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Like all previous occasions,
time travel this time was accompanied with a little strain in the belly, the kind you get when you’ve laughed too long at something funny and didn’t know how to stop. But this time, there was an aftertaste of something sour in my mouth and I wondered if I had been drinking lemonade when I shifted.
That’s the problem with time travel. If you go forward, the time you came from suddenly becomes a vague memory, full of soft edges and unearthly hues... and you can never quite remember. It’s worse when you travel back in time of course, because then you can’t remember what you haven’t known yet, so you end up frantically externalising your thoughts, bringing back or forward a journal or set of instructions... it’s all such a hassle really.
Martin Bashfield from the room-next-door had been silly enough to shift on a joyride back to a time before he was born. He promptly forgot how to speak, think, or do anything for that matter. Fortunate for him though, Nathan Sim, our resident old fogey had found his shift recorded on the time machine log and had shifted and brought him back. But the damage was already done. We still haven’t managed to get him off the bottle yet and he craps such a copious amount of shit in his diapers (it’s so NOT funny) the garbage machine has refused to accept anymore trash submissions for the week, but at least he’s now learnt to say “Bryyin”.
Anyway, I’m rambling. So, yes, here I am in the Antenna Theatre, Melbourne (or so I vaguely recall). K (that’s our boss) had learnt from the Oracle that there was news to be had from the choristers, and so I had shifted here to meet with them. But for the life of me, I still can’t remember if I was drinking lemonade...
... Hmmm. Okay. Let me see. The seat doesn’t feel very futuristic to me. Still the same neo-velvet they now shave off the deer-people (South American families that opted for gene-therapy to grow merkin-like velvet patches). The seat grumbled into a comfortable shape, moulding itself to my ever-increasing backside (why don’t I lose weight time-travelling? It’s like my bloody body suddenly remembers all the weight it’s going to gain). Shit. That means I’ll be fat in the future. Note to self: Must remember 300-calories-is-so-not-sexy motto.
The conductor enters.
The erupting applause bleeds into a splutter of cough and sighs. With a flick of his wrist the curtains slide back with a liquid swish and there, pressed against the silhouette of his collar, the choristers poured out of a mere crack. And there in the suddenly entombed silence of the placid backdrop, this urgent hum begins. It is a bestial cry of frustration and want; a murmur of captivity; a purr so quaint that every backbone straightens in its seat.
This is the song of the fly choir.
With just a thought, a mojito perches itself on the chair arm (OH! I love the future now), a fly flits lazily towards me, then overhead. And so smoothly, the choir swarms over the theatre, a rolling, buzzing madness that unfurls a canopy of flies above our heads. It is tragically beautiful, like a cloud of locusts descending on a farm, gruesome, majestic and an inexorable force of destruction. They hang there, a black pall above us.
Another flick of the wrist.
The lights come on. The flies begin to glow – first a shy green, then a reticent blue, then a searing red. The humming gives everyone goosebumps. Out come pink hairdryers, suspended on black adders that writhe and slither, a medusa-crown of tendrils that begin to seemingly strike at the fly swarm. The hairdryers woosh on and suddenly, there is a chord in the song of the fly choir.
Confused, I read the brochure on my lap.
Oh. Like that huh? I smile and drink my mojito, happily chewing on the mint leaf as the choir now takes on Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
“buuuzzzzzz buzz buzz buzz”. I pause.
“buzz buzzzzzzz buzz”. I glance about furtively.
“buuuuuzzzzzz. buzz buuuzzzzz buzzzzzzz...” Oh! Morse code! Urm. Let’s see... that translates to B – R – Y...
I grab my pen and start scribbling on the brochure, sure that I would forget this message when I shifted back unless I got it all down. The fly agent rapidly fires off its Morse message, and I, rusty as hell in the ancient Morse code, scramble to take notes: Poachers are entering the country and trying to get at the last remaining population of kangaroos. The species has been crippled due to the poaching that followed the discovery of kangaroo serum as an antidote to XC40, a biological weapon that eats the eyeballs and nose, and leaves the patient drowning in their own vitreous humour. Terrorists are entering the country with these poachers and it has now become a matter of national security. The oracle department cannot issue a back-line report as its lines have now been compromised, and so the church of diesel and dolce (now no longer “to-be”) has been contacted to receive the message. Guard dogs must be bred to stop the advance of poachers, but instead of the usual bull mastiffs of old, the oracle suggests staffordshire bull terriers so as not to flag attention to the programme. Treat matter with great caution! The lives of servicemen are at stake! Go now!
The buzzing ceases. And in that moment, the hairs begin to stand on my arm. Suddenly, a pat on my shoulder:
“Sir! Turn around and raise your identification scan tag....” I shift back. But not before I am clipped in the head. Something’s burning, something’s burning! Oh: and there’s that glass of lemonade. I black-out.
* * *
“Agent Bryyin, what’s this you’ve brought back? What’s this Pooch Nation? An ochlocratic society of canines?”
I stare at the note, it had been burnt badly:
pooch-nation-dog-treat-service.
Something tugs at my memory. I hesitate. Then report, “Sir, the future says to start Pooch Nation for Dog treats and services.”
“Well done, Agent Bryyin. Get started then.”
“Right away, sir!”
And so begins:
Pooch Nation.
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bryyin's journal
cheerful
nerdy
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energetic
do you think aus will win?
artistic
ecstatic
sleepy
high
busy
contemplative
blank
anxious