"Glub", you say. "Glub, glub. Glub. Glub! Glub glub! Glub!"
Your mind twists wildly. Might you be a fish with the body of a man? No-- you were at the bar with Johnson just last Tuesday. You're pretty sure fish don't drink at bars. What sort of a fish-head is this anyway? You glance again to the wall-mirror: it looks to be the head of some sort of tuna? Maybe? You don't know fish. A telephone. A telephone for the clue to open the clock to find the shells to-- what were you doing again?
Your panicked reverie is broken by the clicking of a door-handle. A nurse strides into the room, clipboard in hand; her eyes widen, at the sight of your fishy cranium. The two of you regard each other, flabbergasted.
You… start laughing. Laughing. This is absurd. Life is absurd.
"Well!" you say, your voice a rich (and startlingly human) baritone. "What a conundrum. My eyes don't lie, and I cannot avert my eyes from the truth no longer. I am indeed, a man with the head of a fish. Holy mackerel, how will I explain the whole situation to Johnson?!" You laugh again, and rise. "Hmm. Speaking of: what day is it?"
Not waiting for an answer, you stride past the shellshocked nurse into the hallways. Clad in naught but a hospital gown, you call through the halls as you wander: "A newspaper! I must have a newspaper!"
You lean against the hospital masonry, reading your newspaper under the light of a bright summer sun.
The Daily Drivel - Recounting the World's Absurdities since 1823
August 5, 2028
MAN HIT BY TRUCK-- DANGEROUS CARGO SPILL
In a freak accident on the corner of Broadway and Stillwater Avenue this Thursday, Bangor native Wilson Cummerbund was struck by a speeding semi-trailer truck carrying (against all reason) 31 tons of radioactive fish. The Bangor Fire Department has taken the scene, in a race against time to clear the spillage.
"They're glowing," stated fire chief Jacob Higgins to the press. "Five thousand pounds of dead, stinking fish, and they're all glowing. We're out there in hazmat suits and shovels, trying to clear things out-- we're all just hoping it doesn't rain any time soon--"
A representative of the burgeoning "Hardy and Clive's Nuclear Seafood Plant" declined to comment on the unfolding situation. Legal investigations continue into recent actions of the H&C, which came under fire last month under suspicion of exporting its waste products to local seafood joint… [cont. on page 6]
Your left eye twitches slightly.
"Good day, sir," you say, striding up to the checkout counter of the Books-A-Million book store. "I should like to purchase this atlas."
The man behind the counter flaps his mouth at you, thunderstruck. You flap your mouth back in a genial sort of way.
Swallowing, the man takes the atlas and runs it under a scanner, handing it back to you in a little "BAM!"-marked baggie. He mumbles a price, and you proffer a twenty-dollar bill-- he returns to you $5.54 in change and your receipt, and (ritual of transaction fulfilled) you take your leave.
A pleasant sort of place, you think to yourself. Lots of plushies for sale.
You thumb listlessly through your new atlas, lounging on a convenient street-bench nearby the bookstore. Your newspaper rests precariously on your fishy head, folded up into a crisp mitre hat. (https://www.skiptomylou.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/newspaper-hat-9a.jpg)
Try as you might, you can't find Innsmouth on the map of Massachusetts... you swear you remember reading somewhere that that's the place for an aspiring fish-pope to be. Maybe they just didn't put it on the map?
What now?
-
A newspaper mitre hat-
A cheap suit and necktie-
Hanes® brand socks and boxer shorts-
An old pair of loafers
- A wallet ($33.57 USD)