Happy Snak (2010) by Kimberling Nicole

Author:Kimberling, Nicole [Nicole, Kimberling,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2011-01-14T19:12:41.546000+00:00

Chapter Fifteen: New Product Line

Gaia neither looked nor felt her best the next morning, which began with a second, milliseconds-long gravity failure that nonetheless triggered the requisite flashing lights and alarms.

Not exactly the first sound a woman nursing a hangover likes to hear.

But she rallied. She showered, ate some dry toast and went to the dining room, where she discovered Wave signing for the delivery of the remote kiosk.

It came in seventeen boxes. The words some assembly required didn't begin to describe the situation. The kiosk was like a three-dimensional yellow plastic puzzle.

While Gaia perused the instructional pamphlet, Wave lay on the floor with an arm flung over its muzzle, still stained orange from the previous night. Roy arrived and started spraying antiseptic on the dining room tables. Because Happy Snak wouldn't open for another forty-five minutes, Gaia decided to take a run at partially assembling the kiosk. She fitted the plastic-frame tubing together with shaky hands, feeling like she was doing a good job considering the viciousness of her headache.

Slowly the pain and violent nausea were receding, but she still felt like she might die before they completely faded. Gaia had progressed into the silent-prayer-and-bargaining phase of being hungover.

All she could think was: Please, please, let me stop feeling this way. If this just stops, I'll never drink again.

Not that Gaia believed in a higher power, she was just following the basic human instinct to mutely beg for relief.

She didn't even know why she was bothering to assemble the awning section of her new Xiao Enterprises concession kiosk. It wasn't going to rain--ever. But somehow the hot dog stand looked bad without the awning. Besides it had the Happy Snak jester logo silk-screened onto its blue and yellow striped vinyl.

As she worked and drank cola, time worked its magic. At last, Gaia was able to engage a cheeseburger.

Attracted by the falling crumbs, a cleaner slid slowly up to her. The cleaners, which had started off as baseball-sized snails, were growing quickly. Now each was easily the size of Gaia's thigh. They devoured a wide variety of molds, mushrooms and black scum which collected around the edges of refrigerator drawers. According to Wave they were supposed to grow to be about the size of Gaia's torso, and strictly feed off refuse. Some human objects confused them. Anything with a battery, for example, had to be locked up. Cleaners were inexplicably attracted to batteries. Gaia also kept the cleaners out of her room, but Wave even let them curl up, like lapdogs on its sponge nest.

Safe in the sphere of his hamster globe, Microbe deftly avoided the cleaner's long, probing antennae, rolled up to Gaia's foot and rammed it. Microbe loved his hamster globe. She knew this because when it was time to come out of the globe, Microbe would roll madly away from her and hide under the refrigerator.

"Hey, Microbe," Gaia said in her sweetest, lowest voice.

"Hey, Microbe." A sweet, low impersonation of her voice rolled out of Wave's mouth. Gaia glanced behind her.

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