A hiccup & recovery

I am trying daily to add to my fake novel BRYAN THE TYGER. Today I just finished writing this next part: I think it's fun because my protagonists undergo a tragic event and everything turns out alright so then we leave to go do other stuff.

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

Chapter Twenty

So Myala and I have a fine time on the aliens’ spaceship with Emily Dickinson and Emily Brontë. Since the Emilies are both human females, and Myala and I are large glowing felines, we invite the damsels to ride upon our backs: Dickinson mounts Myala sidesaddle; and Brontë straddles me.

We spend many evenings enjoying the various gardens that were built into the saucer’s sanctum; and amid the gardens there are paintings hanging, which we beguile away entire sennights admiring. It is impossible to go strolling thru the corridors of the spacecraft’s pleasure-dome and not feel awe at the extraterrestrials’ art collection: they have the finest works, ancient as well as modern.

And there is no question about it: the conversations that we take part in with the Emilies are better than any we’ve ever experienced. There is neither a limit to their wisdom nor an end to their speculation.

Now, since we’re all feeling satisfied after having discussed the depths and the heights of poetic vision (tho “discussed” is too weak a word; I should rather say: “engaged in a shared dream about”), we take a break and go visit Mr. Peterson and Mr. Shelton in the flying saucer’s lounge. For the company of our alien hosts amuses us:

Mr. Peterson is a master of the art of smoking. He can tell you anything you want to know about everything from calabash pipes to cigarillos; and he takes great pleasure in offering samples of whatever he is expounding on. One can tell that he is genuinely thrilled by observing his audience’s reactions to these delicacies.

And Mr. Shelton is a dentist who knows all about mouth moldings and how to construct and install synthetic teeth. He also happens to have the galaxy’s most extensive collection of erotic statues — a few of which are his own creations — and his goal is to entice one of these works to come alive, altho he has not yet been able to achieve this. He allows us to tour his private chambers whenever we desire, which is frequently.

Now, as we are reclining on the cockatoo rug and chatting with Mr. Peterson and Mr. Shelton, all of a sudden the spaceship’s interior lurches vio­lently, throwing us all across the room, and smashing us harshly against the far wall, along with the aliens’ sunny chairs and the rest of the furniture. For, till now, the craft had been cruising thru the atmosphere at random (we left the Chankly Bore shortly after meeting our extraterrestrial friends — they allowed us to store our sieve-chariot in the laundry room, along with the cart that holds all our belongings — incidentally, this saves our possessions from getting damaged during this scene, for the soft rich heaps of silken shirts end up cushioning the blow). Now all the fluorescent lights start to flicker, and the panels on the saucer’s sides, floor, and ceiling crack apart, while bright molten rock begins to ooze thru all the fissures.

“Lava!” I say. “Myala, look!”

“I see,” smiles Myala the Black Panther.

“What happened?” Mr. Christianson comes dashing out of the fuselage, awkwardly bracing his torso. “I think my spine is broken; it feels like someone’s twisting a knife in my back; I can barely move. Plus our co-pilot Mr. Polis is bleeding to death, for the steering wheel of the craft snapped off and flew away while he was still gripping it; thus both of his hands got broken off at the wrists.”

Mr. Polis now slouches out of the cockpit area, dazed. He lifts his arms to show that his hands are gone: each wrist-end is gushing blood like a bubbling brook. “My hands got cut off when the spaceship jolted just now . . . I’m bleeding bad.” – We all stare silently at this sight in shock, not knowing what to do. We also notice that his hair is disheveled, which we find inordinately disturbing; for it is normally slick, jet-black and perfectly fashioned — this signifies the intensity of the horror, as only under the most traumatic conditions would Mr. Polis appear ungroomed.

Doctor Kohault now emerges from the shadows. “I’ve just been outside to check what might have gone wrong, and I regret to report that we’ve crashed into the side of another mountain. This time it’s Mount Horeb. We hit a bush, and now our spacecraft is on fire; also lava is seeping in, as you can tell from these oozing fissures. Luckily the bush that we landed on is not consumed by the blaze . . . not yet, anyway. But we’ve got to escape from this spacecraft before we all die.”

So I Bryan the Burning Tyger and my soul-mate Myala the Black Panther help to drag the pilots Mr. Christianson and Mr. Polis out of the ship. We do this by taking the collars of their lab coats into our jaws and pulling their bodies toward the saucer’s exit sign; then we stash their corpses at the end of the off-ramp. We gently nudge them until they are positioned near a tabernacle whose canvas is army-green in hue.

Medics eventually step forth out of the door-flap of this tabernacle and notice the cadavers lying on the ground. They drop the books that they had been reading: the female medic was enjoying The Imaginary Invalid, a play by Molière; and, upon closer inspection, it turns out that, instead of a book, the male medic was holding a jewel case for a digital video disc of the movie M*A*S*H (1970) — not the loathsome T.V. show but the brilliant film by Robert Altman.

This team of medics now crouches over the dead bodies of the extraterrestrials Mr. Christianson and Mr. Polis, and they shake them to see if they can detect any sign of life. Mr. Christianson’s body cracks loudly when it is handled like this, on account of the fact that he died of a broken spine; and the body of Mr. Polis keeps gushing blood from the sleeves of its lab coat, because his hands got severed when the ship’s steering column broke off.

The medics therefore determine that they should bring these alien corpses into their tent. Our hopes and prayers are that they will surgically operate successfully upon the extraterrestrials so that both of our alien friends can get resurrected.

Hours later, after much heroic work on behalf of the medical team inside the tabernacle, our alien friends Mr. Christianson and Mr. Polis step out of the door-flap unscathed.

“How do you feel?” Myala asks them both, in a concerned tone of voice.

“Yeah, how do you guys feel?” I repeat this question in earnest.

“The surgeons saved my life,” sez Mr. Christianson. “They fused a couple of the vertebrae of my spine together, so that I can now walk again. I feel no pain, and I will surely be able to help repair the damaged spacecraft and extinguish the fire. It is amazing that these earthling doctors are able to operate on an alien like myself to make me whole again.”

“And I,” sez Mr. Polis, “got my hands welded back on.” He raises both arms to prove that, sure enough, two black-gloves are attached to his sleeves now.

Instinctively I step back a pace — I find the look of these replacement hands unsettling; but I’m glad that they work as good as new.

“Let’s return to the ship, make sure everyone’s OK, and then leave this place,” I say to Myala.

She nods once, firmly: “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

So we gallop over to the ship (the Emilies have been riding us this whole time), and we lift up the giant refrigerator that fell on Dr. Kohault during the crash.

“Thank you,” Doctor Kohault rises from the ground and dusts off his smock.

“Are you hurt? Any bones broken?” Myala asks.

“I’m fine; thanks again!” sez Doctor Kohault.

(Incidentally, this is the point where the idea first strikes me that Dr. Kohault might be a robot.)

Now Myala and I trot over to help Mr. Peterson and Mr. Shelton out of the burning pit of lava that they’ve fallen into.

“Will you guys be able to continue without us now and repair your ship, if Myala and I take our leave?” I say.

Before they answer, Myala adds: “How are your smoking implements and tobacco supply, Mr. Peterson? And are your teeth and sculptures unhurt, Mr. Shelton?”

Peterson answers first: “My possessions are all damaged beyond repair; but that is no problem — tobacco is a crop that can easily be regrown; and I can just makeshift a new pipe from some aspect of our flying saucer’s decor that got dislodged during the crash. I’ll just hollow out a fragment of porcelain stair-rail or something.”

“Yes, and my teeth are fine,” sez Mr. Shelton; “my jaw got dislocated, but I can fix that. Most importantly, I see that my sculptures are going to be salvageable — there’s only a little bit of lava-damage to their backsides: I can just hose them down. Look, you can see straight into my display chamber from here, because the fire ate right thru the drywall.”

Mr. Shelton points, and we crane our necks to confirm that he’s telling the truth.

“Do you want us to stick around and help you wipe some of the lava off the statues?” I say. “Hey! and it looks like at least one of them is moving slightly — perhaps something like a chemical reaction has occurred, and you’ll get your dream to come true after all!”

Mr. Shelton squints intently while gazing at the sculptures, scanning for the one that I’m talking about, to discern whether or not I’m joking.

“No, thanks, I’ll be fine,” Mr. Shelton now hastens thru the gaping hole in the burnt wall to assess his collection.

“Alright, since you guys seem to be all in good health and able to repair this damage by yourselves, I guess Myala and I will take off,” I say. “We have much more exploring to do.”

“Sure, whatever you like!” sez Mr. Peterson. “Take care, Bry! See you later, Myala! Nice to meet you, Ms. Dickenson and Ms. Brontë.”

Emily Dickenson slightly nods, and Emily Brontë gives him the figs again, while Myala and I pace down the mountainside and away from the burning ship that’s engulfed in lava.

I should mention that the Emilies who are on our backs have been engaged in a heated discussion this entire time, but the reason that I didn’t include their dialogue in the narration, choosing instead to focus on the dramatic developments of the physical ailments that slew the extraterrestrials as well as the acts of the earthling medics who gave them new life, is that this scripture is more for wildcats than for human geniuses. Maybe someday I’ll write something sacred where I tell you what the Emilies said; but right now I’m more concerned with just going on adventures.