"Listen," Bubbles the Lawyer said, "had you given any thought to the idea of just taking down the griefbots?"
Goody and Meth T shook their heads.
"That's a no, then, is it?" Bubbles asked. "So then, you were thinking of maximum profit?"
Goody and Meth looked at Bubbles.
"What I am getting at, was that there was no documented intention to deactivate the griefbots?"
"Bubbles," Goody said, "we have loans to pay back."
"That's interesting," Bubbles said. "Are these loans based on a business proposal?"
"Solid." Meth T said. He smiled.
"Private investments?"
Goody squirmed in his chair.
"Legally speaking, you cannot guarantee messages from specific people who have died."
"What are you talking about?" Meth T said. "We have absolute buena-fied data from their ghosts."
Bubbles looked out the window.
"You see," Goody said, "we have people who can talk directly with the ghosts, get the information and then we enter it into our data base and tchaka!"
Bubbles kept looking out his office window.
"Okay, there are these pills, see, and Buck swears that people can see ghosts when they take the pills."
Bubbles looked down at his desk. "Creative roleplay is not cause for concern."
"But this is The Deal, man!" Meth T said loudly.
"An AI simulation is possible."
"This is not some video game," Goody said, "this is the future."
"Gentlemen, it is not the future. At least not yet." Bubbles confirmed. "And besides, ghosts can be misleading. Even downright costly."
The PoA had already unplugged her mother's old television set. Because the screen flashed a grey fizzy picture when she walked in the living room, she bent down to check if the television set was still unplugged.
The plug lay loose on the floor. The PoA had a choice, either to watch the television set that was grabbing her attention while slightly terrifying her or back off and to go do something else, maybe less spooky.
Let's see now what else could the PoA do, here's a list of things the PoA usually did:
- Scroll through Instagram for inspirational thoughts for her flailing spiritual leader website
- Bake oatmeal cookies, bake quiche, whip up Colorado surprise (aka chilli)
- Think about getting another degree, consider costs then consider risk, get depressed
- Think about going out to the Designer Dump store, consider weight then consider costs, get depressed
- Think about going out to buy some gourmet coffee, consider weight then consider costs, get depressed
- Think "fuck it, the best choice would be going to bake cookies and scroll" and get super depressed after midnight.
But option number 7, watching whatever was on her mother's 1979 television set while slightly terrified and unable to eat, wouldn't make her gain weight. Plus it wouldn't jack up her electricity bill. It wasn't even plugged in. The screen flipped a few times, and then the PoA witnessed the following scene in black and white:
There was a man in a short sleeve shirt and shorts. He was standing outside. The man had a beard and was a square-ish in form. The voiceover started:
Ernest Hemingway had his Temptation while he was thinking about that huge, beautiful English Department building and why it was so white and perfect while the American Literature building was so small and dingy.
As you can see, Ernest is standing by the water fountain in Sprout Plaza, pondering. There is almost no one else on the plaza, but there is a Saint Bernard in the water.
(The camera cuts to a shot of a Saint Bernard in the fountain. The dog is peeing.)
The dog is happy to be standing in the water. (Close-up of dog panting.) It is a hot day in Berkeley.
(Suddenly the Saint Bernard becomes a shelf of the most beautiful editions of Shakespeare ever printed. The man turns and looks at the shelf.)
Ernest had never seen such a beautiful edition. It made Ernest think he was in heaven just to look at the shelf of books. All Ernest had to do was step into the fountain and pick up the Duo-Flex X-17 spear gun. (Tantalizing close-up of Duo-Flex X-17 spear gun.)
Ernest imagined himself stepping into the fountain. He notices that there is not just volumes of Shakespeare on the shelf, there are even more beautiful editions of authors whose names are completely unknown to him. These editions seem so strange to him. (Close-up of Ernest Hemingway's eyes.)
Look, Ernest, there are a pair of hipboots, just your size! You see folks, Ernest had only to step into the fountain and the hipboots would miraculously cover his legs and feet. Thinking that those books were written by the writers of the future, Ernest feels a spark of jealousy flit through his body.
But Ernest stood undecided by the fountain. (Long shot of Ernest standing by the fountain). Then bingo! The books changed into a huge slope of white snow. Ernest saw that he only had to step out onto the snow and a pair of skis would appear on his feet and he would be flying, flying through the air. (Shot of the blue sky.)
The PoA waited for more. The television set turned grey. What was that wierd retro short film about? The television flickered again. The PoA witnessed the following scene:
A crowd of curious students were gathered around a large cardboard box sitting in the middle of Sprout Plaza. The box was decorated with cowboys and Indians. Not far away a group of vetenarian students were resussitating a Saint Bernard.
"How could it be drowned and dehydrated at the same time?" one of the students asked.
Then the screen was filled with a card:
None of it made much sense to the PoA. Was she supposed to identify with the mystical Saint Bernard?
Emily was waiting by the bus stop. She had no money on her and she was still in 1973. Her motherly instinct took over just before the car slid through the portal. Emily had opened the car door and rolled out onto the pavement. Keith Kumasen Abbott and Candace rolled off into the future.
She just couldn't leave Emery in 1973. Emily didn't look bad for forty-eight but she wasn't a spring chicken. And, somehow, Emily was going to end up in a steamy shot but she didn't know that yet. She was just trying to get to Mendecino, where she knew she had some distant family. So, looking exactly like a tame middle aged Mormon mother in a beige sweater, Emily was heading to Mendecino to engage in a hot sex scene.
Emery, on the other hand, was back at Mr. InBetween's apartment. He was drunk, she was not. She was making pasta in the kitchen and asking Richard Brautigan where she could find her kind of people. He promised to introduce the girl in his kitchen to the most suitable lesbian group among his acquaintances. However, that wasn't saying that much. Richard also baptised her with a new name: Juniper Savant because he liked talking to her. Then the sun came up. Juniper looked out over San Francisco and thought she was going to be alright. She was also never going to order another Blue Hawaii. She now knew better.
Coming soon Chapter Thirty-Nine
#longmont #colorado #keithkumasenabbott #keithabbott #ghoststory #bubblesthelawyer #rhinoritz #snatchfuneralhome #
Copyright Persephone Abbott All rights reserved. No part of this blog/publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means. No automated text and data mining is permitted.
Comments
Post a Comment