Earlier in the morning, a putrid-smelling sun greeted Prudence and me when we boarded the airship “Pirate’s Lace.”
“The Outer Rim is no place for you!” the airship’s goodly captain informed me.
“My good lady,” I responded. “Don’t concern yourself.”
And now with the airship at some height above the thick-forested Earth below us and a churning ominous sky (a.k.a. Outer Rim) to the West, I concede that the captain is indeed correct in her summation viz. my predicament.
Prudence, in full regalia, approaches. “Have you seen my Time Belt?”
I laugh. “No, dearest Prudence. In any event, we have no need for such distractions.”
“You are a surprising man,” she muses.
I smile. “Especially in bed, IMHO.”
***
As we approach the ancient towering stone wall and thick underbrush that is the Outer Rim, I hear a sudden commotion and manic raised voices emanating from the “Pirate’s Lace” airship’s boiler compartment.
The stout engineer careens forth through the bulkhead door from low deck. “The boiler! Pressure is too great! We’ve got to shut down the props!”
On the gondola’s flight deck, our faithful captain turns to the engineer and pauses for a brief instant. She shifts her gaze to me. “Shut ‘em down.”
And with that, the rhythmical pseudo-erotic ‘thump thump’ of the dual backward-facing propellers fades to silence. And, but for the soft wind that caresses the smooth curved canvas surface of the sausage-shaped envelope and blows over the gondola’s inhabitants, viz. “us,” all is quiet. For the first time, I am at peace.
Prudence moves up to the railing and stands next to me as I look out past the Outer Rim and gaze upon the redness of the rising sun. The shadows are long; summer will soon be behind me. Prudence draws close, her mouth near my ear (the good one) and, with a sweet-smelling whisper, she says, “We can’t afford a delay.” She nods once towards the now-stationary propellers. “If we don’t make the rendezvous point…”
“Yes, yes,” I say. “I’m well aware of that.”
Her response is flat. “Are you?”
“Look, have you found your Time Belt…” I begin to respond, but the captain interrupts me.
Her black leather jumpsuit shimmering with each cat-like motion, the captain moves between Prudence and me, and pushes her goggles up to rest on the top of her head. “Don’t worry. It’s a minor delay.”
I smile and look past her to Prudence. “Thank you, captain. I’m fully in your capable hands.”
“Careful you don’t get caught up in those lines,” the captain says to me.
“Don’t want me hanged?”
“No,” the captain says. She lets the sentence hang to the third trimester of the pregnant pause. Finally, she casts me a rueful look. “I want you hung.”
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