Chapter 2:
The Zoo
Light streamed in from a high skylight that was perfectly aligned with the great glowing mass of Alpha Centauri, so that all that was visible out of it was just a red, festering ball of gases. Contrastingly, the light shone on things that were quite pleasant, like soothing vistas and murky lagoons, broad deserts and bushy thickets. All throughout animals roamed. Some of them defied physics; one example was what seemed like a hippo of sorts that was bounding around, reaching heights of 30 feet before landing back down, light as a feather. It was peculiar because it had long, trailing, dark green fur and large tusks that curled up wards and spiked up in a trident at the ends of them above the hippo thing’s head. Oh, and the tusks were hot pink.
Also there was what resembled a giant Koi the size of a whale, except it was flying. It was flying in quite a strange way at that. It and a couple of its friends just slowly drifted through the air making odd swallowing noises. Some shimmered gold, while another was a deep purple with bright yellow whiskers. And what whiskers those whiskers were. They trailed far behind each floating fish, some multicolored, some curling up like springs, and some seemed to lift themselves up and dip around like they had minds of their own. They would pirouette through the air, even one pair seemed to lunge and dodge at each other playfully.
There were also some creatures of humanoid appearance. In one area they were a group of deep orange, smallish people with large, bone plated heads and scrunched up features chattering with high pitched squeaks to one another in a group. Each had two arms and four legs, their arms equipped with a whole jumble of spindly fingers. They were toothless, gaining sustenance by piercing the husk of an odd alien fruit that looked somewhat like a very dusty football and sucking out the pale goo. They were also drawing lines in the dirt in earnest using the same thin finger they used to pierce the hide of their food. There seemed to be a disagreement of sorts, another rusted colored humanoid chirped loudly and stomped out the drawings with anger similar to that of a cranky toddler stomping on a game he has just lost. These creatures seemed quite intelligent, several apparently younger specimens with hurling the used up fruit husks at each other and dodging with extreme agility and skill. This proved their smarts even more, because the game seemed quite organized, some of the players collecting up the fruit shells, some throwing them with alarming accuracy, and other’s taking great leaps up to bash the husks out of the air in mid flight with the knobby shields that adorned their prominent craniums.
All four of the present agents responded to the sights in a different way. Bliss’s grin got wider as he sighed happily. Passion stood dumbfounded. Sorrow moaned about how these animals had to be wrenched from their homes and how cruel it all was. Lastly, Excitement was leaping down into the valley oohing and ahhing. She would have gone all the way down and start petting all the animals if it weren’t for Sorrow. The grumbling agent yanked Excitement back up to where they were standing.
“Um, where are the cages?” asked Passion nervously.
“They’re in a different corner, keeping all the dangerous little critters in check.” informed Agent Bliss.
“So these are all harmless and vegetarian?” Passion asked, incredulously eyeing the trident horned furry jumping hippo.
“Yup”
“Whatever you say. Now how do we get across?”
“There’s a transit system a bit farther to the west. It’s about a 10 minutes walk.”
“Let’s just go already,” said Sorrow.
So the group went, walking in a single file along a muddy bluff along the edge of the “zoo”, taking caution to not slip down and tumble into the midst of the hodge-podge collection of aliens. Assurances that all the animals were perfect angels did little to put his colleague’s hearts at ease, and he didn’t quite understand why they weren’t as calm as him. Of course, it was next to impossible for him not to be at ease.
Slowly they approached the transit system. A pair steel rails ran off into the horizon and a large metal building had been erected at the rail’s start. The four slid down the bluff and came to the ground in a manner much less than graceful. Agent Bliss had neglected to look where he was going so the tip of his shoe caught the tip of a rock. The rock turned out to be the more steady of the two and the man was flung down the rest of the way. The rocks were spared the trouble of flinging Agent Excitement, who dove down the steep hillside without even a moment’s hesitation. Agent Sorrow plodded down the sloped mournfully, her heels sinking into the soft ground and sending her slipping and sliding. Passion, however went last, and decided to get to the bottom through sliding on his bottom. It seemed to work well enough, until about halfway down. Passion was just congratulating himself on his cleverness when a small root jutting out of the bluff decided to lead an assault on a very sensitive section of the agent’s anatomy. He tumbled down the rest of the way until he lay at the bottom, a quivering purple heap smeared with mud and dirt.
Once they all had gotten their bearings and (amazingly) dusted themselves off, they walked up to the train station, Passion bearing a slight, but still noticeable, limp. The train was only two cars, one where it was run by Autopilot (a big jumble dusty jumble of wires, cables, and microchips that miraculously worked when plugged in. It even had limited voice functions but could only say sing ‘What a Wonderful Day for a Day Dream’, which was apparently someone’s idea of easy listening) and one for the passengers. The passenger car looked quite like the inside of a subway train, except subways aren’t decked out in wall to wall, floor to ceiling, in maroon shag carpeting.
“This place is infallible,” said Excitement softly as they walked into the train. She looked around for a moment. “Where are all the buttons?”
“Look no further,” said Bliss, by way of answer, presenting a large blue lever embedded in one of the train’s walls. Above were the words, spelt out in green shag carpeting, were the words: ‘To the Office’.
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The train clacked along, the scenery outside rapidly changing from forest, to swamp, to rivers, to cascades, and to ice sheets. They were clacking along through one of these snow coated ice sheets, when all of a sudden thy transit system slowed down.
“What has befallen us now?” lamented sorrow, slumped in one of the train’s carpeted seats.
“I’ll see,” said Bliss nicely, walking out of their car to go investigate the auto-pilot.
Minutes pasted. More minutes pasted. All was eerily quiet, the white snow outside blanketing everything so the world seemed liked it had been put on mute. The only sound was the wind whistling through their drafty compartment.
“Where is he?” said Passion, clearly annoyed. He got up and stalked over to the connector door. “What are you doing, man?” He shouted as he slid open the door. It jammed a bit, so he grunted as he wrenched it free. Shoving his head through the opening, he froze.
“Holy hell”- that was the last the two women still sitting in the compartment heard before the train was launched from the tracks with a ear numbing, beastly roar.
Agent Bliss was sprawled on his back in the snow. Nothing much got to him, but he couldn’t help but not be happy about this. He had just been flung 100 feet by a giant, hair draped, blood red beast as tall as a school bus is long. A tremendous rack of pitch black horns burst from its crimson skull, tangling up into each other and finishing off razor pointed tip, cork screws, and plates. It had two platter shaped eyes which were a solid black with a white center were stuck on a horrendous primate-like face. A long, prehensile tongue slid from it’s lips curling and snaking it’s way through the air, and it was covered in small spikes that rose up from the tongues moist surface. And standing before this monstrosity was Agent Bliss’s longtime friend, Agent Passion.
Passion had leapt from the train the moment it was launched off the tracks, and stood in the freezing cold looking up at the great thing that was only vaguely similar to monkey. The trapped Agent pulled his gun and fired. A purple dart flew at the beast’s face and stuck in the middle of the dumb beast’s face. Its two massive eyes went crossed to look at the syringe-like mechanism sticking out from just above its nose. The alien’s tongue shot back up into its maw with a “smhuuurp!” The beast slowly lifted its claws and tried to swat it off. It resulted in smacking itself, but that did not deter it. However it disoriented it some, thus increasing the chance of it hitting itself in the face again. And so it did.
Agent Passion was not one to pass up an opportunity to escape from a gigantic blood thirsty alien monster, so he took off. Running along the tracks and between the monsters legs, he spotted his friend Bliss sitting in the snow. Turning, he left the tracks and almost immediately realized his mistake his leg straight into the powdery snow. He strained to hurry, but it too all his strength to make a walking pace. Unfortunately, the horned monkey alien had beaten the odds and the dart off of its face and was turning its attention to the escaping Agent Passion. It lowered its horrendous assortment of horns and charged.
Agent Bliss was quite a football player in his day. He was the star quarterback on his high school team. He got MVP award every single year, even when he was a freshman. In college his team went one whole season and never lost. It was these days that he remembered as leapt to his feet, whipped a lemon yellow hand grenade, bit off the clip, and hurled it at the alien.
“Hit the dirt!!!” He shouted at the top of his lungs as the grenade rolled perfectly off of his fingers. It spiraled straight and true, Passion dove headfirst into a snow bank, the monster looked up at Bliss’s yell, and its dish platter eyes focused on the airborne weapon as it exploded in its ugly face.
Darts flew everywhere. The monster’s roars filled the air, every bit as deafening as before. Passion lay in the snow bank, soaked in sweat and melted snow. His heart was beating a mile a minute. He couldn’t die now. He knew that this was a high risk occupation, but he didn’t know it would end like this. He didn’t even know an end like this existed. But a dart stuck him in the butt, and he knew he’d be okay.
“You alright?” called Agent Bliss from across the snow.
Passion popped out from the snow bank looking extremely bedraggled and stood shivering as Bliss trudged over to his side.
“I’m alive. Does that qualify?” asked Passion grimly.
“I think so.”
Something dawned on Passion. “Wasn’t that one supposed to be in a cage!?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“Well then what the hell was it doing out here!?”
“I don’t know. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?”
“Which reminds me…” Passion continued angrily. “What is this!?” he yelled as he yanked a dart from his rear end.
“I’ll take that as thank you for what I did to the monster.”
Passion turned. The horrendous beast was lolling around in the snow, a slobbering grin on its face that rivaled Agent Bliss’s smile. Passion’s eyes turned to his gun. “How came my dart didn’t do that?”
“I used like 50 of them.”
“That would explain it. So my darts, if I use enough, are supposed to make things go all lovey-dovey?”
“That is what I gathered. Isn’t snow wonderful?” Agent Bliss said offhandedly tossing some snow around in his palms.
Suddenly, a new voice entered the two Agents’ conversation.
“Sorry to interrupt your tea party, boys. Nice rescue effort, by the way.”
Bliss and passion turned to see a grimacing and beat up Sorrow limping through the snow, hauling an unconscious Agent Excitement behind her.
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Bliss had finally gotten a fire going by sparking the train wires over the pieces of the broom that was kept in the train. It was the only wood he could find, but it would so. The four of them sat shivering next to the crashed train as Sorrow tended to her and Agent Excitement’s wounds. Agent Passion had a cell phone in his had and trying to dial. He held it up to his ear.
“Yes! We’ve got service!” he cried.
“Thank you, Verizon,” Agent Bliss added on.
“I’m calling Rage’s office now,” said Agent Passion, giving a thumbs up. He held out the phone at arms length. There was a barely audible click as Rage picked up the phone in his office.
“Where in the world are you!!?” came a heavily accented Russian voice from over the line. It could be easily heard by all four of the Agents. “You supposed to be here in 10 minutes!!! Put me on speaker phone!!!”
“No need sir,” Agent Passion said calmly into the receiver.
“Well, where the hell are you!!?”
“We got waylaid, sir. Fear released a carnivorous beast in the zoo, and it destroyed the train. Bliss nailed it with a grenade, and its currently making snow angels.”
“GRAAARRR!!!”
“Remember, sir, take deep breaths.”
The sound of raspy breathing carried over the line. Then the same voice, this time calmer, but still just as loud. It was trembling on the brink of shouting.
“How late do you predict this setback will make you?”
“A few hours to a day. We are about halfway there.”
“I’ll send some people to pick up the escaped creatures.”
“Creatures, sir?”
“Yeah, I talked to fear, and he said he released them all.”
There was click as Rage hung up the phone.
“Well that just makes my day!” shouted Passion, shoving the phone into his pocket.
They all sat for a bit, each consumed in their own thoughts or activities. Agent Excitement was unconscious, which does not make one a very good conversationalist, and Sorrow was trying to rouse her fellow Agent. Passion, caring about Excitement but not really being able to do any thing, just stared longingly at her and caressed her face until Sorrow told him to bug off. Agent Bliss sat with the nearly destroyed Autopilot in his lap fiddling with the wires. Once it even started singing again, but that was in a baritone voice and it soon petered out.
Agent Passion, feeling utterly useless walked off into the snow and stared at the sky.
“Guys, maybe you should come take a look at this,” he called.
Bliss happily set down the Autopilot, picked up the limp Agent Excitement, and went over to join him. Sorrow groaned and followed.
Agent Passion pointed to four black dots on the horizon that were slowly getting larger.
“Maybe they’re the people Rage sent,” said Bliss hopefully.
The four of them stood squinting off into the light of Alpha Centauri (they could only assume there was some sort of glass roof on the zoo) as the dark objects got bigger. They looked like a really odd group of sentinels, standing on the snow covered plain, one of them holding a knocked out woman. Eventually they could hear something on the wind. It was a slight rawwwking sound. It got louder as the objects came nearer. Soon the noise could be heard clearly and the group could almost make out the thing’s features.
“I don’t think those are people,” said Sorrow.
Passion squinted harder. “Oh my dear God. Everybody run!!” he yelled, but it was too late. They were each plucked out of the snow by four pairs of great golden talons.
Bliss fought to hold on to Agent Excitement, but she was wrenched form his grasp and carried away. The four beasts separated, moving faster than the winds of our world combined. Each bird, if you could call it that, had great sweeping gold wings, stubby back legs, and long, arms with dangling talons. It was in each pair of talons that each Agent now hung.
Agent Excitement woke up to the wind flying against her face, which was, incidentally, also flying. It took her a moment to gain her bearings. She saw the sweeping icy wasteland speeding by below her. Her initial reaction was that the ground was somehow acting like a moving sidewalk on overdrive, and that she was the stationary one. But she soon looked up at the giant alien and the true situation became clear. The same situation was true for all four of the Agents. They were all being carried away by. However, these four were four out of the current six employees of an organization created to handle the toughest, and only the toughest, crisis to come to Earth. They weren’t exactly what you’d call a bunch of pushovers.
Agent Passion escaped first. He had taken the first opportunity and emptied his gun into the golden belly of his pseudo-avian captor. “If one doesn’t do the trick,” he had murmured to himself, “let’s see about 100.” After the first few rounds were fired, Agent Passion realized that this was a bad idea as the bird turned its huge black curved beak to face him and gave him the biggest oogly eyes he had ever seen. Slowly, a slimy green tongue came out from the tip of its beak.
“Oh God no,” said Agent Passion, horrified. He closed his eyes and prayed that these things anatomies were vaguely similar to his as he drove his foot into the things lower mid section, directly between the beasts stubby legs. He was released immediately and, in a piece of inexplicable luck (whether it was good or bad, Passion was not sure, but it was still very inexplicable) the white ground opened up to a massive frozen waterfall.
Cascades and cascades of ice ballooned out from the frozen falls, air pockets forming designs more intricate than the roof of the Sistine Chapel. It was down this that Passion fell, hollering like a banshee.
He scrambled for a handhold, when, surprisingly, he found one. He gasped as his arm was very nearly yanked from its socket. It was a roughly constructed rope ladder. Passion didn’t have time to think what in hell it was doing there, he just climbed. Biting his tongue to keep from crying out because the pain in his arm, he climbed higher. Finally, he reached a small cave entrance carved out of the ice. As he crawled pathetically in, he saw several small blobs of waddling grayish blue blubber with small, yellow heads and tall feathers of every color standing atop their noggins. They were about knee high, but there were a bunch of them.
Agent Passion clutched his arm as he stood uneasily, his back against one of the icy walls of the cave. Even though he had been rescued once again from certain death (this made twice in one day), they seemed to be very aggressive. He just hoped they weren’t some of the carnivorous beasts Agent Fear had released.
All of a sudden, one let out a high pitched war cry and leapt at Agent Passion, as if to tackle him. It was going for his head, but he ducked, and the penguin like blubber ball hit the barrier of slick ice behind him with a fwoppolop!. It hit the ground with a similar noise. Then many of them let out identical cries and jumped towards him, but the disgruntled Agent pushed off from the wall with his strong legs and slid across the floor, under the attacking aliens. The things cried out as their quarry disappeared, slamming into the floor like the first. The rest of the many things went crazy and started coming at him like there was no tomorrow. Passion didn’t have time to reload his guns, so he had to go with what he had. He sent one flying with a kick, and dove to escape the rest. He grabbed one surprised creature from behind and sent it careening into its partners like a bowling ball.
The remaining ones seemed to be backing off, like they were scared of him, but then one last penguin thing slammed into the back of his head from behind and brought him down. The last thing he saw was the icy floor coming at him and his own reflection in it. If he had the time to pay attention, he would have noticed that his reflection was somewhat of a comical one, with his mouth open wide in surprise, his eyes crazed, and an even more crazed blob of grey blue blubber with several bright red feathers flopping above its head screeching maniacally as it rode atop Passion’s head like someone on a mechanical bull. But he met the floor and was dragged into unconsciousness before he could truly appreciate this little bit of comedy.
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Bliss watched smiling as his friend, Agent Passion, escaped from the claws of his giant bird. His mind blocked out the unpleasantness of Passion most likely falling to his death in the process. As the escaped Agent crawled into an ice cave, Bliss could turn his attention to the splendid view below him. It was still snow covered but there were several trees creating a dense forest below them. The forest was made primarily of the Symbiosis Pyynes of Ddesmoliik, a forested planet devoted to mining rare interstellar minerals. The trees would start out as a perfectly normal seeming deciduous sapling, but several full trees would start to sprout from the base, which would balloon out to huge proportions, sometime with as many as 20 Symbiosis Pyynes attached.
Bliss knew in the back of his head that he should think about escaping like his partner, but he was too entranced by the magnificent sight. Ddesmoliik, while being rather boring in the Flora department, is amazingly rich in Fauna. Treetop Wolvves yipped and yapped while trying to bat down passing Lexokks, incredible avian creatures with muscular feathered wings who could swim as well as they could fly. Pirkuun Lizards jumped from tree tip to tree tip, chasing each other in a humorous way. A regard for the pattern of the names, as a rule all things on Ddesmoliik must have double letters in them.
Well, while Agent Bliss was staring down at the wildlife, Agent Sorrow escaped promptly. She retrieved her gun from her hip holster and shot one dart tactfully through the monster’s wing. It made quite an unpleasant ripping sound that gave Agent Sorrow chills down her spine. The monster was not expecting to be shot in such a sensitive place, and it let out an ear splitting screech. This also sent chills down Sorrow’s spine, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from shaking herself, waggling her head and generally acting weird. It started losing altitude as it desperately tried to stay aloft. It glided down in a slow rotating spiral, getting closer and closer to the Symbiosis Pyynes. Unfortunately, it did quite a good job of it, and by the time woman and beast crashed to the ground, all snow had vanished and it was only slightly brisk in the air.
Agent Sorrow didn’t seem the least bit phased by the rough landing and she climbed off of the great golden bird, surveying the area with caution. Their were several Symbiosis Pyynes surrounding her and dense green ferns covered her feet. They were a deep green, like the color of the sea. She noticed something interesting. Each Pyyne root (blob like dense mounds of plant stuff) was glowing. Not a bright glow, like you see in movies when an angel comes down from the Heavens, but a soft, comforting, ruddy brown glow.
She was just walking over to investigate when a sound like a Didgeridoo blasting through the forest caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. She probably would’ve, but a furry brown mass catapulted out of an unseen door in the root and knocked her down. Agent Sorrow was discombobulated by the encompassing torrent of the trumpeting noise. It seemed to rise and swell like a wave, washing her senses away. In that moment, there was no sight, no smell, no taste of the blood from her cut lip, just the overwhelming sound. When it finally ended she found herself curled up into a ball in a mass of dense ferns, clutching her ears. Her body had taken over, trying to block out the resonating, pulsing surges from the unearthly instrument.
Now, a whole different cacophony broke out. Agent Sorrow peeked out from behind the leafy ferns, peering out at the scene. Apparently, a whole mob of those furry brown aliens had gone into battle with each other. It was a forest brawl, each creature lashing out with fists and weapons. The things were somewhat humanoid, being about four to five feet tall, with four arms that ended in muscular, three fingered hands. They were covered head to toe with fuzzy hair, and they had piercing green eyes and a large red mouth. Their legs were long and strong, and the things also had fur covered wings sprouting from their backs. Most were either punching their way through the fighting mob, or using some odd looking weapon to combat each other. Others manipulated their wings to swoop down and attack from above, slicing through the group like furry scythes.
Out of nowhere one of the creatures was knocked backwards into the air, flailing around and yelling in a gruff tone as it flew right toward Sorrow. Agent Sorrow scrambled out of the way, and, unfortunately, into the open. All noises quieted and every single beady green eye turned to look at her. Some even hovered in mid air, flapping their wings rhythmically. “Oh god,” groaned Agent Sorrow as the things slowly advanced on her, “I feel like Dorothy with the Flying Monkeys.”
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Agent Bliss’s enjoyment of the scenery was cut off as he suddenly gained altitude. The thing that was carrying him seemed to notice that two of his fellow aliens had been both taken down. It ascended higher and higher until it thought that its prey would never break free. Agent Bliss got the point. They soared, the wind whipping in Bliss’s face, and everything on the ground was miniscule. The captured agent looked up to see a pack of floating fish ahead of them. The alien ascended higher, in order to pass above fish.
The altitude started to get to Bliss. He was feeling lightheaded, but luckily he got an idea. As they passed over the pack, he threw all caution to the winds, inched up the feathered underbelly and punched the thing in the face. It got the message. He was dropped abruptly, and his insides seemed to get rammed in to his stomach and he landed heavily on the back of a purple floating fish, stunned. He struggled to not vomit, as he knew he would need all the food in him that he could get. He managed and he slowly peeled himself up after he gained his bearings.
The back of the fish was vast, easily the size of half a football field. Its back was slippery, like rock covered with moss, but the fish was traveling quite slowly. Thanks to this Agent Bliss had no trouble crawling across to the edge. Peering over cautiously he saw that he had traveled quite far away. The land beneath him took his breath away as it sprawled out before him. It was many leveled, with long flat acres of dusty land that gave away to deep, colorful canyons with lush green growth at their bottoms, and tall mesas, buttes, and rock formations jutting out from the dust. And it all looked swelteringly hot. Waves of heat rose up from the ground, blurring the lines of the odd cacti into washed out colored smudges against the brown earth. He felt like a god, surveying his wondrous creation. Except a god would probably be floating in some sort of golden chariot, not clinging to the back of a whale sized, fish like alien at 5,000 feet. But, you never know. It’s a one heck of a crazy universe.
Thinking, on an impulse, that this would be a good place to get down, he, also on an impulse, climbed to the front of the creature. He noticed as he looked at its face that it had only one eye. It was yellow with a large black circle in the center. It had pale blue lips that sagged down into a flabby mouth, creasing its face into little ripples of flesh. All of a sudden, the one eye darted up to direct the black circle straight at Agent Bliss.
Once again on an impulse, he decided to try to communicate.
“I must get down there!” he yelled, gesturing first to him and to the ground. He even made little walking motions with his fingers, but he doubted that would help get his point across.
Nevertheless, it appeared that the fish was quite intelligent. It rolled its eye down to one of it’s whiskers that was coiled up like a spring. Then it rolled its eye back to Agent Bliss, then to its whisker, back again, and then back once more for good measure. Agent Bliss hoped he interpreted the message correctly and he awkwardly scrambled down the alien’s face, using the sags of purple skin for handholds, he took a daring leap and managed to grab on to the coiled whisker. Swinging dangerously back and forth, it started unraveling. Agent Bliss slid down with it, the dusty ground getting closer every second. After a while of spinning and clutching on to the slimy whisker, he slid off the end and into the dust with a soft thud.
Agent Bliss got up, brushed himself off, tugged the whisker twice, and it shot back up like a rocket. It continued its climb until it rested safely besides its flabby faced owner. Seemingly without a care in the world, Bliss started off across the landscape, humming as he walked. After a few minutes a cliff came into view. Reflecting on the fact that his impulses had served him well so far, he decided that he mine as well trust another one. He walked along the ridgeline until he discovered a natural path don into he gulley. Still humming, he followed it down.
It wasn’t long before he came upon a cave that went into the cliff face. He then saw that there was a sizeable hut inside it. It was not a special hut, just one with dried mud for walls and some sticks for a roof. Coming to the conclusion that this must be good to find something or someone that could build a hut, he warily walked towards it. As he poked his head in, he strained to see inside. It looked basic with what he though was a fireplace in the back and a bed mat in one corner. There was something odd in the center of the room, though. He was just trying to discern what sort of thing it was and what it was doing in a hut, when he glimpsed fast movement in the back of the hut. His heart skipped a beat as something with rough, dirty hands yanked his feet out from under him.
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Agent Excitement regained awareness with the wind clawing at her face as it rushed by. Her eyes lit up as she saw the landscape spread out before her. She could only guess what had happened since the train wreck, because she was now being clutched by a golden, long-armed, big-beaked alien. She looked down at the Earth. She saw waves and waves of lush grass and colonies of shrubs that dotted the land. Countless tributaries and streams wound through the ground, like a spider’s web. The only out of place thing was that everything but the water, which was so clear that she could almost make out the river bottoms from her great height, was a varying hade of blue. The grass was pale, icy blue, while the bushes bright blue, like a balloon, and the few stunted trees a deep, melancholy azure.
Agent Excitement’s immediate thought was, ‘I can’t wait to roll around in the grass. I’m gonna have blue grass stains! That’s gonna be awesome!’ She decided the best way to get down there would be to shoot the bird and see what would happen. So she shot it a few times, mainly preoccupied with thinking about rolling in the grass, when the darts kicked in. The alien bird seemed to want to roll around in the grass too. It swooped down on its great golden wings and landed into a soft gallop on the spongy blue round. Excitement leapt off slightly before impact and the two started rolling around a flopping about on the blue grass.
Excitement laughed, and so did the alien, in its own way. What it did more was honk happily, but, Excitement didn’t mind. She flung herself at the alien, landing amongst its soft, wonderful feathers. It honked some more and even seemed to smile as it looked at Agent Excitement. It took its overlong front legs and grabbed the agent’s arms gently. The bird thing started to play with her arms like she was a doll. Agent Excitement lowered her face into the thing’s down and blew as hard as she could. The air made a large ‘poot’ noise.
The beast honked even louder and laid its head down on the soft blue grass. Excitement laid her head sideways on the creature’s feathers. Its heartbeat, slow and calming like the pulse of the waves, drummed in her ears. Her eyes closed and she slipped off into a dream on the belly on beast.
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Prepare to ohh, ahhh, be completely flabbergasted *yes, flabbergasted*,
and of course chuckle, guffaw, snicker, laugh, snort and go 'pbbthhh!'.
and of course chuckle, guffaw, snicker, laugh, snort and go 'pbbthhh!'.
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"Time is relative. Lunchtime, doubly so."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
HUG
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
HUG