David Garnet - Bikini Planet

He examined himself—and he was still a he.

Then he checked his arms, his legs, his torso. He was so thin, just skin and bones. His skin was very pale, as if he hadn’t seen the sun for years.

Years…

The hair, the beard, the fingernails.

Years must have passed.

A good cop had to figure out a situation fast.

He’d been in a coma.

That was why his hair and fingernails had grown; that was why he was so thin, so pale. This was a hospital.

He must have been ill. Really ill.

Had he been in an accident? Had he been shot and wounded?

It must have been very serious, although his body seemed intact. Despite all his aches and pains, he could find no sign of injury.

Whatever had happened, he had no memory of it. The last thing he could remember was, was…

He almost had it, but then the moment was lost, forgotten again.

Norton heard a sound and realised someone was coming into the room. He closed his eyes and kept still, pretending he was still asleep. Or comatose.

The next thing he knew, his right eye was being held open and he found himself staring up into the face of…

A gook!

He yelled out in surprise and fear. The man standing over him laughed and said something in a foreign language.

Norton had thought he was in a hospital, and he’d expected the first person he saw would be a nurse or a doctor, someone dressed in a white uniform.

The Asian was dressed in green and brown. Military uniform.

How long had Norton been in a coma? Long enough for his hair and beard and nails to grow.

And long enough for the Vietnamese to have invaded the States!

He wasn’t in a hospital. He was in prison, a prisoner of war.

They had tortured him, which was why he was in such pain. They had starved him, which was why he was so thin.

The enemy soldier spoke again, spitting out another rapid string of unintelligible gibberish. Then he smiled, but Norton wasn’t fooled. He knew it was a trick.

They’d get nothing out of him except his name, rank and badge number.

He was given water, but that was all. He no longer felt as cold or as stiff, and was able to sit up. The light didn’t hurt his eyes anymore. The small room had no windows, no light bulbs or fluorescent strips, but it was bright all the time.

A hospital or a prison? The sliding door was almost invisible, seamlessly blending with the opposite wall, and there was no handle on the inside. When he’d tried to inspect it, his legs had given way beneath him as soon as he stood up.

He was very weak, his head continued to throb, and he couldn’t understand a thing his jailer said.

“Food?” Norton had asked, rubbing his stomach then pointing at his mouth. His throat was sore, and his jaw hurt when he spoke.

The man shook his head and said something incomprehensible.

It was always him who came in. He was very tall, which seemed odd because Norton had assumed all Asians were small. Although he was barefoot, every finger had a gold ring and he wore a number of silver bangles on each wrist. Perhaps his strange outfit wasn’t a uniform. He seemed too old to be a soldier, unless he was a senior officer.

Norton drank more water, began to feel stronger, and his headache slowly subsided.

Because it was always light, and because he kept falling asleep again, it was hard to know how much time had passed; but perhaps twenty-four hours went by before his inscrutable visitor finally brought some food.

“Thanks,” he said, grabbing the bowl.

But he couldn’t eat that. Pale chunks of something very suspicious floated in a greasy pink liquid. It looked and smelled totally inedible.

“Haven’t you got anything else?” he said. “Ham, hash browns, eggs over-easy?”

The reply was as fast and meaningless as ever, and Norton was left alone with the dish of foreign slops. He knew he had to get something inside him, and he began to eat. It was warm and slimy, and it tasted as bad as it looked. He closed his eyes and ate it all.

As soon as he’d forced down the last spoonful, it all came up again. He’d been right. It was totally inedible.

His bed was covered with the awful stuff, and bits of it were stuck in his beard. He wiped at his face, making his hands all sticky. As he reached for the cup by his side, he knocked it over and the water spilled onto the floor.

He half fell, half climbed out of bed, but managed to keep his balance. There had to be a bathroom somewhere. He needed a wash, a steaming shower to rinse off the food, a long hot bath to soak away his aches, a razor for his beard, scissors for his hair and nails. If he could get the door open, then this wasn’t a cell, he wasn’t a prisoner.

Food dripping down his naked body, he staggered toward the door.

That was when it slid open and a girl walked in.

Although she seemed to be American, in her midtwenties, she looked even odder than the gook. Her hair was a wild mass of corkscrew curls, each ringlet a different colour. Norton was six feet two, but she was even taller, wearing a skintight blue outfit which was moulded to the impressive contours of her body.

The girl looked him up and down, mostly down. Norton covered his groin with his right hand, using his left to wipe his mouth and beard and chest.

The Asian also arrived, stared at Norton, glanced at the girl, then tapped the side of his head.

“I’m not insane!” said Norton.

Then he wondered if he was…

The girl said something to him. But it was just the same kind of gobbledygook.

“I don’t understand,” he told her. He sat back down on the bed, pulling the cover over his waist.

The other two spoke to each other for a while, looking at Norton as they did so. Then the girl stepped forward. She held a small white disc in her left palm, and seemed to be offering it to him. He wasn’t going to take anything, and he put his hands behind his back.

She smiled at him. It was a friendly smile, and it looked almost sincere. She was very attractive, had a great figure. She could have been a Las Vegas showgirl. She probably was.

Her smile was so friendly, so sincere, that when she spoke he felt he should have understood. But her words were just a senseless garble.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said.

Her words weren’t synchronised with her lips. There seemed to be two voices, two separate sounds. He glanced at the disc in her hand.

“Wh-at-la-n-gu-age-do-yo-u-sp-e-ak?”

Those weren’t her words because she’d stopped speaking while the words continued, but they were the words that Norton heard.

“I-sp-e-ak-Am-er-i-can,” he said, slowly, trying to imitate the dull monotone. “I-me-an-Eng-li-sh.”

The girl glanced at the man, clenched her fist over the disc, spat out a brief word. He shrugged. She looked at Norton again, opened her hand.

“Wh-at-is-yo-ur-na-me?” he heard.

“Way-ne,” he told her. Name, rank, badge number. “John-Way-ne.” But it didn’t have to be the right name.

“Pl-eas-ed-to-me-et-you-Jo-hn-Way-ne-I-am-Man-dy-th-is-is-Br-en-da n.”

“Wh-o-are-yo-u? Wh-at-do-yo-u-wa-nt?”

“D-o-yo-u-kn-ow-wh-at-h-as-hap-p-en-ed-to-yo-u-d-o-yo-u-kn-ow-wh-e -re-yo-u-ar-e?”

“No.” Norton shook his head. “N-o.”

The girl and the man looked at each other.

Her lips moved, briefly, and the voice asked, “Wh-at-ye-ar-ar-e-yo-u-fr-om?”

Was year of birth one of the questions allowed by the Geneva Convention?

“Ni-ne-t-een-fo-rt-y-se-v-en,” he said.

“Th-at-i-s-im-po-ss-ib-le.”

Which was exactly what his father had said, apparently, when Norton’s mother told him she was pregnant.

The Asian moved closer and whispered to the girl.