113 out of the ocean and into the butterflies

"Brandon, pleased to meet you." he said in a way that sounded sincere, but unconvincing at the same time.

Bilix pulled Brandon to his feet in a display of strength that seemed disproportionate to his size. Brandon in an upright position struggled to find his land legs, he staggered at first, and coughed up half the ocean that he'd almost drowned in, at second. Bilix gave a reassuring number of powerful  pats to Brandon's back in an effort to encourage any straggling sea to make an hasty exit.

"You certainly drank your fill didn't you Brandon. Lucky I gave you the extra boost when I did or she would have had you all to herself."

"You...saved me." Brandon stood up straight. 'All to herself' was that just a turn of phrase or is this freak planning something? Come on, I know he's ugly but I've got to try and keep it together.

There was a moments silence that was not especially uncomfortable considering the circumstances, "Saved is such a strong word, I'm not Jesus or nothin'. I just saw a big behind in front of me and thought the only way I'm making it to the surface is by hauling this, um your arse with me. You're welcome."

"Oh, thanks." More silence. "Any idea's where we are?"

"None, but maybe this lot will."

As chance would have it near death experiences where only the beginning of the days excitement. In a clearing on a hill, only a few football field lengths away came a group clothed in white, riding on the backs of beasts. Their countenances were as lightning, their radiance like butterflies. It was going to be an interesting afternoon.

107 spills and thrills

Ditie launched herself into the space formerly occupied by Bilix, catching the toilet bowl accidently with her leg, stumbling in the process. She managed to realign her centre of gravity in time to prevent certain disaster, then allowed herself a brief bout of relief at no one having witnessed her lack of co-ordination. "They really are portals!"

***

In an unpleasent place at the edge of nowhere...

Brandon gathered himself, the under-sized over-ugly, yet still humaniod-like creature edged a little closer to him. It extended its hand. Brandon tried not to flinch. "I'm Bilix, you big sod. What's your name?"

0103 today I will be with you in paradise

I left the oven on!

Brandon sat up. Salt flavoured water escaped his lips. His apartment could be burning down as he sat there dribbling in the middle of...

Where am I !?

Four things immediately sprung to mind, each competing tenaciously for attention. The oven's on, wasn't yet ready to give up pole position; it was followed closely by Melanie's trapped in a rubbish bin and only I can save her (except he was here and she was not); I almost drowned, which explained the water balloon feeling in the pit of his lungs; and finally: but didn't I die already? This last question came closest to answering the first. Answering a question with a question, it was all getting very philosophical, but the deep contemplation was far from over.

"Is this heaven !?!"

An unsightly creature strolled up to the blubbering mess that was Brandon. It seemed to occupy an uncomfortable level of height that couldn't  exactly be described as dwarfism, but was still diminutive enough as to certainly prohibit it from participating in most of the rides at Disneyland. Its grotesque visage was so abhorrent that to experience it was almost sublime. It was so ugly that it was in a strange way beautiful. 

Heaven Brandon? No. Not exactly.

093

Brandon thought he was closing in on the surface, but his lungs and dog paddle were failing him. Inside and out of your mother's womb water preserves life. Is this what they mean by too much of a good thing?

Now, long past the threshold of exhaustion Brandon was required to exert his most intense effort yet. Life provides strangely packaged gifts for those least prepared to receive them. Death takes the left overs. None of this helped Brandon very much.

Taking on water and sapped of all his energy - Brandon didn't like the idea of drowning, but he didn't seem to have much choice in the matter - he gave one last mighty paddle.

After, instead of acquiescing to the will of the ocean, he began moving faster and faster until he emerged from the deep and inhaled the entire atmosphere. It felt as if some benevolent hand had reached up from the depths in his hour of need, gently corralled his buttocks and guided him safely to shore. He meant to turn back and thank the charitable being, but instead collapsed. It had been a shocking couple of days.

91.

He was awake, there was no doubt about it. Brandon wished he was still dreaming or dead or any other variation of existence that he'd experienced in the last few days. Unfortunately he was in deep, deep water. At first he was totally disorientated. Which direction belonged where and how it related to him didn't seem to matter mostly because realities bearings appeared to be unravelling. Sometimes the best thing to do when that happens is to close your eyes and hope when you open them everything will have changed. It was a fanciful idea and remained such, for when Brandon unblinked he was still in the same place.



He had no idea how he got there, but he thought dieing (the last thing he remembered doing) once in a life time was more than enough. He decided to follow his air bubbles which were decreasing in frequency, but at least they knew which way was up.

83.

ribit, ribit

"If you don't mind I was here first, and as you can see the situation is dire. Now you've said your piece about the 80's, horrible decade, but we've got our own problems to deal with." said Erhard

"With all due respect sir, with a wardrobe like that, you look to be the least qualified to make any comments on what was or wasn't, is or isn't fashionable. The 80's had its short comings to be sure, but it's ready to make a comeback." said Davis

"OAUGHUEHHE" said Daly and Koopa.

Erhard snuck a glance at his outfit, it was bright yellow and red, of course he knew that already, but he wasn't used to being insulted by strangers that materialised in brilliant flashes of light, he found it to be rather rude; All the more so, because his reclamation of the proverbial talking stick was so short lived, he'd been disarmed by the cocky guest almost immediately. He tried again" "Who said anything about fashion?" was all he could come up with. After that he thought of a million other things that would have been a hundred times wittier.

Melanie was about to make a psychological breakthrough and disencumber a portion of her inner child before these two strange men appeared on the scene, although they were no less strange than the man she was already dealing with, perhaps they leaned a little closer to normality than this ever-groaning zombie guy and for that she was resentfully grateful. Here she was getting bailed out again, same old Mel. Between these freaks, the redundant, overly abundant frogs; and the worst date of her life (the only date), she couldn't see how an invasion from the eighties could make things any worse.

"Authors with bad ideas, the return of the 80's, I don't understand." she said.

It looked like Erhard's attempts at heroism were marginally interesting at best to these people. They obviously couldn't be bothered with anything he had to say. Sometimes he didn't know what the point was in trying.

"All will be explained, friends." pronounced Davis, which was a rather forward relational label given that none of the group knew anyone else's name.

A ball of light surrounded them and shrank in on itself until they all disappeared. That's when Brandon showed up (and died).

70.

In a past life Brandon had been a pirate swabbing the decks of Cap'n Skiteles' "Ye Hark Oh Andromeda." Never ascending to anything more than cabin boy, he lived off scraps of cabin bread spilled by his shipmates and dreamed of better shores. The deck was perpetually polished, and inevitably left in ruin. None noticed, none the much cared, excepting Brandon and the Captain. Of course he was named differently back then: Jimson of Locklewood. Most forgettable.

Though these floating men of yore made their living by way of piracy, it seemed that the shinning, for Brandon at least, brought purpose to life, as it was great oceans of time were filled with menial pursuits in the interest of staving off boredom and distracting from disease and disaster. Many a sailor indulged in pseudo magic and other superstitious vagaries in the hopes of protection, nonetheless storms and scurvy always claimed their fair toll, but the men would bare it well given the occasional raid and frequent drink.

Due to the skulduggery of a certain vile shipmate Ye Hark Oh Andromeda and her crew were overcome by a competing pirate initiative. Where the ravages of nature had failed the wiles of men had found success. On that night, Brandon died, of all the acts which he had indulged throughout his many lives this was the one in which he had achieved absolute mastery.

Brandon was dead again.

Wake up Brandon!

65.

Brandon heaved a great sigh of disappointment and collapsed on Westminster Boulevard. Melanie was gone and he was spent. The rescue mission thwarted by an absentee captive, his thoughts turned to more practical matters, defibrillators, open heart surgery and the like. Medical intervention was the preferable option now, but lying here in the middle of all these frogs he could feel himself slipping away. It would be an unfitting end he thought, his whole life gone and he hadn't even started living yet.

55.

Brandon had run, in total, three blocks away from Melanie, which for him was the equivalent of running the New York marathon. After the mini heart attack, retracing those blocks was like circumnavigating the world in 80 days, in an hot air balloon that was constantly running out of gas, Melanie was in for a long wait.

42.

Brandon entertained only a few ideas, he was mostly distracted by the thought of his impending death. His selfish quest had left Melanie stranded in an undignified position and possibly at the mercy of the incoming frogs. The frogs, the frogs, were they real or just a hallucination excited by the chemical imbalances of a dying brain? In a brief moment of insanity (this is what he told himself) he visualised surfing in on a wave of frogs taking Melanie up into his arms and doing unspeakable things to her. Before he got too excited there was still the small issue of his heart attack to consider. He had once taken a first aide course for CPR. What use was that type of knowledge if you couldn't use it to save yourself? The Answer to The Question didn't matter all that much right now. He wheezed, he choked, he stood up and he started stumbling back to Westminster Boulevard, the frogs edging ever closer as he went.

27.

ribit, ribit.

Brandon had almost certainly suffered a mild form of cardiac arrest. He was bent over on all fours. To complement his heart troubles his mind was suffering the indignity of trying to contain a multiplicity of errant thoughts all at once: Was he going die? Kill the flying man. Melanie stuck. Rubbish bin. Learn to fly and what was that stupid noise?

ribit

A green wall was moving toward him.

21.

Brandon had no real hope of catching the flying man of Westminster Boulevard. He'd all but stopped running five blocks ago. Nonetheless something continued to spur him on. Perhaps it was the inate male desire to save face. To do so he needed two things: a taxi and a heat-seeking rocket launcher. Brandon mentally scanned his iphone contact list trying to remember if he had any terrorists friends whom he could text. He patted himself down. No phone, no taxi in sight, his immediate revenge would have to wait until could think of a slightly more realistic alternative. For now he'd run, five years and fourty pounds ago that may have been a good idea, right now it's the best his mind could come up with, his body however had other plans.

11.

Brandon wasn't the only one who noticed this seemingly singular phenomena; The Moon, who had all but lost interest in the comings and goings of earth's passengers through wanton acts of self-absorption, long ago, paused for a moment. Not in movement, but in thought, he had seen flying stars, but never flying humans, not like this.

"Hello. You down there, with the fiery tale." The moon was a bright chap when he wanted to be and had mastered a number of languages being quite proficient in the use of English. What he failed to realise is that sound doesn't travel so well in a vacuum, still he persisted: "Hello, Mr. flying man!" No answer.

With all his might he willed every one of his neurons to fire, shaking off many millennia of mental inertia, pooling all his resources in an effort to reach out to the flying man. He needed to know how he was flying and wanted to know right now.

9.

When you accidentally squeeze your hot dog out of its bun, there's no going back from that. Sure you can try to apply the two second rule, but good luck with those sticky condiments, there's bound to be hair and all sorts of undesirables once you get to the thing. Best to just walk away, dig grudgingly into your pockets and buy another.

Simon wasn't a hot dog, neither was his house a bun, and there wasn't a ready replacement if you chose to give up on him and find another. There was only one Simon and right now he was flying like a rocket across the night sky.

Brandon had been walking two a breast with his blind date, Melanie. With their considerable dimensions they obtruded all on coming foot traffic, who were forced to drop on the road to get around. This made Brandon smile, tonight he wasn't moving for anyone, or so he thought until what looked like a shooting star came hurtling towards them. Melanie was left with her leg trapped in a public garbage bin and screaming about the worst date she'd ever been on. Brandon had always had a certain way with women, tonight he though things would be different. Who was that flying man with the rocket up his rectum? Brandon had to know.