BLANKENSHIP

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It was getting late again....  

Or rather, it was getting early... Dawn was just about to break.

Events of the evening past were little more than a blur and I've, for a moment, forgotten who I am… 

Along with whose car I've woken up in...

A quick glance in the mirror clears up the "who?"...A quick body check...

[pats herself] ... Okay... All here... 

No rips, spills or smudges; no visible signs of foul play.

Wallet, check... Smokes, check... Phone, dead but check...

Keys... Car keys... WHO's keys?!!? Who's CAR?!!?

Oh boy...

Looking around I can't tell where I am, only that I'm in an alley behind a pretty modern looking house, oddly similar to Doc Brown's 1955 home in Back to the Future II. Something told me to turn around and I saw three little kids sleeping soundly in the back seat. Um... Kids... Who's kids???

Not my car... Not my kids... Not a good sign... 

Om Namah Shivaya...

[Get a grip, girl! Breathe... Just breathe... Think and breathe...]

Slowly the puzzle puts itself back together...

A few weeks back this new diner opened up. BOBBO'S was a little mom and pop operation with quirky hours, a great staff and an awesome menu. I'd stopped in on my last trip "ashore" and by chance met a kindred spirit who just also happened to be a massage therapist. In jest I had offered to barter babysitting for massages. We both laughed, exchanged numbers and said our goodbyes.

Yesterday I get a call from The Shop. They were in need of small change and bills and could I please run to the bank before it closed? "No worries!", said I as I'd been on my way out to the video store. I'd just picked up a new VCR, you see...

While at the video store I get a call from Simone, the masseuse, looking to take me up on my offer. Unable to resist a practically free bona-fide massage I parked my car at the Ferry Station and met her on the other side. Well, she must have been part witch-doctor or something as it was the most mesmerizing massage I'd ever had. I took her wee ones out to dinner and a movie but, let's be honest, after that ethereal body rub I was zapped pretty soon after. So were the kids as they fell asleep on the ride home. I had meant to simply rest my eyes before heading inside… a moment became hours... Right there in the driveway... 

With the mystery cleared up and the kids safely back inside, I bid them all adieu and made my way back to the ferry station. Feeling a rumbly in my tumbly, BOBBO'S springs out at me like a mirage in the desert. During breakfast I see Mona, a gal I knew through another friend, and arranged a ride the rest of the way to the Ferry. A funny feeling passes through me as we leave the diner. Just then a sharp but guttural roar pierces the air. What greets my eye as I turn to look was straight out of a Twilight Zone episode.

A lizard, like a GIANT bearded dragon, stood just a few doors down, a rampage in its immediate future. We watched it pick up a guy across the street and swallow him like nothing; and that was enough for us. Or so we thought, as seconds later, from out of nowhere this enormous chicken-thing comes running and pecking and squawking right at us! We jump into her car and hightail it out of there. Crikey! I very nearly completely freaked out... It was madness! Where the hell did they come from? Some rift in the space-time continuum that opened a multi-dimensional portal? Aliens? LSD in the atmosphere? 

Halfway to the bay we meet a wall of chaos. Cars gridlocked in botched evacuation attempts and people running crazy all over. Fire hydrants busted open and cars overturned and buildings on fire. It was like a scene from some old 50's-scifi-Godzilla-meets-rampaging-alien-attack movie. As we got out to run, all I could think of was getting back home. I heard a voice behind us say, "I have a boat. But, we're going to have to jump for it," pointing to a small motor boat perched on a trailer at the edge of a cliff, poised for launch into the waters below. “I’m Max”, he said. Hanging on for dear life, we literally jump the boat off the cliff into the bay and putt-putt our way to my island home.

It was smooth sailing for a while, save for momentarily getting caught in the wake of a small cruise liner, the SS Blankenship, coming in from sea fully unaware of the mayhem awaiting them at the shore. Suddenly our boat begins to rock wildly and there is movement in the waters ahead. Out jumps a mammoth manta ray with jaws like a deep sea angler. Barely missing our little skiff, it causes the cruise ship to capsize in its descent and I see it swim down to the deep, lying in wait of the sinking ship and the tasty treasure trapped inside.

Frightened but determined we move on towards my island just a few clicks further. Bonded by disaster, and seeing little future in staying, my companions and I make a plan to head down the coast. Docking the schooner we find my car, keys still in it, and go to Mona's house then mine and stock up on provisions and whatever else we can carry back to Max's boat. I look back as we sail away, just to say goodbye I guess... From overhead there comes the sound of jets and then the bombs... Humanity's military might against an other-worldly onslaught. The mainland is on fire... All that I had known was no more... In my mind's eye I could almost see the demise of Atlantis as the horizon sank into the sea...

Where to now...


~MX