Kalifornia by Marc Laidlaw

Author:Marc Laidlaw [Laidlaw, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Humor & Entertainment, Humor, Satire, Literature & Fiction, Humor & Satire, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Cyberpunk
Amazon: B01HRBEW3K
Publisher: Freestyle Press
Published: 2016-06-28T22:00:00+00:00

S01E07. Trauma in Tinsel-Town

The advantage of alcohol, however old-fashioned, over other drugs was its excellence for suppressing conscious awareness of the constant seethe of wire shows. With enough of it ingested, even the basic subconscious processes could be poisoned and sabotaged sufficiently so that no part of one’s anatomy remained attuned to the wires.

Sandy had not quite reached that point, or else he had passed it and was on his way back to bodily sentience. Whatever the cause, he found himself regaining consciousness in a muddle of Poppies. He grumbled and turned away from her faces wherever they appeared. He didn’t wish to be disturbed by any member of his family in his present state. But she kept pressing in: Poppy with the Newsbodies, Poppy in old clips with the family, Poppy in ever present and increasing danger, Poppy in . . . the hospital? He didn’t remember that episode: it must be a late development in “Poppy on the Run.” That stupid, tawdry show. If only he could shut it off, shut down the signals completely—shut the mouth that was thundering his name.

He woke, then, in the shallows of Thaxter Halfjest’s palatial carp pond. He could still hear ominous echoes of his name, following him from wasted sleep. He lifted his head from a pebbly shore and gazed across a shimmer of lily pads and colored aquatic lights to find Cornelius, shirtless, sitting up to his distinctly human nipples in the center of the pool. The sealman’s whiskers moved rhythmically as he sang a seal’s lullaby. A floating snifter bobbed beside him, anchored to a fountainhead; it was filled to the waterline with Drambuie.

Suddenly Cornelius’s hands plunged forward and engaged in a brief, silent struggle beneath the waters. An instant later he brought a fat blue-spotted koi into the air. Fish and sealman regarded one another with strikingly similar expressions: both pop-eyed and bewhiskered, both with gaping mouths. Cornelius bared his pin-sharp teeth, preparing to bite the carp in two.

“Corny, no!”

Startled, Cornelius dropped the koi. He blinked at Sandy, vaguely perturbed, and dragged a wet wrist across his mouth.

“We’re guests here,” Sandy said.

“It’s a great help with a hangover, sir.”

“Aw, Corny. Oh, Christ.” Sandy’s own hangover, in its inimitable way, made its presence known. If he’d thought biting a live carp would stop the pain, he might have considered it. He sank back down with a moan and stared up at the moss-bearded chandeliers. “How did I get here?”

“I carried you. I thought you would find fresh water refreshing.”

He sloshed some of the tepid stuff over his face and soaked clothes. “Did you hear someone calling my name or was that a dream?”

Cornelius gestured at a speaker above the pool. “I believe the Reverend Governor summoned you.”

“I wonder what he wants.” Sandy scratched his belly through his shirt. “Corny, when was the last time I slept in a bed?”

“Actually slept?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“As opposed to sharing a mattress or other, slightly padded surface for the purpose of sexual congress?”

“Jeez, now I know you were hatched in a tube.

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