SHIP'S LOG:

Minecraft is the best

Roberto Shelton 10/2/2022 11:35pm

Climbing into the Minecraft is the Best seemed like a good idea. Let's face it: I was marooned at Goggles Desert Coffee Shack Aerodrome and Emporium and looking for a way to any of the towns that hadn't received their Reality Generators, and here was somebody who seemed to know all about it.

And she knew Mr. Berrybaum, and she left me alone with her ship.

I sat up against the bulkhead in the cargo hold, looking through the hatch.

But what if it was all some kind of ploy?

"You're probably thinking this is all some kind of ploy, right?" Puppy Grande said slugging bags of coffee beans on the deck of the cargo hold.

"Er, yes?"

"It's been the case in a supermajority of the reality shards. Don't sweat it."

I was sweating.

"Let's start by getting you a bunk and a proper night's sleep," she said.

Roberto Shelton 7/20/2022 11:55pm

I tied the rope off on an old mesquite stump. It's just what you do when somebody in a blimp drops a rope and asks you to. Even if it's an invisible blimp.

"Thanks!" called the voice from inside the hatch. "There isn't really much of a breeze, so that should do it."

I couldn't get a good look at them through of the glare of light from inside the hatch. But then they dropped a rope ladder and climbed down.

"Puppy Grande," she said. "And you're Roberto Shelton."

Puppy had on a classic leather bomber jacket, and goggles pushed up to keep her bushy hair out of her face.

"I... don't believe we've met?" I said. Because I would have remembered.

"You're having trouble remembering. On account of the reality generators. Breaking down. No spare parts. Remember?"

Something about all this seemed so... familiar...

"Aw, heck," Puppy said. "You just climb up into the Minecraft and I'll be back in a minute. I need some coffee beans for the road, and Berrybaum's holding a couple big sacks for me."

Roberto Shelton 4/21/2022 11:41pm

"Don't stray too far!" called Mr. Berrybaum. "If you get lost, just look up!" he cackled.

After a whole day slinging coffee drinks in the tiny shack at the top of the tower, I needed to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. Mr. Berrybaum was kind enough to include room and board with my employment -- all the biscotti I could eat, and was welcome to roll out my sleeping bag next to him on the floor of the shack.

But I needed a walk.

And what I really needed was a way out of this tiny truckstop in the middle of the desert -- the Goggles Desert Coffee Shack Aerodrome and Emporium. But negotiating rides with customers while I was working didn't seem appropriate, and after we closed there was no one around. Nothing but cactus and a sky full of more stars than I'd ever seen in my life.

"Pssst! Hey! Hey you!" a voice sounded out of the darkness. From up in the air.

"Think you can give me a hand? Tie us down somewhere? Here! Watch it!"

A great coil of rope fell from the air and hit me in the head. The other end of the rope was coming out of what looked like an open window of light floating in the sky. And there was someone inside.

Roberto Shelton 2/13/2022 9:45pm

"Kid, I like your style."

The tips had gone through the roof since I started my shift. Mr. Berrybaum hired me the moment I knocked on the hatch of the tiny coffee stand, which was the moment just after climbing the enormous ladder all the way up to it.

"It's hard to attract good help way out here in the middle of the desert," he said. "You're a real lifesaver."

Mr. Berrybaum had been running the Goggles Desert Coffee Shack Aerodrome and Emporium by himself for some time, but he wasn't the barista most of the pilots were expecting. From their limited signage, the Goggles Desert Coffee Shack Aerodrome and Emporium brand was definitely implying a somewhat more attractive type of barista than Mr. Berrybaum, who was, frankly, rather slovenly.

"Would you mind if I loosened this corset? Just a little?" I asked.

"Hmmm. It might be just the thing to push those tips into the stratosphere! Go for it, kid! Just don't spill the lattes!"

Roberto Shelton 12/21/2021 11:01pm

After the entire day passing without a single acknowledgment by any customers in line at the Goggles Desert Coffee Shack Aerodrome and Emporium, I realized I'd need to change my tack.

-----

WANTED: BARISTA

* COFFEE MAKING EXPERIENCE PREFERRED
* MUST LOOK GOOD IN STEAMPUNK REGALIA

-INQUIRE WITHIN-

-----

Well, I guess I didn't see any other options...

Roberto Shelton 10/30/2021 11:58pm

I thanked Clive for the lift and exited his classic 1986 Winneblimpo via the rope ladder. The ground was dusty, and nothing but desert as far as the eye could see.

The coffee shack was high atop its tower, and already had quite a line. Likely because it was the only coffee shack for miles, but it was also called "Goggles" with the logo drawn in such a way that it implied the baristas would be wearing steampunk corsets and bustiers. But I wasn't here for the coffee.

"Faulkton?" I hollered up to the airships waiting in the queue high above me.

"Henderson? Wuppertal? Miyazaki?" I wasn't sure they could hear me up there.

"Lyubertsy? Aastaurmond? Anybody headed my way?"

The airships idled in the rising heat of the day, ready to get their coffees and some titillation before heading on their ways.

"Chauxhall? Pastoria City anybody?"

There had to be a better way to do this.

Clive Gimlet 9/13/2021 10:29pm

That Gingles. Boy did we have some times together. That's the end of that tape though. As you can see, I don't really have them ordered chronologically, piled up here in the back of the bridge as they are.

Anyway, sun's coming up, and my parking permit expires before the Walmart opens. There's a coffee shack down the road a bit that's open early, and they've got a tower for serving airships. Are you headed in any particular direction? Southwest, maybe?

Clive Gimlet 7/31/2021 11:55pm

"PULL IT! PULL IT NOW!!!"

Gingles moved his six astoundingly long arms across the control board. Sparks were flying and the ship was buckling from the battering the ship was taking. Octahedrals, icosahedrons, bipyramidals, all the vespers in the giant containment hold had been polarized and set to crush us in their formidable bonds.

Gingles yanked down the big switch we'd rigged up, and the room began to glow.

It was a last ditch maneuver, a real hail mary, and an unthinkable act for any PUG hauler. But after what Gingles had told me about what was at stake, I had to join him on his mission.

"~*-.,_,.-*~'^'*-," hollered Gingles. Which meant something like "Yeah well we're in it now."

And then, through Gingles' science and more luck than I care to credit it, it was done. The cascade effect and the GYM reversal had transformed everything just as Gingles had predicted. We'd absorbed the vespers -- all of them in the poacher's vast underground storage facility. And in the process we had made a dimensional leap, taken form in a land that's size and fundamental structure was so exponentially larger our former universe that it was beyond conceivable.

"°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.·" whistled Gingles.

It was true. Everything did look bigger.

Clive Gimlet 6/14/2021 11:49pm

Zip! Crrrrk Hissssssssssssss

Brandon: What the hell's going on here? I switched those D.N.A. samples. I know I did. This is crazy. I need some answers.

Sami: More coffee?

Austin: What I want is an explanation.

Sami: I'm going to have another cup.

Austin: I tell you that I want to move the relationship forward, and you tell me that I have it all wrong.

Sami: Thinking of giving the old "playing hard to get" thing a whirl, grandma. Let's hope it works. Look, when I first got Will back, I thought that we were going to be together right away. I thought you'd be as anxious as I was to make a commitment to each other, but here you are, still saying that you want to take things slow, one step at a time, get to know each other again, yada, yada, yada.

Austin: So you're really angry with me, huh?

Sami: No. Actually, Austin, I think that you have the right idea.

Oh! Sorry. I transferred these old logs over the same VHS tapes I'd used to record Days of Our Lives, but sometimes there's patches where the old tape shows through. I can fast forward if you want. This is a really good episode though. No? Ok, no problem. I'll just zip forward a little...

Clive Gimlet 5/2/2021 10:39pm

It was like a big black roomba in the sky. Enormous. It could have probably fit 100 ships our size inside of it, and easily suck three of us abreast through its gigantic intake valves.

Yet there it was, floating in the sky, hoovering up tetras and octas and it must have found a nest of pentagonal bipyramidals. There were even a few tricapped trigonals caught in its intake.

The last of the purple skies were fading.

"Time to head back to the ranch, my little honies." It's an old ball hauler's habit to speak to the merchandise.

But I couldn't turn it around. I'd made note of the added mass and momentum, so it wasn't that. Could the vacuum currents from that thing be effecting us even at this distance? Or was that machine somehow attracting my haul, with its own kind of static electricity?

If it had occurred to me, I would have jettisoned my load and made a break for it. But I just wasn't that quick on the draw.