SHIP'S LOG:

The Celestial Voyager

Yolando Hussey 11/27/2022 10:19pm

Nothing but sage brush and prairie, as far as the eye can see. Nothing but the clip clop of the horses and the tinkling of the crystals to keep me company. 

“YOLANDO! STOP THE HORSES! NOW!”

And one cranky old buzzard. 

Sigh. ”What is it, Yolanda?”

“STOP THE DAMN HORSES! I caught something on the crystal but it’s real faint. Get your ass in here!”

I bring the horses to a halt and lock the wheels, then climb back into the wagon. It’s like being in the middle of a chandelier. Little blue crystals dangling off little wires everywhere, including off Yolanda. She’s taken to hanging them from her hair and ears and even got her nose pierced so she could hang a couple there too. 

“Now shush” she says. 

Then, real faint like, there’s a whisper starts to whisp around the crystals. 

"zzzzz...crkkkkk....zzzzzz ...THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA....zzzzz....crkkkkk... currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power... REPEAT.... zzzzz.... crkkkkk...zzzz"

"The seein' ball's starting to light up too," she says. "You heard em! We gotta go find 'em! Whattaya doing lollygaggin around back here for? Get those horses movin!"

Penny Salazar 9/5/2022 9:30pm

"Aw gee mom, thanks. You really didn't have to."

I know my kids have too many talking toys. Talking Tina, Bearlu the Conversational Bear, Madman Orin, Repetitive Rick. We have multiples of each of those and more. I go to a lot of thrift stores.

"But this one is new!" I exclaim. "We don't have any like it. It's some kind of turtle, but when you squeeze its toe..."

"zzzzz...crkkkkk....zzzzzz ...THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA....zzzzz....crkkkkk... currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power... REPEAT.... zzzzz.... crkkkkk...zzzz"

"Aw mom, it's just another one with the battery going dead. They always say weird stuff when their power gets low."

Not this time. This time is different. I can feel it.

Cal MacCallum 6/25/2022 11:51pm

The buzz was coming through the giant conch shell reserved for emergencies.

"zzzzz...crkkkkk....zzzzzz ...THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA....zzzzz....crkkkkk... currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power... REPEAT.... zzzzz.... crkkkkk...zzzz"

I'd come to this isolated beach so long ago precisely to forget about such things. To be a hero to the creatures of the sea was enough. Freeing the occasional dolphin from a fishing net, or cleaning tar off a gull. The deck of my trophy room looks out at the great dark sea and the moon above, washing the eye of the land. Here come the waves indeed.

I will need to prepare the reverse submersible.

Nigella Freewater 3/28/2022 9:47pm

"This is the transmission I received on the ghost box."

I flip on the reel to reel.

"zzzzz...crkkkkk....zzzzzz ...THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA....zzzzz....crkkkkk... currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power... REPEAT.... zzzzz.... crkkkkk...zzzz"

I let it repeat a few times, then fast forward the tape to 000014.

"On an adjacent subchannel, there was a burst of digitally encoded information, which I was also able to capture. It sounds like this:"

"CHEEEEENGGG! BEEP BOOP BOOP BEEP BEEP BOOP BEEP CHEEEEEENG"

"Which, when run through the modem, translates into data describing an ever shifting coordinate point. It's moving at a steady rate and in a steady direction. Which means we can predict where it will be."

"AND THIS CONCERNS ME.... HOW?" asks the man in the turban.

"This transmission doesn't originate from this world," I reply. "And the coordinates indicate a point... in the beyond."

Milton Flornik 1/20/2022 10:36pm

There's a little tug on my line. Ripples in the water.

"Hey! I got a nibble. You got anything?"

"Nope," says Dej.

We float there for a bit. No more nibbles.

"How would you feel about changing the radio station?" asks Dej. "I've had about all I can take of this of this Kreutzu Bash."

"I thought you liked Kreutzu Bash."

"In small doses I can. But I can't take it no more. Probably scaring away the Frimjabs and the Sweet Burkes. And the subsonics are bound to call up a Urgh Monster from the bottom and swallow us whole."

"If you are so concerned, then yes, sure, go ahead and change the channel."

zzzzz...crkkkkk....zzzzzz ...THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA....zzzzz....crkkkkk... currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power... REPEAT.... zzzzz.... crkkkkk...zzzz

"Well that sounds like a distress call, now don't it?"

"Sure does. Metadata says it's a bit of a ways off. Quite a bit of a ways off," said Dej.

"Doesn't matter," I said. "We are obligated to respond. Old rule."

"Milton, you don't quite get it. I mean it's---"

"DOESN'T MATTER. I took an oath. C'mon. Start rowing!"

And as soon as we dipped our oars in is when we got capsized by the Urgh Monster.

Mae Harrington 11/27/2021 8:01pm

Captain Harrington here of the multi-purpose cargo vessel Madness Seeks out a Lover, putting out a distress call to any ships in the area. REPEAT, THIS IS THE MPV MADNESS SEEKS OUT A LOVER, PUTTING OUT A DISTRESS CALL TO ANY SHIPS IN THE AREA.

We are currently adrift, following an engagement with a swarm of sentient squalls. Both engines lost. Altitude Attitude is healthy, generators are working, and we can steer a bit, but we are currently on the glide REPEAT ON THE GLIDE with no engine power.

Current location coordinates updated in real time piggybacked to this transmission on the EM band.

Repeat. Captain Harrington here of the multi-purpose cargo vessel Madness Seeks out a Lover....

Rowan Allin 10/6/2021 8:44am

Ah, the stupid log is all messed up! Olli wrote our names on each page… wrong, of course. I do apologize, it will be all messed up for a while.

Rowan Allin 10/6/2021 8:42am

These people are driving me off the walls! I may be captain, but sometimes I just need a break… everyone else gets vacations, I can’t. It’s how it is, and how it will be, but it’s not fair. Oh well, I love my crew, even if we’re a mess. Till next time, Z