Finkle, Out of Sorts - Chapter 3
“Hello?” Alan didn’t expect an answer - it was far too early for Sophie, his lodger, to be home. He always called out to check just the same. There were some days when he appreciated her inexhaustible perkiness. Today was not one of those days.
He let his bag fall from his hand, closed his eyes for a minute and let out a long, slow sigh. He walked wearily to his bedroom and continued his “post-shrink” ritual by changing into an old, grey pair of sweat-pants and an oversized football jersey.
“Why do I bother going to see that woman?” he asked himself. He’d been seeing Doctor Keller for six months or so and he always left feeling worse than when he went in. At least she never asked him about his mother. She just tried to get him to “open up”, whatever that meant. Another long sigh.
Alan grabbed a beer from the kitchen and drank it quickly while starting blankly at the fridge. He took his second bottle to the living room and slumped onto the leather couch. Picking up the remote from the sofa arm he flicked the television on and caught some reality TV judge proclaiming “I’ve heard more pleasant sounds coming from the master of a hunt blowing a bugle with his arse while a pack of hounds dismember a rabid fox.”
“Great,” he thought. “Talentless wannabes getting undeserved attention. Just what I need.”
Everything seemed to go into slow motion and Finkle felt as though he had been captured in one of the masterful works by renowned robotic galactic holographer, BR3550N: Ambassador K’larr’s three iridescent eyes stared unblinking down the firing chamber of the synapse disrupter, green energy coiled evilly around its tip; Commander Armstrong’s rugged face was set in grim determination with not a hint of fear betrayed by his unwavering gaze; Ensign Truong was poised like a Dakanian sand beast ready to strike its unwitting prey, taut muscles emphasised by her skin-tight uniform; Finkle’s outstretched hand hovered nervously over the Nav panel, a single bead of sweat seemingly frozen on his furrowed brow. For a brief moment, silence reigned.
The incongruous peace was suddenly shattered as Truong leapt explosively at the Artaxian Ambassador and attempted to wrestle her to the ground. The disrupter dislodged from the skeletal grasp and flew across the bridge, smashing one of the helm’s monitors and sending sparks cascading across the bridge.
“NOW FINKLE! NOW!” bellowed Commander Armstrong. Alan instinctively stabbed at the Nav panel sending the Jovian Cruiser’s pointed bow violently into the side of dread space pirate Jack Spade’s vessel, piercing its hull and causing the rent metal to scream like an Orion banshee.
The crew were thrown to the ground, except for Commander Armstrong who calmly retrieved the synapse disruptor. “Reverse thrusters and get us out of here – Spade won’t be troubling us for a while. I want status reports STAT!” He strode to where K’larr had now been successfully restrained by his weapons officer. “And I want to know how in the seven moons of Thorgon this bag of yellow bones managed to smuggle a weapon that has been outlawed in every galaxy for thirty thousand klicks onto my skraaxing ship!”
Finkle got to his knees and felt a stabbing pain in his gut as he tried to rise further. He clutched his stomach and looking down saw a pool of crimson spreading around his hand. “Oh…
…shit! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!” The partially drunk bottle of beer had slipped from Alan’s grasp and having soaked his jersey and pants was now dripping onto the sofa. He leapt up just as Sophie waltzed through the front door.
“Hey roomie! Had an accident?”
Alan smiled weakly. “Yeah.”
“I hear you can get special pants for that,” she giggled as she took a pair of bright pink sneakers from the rack by the door. “Anyways, can’t stop to chat. Just popped in to grab these. Catch ya later!” And the blur of lime green and pink that was Sophie dashed back out the front door leaving Alan alone again. He turned off the television and cleaned up in a silence which was only punctuated by his sighing, then dragged himself to his bed where he collapsed in a depressed heap and was soon asleep.
He seemed to be in an orchestra pit, surrounded by faceless performers playing musical chairs. Try as he might he could never find a free chair and he became more and more anxious as a thick mist began enveloping the area. He groped blindly. A tapping sound came from behind him. He turned. Slowly. A six-armed woman dressed in black stood in front of him. A conductor’s baton in each hand. Each arm rose in turn and pointed at him. “Really, Alan,” said his mother. “I expect better of you.”
