Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Victims of the Knife: Malfunction

A distant scream yanks my attention away (yet again) from editing A Broken Race.

I spin my chair around and scan the paper covered floor. There, in the corner by last November's dismantled ream wall, characters run around like they've lost their minds. Delilah is on her knees, sobbing. Nekar throws adverbs left and right as if searching for one in particular. Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him shouts threats on the top of his lungs.

 The object of his threats comes into view as I draw closer. Blue sits in the middle of a bloody, uniform-strewn clearing. He appears to be chewing something.

 "Blue, what the hell are you doing?"

"Having a snack." He holds up the sleeve of one of the uniforms.

 Holy crap, there's a hand dangling from it! "You've eaten the Barthromians!"

 Blue smiles around his mouthful of pale flesh. "They were good."

 "Since when do you eat humans?"

"I don't. They were aliens. They just looked like humans."

Ms. Wildstar taps me. "He has a point. About them being human-looking aliens, that is. You said so yourself." I glare at her. "Weren't you the one screaming?"

"That was Trala." She points to the quivering woman on the ground beside Delilah.

"Oh. Weren't you supposed to be introducing Blue to everyone? How did this happen?'

Ms. Wildstar sighs. "He said he was hungry. I went to get him some food." She holds out a bowl of discarded undefined fantasy novel 'food'.

"Seems he was too hungry to wait." I pluck the new alien from his messy plate of a clearing. "Blue, seriously, what the hell? You ATE my Barthromians."

His eyes, on their foot-long stalks, blink at me unabashedly.

Nekar groans. "That was horrible."

"Shut up." I turn back to Blue. "Well?"

"I thought I made my intentions quite clear when you introduced me to everyone. I said I looked forward to eating them."

"No. I'm pretty sure you said, meeting. Guys?"

The gathered discarded characters nod.

"See? Meeting. Not eating."

"Stupid translator." His tentacles sag. "So when they were running around screaming as I tore them limb from limb, it wasn't because they were excited?"

"Um. No."

"Ooops."






7 comments:

  1. Okay, now I *really* like Blue, LOL!

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  2. Replies
    1. No kidding. Even for Blue, I'm sure those Barthromians were rather bland.

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  3. So, was this a "meat and greet" then?

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  4. Love this: "Nekar throws adverbs left and right as if searching for one in particular." LOL!

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