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Spatuloso

9/20/2026 9:08pm

Having a Bindy Binder Man in your head sure didn't seem like fun.

"You just haven't gotten to know me yet," said the Bindy Binder Man. "We're gonna be best friends! Number one buddies!"

"What happened to your last buddy?" I asked. I regretted it immediately. What if something terrible had happened? Was this Bindy Binder man in grief? In shock?"

"Aw well, we always lose a few Bluefins in a fracas. Even when there isn't any opposition. Friendly fire, running into radio towers. The blinders can't see everything! Ha ha get it? You probably heard that one already. But that reminds me, I see on my little bindy screens here you musta lost your blinders? Knocked loose in a fracas?"

"Uh, well, doctor says I need to keep them off for a bit. Till I, uh, heal up."

"Well that's the silliest thing I ever heard," said the Bindy Binder Man. "Everybody knows it's not safe for a Bluefin to run around without any blinders on. What if you go CRAAAAAZY?"

"The doctor said I gotta keep them off till I hear back," I lied.

"Well we'll just have to see about that. Imma gonna call the doctor right now!"

Oh no.

Spatuloso

9/23/2025 9:13pm

"Wow! Your Bindy Binder Man never even moved in! Everything's covered in PLAAASTIC!"

I really did not like this Binder Man in my repair hole. I listed from side to side trying to shake him free.

"Whoa there big guy! You're supposed to give a little warning before you do that! Give the Binder Man a chance to strap in!"

Is this really something ALL the Bluefins had inside them?

"Well, yeah, of course!"

He could hear what I was thinking?

"Well I *am* inside your head! But time's a wastin! Let's giddy up!"

Spatuloso

10/11/2024 11:21pm

"Hey there big blue buddy! Looks like we could help each other out! I've lost my Bluefin, and looks like you've lost your blinders."

The tiny person in the ruins was talking to me. I drifted closer.

"I'm a Bindy Binder man. Let jump up your repair hole and I'll have you fixed up in no time. Haven't you got a Bindy Man? Did you lose him in the fracas?"

I don't think I've ever had a Bindy Man. 

"Every Bluefin's got a Bindy Man inside him. Or her. Let me up your repair hole and I'll check him out. Maybe he got knocked silly in the fracas." 

I'd have known if I'd ever had a Bindy Man
 
"Don't be so sure. We're mighty tiny! That little voice in your head? That's us! Just let me have a look in that repair hole."

Uh, no. I'm really not comfortable with that. Hey! What are you doing? 

"Bindy man goes UP!"

And that little Bindy Man scrambled right up into my repair hole.

Hey get out of there!

Spatuloso

11/1/2023 11:56pm

"Who's there?" I called. "Show yourself!"

The ruins of the town were still smoldering. Wisps of smoke drifted in the noonday sun.

"I AM showing myself!" the tiny voice called back. Over here!"

My eyes adjusted and I saw a tiny person no bigger than the head of a shovel, standing next to a bucket, dressed in a tiny uniform and throwing handfuls of sand into the air.

Spatuloso

1/5/2023 10:59pm

Bluefins are designed for high speed travel, and it only took me a few days of endless sagebrush to pick up the trail of the Confusion fleet.

@Soap Lotus had removed my both my blinders, and I'd forgotten what it was like to see without them. Bluefins had always considered the blinders key to their cohesion and perfect efficiency, and it wasn't our job to see the big picture.

But now I could see the big picture again, and it wasn't pretty. The Confusion fleet (and its remaining civilian support armada) had left a trail of empty food wrappers, cardboard packaging, plastic wrapping, and occasional damaged equipment parts, strewn over a wide swath of desert and broken cacti.

Within a few days more was the wreckage of a small town, burned to the ground. Totally deserted.

"Hey! Big guy!" piped a little voice from the ruins. "Give a little guy a lift?"

Spatuloso

5/5/2022 11:05pm

The open prairie gives a blimp room to think. That's what @Lasso Pout says and it's true.

We've been heading for Paradise -- that's the name of the city where @Carolinaeuphrosyne's time capsule needs to go. And there's been nothing but sage brush and mesas as we've made our way towards it.

Sometimes I look back the way we came and think of the Bluefins. A virtually indestructible airborne intelligent fighting force. The most powerful the world has ever seen. So many good blimps led astray. They were dangerous, sure, but they weren't the brains of the scheme. We were meant to be the most dangerous tool ever created, but we were still just a tool -- in this case, a tool sold to the highest bidder.

The Confusion.

That was the source of the trouble. Carolinaeuphrosyne told us herself -- that name was one of the few remaining clues left in the wake of the destruction they wrought.

But history isn't written yet. Not like it is from Carolinaeuphrosyne's point of view. And I was realizing the size of the score I had to settle.

I slipped off behind a mesa and let the rest of the group get a ways ahead before I started doubling back.

Spatuloso

2/10/2021 10:57pm

My repairs on little @Lasso Pout were effective. @Soap Lotus was right -- field patching skills were definitely a part of my training, and I learned them as well as the martial skills we were taught. But I still feel like I'm waking from some kind of dream, or amnesia, or cult programming. The things I did... but @Soap Lotus says that's all behind me now, and to just take things one day at a time.

We've all been recuperating around the little camp that Carolinaeuphrosyne and her team set up. The rest of the cowboys have been out gathering the herd, leaving us with a lot of cozy nights around the campfire, taking it easy, and healing. A lot of catching up for three lost brothers.

One night, under that big vault of stars and the sounds of the prairie night all around, there was a lull in the conversation, and all eyes turned to Carolinaeuphrosyne.

"And what about you, little missy?" @Soap Lotus asked.

Carolinaeuphrosyne looked nervous, then determined.

"I guess it's time to tell you all we know about the Confusion," she said.

Spatuloso

9/27/2020 10:48pm

i don't know where i am

"Hey big brother! Long time no see! My, you've gotten bigger than the corn in August!"

voices from the nursery

"Aw, you done look rolled hard and put away wet."

i... i'm crying

"Now you got some kinda thing lodged up near your eye sockets. I got an extender here and we're gonna take care of that right now.."

KAPOW! Gunpowder and casings fill the air and throw me back. Something must have triggered my close-quarters auto-defense system.

"Oh, hey now big guy... you... you just... take it.... easy...."

It's @Lasso Pout, my little brother. With a hole blown in his side. In the middle of some god forsaken desert.

Spatuloso

5/26/2020 10:47pm

"Bluefin #98877295-14, hard to larboard, repeat, hard to larboard, full power. Over"

Executing maneuver. Over.

"Bluefin #98877295-14, wait! Hold that order. Starboard! Hard to starboard! Over! Do you--"

Execu--- CRUNCH

"Ah, Bluefin #98877295-14, sorry about that. The lead peepers are offline with all this dust."

Commander. My larboard blinder got crunched. Banged up against Bluefin #98877295-19's tail. The blinder was completely destroyed. I've got full visibility now on the larboard side. It's kind of disorienting.

"Roger that, Bluefin #98877295-14. Proceed to the rear of the pack. Looks like they could use some cleanup. Hostiles at 7 mark 438. Eliminate the threat and follow up with Doctor Blimp in the civilian armada. Over."

The civilian armada. The kids' table. But I can't really perform with my blinders off. Commander knows best.

I drop back from the pack and swing around to 7 mark 438. I get the mercury missiles online and prepare to launch.

Accidentally I open my left eye. These hostiles don't look like much. Just one plump little ramshackle terrorist. Looks more like a food truck than threat. Looks oddly familiar, actually.

But commander knows best.

I lock in the coordinates. And accidentally take one more look.

Is it an accident? It's completely against my training. But my blinder's gone. We never practiced with blinders off.

So I look. The little scrapper's heading right towards me. It looks like some kind of dress-up cowboy from an old movie. Makes me think of the old cowboy lullabies that Uncle Elvin used to sing us back in the nursery.

Commencing firing procedure. Safety off.

Just like the old cowboy lullabies. But.. it can't... it's not...

"@Lasso Pout to, to... whoever you think you are. Stop scaring our cattle! Somebody's going to get hurt!"

Spatuloso

2/5/2020 11:38pm

There's nothing like heading out in a squadron of bluefins, all tuned up and raring to go. It's like we're all of the same mind, moving as one without a single word between us. Of course we're not allowed to talk. I'm not even sure how many of us there are -- the blinders make it so I can only look directly ahead, which in this case means right up the tail fins of the ship ahead of me. Not like we even need to see. Each of us is a perfect order-execution machine, and the technology we've been fitted with is unlike any blimps before us.

The wind in our faces, our metal bones strong and struck like tuning forks. I feel like the perfect tool, the most exquisitely designed weapon ever created by man or blimp. And I owe it all to the Confusion.