Welcome to Percotran -Part XV

By Richard Davidson

Alexander fell for what seemed like minutes. In reality, it was only 3.254 seconds until he landed in the icy water of Alikauhua harbor, all his breath escaping him just as he hit.

That was a bad thing to do, Alexander discovered, as his lungs filled with saltwater, and he started sinking to the bottom, wherever that may be. As luck would have it, there was some kind of gigantic force underneath him pushing him back up to the surface. Alexander had every reason to think it wasn’t a giant dolphin, tenderly rescuing him from almost certain death.

He was on the right track with that line of reasoning, because a sea animal he’d never even dreamt of before was underneath.

It was an Autrioselon, which was kind of a flying Killer Whale. It didn’t fly around in the sky like a bird, of course, but it could shoot out of the water, gain about 200 feet of altitude, and then glide for a good number of miles before it hit the sea again, and that’s exactly what this one was doing now.

Alexander was gasping and choking, holding firmly onto the Autrioselon, and he was beginning to realize that when the creature goes under, you really better have taken a pretty good breath. He was also beginning to realize, from the steady stream of porpoises and seals this thing was eating on the downside, that he could become dinner quite easily.

He had to wonder, with what little bit of brain functions he had left, if the Autrioselon knew he was there, or if luck had once again interceded. After all, if he didn’t drown, he was at least far from that creepy Shaman, who apparently could turn himself into a huge beast of some kind, that Alexander hadn’t been lucky enough to actually see.

The had only traveled this way for a few hours, but Alexander knew they had already covered a great distance. He was seeing double again, due to the repeated impact of the water, and his hands and legs had gone numb from the death-grip he had on the Flying Killer Whale.

“I think I’ll name you,” he thought, surprised to have gone insane again so quickly.

“There’s no need; I already have one,” answered the Whale, telepathically.

“That’s just great,” thought Alexander, who was beginning to seriously doubt any of this was actually happening, “I’m not just hearing voices; I’m hearing voices of mythical animals.”

“At least you didn’t call me a fish,” answered the Whale, who for the moment had decided not to eat his passenger, “alot of people make that mistake, you know.”

Alexander knew his mind had turned to mush. He decided to turn to whatever rationality there was left.

“You’re killing me, you know,” he thought.

“Am I?” asked the surprised Autrioselon.

“Yes. The impact against the water is getting to be too much for me, not to mention the repeated submersion. I’m having trouble breathing.”

“You sure are a fragile creature,” thought the Whale, in amazement.

They were at about 150 feet, and the Whale veered very suddenly to the right.

“Look down there,” he thought into Alexander’s mind.

All Alexander could see was the blue of the infinite ocean, pitching violently in all directions.

“No, no, not over there,” thought the frustrated sea mammal.

And then Alexander saw it.

A tiny island that appeared to be the only one for at least hundreds of miles. The Autrioselon took a shallower angle on the water, and with only a light impact, glided effortlessly along the smoother water of the island’s lagoon, where they eased to a stop.

“How’s that?” asked the well-fed carnivore.

“That’s wonderful!” said Alexander out loud.

“Don’t speak to me in that dreadful language!” thought the Whale.

Alexander realized that when he spoke out loud, it was in Bahinian.

The Whale was right there with him as the events of the past few weeks played out in Alexander’s mind.

“Those people really did a number on you, didn’t they?” asked the now angry Autrioselon, who really disliked the Bahini intently.

“Well, they did save my life,” said Alexander, who didn’t want to be ungrateful, “and some of them seemed rather nice...”

“Do you know what those nice people would do if they could get ahold of me, or any of my kind?” interrupted the Whale.

“No, I...”

“First they’d shoot a bunch of metal spears into me, that would pump me full of drugs. Then, they’d haul me up onto the beach, and while I’m drifting off into a stupor, and going, ‘hey, cool, look at my fins,’ they’d start hacking at me with primitive instruments. Eventually, they’d cut off my head, and leave it to dry in the sun while they filled barrels with my blubber and oil, and then they’d mount it on a big board; stick it in the ground, and throw the biggest party you ever did see, where every man, woman and child on the island would celebrate my horrible, painful death.”

Alexander really didn’t have an answer for that, so all he said was, “that’s awful,” which sounded very insincere, so Alexander asked him, “so what was your name, anyway?”

“Leviticus.”

“Leviticus, like in the Bible?” Alexander wondered.

“What’s a Bible?” asked Leviticus.

“It’s a book,” answered Alexander.

“What’s a book?”

Alexander didn’t know how to explain it, so he pictured himself reading one; pictured a preacher reading a verse to the congregation; and thought of his favorite book as a boy, “Tom Sawyer.”

“Ah, I think I understand,” thought Leviticus.

“How delightful, and imaginative. We sea creatures don’t get the chance for such things. I have to eat almost constantly. You’d be surprised how busy that can keep you. Barely have time for mating. But I try to MAKE time, if you know what I mean.”

Alexander definitely knew what he meant.

“Come to think of it, I’m getting pretty hungry again, right now.”

Alexander felt a twitch of fear.

“If I were you, I’d make for the shore. I almost never come up there for a snack.”

Alexander felt strongly that he’d been given good advice, and he paddled furiously, and then ran, until he was well onto the tiny island.

“It was very nice meeting you,” thought the Whale, and Alexander turned to look at him. He had already gotten a good distance away, but Leviticus still looked positively enormous.

“Thanks for not eating me,” Alexander called out, and the enraged Whale thought, “if you speak that accursed language again, I’m still gonna.”

“Sorry,” thought Alexander, and Leviticus, the Giant Flying Killer Whale turned, and submerged, with a flick of his tail. A few hundred feet out, he broke the water with a magnificent “sploosh,” and was soon aloft once more, and then only a dot on the horizon before he disappeared.

“We could’ve been pretty good friends, if not for our respective places on the Food Chain,” thought Alexander, and Leviticus would have most likely agreed.

Well now he was safe. And now he was free. He was on an island that, very likely, nobody else knew about, and his life was in no immediate danger.

“Let’s see if there’s something to eat on this island,” he thought, hopefully scanning the tiny jungle for fruit bearing trees.

He found a coconut tree, and had some trouble getting one open, but he did. Before long, he would become an expert at surviving on mollusks, fruits and herbs, but for now, he was happy to lean against a big tree and drink the milk of a coconut.

Alexander felt that his mind was not working correctly. He had a strong need to understand what had really happened, and what he had hallucinated. He was glad to have the peace and quiet to sort it all out.

“Hmmm. The angels singing Queen songs, that was a hallucination,” he thought, and the realization of just how ludicrous that was made him smile.

This was a positive sign. He was very hopeful that he could chalk quite few of his other experiences up to dehydration, and whatever that horrible smelling stuff was that Shaman had wrapped him in.

The Shaman. He was real. Alexander felt sick at that thought, but then he wondered if maybe the Shaman was real, but that whole shape shifting thing had just been his imagination. That made him feel a little better.

Then he suddenly remembered Dr. Evinrude, with his brains scattered all over North Building Research Department room #3.

“I work at Percolex,” thought Alexander. “I live in a 19th century farmhouse, and I drive an Oldsmobile.”

“But what century is this?” he knew he had traveled in time, because the things he had seen simply didn’t exist.

He imagined he must be a couple of hundred years into the future, and not the twenty thousand or so he had really traveled.

“So if that’s real, some of these other things might be real too,” he thought uneasily.

He’d seen a hallway built into a mountain; that seemed kind of real. He’d been aboard a Pirate Ship, the S.S. Ludwig Von Beethoven; was THAT real?

Captain Pearson!

“Now he couldn’t possibly have been real,” Alexander thought, in a daze.

But then how had he gotten way out here, in the biggest ocean the world had ever seen?

And the Bahini?

Alexander didn’t like any of this. He decided not to think about it anymore, so he sat and watched the sun set, and the stars come out, a few at a time.

Very quietly, in an almost monotone, chant-like voice, Alexander sang the verses he could remember to “I’m Eighteen,” by Alice Cooper. He made up a few verses of his own, and wondered if he was singing in English or Bahinian as the waves lapped quietly against the beach, and the moon was reflected perfectly in the now still water of the lagoon.

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