Static in the System

“At least it's not a restaurant.”

Sarah Jean's words came through the purple air thick and heavy. There was a feeling of ebb and flow, as if being affected by waves of water, yet there was no water. “You can't say I never take you anywhere.”

“This may count as nowhere,” she observed. “Was that a giraffe?”

“Where?”

“It's gone now, whatever it was.” Sarah Jean sighed. “I'm not sure I like floating here like this. Try focusing us to somewhere.”

“The changing colors aren't soothing to you at all?” I checked.

“They are nice,” she reassured, “but they're not what I'm in the mood for right now.” Focusing brought us a man speaking nonsense seated upon a red cow. “That's not much help. Who is that?”

“I think it's my Uncle Gene,” I answered. “I haven't seen him since I was about ten.”

“Any reason you'd be thinking about him now?”

I shook my head and quickly regretted the action. It felt like it took a day to move my head from one side to the next and the process left me nauseated. “I was trying to put us in a sunny field.”

“That might explain the cow,” she observed. “It doesn't explain why it's red.”

“Strawberry milk?” I offered.

“Do you often drink strawberry milk?” she checked.

“No. I probably haven't had that since... I was about ten.”

“Flashback time. You weren't on LSD as a child, were you?”

“No,” I answered. “Why?”

She grinned. “It would explain the colors. Very psychedelic.” My Uncle Gene's babbling was replaced by a blaring guitar, a well played guitar but loud. “Well, that worked!” she shouted over the noise. There was some shouting back and forth as I sought to communicate to Sarah Jean that she should say something else, to see if that would trigger another change in our surroundings. Once this message was received, she fought to have me hear her response. Finally I heard “I am hungry!”

Immediately we were elsewhere. The colors were replaced by walls, the guitar by hustle and bustle, and Uncle Gene became a number of similarly faced police officers. We were in a police station. “That was unexpected,” Sarah Jean stated. “I thought we would go back to the restaurant.”

“I suppose that we're here to 'arrest' your hunger,” I observed. She groaned and slugged me on the arm. And that was that.