The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
Loop Your Arms Around
11-03-1998

I was some sort of agent. A bounty hunter or something. I chased some guy in a winter hat into a drive-in theatre. Looking around, I couldn't find him at all until I started looking into the cars. I climbed into the back seat of one of them, where a nice family was seated, and spotted him crouched in the leg-space of the passenger's side. I lunged over the seat and grabbed him by the head, dragging him out of the vehicle somehow, out the from passenger door or window. He had something, a knife I think, but for some reason I couldn't disarm it, like it was connected, in his right arm, and I ended up pinning his arms in a very unusual way to subdue him (somehow I was holding his arms way above his head).

On the way to the police station-like place, I realized that it was a very butch woman! That didn't stop me from turning her in. As I did so, some no-face colleagues commended me on my technique, that they didn't think I'd be able to find her, and that noone else could. The woman was freed into the inner sanctum of the jail-like place.

I ran after her. I don't remember why. As I began to turn a corner, I just knew that she hadn't run far, and that she was going to attack me the moment I came around. Indeed she did, so I was ready with a high block. I then, as I explained it to the afore-mentioned colleagues a few minutes later, "somehow grabbed hold of her head and...no, her wrists and ankles (one of each in each hand, so that she was doubled over backwards)...", picked her up, and bashed her on the counter, killing her instantly. She went limp. I dragged her over to my colleagues to show them, and they were impressed that I saw the attack coming. Then I discovered that someone had kidnapped my wife.

I traveled to a wintry place in a big city somewhere, and booked a room in a huge mall. I had some companions, but they were very faceless for the most part. I was on the trail of the kidnappers. I looked out the venetian blinds to the outdoors...there was a parking structure there, very skeletal...many places for a sniper to hideout. I got out MY sniper rifle and started playing with the laser sights. Somehow it wasn't aligned correctly. I took out the eyepiece and fiddled with it in my hands, trying to line up the ray with some hole, I dunno. As if on cue, I a saw a laser beam come through the window, trying to find me, but I ignored it and kept fiddling with my sight. When the beam hit me, I would move my head or something to keep it off.

I finally decided I was being stupid and dove down to the floor. When I looked out the window again, there was another hotel across the alley with blinds juts like mine, all open to that I could see through the building. Then they closed, and I noticed someone had been watching me. All my companions made it to the room...prolly discussed what we were gonna do, I'm not sure. I went down to the mall area. It was a huge megamall, larger than the Mall of America, with an endless ceiling. I stuck to one small grid on the ground floor. Yet, it didn't feel like a mall, because the hallways were designed like streets, and the stores were made of stone, and it was dark, with lamps, just like a real street would be.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of old scrubs from GB that I don't even remember the names of anymore. About 5 of them. I kind of smirked at them as I walked by. One of them recognized me and remarked at the amazing coincidence that we were all here. Then I looked around and saw some other familiar faces. Out of nowhere, Brett B came out of the crowd, connected to the back of some other guy (wrestling or something), with a gun in his right hand, pointed at me. I tried to grab it and move it or disarm it, but the way his arm was locked in the other guy's, I couldn't. Turns out he was just messin' around anyway.

I had all my winter gear on, and I was REALLY hot. So did everyone else. I crossed the street/hallway and saw Kevin B and Brent R, sitting on a couch in front of a store. I told them I was JUST thinking of them, and took a seat. Then Warren H came out of the store, and again we all marveled, and I thought I wanted to cry for not seeing him and all my old ChemE buddies in so long. Glancing over, I saw Mike M. GB people were everywhere.

It started to rain (yes, in the mall), so I made back for my room, getting a little wet. Some little kid passed me, soaking wet, and said "that's what I hate about the 3rd level." As I opened the door to my room, there was a huge explosion. I gathered myself and barged in. Everything was in shambles, and everyone was dead. The chick of the group was lying crooked across a mattress, eyes and mouth open, holding a a long sharp object that I couldn't identify. For some reason it looked like a good enough weapon to me, so I broke it off and careened out the door, hot on the trail (I imagined) of the culprit. I jumped over 3 or 4 railings as I went down the stairs with no regard for my personal safety, but I never saw anyone.

When I got back to the room, the chick was gone, and I knew it was her all along. I moped about, unsure of what to do next, and ran into more people I supposedly knew in some kind of women's merchandise store. I was just hanging out when I overheard one of my karate instructors say, "My aunt called me, and she said we could have sex in a shopping cart. You ever done that? What, never? You and your mom never did that? I used to do it with my mom all the time. See, you get in the cart, and you loop your arms around like this..." I thought that was pretty weird, but figured that a near-middle-aged man out of a 15 year-long relationship had to get it somehow. I walked over to the fragrance section.

Next thing I knew, I was staying at a nice resort, hosted by the kidnappers, who were going to release my wife if I could beat their boss at a game of blackjack on the blackjack game show. I was talking to my daughter, who seemed about 3 years old but sure didn't talk like it, and who wasn't even very cute. I explained that mommy wasn't dead, that I would get her back in a couple of hours, and we could all go home. She had quite an inquisitive little face. I thought how this made such a great sequel (3rd in the series, actually) to TOTAL RECALL. I sat down in a lawn chair to prepare for the game, next to two old men, my opponents, and my partner. Up above, people prepared the game, and I had a vision of some guy rigging the cards for me to lose instantly, but then of an agent of MINE rigging them back.

After a bizarre scene where I was in a movie theatre where everyone had a big refrigerator with them, the doors blocking my view and almost tipping over cuz the theatre is built on a slant...I was in the room where my wife was being kept by, unfortunately, a very hot chick with a very nice ass. She was strapped to the ceiling (my wife), with a laser sight on her waist, just how it had been with my mom (?!?). I was armed with a dart...


posted by Phlegm at 11/24/2003