Cracker

Written 56-A04 [2024-07-24], Edited 56-A04 [2024-07-24]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

Part 1: Cracker

Geoffrey opened the packet and said, “Care for a cracker?”

“Thanks,” I said. I looked at the packed and realized I didn’t recognize the brand, or indeed the writing system. That was a common state of affairs at the breakroom of Supernatural Technology Incorporated.

It was a week since the interview and I had never again seen the eternally-smiling Benjamin, although I received a Teams message from him every five seconds. I don’t know how I even got the job after flubbing so many questions.

Geoffrey pulled out a cracker and split it. SNAP! He placed one half into his mouth without chewing it. “We got a job for you. It’s down south,” he said.

“By Lakeshore? Niagara?” I asked.

“Think again,” he said. He split his cracker again. SNAP! It had somehow regenerated when I wasn’t looking. He handed me three bags and led me to the south door of the breakroom.

“Is it an internal job?” I asked, but as Geoffrey opened the door, a gust of freezing wind blew all over my body. After some snowflakes hit my face, I opened my eyes and saw a vast tundra.

“Say hi to Tux the penguin for me!” said Geoffrey, as he pushed me through the door and closed it behind me.

Part 2: Soul

I turned back and tried to get back to the office break room, to get an explanation from Geoffrey. This has to be some kind of safety violation, I thought. But the door I entered had exited this reality.

I was alone in a tundra with a couple of bags. The biting cold stabbed my body like daggers. What was I supposed to do?

Curl into a ball and die, I thought, and that was really my first thought. But I tore open the bags, maybe there was something in them to assist me. SOme gloves, a coat, maybe a satellite phone? My last meal before I was a lost soul, perhaps?

But instead of any of that, the first thing I pulled out was a box labelled

DEVILCOIN MINER: PRODUCT OF GEHENNOM

Part 3: Thought

I had a hard time thinking although I had little else to do.

I was in a Boeing 777 above the northern Atlantic. My phone was dead. There was an in-flight entertainment system but I wasn’t in the mood for staring at the airline’s puny excuse for a screen. That’s what everyon else was doing, those who were awake anyway.

I opened the window. Clouds, clouds and more clouds. They were magisterial. They were as large as skyscrapers and floated effortlessly. Even though this aircraft was travelling hundreds of kilometers an hour, you wouldn’t guess it from watching the clouds leisurely pass by - unless you understood that these were less like floating trees and more like floating mountains.

But something above the clouds caught my eye. Another plane? I thought. But it had no contrail. And no, I did not mean “chemtrail”.

It wasn’t a cloud and this would be an absurd altitude for a bird. Absurd color too. It reflected the sunlight like a glistening rock on a riverbank. It seemed to be gliding towards our plane.

“Hey, close the window shade,” said a flight attendant. “Some people are trying to sleep.”

Part 4: Gazelle

“Excuse me, sorry about the window shade,” I said. “But there seems to be an unidentified flying object over there.” I pointed at the strange shiny object in the sky, but the attendant shook her head.

“That flying object is totally identified, actually,” she said.

“Really?” I said. “What, are you going to give me some spiel about how it’s actually a balloon or -”

Suddenly I was interrupted by an announcement.

“Hello this is your captain speaking,” said the system. “It appears we have entered a region of airspace with an unnatural lack of turbulence. Nothing to be alarmed about, we are just going to have a short visit from the sentient gazelles of Pelias Delta. Our scheduled arrivbal time will be delayed by about thirty minutes.”

I heard a couple of people groan as the system continued.

“There’s no need to panic, please stay in your seat and keep your seat belt on. Our visitors are only taking one passenger with them, a mister Timothy Stacks.”

But… I’m Timothy Stacks, I thought.

Feedback from The Joy of Writing Group

• (each time I didn’t continue this story, someone would ask about it)
• Is it appropriate to refer to Antarctica as a tundra?
• Remember to distinguish between the plane’s window and window shade!
• Aren’t gazelles already sentient?

Notes

Each part was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. It is a continuation of “Interviews”.