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Albino Butterfly: Chapter 2 - Following the Giants
Fri 21 Mar 2008, 05:21 PM
Tweetby Ben Langhinrichs
Chapter 2 - Following the Giants
"Better go down there and finish the job before this gets out of hand" he said to himself.
Sometimes life has a way of working itself out for people. But not this time.
Although Bryce was unaware of it, his time on the third planet from the sun was coming to a close, not only the good die young it seems, but first he had some business to complete. As he moved closer he could no longer see Albert. "He must be hiding behind that box" he thought. Just to check he shot two shots dead center of the box. "Not so bad from fifteen feet away" he thought sadly.
Nothing moved. No sound of anyone scurrying away and no "thump" of a man falling down. Bryce moved closer and only then did he see the open pit. "What the ..!" "Can’t see anything in there" he worried. He did not want to look too far over for fear he would get his face shot off. Luckily the moon came out for just a few seconds and he could see inside and with a quick glance did not see anyone but did notice the ladder.
Meanwhile Albert had reached the bottom, well he thought it was the bottom as he found a landing. Hard to tell in the dark of course, one shouldn't expect a "You are Here" map in the middle of an unknown hole in the Earth. Bad time to have given up smoking, he would normally have had his Zippo with him otherwise. Feeling around he realized there was a wood object in front of him. But no handle or door knob. Tried pushing it… no luck. Albert tried banging on it but no noise came from it, almost like it was a solid tree trunk. And it very well could be except he reckoned he climbed down over 200 ladder rungs and no tree he knew had roots this deep. Time was of the essence, there must be a way out of here, and fast. Someone was coming down the ladder and it was getting louder but he still had some time. Feeling around the room, he started clawing at the walls, the floor anything to find a secret button, key, flashlight anything to help.
It was just then he found what he was looking for. A ring embedded in the floor. Pulling on the ring as hard as he could he felt a door open and off he went again into the abyss, this time he closed the door. "Let the next sucker figure it out" he laughed to himself. Bryce was getting worried by this time, not only had he gone pretty far down, but he just heard what sounded like a door slamming! Looking up he could scarcely still see light from the opening, but it was hard to say if his eyes were just playing tricks on him. Still he pressed on believing Albert was not at the bottom waiting for him anymore; at least he hoped he wasn’t.
"Every time I try to talk the giant animals they always go down that hole over there" sung Shavista. "I really don’t understand it, it’s not like I am a Bee or Wasp. Maybe I am not such an interesting butterfly, or maybe I am too small for the giants to hear me. I speak their language, why don’t they ever understand me."
She thought to herself. "Once, just once, I would give anything for them to understand me. Maybe after all these years, I should also go down the hole since it seems to be so interesting to them, maybe then they will understand me" she sung and off she went. She could see very well and started to follow the ladder and smelled something which she could not place, a mixture of cinnamon and chile peppers perhaps? No matter she would keep floating down to the bottom to see what she could see.
Albert by this time was in a space of a cave which had 4 passageways. He knew this because there was some faint glow, he wondered where it came from, that lit the space he was in and it illuminated just enough for him to see. Being rather tired, worried about whoever was after him would find him if he didn’t make a choice, he decided to take the farthest opening from where he stood. Thinking the person hunting him down would go to the closest one and it might buy him sometime. Of course maybe they all intertwined in some way and he would come face to face with the hunter, but he had to push that out of his mind for the short term. Off he went, hoping to bide his time and find some alternative way out of the cave.
"Now what?" thought Bryce as he too landed at the end of the ladder. "That slippery bastard got out of here, so can I" he said to nobody in particular. He too found the impenetrable wall or door. No luck for him either. He started feeling around the walls and kicking the walls, looking for any type of foot or hand holds or other openings when suddenly a bunch of dirt he kicked caved in at his feet. Much to his surprise, there was a light from within. Bryce was confused, he was sure he heard something close before and knew he did not see any light at all previously either. No time to lose he had to work with what he found.
Cautiously Bryce stuck his head through the opening and he was in absolute shock at what he saw. He started to clear the dirt and rocks and tried to make his way into the new space he had found. When at last he had cleared enough space to crawl inside he pushed along on his stomach and was just able to stand in the new room. He couldn’t believe what he saw, he went over very cautiously to touch it and it was real and amazing! It was also totally impossible. His mind said this was impossible, but his eyes and hands said it was possible. .
Just then he heard a loud noise followed by what appeared to be his prey falling about 20 feet in front of him.
About the Author: Keith Brooks
Keith Brooks has been working with Lotus Notes since version 2 and continues to bewilder his friends with his interest in dead software. To counter the misconception he writes a blog titled Lotus Evangelist, he prefers writing plays and short scripts but will try anything.
John "Greyhawk" Roling continues the story in Albino Butterfly: Chapter 3 - Twinkies are Forever, where he uses the phrase "oreo's are nice but twinkies last forever", believe it or not. John Lance is up next with the phrase "Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil." Stay tuned for updates to "Albino Butterfly" at the RSS feed Julian hosts at http://www.andthentheboilerburst.com/AlbinoButterfly.rss.
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