The Man Who Sneezed His Head Off

Down the road, he felt his nose itch. The sun was bright and hot, and slight steam rose on the glass, by the dash. “This town sure can melt you,” he thought out loud.

He flipped his shades down and basked in the new, dark, blue world — fast, fast.

An itch. He reached up with his right hand and speared the spot on the left side, close to the bridge of his nose, near his eye. He scratched. Aah, he thought, that felt good; that’ll soothe it.

Near the Loop now. A green Jag is on his tail — hugged in real close. Must be one of those oil rich S.B.’s from Tech, home in the Oaks ’til school starts in the Fall.

He rounds the curve to the Loop — fast, fast — heading north now.  I’ll give her a race, he mused. At the same time, far back in his throat, right mid his eyes and at the tip of his nose, all at once, he felt the bud of a sneeze.

On the Loop now, the Jag so close he can see her short, blunt cut blonde hair. Just as I thought. Once more, his hand goes up as the sneeze grows this time. He turns his head left to look for an open spot. He shifts into high gear and stomps on the floor.

His eyes start to close to guard from the force of the sneeze. As they do so, from the far left side of his sight, out of his blind spot, he sees the truck. In a stroke of time, as fine and small as half a split strand of hair, as long and drawn as the flow of the sea, he sees the crash come.

He sees the truck swoop in from the left, to try and cut to an off ramp, and the spot he had aimed for. He sees the Jag pass on his right, fast, fast, with no room left for him to veer back to his first lane. Caught in Houston, caught in the heat, caught on the way to a plane, caught in a hold on life that won’t end, he closed his eyes and had his sneeze.

…

“Who have we got here?”

“Tag says ‘Steve G.'”

“Where’s his head?”

“They say sliced off by a break in the front glass. Must have been a tough day for this guy. They still can’t find it. Looked all on the road ’til night. Cops say it must have been some weird shit, like a V.W. came and picked it up in its grill.”

“Aaaaa-CHOOO!” A pause.

“Bless you.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This short story was composed nearly entirely of single syllable words, as a practice exercise to reduce fog index.

Lyla & Bendle: Continuing Adventures

From this point forward, you are on your own! The stories can go on and on…think of the possibilities with a planet like this!! Some of the episodes that I’ve done include:

>>>discovery of an ancient civilization under the ocean in the ocean sector – it turns out that this civilization was the pre-Orthian civilization that had traveled from Venus to Orth in the first place, when the impending invasion of poison gases to Venus’s atmosphere was imminent.

In other words, it turns out that the Himmincats have come full circle and returned to their original planet. This makes them feel more at home than ever before.

>>>an adventure in the jungle sector, where Bendle finds a pair of winged sandals.

When you put them on, the faster you move, from walking to running, the higher the sandals take you.

When you slow down, you descend.

He uses them to explore the jungle sector and check out the dangerous areas, like quicksand, etc.

>>>a mysterious signal detected in the desert sector prompt Troy and BARNIE to go investigate. It turns out that the signal is actually the sound of some giant desert sand worms (remember “Dune”?). The sand worms trap BARNIE and Troy.

Lyla and Bendle go to their rescue and free them but, just as they are escaping, a huge sand storm hits. Rather than get buried in the sand, they use these inflatable capsules that – once inflated – are big enough for a Himmincat to fit in it (kind of like a standing tent).

Moreover, when the tent is inflated around the person, it then has a spinning, digging action that buries the tent in the sand, safely away from the crushingly swift sand winds. They stay underground until the storm blows over.

A New Home – Story 8: Lyla & Bendle

Girlen has managed to tap into the NASA computers and gathers data on the solar system.

The Himmincats decide that the best place for them to land is Venus.

It’s perfect – Earthlings think it is uninhabitable, because of being covered by poisonous gas and having an unstable surface.

The Himmincats know, however, that the gas atmosphere will provide great “cover” for them, underneath which they can recondition and create a new, sub-atmosphere where they can live.

Also, being close to another civilized planet like Earth would have its advantages, because they can always travel there if they get in a real pinch and get things that they need.

Finally, they figure that if the humans ever came after them, Venus, a planet in Earth’s own solar system, would be the last place they would look. (Sort of the old hide-and-seek strategy of picking a place really close to “base.”)

They land on Venus and turn on their environmental conditioner.

After 2 days, the new environment on Venus has been created.

It is made up of 4 areas, called sectors – the jungle sector, the desert sector, the mountain sector, and the ocean sector.

They decide to go explore the sectors of their new world.

First, however, they build a monument where they have landed, honoring the people of their home planet Orth.

It is a very moving ceremony.

When the monument is up, a holographic image is automatically projected up from the monument (which is kind of a tall, narrow, pyramid obelisk) that shows the elders of Orth.

They give an inspiring message to Lyla, Bendle, Girlen, and Troy.

They are the hope for future generations of Orthians.