Joe Svetlik: Mime Hunter: Part 2

Svetlik drove though the night in his usual silent manner. He didn’t need any radio to occupy him for the trip: just the purr of the engine and the buzzing of his thoughts. He left the scene of a job quickly; law enforcement usually didn’t appreciate his services as much as his customers.  

Entering his spartan apartment, joe peeled of his wet clothes and draped them over the nearest piece of furniture. Tonight, this happened to be a battered wooden chair that had once been part of a dining room set owned by giddy newlyweds. It enjoyed being part of a happy new household. So much mirth and joy seeped into its well-polished wood grains then. The chair would often look back and ponder with pensive regret the events that led it down this road in life. It didn’t notice the wet clothes.

Svetlik walked across the room and fell into bed. Like the rest of the room, the bed matched a sparce ascetic inspired by Batman, more Nicolson then Clooney. With just a simple mattress with a heap of blankets on top, it got the job done every night without complaint.

His head smacked into the soft feather pillow with such force that it knocked the dust of the day out of his mind. It puffed out of the cracks and wrinkles in his brain and gathered into a cloud that floated before his dreaming eyes. The stoppage,  having been removed, allowed the fatigue to seep out of his head, drip out of his ears, and pool into his pillow.

Though asleep, Svetlik was by no means at rest. Something about his encounter with the feral mime earlier that day struck him, and it dislodged something long tucked away, as if the librarian in his mind had wanted to hide it from the more conscious parts of his being.

Svetlik’s mind lay like a sleeping city, which is to say that the most important, productive aspects lay completely unaware while the parts with nothing better to do generally had their way. The memory had fallen down from its hiding place and now lay as a smoldering hunk of obsidian in the road. Most parts of his mind had simply walked around it as they hurried on with their urgent duties. Yet, now that the city was empty, the more subtle, subconscious parts came upon it with the full inquisitive intensity of a child that knows he’s trespassing.

They swarmed around it, feeling it out in the darkness of the night. It felt like someone standing behind you in a dark alley. It felt like the unease that seeps into your skin. It felt like frozen panic. They all scattered back into the comfort of the fetid sewers.

It was about this time that the sleeping parts of his mind rose out of their beds, muttered curses and loudly demanded to know just what was going on. Enough stayed behind for Svetlik to continue sleeping while the rest journeyed out with lights to investigate.

Memories are timeless things. This isn’t to say that they don’t have length or cannot be tied to a particular time of happening, for they usually have all these things. It means that they are experienced all at once, as if the observer existed outside of the stream of time.

So when Svetlik’s mind found the dislodged memory, he experienced it all at once. To describe it as he now felt it would be to destroy all the nuance that made it so worthy of description, much like dumping too much sugar and cream into a well-brewed cup of coffee. Instead, I’ll lay the bits and pieces out in a vague chronological order.

First, a birthday. It was his, and he was turning 10. In his mother’s eyes, the extra digit called for extra celebration. It should be noted that, despite all comments to the contrary, Mrs. Svetlik viewed the occasion as her time, not her son’s. Thus, Joe was never asked what he wished for a birthday party, or even if he wished for a party at all. Having experienced this nine previous times, Joe wasn’t surprised. 

And so, when Joe later found himself sitting in the backyard, surrounded by kids he didn’t particularly like, waiting for a hired clown to arrive, he wasn’t disappointed. Due to a mix up, a mime arrived instead. Yet, even this tragedy upon tragedy did not break little Joey’s stoicism.

The performance was mundane, and only Mrs. Svetlik derived any entertainment from the event. He couldn’t make balloon animals, so instead he stood in front of them, going though his various acts: being trapped in a pretend box, pulling a pretend rope, and so on. He had a sway and stood at odd angles, like Uncle James  when he arrived late to family reunions. A brief wave of panic swept across the mime’s face, as if he became decidedly claustrophobic about his pretend box. Franticly he pounded the air until it silently shattered. Stepping out, he stood, limbs bent at decidedly un-mime angles, and roared as ferociously as a lion, yet as quiet as a room after a racial slur. Spittle spattered across the horrified faces of the children.

The children, long conditioned by their schooling to accept scary authority figures with ridged stoicism, remained in their seats, gripping the bottoms of their lawn chairs. The mime closed in, yellowed fingernails clicking and clacking. Joe, however, leapt to action, his pocketknife gleaming in the summer light.

Joe placed himself between the monster and the children, his small-bladed pocketknife held at the ready. This mime looked down at him, eyes already tinting red. It batted a gnarled paw at Joe, ripping a gash up his arm. While his blood leaked, his adrenaline-fueled courage did not. Svetlik lunged.

The knife’s baptism was brief but full. Up until this point, the only blood his pocketknife had tasted came from failed attempts to whittle. Now it tasted mime-flesh, and it hungered for more.

After that, the moments became like torn scraps of a newspaper, words without much context. Screaming and sirens rang out. The police came, then left. Adults talked back and forth with the same scared tone of voice they use when discussing money. News anchors were forced to switch from their usual panic to an unnatural calm just to provide emphasis.

Nobody knew quite why it happened. Perhaps it was something in the makeup, or in the baguettes. Some even suggested that the cause lay in a communal disease that spread in mime-circles. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t an isolated incident. Now, they roamed the streets, feral. Some started to travel in gangs, filing their teeth and ambushing passersby in alleyways, trapping them in very real invisible boxes.

Meanwhile, all this hummed on in adult circles far above Joe’s head.

While his wound had closed, it had never completely healed. The flesh that grew over it was different. Pale, yet dark at the same time. The first few days his parents had feared infection. Restless nights and fevers tormented him. Then it vanished as quickly as it came. All the adult attention around him found other things to attend to, and Joe was left alone. The fever may have lifted, but the infection remained.

It stained his dreams. Every night, he became a mute, trying to scream out but failing to find words. Along with the words, objects would vanish as well, loosing their image but not their corporality. It started with small objects like cups and pencils and moved up to larger objects like walls and cars. Soon, Joe became accustomed to living in a full mime paradise every night.

Svetlik awoke violently, untwisting himself from his tangle of blankets and sitting up. The dreaming of dreams had been too much strain on his restless mind. He held his sweat-sheaved forehead in his hands and felt the throb of a headache inside. Stumbling out of bed, he fumbled for some painkillers, swallowing them dry in a swift motion.

Outside the unadorned window, the light of a full moon poured into Svetlik’s room. A shiver of fear racked his body. Not tonight, he thought. Any night but tonight. 

Joe Svetlik: Mime Hunter Part 1

The dark sky poured itself out onto the city. It tried to wash it clean: a rain drop for every sin. Tonight was an especially heavy downpour; sins came easy on a Saturday night.

To the inhabitants, the rain was more scouring then cleansing and they sought shelter wherever they could. Most hid in their warm homes, their bodies warmed by animal-print Snuggies while their flickering televisions calmed them back into docile states.

However, all were not so lucky. Hardy Harrow was so desperate for nourishment that he would brave any celestial scouring to use his meager allotment to purchase a few packs of instant noodles. He wandered the poorly lit aisles at his local Han-Dee Mart, guided by the ancient hunter-gatherer instincts of his ancestors. While the narrow, uneven aisles and flickering, ambered lamps might disorientate an outlander, to Harrow, this was his homeland, his forest and plain. He navigated its alien landscape deftly, using what others would see as warning signs instead as landmarks. A left at the exposed wiring, past the sparking refrigerating unit, and arrive at the treasured Ramen. He had done it a million times, both while under the influence of alcohol and extreme sleep deprivation, and every time he bested his pray and carried it back to his cave for consumption.

Tonight, something shook him out of his familiarity. New instincts, long dormant, came alive again with a jolt. The hairs on the back of his neck and hands stood up, responding to the electromagnetic force of evil and danger. Whatever it was, it was close enough to sense, but not to actually see. Harrow braced himself against his materialism and slowly peered around the endcap. He dared only steal a small glance, but even that chilled him deeply. A man stood in the middle of the noodle isle, staring not at the cheap carbohydrates, but at Harrow.

His pale white face reflected the fluorescent light with a sickening tint. The stripes around his shirt were the color of despair and they looked to be prison bars despite their horizontal orientation. He wore a soulless baret, a lid to keep the evil from flying out of the top of his head. He was motionless, as if trapped in an invisible box, yet this was no consolation. This being was a mime.

Harrows blood froze in his veins. He had done many things in his life that were terrible and he made a point to regret them all whenever convenient. Yet none of them were bad enough to deserve this. A mime, a being of pure evil, stood guard in front of the ramen noodles. His mind raced for substitutes. The frozen burritos were in isle 14, those would satiate his hunger and make his slip into malnutrition that much more confortable. Slowly, he willed his muscles to movement, strand by strand pulling his away. A sudden odor filled his nose and strangled his neck with an invisible noose.  It was a mixture of garlic, unfiltered cigarettes and cheap wine. The mime leered at him from around the corner, filed teeth gleaming.

It’s a rare event in the life of a college student that he utterly forgets about all the heavy responsibilities that loom above his head. In the short term, there were always papers that needed to be cribbed from other sources and reading assignments required a consultation with spark notes. In the long run, the repayment of student loans and the acquisition of a usable degree and socially productive career always remained in the back of all undergraduate minds. They might be coerced to dim this constant buzzing with various indulgences, but they were never completely silenced. Yet, in that moment, these were such minor concerns to Harry Harrow that he could have debated their existence, given the luxury. The breath of the mime, rank with French Mustard Gas, had devoured every other crisis of his life to become the very meaning of Fear. 

Harrow clenched his eyes shut. This Fear was greater to Harrow than any of the existential crises he wallowed in during his college career, and he found it fascinating. He took this, his last moment, to savor the particular melancholy of Ultimate Dred. Harrow wished to have this most elusive flavor still wafting over his emotional tongue as he wondered into lands unknown. He allowed this romantic solipsism to envelope his being.

His ears heard the tinny report of an intercom. “Svetlik, code white in aisle 13. Svetlik, Code white in aisle 13.” They reported this to Harrows mind, but it did not correspond to the delicious abandon of his current despair, so it was dismissed.

When he opened his eyes, Harrow realized that he was no longer alone with Fear. A man stood a dozen paces away clad in a dripping trench coat the color of night.

“Hey, you there,” he announced. If his voice had been any more suave it would have been composed purely of sex and razor blade commercials. The mime wheeled around, upset that his meal had been interrupted. It opened its fowl mouth and gaped a silent roar at the dark stranger. 

“The strong silent type, eh? Two can play at this game.” The man raised his arms to cradle an imagination weapon slung low to his waist. His arms rocked back as the imaginary weapon bucked into him. Moments later, the mime experienced a very real explosion. Harrow ducked for cover as dried noodles and mime bits rained down on his head. The better part of a beret landed smoldering at his feet.

“Tell Satan Svetlik sent ‘ya!” quipped the stranger, swaggering through the debris. He casually rested the imaginary weapon on his shoulder. The aisles had been pushed into new, crooked angles and their contents appeared as if arranged by a K-Mart stocker. The fumes of the high explosive mingled with those of the mime and together they merrily danced through the Hand-Dee Mart.

An aging man in a green grocery apron rushed to the scene. Staying a safe distance back from the impact zone, he shouted, his voice full of gratitude. “Oh, thank you sir! I don’t know what I can do to repay you, but I’ll try, I swear I’ll try!”

Svetlik halted his saunter, his combat boots imposing CLOMP CLOMP ended with an ominous SQUiissshh. Harrow couldn’t tell if he was regarding the clerk or simply staring into space, as his expression was masked by a pair of dark aviators. The moment passed and he moved on, brushing past the clerk.

He reached the front door and gave it a shove, the bell chime intonating cheerfully. “Why do you do this?” begged the clerk. Letting the door close behind him, Svetlik walked out into the downpour and halted. The rain pelted him with a thousand watery bullets, each one a cleansing salve that removed every last mime-bit. He removed his glasses and raised his face to the sky, eyes closed, and submitted to the cleansing.

Harrow watched this while still crouching in dehydrated noodle debris. He saw a heavy, black burden wash off of him in that rain. Harrow knew why the man did not accept payment for his actions. It wasn’t a commission, but a duty that brought him here. This was no exterminator that removed pests, but a hunter that bravely dispatched the beast with its own tricks. Harrows heart leapt for him. For forth, brave hunter! Clad yourself in night and defeat it! A tear came to his eyes, for it seemed that he had found a romance for his heart. What does Fear itself fear? Svetlik: Mime Hunter. But even this joy was quickly dashed by the remembrance of a Calculus quiz Harrow had in seven hours.  C’est la vie…

You Never Know What You Have Until It's Gone

The mighty oaks of the distant forest

and the firs of slender cone

Give their flesh

In ritualized 

Process

To serve me

Upon my porcelain throne.

Silence

Once a week, the federal government pays me to sit in a quiet computer lab (which, for tradition’s sake, is called a library) for most of the afternoon. Within this confine, the clattering of keyboards murmur on with only the occasional cell-phone to break the rhythm. A bizarro-Wordsworth could sit beside me and write about the tranquility of the flow of humans in their fabricated industrial environments. He’d ponder what secrets they silently chatter to each other with their invisible text-messages and facebook-feeds. He’d gather up his observations into a handful of words and fling them out to the world on his twitter feed.

At times I wish the library didn’t have windows, as it reminds me that there’s a natural world outside with dirt and trees. After many hours, the hum and rattle of the HVAC system becomes the life-beat of the world around you. You are but a helpless fetus and the HVAC system beats its dusty heart for you, breathing dry, cool air into you. I used to imagine I was in a colossal spaceship, the walls shielding me from the lifeless vacuum outside as I hurdle through space at time-warping velocities. Now, I wonder if there’s any world outside at all. Perhaps we carve our world by chipping away at the nothing and then building walls against it. If I open enough doors in this building, I’ll find one that won’t open, because the next room hasn’t be built yet. You might scoff, but it’s more entertaining then being trapped alone in a computer lab until the clock hits 10:00.

Silence grows in places like these, the same for office buildings in the dead of night. After copiers cease their whirling, computers power down, and the little red lights on coffee pots dim, Silence oozes up from the drab carpeting and fills the gray cubicles. It moves in and makes itself home in the abandoned spaces of peoples lives. But by the time the sun peaks between the dusty blinds with it’s burning fingers, the Silence has left with nary a memento left behind to commemorate its midnight revelries.

When the Silence fills a room, it coats everything inside with a timeless shell. I’ve seen it happen while I sit at my post late into the evening. I’ve seen it swallow up an entire shelf of reference books and watch them become sealed away in an eternal state that won’t break until dawn. If I’m not careful, it will swallow me too. My hours will pass in the blink of an eye, and I’ll have finished exactly none of my homework. A bit of light music piped into my mind by headphones creates a little island of time around my head stops me from drowning.

Someday I’ll stay up late and greet Silence when it oozes into my room. We’ll sit together and it will show me some of the secrets it’s learned over the years. When the sun comes up, he’ll vanish and I’ll go about my day, grinning to myself about my secret. I wonder if Silence and Darkness are friends.S

The Quest of Dupont

I intended to use my free day to explore the capital wasteland, an area currently known as the District of Columbia. A day pass for the metro, a notebook with hastily scribbled attractions, my hat, and I was ready to go.

Dupont circle. According to my research, it held a cornucopia of wonders. Street-side cafes, used bookstores, coffee shops. I planned to ride into this mysterious land astride a metro train into the Dupont Circle station. 

After jumping from train to train, trying to get on the red line, I finally arrive at the proper junction. The voice of a disaffected woman crackles over a PA system likely scavenged from a fast food restaurant that burned down in a freak grease fire. Apparently, something had delayed the trains. It seemed that they only went on one direction now: away from Dupont Circle.

Consulting my trusty map "Tuesday" (for I treated is as my man-servent), I saw that an overland route was possible, if arduous. With a new album playing on my iPod, I headed off in search for the mythical Dupont treasures that where rightfully mine. 

In reality, I had no idea what I was in for. What looked like "a few blocks" on the map turned into at least a two-mile hike in the midday heat. Along the way I took respite in a park. A dive in one of the ubiquitous Starbucks afforded a breath of cool air.

I stumbled into a cafe a time later, whereby the waiter promptly forgot me for twenty minutes. When they recalled my existence, I ordered the cheapest thing on the brunch menue: smoked salmon and eggs Benedict with a lemon hollandaise sause. Well, I had trekked deep into the heart of a city of cutthroats and lobbyists, what else did I expect? I ate my meal and tried to fit in among the wealthy around me. My vest and hat afforded camouflage, even if I could not financially afford the meal.

Apparently, I could have caught a metro to Dupont, they where just delayed a good half hour. Oh well. That would have taken all the fun out of it though.

Black and Steaming

I should stop drinking so much coffee. It will give me stomach issues earlier in life then otherwise might occur. It makes me feel like a junkie who always worries about his next fix. Yet, I feel like its worth it, at least for now.

My morning ritual is something like this: I drag myself to the machine and somehow prepare it with the proper reagents to create its magical brew. I am so well versed in this procedure that I can do it BEFORE my first cup of coffee. After the torturous process of waiting for the machine to slowly drip the life-juice into existence, I pour it into a vessel worthy to contain it. Bringing it to my lips, I savor the aroma as it fills my being, and then take the first, tentative sip.

At that moment, it rushes through every vein in my body. My mind becomes an oracle. Thoughts rustle my brain cells like autumn leaves next to a rushing train. I write down these thoughts, so that I might retain at least an outline of their brilliance before they leave me as fast as they first came.

This process occurs every morning at for at least a hour before it leaves. I pay for this gift by getting crabby and passing out promptly at 2:00 in the afternoon. Perhaps it is a gift best enjoyed in moderation.

The Adventures of Brinley Brierwood: Airship Engineer.

(It should be noted that spell check thought "Brinley" ought to be spelled "Brainless" and that "crewmates" should be "cremates". Oh spellcheck, I think you have humor of your own.)


Long held as the epitome of fruit, apples are a succulent coalescence of taste and nutrition. Teaming with vitamins like horses galloping free and proud among its succulent flesh, hemmed in only by its bright, alluring peal. It seems natural that such an amazing gift, born to us from beautiful trees, should be used to represent the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as it seems at times too ethereal for mere mortals.

Whatever Brinley Brierwood had bitten into, it was most certainly not an apple. Perhaps it had once been an apple in a previous life, but it must have been a particularly dreadful life for it to end up like this. He gripped the gunwale as he retched the mass overboard. The last hamlet to be harassed by the crew of the Miss Adventure had been a bit too eager to surrender their goods, and it was obvious now that it had nothing to do with their intimidation techniques. Half the stores where rotten. Or worse contaminated, Brinley thought as he spat a bitter taste overboard. Perhaps their fields had the misfortune of being downstream from factory. He would wouldn't even think of giving this to the dog.

"Brinley!"

He cringed at hearing his name yelled. Behind him, a bald, stump of a head jutted out of the near-by cabin with a disapproving expression. The stump of flesh belonged to Willoughby Wilcox, the ships cook. It's generally said not to trust a skinny cook, yet Willoughby was a living exception to that rule of thumb. The massive girth which was still tucked in he cabin wasn't earned by eating the fantastic delights he prepared. Nor was it earned through a love of food in general. No, his body mass was a mystery to the crew, because as far as they could tell, the man hated food. His ingredients where but prisoners. Their crime, that of flavor. Only the brutal torturings of a chef especially schooled in the arts of un-cooking could extract their heresies. Carrots would be boiled alive, until nothing but a tasteless mash remained. Potatoes too! The meat, after being brought out of its briny purgatory, would join the others in the pot. There they would swirl in the boiling maelstrom, like sinners cast down into a culinary inferno.

"That hellish beast of yours has gotten into the stores again!"

Brinley rose to his feel, annoyed. His joints, sore from malnutrition, protested the move. "If he did, it's because you forgot to lock it again, Wilcox. What did he get into now?"

"He overturned the apple barrel, he did. He had his head so far in there that he almost got stuck when I caught him! I swear Brinley, you had better shape that dog up. All he does is eat our food, which, as I may remind you, has become remarkably short as of late! Once more, and I'll serve him as stew!"

"And I'm sure it would still taste better then the tripe you're serving now!" Brinely said, laughing off the cooks words. "Where's Triton now?"

"Anywhere but the storeroom. I chased that mutt out with a plank. Anyways, he's your responsibility, NOT mine."

Brinley raised his hands in mock defeat. "Alright, I'll find the poor dog. I'm sure he's sulking somewhere, terrified of your hideous visage, Willoughby." Grimacing for effect, he then left for below deck.

He called the dog's name a few times, but now answer. Finally, he found Triton curled up underneath his bunk with nought but a stub of tail hanging out. "Come on out, boy! It's ok, the ugly man's gone". A wheezed whimper leaked out from under the bunk. "Come on, enough playing!" Brinley reached down to drag the St. Bernard out. It was anything but a trivial task. Triton didn't resist. With a heave, he dragged the dog out from his hiding place. Triton remained prone, unmoving. "He, what's gotten into you?"

Something was not right with Triton. Though normally lethargic, he still greeted people with great enthusiasm. The icy grip of Realization placed its bony hand upon Brinley shoulder. Triton had gotten into the apples, most of which where likely contaminated.

Terrified at the prospects of poisoning, Brinley dashed out of the cabin in search of the ship's resident doctor. "Gunter!" he yelled franticly. He had scarcely made it out of the doorway when he collided with his query. A stream of German oaths flowed forth from the doctor like an uncorked bottle. Running both thought and words together, Brinley attempted to tell Gunter of his concern.

Piecing clues together from Brinleys rambling speech, a smile cracked across his weathered face. A chance to practice his medicine always perked him up. "You'd have me thinking he was bleeding out right here on the deck, the way you reacted! Well, lets have a look at him, shall we?"


Gunter Schmetterling was a doctor largely in title only. He largely derived his special brand of practice from his previous career as a carpenter. While serving aboard a Reichswaffe frigate, his superiors had found that he had a particular talent for sawing off diseased limbs. Though proficient, he also demonstrated a particular tenacity which unsettled those around him. While he was keep on board for the full duration of his cruise, he wasn't recommended for reenlistment. It was feared that he would start to find excuses to cut off perfectly health limbs.


The glorified lumberjack knelt down to examine the dog, who acknowledged him only with a whimper. After a bit of poking and prodding, he rose to his feet again. "It's quite simple, really. It seems he's eaten too much."

"Oh, well, if that's all" Brinley said, his panic fleeting.

"Yup, fixing it's no trick. I'll get my saw and we'll open him right up..."

Stopping the thought before it went any further, Brinley quickly ushered him out the door. "Uh, yes, thank you doctor, but I'm afraid that won't be necessary," he tried to hide his revulsion with a mask of politeness. It gave him a sour expression.

It seemed that he brought far more then just a large St. Bernard onboard when he adopted Triton, he also brought a good deal of trouble. He managed to sneak Triton onboard the ship without O'Neil noticing alright. Though the impotent captain had threatened to feed the crew their own tongues when he found out, the offer actually sounded more appealing then suffering Willoughby's devisings. Surprisingly, it was yet another empty threat. Eventually, they learned to live at an equilibrium, where Triton would lurk around the ship, avoiding O'Neil whenever possible. The captain did likewise, though he would never admit it. He simply found more excuses to avoid the the crews common area. Yet, living on such a small vessel, they could not entirely avoid one another. Those few times when they met, O'Neil would wrinkle his forehead and glare at the beast with such intensity that he appeared to be attempting to forge a telepathic link with a brick. This isn't so say that the dog was dumb, but he was far from it. Triton, like the rest of the crew, would let O'Neil play his games, and eventually slinks off to nap in some warm corner to be disturbed by no one.

Brinley braced himself against a beam as the ship uncharacteristically began to list port. He pondered about the dog as he headed to the Miss Adventure's stern. Certainly the companionship was of value. Triton was more loyal and less disagreeable then any of the crew. Yet such companionship came at a price. He snapped himself into the leather safety harness as he began his balancing act across the support beams to the port engine nacelle. The engine sputtered a bit, coughing puffs of black smoke. Bracing himself on the other side, Brinley undid a few latches and swung the service hatch open, exposing its steam-powered entrails. Belts, hung taught around their wheels, spun at terrifying velocity and proximity. Gears wound around axles, their teeth threatening to devour anything within reach. Brass gauges dotted the cavern, their glass covers smudged with soot.

Eyes darted from gauge to gauge, as Brinley Brierwood read them like tea leaves. A cross-head wasn't getting oiled properly as was getting out of time with the others. Fixing it would likely as simple as tightening a hose, but the cross-heads where on the other side of the nacelle. He chanced a glanced down to see the english countryside slowly pass by a thousand feet down. His nerve failing him, he made his way back across to the ship. The repairs would have to wait until they set down again.


A clanging tin bell announced supper was served. The small crew piled into the hot and crowded mess hall, not out of desire for the food, but for something to fill their bellies. Battered wooden stools lined the single table in the middle of the room. A lantern provided smoky light as it swung about, its typical rattle exaggerated by the ill-behaved engine. In the middle of the table, Willoughby set a large kettle of food byproduct. Brinley entered last, and a bit flustered too. “Has anyone seen Triton?” he asked of the gathered crew. While they could care less about the dog, they cared even less about their upcoming meal, so they humored him.

“No, and sometimes I hope I never will again either” remarked Clemons, supported by the hearty laughter of his crewmates. Willoughby gave the boy a wicked look as he served him his portion. It was look of knowing.

Distressed, Brinley played his spoon around in the watery mirk. There's only so many places for a dog to hide on an airship, especially one of that size. He tentatively raised a spoonful of the “stew” to his lips, testing the temperature. While the food inside was always thoroughly burned, it usually made it to the table tepid. Today was no different. Wisps of conversation drifted around him, but the engineer didn't have the will to grasp onto any of them. Mentally, he examined a blueprint of Miss Adventure while fulfilling his caloric intake by the spoonful. He safely assumed the animal hadn't climbed up to the envelope. Nor was he likely to be on the outside hull. That left only the ballast tanks, and those where sealed.

Like a spotlight over a prison camp, his eyes darted over his crewmates accusingly. Not only did they not share his concern, but they seemed almost relived. Had they plotted something? Clemons looked as relaxed as he ever did, nor was he the type to plot something. Gunter joked about in his morbid way, as usual. He didn't hate Triton, but you had to keep an eye on living things around the man. And while O'Neil certainly felt threatened by the harmless mutt, this would be the first time he had come through on any of his threats. Well, save for the pudding.

Thus, the full force of his smoldering suspicion came to rest on Willoughby, who had both motive and ability. He mulled this over while finishing his stew. Perhaps he had not the time, because the meal today was actually passable. The meat especially had a flavor of something other then salt.

Watery broth splashed over the tin bowl as Brinley let his spoon drop. His mental functions gathered around this horrible fact like gawkers to a car wreck. Not even his motor functions could tear themselves away from it. It was obvious now what had happened; Willoughby Wilcox had fulfilled his threat, killing the dog and serving him in the stew.

His mental functions remained transfixed on that horrible conclusion, drinking in dire resolve. Slowly they began to coalesce around a new conclusion. It was the motor functions that where first to act by picking the spoon back up. Brinley pushed his chair from the table and rose to his feet, slowly, as if he where heavy with purpose.

His other mental functions quickly returned to their stations, save for his emotions. No, that one would have to remain hidden until the fateful moment, lest it give him away. He focused on Willoughby, but not at the expense of everything else. To the contrary, he became acutely aware of his environment. The plump chief had finished serving the crew and had just taken a seat for himself. If he was drawing attention from the crew he didn't notice it. With spoon firmly gripped in hand and his face a blank mask, Brinley strode across the room. Willoughby looked up as he approached. Seeing him in a state of blissful oblivion was too much for Brinley, and a jagged smile cracked across his stone features.

The cooks oblivion quickly faded as Brinley's purpose was betrayed, replaced instead by a sudden fear. Narrowly avoiding a spill to the floor, Willoughby fumbled to his feet. Wheeling about he darted out of the mess hall into the storeroom. Brinley raised the spoon in pursuit, the crack of his smile widening into a chasm of pleasure.

The slamming of the storeroom door momentarily halted his vendetta. Undeterred, Brinley threw his whole self at it, yet the door stood solid. A cry of frustrated rage bellowed from his throat as he continued to throw himself at the door with all the futility of a fly. The crew darted up from their seats at the spectacle. It was Gunter her first attempted to restrain the engineer, but he alone proved insufficient. Others took his place as the doctor darted off for his bag. Over the sound of their scuffle, a startled scream could be heard on the other side of the storeroom door. Obviously, Willoughby was so frighted at the prospect of righteous vengeance being taken upon him that he was likely wetting himself in terror. The thought made Brinley break forth in dark laughter. A prick on his arm brought his cackling to a halt. He looked over to see Gunter pulling an empty syringe from his arm.

No! The filthy Kraut had tranquilized him! It was as if a heavy quilt was slowly settling upon him, weighing his limbs down more and more every second. Soon, he required no restraint. The two men holding his arms became ghosts who then blurred out of existence. The shouting and yelling became but a dull roar in his head. His vision narrowed, yet a fleshy stump of a head moved into view. It was trying to tell him something, but it was indistinguishable over the static. Brinley gasped for breath as a great weight crush down on his chest. Something large and wet lathered his face as the smell of rotten apples pushed him over the edge into unconsciousness.



Triton sat atop his owners body, his dirty fur stained with apples. The crew had tried to shoo the mongrel away, but to no avail. Triton fiercely defended Brinley and dared to snap at any who would attempt to take him away. Thus, they simply left him there, lying on the mess floor. But when he awoke, there would be punishment, thought Captain O'Neil. Murder may be perfectly acceptable on any other pirate ship, but most certainly NOT the Miss Adventure!