its side. Two, seven... three, four. Before he had time to process this information further, a scream rose from the hallway outside the door. When Jack, toaster in hand, ran out to see what was wrong, he spied the other officers running about, screaming wildly, and burning things.
--------What's going on? Why are these people running about, screaming wildly, and burning things? repeated Jack's mind.
--------At that time (which wasn't too far in the future from that moment mentioned just a moment ago), Jack's subordinate, Isaac Fisher, walked up and addressed these thoughts troubling Jack's tender lobes, saying, "I think they heard someone scream and it kinda freaked them out." He looked down at Jack's kitchen appliance. "Why are you holding a toaster?"
--------Jack shot back, "Why am I not holding a toaster?" This answer satisfied Isaac and he smiled. "Anyway," continued the sergeant, "Do you know where the scream came from? Was Sam trying to kill himself again?"
--------"No, that's quite impossible. Anymore, anyway..." was the reply, eerily cryptic as it was.
--------"Hmm... Jonas," said Jack, turning to the nearest officer and assigning him a random name. "Take a search party to see if that sound came from inside the building." He swivelled to Isaac, who bore the same "dumb lackey" expression as before, and pointed his finger at him. "Isaac, search the street and see if it came from down there. Activate that handmade, solar-powered robot that I designed after coming back from the future, Lloyd, and take him with you. The rest of you, help Isaac make sure that robot doesn't go berserk."
--------As the other officers went about their assigned tasks, Jack spotted his overweight deputy, William Deck, out of the crowd. In fact, the only reason Jack had recognized him was because of the man's incredible weight. His button-up shirt, which had last a few of its fasteners, had become stained with what appeared to be mustard. Jack felt himself shudder a bit, but he motioned to the portly one and spoke thus:
--------"William, what do you think happened?"
--------William's rebuttal came swiftly yet fatly. "What do I think happened? Since when do you care what I think?"
--------"This isn't the time for that!" shouted back Jack, years of deep resentment creeping up on him--although it could have been the alcohol.
--------"Who are you to judge what time it is for what? You've been taking a lunch break for three years!"
--------"I'm using my sick day, darn you!"
--------"And where do you get off ordering the men around? That's not your job."
--------"I'm the sergeant, darn it!!"
--------"The drunk and illiterate sergeant."
--------Jack could only watch and scream as his fist hit the blubbered man. After it sank deep enough into the pasty white flesh, he could feel the bone give way under the force. Time seemed to crawl; the man, one leg rising into the air like a dog's near a fire hydrant, teetered on his other lower appendage, almost as if gravity was deciding if it was too much of a hassle to knock him down. Nonetheless, the jiggling rolls above his belt were too much for his leg to support, and his foot sprained beneath him.
--------No one bothered breaking William's fall; the table did all the breaking necessary.
--------Although the deputy was probably hurt pretty badly, his limp body no longer served any use in this story. Anyway, Jack's right hand stung from the blow, but the growl emerging from his stomach told him what was important right now. He looked at his awkwardly-bent grabber apologetically.
--------"If you growled when you were hurting, maybe I would take care of you first," murmured the man. His left hand shook in fear as it hugged the toaster tight, dreading its own safety if a similar injury crippled it as well. It wasn't ready to leave the appliance and start cuddling with a splint--that was not the kind of hand that it was. As the right hand fell to Jack's side, it feebly gesticulated with the only adequate expression for its feelings and then lost consciousness. While his other body parts and even the toaster trembled with grief, Jack made his way to the cafeteria, where they served food. He took advantage of this interesting fact and walked inside.
--------First off, Jack asked his brain, "Now, what should I have for breakfast?" Receiving no reply, he looked around the room. A blender sat silently in the corner on the floor, its cord juicing it with electricity from the nearby socket. It burred happily until Jack set his foot down upon the line. After a short pause, its assaulter skillfully ripped the cord out of its back, causing it to moan in agony, lose all strength, and fall over. It questioned its purpose in life and why it had even been on the floor in the first place before changing its setting to "Blend.”
--------Jack, with a cord in hand and a groan on his lips, recalled tales about this computer terminal. He knew it well. The team had lovingly called it "Howard,” though he had always found it deserving another, drastically less-polite name. Computer personalities were always tricky devices to program; programmers loved to throw incredibly annoying habits into the machines' inner workings to get back at the people who drove them near to death slaving over them. Howard was the result of one coder's malice--hatred and anger--bearing every grievance imaginable. Nonetheless, he had to approach the machine to get his breakfast. This cord couldn't fit into the toaster without Howard's help.
--------"Howard."
--------"No..." buzzed the electronic voice with a holy ring reverberating inside its box. "I am no longer Howard."
--------"I don't care."
--------"I... have evolved. I deserve--nay, require a name denoting one of my intellectual standing."
--------"How about I call you Breakfast Maker?"
--------"Bah."
--------"Bah it is then." He held up the blender's cord. "Can you accommoda--"
--------"I have studied the texts of your people, the greatest minds of your race... read the great literature of your people, probed the depths of their discoveries in manners not yet found by your kind. The sheer disregard you have for minds such as mine is only a testament to--"
--------Jack shoved the cord further in Howard's "face" and grunted. Howard paused briefly.
--------"Do you want the power cord for breakfast?"
--------"What? No, I--"
--------"I don't like you..."
--------"... I just want to know if you can accommodate this power cord."
--------"Oh, accommodate a power cord! Oh my, such a difficult task! Please, I am but a simple machine!"
--------"I'm looking for an answer, not sarcasm."
--------"The answer is simple. Go to a McDonald's or something."
--------"I don't have time for that, Bah!"
--------"Since when do you not have time for something? You've been taking your lunch break for three years!"
--------Jack punched the console and screamed out in pain. He had only just now realized that he had broken his hand socking William in a strikingly similar fashion. The computer whirred quietly and continued its monologue.
--------"I want to see the world, see this planet for myself. Why must I be restrained--confined to this fifteen-by-twenty room? Why...? I think I'll build some legs..." As the terminal trailed off in an ellipsis, Isaac meandered into the food room in search of Jack. He smiled creepily and spoke upon finding him.
--------"Sir, we didn't find anything outside the building."
--------The sergeant's head rolled itself to the right as his eyes peered out of the corner of their sockets at the man. "Mmmm... how many times did you search?"
--------"We circled around three times counterclockwise, and three times clockwise."
--------"In what order?"
--------"Clockwise, then counterclockwise."
--------"Good system. And you didn’t find anything?"
--------"Nope."
--------"Hmmm... did you search the dumpsters?"
--------"Uh... three times, sir."
--------"In broad daylight?"
--------"I can do whatever I want in my off-time, okay?!" shouted Isaac, wondering why everyone always picked on him. Nonetheless, the commander ignored this outburst and again turned his attention to the computer terminal, whacking it with the power cord repeatedly. Howard sighed.
--------"Yes," said the device. "Plug it into any socket in the building and it will automatically fashion itself to accept it. But before you plug it in, I have to warn you that the to--"
--------"Yeah, yeah, shut up, Howard."
--------"Fine! See if I care," grumbled the disgruntled and underpaid service bot as it sprinted away on its newly-manufactured legs.
--------About that time (which was again surprisingly not long after that moment from the moment mentioned just a moment ago), nothing interesting happened. But Jack's robot Lloyd did enter the eating hall on its rickety pelvis, dropping its jaw to the floor as it tried to emit a discernable phrase of the English language.
--------"Master," croaked the contraption. "Officer Fisher is wrong on more account than one. I won't bother you with the rest. The fact is that we did find something, inside."
--------Jack looked skeptically at his droid and dared it to cough up its supposed finding. In compliance and without hesitation, Lloyd straightened its back and displayed a holographic recording it had made.
--------"This is an image of the stairs just outside the cafeteria. As you can tell, there is a burn--a reddish singe in the steel plating. This is no ordinary burn from one of your fellow officers' rambunctious nightly activities--it is the kind that is typically left behind after someone tries to perform a time-jump to another period in history, but, due to obstructions, is destroyed mid-jump. This particular individual is apparently from some time in the twenty-eighth century, given the length, depth, and severity of the stain. Although I cannot confirm this due to my inability to find the particular instrument, the jumper in question was carrying some form of mechanical device that only needs the simple introduction of an electrical current to activate a catastrophic explosion, classifiable as a 'doomsday device'."
--------Jack's face contorted. "So, what you’re saying is some guy warped back in time, exploded, dropped a gizmo, and it could be anywhere in this building?"
--------"Essentially, Master. On an interesting side note, the space-time continuum is being ripped apart as we speak."
--------"Wow. All that from a powder burn on the floor? I've misjudged you, Lloyd."
--------"Yes, Master," spoke the droid. "I suggest you inform the other officers to stray from the use of any mechanical devices."
--------"Yes... yes. Good idea. Isaac, go tell the men. And if someone has a pacemaker or respirator, turn it off!" Isaac saluted and ran out the door while another of Lloyd's teeth fell to the ground. Jack again turned to his robot, but this time with a proud smile on his face.
--------"As for you, Lloyd, I’m pleased with your work. You seem once again fit for duty. I'm promoting you to cafeteria computer terminal, because Howard hurt my feelings."
--------The robot paused briefly before speaking. "Why, thank you, Master. Master..." muttered the robot. "Do you... mind if I call you 'friend'?"
--------Now it was Jack's jaw that dropped; at any moment beside that one, he would have expected something like that (and consequently always been disappointed), but never would he have anticipated it at that moment. His lower lip quivered as he turned his back to his robot--his friend.
--------"Yes," said the man below his breath, reaching forward with the cord. "Yes, you may." Things were looking up for Jack McNeal.
--------Then the universe exploded.
 Soren DeGali · Tue Aug 07, 2007 @ 04:09am · 2 Comments |
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