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.Movies	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2234 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, based on Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Any resemblance to person(s) living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
- 6
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Spooky crouched under my collar as I walked home. "So…you're afraid to fight from a superior position?" She sounded shocked.
"I'm a staunch son of Brobdingrag," I said. "I don't need a superior position."
"Staunch, is that a card like strength?"
"Shut up about strength," I said.
"Oh, sure. Shutting up. Not like something impossible happened. Not like I witnessed a miracle." She stood and crawled to the back of my collar and paced from shoulder to shoulder. "Magic runs back home, of course. But it's a big, impersonal magic. Defense of the islands, security of the Crown, that sort of big-ticket item."
"Like home," I said.
"Yes," she said as she turned. "But HERE, something reached down and shuffled your deck so IMPOSSIBLE-" I imagine that she waved her arms to demonstrate the magnitude of the odds against the fortune I had just received. Either way, she wasn't paying enough attention to her footing and fell. And slipped between the collar and my neck and fell down my back.
This, of course, happened when a city bus was unloading right beside me. So I couldn't very well fish her out of my shirt. I paused as she wriggled around. I was afraid any further movement on my part might sent her below the small of my back. And my shirt was tucked inside my pants. So there I was, listening to a tiny voice swearing as Spooky tried to get a grip on something, anything, to gain control of her situation.
I backed up against the wall, pretending I was people watching. Then I noticed the street singer. A young woman playing guitar, with her guitar case open hopefully for funds.
I felt…lucky, there, for a moment. We have buskers back home. Tossing a coin to one is considered a lucky act. Similar to rubbing a rabbit's foot, but without having to molest a rabbit. I tried to ease some money out of my pocket without menacing my passenger.   That's when Spooky paused. "Oooh, I love Shakira!" I realized the song she was playing had the refrain of 'Underneath Your Clothes.'
What a clear coincidence, and on top of the evening's entertainment… "Oh, Kraken-shit," I swore, then threw my entire money clip at the woman and stormed off down the street. Spooky had managed to brace herself against the line of my belt and laughed merrily, all the way home.
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I walked to the dorm and stood with my back to the bed. I slowly untucked my shirt. Spooky laughed and dove off to land on the mattress. She was instantly up and calling for Mary.
"What?" The human was on the headboard. There had been a movie playing, she was probably translating idiom to the Lilliputians. She jumped across the blanket, with an odd kangaroo-lunge the little people adopt on the mattress.
Spooky instantly started describing my fortune, especially the double appearance of the Strength card. Mary was more interested in the Lovers card. Cards, really. "Who's your girlfriend, Peter?"
"Harmony," I snarled, and went for the stairs down to the store.
--------
I came back with some selections. Movies that my index said included Tarot cards. Spooky carried Mary in and sat beside me on the sofa. "What's this?"
"Live and Let Die," I told her. "James Bond."
"Oooh. Human spying." Spooky snuggled down in her cushion. Mary ran along the back of the sofa to jump down onto my shoulder.
"Not a bad movie," Mary said. "For a Roger Moore James Bond."
"What do you mean?"
"Well… Sean Connery is the real James Bond."
"He's real?" Spooky and I shouted together. The review of Tarot examples had to wait. First we reviewed the history of a real spy, then his stand-ins. We discussed the lessons to learn for our own efforts of living under cover among the humans. During these discussions, Mary seemed to suffer a vast problem with her respiration.
"We should probably kiss more," Spooky said at one point. "In public, anyway."
"There's not that much kissing," I said. "A lot of flirting, though."
"Yeah, but since people don't typically follow us around, they won't get the full effect of double entendres. So they won't know we're flirting."
"Good point. Or we could just use really, really obvious entendres."
"Then they're not entendres," Spooky pointed out.
"Oh, sure. As long as I use a euphemism, there's a double or hidden meaning. I might say: Gosh, Spooky, you are one tiny woman. Are you tiny, which is to say tight, all over?" Mary developed another coughing fit. Spooky waited until the snerks and snorts died down to reply.
"So, like, I'd point out that you are much bigger than is readily apparent to a viewer?"
"Something like that. Is it allergies, do you suppose?"
"She's been living in the apartment for a while," Spooky said. She gestured at a blank wall. "I'll ask the doctor to come take a look at her." The conversation ambled across spying and sex, and how sex helped spying, and how allergies ruined the mood. I let it wander. I really didn't want to answer the inevitable questions concerning my fortune spread.
So of course, Spooky's crew turned up with a report. I'd forgotten that 'Spooky' was a description as much as a nickname. She'd sent a crew to scout out the building. By the time we got there, they had mapped the ventilation, set up cameras and scanned Winnie and her mother.
"Mother?" Mary and I asked.
"Yeah," Hello I'm Sally replied. "The old lady runs the store during the day, Winnie has it for dinner, then both of them work the tourist hours until closing." She called up a computer display on my TV. The computer was probably in the wall of the Dorm. Or maybe in Lilliput for all I knew.
Anyway, there was a picture of Winnie and a woman known only as Mother. Hello I'm Sally spent a while discussing what they'd observed. There was a list of forty bullet statements for and against a theory that they were from Glubbdubdrib, an island of sorcerers that Gulliver described in his books.
"Of course they're not," I said. Spooky looked at me curiously. Mary and Sally looked up at me with similar expressions. "Look, we're all here to learn about humans, not demonstrate our differences, right? Would Glubbdubdribians be here to demonstrate their powers or hide them to better understand humanity?" They nodded at my sagacity.
"Although," Mary said, "maybe it's a camouflage. Or a trap set up to catch people like you?"
"Then she'd have given Peter a happy fortune and encouraged him to come back and find out more," Spooky said.
"ANYWAY," Sally said, "we've been analyzing the fortune, and-"
"Great," I said. I stood up. "Have a blast. I already know what it means and I don't want to talk about it."
"But you HAVE to!" Mary cried. She ran along the sofa to stand right beneath me. "It's your fortune, but we're all in this together, right?"
"As long as all of us doesn't include arrogant, self-centered, weight throwing, foul-smelling, know-it-all giants who don't care about the wants or needs of others," Spooky muttered.
"I'm foul-smelling?" I asked, sniffing subtly. "Am I?" They all fell over themselves assuring me that they had not thought of me as 'one of those giants,' but rather, as 'one of us.' Mary stood quietly as they did, though, eyeing me suspiciously. I wondered if I had managed to distract her at any point in the evening.
Finally, someone reminded Spooky that they were taking a census of the homeless tomorrow, a major effort. And someone pointed out that tomorrow was today, sunrise was in a few minutes. They rushed off to clean up for the new day and get their acts together. I was alone with Mary. "Good thing the store's closed today," I said. "Let's go get a few pounds of donuts for breakfast."
"Peter," she said. Her voice was shaky, but her tone was serious. "We have to talk."
"I haven't had food for twelve hours, so unless you want me to eat you raw, you'll let me go-"
"PETER!" She stamped a foot, which doesn't do a whole lot if you weigh less than two ounces, but the lip pout did work the same at both scales. I lowered myself to the floor, putting my ear about where she stood on the sofa. "Yes, Mary?"
"Peter, the Cups, which are emotions, and the Lovers card, they show up in your fortune quite a bit."
"Three out of ten is less than a third, Mary," I said.
"Peter, don't snark," she said.
"Swim through the water and eat people in time to a heavy bass musical score?"
"That's SHARK, moron, which you very well know. SNARK. To deflect, with humor."
"Well," I pointed out. "If there's a shark it'll be biting humor."
"Knock it the fuck off and look me in the eye," she ordered. I turned and obeyed. "This… This love interest that obstructs you? Is it… Is it me?" Maker help me, I burst out laughing. All the stress that had been building up all evening came out like a cork popped from a bottle of temperamental champagne. I brayed and lost the power of speech and she blushed and turned to run. I heaved up and grabbed her before she got to the far side of the sofa.
She cringed in my hand, twisting to face away from me. I held her gently but firmly until I could talk. "Oh, oh, Mary, is that what you were worried about? Dear, dear lady, no. Not as a slight on you, though. Okay?"
"Put me down," she snapped. Her eyes were moist. She slapped my thumb.
"No, can't do it. You'll run into the bedroom, crying, and Spooky will attach explosives my testes and she'll use the human scale for the charges." I tried to pet her hair but she kept twisting away. I could calm her down by stroking her hair, but I'd have to break her arm to do it. Probably not an effective plan in the long run. Plus, there was Spooky and the explosives…
"Mary, I don't think of you that way. I mean, I don't LET myself think of you that way. I might… But you are way, way out of my league."
"Shut up. Let me go."
"You came to us damaged, Mary. YOU have to tell me when it's okay to think of… Wait. Is this… Are you ASKING me to think of you… As a lover?"
"Not now!" she said, ice in her tone. "Not if it's so very damned funny."
I sighed, turning my head to avoid blasting her with my breath. "Okay. It's not that the thought is funny. It's that it was a relief to stop thinking about the Prince."
"What?" she asked. Then she covered her mouth with both hands as a thought struck her. "Oh," she continued softly, after a moment. "You're….gay?"
"Your models of sexuality don't really apply to us," I said. "After living for six or seven hundred years, some of us can get tired of always being, um, on the infield and we start to look to the outfield. As it were."
"Oh. Have you… Um?"
"I'm only three hundred," I said with a wink. "I'm still fascinated by the pitcher's mound."
"Good," she said with a coy grin. Then she sat up straight in my hand. "So. If the Prince isn't your lover, then how is he The Lover?"
"Dammit, what DOES it take to distract you?" I snarled.
"At this point?" she replied. "Maybe you getting Spooky pregnant. But no promises."
"Interesting," I said. She was a lot calmer and I relaxed my grip. "Ultimately, Mary, if there's any love between you and me, it is not and never will be an obstacle."
"Well…. Thank you, Peter," she said softly. "So what is?"
"We live for hundreds of years," I said. She nodded. "We're… We're patriots."
"Oh! Love for your country? Love for your liege?"
"Yes," I said. "Now imagine the most stalwart Marine you've ever seen. The best, most semper fi Marines: John Wayne, Robert Duval, Damon Wayans, Clint Eastwood."
"Okay," she said slowly.
"Now, imagine if they were Marines for three hundred years."
"Oh." She thought about that for a second. "Brainwashed."
"NO! We're just… We live for so long, and we see the benefits of our society, and of our rulers, and the problems of dissent, and the beheadings of traitors and we just naturally hold our Royals, and their offices, in incredibly high esteem."
"Ah," she said with a nod. Then said, in a sing-song voice, "Braaaaaaain waaaaaaaashed."
"Humans have no concept of loyalty," I snarled. "Anyway, that fidelity, that loyalty, that can interfere with dealing with…problems."
"The prince is a dick?" she asked.
"That's what keeps him from being the princess," I nodded.
"Not has a… NO! He's the jackass, then? The bully?"
"Obviously."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because my loyalty to an obnoxious jackass of a human wouldn't be that much of an obstacle," I muttered. I stood. "I need breakfast and I am definitely going to go get it. Coming?"
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I was remarkably free of ambition that morning. Mostly I was just staying awake because if I fell asleep now, I'd be up all night. Again. So I sat in the back room we'd set aside when I bought the bakery. I didn't like to be watched eating out front. Well, I didn't mind being watched, really. I just got tired of people stopping to tell me all about cholesterol. Brobdingragians don't suffer from cholesterol. It's not one of the five humours our philosophers have identified, so it's not something I could ever catch.
I dawdled over a few dozen rolls in the back room, reading the paper and sipping my pot of tea. Mary was trying to write a letter to her brother-in-law, thanking him for his efforts on her behalf. She kept putting her head down to 'think about the next line.' Her little snores were adorable.
At some point on my second tray of rolls, Jenny drew my attention to the front. I stepped out of the back room, shutting the door carefully on a sleeping Mary, and walked out.
Winnie had just stepped into the shop. There was a beaten-up, very old station wagon parked at the curb. I noticed because Winnie's dress and the car were the same color green.
She smiled at me. "Hey! I was just headed to the Fish Market. I wondered if-" There was a screech out front and we spun to look out the front. Barasano's car was parked at a diagonal in front of hers. He slid out and ran into the bakery.
"Are they still here?" he shouted, waving his gun around. Winnie squeaked in fear and threw herself to the floor under one of the tables.
"Are who still here?" I asked.
"Or whom?" Jenny suggested.
"The robbers!" Barasano shouted. "Where are they?"
"No one called in a crime," I said, almost in a questioning tone, looking over towards Jenny. She shrugged.
"Oh." All fear fled Winnie's voice as she scooted out. "That might have been my mother."
"Your mother's being robbed?" the detective asked, pointing his gun to the ceiling.
"Nooooooo," Winnie sighed. "That's not how it works."
"False crime reports are a crime, miss!" the cop said. He started to holster his weapon. "I want to explain to your mother-" Just then there was a smash and we all looked out front once more. Someone had smashed the window of Winnie's car with a mallet and was reaching in to grab something.
"My CAR!" Winnie shrieked from her knees at the window.
"Freeze! Police!" Barasano shouted, tugging at his gun. I have to think that if he'd had it fully holstered, he'd have had no problem. Halfway in, though, his reflexes were a bit screwed up and something snagged a strap. The guy in the car didn't have that problem. He smoothly pulled out HIS weapon and started to point it at my favorite non-fuckwit cop.
I had a cinnamon roll in my hand. I threw it. Straight as an arrow, it passed Winnie's ear and Bill's shoulder and hit the guy's gun-hand at the wrist. It didn't penetrate skin, but splashed messily over his arm, clothes, face. The impact of the mass was enough to push his hand against Winnie's car. It left a vaguely knuckle-shaped dent. I realized that might reveal my superhuman strength. But in my defense, it was kinda lost among other dents.
He screamed and fell, clutching his hand to his chest. Barasano cleared his weapon and took charge. Winnie ducked down in case there was more gunplay. I quietly asked Jenny to call someone to come get Mary and started a fresh pot of coffee. Once again, we were going to be here for a while.
*******
"Okay," Bill said, about half an hour later.  "What the hell happened?"
"Shouldn't you have figured that out before you arrested him?" Winnie asked.
"There's already a warrant out for Mr. Kelle's ass," he said absently, looking over his notes.  "And he drew a gun on a cop.  He's going away for a little bit, no matter what." Uniformed cops had taken the individual off to the station, Bill had to come by for more paperwork.  Right now he was trying to deconstruct a few minutes from just before the arrest.
I had introduced Winnie during the wait for other cops.  Jenny had delivered the pot and some pastry (while quietly assuring me that Mary was up in the Dorm).
Now we sipped coffee and stared.  "Then what do you mean?" I asked.
"Who called me here for a robbery that hadn't happened yet?"
"Sorry," Winnie apologized.  "It was probably Mother."
"She sees the future," I added helpfully.
Bill looked back and forth.  "She who?  Winnie does or Mother does?"
"Both," I said.
"We're fortune tellers," Winnie said.  "I got The Gift from Mother."
'Uh huh…"  Bill stared at her for a moment.  "You know what cops call a person who can describe a crime from miles away?"
"A suspect," Winnie said with a smile.  He smiled back.  They smiled at each other a little too long for the situation, I thought, what with me being at the table, too, and no one was smiling in my direction.
"I thought it was called remote viewing?" I said.
"What?" they asked together, which shared them another smile.  Winnie explained, "No, he's saying police officers tend to be skeptical of psychic powers or magic, if there's a wholly materialistic explanation."
"Ah.  So, Bill, you think that it's more likely that Mother called in a crime committed against her daughter, knowing it would happen because she was in league with the forces of evil."
"Yeah," he said, looking down.  "It's that or I have to start paying attention to my fortune cookies."
"You make cookies?" I shot an accusatory look at the fortune teller.  "You didn't offer me any cookies when you read my fortune."
"No, it's-" Bill started to say.
"Because you own a bakery!" Jenny shouted from the counter.  "She probably thinks you have all the cookies you need, and didn't want to offend you professionally."
"Really, it just-" Winnie started.
"I'm not a baker!" I told them.  "I just own the shop!  And they won't let me near the cookies anymore."
"Why?" Winnie asked.
"What did you do?" Bill added.
"He inhaled a double batch," Jenny said sourly.
"Hungry?" Bill joked.
"No, it was an accident," I said.  "And I coughed for two hours afterwards."
They both stared at me for a second or two.  Then they made eye contact.  "He's not from around here," Bill said.  "Or at least, that's my guess."
"He HAS journeyed far to reach this place," Winnie agreed.  Bill rolled his eyes, then turned to me.
"Oh, yeah," he said.  "I brought some of Mary's stuff over."
"Mary?" Winnie asked.  Her eyes were focused on the distance for a moment.  "Very short woman?  Doll-like, even?"
Bill barked a laugh.  "Swing and a miss, Devil Woman.  She's about as tall as you are."  He turned to me.  "Just a few boxes of stuff she asked for in her letter.  I was actually on the way here when I got the call."
"Oh, sure," I said.  I stood, the other two followed.
"And I have to get my car fixed," Winnie said.  "Or at least, get an estimate for my insurance."
"I know a guy," Bill said quickly.  He brought out his phone.  "Let me see if he can squeeze you in."
"That would be nice, Bill," Winnie smiled.
I went out to where his car was parked.  The windows were down so I managed to open the trunk. I put the boxes just inside the door of the video store, locked it up again and went back out. Bill was handing Winnie into her car, then stepped to the curb.  She waved as she drove off.  Bill took my elbow, then.  "Let's get her stuff."
"Oh!  I already took everything inside," I said.
"In one trip?" he asked, incredulous.  I gathered that the four boxes may have been heavier than I had noticed.
"No, four trips," I said instantly.  "I thought you two were NEVER going to come out."
He blushed.  I didn't think my 'lost track of time' bluff was that insulting?  So I shifted the topic.  "Are you going to go make sure the bad guy stays in jail?"
"Yeah," he said absently, then looked at his watch.  "Yeah, gotta…  Um.  Tell Mary I was by, okay?"
"Sure."  Then he was gone.  I went inside to move boxes up the stairs.  Mary was standing at the top of the steps.
"Don't they make an adorable couple?" she asked.
I glanced down at the boxes I held. "Well, they are colored consistently….?"
- 6
- 7
- 8
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